OT: Crypto, Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Investments, IRAs & Finances, etc.

[Capn'O]

ARK has it right. They're in on the sectors that are positioning themselves to dominate the growth portion of the market. Even if there's a bubble burst, over the long haul the wheat will separate from the chaff in their industries. Remember the dot-com burst? Microsoft lost half its value in that crash. Who wouldn't like to still be holding, even from the 2000 peak, today? ARK is finding those companies. The other big growth sector that they don't cover is clean energy. That's the sector I know best and of my actively managed investments I have my individual stock holdings there. ICLN, SMOG, and CNRG are great ETFs in that space.

I wish ARK got into the clean energy space. I'm not a fan of the current ETFs at the moment.

I'm in BEPC, Enphase, First Solar, and Vestas. I have some HASI which I plan to liquidate once I'm at the long-term mark.

There's gonna be ARKX (Ark's Space ETF) soon. The holdings were already released for the Japanese version. Oddly, Virgin Galactic wasn't in the top 5.

I'm surprised you're not high om ICLN. They have most of your holdings.

[N Y K]

ARK has it right. They're in on the sectors that are positioning themselves to dominate the growth portion of the market. Even if there's a bubble burst, over the long haul the wheat will separate from the chaff in their industries. Remember the dot-com burst? Microsoft lost half its value in that crash. Who wouldn't like to still be holding, even from the 2000 peak, today? ARK is finding those companies. The other big growth sector that they don't cover is clean energy. That's the sector I know best and of my actively managed investments I have my individual stock holdings there. ICLN, SMOG, and CNRG are great ETFs in that space.

I wish ARK got into the clean energy space. I'm not a fan of the current ETFs at the moment.

I'm in BEPC, Enphase, First Solar, and Vestas. I have some HASI which I plan to liquidate once I'm at the long-term mark.

There's gonna be ARKX (Ark's Space ETF) soon. The holdings were already released for the Japanese version. Oddly, Virgin Galactic wasn't in the top 5.

I'm surprised you're not high om ICLN. They have most of your holdings.

I've been looking at ICLN for my clean energy tilt. Pretty solid from what I can tell. QCLN is the other.

[N Y K]

I feel like rating our portfolios is better than talking about the Knicks trading for Derrick Rose. Here's mine, I use M1

Appl - 24%
Dis - 19%
QQQJ - 17%
QQQ - 15%
ARKF - 15%
VIG - 10%

I believe Disney is gonna dominate the streaming market (Marvel & Starwars) & they have espn for live sports. I have ARKF for fintech exposure. QQQ and VIG are my "safe" plays.

Apple has cash to burn and their positioned to do well even if they flop in the Electric Car market. QQQJ is for midcap exposure & you figure a few of their holdings will graduate into QQQ over the next 10 years.

I just started in January but putting in 75% of my paycheck every 2 weeks.

I've held Disney for awhile and see that one getting well over $200.

75% is a massive amount! Amazing job saving that.

Other individual stocks I'm either in or looking to get into next:

Own today:
SNAP
DIS
SNOW

still building positions in these and intend to hold for a LOOONG time...

Next up:
DOCU
CRM
SQ
SHOP
TWLO
SFIX
UBER

the ARK ETFs are also making a stronger case to be prioritized next though.

[Garbagelo]

ARKK
ARKF
ARKG
ARKQ
ARKW

and

IPO of course

and a VXX backspread in case chit hits the fan and dump at bottoms

rest in cash to buy the dip

Pretty much the only positions I hold

You are comfortable being in all ARK? You don't think it's too overvalued?

I was thinking about doing the same, but not sure how comfortable I am paying taxes to liquidate my current holdings to buy ARKs at these valuations. But I am buying more ARK with cash.

And by IPO, I'm guessing you mean the Chamath SPACs?

EDIT: I can't remember 100%, but there was a scare not too long ago about Cathie not having full control over ARK. I'm afraid something like that might actually happen in the future. I think everyone is buying ARK mostly because Cathie is at the helm.

I gotta research who's in line. She isn't old (65), but who knows. She could retire. Or lose control eventually.

IPO is from Renaissance, it is quite similar to the way Cathie runs ARK. Pretty much the WSB index, look at their holdings.

The ARK funds yes I am comfortable because they rebalance very often with tools that are too advanced for even me. Even if Cathie loses control, funds are ETFs and won't crash from one person.

Note, I am expecting a crash sooner or later so I will cash these out at some point.

[Stannis]

This sounds very familiar....

