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Hope to make this short, I'm a hourly contract worker with no access to 401k and no 401k balance to speak of. That situation may change in 6 months.
I maxed out my Roth IRA contribution for the year already, of which contains one Vanguard Target Retirement Fund 2045 held at Vanguard of course.
I have in my savings $30,000 I'm willing to invest (already have no debt/loans, have 1 year emergency safety net) and was looking for the best way to do so.
I don't mind risk in terms of asset allocation, I plan to buy and hold for at least a year, probably a lot longer, and most likely will not freak out and sell if the market spazzes out in the short term.
However, I do not want to spend a lot of time rebalancing, diversifying, or generally spending a lot of time analyzing specific stocks, hence my Target Retirement Fund selection for my Roth.
Based on the above, what would you suggest I do with my monies? I was thinking of picking 1 or 2 index stocks and calling it a day, but I'm a little fuzzy on tax-efficiency strategy on taxable accounts and whether I should go Vanguard ETFs, Indexes, or Mutual Funds again.
I'll probably call a Vanguard Associate to confirm, just interested in your guys' thoughts 
 
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IMO $30,000 is enough money that it's worth using a financial advisor to manage you investments.
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On August 27 2013 09:07 deathly rat wrote:
IMO $30,000 is enough money that it's worth using a financial advisor to manage you investments.
I used a reputable adviser and "lost" a significant amount of money in 2012-2013 because my "balanced" portfolio apparently had a shitload of basic materials which went down recently. Odds are it'll come back up, but until then, I'm down a significant amount of money. Most of my investments are considered "safe" too, and yet...
TRUST NO ONE. SCARY WORLD and stuff. Circumstances made me have money that I couldn't possibly manage myself because I don't know how to deal with this stuff - I trusted somebody else, and shit hit the fan. I guess I was unlucky  .
Cheerz
Edit: I didn't have a choice really.
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Hi again Djzapz. Are you just trolling me to argue against everything I post on TL?
Edit: Yes, all investments carry a degree of risk. Investments are likely to go down as well as up, but over longer periods of time it has been shown that it is more profitable to have these kind of investments than it is to keep your money in the bank.
With a significant amount of money, like your lifetime savings, you don't mess about with something you don't understand. This is why you employ a financial adviser.
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On August 27 2013 09:23 deathly rat wrote:
Hi again Djzapz. Are you just trolling me to argue against everything I post on TL?
No, I think it's alarming that you chose to take this personally. Lock your doors. I don't even remember reading your posts btw, don't worry. I don't even know who you are, nor do I care.
But in fact you're pretty much right. You have to deal with professionals if you don't know what you're doing. That said there is no guarantee, especially if you choose to go with risky investments right now. I don't know if you guys have been looking around but not so many are optimistic about the economy right now.
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I know you said you don't want to spend a 'lot' of time reading and analyzing stuff, but gold is definitely something to watch this year. A lot of very smart people believe that its price will settle very soon then start climbing again, and will climb very, very high. There's a good reason China is importing tonnes of gold recently.
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Hong Kong9154 Posts
internet people are not your financial advisors.
The above line is provided for education and informational purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose. It is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice or any other advice. It is general in nature and is not specific to you or anyone else. YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE ANY DECISION, FINANCIAL, INVESTMENTS, TRADING OR OTHERWISE, BASED ON ANY OF THE INFORMATION PRESENTED ON THIS POST WITHOUT UNDERTAKING INDEPENDENT DUE DILIGENCE AND CONSULTATION WITH A PROFESSIONAL BROKER OR COMPETENT FINANCIAL ADVISOR. You understand that you are using any and all Information available in this post AT YOUR OWN RISK. The trading of stocks, futures, commodities, index futures or any other securities has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for everyone. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice.
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Team liquid is not the place to ask for this kind of advice. That being said do you want something really safe (like cd safe)? Do you want a high risk high reward type of thing, or do you want something in the middle. There are tons of possible investments out there, and you should talk to a financial advisor, even if you want to manage your own money you should listen to whats out there from somewhere other than a Internet forum.
