New To Investing Thread

[The Big Train]

Bitcoin is back to selling for over $1000 per BTC after it dropped below $800 about 3 weeks ago

[chum1]

the ones that went up 20% on 11-9-2016.

This must be the best strategy. Private prisons did well.

Geo (GEO)
Corrections Corporation of America (CXW)

[chum1]

I still haven't bought anything. I'm a procrastinator.

A portfolio of so-called Trump trades has given back nearly a third of its gains since the election. And if President Donald Trump doesn't begin implementing his proposed corporate tax cuts and financial industry deregulation, some trades dependent on his proposals could suffer further.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/09/big-cracks-are-developing-in-the-trump-portfolio.html

[steve dave]

there is a zero percent chance the "tea party" tucks their tails and lets him run up the monstrous debt that the corporate tax cuts he promised would result in. the market should do well if he can get his regulation slashes moving though, which he has a better shot of actually getting done.

[catastrophe]

Investing tip 101: All people that say they can predict the market are liars. Some just happen to be liars that are lucky.

[EMAWican]

Which stocks are REALLY going to benefit from loosening of regulations? Post thoughts below and let's get filthy rich together!

In my personal account I am 80% invested in UEC (uranium), TECK (zinc play), CLF (iron mining), and DNR (oil).

I feel like this is a good time to point this out TRUMP TRADES FTW   

[chum1]

Good point about White House train wreck. Trump can't do anything right.

"What's going on today is complete insanity," said Stockman. "The market is apparently pricing in a huge Trump stimulus. But if you just look at the real world out there, the only thing that's going to happen is a fiscal bloodbath and a White House train wreck like never before in U.S. history."

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/12/trump-administration-is-complete-insanity--and-the-markets-are-in-a-fantasy-land-stockman.html

[catastrophe]

Just received notice my Betterment account fee is going from .15% to .25%

Anyone use comparable services with a lower account fee? Maybe I should just start buying Vanguard ETFs directly? Does Vanguard automatically roll over dividends and stuff like that?

[Kat Kid]

Just received notice my Betterment account fee is going from .15% to .25%

Anyone use comparable services with a lower account fee? Maybe I should just start buying Vanguard ETFs directly? Does Vanguard automatically roll over dividends and stuff like that?

There is a setting where you reinvest all dividends.

[ChiComCat]

Last I heard, and this was before the account fee hike, Betterment is better for low sums and really high sums of money.  Vanguard has better rates somewhere in the middle. 

[catastrophe]

To my knowledge, you are paying Vanguard's rates (or similar rates) when you have Betterment anyway since the portfolio consists largely of Vanguard funds. The value you get from Betterment is mostly in ease of use (including diversification and automatic portfolio balancing), tax loss harvesting, and various helpful tools for advice.

The biggest downside I see to splitting and buying some funds direct from Vanguard is the risk of getting an out of balance portfolio, but I'm not sure how much damage I can really do if I basically just try to mimic what I have in my Betterment account and start buying like half/half to cut down on unnecessary fees.

[sys]

you can hold a vanguard fund in any discount brokerage account and almost none of them have account fees.  betterment is raping you.

[michigancat]

betterment manages my 401k.

[Kat Kid]

betterment manages my 401k.

lol

[catastrophe]

you can hold a vanguard fund in any discount brokerage account and almost none of them have account fees.  betterment is raping you.

I have found the automated portfolio (with rebalancing) to be pretty helpful, and I love the projection tools you can play around with.  So far the account has been paying for itself through the tax loss harvesting, although that is mostly because I got into investing at a crappy time (took the market like a year to actually get back to the same point).

[sys]

ok.

[wetwillie]

you can hold a vanguard fund in any discount brokerage account and almost none of them have account fees.  betterment is raping you.

Your mercilessness is unbelievably consistent. 

[sys]

i like to think i'm helping.

[kim carnes]

This market has no quit

[catastrophe]

Got some cash to burn. And by burn I mean invest responsibly for my future. Any funds I should be looking at? I don't do company stocks.

[sys]

i thought the whole point of giving betterment 0.25% of your money was so you didn't have to make that decision.

[catastrophe]

Damnit sys, you know the entire reason I brought that up is because I'm going to start buying more funds directly through Vanguard.

[blu]

Is vanguard pretty much the way to go as far as setting up roths? My fiancé and I recently have come across a pretty large sum of money and I'm looking to invest it but I have never actually invested in anything other than my company's 401k plan. After a Roth is set up and maxed is my line of thought to just pour everything else into an index fund dumb? I'm looking for something safe and that I can withdraw from a couple years down the road without penalties

[catastrophe]

If you're talking about a Roth IRA, Vanguard is as good an option as any, but any retirement account is going to have some penalty if you withdraw from it early.

And otherwise I think you generally have the right idea, but it's probably better to diversify among several ETFs even though they tend to be pretty diverse already.

Also, your horizon of when you plan to withdraw should probably determine which ETFs to invest in. Should not be too difficult to do some online research.

[8manpick]

Is vanguard pretty much the way to go as far as setting up roths? My fiancé and I recently have come across a pretty large sum of money

Sorry for your loss