The S&P 500 closed up higher every day this week, finally landing at 3,508 on Friday, up over 2% from Monday’s close—notching what experts like Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst of product management at S&P Dow Jones Indices, call a “perfect week.” Since the index finally closed above its pre-pandemic high on Aug. 18, it has kept adding new gains. In fact, the S&P 500 booked a new all-time high on Friday for the sixth day in a row—”the longest such streak since six in a row in January 2018,” according to an LPL Financial research note Friday. Indeed, with one trading day to go left in August, it “would be the best August since 1986,” per LPL.

I plan to build up my cash positions if it's not already too late. I know we still have the gov't stimulus to go our way, and the printer is still going brrrrrrr... But it's better to exit early than late.

Thoughts?

[poeman]

I like VOO... and VXF... and VXUS... even some BND forever. Just wanted to interject with diversification and long-term investing in mind.

Yeah after the speculating on GME I am focused on research and innovation led ETFs under Cathie Wood. I got burned by keeping GME and took losses, it has made me want to learn more and dipping into ARK is my first step for longer term aggressive growth building

Yeah long term growth is important and do like what Cathie Wood seems to be doing. I will say that she does run with a pretty high expense ratio (actively managed fund, so that makes sense) and is poor from a tax efficiency perspective because of high turnover (so account type placement is probably important).

I personally would suggest a backbone to your investing with some of the passively invested, tax efficient, consistent market funds/ETFs like VOO, VTI, etc. And then layer in exposure to some of the higher growth stuff.

I lost a ton of money buying individual stocks (hello, drug trials!), then found modern portfolio theory, and it changed everything. As a result, I'm finally building a nice size portfolio. I never sell, only buy more, and then speculate with only what I'm willing to lose (which is 10% of the entire portfolio).

Said all of the above not knowing anything about your situation, so ignore if it's useless. Just putting it out there cause it helped me.

Very helpful.
I'm planning to hold ARK, curious what do you mean about the tax efficiency turnover bit? Please explain that to me. I know the expense ratio is high but they are worth it from innovation growth standpoint. I do want to have a mutual fund like FNILX or FXAIX etf or IVV/SPY to balance it out on the personal investing side. I agree about having a backbone so I will focus on stocks like VOO and VTI. Agree with you there.

But are you referring to ARK's tax efficiency on the .75% TER if I sell?

[poeman]

I feel like rating our portfolios is better than talking about the Knicks trading for Derrick Rose. Here's mine, I use M1

Appl - 24%
Dis - 19%
QQQJ - 17%
QQQ - 15%
ARKF - 15%
VIG - 10%

I believe Disney is gonna dominate the streaming market (Marvel & Starwars) & they have espn for live sports. I have ARKF for fintech exposure. QQQ and VIG are my "safe" plays.

Apple has cash to burn and their positioned to do well even if they flop in the Electric Car market. QQQJ is for midcap exposure & you figure a few of their holdings will graduate into QQQ over the next 10 years.

I just started in January but putting in 75% of my paycheck every 2 weeks.

I've held Disney for awhile and see that one getting well over $200.

75% is a massive amount! Amazing job saving that.

Other individual stocks I'm either in or looking to get into next:

Own today:
SNAP
DIS
SNOW

still building positions in these and intend to hold for a LOOONG time...

Next up:
DOCU
CRM
SQ
SHOP
TWLO
SFIX
UBER

the ARK ETFs are also making a stronger case to be prioritized next though.

I like Disney too and see it crossing $200.

Also, I think max savings in traditional, roth, etc is dependent on a person's living/family situation. Mortgages may make it tough for some to put everything into retirement. I worked in investment management on the marketing side and the big stat I pushed out was 72% of Americans dont have enough at all saved for retirement. I bet that number went up once covid hit.

[N Y K]

Yeah after the speculating on GME I am focused on research and innovation led ETFs under Cathie Wood. I got burned by keeping GME and took losses, it has made me want to learn more and dipping into ARK is my first step for longer term aggressive growth building

Yeah long term growth is important and do like what Cathie Wood seems to be doing. I will say that she does run with a pretty high expense ratio (actively managed fund, so that makes sense) and is poor from a tax efficiency perspective because of high turnover (so account type placement is probably important).

I personally would suggest a backbone to your investing with some of the passively invested, tax efficient, consistent market funds/ETFs like VOO, VTI, etc. And then layer in exposure to some of the higher growth stuff.

I lost a ton of money buying individual stocks (hello, drug trials!), then found modern portfolio theory, and it changed everything. As a result, I'm finally building a nice size portfolio. I never sell, only buy more, and then speculate with only what I'm willing to lose (which is 10% of the entire portfolio).

