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

[MickeyDavis]

Are we just doing monthly market wide pump and dumps at this point?

It's been a wild ride, just stay the course. As has been talked about here, last year the top 10 days in the S&P brought a 20% gain. The rest of the year brought about a 4% gain. Not smart to wade in and out. Over the last 20 years if you missed the best 10 days in the S&P your return would be 54% less, the best 20 days, 73% less and the best 30 days 83% less.

[LUKE23]

Are we just doing monthly market wide pump and dumps at this point?

Lots of volatility with tariffs/no tariffs, an awful February jobs report, inflation not going down, etc. I'm trying to view it as a buying opportunity and will continue to buy monthly on the way down. If you are retiring in 4-5 years, may need to shift some allocation, but if you are 10-15 or more years out, I think this year will be a good buying opportunity. There are going to be some great buys in the small and mid-caps especially.

[MickeyDavis]

Yup, just stay the course, no reason to change anything. As Luke said as you get closer to retirement you need to make some changes based on your situation. But that should be done regardless of market conditions. In my case I'm not retiring but I won't be getting a paycheck for awhile. Maybe forever, depends on what opportunities are out there. Although I have some investible cash I won't be automatically buying into my 401k every 2 weeks. That's the downside for me. Many advocate the 3 bucket approach. Bucket 1 is cash, 6-12-18 or however many months living expenses you feel comfortable with. Don't keep it in a checking account, earn some interest! There are still some good high yield savings accounts (not as good as a year ago of course) and money markets. Bucket 2 should be "safe" investments. Anywhere from 2-7 years of living expenses. Bonds/treasuries/Tips for example. Bucket 3 is stock (I'm in mostly low fee index funds with a small number of individual stocks). As Bucket 1 depletes you refill it from Bucket 2, which you refill from Bucket 3. Usually annually but that's flexible. That's just a broad strategy of course. Everyone needs to handle their money in whatever way works best for them. And with whatever risk tolerance you have. I know some that are 20 years from retirement but have only a minority of their money in stocks. They want peace of mind and HATE when they see their balance go down, even though they won't be tapping that money for a long time. I get it. Peace of mind is important for your mental health. If you get worked up about your balances going down recently then maybe you should readjust your allocation so you sleep better. There is no one size fits all approach.

Just watched a good segment on a business channel about how many individual investors buy a stock simply because it's going up, they saw a headline and they have a FOMO. No regard for the fundamentals. And then that stock goes down they panic sell, again with no regard for fundamentals. That enhances the whip saw effect.

[midranger]

I think the high volume trading algorithms that the huge whales use also bias for momentum, which I’m sure adds to the market whip saw much more than individual retail investors.

[BucksFanSD]

I loaded up here. I was mostly in cash for February in my 401k and and was in SNVXX in my traditional account. Changed out of those and put my 401k all in small caps stock index and for my traditional account bought TSLA and DJT.

[TroyD92]

Chinese stocks are something to start taking a look at.

I think we are currently in a correction wave in the s&p, once we bottom we'll see a higher wave 5/blow off. also some alternative counts. Unfortunately I think the bear market is not far off. i'll be moving into commodities relatively soon.

USD is also tanking which seems part of the new administrations plans.

[MickeyDavis]

I should look more at foreign markets. I have some money in a couple of target date funds and each of those has an international fund component but I don't really know exactly what those consist of.

[TroyD92]

I should look more at foreign markets. I have some money in a couple of target date funds and each of those has an international fund component but I don't really know exactly what those consist of.

Yeah its a good move imo. China is just starting their "bull run"

Most of these have already started running but some to take a look at

$LI
$XPEV
$NIO
$XYF
$DQ

[wallus]

For a number of reasons, I won't be investing anything into China. There are arguments to invest internationally otherwise

[Ryan5UW]

Yeah, country-specific investing definitely presents some unique challenges, especially when it's a country like China. I just do broad ETFs for international investing. I'm sure people who want to stay actively on top of foreign markets can do quite well, I just have absolutely zero desire to do that.

[MickeyDavis]

Yeah, country-specific investing definitely presents some unique challenges, especially when it's a country like China. I just do broad ETFs for international investing. I'm sure people who want to stay actively on top of foreign markets can do quite well, I just have absolutely zero desire to do that.

Agreed. I don't have the time either. My target date funds have broad international. I could probably look into more international regions. But countries I don't have time for. I don't even know if there are European country specific funds. Is there a Germany fund, Spain fund, Italy fund etc? I imagine if there are that the expense ratios would be higher than average.

[midranger]

European defense firms to the moon

[Ryan5UW]

European defense firms to the moon

Now that I know there's an ETF for

[MickeyDavis]

NASDAQ says they're going to start 24 hour trading sometime next year (Mon-Fri). But there already is after hours trading with some brokerages. I'm not an active trader so I don't know how that all works. If there is already after hours trading what exactly is the difference with the NASDAQ announcement?

[midranger]

I’m loving America’s Golden Era.

[TroyD92]

Markets are just full of blood.

[Be Here Now]

I’m loving America’s Golden Era.

The good news is every time I lose another couple percentage points of my net worth, it’s fewer dollars I’m losing!

[Ayt]

This is just the beginning.

[Ayt]

If you want to make money on the upcoming market crash, you can put money into things like SPXU and SQQQ. SPXU is designed deliver three times the inverse of the S&P 500, while SQQQ is designed to deliver three times the inverse of the Nasaq-100. While those go down, our ETF goes up multiplied by three. There are countless other similar ETF you can use to essentially short the market.

Do your own research of course. Unfortunately, now is a great time to make money from the stock market going down. ETF like these provide a way to make money if you think the stock market is going to go down without having to short specific stocks.

[Kerb Hohl]

I generally buy and hold...but I do have Roth IRA bombs when I have cash available. Bought some dip early this week. Probably early as there's more of a bottom to go, but a decent price point. Will see if there's another bottom I have one more bullet in the chamber with 2025 Roth to fire.

The shorting fund idea is interesting but if you're wrong, I'd assume you lose a bunch. Probably a decent gamble but you'll eventually get stung hard.