• DCRC 2024

I just opened a Roth IRA, and am ready to invest in the stock market

Unimog

Unimog

Eric
Location
Stansbury Park, UT
Interesting to watch and I dabble a little at investing, but to be fair, with the money I depend on for retirement, I'm a very boring investor. I put most into safe index funds that have a threshold of minimum return and follow the index up to some maximum return, like 18-20%. The analysis I have done is that most people can make pretty good money when the market is up, but very few can minimize losses when it is down.

I'm always amused when I see small time investors hoping to make it really big - as in replace the job kind of income. I had an uncle who I think was pretty smart and spent a successful career as a broker. He never came out rich, although he made a good living - mostly from client's money. I don't think any of these folks pouring money in today are smarter or know more than he did. I know I don't.

I was watching a very successful fund manager on a business show this weekend that has a great track record. He was indicating that the fund he manages currently has a lot, but not all, of their assets in cash because there is too much unpredictability in the current market. In his view, there are opportunities coming up that will require the cash, but he is patiently waiting now.
 
TurboMinivan

TurboMinivan

Still plays with cars
Location
Lehi, UT
Unimog said:
I had an uncle who I think was pretty smart and spent a successful career as a broker. He never came out rich, although he made a good living - mostly from client's money.
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High mutual fund fees are one part of why general index funds will outperform 82% of managed mutual funds over a 15-year period, and more than 99% of managed funds over a 30-year period. (Another large part is because humans tend to be extremely poor stock pickers.) Index fund investing may be very boring, but it is also very profitable for those wise enough to do it.
 
glockman

glockman

I hate Jeep trucks
Location
Pleasant Grove
To help sooth the collective pain, I watched gme for 10 days and every day knew it had peaked. So one day I thought just to prove I was right ill buy a few shares. Paid $458 per share and in 60 seconds it dropped to $220.
I'm pretty boring most of the time, now I'm back to that.
 
anderson750

anderson750

I'm working on it Rose
Location
Price, Utah
glockman said:
To help sooth the collective pain, I watched gme for 10 days and every day knew it had peaked. So one day I thought just to prove I was right ill buy a few shares. Paid $458 per share and in 60 seconds it dropped to $220.
I'm pretty boring most of the time, now I'm back to that.
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OUCH
 
N-Smooth

N-Smooth

Smooth Gang Founding Member
Location
UT
glockman said:
To help sooth the collective pain, I watched gme for 10 days and every day knew it had peaked. So one day I thought just to prove I was right ill buy a few shares. Paid $458 per share and in 60 seconds it dropped to $220.
I'm pretty boring most of the time, now I'm back to that.
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Wow. Respect. I'm in at a little less than half that but when I saw it dip to $47 today I was super tempted to buy more and lower my average :rofl:
 
Greg

Greg

Make RME Rockcrawling Again!
Admin
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Well, I bailed on my GME shares.... lost $600 on it. Between that and my attempt to ride the BB wave, I lost $1200. I'm still up overall, but definitely got worked over trying to keep up with the WSB crowd. My timing was off and I FOMO bought. 😑
 
N-Smooth

N-Smooth

Smooth Gang Founding Member
Location
UT
Greg said:
Well, I bailed on my GME shares.... lost $600 on it. Between that and my attempt to ride the BB wave, I lost $1200. I'm still up overall, but definitely got worked over trying to keep up with the WSB crowd. My timing was off and I FOMO bought. 😑
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Well you must've been weighing us down because now it's trending upwards for probably the first time in a week :rofl:

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Kiel

Kiel

Formerly WJ ZUK
Today was a weird day, but I still ended up with over 87 percent for the week. I sold about 500 of my profits and went in on 3 different legit 1 cent stocks at 15 k shares a piece. Pretty much a total gamble with the profit.
 
UNSTUCK

UNSTUCK

But stuck more often.
The only thing I'm doing is contributing to a 401k account. I started sometime in the middle of 2015. Yesterday, for the first time, my balance showed $100k. Here is how that breaks down.
employee contributions: $43k
employer contributions" $15k
change in market value: $42K

Anyone know if these numbers look right? I know the contributions can be whatever, but change in market value? My investments are almost entirely stocks. Looking over the years my low was like -9% and the high was almost 28%. I have 19 more years till I want to retire. I really have no idea how much I'll need to have saved.
 
glockman

glockman

I hate Jeep trucks
Location
Pleasant Grove
UNSTUCK said:
The only thing I'm doing is contributing to a 401k account. I started sometime in the middle of 2015. Yesterday, for the first time, my balance showed $100k. Here is how that breaks down.
employee contributions: $43k
employer contributions" $15k
change in market value: $42K

Anyone know if these numbers look right? I know the contributions can be whatever, but change in market value? My investments are almost entirely stocks. Looking over the years my low was like -9% and the high was almost 28%. I have 19 more years till I want to retire. I really have no idea how much I'll need to have saved.
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A started my 401k in 2001 when I started with Micron. The return Fidelity shows has fluctuated similar to what you are seeing. I have seen as high as 40% after 08. Mine is all growth stocks and seems to double every 5-7 years.
 
skippy

skippy

Pretend Fabricator
Location
Tooele
UNSTUCK said:
The only thing I'm doing is contributing to a 401k account. I started sometime in the middle of 2015. Yesterday, for the first time, my balance showed $100k. Here is how that breaks down.
employee contributions: $43k
employer contributions" $15k
change in market value: $42K

Anyone know if these numbers look right? I know the contributions can be whatever, but change in market value? My investments are almost entirely stocks. Looking over the years my low was like -9% and the high was almost 28%. I have 19 more years till I want to retire. I really have no idea how much I'll need to have saved.
Click to expand...
We sat down with a financial planner and to maintain our current lifestyle well into our late 80s, we decided we needed roughly 2 million dollars in the market at the time we retired at 62-65. With that being said I dont plan on living any cheaper during my retired years so we are going to try and double that. luckily we have more than 30 years still before we can retire.
 
UNSTUCK

UNSTUCK

But stuck more often.
skippy said:
We sat down with a financial planner and to maintain our current lifestyle well into our late 80s, we decided we needed roughly 2 million dollars in the market at the time we retired at 62-65. With that being said I dont plan on living any cheaper during my retired years so we are going to try and double that. luckily we have more than 30 years still before we can retire.
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That brings me to my next thought. What do you do with the money once you retire? Move it into a savings account earning 1%? I'm not for sure, but I seem to recall my mother moving my dads 401 into an annuity. And as I recall it was guaranteed 8% for life without ever touching the original balance. In your example, that $320k a year. Not too bad.
 
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