Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[rydogg58]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I've never quite figured out how that works. It seems logical that you could take $XX and invest it in twelve different stocks that each pay out a dividend on a different month, and pretty much have a guaranteed high return. But that's so obvious that I have to think that the market corrects for it.

It seems that the common theory is that a stock price naturally fluctuates to take into account the fact that a dividend is about to be paid, and it does so in a way that corrects for the differences. That seems kind of suspicious to me, because it still seems like you could take advantage of that since it's a known future change in the stock price. But I've never studied it to see if there's a predictable change. Maybe I should, but it seems that if there was something that simple and predictable, Wall Street would be all over it.

Short answer: I don't know, and it's a good question. It seems like there should be a way to game the system, but I suspect there's some rule that keeps us from doing it.

From what I recall, the stock price will drop by the amount of the quarterly dividend payout amount the last day you are eliguble to get a dividend. As far as I know, there is no set amount of time you have to own the stock, other than 2 business days prior to that date.

I bought Coke stock a day or 2 before this last dividend payment which was on 7/1 and still got the dividend payment on it.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

[QUOTE=rydogg58;14337433]From what I recall, the stock price will drop by the amount of the quarterly dividend payout amount the last day you are eliguble to get a dividend. As far as I know, there is no set amount of time you have to own the stock, other than 2 business days prior to that date.

I bought Coke stock a day or 2 before this last dividend payment which was on 7/1 and still got the dividend payment on it.[/QUOTE

But the stock price is determined by investors buy and sell orders. Right???

[rydogg58]

[QUOTE=Hog's Gone Fishin;14337437]

Originally Posted by rydogg58

From what I recall, the stock price will drop by the amount of the quarterly dividend payout amount the last day you are eliguble to get a dividend. As far as I know, there is no set amount of time you have to own the stock, other than 2 business days prior to that date.

I bought Coke stock a day or 2 before this last dividend payment which was on 7/1 and still got the dividend payment on it.[/QUOTE

But the stock price is determined by investors buy and sell orders. Right???

Sure, but this is all over my head, so it may have something to do with the SEC. There's money to be made with dividend stocks, but buying them and selling as soon as the dividend is paid doesn't seem to be the smartest way to go. Or else we would all be rich off a guaranteed payout amount every quarter.

[lewdog]

The stock price drops by the amount the dividend is paid out on the execution day.

That's why it makes no sense to buy a dividend stock to hold through payment and then dump it.

[TinyEvel]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I'm batting a thousand.

Etrade has been a shit in my pants so far. Every single stock I've purchased so far is down between 30 and 58%.

Good times.

When did you buy them? Most stocks we have are up like 30% since December. Yeah we bought a lot of them more than a year ago, so they went down through the end of 2018. But they've all mostly bounced back and my wife made a genius move to buy Beyond at $80 and we doubled that in a month. Lucky.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by lewdog

The stock price drops by the amount the dividend is paid out on the execution day.

That's why it makes no sense to buy a dividend stock to hold through payment and then dump it.

You're partially correct, just a minor correction of the word "drop".

A stock has what is called "Ex-dividend date", normally one BUSINESS day prior to the RECORD date of the dividend being paid.

The stock is ADJUSTED downward for the price of the dividend on EX day, so if you buy it on EX day up to RECORD day, you get NO dividend.

If you buy either Municipal Bonds or Corporate Bonds, it works very different.

They calculate the amount of ACCRUED interest since the last payment (bond payments are paid twice a year, biannual) and then the purchaser of the bond pays the seller the amount of accrued interest up to the record date and then when they get the FULL biannual payment on the next record date, they will have received the correct amount for the time they owned the bond.

As an example, if you had a bond that was a Jan-July payment cycle known as a "1&7" that you bought on Feb 1st, you would owe the seller the interest from Jan 1st until Jan 31st and it would be added to the price of the bond upon purchase.

[Young9Cothinho]

I wish I had some savings and 401k. It's tough to have fun on a budget that doesn't include booze, strippers, and gambling. At the same time, the stuff I've read suggests that that isn't necessarily the optimal approach either. If you buy today, you really have no idea if it'll continue to slide (in which case you should've waited even longer), and if you buy tomorrow, you might have lost out on any gains that happened today.

