Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[Shag]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah, I would agree that you're a bit too young for the CD strategy. Stocks are your friend.

I've become pretty diversified, and for the most part the "Magnificent Seven" has driven a lot of my returns. I'm doing okay on other stocks, but if I hadn't been invested in the Magnificent Seven I'd be far to the lesser in my balanced. At some point they have to slow down and the non-tech stocks should have a run, but it seems like mixing the two is a good tradeoff.

I've got probably 20 to 25 percent of my money in the Magnificent Seven, which I think is underweighted compared to the major indices. They've done great, but it's kind of scary to me to have too much in a few stocks so I'm slightly whittling them down now.

I should probably be more heavily invested in the M7, will probably throw some money that way, and mix in some ETFs. I've done pretty terribly in my brokerage "play" account, so individual stocks have become scarier, lol.

Originally Posted by EPodolak

There are quite a few good Vanguard ETF options. VTI is the one I'm invested in. Remember if you've only been in it a couple of years your results will consist of one good investing year and one bad one. The market for just about every leading ETF will look flat for that short window. Both VTI and VOO have returned 14-15% average the past five years. Can't really go too far wrong with either.

Good call out on that, with the market doing so well lately, I sometimes forget about the downturn recently.

[ChiliConCarnage]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

Fortunes will be made in 2024 if played right.


Crypto BULL RUN is REAL and just starting.

That'd be wonderful. I'd like to be fantastically wealthy. 2023 was surprisingly good. Let's keep that rolling!

Moved a bit of money over to my IRA account. I won't be able to max it until money frees up later this month.

[493rd]

I know a little about investing…just a little though. The market changed my life 18 years ago and it continues to pay me dividends today (no pun intended).

[Rain Man]

Time for my annual investing review, and it’s good news this year. If every year was like this, I would eventually buy my own island.

Total net worth up by 22.3 percent.
Total return on liquid investments up by 30.0 percent.

The difference between the two is that my house value decreased notably in 2023, according to Zillow estimates. Interest rates being high was not good for prices. But hey, it’s not like I’m planning to sell any time soon.

In terms of liquid investments, I’m not adjusting for purchases or sales. I’m just looking at totals that include those. I don’t make big moves at all, though. I’m pretty much a buy and hold with tiny adjustments.

The returns of my top ten holdings at the beginning of the year:
GOOG 57.1%
MSFT 57.8%
AMZN 77.0%
AAPL 54.4%
NVDA 246.0%
CVX -10.2%
IHI 3.1%
BX 74.5%
AMD 130.3%
FTANX 9.3%

At the beginning of the year, these ten holdings were 23.5 percent of my investment holdings. My returns were spectacular with 7 of the 10 going up more than 50 percent. Pretty freaking amazing.

I had some other big winners over the year, so my top ten at the end of the year changed a bit as some other stocks grew. I’m a little more concentrated now as my top ten are now 24.9 percent of my holdings. You’ll see a lot of “Magnificent Seven” on this list.

NVDA 246,0%
GOOG 57.1%
MSFT 57.8%
AMZN 77.0%
AAPL 54.4%
AMD 130.3%
BX 74.5%
PSX 34.9%
QCOM 37.1%
NVO 51.6%

In short, my three year-starting holdings that weren’t up 50 percent dropped off my top ten list, replaced by other holdings that had great years. CVX, IHI, and FTANX fell off the top ten, replaced by PSX, QCOM, and NVO. NVDA is a big story, shooting up to become my largest holding, while AMD moved up from #9 to #6.

However, I’ve been buying CDs like crazy, and collectively they now represent 19.2 percent of my holdings, up from about 5.6 percent last year. With an average annual return of 5.2 percent, they’re going to be my anti-anxiety strategy for the next few years. Even if they underperform the market the next few years, they’re above my needed rate of return, and if there’s a down market they’re going to prop it up quite well.

My top ten stocks in terms of returns totaled 11.2 percent of my holdings at the end of the year, and all were up more than 100 percent. At the beginning of the year, they were 6.5 percent. I let the winners ride, and it was awesome. ANF (Abercrombie & Fitch) has had an astounding run. I've owned it for a long time and I read a few years ago when the stock was down that they were making great long-term decisions that would have an impact eventually. They were right.

You’ll see two cruise lines on the list. I rode them all the way down in 2020, so I’m still down on CUK, but believe it or not, I’m back to my 2020 level on RCL.

TSLA has been a wild ride. I’m massively up on it from my purchase price, though I’m down from my peak a couple of years ago. I’m still up roughly 600 percent overall on TSLA.

I have to call out HCI, too – it’s a home insurance company that’s done well for me for years.

Most of these are above my dollar limit for buying more, so I’m just holding. A few still have room for buying more, and I’ve been adding tiny amounts to them.

ANF 273.8%
NVDA 246.0%
META 183.8%
RCL 165.8%
CRWD 147.2%
CUK 137.8%
AMD 130.3%
TSLA 129.9%
HCI 122.4%
PANW 113.0%

My bottom ten stocks in terms of returns totaled 1.8 percent of my holdings at the end of the year. At the beginning of the year, they were 4.4 percent. One thing I was pretty good at this year was not chasing losers.

I’ve given up on SILC and RMCF and am selling them off. FF is on thin ice, but I’m waiting since they had a huge one-time dividend last year that would get them to breakeven. It would be nice if something similiar will happen soon, but I'm losing hope.

