OT: Investing/Stocks/Bonds/Mutual Funds/Crypto

[brewbucks]

I dabble in some individual stocks for fun and I also follow the market closely. I have 4 monitors on my desk, 1 always has market tickers on it, 2 are for work and 1 is for this site and other stuff. But like most of you I stay the course for the most part. I do some rebalancing but timing the market is gambling and I do that outside the market.

What website are you using to follow the market?

[MickeyDavis]

I dabble in some individual stocks for fun and I also follow the market closely. I have 4 monitors on my desk, 1 always has market tickers on it, 2 are for work and 1 is for this site and other stuff. But like most of you I stay the course for the most part. I do some rebalancing but timing the market is gambling and I do that outside the market.

What website are you using to follow the market?

I usually have 2 windows open, the Yahoo financial page https://finance.yahoo.com/ and CNBC (via YouTube TV). Yahoo has a lot of current news and a portfolio tracker, CNBC has some good guests sometimes although depending on work I can't always have the sound up. I'm not an active trader but I enjoy staying on top of financial news and how the markets are doing.

[brewbucks]

I dabble in some individual stocks for fun and I also follow the market closely. I have 4 monitors on my desk, 1 always has market tickers on it, 2 are for work and 1 is for this site and other stuff. But like most of you I stay the course for the most part. I do some rebalancing but timing the market is gambling and I do that outside the market.

What website are you using to follow the market?

I usually have 2 windows open, the Yahoo financial page https://finance.yahoo.com/ and CNBC (via YouTube TV). Yahoo has a lot of current news and a portfolio tracker, CNBC has some good guests sometimes although depending on work I can't always have the sound up. I'm not an active trader but I enjoy staying on top of financial news and how the markets are doing.

Thank you!

[BUCKnation]

Some times the page gets weird but I 2nd the yahoo page as well for following my tickers

[Mags FTW]

I finally downloaded Autopilot and linked it to Robinhood. Anyone else use it and have any favorite portfolios? I did the standard Pelosi one with my initial investment. My wife and I both max 401k match at work, and we have a decent chunk in a Money Market. Looking for something a little more volatile besides the single stocks and ETFs we have on E*Trade.

[LUKE23]

Entire market getting pummeled, some nice buying opportunities if you are looking at longs.

[MickeyDavis]

I expect NVidia's earning tomorrow after the bell to disappoint. At some point they have to. But they're down about 7% YTD so I think the expectations for earnings are already low.

When I quit my job on Friday my 401k contributions will be ceasing. That's the downside. I wouldn't be quitting if I still needed a paycheck but my strategies will shift a bit with no investment money coming in. I have about 12% sitting in cash. I won't go below 10% so I have about 2% to invest. But I'm going to wait until after my last 401k contribution in April and then maybe put that 2% to work. We'll see. I may just keep the full12% in cash until the next rate cut and that won't be for awhile. I have some CD's maturing later this year.

[LUKE23]

I expect NVidia's earning tomorrow after the bell to disappoint. At some point they have to. But they're down about 7% YTD so I think the expectations for earnings are already low.

When I quit my job on Friday my 401k contributions will be ceasing. That's the downside. I wouldn't be quitting if I still needed a paycheck but my strategies will shift a bit with no investment money coming in. I have about 12% sitting in cash. I won't go below 10% so I have about 2% to invest. But I'm going to wait until after my last 401k contribution in April and then maybe put that 2% to work. We'll see. I may just keep the full12% in cash until the next rate cut and that won't be for awhile. I have some CD's maturing later this year.

This brings up an interesting point that I was thinking about recently, especially with the market looking at a downturn, where are people parking their fixed income? I am about 10% in HYSA right now too, but an weighing the pros and cons of bond index funds. I know it kind of depends on time horizon, but where are people keeping their safe money at? I'm still around 15 years away from touching my IRAs.

[MickeyDavis]

I have several CD's laddered. I have some cash in a money market. And some in high yield savings. Both of those have come down of course. My next CD matures in June and I have 3 more maturing by the end of the year. I'm not sure what I'm going to do since CD rates have come down quite a bit since I opened them. T-bills are an option, you can buy them direct from the government. No state tax. I don't currently own any bond index funds but that's certainly something to look into. There are a lot of options, depending on your risk tolerance.

[Mags FTW]

I have several CD's laddered. I have some cash in a money market. And some in high yield savings. Both of those have come down of course. My next CD matures in June and I have 3 more maturing by the end of the year. I'm not sure what I'm going to do since CD rates have come down quite a bit since I opened them. T-bills are an option, you can buy them direct from the government. No state tax. I don't currently own any bond index funds but that's certainly something to look into. There are a lot of options, depending on your risk tolerance.

