Still think TITNC3: Return of the Iceberg was peak

You guys must have very recent buy-ins. Everything from early 2021 and before is still up, considerably. What time period are you looking at?

Not that anyone's asking, but I would never, *ever* let someone else manage your money. Financial "advisors" are essentially frontline salesmen for investment services, add no value, and use your assets for their interests first maybe followed by yours second, if you're lucky.

 

The Roth has to be somewhere - some institution must be the custodian.

Don't let them fool you.

Veritas, this right here.

This sentence makes me concerned that you need a more fundamental understanding of definitions first. Almost no one should be looking for single stocks as retirement savings assets.

A "stock share" is a unit of ownership in a company. You own a share, you own a small piece of that company. That's where the earnings and growth come from - that business you own doing business and growing. (Or not - businesses can also fail, which is why stocks can go DOWN).

A "bond" is debt owed to you. If you own a bond, you have essentially loaned money to the party paying the bond interest for a set period of time. This can be the government, a corporation, or other entities.

"Mutual Funds" and "Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)" are typically groups of assets together. Let's take the example of VTSAX and VTI:

VTSAX is a mutual fund.
VTI is an ETF.

They are composed of the *same holdings* - which is every publicly traded stock in the US market. They are not single stocks, they are a giant bucket of stocks, and the shares represent ownership of part of every stock in the bucket.

They are treated differently in terms of how they trade and what taxes are due on the earnings they produce.

Most people are best served holding a fund like this in retirement accounts because they are very widely diversified, which reduces risk. It is extremely unlikely that every business in the US will fail at the same time, and if they do money will be the least of your concerns.

Still, it's important to make sure whatever investments you choose - and there are many more than I have listed here - match your investing goals and your risk tolerance. A lot of people don't know either one. So the most important things to figure out first are what you hope to accomplish with these investments, what timeframe that goal needs to be attained in, and what you would do if the value of your accounts dropped 50% - because it can happen, albeit temporarily.

I'm going to leave it there for the moment. But yes, you have a lot of homework to do. It's good you recognize that.

 

He said YTD, so I’d assume that means the time period he’s looking at is YTD

 

I got out of my stocks and in to this last September/October. I did really well with my stocks at a good time and went into this at precisely the wrong time although I would have done much worse if I didn't sell when I did. My biggest long term stock was PYPL which I sold at $285 so I'm OK. I'll re-evaluate this October.

 

Wow!

Lots of info there...and thank you!

My Roth IRA is with Victory Capital Management...which took over for USAA.

You're explaining what the Schwabb Rep did as far as the type of risk I'm willing to take and a length of time to invest. (Generic statements I know)

Yes, lots of homework...

 

Right, so you're looking at a 6 month period where everything dropped and you established your cost basis at the peak?

I hate advisors but the only long term diversified holding thats happy YTD is value/divvy stocks - and if you've been holding solely those the last 5+ years you've missed a ton of gains on the growth side of the market.

 

Fiduciary vs non-fiduciary is important. A fiduciary has to act in your best interest, or something like that.

That said, I just use 10% as my figure (and branch 8 and 12% as well) when planning long term stuff, and just dump it in SP500 funds. Why would I try to fight the 500 biggest companies in the market? WITH the ETFs managing it as companies enter and exit the SP500. For (in my case) 0.03% ER.

for me - fiduciary or not, I’m happy to stick to SP500 funds and just keep dumping money in there. No complication!

You’re in a good place. Federal employee retiree, plus still working!

You can take a loan on a car, on a house, on education, on medical bills, on a TV, on a boat, on a jet ski, on a couch, but you CAN NOT take a loan for retirement. That’s been my mantra.

You’ll learn. A subreddit /r/personafinance has been a huge help. 10 years ago I had no idea what Roth vs. Traditional even meant, now I have enough (potentially misplaced ) confidence to manage my own stuff, including mortgages, retirements, loan payments, etc. I might do things differently than others, but I don’t think I’m doing anything dangerous at least (and have seen corrections from early moves that were relatively “dangerous”, or at least less beneficial).

This isn’t one size fits all. There are some generic things like, what I said, you can’t take a loan for retirement, but whether you use 1 savings account and earmark amounts in it, or have 3 different savings accounts like I do, makes no difference to the end goal. You do what works for you

 

Nooooo, no, no...a fiduciary has to present a court-defensible appearance of a good faith attempt to act in your interest.

People don't respond to laws, they respond to incentives. The ACA says you are required to purchase health insurance but there is no incentive for many people to do so, so they decline to do so.

This is why Vanguard is owned by its funds - it aligns the incentives of ownership and clientele since they are one and the same.

It's extremely important to separate the letter of the law (fluff) from actual behavior. Behavioral economics is your friend.

FinAds, fiduciary or otherwise, get paid by their employer, so its their interests, followed by their employer's, followed by yours. At best.

 

I've called my own shots for many years and picked many good stocks, and a few dogs too, with minimum fees, Scottrade/TDA. Recently retired, sold my equities, rolled over my 401k. Yeah I like dividend stocks and don't like paying fees when I think I can do better so I'll see what happens in the coming months and may pick up where I left off. It would be good to see a rising tide.

 

The reverse mortgage industry begs to differ.

Also, and this is situational, BUTT:

Assume interest rates remain below the expected annual average of a diversified portfolio, which is almost certain to be the case. At that point, your best move is to borrow against your investment assets, allow them to outgrow the debt, then die and have your estate pass on the white meat to your heirs.

Or, even better, if you don't mind defrauding your creditors a bit, is borrowing against your assets/income, give it all away as gifts without reporting the change to your creditors, and then when you die allow them to sue a destitute estate with nothing to recover. They likely wouldn't even bother, choosing to write it off instead.

 

Fair point - yes they still have reports to fill at the company, but there’s a marked difference between a fiduciary and a non-fiduciary FA, is what I was getting at.

It’s not a godsend like a fiduciary is going to be your best man at the wedding and make you 30%, but they have a lot more at stake verses some schlub taking your money.

Everyone’s in it to make money, and an FA takes their slice. But fiduciary vs. non is an important distinction still.

Planning on a reverse mortgage is still an investment now. At 65 you can’t go to the bank and take out a loan for retirement.

With a reverse mortgage, I am putting money into the house loan now. If I take a reverse, I’m just taking money out of that investment I put into for several years. Same as a 401k, or an IRA, or an individual taxable account. I put money in SPY for 30 years, and in 30 years, I start taking that money out.

 

Maybe. If I were to recommend anything, it would be flat-fee hourly. You pay them for their time and expertise. That's really the only honest transaction in this context.

Maybe you inherited.

You're not wrong that *planning* is involved, but it's still a loan. I'm just channeling @Iwilltaco

 

Yes it was. Will it do that again? My 100 shares hope so. lol

 

I have my doubts. Have they actually announced the record date as the 29th? How about distribution? Have they announced that yet?

 

Who cares, I bought ATER pre market, I’m up .35/ share. Time to sell?

 

It’s fun isn’t it

 

It'll test $5 this morning. If it holds it should retrace back to $7ish over the next 2 days. Then back under $5 by Friday. It's a volatile little fucker.

 

That sounds like SELL! Lol