Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by scho63

It's a complete oxymoron in this environment.

You realize that if you have $20,000 in an emergency fund and you are deciding between a .025% and a 1% fund it's all kind of bullshit and time for about $175 if you left it there for the entire year?

Don't be so short sided.

Buy a short term corporate bond for a much better yield

Yeah, a short term bond is probably my suggestion, too. A high yield online savings account like those lew linked would be a good option too.


But really, if we're only talking about a year, it's not going to matter much.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by scho63

It's a complete oxymoron in this environment.

You realize that if you have $20,000 in an emergency fund and you are deciding between a .025% and a 1% fund it's all kind of bullshit and time for about $175 if you left it there for the entire year?

Don't be so short sided.

Buy a short term corporate bond for a much better yield

Originally Posted by DaFace

Yeah, a short term bond is probably my suggestion, too. A high yield online savings account like those lew linked would be a good option too.


But really, if we're only talking about a year, it's not going to matter much.

I'm torn between understanding that, and wanting the money to be very safe. I realized bond funds are fairly safe, but parking money in there does have a chance to go down.

Here's a 5 star Vanguard short term corporate bond Index. Had I parked money in there 5 years ago, it would have gained only .6% in those 5 years.
And at some point had I needed the money, I could be selling some bonds while they are down. That can't happen in a 1% interest savings account. Bonds to me seem a bit shaky with interest rates sure to rise over the next decade. I'm not sure there's a great play there to park emergency savings unless you guys had something I'm missing?

http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/...&culture=en-US

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I'm torn between understanding that, and wanting the money to be very safe. I realized bond funds are fairly safe, but parking money in there does have a chance to go down.

Here's a 5 star Vanguard short term corporate bond Index. Had I parked money in there 5 years ago, it would have gained only .6% in those 5 years.
And at some point had I needed the money, I could be selling some bonds while they are down. That can't happen in a 1% interest savings account. Bonds to me seem a bit shaky with interest rates sure to rise over the next decade. I'm not sure there's a great play there to park emergency savings unless you guys had something I'm missing?

http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/...&culture=en-US

Buying a 1 year bond is different than buying a bond with the intention of selling it. If you hold to maturity, you won't lose value (assuming the issuer doesn't go under or something). A 1 year CD is another similar option.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Buying a 1 year bond is different than buying a bond with the intention of selling it. If you hold to maturity, you won't lose value (assuming the issuer doesn't go under or something). A 1 year CD is another similar option.

I guess I'll clarify.

I want to park our emergency savings where they are still fairly liquid. Like if our AC goes out and needs replacement in the next few years, I take can take $10k from it and pay cash.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I guess I'll clarify.

I want to park our emergency savings where they are still fairly liquid. Like if our AC goes out and needs replacement in the next few years, I take can take $10k from it and pay cash.

Sorry, I just realized that scho was quoting you rather than Tiny. I agree, emergency funds are better in savings. I was thinking of him parking money for a few years until he buys a place again.

[ChiliConCarnage]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Anyone have any good recommendations for higher paying Savings Accounts? I am looking to move our emergency savings into a savings account that gets 1%+ interest. Good for an extra few hundred dollars a year which is better than my current savings account.

This is the best I have found on the subject.

http://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/ear...ounts275921001

Or any other ideas?

I've been at Ally for years. Put an amount in liquid savings and the real emergency amount in CD form. If you need to brake glass and use it, it costs at worst a couple months of interest.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by ChiliConCarnage

I've been at Ally for years. Put an amount in liquid savings and the real emergency amount in CD form. If you need to brake glass and use it, it costs at worst a couple months of interest.

Ok. What's the penalty on a CD for cashing it before maturity?

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by ChiliConCarnage

I've been at Ally for years. Put an amount in liquid savings and the real emergency amount in CD form. If you need to brake glass and use it, it costs at worst a couple months of interest.

Dang....they have a no penalty 11 month maturity CD that gives 1.50% for $25k deposit. I might just give that one a go. You can cash out 6 days after funding and pay no penalty and keep any interest gained. Interest is compounded daily. That's quite good.

https://www.ally.com/bank/no-penalty-cd/

[Demonpenz]

[eDave]

Think I'm going to invest in gift cards now.

[Cornstock]

Originally Posted by Demonpenz

This might be my first ever youtube shoutout...

[scho63]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I'm torn between understanding that, and wanting the money to be very safe. I realized bond funds are fairly safe, but parking money in there does have a chance to go down.

Not a FUND but buy a individual corporate bonds with a short term maturity, you can stagger them on maturity maybe 5K each year.

[scho63]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Buying a 1 year bond is different than buying a bond with the intention of selling it. If you hold to maturity, you won't lose value (assuming the issuer doesn't go under or something). A 1 year CD is another similar option.

Let me help you with one little caveat here: if you buy a bond today trading ABOVE par, (greater than $1,000 face for each bond), you will lose principal but the interest earned will cover the capital loss. Unless you buy a German government negative yield bond, the craziest shit I've ever seen.

If you had a 15 year 12% interest corporate bond issued back in 2004 that was to mature in 2019, it might cost $1,225 for each $1,000 face. So you lose some principal upon maturity but the interest payments provide a positive return.

You have COUPON YIELD, CURRENT YIELD and you have YIELD TO MATURITY to take into consideration whenever you buy any bonds.

[lewdog]

I originally was going to move some money over to that "high" interest CD offered with Allybank, but then realized we weren't set to max our Roth IRAs this year. Especially my wife's Roth which I can further add $3k to for the rest of the year. After those are maxed I am also maxing out my HSA for the year. I think these are better uses for the money than parking it in the high interest CD, but I'll consider it later for the bulk of our savings that we keep in cash in the form of an emergency fund.

[lewdog]

Would be curious if anyone else wouldn't mind sharing their individual stock picking success this year. I'm here to show it's ****ing hard! I opened my first brokerage account to start this year. All the things you read discuss the difficulty in beating the market with individual stock picking. Something like 5% of individual investors are successful in this. It's why there's so much talk about passively investing most of your money in mutual funds and index funds that track sectors of the market.

My brokerage account has 5% of my total invested money, so not a lot. I also chose some fairly risky investments across the board but that can technically be true of much of individual stock picking it seems. However, the percentage growth on the stocks in it and the portfolio overall is somewhat interesting when comparing to the great year the market has had.

My 401k/Roth IRA combined has gained 17.8% year to date.

Here's the current stocks I own and percentage of gains/loses for the year:
X- US Steel+28.86%
UA- Under Armour -15.76%
TWMJF- Canopy Growth +2.27%
UBQU- Ubiquitech Software Corp -62.50% (total penny stock. I bought when shares hit $.02-I don't have a lot of cash in this but quite a few shares given it's price)
PEMIF- Pure Energy Minerals Ltd +22.47

Total Growth +1.31%

So pretty big swings on almost all those stocks! It's definitely a learning curve and I think in future purchases I'll be selecting more stalwart companies Obviously pales in comparison to my retirement accounts.

Recent considering Ford stock due to the yearly dividends they always pay out. The stock itself has always been a rather dud with few swings/gains, but it's paid a yearly dividend from 4.6%-7.2% every year no matter what (I find this amazing coming from an automaker!). That seems somewhat attractive.