[arrowheadnation]

Everytime I see this thread get bumped to the top I think, "I'm going to ask if anyone might have advice for my dad." and I never do....until today.

I'll try to avoid writing a book as best as possible. My dad is a 67 year old widower. He worked as a manual laborer at a cattle feedlot all of his life so no 401K, no retirement, nothing. He still works there, but is planning to retire in the next couple months. He gets social security and his rent (which has not moved since the 1980's is still $125/mo.) So his monthly bills/obligations are not too big. He doesn't tell me a whole lot about his financial situation, just bits and pieces here and there. I do know he has a modest savings (probably in the mid five figures) that he believes will "get him bye until he dies." He currently has a pretty large chunk of that savings "in the stock market." I believe this is actually in some sort of an IRA with Edward Jones. My question for those on here is: his Edward Jones rep told him he could pull his money out and put it into an annuity where he would get a check for roughly $300/mo. for the remainder of his life, but after death, that money is gone. I wanted to see if this was correct and if there were better options for him. He keeps telling me he's going to "get his money out of the stock market," but each time he meets with Edward Jones, they talk him out of it. I know my question isn't clear, but I guess I'm just looking for recommendations from people who have been there or have some knowledge in this area. Thanks in advance. Sorry, I tried to keep it short.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by arrowheadnation

Everytime I see this thread get bumped to the top I think, "I'm going to ask if anyone might have advice for my dad." and I never do....until today.

I'll try to avoid writing a book as best as possible. My dad is a 67 year old widower. He worked as a manual laborer at a cattle feedlot all of his life so no 401K, no retirement, nothing. He still works there, but is planning to retire in the next couple months. He gets social security and his rent (which has not moved since the 1980's is still $125/mo.) So his monthly bills/obligations are not too big. He doesn't tell me a whole lot about his financial situation, just bits and pieces here and there. I do know he has a modest savings (probably in the mid five figures) that he believes will "get him bye until he dies." He currently has a pretty large chunk of that savings "in the stock market." I believe this is actually in some sort of an IRA with Edward Jones. My question for those on here is: his Edward Jones rep told him he could pull his money out and put it into an annuity where he would get a check for roughly $300/mo. for the remainder of his life, but after death, that money is gone. I wanted to see if this was correct and if there were better options for him. He keeps telling me he's going to "get his money out of the stock market," but each time he meets with Edward Jones, they talk him out of it. I know my question isn't clear, but I guess I'm just looking for recommendations from people who have been there or have some knowledge in this area. Thanks in advance. Sorry, I tried to keep it short.

Paragraphs are your friend........

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by arrowheadnation

Everytime I see this thread get bumped to the top I think, "I'm going to ask if anyone might have advice for my dad." and I never do....until today.

I'll try to avoid writing a book as best as possible. My dad is a 67 year old widower. He worked as a manual laborer at a cattle feedlot all of his life so no 401K, no retirement, nothing. He still works there, but is planning to retire in the next couple months. He gets social security and his rent (which has not moved since the 1980's is still $125/mo.) So his monthly bills/obligations are not too big. He doesn't tell me a whole lot about his financial situation, just bits and pieces here and there. I do know he has a modest savings (probably in the mid five figures) that he believes will "get him bye until he dies." He currently has a pretty large chunk of that savings "in the stock market." I believe this is actually in some sort of an IRA with Edward Jones. My question for those on here is: his Edward Jones rep told him he could pull his money out and put it into an annuity where he would get a check for roughly $300/mo. for the remainder of his life, but after death, that money is gone. I wanted to see if this was correct and if there were better options for him. He keeps telling me he's going to "get his money out of the stock market," but each time he meets with Edward Jones, they talk him out of it. I know my question isn't clear, but I guess I'm just looking for recommendations from people who have been there or have some knowledge in this area. Thanks in advance. Sorry, I tried to keep it short.

So annuities are definitely a thing. Unfortunately, they're not a thing I'm terribly familiar with. They are generally offered by insurance companies. It's basically a mathematical computation to them -- you give them X, and based on your life expectancy etc. they will pay you Y dollars per month, every month, until you die.

At 67 if in reasonable health he should be looking to support himself for maybe 20 years. His biggest likely costs are health-related and housing, if anything happens to that sweet essentially no-rent situation he has. He presumably has Medicaid/Medicare (programs I am not familiar with), but may want to look into supplemental insurance (sometimes call Medigap) for the things Medicare won't pay for.