Said all of the above not knowing anything about your situation, so ignore if it's useless. Just putting it out there cause it helped me.

Very helpful.
I'm planning to hold ARK, curious what do you mean about the tax efficiency turnover bit? Please explain that to me. I know the expense ratio is high but they are worth it from innovation growth standpoint. I do want to have a mutual fund like FNILX or FXAIX etf or IVV/SPY to balance it out on the personal investing side. I agree about having a backbone so I will focus on stocks like VOO and VTI. Agree with you there.

But are you referring to ARK's tax efficiency on the .75% TER if I sell?

General guidance is the funds that trigger taxable events should be held in those tax advantaged accounts like Roth and Tax-Deferred accounts.

In the case of turnover, if a fund is buying and selling (turnover) often, it triggers short term (or long term) capital gains events that need to be paid. Funds that pay a lot of income in the form of dividend or fixed income also lead to taxable events. All of those can eat into returns. Placement of those types of funds in tax-advantaged accounts can help offset some of that.

Here's a cool wiki if you want to read more: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax-efficient_fund_placement

ARK isn't that bad honestly, I may've said the above to prematurely. I would probably hold these in a taxable account at the end of the day anyway.

[aq_ua]

This sounds very familiar....

The S&P 500 closed up higher every day this week, finally landing at 3,508 on Friday, up over 2% from Monday’s close—notching what experts like Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst of product management at S&P Dow Jones Indices, call a “perfect week.” Since the index finally closed above its pre-pandemic high on Aug. 18, it has kept adding new gains. In fact, the S&P 500 booked a new all-time high on Friday for the sixth day in a row—”the longest such streak since six in a row in January 2018,” according to an LPL Financial research note Friday. Indeed, with one trading day to go left in August, it “would be the best August since 1986,” per LPL.

I plan to build up my cash positions if it's not already too late. I know we still have the gov't stimulus to go our way, and the printer is still going brrrrrrr... But it's better to exit early than late.

Thoughts?

It is impossible to time the market, the odds are incredibly against you to make any money that way. If you're talking about rebalancing your portfolio as your equity weighting goes up, that's one thing, but selling with the expectation of buying back in when the market is down is really really risky and unlikely to work. Don't do it man, just let it ride and forget it exists.

[SA37]

Also, I think max savings in traditional, roth, etc is dependent on a person's living/family situation. Mortgages may make it tough for some to put everything into retirement. I worked in investment management on the marketing side and the big stat I pushed out was 72% of Americans dont have enough at all saved for retirement. I bet that number went up once covid hit.

I forget the average savings a person has for retirement in the US, but I want to say it is around $100k.

The big issue is that saving for retirement requires you start early and to consistently put at least 15-25% of your income towards retirement every month. Most people don't give retirement a thought until they get into their 30s and sometimes even later, mainly because people are so illiterate when it comes to finances. Outside of a a financial windfall, there is really nothing that can makeup for those lost years.

Still, even if you are aware of the the above, wages have been stagnant for ~40 years, jobs have been ultra precarious over the last ~15 years, those who do go to college are graduating later, and student debt has increased significantly over the last ~20 years or so. It is pretty difficult to imagine the average person being able to put away the kind of money you need to for retirement even if you start early. On top of that, people almost exclusively save for a down payment on a house and then, as you point out, have their mortgage payment which takes away from potential retirement savings. Then there are car payments and starting a family, two other big-ticket items -- and this assumes you never incur any debilitating healthcare costs.

When I was in HS my history teacher had a financial planner come in and talk to the class about saving for retirement and opening an IRA. He showed us the difference between opening your IRA at 18, 21 and 25 (I think with $1,000) and putting something like $50 a month into the IRA. By 65, the results were something like:

Started at 18 = $1.1M
Started at 21 = $875k
Started at 25 = $650k

It was an eye-opening experience, but given it was a one-off lesson, we never got any other kind of reinforcement on how to deal with money and how finances worked in general. Plus, while $50 was a low amount of money, a lot of us had more pressing issues, like saving to buy a car or saving for college; some had already spent their savings on cars and had to pay for the car, car insurance payments, gas, and any other entertainment expenses.

In that sense, retirement took a back seat to more immediate needs.

[aq_ua]

Also, I think max savings in traditional, roth, etc is dependent on a person's living/family situation. Mortgages may make it tough for some to put everything into retirement. I worked in investment management on the marketing side and the big stat I pushed out was 72% of Americans dont have enough at all saved for retirement. I bet that number went up once covid hit.