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Don't worry, I've been doing my DD. As I stated above, I'm just interested to see if people's suggestions have corresponded to what I've been reading and studying up on. I'm not going to just randomly take people's advice lol, was just curious.
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Baa?21242 Posts
Talk to a financial adviser and have him summarize the risk/return/volatility of the indexes you're considering.
Sounds to me like you're mainly looking for somewhere to store your money for a decently long period of time with no real need to access it and are just looking to get something back, so yeah, probably go for some sort of ETF and spare the trouble of looking at individual stocks.
No real insight here you seem to have most of the basics down, the specifics just come down to you talking to someone who knows more about your situation/applicable tax codes in your area.
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bet against artosis on pinnaclesports.com
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Put all your money into pork bellies.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On August 27 2013 10:26 ninazerg wrote:
Put all your money into pork bellies.
they delisted pork bellies on CME in 2011 rip
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Having just rebalanced by portfolios (taxable investment, 401k, rother ira, 529 plan) I went mostly with dividend stuff for the tax-sheltered and individual stocks. Yea, I get lazy sometimes and buy index ETFS like QQQ or SPY when I don't really want to do any research, but so far this year, it has been pretty hard to not pick a good stock. As for specific advice, I've recently been long organic food - mostly because employers are starting to require health checks to qualify for insurance, etc etc. For your situation, I'd just buy some index funds on a pull back (maybe hope Syria bombs the market for a day or two) then buy a few index funds.
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Some combination of VTSAX and VTIAX.
From your initial post, you probably know about that already. That said, if you need to use the money in the next 5-10 years, possibly for a downpayment on a house, you're going to want to mix in some bonds as well. Using your Roth for that is not advisable.
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On August 27 2013 09:23 deathly rat wrote:
you don't mess about with something you don't understand. This is why you employ a financial adviser.
you think financial advisers know anything about it either? their hoodoo is working then
the whole market is fucked, it's nothing but one big QE bubble. put your cash under your mattress if you don't wanna get sucked into the pyramid scheme. when it crashes it ain't gonna be no 30k investor getting their money back
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how old are ya?
Also I would look into stocks of companies in the S&P 500, look for something that you believe in
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On August 27 2013 09:39 Salazarz wrote:
I know you said you don't want to spend a 'lot' of time reading and analyzing stuff, but gold is definitely something to watch this year. A lot of very smart people believe that its price will settle very soon then start climbing again, and will climb very, very high. There's a good reason China is importing tonnes of gold recently.
Alot of people are predicting a big crash in the market within the next couple years, if/when that happens gold (and many other any raw materials probably) will skyrocket. Definitely +1 for this advice.
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Tesla Motors... invest in that company.
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Gold is a terrible investment, buy rare earths! That stuff is rare! lol
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On August 27 2013 10:44 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2013 10:26 ninazerg wrote:
Put all your money into pork bellies. they delisted pork bellies on CME in 2011 rip
after CSheep bought out all the pork bellies and crashed the price
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Invest in Activision, all they care about is profit and if Titan's anything like WoW you're set.
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On August 27 2013 10:00 Jaaaaasper wrote:
Team liquid is not the place to ask for this kind of advice. That being said do you want something really safe (like cd safe)? Do you want a high risk high reward type of thing, or do you want something in the middle. There are tons of possible investments out there, and you should talk to a financial advisor, even if you want to manage your own money you should listen to whats out there from somewhere other than a Internet forum.
True. That said, he sounds like he did some due diligence on this matter and is only looking for confirmation on what he's read up. There's enough people here who know what they are talking about and it's pretty easy to spot the people whose "advice" is heavily biased by their political leanings. Or people who are too emotionally charged for investing.
Advice for normal people who are not experts:
1. Don't try to time the market
2. Don't invest in stuff you don't understand
3. Ignore the market's daily up and downs as noise
4. Keep mutual fund expenses as low as possible
5. Don't rebalance, trade or even check too often (seriously, research actually shows that people who pay more attention to the market end up with lower returns)
6. Keep expectations reasonable
7. Have the amount of risk that's right for you
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I use Morningstar to get more info on various ETFs, mutual funds, etc. The prospectuses aren't that hard to figure out if you have any experience at all with investing.
