Investing Thread

[bandicoot]

TS: Hey I made a thread about investments, let's discuss our choices.

But if you think differently than I do, then fuck you, you retarded piece of garbage.

 

[MASShole]

TS: Hey I made a thread about investments, let's discuss our choices.

But if you think differently than I do, then fuck you, you retarded piece of garbage.

There's a difference between investing and the highly speculative crypto world. Chill, homey.

 

[ToxicShocker]

Ive always been passive and just check the statements periodically. I weathered 2007 well and got accustomed to greater than 8% returns between 2010 and 2015.

I could be wrong, My portfolio is mostly Amgen, fmagx, and Pepsi.

Edit: looking at 2009 to now charts makes me think the 400% growth of AMGN may have been the main reason why my total outpaced modest '17-18 gains

 

[bandicoot]

There's a difference between investing and the highly speculative crypto world. Chill, homey.

I don't know shit about investing, I'm just messing with TS because I dislike him.

 

[MASShole]

Ive always been passive and just check the statements periodically. I weathered 2007 well and got accustomed to greater than 8% returns between 2010 and 2015.

I could be wrong, My portfolio is mostly Amgen, fmagx, and Pepsi.

Edit: looking at 2009 to now charts makes me think the 400% growth of AMGN may have been the main reason why my total outpaced modest '17-18 gains

No diversity. AMGN is a good company, as is PEP, but if you have more than $10k in total investments you should probably think about a few more funds/stocks in various sectors.

Using my portfolio as an example, here's sector, total investment percentage, total portfolio dividend percentage:
Energy 0.00% 0.00%
Materials 3.33% 3.24%
Industrials 13.64% 12.41%
Consumer Discretionary 15.76% 12.62%
Consumer Staples 23.78% 30.47%
Healthcare 13.27% 11.58%
Financials 3.35% 5.88%
IT 17.85% 6.41%
Telecom 9.02% 17.39%
Utilities 0.00% 0.00%
Other 0.00% 0.00%

As you can see, IT has low dividend payers but is a high total investment, whereas Telecom is exactly the opposite.

 

[pakimahi]

I am.

Any particular ones your happy with? In terms of maintaining dividend and price at the same time?

 

[themmaGoon]

Nothing wrong with that. I own MAIN in my son's UTMA, O in my IRA, and really consider investments like T and VZ almost bond substitutes with similar yields.

Nice SWAN (sleep well at night) options for REIT and BDC. The beautiful thing is that in addition to high yield, most REIT/BDC stocks are optionable. Even lots of them gives one the ability to trade covered calls.

 

[ka pow]

Couldn't watch all of that inane drivel. De-dollarization is a real thing, but this guy is a fearmongering fraud. Sounds like he's offering some sort of private course.

 

[ka pow]

For those who are seriously interested in finance and investing, I highly recommend getting a subscription to Real Vision TV. It's video-on-demand financial media. They feature long-form interviews with some of the most respected stategists and fund managers. My understanding of the world has greatly improve just by watching smart, proven professionals share their thoughts.

There's a 2 week free trial, subscription is only $180 per year. The immense knowledge you'll gain from it is definitely worth it. Some of those videos are worth $180 individually. Seriously, you people need to try it.

 

[boingyman]

I am a very simple investor because I'm not convinced I can beat the market and I have litlte time to research and keep up with the market.

Majority of my investments are in my retirement. Or I should say our retirement (wife and I). Mainly a mix of mutual funds and ETFs. Currently being pretty aggressive with how much we put in and being stock heavy. Wife is a federal employee and I may switch from contractor to federal within this year if they agree to my negotiations. If that happens we plan to finally go all out and max everything out for 4-5 years straight. That's about $60k/year towards retirement including our match. Goal is to break into that 7 figure mark in our retirement accounts combined in 5 years. Possible unless there is a crash which could easily happen in 5 years. We use to have a few individual stocks that we would buy and hold, but I always come back to mutual funds and ETFs for our taxable accounts. We also have a very conservative amount in just high yield CDs.

With both of us likely sticking it out as federal employees, getting a pension (and maybe social security), sometimes I wonder how much allocation towards bonds we should have, especially as we both hit our 40s and moreso our 50s.

 

[SammyPops]

Anyone know anthing about AdvisorShares? They offer a Sindex ETF, which I've been looking for.

I've traditionally used Vanguard or Black Rock for ETFs, the big firms.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

I'm certainly not opposed to crypto, but I don't go to the "thought extremes" some weirdos do. Gubmint is da devil! and all that shit is simply justification for their alternative investment ways.

The US Federal Reserve is prohibited from outright doing this, but other Central Banks are not (which I think where this theory originates) Japan is HEAVILY invested into it's own ETF Market, they own something like 70% of all shares and are a major backer of pretty much all companies in the Nikkei 100. Edit: it's 75%
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-now-owns-75-japanese-etfs

The Swiss National Bank is perhaps the worst offender, being one of the main institutional investors propping up the FAANG stocks that have keeping the Nasdaq and overall US Stock Market at highs. Just for reference, I'm not going full Eddie Bravo style, this is all readily verifiable.
https://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/institutional-portfolio/swiss-national-bank-913041
The Swiss National Bank owns 16.8MILLION shares of Apple for instance, 24.4M shares of Microsoft, 1M shares each in Google Class A and Class C stocks, etc...

 

[HunterSdVa29]

if you have at least a decent basic understanding of investing/personal finance, the youtube channel The Money GPS is a great source for amalgamating many sources, analyzing charts, going over trends.

