Official Investing Thread

I am not educated in investing and for 401k I guess I mostly just send it into these target funds (2050 right now) but reading this thread I’m not so sure. These are the options that come up which to me is mostly a foreign language.

I’m thinking of putting more into those vanguard funds in tier 2 though.

 

I wouldn’t mess with the target date funds. Just throw everything at the Vanguard total stock market fund.

 

Look at your expense ratios too. The vanguard ones should be pretty low

 

I know which ones user15000 is gonna recommend.

 

I’m definitely on the btc life path lol. My entire 401k is in MSTR, so I’m breaking roughly every investment advisor rule that exists. If btc didn’t exist, I’d likely be in some blend of sp500 with a much larger percentage in the Mag 7.

 

we should have been investing 100% retirement into BTC the past 10 years

 

100% in that company stock might be riskier.

 

Ya I accept that (although not sure what the “riskier” comparison is to). I also think it’ll be a top 5-10 most valuable company in the next ~10 years.

 

Honestly, I’d suggest continuing to learn about the stock market, and investing in general, and staying in a target date fund until you figure out what a comfortable retirement would look like for you, and consider the risk that your chosen investments might underperform. The 2050 target date fund is probably a mix of about 90/10 stocks and bonds. The stock portion is probably ~ 65/35 mix of total U.S. stock market and total International (except U.S.) stock market in which each is weighted toward their market cap (the aggregate market value of a company/fund represented in a dollar amount). Most U.S. investors outside of target date funds tend to more heavily favor U.S. stocks/funds/indexes as they’ve heavily outperformed international stocks the last 15 or so years, but that is also performance chasing as there have been periods of time in history where the international market has outperformed the U.S. market. That said, personally, I have a 80/20 U.S./International mix (no bonds), and am okay if the International market outperforms the U.S. market until I retire. It won’t make or break my retirement, and that is what you should look for - that point at which you can still sleep at night no matter which way the markets go.

If you want a good book, The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is really good.

Spoiler

[\Spoiler]

 

The 2050 target date fund has a .14% expense ratio. The vanguard 500 fund is .01%.

 

If your retirement isn’t with a few years there just are not many reasons to use a target date fund or anything that isn’t 100% equities. Take it from someone who left lots of money on the table the last five years.

Add in the fact that money managers of target funds charge a higher rate to be worse performing and it’s a double whammy.

 

Another vote for target date funds are shit piles

 

I've been considering going to 10% bonds because I'm theoretically 10-12 years away from reaching my 3% FIRE number. Who knows now with Trump back.

 

My suggestion to stick with target date funds for now comes less from a belief diversification for the sake of diversification (I am 100% equities after all) and more that I don’t know this person and their propensity to panic and sell (low) if the market dips 40% and doesn’t recover for a few years.As Lyrtch said, the biggest way to nuke your portfolio is to make changes (which are usually made emotionally and untimely). The more I learn about the market, the less confident I am in telling someone I don’t personally know what they should do with their money I guess.

 

Just toss it all in the S&P 500 tracking index unless you’re 60

 

My target date fund hate comes from using one for a 529 for far too long. Lost out on so much growth. And the down swings didn’t seem to be mitigated nearly enough to make up for the low upside

 

3% is uber conservative, how are you arriving there?

 

Because I'll be in my low 50s with 3 girls just getting out of college and I want the buffer for life changes and helping them out with weddings and house down payments, etc.

 

my companys plan has a 2050 TD at .08 and my wifes has a 2055 TD (both vanguard, but named different) at .045

 

Yeah, looking at historical averages, you’re most likely going to come out ahead of a TDF if you stick with equities until your kid if five or so years away from starting college. Although, I can see the rationale for a TDF in the off chance the U.S. market remains flat for ten or so years (eg 2000 - 2010ish, 1966-1978). Still, theoretically, one would be averaging down if they continued to buy during down years, thus coming out with a small gain. Personally, I started my kids at like 92/8 S&P/International indexes once they were born. Will probably start shifting more to bonds/treasuries when they hit about 11 or so.

 

I'm likely missing something and it probably also goes back to what others were saying about "just do what's going to prevent you from worrying about it over the long term", but comparing the expense ratio on Vanguard's international and domestic total stock indexes versus one of their TDF it seems like splitting hairs?

For instance, VTSAX (their domestic offering) is only 0.04% but VTIAX (international) is at 0.12%, while most of their further out TDF are around 0.08%. I can see where it'd make sense over the long haul if I was only going to stick with VTSAX, but if I want a bit of exposure in international as well, and also ease of not having to manage it, wouldn't TDF make sense here? I guess it comes down to how much exposure into international I'd like and I also don't love the bonds allocation in the TDF either.

