What were the fees before they went free? Schwab charges $1.33 per options trade, on the buy side and sell side, I believe.
$5 a trade if I remember right. That's for stocks and funds not through the brokerage. For example, Fidelity and iShares funds were free to buy on Fidelity, but other ETFs and stocks cost $5/trade.
Just locked in at 2.75% for our new build. We're listing our house at a 40% markup from when we bought it 5 years ago. Our Realtor thinks it should go for, or above, asking price within a few days. Capitalizing on this hot market for sure.
Very nicely timed. Good luck with the sale. I bought in 2013 and sold in 2019 and saw about a 45% bump, but damn it's still been going up.
Most of it, yes. Going to pump a chunk into my ETF portfolio as well. Probably some individual stocks too.
Congrats. The point I was making (somewhat flippantly) is that real estate is going up in basically every desirable area. The proceeds you make on the sale of your house are likely going to buy another asset that has somewhat equally appreciated. Regardless, congrats - we did the same thing last year.
No way they charge for trades. Making a trade is a commodity. Too many fin tech competition out there.
So up until now I really only looked at my retirement/long-term savings portfolio in each individual account. Finally combined them together and now trying to figure out if I'm where I want to be. Numbers below do not include cash savings/emergency fund or anything like that. Current balances and ongoing contributions are setup like this, with automatic rebalancing: 68% US Stock 23% International Stock 9% Bonds After reading this https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios it's like information overload and not sure if I really need to make any changes. Do I really need to be in an REIT index fund?
Thanks I will look into the HSA again. Being honest I still don't fully understand the HSA and how it would impact my family compared to the regular PPO insurance plan I always choose, which is why I haven't done it yet. What's your reasoning for going with a Roth 401k (I have that option) instead of regular 401k or am I not understanding correctly? I figured I'm doing the 401k (pre-tax) and Roth IRA (post-tax) to have some balance there. No, no target date retirement fund in the 401k. There are different funds than what I've chosen but I chose the index funds with lowest ER. Thanks.
Are you planning to retire in 20 years? If no, you’re fine with this allocation. The general rule of thumb is 100 minus your age should be your equity allocation in your 401k but I think that’s a bit too safe. A REIT index fund will provide a fairly high dividend and should be more stable in terms of NAV than say an equity or highly yield fund. But it’s not a sure thing.
No, I mean if you max out your 401k (traditional or roth) and have extra money, some companies 401k plans allow for after tax contributions that can be converted to Roth, either kept in the 401k or rolled over into an IRA. If that's available, you can save up to $57k or so in your 401k (this includes your contributions, company match, and after tax rollover contributions).
REITs are included in the total stock funds, so it's really just if you want it specifically separate in a higher amount.
Yeah, if you really like REITs you can feather on the REIT fund to the total stock to get more REIT exposure. But to me a REIT fund only really makes sense if you're doing a sector based portfolio like the quad, with Tech and Health Care as higher return/risk and REIT and Utilities as lower return/risk.
What would I need to look at in the prospectus to see how often a mutual fund changes allocations? Or is there an easy way to find this?
Question for the Roth folks: what should I be shooting for in regards to asset allocation? Currently have all my $$$ in a single mutual fund and it’s doing fine, but wondering if I should diversify. Should i split it up into a mix of mutual funds, bonds, index funds? Put it all in a target date fund? Blue chip stocks? looking for balance, but probably won’t retire for at least 20 years so I can be a little aggressive.
Im sure someone has it readily available but I thought one of the sites, maybe Vanguard, has a little questionnaire that can help you decide allocation. I’m far from an expert, but I have the majority of mine in a target date account because I didn’t really know what else to do when I started my Roth and 401K. The last year or so I have put a small portion (5-10%) of each contribution into mutual funds that track S&P500 just to be a tad more aggressive. I also sprinkled a little into a tech mutual fund and bought some shares of Apple just because.
That depends. What mutual fund? How much involved do you want to be? How much risk do you want? The easiest thing is pick a target date fund. They are usually made up of a mix of Total US Stock (VFIAX), Total International Stock (VTIAX), and US and International Bonds (or the equivalents at whatever brokerage you are with). Or you can just get the index funds listed above. I think most recommendations is to keep bonds in pretax and stocks in Roth to take advantage of the tax free growth.
I believe monthly repositioning is pretty common for low fee mutual funds. I have CPOAX and BPTRX in mine. Both are actively managed. BPTRX has like a 2.2% fee but the returns have been insane because it has a big TSLA position.