Dude is quite knowledgeable, and makes pretty easy to comprehend videos even when discussing complex topics. Just throwing it out there

 

[SammyPops]

No diversity. AMGN is a good company, as is PEP, but if you have more than $10k in total investments you should probably think about a few more funds/stocks in various sectors.

Using my portfolio as an example, here's sector, total investment percentage, total portfolio dividend percentage:
Energy 0.00% 0.00%
Materials 3.33% 3.24%
Industrials 13.64% 12.41%
Consumer Discretionary 15.76% 12.62%
Consumer Staples 23.78% 30.47%
Healthcare 13.27% 11.58%
Financials 3.35% 5.88%
IT 17.85% 6.41%
Telecom 9.02% 17.39%
Utilities 0.00% 0.00%
Other 0.00% 0.00%

As you can see, IT has low dividend payers but is a high total investment, whereas Telecom is exactly the opposite.

Is this all in the US equity markets?

 

[MASShole]

Is this all in the US equity markets?

Yes, but I have other non-US stocks on my radar. It depends on the country and their reciprocal dividend agreement.

Also, these companies are based in the US, but do business worldwide. The thought of geographical investments seems to be irrelevant more and more because companies do busienss worldwide, and not exclusively in their own country (most of the time, anyway). Look at what I own (different post) and you can see they're worldwide players.

 

[MASShole]

The US Federal Reserve is prohibited from outright doing this, but other Central Banks are not (which I think where this theory originates) Japan is HEAVILY invested into it's own ETF Market, they own something like 70% of all shares and are a major backer of pretty much all companies in the Nikkei 100. Edit: it's 75%
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-11/wtf-chart-day-boj-now-owns-75-japanese-etfs

The Swiss National Bank is perhaps the worst offender, being one of the main institutional investors propping up the FAANG stocks that have keeping the Nasdaq and overall US Stock Market at highs. Just for reference, I'm not going full Eddie Bravo style, this is all readily verifiable.
https://www.nasdaq.com/quotes/institutional-portfolio/swiss-national-bank-913041
The Swiss National Bank owns 16.8MILLION shares of Apple for instance, 24.4M shares of Microsoft, 1M shares each in Google Class A and Class C stocks, etc...

CalPERS's top 10 investments (name, shares, value as of 6/30/17)

1 Apple 13,877,319 $1,998,611
2 Microsoft Corporation 19,948,037 1,375,018
3 Amazon 1,009,281 976,984
4 Johnson & Johnson 7,212,824 954,184
5 JP Morgan Chase & Company 10,241,228 936,048
6 Exxon Mobil Corporation 11,503,974 928,716
7 Facebook 5,908,622 892,084
8 SamSung Electronics Company 371,217 771,212
9 Wells Fargo & Company 13,500,962 748,088
10 Alphabet 811,314 737,265



Not understanding your point.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

CalPERS's top 10 investments (name, shares, value as of 6/30/17)

1 Apple 13,877,319 $1,998,611
2 Microsoft Corporation 19,948,037 1,375,018
3 Amazon 1,009,281 976,984
4 Johnson & Johnson 7,212,824 954,184
5 JP Morgan Chase & Company 10,241,228 936,048
6 Exxon Mobil Corporation 11,503,974 928,716
7 Facebook 5,908,622 892,084
8 SamSung Electronics Company 371,217 771,212
9 Wells Fargo & Company 13,500,962 748,088
10 Alphabet 811,314 737,265



Not understanding your point.

one of those is a defined Pension plan investing heavily into domestic stock, the other is a foreign national bank that is using QE to print money and attempting to apply a stimulus to their own economy by investing into ours....

 

[MASShole]

Any particular ones your happy with? In terms of maintaining dividend and price at the same time?

It's tough. I don't necessarily use them for price maintenance/growth at all, but only for the dividends. I have GOF and ETO on my list right now, but Eaton makes others that are worth looking at.

This is a good article too: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4181641-closed-end-funds-12-funds-10-percent-yield-club-discount .

 

[MASShole]

one of those is a defined Pension plan investing heavily into domestic stock, the other is a foreign national bank that is using QE to print money and attempting to apply a stimulus to their own economy by investing into ours....

I still don't understand the point you're trying to make in a personal investing thread. Are you trying to say those governments are evil or something? Do you have evidence they're "printing money" and using QE to boost their own economy or have they always done it this way?

Your thoughts on this sound more like a war room thread than a Mayberry personal investing thread.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

I still don't understand the point you're trying to make in a personal investing thread. Are you trying to say those governments are evil or something? Do you have evidence they're "printing money" and using QE to boost their own economy or have they always done it this way?

Your thoughts on this sound more like a war room thread than a Mayberry personal investing thread.

no, not at all. I am just somewhat leary about the current situation of our Market, compared to like virtually every other market

Our currency is standing strong, while the Yuan, Rupee, Brazilian Real, Argentine Peso, Turkish Lira, S. African Rand etc....are all experiencing heavy freefalls (Remember when BRICS were the goto in EM? hahaha). Debt balloon payments loom for mad emerging markets, and it's looking they won't be able to pay as the Debt is largely in USD.

And it does appear, at least somewhat, that Institutional Investors (be it foreign Central Banks, Buffett, Pension funds like you alluded to, whatever) are largely propping up at least the Nasdaq through FAANG stocks (the average person isn't copping NFLX shares at it's current price, I mean someone like you probably could easily but you get my pt).

I just hope, as I am starting to read otherwise from many analysts, that some form of the 2011 EU debt bubble isn't looming particularly in Emerging Markets.