Also, if you have a brokerage account, most sites offer free research from various sources. You usually will find many different opinions. You're young, so remember to balance risk/potential to returns for whatever you are looking at.
PM me if you have anything else you need to know (I have an MBA in accounting/finance)
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On August 27 2013 10:44 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2013 10:26 ninazerg wrote:
Put all your money into pork bellies. they delisted pork bellies on CME in 2011 rip
Just to keep the poor man poor! I buy all my pork bellies on the black market.
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On August 27 2013 11:59 andrewlt wrote:
it's pretty easy to spot the people whose "advice" is heavily biased by their political leanings.
just want to point out that the belief that the capitalist economy will continue to function "normally" in the mid-horizon future is also a "political leaning"  there is no such thing as neutrality
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To the person who asked, I'm 28. Thanks for the info from everyone so far, I will also be sure to consume a lot of pork bellies on my end.
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United Kingdom20285 Posts
Hey, you can invest in me, i can totally um win money and shit
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Pork is a sound investment. However, I would probably do a lot of research before getting into commodities trading. Also, if only you had a bit more money, Boss might make a rare appearance and drop a financial bombshell. (Also, do not ForEx.)
My issue with everyone talking about financial collapse and buy gold - Yes, I've heard this before. When was it... sometime in the 80s I think. Fears caused a big demand for gold from investors, leading to a drastic spike in price and then suddenly a crash when it turned out that gold really isn't that spendy when you want something to eat. (Horrible, general, paraphrased, not well researched, possibly factually incomplete, but I was 10, sue me.) If you absolutely want to get into precious metals, I'd skip gold and silver (they're the immediate go to for people that only hear "gold will never be worthless unlike your greenbacks!") and head for something like palladium. Alternately, if you want to go for not precious but getting rarer all the time, there's copper. In either case, if a true apocalypse happens - you're pretty much out of luck. Gold's only value is in being rare, you can't eat it.
I'm not a financial person. (This is why I hope Boss shows up - he is.) But for relatively safe with horrible yields, bonds from governmental units that you think are capable of paying up (United States EE, I, etc, but not Detroit Municipal bonds). Slightly better yield might be regular CDs from a respected bank or credit union. In the stock market, managed funds or indexes might work. (You might also lose everything - I've got a "TSP" (basically a 401k but for government employees/military) and several coworkers in the past saw great drops in the managed S fund, which is mostly invested into stocks. Being more lazy than that, the G fund hasn't had any significant loss but it's also a slow grower.)
Generally, depending on when you plan on getting a return, how much of a return, and how you want to manage any tax liability should give you better guidance.
+ Show Spoiler +This is not financial advice. This is a guy with a headache typing. You seem to be in a relatively good financial position, and your adviser seems to be doing a good job. Listen to him/her.
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Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
I've got some money in the stock market. I use Schwab. To do what I've done: Over the course of about a couple years (to deal with volatility) dump it into some ETFs with low fees. 50% US large cap (I use SCHX, SCHD, SCHG), 25% international (I use SCHF and SCHE) and 25% small/mid cap (I use SCHA) though there are other options like DISSX.
I'm sure there are other ETFs too if you want to do some research. Emerging markets just took a hit so it might be a decent time to put some money in there
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On August 27 2013 10:44 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2013 10:26 ninazerg wrote:
Put all your money into pork bellies. they delisted pork bellies on CME in 2011 rip
RIP indeed, that was a sad day in July 2011. Oh well, the other substitute now is lean hogs.
As long as you don't invest in eSports, you're going to be alright.
Just wondering, do you have a life insurance policy? You can never expect what's going to happen, and since you're young, probably could get it cheap.
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If you are going to invest long term. You need to look at stocks that have a history of paying a decent/average dividend even through the crisis or having only the crisis time as the time they didn't.
