Investing!

Hi All-

I've generally been pretty good about saving my money, but I have to admit (with some degree of shame) that I usually just hand it over to my dad and have him act as my accountant. He is really good with it and my money has done very well, but he is also getting old and we have talked a bit and it's time I get my own shit in order. Honestly the time was probably long ago.

Well, I am ready to be my own money manager.

So I guess the first question I have to ask is this: what sites/services do you amateur investors use? I heard e-trade is good, but my Pa swears by Vanguard as well.

Any recommendations? I wouldn't do stocks right off the bat, just mutual/exchange-trade funds. Planning for retirements, 30 years old, medium-risk investor.

Schwab manages my portfolio. There are obviously fees incurred by doing it this way, but on the other hand someone far more educated and active than I am is handling my investments.

You do that online, or with an actual person at an office?

Online and phone. I basically just let them do their thing but we do have quarterly calls just to touch base. If any big market moves happen or there's otherwise a reason to adjust strategy we will talk about it. And of course I can always log into my account online to see what's where.

right on, thank you.

I use td ameritrafe. Right now I just have a few pennies in there, but I’m planning on investing come November. I’ve worked with td ameritrafe before. But the trick is is to just buy the right stocks and forget about it for a year to three years.

Td ameritrade charged $7 per transaction a few years back. I was actually winning money relatively quickly, but being the noob I was, I did too many transactions. Just be aware of the transaction fees, that’s my advice.

Yeah I already have my basic strategy; I won't be buying any stocks, just mutual funds and ETFs that I will more or less let sit for 10-20 years (or more). I might buy some stocks when I build up a little more capital but right now I only have like 20k to invest, so it's important I get the most bang for my buck.

I would like to get some stocks in video games companies eventually; Activision (ugh) and EA seem to be doing pretty well, steady growth.

Buy an index fund with the lowest fee (Vanguard has some good ones) and sit on it. Anything else is gambling.

If you get a 401k through work at the minimum contribute to what is matched by your company. Your max is dictated by your age and company policy but whatever it is should be your goal.

Right on, thanks.

Yeah I have my 401K going since I started my current job, my company matches 4% to my 6% (it 1:1 up to 3%, then 0.5:1 up to 4% on their end) but I put in 12%. I basically just add half of my raise and I get a pretty good raise each year (so I'm at 16% combined).

I don't make a lot of money, and I have no delusions of wealth, I just want to retire and live comfortably.

Yeah a lot of people recommend Vanguard because of the low service fees. My question is this, though: those fees are only charged when I "move" things, right? Like when I buy or sell? So if I sit on something for 10-30 years it's not that big of a deal? Or is it an annual fee?

I have a hard time getting clarification on this.

I'd avoid E-Trade. I had an account with them for years and without getting too deep into it they made it very clear that their approach to customer service is "quantity over quality". I moved all my stock trading over to Ameritrade and I've been pretty happy with them. Some people say their interface could be better but it's fine for my purposes. I also have a 401k. My employer matches 50% of my contribution up to 6%, so by dumping in 7% they add another 3% to get me to an even 10%. Props on contributing a combined 16%.

Real Estate is a good thing to get into, but of course there's a requirement of an initial investment to make that work. The easiest first step is buying a primary residence, which can appreciate while you live there and enjoy all the mortgage/tax breaks of it being where you actually live. I've had investment property in the past, and while we didn't make much on the rent the idea is to at least cover the mortgage while the property appreciates until you can sell it.

-Byshop

Motif investing.

Dividend Kings plus FANG with Lockheed Martin and Nvidia.

Equal weight.

Rebalance quarterly.

Make money.

@mave198: what do you mean by "equal weight" and "rebalance quarterly"?

Was able to look up that other stuff, looks pretty smart, but wasn't sure about that part.

Like if I put 1000 dollars in, do 250 into Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google (prices for example only, I'm sure they cost more) then at the end of the quarter take the dividends or whatever and spread it out so its 25% again over the four stocks?

@mrbojangles25:

Exactly how you said it.

As prices go up and down and you get paid dividend you'll sell some of your stocks that are doing well and buy more of the stocks that are not doing as well so you maintain, using your example, a 25,25,25,25 equal weight distribution of your monies.

But everytime you rebalance quarterly you should be putting money into your funds, since rebalancing without injecting cash can cause higher taxes on Capitol gains you'll have to pay next year.