As to staying in the market or not -- for his anticipated life expectancy, he should be in the market to some degree, though obviously with a focus on capital preservation and income generation rather than the straight growth I'm often promoting on here for people who have 20+ years of anticipated work-life in front of them.

Hope that helps.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Young9Cothinho

I wish I had some savings and 401k. It's tough to have fun on a budget that doesn't include booze, strippers, and gambling. At the same time, the stuff I've read suggests that that isn't necessarily the optimal approach either. If you buy today, you really have no idea if it'll continue to slide (in which case you should've waited even longer), and if you buy tomorrow, you might have lost out on any gains that happened today.

errr...sure, but this "shrug, my timing might be bad" approach is a completely ****ed up way of thinking about it. So you wilL NEVER invest in stocks because the timing MIGHT be bad? That's your approach? Well, your approach is idiotic if so.

Start small, and start with the obvious stuff:

1. If you company offers a 401(k) with matching, THEN ****ING TAKE THE FREE MONEY. You should put in at least enough to get the match. Because you're investing pre-tax dollars, the take-home hit is less than the amount you put in.

2. If not, then open an IRA and at least put in what you can, even if it's only a small amount per week. You can weigh Roth vs traditional, but at least START for God's sake.


Nobody is going to save your ass in retirement. Social Security will likely exist in some form, but you dont' want to bet your life on it being what you need, or enough for you. You have to start somewhere, and sometime. NOW IS THAT TIME.

Sure, it might go down. But I'm assuming based on your post you have 30+ years of work in front of you. Who the **** cares if the market dips for a while? You think in 2050 you'll be moaning that you didn't get the timing of your 2019 investments right? When it's some small, starter, amount per week or whatever? Yeah, no.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by rydogg58

From what I recall, the stock price will drop by the amount of the quarterly dividend payout amount the last day you are eliguble to get a dividend. As far as I know, there is no set amount of time you have to own the stock, other than 2 business days prior to that date.

I bought Coke stock a day or 2 before this last dividend payment which was on 7/1 and still got the dividend payment on it.

Sure, but the dividend is factored into the price as of the ex-dividend date, so you aren't getting any kind of windfall.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Young9Cothinho

I wish I had some savings and 401k. It's tough to have fun on a budget that doesn't include booze, strippers, and gambling. At the same time, the stuff I've read suggests that that isn't necessarily the optimal approach either. If you buy today, you really have no idea if it'll continue to slide (in which case you should've waited even longer), and if you buy tomorrow, you might have lost out on any gains that happened today.

If you put the booze and gambling money into investments, you'll still be getting lap dances from 21 year old strippers when you're 70. That's called the 'time value of money'.

[rydogg58]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Sure, but the dividend is factored into the price as of the ex-dividend date, so you aren't getting any kind of windfall.

Yeah, I know. I was just letting Hog know how long you had to own the stock before getting a dividend payment.

[arrowheadnation]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

So annuities are definitely a thing. Unfortunately, they're not a thing I'm terribly familiar with. They are generally offered by insurance companies. It's basically a mathematical computation to them -- you give them X, and based on your life expectancy etc. they will pay you Y dollars per month, every month, until you die.

At 67 if in reasonable health he should be looking to support himself for maybe 20 years. His biggest likely costs are health-related and housing, if anything happens to that sweet essentially no-rent situation he has. He presumably has Medicaid/Medicare (programs I am not familiar with), but may want to look into supplemental insurance (sometimes call Medigap) for the things Medicare won't pay for.

As to staying in the market or not -- for his anticipated life expectancy, he should be in the market to some degree, though obviously with a focus on capital preservation and income generation rather than the straight growth I'm often promoting on here for people who have 20+ years of anticipated work-life in front of them.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't being taken for a ride by some commission hungry college grad working for Edward Jones. He's reluctant to go the annuity route because he feels some moral/paternal obligation to "leave me something" when he's gone (I'm an only child). I keep telling him not to worry about it because I have a 401k and a pension, but he's old fashioned. I just want him to be able to be comfortable aka pay his bills & have a little left over for recreation/fun/travel/etc.