Then ladder your minimum position on those stocks, so if your minimum is buying $100 at a time, you grid that stocks price history into a certain number and buy minimum position. If it goes down X pts you buy another minimum so on so forth. Do that on a bunch of solid stocks and the dividends will get you good income and you will dollar cost average your buy price. Don't try to predict the market if you are in it for the long run.
Edit: also look at companies who have paid dividends who have almost 0 chance of going bust -.- like say, coca cola? I haven't looked at US stocks for ages, so I am not up to date on specific information.
Edit: also your averaging point should be number of minimum buys that make your total investment. So if you want to buy only 10 minimums of that stock you should divide the history prices by 10 and buy at every point. Not buy 10 times at the top if it goes up a bit then goes down 
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On August 27 2013 11:23 MrRicewife wrote:
Tesla Motors... invest in that company.
met the CEO at a startup incubator, was kind of a dick, i'd say take that 30k and hire an evil genius to create a scheme to steal his stake in his own company, and then kill him with a toaster and make it look like an accident.
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On August 27 2013 14:57 CatNzHat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2013 11:23 MrRicewife wrote:
Tesla Motors... invest in that company. met the CEO at a startup incubator, was kind of a dick, i'd say take that 30k and hire an evil genius to create a scheme to steal his stake in his own company, and then kill him with a toaster and make it look like an accident.
Most good CEO's are dicks. But I dno about this one
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Make a tech startup (just a website really).
Disclaimer: I make websites and I want the 30k.
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As long as you don't invest in eSports, you're going to be alright.
That's only if you invest in SC2. If you host three 10k TSL-style tours for BroodWar, that would be heroic, and you would become a living legend.
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Yeah invest in eSports, but you gotta be careful about which sport.
Right now SC2 isn't doing as well as LoL or Dota 2. Even BW might make more returns than SC2 to be honest.
That, as well as which region to invest in. The European scene and Korean/Chinese scene is very much saturated. The only regions left are: NA, South America, or the SEA/Aus/NZ scenes that are still very fragmented. These regions have been dying for investments in eSports.
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To all the folks saying "don't ask people on the internet" ... He's just fishing for ideas, if you're clueless, don't post yo!
My vote is Silver. A lot of people like gold, but a lot of people forget about the other metals, which basically have the same thing as gold going on at a lesser scale. Silver is a precious metal and a currency, but more importantly it's used in a lot of manufacturing, from electronics, jewelry, even medical stuff as it has antibacterial properties.
![[image loading]](http://www.chartseeker.com/images/AG-5Y-LG.png)
It's hovering around $20 right now, I bought at $10 a couple years ago, got out during the peak in 2011, and got back in just recently with the price "dip". I can only see it going up just based on the demand though.
Probably best not to put all your eggs in one basket, but metals are a nice stabilizer. I'm no financier mind you, just someone who read some stuff and got lucky.
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There will be a lot more wars coming soon, so I'd invest in the arms industry.
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Australia4514 Posts
read http://www.bogleheads.org/ it is probably the smartest group of passive investors anywhere on the web. Check their book list as well.
Assuming a young age, and if i was designing an easy portfolio that <enter random person here> could run i would:
- 1/3 in shares in whatever is their country of origin.
- 1/3 in shares for the rest of world.
- 1/3 in a bond fund.
Probably via whole of market index funds at vanguard. (Vanguard are the cheapest, and most likely (due to their structure), will remain so).
If you wish to rebalance, pick any day of any month, and rebalance yearly on that date.
For the first few years, during the accumulation phase, your contributions will far exceed any fluctuations in your desired asset allocation that the monetary markets will cause. So, its probably best to ignore rebalancing totally, and just add any new money into whichever group is doing the poorest.
Either, read a lot so you know what you are doing. Or if that is too much, at least read enough to know when so called financial experts are ripping you off. Their primary goal is to increase funds under management which leads to a disjoint in priorities. They get paid, and paid well, irrespective of how well you perform.
Personal things i like:
- Avoid anything with a high expense ratio.
- Avoid anything that's considered the 'in' thing that 'you would be a foolish to ignore'.
- Avoid leverage.