Like I said, I'm probably missing or overlooking something.

 

TDF aren’t necessarily an issue because of expense ratio. The one I was in was like .04. It was the asset allocation that sucked.

 

Yeah, I think 0.12 and 0.04 is splitting hairs if you want the international exposure. I mean, can you save some money long term, yeah, but those are still low expense ratios considering it was common for expense ratios to be 0.75, or 1% plus 10, 15 years ago.

The other reason I think people might opt out would be to change the allocations, or to drop bonds or international equities entirely. Again, I don’t think there’s a universal answer to this. At the end of the day it’s about what can keep you in the game as long as possible so as to let compounding interest do its thing.

 

Everyone has different answers but if you're 10+ years from retirement just being in the S&P is generally the best answer. My ETFs are a mix of high growth, market tracking (both DOW and S&P), and to a lesser degree high dividend for lower volatility and higher dividend yields. I heavily favor high growth now but have been adding to the market tracking and dividend ETFs over the last couple years to a greater degree. Will continue to reweight to high div as I get closer to retirement.

 

That was a lot of words for that guy saying he hasn’t read it all yet and he’s building a database with the information that he got.

 

hol' up

https://gizmodo.com/investors-appea...firm-is-the-bluesky-social-network-2000527227
https://www.dlnews.com/articles/markets/blockchain-stock-bluesky-soars-as-investors-confuse-x-rival/
What’s in a name?

For Bluesky Digital, it’s a 1,767% stock price rally over the past month.

In a case of name recognition gone wrong, Toronto-based blockchain firm Bluesky Digital’s stock price surged in November as investors may have mistaken it for social media platform Bluesky.

Since Donald Trump’s election on November 5, Bluesky Digital’s stock price has shot up from $0.06 to $0.56, or about 833%.

The stock moves come amid a surge in users for the Bluesky platform.

One portfolio manager told Bloomberg that the jump in share price “may be driven by name confusion” with the social media platform.


Bluesky Digital Assets Corp
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https://www.blueskydigitalassets.com/

 

I’ll need a smart person to tell me if we are fucked or not.

 

Worked with Soros and is anti tariffs

 

WAS anti tarriffs.

 

Quotes on his tariff stance that differ?

 

I have no idea, but if he is appointed by dear leader I'd assume he'll have to shift to fall in line.

 

Or the tariff talk was empty rhetoric to stroke some of the fanbase. He won’t harm the market if he can help it. Lutnick not being the pick was telling

 

We can only hope.

 

Anyone here trading options? I’ve been selling covered calls and cash secured puts on a few different stocks over the past 5ish months and doing ok.

 

My dipshit business partners are insisting on shifting off our current 401k and paying some type of wealth management company. Since they control 2/3 of the business ultimately what they say goes, and I have not been attending these meetings with them.

I’m 37 and don’t plan on retiring for another 25 years at least. Do I just dump like 70% in the fidelity large cap, 15% medium, 15% small at this point?

 

I dabble occasionally. Not in any right now.

 

I’d probably skip the mid cap and just do 75-80% Fidelity 500 index and 20-25% DFA US small cap value. I’m a “factor tilt” proponent (AVUV, DFSV), you can google it and see if it makes sense for you - does have a higher expense ratio being actively managed.

100% Fidelity 500 index is a reasonable option too, being so far out from retirement and prob what most here will suggest.

 

JOBY and ACHR really taking off this last month

Can't decide if it's a temporary spike or really going up for good

 

I have a small account that I use for option positions. I've been running the wheel on AMD over the past 4-5 months with good success.

 

That whole sector (LUNR too) has been on fire. Same with Quantum Computing. No crystal ball about whether they survive the inevitable hefty pullback and it it's more than just people looking for the next AI.

 

LILM has actually been a dumpster fire lately but FAA regulatory clarification seems to have helped give EVTOL companies something to shoot for. JOBY has also demonstrated a fuel cell prototype that has gamechanging range (500mi), but so far all their certification has been with the battery-powered model

 

It’s not unreasonable to put the vast majority in the Fidelity 500 (basically the S&P 500), if not all of it. Personally, given your options, I might do 80/10/10 with the Fidelity 500, Large cap value, and total international, but that’s just me.

 

Got in on ACHR at $5.22 after a year of reading about it. Immediately up 70%, wish I was DCAing during that time. Very interesting stuff

 

I've thought about doing this myself but haven't pulled the trigger yet. My 401k and HSA are with Fidelity so it would definitely simplify things. I'm also kind of annoyed at how much stuff at Schwab has to be manual (i.e. manually buying MMF instead of cash being swept into SPAXX)