I stayed too late at the MRNA & PFE party, so I’m just holding them. ALB is a past big winner that had a drawback due to some international stuff. If I was a gambler I might buy more MPW, but I’m not a gambler. It’s my biggest dollar disaster the past couple of years. It was a great low-risk stock until suddenly it became a high-risk stock.

SILC -57.5%
MPW -57.4%
MRNA -44.4%
PFE -43.8%
ALB -32.6%
FF -29.6%
YUMC -24.8%
IFF -23.4%
GIS -21.7%
RMCF -18.5%

[lewdog]

Great analysis, Rainman! You beat the index which is hard to do in an up year. Great ****ing job, you hit some big winners.

My total investment accounts were up 25% for the year, which sits right about at the index.

[Buehler445]

Huh. I had no idea Abercrombie boarded a rocket ship.

WTF did they do so right? Go to an all-internet setup or something? I looked on their website, and it sure looks like a bunch of generic overpriced young people stuff. That's ****ing incredible.

Well done on that one. That wasn't even in the neighborhood of my radar.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Great analysis, Rainman! You beat the index which is hard to do in an up year. Great ****ing job, you hit some big winners.

My total investment accounts were up 25% for the year, which sits right about at the index.

I was apparently a bit overweighted in Nasdaq stocks.

I was trying to find my summary last year, and was pretty sure I'd done it, but I don't see it. Maybe I was too depressed.

I figured I was mostly just getting back last year's losses, but it looks like last year I was only down 11 percent by year end. That's way better than I thought. So 2023 really put me ahead of the game.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Huh. I had no idea Abercrombie boarded a rocket ship.

WTF did they do so right? Go to an all-internet setup or something? I looked on their website, and it sure looks like a bunch of generic overpriced young people stuff. That's ****ing incredible.

Well done on that one. That wasn't even in the neighborhood of my radar.

It's been probably three or four years since I read the article. I don't remember exactly, and I have no expertise in retail to even understand, but it seemed like stuff that a retailer should always do. I think it was stuff like reorganizing their floors, shutting some underperforming stores, and backroom stuff like inventory systems. I just remember the article saying that they were going to take some hits in the short term, but they were going to pay off in the long term. I'd taken a hit on it, but I decided to hold it and got rewarded handsomely this year. In the short term, I guess their sales and profits and forecasts have been great, so the changes have had tangible results.

I don't remember how long ago he left, but it helped that they got rid of a moronic CEO. The guy flat-out said that they sized their clothes so that overweight people couldn't buy them, because they wanted to be the brand that only cool people wore. Now, maybe that's a viable strategy and maybe it isn't, but you sure as heck don't tell the public about it. It caused a big kerfluffle and the brand started going down the tubes. A new CEO came in who is apparently very knowledgeable and well regarded, and she reversed it and made the changes that are now well regarded.

Heh. Wikipedia has the quote that got the old CEO fired.

That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don't market to anyone other than that. ... In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

Guess what Rainman ????

2024 is going to be even better. Hang on tight!

If 2024 is better than 2023, I'll be able to buy my own fork and spoon. No more ordering Chinese just to get the chopsticks.

[Buehler445]

I hadn't seen this anywhere and thought it was pretty interesting.

[Rain Man]

So I have a $200,000 error in my favor right now, or kind of.

I bought a $2,000 CD a while back, which was 2 shares at $1,000 each. My portfolio total is correct, but when I drill into individual investments, my fixed income total is really high even though the overall total adds up. After some investigation, it's showing that I own 200 shares at $1,000 each. I like that interest accrual.

I assume it'll get fixed soon, but it's kind of tempting to sell it all off.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

So I have a $200,000 error in my favor right now, or kind of.

I bought a $2,000 CD a while back, which was 2 shares at $1,000 each. My portfolio total is correct, but when I drill into individual investments, my fixed income total is really high even though the overall total adds up. After some investigation, it's showing that I own 200 shares at $1,000 each. I like that interest accrual.

I assume it'll get fixed soon, but it's kind of tempting to sell it all off.

They randomly dropped $34,000 into my IRA with T Rowe Price back in 2020. I just let it ride hoping they’d let that interest accrue for 35 years until retirement and be set but unfortunately they must have noticed and corrected it after about 4 months or so.

Twas a sad, sad day.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

They randomly dropped $34,000 into my IRA with T Rowe Price back in 2020. I just let it ride hoping they’d let that interest accrue for 35 years until retirement and be set but unfortunately they must have noticed and corrected it after about 4 months or so.

Twas a sad, sad day.

I hate it when they find those errors.

Did they gift you some shares of something? Dump in some cash? How did the money appear?

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I hate it when they find those errors.

Did they gift you some shares of something? Dump in some cash? How did the money appear?

I am pretty ignorant in most things investing so I can’t say for sure.

It was a traditional IRA with T Rowe Price. All I know is that it was a very new account, a rollover of a 401k from a job I didn’t even stay at for a year so there was only a few thousand in it. I’ve read that you can purchase shares with money you have invested in IRAs but I just let them do their thing. I assume someone manages it for you because it rises and falls just like my brokerage account..?

Anyway, I just remember logging in to look one day and there was an additional $34k in the account. It seemed to just be added to the total already there so let’s say I had like $5k in it one day. The next day I logged in it read $39k. It was pretty cool.

But yeah, someone must have noticed the error after a few months and one day I logged back in and it was gone from whence it came. That was a sad day. I enjoyed seeing the daily interest gains on the account with that much more money in it.

Funny enough, you can still see the major spike (and subsequent fall) on the graph on the front page. Every time I log in I’m reminded of what could have been..

[Rain Man]

Okay, they took my $200,000 back. I'm disappointed, but I understand.