I forget the average savings a person has for retirement in the US, but I want to say it is around $100k.

The big issue is that saving for retirement requires you start early and to consistently put at least 15-25% of your income towards retirement every month. Most people don't give retirement a thought until they get into their 30s and sometimes even later, mainly because people are so illiterate when it comes to finances. Outside of a a financial windfall, there is really nothing that can makeup for those lost years.

Still, even if you are aware of the the above, wages have been stagnant for ~40 years, jobs have been ultra precarious over the last ~15 years, those who do go to college are graduating later, and student debt has increased significantly over the last ~20 years or so. It is pretty difficult to imagine the average person being able to put away the kind of money you need to for retirement even if you start early. On top of that, people almost exclusively save for a down payment on a house and then, as you point out, have their mortgage payment which takes away from potential retirement savings. Then there are car payments and starting a family, two other big-ticket items -- and this assumes you never incur any debilitating healthcare costs.

When I was in HS my history teacher had a financial planner come in and talk to the class about saving for retirement and opening an IRA. He showed us the difference between opening your IRA at 18, 21 and 25 (I think with $1,000) and putting something like $50 a month into the IRA. By 65, the results were something like:

Started at 18 = $1.1M
Started at 21 = $875k
Started at 25 = $650k

It was an eye-opening experience, but given it was a one-off lesson, we never got any other kind of reinforcement on how to deal with money and how finances worked in general. Plus, while $50 was a low amount of money, a lot of us had more pressing issues, like saving to buy a car or saving for college; some had already spent their savings on cars and had to pay for the car, car insurance payments, gas, and any other entertainment expenses.

In that sense, retirement took a back seat to more immediate needs.

I think a few of us have posted about the power of compounding interest earlier in this thread, but it is absolutely a real and powerful concept.

The numbers you've posted seem a bit off, but the point does stand. Starting with $1,000 and assuming $50 per month invested, with 7% annual returns, the math is as follows:

Start at 18: $221,600

Start at 21: $179,301

Start at 25: $134,756

The numbers become more startling when you start at say 30 years old vs. 18 years old.

Start at 30: $93,619

That's a 58% difference and would be even more pronounced if the annual returns were higher (S&P500 historically returns closer to 10% but I tend to discount that for conservativism and potential tax leakage).

[SA37]

Also, I think max savings in traditional, roth, etc is dependent on a person's living/family situation. Mortgages may make it tough for some to put everything into retirement. I worked in investment management on the marketing side and the big stat I pushed out was 72% of Americans dont have enough at all saved for retirement. I bet that number went up once covid hit.

I forget the average savings a person has for retirement in the US, but I want to say it is around $100k.

The big issue is that saving for retirement requires you start early and to consistently put at least 15-25% of your income towards retirement every month. Most people don't give retirement a thought until they get into their 30s and sometimes even later, mainly because people are so illiterate when it comes to finances. Outside of a a financial windfall, there is really nothing that can makeup for those lost years.

Still, even if you are aware of the the above, wages have been stagnant for ~40 years, jobs have been ultra precarious over the last ~15 years, those who do go to college are graduating later, and student debt has increased significantly over the last ~20 years or so. It is pretty difficult to imagine the average person being able to put away the kind of money you need to for retirement even if you start early. On top of that, people almost exclusively save for a down payment on a house and then, as you point out, have their mortgage payment which takes away from potential retirement savings. Then there are car payments and starting a family, two other big-ticket items -- and this assumes you never incur any debilitating healthcare costs.

When I was in HS my history teacher had a financial planner come in and talk to the class about saving for retirement and opening an IRA. He showed us the difference between opening your IRA at 18, 21 and 25 (I think with $1,000) and putting something like $50 a month into the IRA. By 65, the results were something like:

Started at 18 = $1.1M
Started at 21 = $875k
Started at 25 = $650k

It was an eye-opening experience, but given it was a one-off lesson, we never got any other kind of reinforcement on how to deal with money and how finances worked in general. Plus, while $50 was a low amount of money, a lot of us had more pressing issues, like saving to buy a car or saving for college; some had already spent their savings on cars and had to pay for the car, car insurance payments, gas, and any other entertainment expenses.

In that sense, retirement took a back seat to more immediate needs.

I think a few of us have posted about the power of compounding interest earlier in this thread, but it is absolutely a real and powerful concept.

