Investment advice

Thinking long term future here. Been watching a lot of YouTube of people being terrible with their finances and others of investment advices. But most videos only say invest. Not how.

the only one I’m kind of familiar with is fidelity. Any other companies you guys go with?

And some videos say to play it the safe, long term route such as spy, QQQ, Schd, vti, voo, and QQQM.

any more advice would be helpful. Thanks.

 

I’ll start with the fact that I’m a financial advisor.

That being said, I’m not going to give you advice on how to invest. One thing I’ll tell you is QQQ and QQQM are the exact same fund but QQQM is cheaper for you. QQQ is an outdated type of investment called a Unit Investment Trust (UIT) and M is a standard Exchange Traded Fund that has lower internal expenses.

Now, the only real advice I’ll give you is go meet with a few Financial Advisors in your area. See what they have to say and move the money to the one you feel will serve you the best. Take their advice or let them do it and relax!

Plenty of people do it themselves, but there is a reason the average investor in the US has about a 3% annual return average when the market averages 10%+… they make emotional mistakes. It’s not what they buy or when they buy it - it’s when they sell. An advisor is worth their weight or gold if they can convince you to stick to the plan.

I’m with Edward Jones - we have advisors in every state and virtually every city, but there are lots of really good advising firms out there these days.

Best of luck!

 

I’ll look into local financial advisors. Any tips on what kinda of questions to ask to differentiate between the good and not so good ones?

 

We use Edward Jones as well. Immediately started us with a Roth IRA, $7000 annually each (me & spouse), and it went on from there. We are hands off and leave it to her.

 

I’d start by asking what they are good at. Do they have a specialty? If they name 15 things… they don’t have a specialty.

Ask them what types of fee structures they have, and have them explain what you get for each different structure.

Ask them if they have a strategy for when the market is down - this should be something you talk about and they prepare you for before it ever happens. The hay is in the barn before the market ever dips.

Other than that, just ask them about themselves to get a sense of this is someone you want to work with for the long term.

Before you invest any money with them, understand what it would take to get your money out if you wanted to make a change and go somewhere else.

 

forget the financial advisors, open an mutual fund or ETF account in Vanguard, American Century, Janus Henderson or any other top notch mutual fund company. Usually the entry fee is around $3000. Mutual funds are much safer than stocks because mutual funds invest in many different sectors, banking, retail, energy, techonolgy, so they invest in dozens of top tier companys so it is almost impossible to lose all your money. However if you invest in a single commpany stock you better know what you are doing because if the company goes under your money is gone. I have one mutual fund Vanguard 500 and it is up about 27%. The Janus Henderson Research fund is up over 30% this year. Average mutual fund peformance is 8-12% a year.

 

Seriously, this.

Unless you're getting close to retirement and need to diversify or have special circumstances, pick a brokerage and start buying index funds with low fees. No need to give your money to an adviser.

 

Vanguard is a huge one. Do some research on “indexing”. Warren buffet, the man himself, said they should remove the Bronze Bull from Wall Street and setup a statue to John Bogle.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/01/16...dual-investor-than-anyone-hes-ever-known.html


As for financial advisors, read this:

https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/fiduciary-vs-financial-advisor#:~:text=Generally, commission-based advisors are,the advisor, costs can vary.

Probably give this a read

https://www.fool.com/investing/how-to-invest/index-funds/why-invest/

whatever you do, don’t start trading stocks yourself (day trading) that’s a losing game. Open some index funds with low expense ratios that are well diversified and setup a monthly addition to it. You’re shooting for low fee, dollar cost averaging, with compound interest over longer term horizons.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dollarcostaveraging.asp

 

this did me well:

index fund

dividend fund

I use Schwab - since '93.

 

You just missed a hell of a week for Toyota.

 

This book sums up the theme in this thread.

JL Collins - The Simple Path to Wealth

 

Now, I will be ornery.

on a 10yr+ timeline, which of these investment gurus/financial advisors have outperformed an S&P Index fund?

few, if any.

and, these investment guys/firms want ~1% of your shit - no matter what. EVERY YEAR.



I'll save you about $100k:
start young...and continue to put money in your index funds.


if you are old...it's too late.

 

Just about all of my “actual” retirement funds - IRAs, 401k, etc. go into pretty “boring” things like the aforementioned Vanguard funds.

I have a much smaller casino account that I play trader with, but it’s money I can afford to go to zero. To no one’s surprise, other than a few outliers the boring stuff does much better.

 

Define "old"

 

for financial shit...50's

 

VTSAX and chill.

For reference:

https://www.bogleheads.org/

Broadly diversified, low cost index funds. Buy and hold. Fees matter.

 

and!!!!

as Elon recently said:

$10k in increased earnings is exponentially easier than +10k in returns.

so, go hustle.

 

This guy gets it

 

Thanks everyone. Very confusing when you never went to school for it or bothered to look in to it. So 1 share of Toyota would cost $200? Think I’ll stick to portfolios.

 

Index funds. Stick to index funds.

 

I'm going to break with the status-quo here. I say don't pay attention to what the wealthy say, pay attention to what they actually do. Why is Buffet now sitting on a mountain of cash, and why have the central banks of governments around the world been buying gold in obscene amounts? Especially, but not limited to, China? Common sense should tell every man what he needs to know...

 

Vanguards own research says an advisor is worth 1-3% per year simply for keeping you from selling when the market is down.

Broadly diversified portfolios don’t beat the S&P, but there certainly are quite a few individual funds that have beat the S&P over the years.

If you want someone to handle it for you, the 1% is worth it.

If you want to avoid making emotional mistakes with your wealth, the 1% is worth it.

If you think you and an advisor can make at least a 1% difference between performance, tax planning, retirement income planning, and estate planning, the 1% is worth it.

If none of those things are relevant to you, buy your IVV or VOO and sit on your hands!

 

Lookin at these share prices feels like having to pay the buy in because you came late to the poker game

 

Time IN the market beats TIMING the market.