- Avoid non income producing assets. (this would be more controversial as it includes gold/silver/cash)
- Asset allocation should become more conservative with age.
My history:
- I read just over 100 investment books, or investment related (psychology) books following the crash of 2008. Invested everything i had. Borrowed more and then invested that. I dislike leverage, but there are not many times in our lives we will get opportunities like that.
- Personally i was quite active in my investment choices, but it requires a lot of reading. Although having said that, it's near impossible to do poorly after the markets crash like that.
- I've since moved to a much more passive investment style, mainly as it takes next to no work, and you are gauranteed to beat 70%+ of the market professionals.
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Australia4514 Posts
Make use of tax advantage spaces.
Do a simple spreadsheet. For you ROTH/401k account. Have a few columns,
Age, Year, Starting balance, growth rate(above inflation), new yearly contribution amount, Final balance
- I had starting balance at 20k
- I set the yearly contribution to 15k, and did not include any tax that might be applied too it, (i am not proficient with the details of either the ROTH or 401k system that americans use. I quick google said its currently 17.5k per year. So this is most likely the part that is wrong. Roth appears to be 6.5k)
- I set the growth rate to 1.03. Don't set the growth rate high, leave it at or below 3% (always best to be conservative on growth numbers).
- Final balance = (Starting balance* growth (1.03)) + new contributions
- Starting balance of next y ear = Final balance of year prior.
- Expand the years to 65 years of age.
Simply maxing that out each year, will give you 1,098,887.
Congrats without doing anything else, you have a million dollars.
In Australia the tax advantage retirement space is called 'superannuation'. With a 25k yearly limit taxed at 15%. Someone who maxes that out from 28 onwards will have 1.5million.
Slow and steady wins the race.
It is a boring and easy race to take part in. Most ppl get distracted by the latest fad, as its always 'different this time'.
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Silver is nice. Kitco.com is a good resource. There are better resources than tl though. You're not looking at a small investment
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Just looking at the google news today, I say give McDonalds wings a try and if you like them invest in McD!!!!
Best advice ever. Plus they have a decent dividend.
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On August 27 2013 22:16 Burrfoot wrote:
Just looking at the google news today, I say give McDonalds wings a try and if you like them invest in McD!!!!
Best advice ever. Plus they have a decent dividend.
Just thinking out loud, I say give intel processors a try and if you like them invest in INTC!!!!
Best advice ever. Plus they have a decent dividend.
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On August 27 2013 12:25 crayhasissues wrote:
I use Morningstar to get more info on various ETFs, mutual funds, etc. The prospectuses aren't that hard to figure out if you have any experience at all with investing.
Also, if you have a brokerage account, most sites offer free research from various sources. You usually will find many different opinions. You're young, so remember to balance risk/potential to returns for whatever you are looking at.
PM me if you have anything else you need to know (I have an MBA in accounting/finance)
I use Morningstar as well. Lots of useful information there. Warning: it can get addicting.
To the OP: If you're going to invest in Vanguard, they have their own advisers. On the small chance you look for an outside one (I don't have one), there are fee-based advisers in the US who are under a fiduciary duty. They generally charge per hour/per visit and don't take a percentage of your assets as fees. Their quality might or might not be better than that of regular advisers' but at least it will be cheaper and they are less likely to steer you to investments with outrageous expenses.
Vanguard's brokerage is pretty nice as well. You can get outside funds like PIMCO's funds for lower expenses and minimums there rather than buying from PIMCO itself.
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mutual funds are great! they are a way you can take some money, give it a stranger, say "turn this into more money!!" and then avoid all responsibility or even the most basic knowledge of how this is done! then that stranger will give the money to another stranger, who will give it to another stranger, who will enslave some people in asia, make some money, and pass it up the chain to you! what's even better is that the people making decisions with your money will have different class interests than you, because they are rich and you only have 30k, and so your money actually gets to be used against you! i love mutual funds!
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On August 27 2013 11:23 MrRicewife wrote:
Tesla Motors... invest in that company.
