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I noticed there wasn’t a thread on this yet. Was curious what kind of portfolio are you guys into ? As a young adult (26) who’s recently started earning decent amounts of money , i reserve majority of my savings for index funds , with maybe 20% invested in direct stocks , with remaining 10% in crypto.

 

I’ve recently been wanting to take the plunge into the world of NFTs and try timing the primary market for a drop event where I can pick them up for cheap. Get rich quick schemes seem like an eternal craze, irrespective of which generation you are :P 

 

Would love to get more financial education from the board ! 

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Here in the US, retirement options have shifted away from pensions towards 401(k)s, so everyone is an investor (as in, those lucky enough to have retirement accounts from our employers). I dont dabble in investments past that, but my only goal is to shift my retirements as far from stocks as I can in the coming months.

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We advised some people about money management. We listened to their financial picture and told them to sell their multiple Timeshares. They said “ nooooooo, not that”:) Also they were still paying off credit card debt for things that were long gone. Don’t do that.

Another person did not ask us for advice but she said that she would acquire wealth by putting a down payment on a duplex, living in one half, upgrade it herself and turn sweat equity into money.

I used to be a fan of modest things like dividend capture. If you get it wrong, you still have the stock.

 

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I'd avoid NFTs, personally. I suspect people are going to lose a lot of money on those in the not too distant future. 

The investment person I deal with made me 21 points on my portfolio last year, beyond that my knowledge is of her day-to-day moves are minimal-- so no advice. She might as well be a hedge witch or sorcerer or some shit, so magical. 

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39 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

The investment person I deal with made me 21 points on my portfolio last year, beyond that my knowledge is of her day-to-day moves are minimal-- so no advice. She might as well be a hedge witch or sorcerer or some shit, so magical. 

Same boat. I have a very rough sense of it all, but basically someone else is doing the heavy lifting and  we're fine with it. 

When the time comes where we have less to do, maybe we'll take it over and simplify it into a basket of low-cost index funds or something safe and steady, as seems the common wisdom.

Definitely no stocks in individual companies, nor any crypto or crypto-related matter, though. Crypto does not make sense to me. The blockchain technology, that's cool and potentially very useful in the future. The actual currency, not so much.

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Most of my stock holdings are in the company I work for.  Luckily the return on that over the last 5 years has been ~500%.  I have taken some of that and diversified into some different index funds (tech, us manufacturing, & international) and started adding $1-200 a week while reinvesting my dividends.  Plan is to pay off my house before my kids graduate, then use that and some of my savings to help them pay for school, and have enough to retire by the time I'm in my mid 60's.  I avoid crypto, NFTs, and meme stocks like the plague.  If I want to gamble I'll go play poker, as it's more fun.
 

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I invested in Microsoft last year, have about a 40% return so far in it. You generally want to stay away from individual companies, but a handful of the mega-caps are safe enough to go with if you think their future is bright enough. And actually, companies like Microsoft and Apple are so massive that they are a pretty significant percentage of most SP 500-tracking index funds anyway; so you're pretty much already exposed to their risks. Might as well take full advantage of their upsides too, if you think they are good enough.

Don't invest in crypto or NFTs unless you literally just want to gamble.

Don't invest in gold either, it's not the inflation hedge that people keep claiming it is. Go for something like a US TIPS fund (inflation-adjusted US treasuries) if you're concerned about inflation. Relatedly, the silver market is a literal scam being running by JP Morgan's trading desks.

Don't start messing around with options, you'll just lose your money.

Don't try timing the market, the odds you'll nail it are extremely low. And you risk missing out on major gains if you keep sitting out there waiting.

Always hold investments for at least a year (so make sure you only buy things you're comfortable holding that long), because the capital gains tax rate  lowers at that point.

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26 minutes ago, Ran said:

Definitely no stocks in individual companies, nor any crypto or crypto-related matter, though. Crypto does not make sense to me. The blockchain technology, that's cool and potentially very useful in the future. The actual currency, not so much.

Hard agree. Anyone putting too many eggs into that basket [insofar as crypto, NFTs, etc] will get burned by climate moves. Crypto might get a bail out at that point, but not something I'd count on, myself.

Edited by JEORDHl
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I'm very much a passive investor. Buy and hold! Don't try to time the market or beat the market. I think there's a lot to be said for the so-called "lazy 3 fund portfolio" -- a U.S total stock market index fund, a total international stock market index fund, and a total bond market index fund. Ones with as low fees as possible.

My own portfolio is a bit more complex than that, but I'm a nerd who loves spreadsheets and have tracked literally every penny in and out for over a decade, so rebalancing and managing investments is fun for me. I started from a recommendation in a book I read a long time ago (title long forgotten, sorry) and have slowly adjusted to my preference since then.

I rebalance every 7 months (this keeps it roughly twice a year but means I'm not consistently hitting annual trends), or if the market has enough disproportionate growth that my bonds:stocks ratio is off by more than a couple percent.

Crypto is gambling to me, I have no desire to touch that. NFTs are a scam as far as I can tell. Dunno, maybe I'm just old.

Anyway, this is working for me. Although I took a 50% paycut to go back to gradschool 5 years ago, I'm still on track to retire before 50. I'm not a big spender, and I sock my extra money away into my retirement accounts every month. Plus have a 6-month emergency fund on hand in cash. Sucks to be missing out on growth with that money (interest rates are abysmal at banks), but it's worth it to me to have it on hand for peace of mind.

ETA: Oh, and I only ever check my balances once a month when updating my spreadsheet. The market falls, the market rises, and I don't need to feel pressured to panic buy or sell. When I get closer to retirement, I'll used a bond tent to help protect my short-term horizon.

Edited by Starkess
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Beware the funny money:

Quote

The value of a cryptocurrency inspired by the popular Netflix series Squid Game collapsed on Monday less than two weeks after investors could start buying tokens.

 

After jumping more than 310,000% in value as of Sunday night, Squid lost all its value after Twitter flagged the cryptocurrency’s account and temporarily restricted it due to “suspicious activity”.

Right before its collapse, the token’s value had spiked to $2,856. The token’s website and social accounts have disappeared, along with a white paper describing Squid.

The token was made available for purchase on 20 October with the idea that the cryptocurrency would be a pay-to-play token to play an online game, inspired by Squid Games, the hit series in which heavily indebted people play deadly versions of children’s games to win cash.

The game was set to launch in November and its promoters said winners would be rewarded with more Squid tokens. But even as the cryptocurrency’s price spiked in value last week, many noted that the token could be fraudulent.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/01/squid-game-cryptocurrency-scam-fears-investors

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