Have you looked at Fixed Annuity rates? They will vary from company to company and product to product. Although you get locked in for a certain period of time where you can't withdraw all of the funds without a penalty, certain products have features where you can take capped penalty-free withdrawals depending on the contract year or set up scheduled income payments.

[MickeyDavis]

Annuities are something I don't know much about. I know what they are but not nearly enough to do it. Good suggestion, I'll have to get up to speed.

[Ryan5UW]

I have several CD's laddered. I have some cash in a money market. And some in high yield savings. Both of those have come down of course. My next CD matures in June and I have 3 more maturing by the end of the year. I'm not sure what I'm going to do since CD rates have come down quite a bit since I opened them. T-bills are an option, you can buy them direct from the government. No state tax. I don't currently own any bond index funds but that's certainly something to look into. There are a lot of options, depending on your risk tolerance.

I’ve been laddering some CDs too, and then as they mature dumping the interest into my Roth and renewing the principle. That’s the only place I have anything fixed, other than the little bit of cash in the funds in my 401k, but I don’t really count that.

[Ayt]

I'm expecting the economy to crater in the next several months and for the US to enter stagflation so I'm investing in gold and defensive stocks. I think the energy sector is a great target as a defensive stock since Trump sees that as a key to driving the economy. This administration is going to go out of their way to boost energy stocks.

I'm hoping for a positive reaction to Nvidia's earnings today so I can sell off my holdings. I want out of the tech sector for the most part at this point. If not, I'm going to likely sell most of what I hold at a loss and move it into things I think could profit during a deep recession.

I mostly just want to day trade with tech stocks. I have no interest in holding them long term.

[MickeyDavis]

Commodities should be a small part of a portfolio but I've never invested in any. In hindsight I should have bought some gold. After the big 5 year run I'm still pondering it. Or maybe silver, it's actually done better than gold. Over 5 years gold has risen 76.16%, silver 76.54%.

Nvidia is up about 4% so far today, the sentiment on earnings seems to be positive. We'll see around 3:00

[Ayt]

I'm just curious, how many of you think that we are headed towards a 20-30% drop in the stock market over the next 6-9 months?

[MickeyDavis]

I think a correction (10%) at some point is more likely. We're due for one and I have some investing cash ready if that happens. But I think 2025 ends up in the black. Single digits though, nothing like '23 or '24.

[LUKE23]

I don't think trying to the time the market, or having a complete shift in investing philosophy is wise. You need to pick something that matches your risk tolerance long-term, and stick with that allocation. For me, I'm at 80% index funds, 10% individual stocks, 10% HYSA (may move to bonds there, haven't decided yet) and I try to re-balance to those percentages quarterly. Even if we do have a major downturn in equities, I just see that as a major buying opportunity assuming you have a 10+ year horizon until you need the funds.

Just keep DCA'ing.

[LUKE23]

I'm just curious, how many of you think that we are headed towards a 20-30% drop in the stock market over the next 6-9 months?

I think it could be closer to 10%, but I don't see 20-30%. I think this year is going to bounce back and forth a lot with a decent amount of volatility but the overall drop won't be insane. But it's the stock market, so who knows.

[MickeyDavis]

I don't think trying to the time the market, or having a complete shift in investing philosophy is wise. You need to pick something that matches your risk tolerance long-term, and stick with that allocation. For me, I'm at 80% index funds, 10% individual stocks, 10% HYSA (may move to bonds there, haven't decided yet) and I try to re-balance to those percentages quarterly. Even if we do have a major downturn in equities, I just see that as a major buying opportunity assuming you have a 10+ year horizon until you need the funds.

Just keep DCA'ing.

Yes. As long as you are regularly investing (such as 401k) DCA is the way to go.

[Ryan5UW]

I don't think trying to the time the market, or having a complete shift in investing philosophy is wise. You need to pick something that matches your risk tolerance long-term, and stick with that allocation. For me, I'm at 80% index funds, 10% individual stocks, 10% HYSA (may move to bonds there, haven't decided yet) and I try to re-balance to those percentages quarterly. Even if we do have a major downturn in equities, I just see that as a major buying opportunity assuming you have a 10+ year horizon until you need the funds.

Just keep DCA'ing.

I've done presentations on investor behavior in a past life and, while the numbers change depending on the time frame you look at, the story is the same... The average investor underperforms the S&P 500 and if you take a 20 year time frame and miss just the top 10 days in the market, your return is likely around half of what the S&P did over that same timeframe. Of course it works the opposite way too and individual results may vary, etc., etc., but you absolutely crank up the risk factor trying to time things.