Lol. Too late, that ship already sailed. If one invested in it ~5 months ago they would have tripled their money now everyone's jumping on board so I'd be cautious
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My little anecdotes
Back in 2005 I finally caved and bought an iPod after many years at CMU making fun of the liberal arts folks and chemEs working in the apple forest. I was pleasantly surprised and bought 25k of AAPL that I still hold today. Hindsight says I should have sold at 700.
The next year in 2006 I played the wii for the first time and was so wowed I bought 25k in NTDOY. Many years later I played a 3DS for the first time and was so disappointed I sold all my shares the next day.
After leveling to 70 in WoW during the Burning Crusade a lot more random folks were casually playing so I bought ATVI... Which I sold earlier this year when Titan was reset and I hated pandaland.
Nerd investing!
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I am by no means any kind of financial expert... but I've always been told to invest in McDonalds.
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Invest in alcohol which ages well, then auction it off when it gets really old. Also, if the world goes to shit, people will still want to get wasted so you can hopefully trade it for a bunch of food.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On August 28 2013 04:21 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Invest in alcohol which ages well, then auction it off when it gets really old. Also, if the world goes to shit, people will still want to get wasted so you can hopefully trade it for a bunch of food.
Of all the advice in this thread this is actually probably the best one lol.
I say this in all seriousness.
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On August 28 2013 13:00 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2013 04:21 Just_a_Moth wrote:
Invest in alcohol which ages well, then auction it off when it gets really old. Also, if the world goes to shit, people will still want to get wasted so you can hopefully trade it for a bunch of food. Of all the advice in this thread this is actually probably the best one lol. I say this in all seriousness.
Well, in the event of significant cataclysm (say, zombie apocalypse?) you can't eat gold, silver, stock or bond certificates, and the best possible currency will probably be ammunition. (Although, selling it could be hazardous.)
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it all depends on your level of risk and reward.
i will be honest, chinese companies are probably the best to have a look at. it seems EU and China economy is getting back on track
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On August 27 2013 11:25 Burrfoot wrote:
Gold is a terrible investment, buy rare earths! That stuff is rare! lol
What time is it? Everybody's favorite time! Rare Earth Fun Facts Time!
Did you know rare earths are actually not so rare after all? They are rather plentiful in the Earth's crust but are hard to find in accessible ore deposits due to their dispersity among other elemental minerals.
Did you know 23.5% of rare earth elements are named after Ytterby, Sweden, a small village on an archipelago northeast of Stockholm? 39 [Y] Yttrium, 65 [Tb] Terbium, 68 [Er] Erbium, and 70 [Yb] Ytterbium! But wait! In that same Ytterby, Sweden quarry that yielded the four rare earth discoveries named after the village, three additional rare earths were also discovered: 64 [Gd] Gadolinium, 67 [Ho] Holmium, and 69 [Tm] Thulium.
Did you know there is a deposit of around 1-2 million metric tons of rare earth ores in Afghanistan? And possibly much more in Africa?
Did you know historically the demand for rare earth elements has been low, but that in the past two decades it has been increasing sharply? The world's annual production is around 130,000 metric tons, of which China accounts for 95%.
That's all for now!
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On August 27 2013 10:20 sLideSC2 wrote:
bet against artosis on pinnaclesports.com
this made my day .. lol
i think esports is kinda growing nowadays .. you could risk investing on it .. maybe would be worth to try  + Show Spoiler +sorry i have no idea about investments
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On August 28 2013 15:41 goody153 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2013 10:20 sLideSC2 wrote:
bet against artosis on pinnaclesports.com this made my day .. lol i think esports is kinda growing nowadays .. you could risk investing on it .. maybe would be worth to try + Show Spoiler +sorry i have no idea about investments
Not exactly an esports play, but when I first heard of the Onlive service, I was pretty intrigued at the concept and had planned on investing in if possible. Then I tried it and was very unimpressed that I invested in McDonalds instead. Best excuse to justify that double quarter pounds with CHEESE!
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Invest in Lightmare Studio stock. Or some other indy game company that has promise. Invest in esports.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/a2WpIAG.png)