Yeah I wasn’t sure if it was monthly or quarterly. I assume your actively managed accounts change whenever the market warrants?
Fidelity Contrafund. Like I said, it’s doing well, but it may not fit my needs perfectly. The more reading i do, the more it seems to make sense to drop most of it in a target date fund. Maybe do 70% in Fidelity’s 2045 fund, and 30% for me to play around with (more aggressive funds, stocks, etc)?
Yeah I’m assuming actively managed means they will move whenever they deem to be the right timing, not necessarily that they are making moves every day. Here is how Baron describes the fund: Baron Partners Fund seeks to invest in businesses that we believe could double in value within five or six years. Our strategy to accomplish this goal is to invest for the long term in a focused portfolio of appropriately capitalized, well-managed growth businesses at attractive prices across market capitalizations. We attempt to create a portfolio of approximately 30 securities diversified by GICS sectors, but with the top 10 positions representing a significant portion of net assets. The Fund uses leverage to enhance returns, although this does increase the volatility of performance. These businesses are identified by our analysts using our Firm’s proprietary research approach. We think these well-managed businesses have sustainable competitive advantages and strong, long-term growth opportunities.
Funny stat I just ran across. GME max pain for options expiring today is $95.00...the highest call strike is $800 and the lowest put strike is $0.50. Both of those strikes have the most open contracts for calls/puts respectively.
Could someone explain HSA to me like I'm 5? I need to figure out by June 2021 when open enrollment begins, so I know whether to make the switch from my current PPO to the HSA plan at work. Plan info to compare: Current PPO plan costs $423 per month for me+kids. The HSA plan is $61 more, or $484 per month for me+kids. Here's what I don't get. I would be paying MORE per month for the plan, but the coverage is worse? Why the hell isn't the HSA plan less $ per month? So going to the HSA would obviously mean more out of pocket, which I get I think is the point... because I'm theoretically putting away $ per month into the HSA account tax-free, and then can take that money out tax-free, to pay for the medical costs? It just seems like, the real benefit of the HSA has nothing to do with any immediate medical costs. Ideally I would just want to max the HSA each year and leave the money in there growing tax-free, then use it in retirement to pay for medical costs? deductible: PPO & HSA, it's the same: $1,500 individual / $3,000 family coinsurance: PPO 30%, HSA 10% regular doctor visit: PPO $35 Copay (Preventive Care Services covered 100%) HSA Deductible and Coinsurance (Preventive Care Services covered 100% ) ...and the plans are pretty much the same for all other various types of doctor visits... the PPO has some sort of copay, the HSA just goes towards the deductible & coinsurance. For reference: In 2020 I paid $5,076 ($423/month) for PPO health insurance plan AND paid out of pocket $460 for a couple doctor visits and medications. I also paid $528 ($44/month) for stupid dental insurance, but still paid $1174 out of pocket for dental work. Also paid $173 for vision insurance. I hate this shit. What if I just had no insurance and invested that $5777 per year into VTSAX or something... I guess then I'm just hoping and praying for no major medical expenses that would wipe me out... I know, stupid.
Generally a high deductible plan should be less expensive than the PPO plan with a higher deductible and most visits are paid for until the deductible is met. My company's PPO plan is over 2x more expensive than the high deductible plan.
I only have mine because I was 25 at the time and my employer gave me $3k a year for it. I would only go to the doctor for my annual and other than that maybe an urgent care visit or two. While the costs for visits were higher it didn't really discourage me cause I had the 3k to more than offset. If I had a family and I wasn't getting 3k, there is no real reason in my mind why I would have it.
Reasons would be additional tax advantaged savings spac that's triple tax advantaged and reducing taxable income.
Yea, I get there are reasons one would do it but I just meant its not a no brainer account for everyone. People (myself included) don't even max out their 401k, Roth, and I think those are a priority ahead of an HSA. Secondly, it seems more for people that have a surplus income to stuff into another tax advantaged account. Given Kinghills post details, PPO plan cost, having a family, and not getting X amount from your employer I don't think the tax advantages out weigh the health care costs.
I'm of the opinion that the HSA should be the first priority over those, at least until you get a significant amount of money in it anyway. Since it's never taxed, you theoretically get a 20-30% better return on those dollars in exchange for limiting them for medical expenses (which we all will eventually have).
The most common advice is donate to 401k to get the match, max HSA, then do an IRA (Roth or Traditional), then whatever you can in your 401k up to the max.