The numbers you've posted seem a bit off, but the point does stand. Starting with $1,000 and assuming $50 per month invested, with 7% annual returns, the math is as follows:

Start at 18: $221,600

Start at 21: $179,301

Start at 25: $134,756

The numbers become more startling when you start at say 30 years old vs. 18 years old.

Start at 30: $93,619

That's a 58% difference and would be even more pronounced if the annual returns were higher (S&P500 historically returns closer to 10% but I tend to discount that for conservativism and potential tax leakage).

Yeah, I didn't run the numbers and the lesson was so long ago that I don't remember everything correctly, but I remember the "hook" being that we could be millionaires at 65 and the monthly payments were low enough they seemed affordable even to a kid like me.

The thing is, who has a good job with a high enough salary that they can save for some combination of a house, a car, a marriage, a kid, college tuition for a kid, and retirement by 30 or 35?

It's so difficult to do even if you start trying to save and invest at 18 and it is really, really easy to fall so far behind on a retirement plan and realize too late that those "lost years" will cost you the retirment you thought you might have.

[dakomish23]

IEA - a stock I just bought. If anyone is interested in a green energy pick. A little reading on it if anybody wants it

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/29/one-renewable-energy-stock-to-buy-and-one-to-avoid/

[dakomish23]

This sounds very familiar....

The S&P 500 closed up higher every day this week, finally landing at 3,508 on Friday, up over 2% from Monday’s close—notching what experts like Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst of product management at S&P Dow Jones Indices, call a “perfect week.” Since the index finally closed above its pre-pandemic high on Aug. 18, it has kept adding new gains. In fact, the S&P 500 booked a new all-time high on Friday for the sixth day in a row—”the longest such streak since six in a row in January 2018,” according to an LPL Financial research note Friday. Indeed, with one trading day to go left in August, it “would be the best August since 1986,” per LPL.

I plan to build up my cash positions if it's not already too late. I know we still have the gov't stimulus to go our way, and the printer is still going brrrrrrr... But it's better to exit early than late.

Thoughts?

It is impossible to time the market, the odds are incredibly against you to make any money that way. If you're talking about rebalancing your portfolio as your equity weighting goes up, that's one thing, but selling with the expectation of buying back in when the market is down is really really risky and unlikely to work. Don't do it man, just let it ride and forget it exists.

Better to buy in good companies with good management and good prospects and play the long game.

Boring is better than broke

[Stannis]

I put my HSA entirely in QQQM (pretty much QQQ with a slightly lower expense ratio). I don't look over my 401k or HSA much, so I think it's better to put them in a passive fund and not think about touching the money until I'm over 60.

401k is 45% SP500 Index, 35% Small/Mid Cap Index, and 20% International Index. I might change this fund to 33/33/33 since I have a HSA completely in the Nasdaq. And I don't buy much international stocks. And maybe I'll gradually add bonds once I am over 45.

[Stannis]

I don't get this weed boom... I thought all this was valued and then some when Biden got elected. Tilray + Apharia up insane amounts these last few weeks.

[bigfnjoe96]

I don't get this weed boom... I thought all this was valued and then some when Biden got elected. Tilray + Apharia up insane amounts these last few weeks.

WSB are now pumping weed stocks and just like that their all taking off not just Tilray. Check out SNDL. was literally .60 cents 2 weeks ago. It just closed at $3.50

FN crazy!!!

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

[bringbackhoffa]

Bumble ipo tomorrow, could they gain a similar market cap to Match in the years to come?

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

[N Y K]

I put my HSA entirely in QQQM (pretty much QQQ with a slightly lower expense ratio). I don't look over my 401k or HSA much, so I think it's better to put them in a passive fund and not think about touching the money until I'm over 60.

401k is 45% SP500 Index, 35% Small/Mid Cap Index, and 20% International Index. I might change this fund to 33/33/33 since I have a HSA completely in the Nasdaq. And I don't buy much international stocks. And maybe I'll gradually add bonds once I am over 45.

Just sucks that real returns on bonds are such crap lately. I know fed says rates will stay where they are for a bit, but oof...

I think about my bond position everyday and would love to stop adding to it, but allocation commitment rules all... maybe I'll move into short term treasuries instead of US bond market.

[ZKnicks]

I don't get this weed boom... I thought all this was valued and then some when Biden got elected. Tilray + Apharia up insane amounts these last few weeks.

WSB are now pumping weed stocks and just like that their all taking off not just Tilray. Check out SNDL. was literally .60 cents 2 weeks ago. It just closed at $3.50

FN crazy!!!

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

LOL I bought SNDL a two weeks back at 0.72 and totally forgot about it til I saw this. Nice!!!