Any full time investors?

[Tufrthnails]

Buy and hold guy. You guys are way more into it then I am. It's more of a hobby for me. I drop $50 a month 100% stocks. Just looked I'm currently down 2.7%. Been down as much as 13.2% and up as much as 19.5%. I have a super high risk tolerance with this, but it's a hobby for me like I said. It all started because my wife was buying a lotto ticket twice a week. I said I tell you what I'm gonna buy $25 a month in stocks and we will see has more at the end of the year. I sure hope she hits a big one and proves me wrong, but so far I'm in the lead by a long shot. I bumped the monthly amount up a couple of times and have enjoyed watching things play out over the last 2 years. And if I can hang on to some of the money when I decide to pull out its becoming a decent chunk of fun money. Also have some bitcoin but not very much doubled my money on that within a month while it was ripping pulled my initial investment out shortly after it crashed and its been all over the place since.

 

[Woodrow F Call]

I am for the most part a 3-fund guy that buys, holds and reinvests equites and bonds. I have about 10% in individual stocks, though, and again those equites are buy and hold. I began holding bonds (BND) as a part of my portfolio only in last 3 to 5 years. Before that was 100% equities (mostly VTI) but am now knocking on age 60's door so holding some bonds along with real estate seems prudent.

All the research I encountered as an undergrad in the 1980s and grad school in the 1990s backed up the rule of thumb you can beat the return on the whole stock market but you can't do so year after year after year unless have insider info or are the exception that proves the rule. Think of actively trading as Vegas. If 1000 of us go to Vegas with $100,000 to play slots then only a small number, likely under 50, will have doubled our money and several of us will be in negative territory. More than likely several of the ones that doubled their money hit a jackpot early on and stopped at that point rather than churn the money back through the system a few times. Just look at fund managers and compare their most recent year vs VTI. More that half fall short. Of those that out-performed VTI then if they have a 5-year return then compare to VTI, net of fees of course. Most will not have 5 years of history as the manager though because the losers get canned or the investment company will shut down the fund and open a nearly identical one so the slate is clean rather than show came up short the past several years. These are the games played to get you to seek out actively-managed funds rather than go with low-fee VTI, BND, etc passive funds.

I hope you have a system that does very well for you. I play the odds and passive investing in a small number of big-bucket funds with very, very low annual fees and almost no commissions or short-term tax consequences has enabled me to double my money about every 8 years, multiple times. Getting an early start on saving is a factor that is often underappreciated.

Playing the market or chasing bitcoin and oil futures, etc, often relies on a look in the rear view mirror to craft the next investment trade but that is a risky strategy as the markets move not just on supply and demand but also by human psychological knee-jerk reactions and actual manipulation by major players which never can be fully built into a trading scheme.

I have a buddy that flipped houses about 20 years ago and in comparison I looked like the tortoise with my 5% and 8% returns during years he was doubling his money or better. He rolled over his gains in equity after each successful flip to buy bigger homes to flip and more homes to flip. He was swinging for the fences while I was tapping out bunts. His wife loved him. His mother-in-law loved him and handed him the bulk of her savings. The housing market crapped out and he went bankrupt while having 7 homes on the ocean in SoCal. He owned none of those and putting renters in the units he could not sell as were under water would not cover the cash flow needed to stay afloat. Oh, the mother-in-law and wife no longer loved him.

This same buddy told me he is now trading bitcoin and similar items these days. He is making a killing per him. I am an idiot per him. He may be correct re me being an idiot. I know I sleep very, very well and owe not one cent to anyone on my two homes and am very happy with my investment account balances. I have the same wife I had decades ago. I am told stress kills. I have less stress than my buddy now and for the past few decades. I like being the idiot.

Dumb question.... VTI, the vanguard total stock market etf?

 

[LopeHunter]

Dumb question.... VTI, the vanguard total stock market etf?

Yes, VTI for equities. I also hold BND and VCIT for bonds I manage some family accounts so have some of that in VB and VXUS equities. A few individual company stocks but are less than 20% of holdings and I hold those stocks for years and years.

 

[LopeHunter]

Nothing worse than when that joyride stops going up, eh.

If the equities and bond market and residential real estate fall more than 50% and stay down for a decade or more then are bigger issues I would need to address than the value of my investments. I could envision a mass die off of 90% of the population in my lifetime being a result of virus or asteroid or solar flare. Or China conquering the world. That would leave me in a tough situation. Again, I would have bigger issues than the value of my investments. Risk. Reward. I like my odds of being a tortoise and never running out of money whether I kick the bucket tomorrow or in 30 years (my father is 90, his father lived to 95).

 

[Rampoind]

I would recommend you to start learning more about cryptocurrency, because it is a very profitable future investment.

 

[SAJ-99]

I would recommend you to start learning more about cryptocurrency, because it is a very profitable future investment.

And this is your first post? Hmmmm.

 

[Irrelevant]

I am trying like crazy and barely beating VUG since summer.

 

[Rampoind]

And this is your first post? Hmmmm.

I wanted to start somehow lol.

 

[Rampoind]

And this is your first post? Hmmmm.

I believe it was kind of suspicious