Investment Strategies

[lightman]

My strategy is buy and hold.

When I was working I had money in 3 different stock funds, company stock and a stable income fund. The stable income fund allowed me to sleep well at night! Looking back, I wish I would have been all stock.

When I retired I moved my 401 to a few different ETF's. Pretty much what Jack Bogel suggest. Mostly dividend paying stocks with a mix in bonds. Experts suggest not looking at it too often but I check my balance once a week and I look at the Stock Market several times every day. But, I don't panic and make moves based on panic. I just want to know!

My risk tolerance is based on having a company pension and having SS.

I've been in the Market one way or another since 1980. Last week sucked. So did most of 2018. 2017 was an ok year and 2019 was a great year. Time will tell for 2020! But over time, its gone up. Several studies have shown that at the end of the game the buy and hold guys do as well as those that sell out and buy back in.

 

[SilentStalkr]

Thought I responded to this on my phone, but I musta butt-deleted or something.

I'm not sure what sectors/companies you are in if losing 85% is something you expect to see. It could happen for sure heck it could all be gone, but even a moderately well balanced portfolio shouldn't have lost anywhere near that in 2008-9 bottom. Is your company providing an in house or even broker sponsored advisor service? There can be some value speaking with a planner on goals, wants/needs and balancing.

Incidentally those returns for you and your dad last year.....wham! These money managers are really fighting for their lives vs passive investing returns. I have 3 friends in the finserv industry ranging from 25-40 years experience and it's always interesting to chat with them. I think for very high net worth individuals the boutique manger can truly provide valuable services with tax prep/law changes alone, but for the rest of us it's not typically necessary. Comparing actively managed portfolios vs passive net of fees it's not an easy sell for the active crowd. With 2 of my 3 friends they have to take on more risk than I want to beat me and the other I can't get realistic numbers on b/c I don't have the coin to play in that pool it's private equity with some high hurdles!

That was just a made up, what if scenario. I hope for all of us that that never happens.

 

[atepointer]

That was just a made up, what if scenario. I hope for all of us that that never happens.

I would submit an 85% decline in equity or credit markets at this point in world history would mean nothing matters but bullets and cannibalism. All social services would cease and The US dollar will be reset to some new unit of currency where we can trade in for about 1,000:1. As far as entering retirement in a historical correction or recession that is one of the primary reasons I went to dividend income focus and a few DRIPs.....get paid along the way to retirement. Otherwise all you have is an auction scenario where you are forced to find someone who is willing to pay you more than what you paid and if the music stops the options are few if you need $ immediately.

 

[SilentStalkr]

Want to expand on this DRIP a wee bit?

 

[atepointer]

Some brokers and companies offer a Dividend Reinvestment Plan where they will automatically redirect your dividend payments for that month/quarter into additional shares.

 

[texag0842]

When I was still a Jr. Trader my Senior Trader gave me some great advice.

Buy low and sell high.

It's funny looking back because at the end of the day he really had it all figured out. I made the right decision to swap the commodity I was trading but it still ends up holding true.

Hard to beat the S&P 500

 

[Marinevet1]

Dow up more that 1290 points today, largest daily gain ever.........

 

[Greg Langelius *]

The only actual equities I ever held, I held for a year and sold when their value had doubled. Like other gambling, I quit while I was ahead.

The thing to understand about trading in a down market is that you haven't actually lost money until you sell. This downturn will correct itself, and return to profitability.

When that occurs, and it will, it always does; if you've sold, you'll have lost all that equity you would still have if you had held.

Stay the course, trust the Trump economy.

I'm betting the TDS Newsies are holding, too; they know the truth even if they're too chickesh*t to speak it. They won't put their money where their mouths are in this downturn.

Believe who you want to. I spent two years toiling in the Merrill Lynch AOSG/RCSD (Advanced Office Systems Group, Regional Computer Services Department) boiler room. I wrote overnight market prediction software.

Greg

 

[HarryGreene35nT0]

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[lightman]

The stock market coronavirus thread has me wondering what type of investment strategies you fellow 'hiders employ.

Personally, I'm an index/ETF guy. I started to dive in and learn about investing about 7 years ago, when a coworker who was passionate about investing lighted a spark in me. I read a bunch of articles, online forums and some books, and investing in an index seemed to make more sense to me then trying to time the markets with individual stocks. Statistically the numbers are against you. Mutual funds are a rip-off as they have such high MER's.

My investing account that I'm leaving in Canada is setup with a 4 fund portfolio - one in CDN equities, one in US equities, one in Int'l equities and lastly CDN bonds. Just setup the wife's investing account, which is using a 3 fund strategy - US broad market equities index, US bonds and Int'l equities.

With my strategy, I constantly contribute a percentage of each of my paycheck (historically it's been ~15-20%). There's no timing the markets, no "active management" on my behalf. I don't even rebalance my portfolios, I just let the winners be winners and the losers be losers. It's really simple, it's very boring (by design), and it completely takes the emotions out of investing. It's worked well over the past 7 years, but it's certainly been a big help to have participated in the longest running bull market in Wall Street's history.

There's lot's of different strategies that people use successfully, and I'm curious to hear what some of you guys are using. It sounds like a few of you are gearing up to take advantage of the current sale that the stock market is putting on, and I'm curious to hear what people are planning to do to take advantage of that.

I forgot that I had already replied to this thread and stumbled upon my post while trying to formulate a reply. But I think you have a sound strategy. Its pretty much mirrored mine when I was still working. I was in our plan from the beginning and contributed the maximum legal amount for the last 10 years or so that I worked.

Every individual has their own tolerance for risk. You just have to find the risk tolerance that you are comfortable with. And most agree that you should gradually reduce your risk as you age and get near retirement. Having a pension and drawing SS I didn't reduce mine. I'm still have 75+ % stock.

I played with individual stocks a little bit years ago. I made some money and lost some money and looking back probably should have just bought into some index funds instead. If I was still playing individual stocks I would have probably bought into Boeing, Cruse Ship Companies and Oil Companies last February when they got so low. Thats east to say, but looking back I remember thinking that there were opportunities there.

Good Luck with your investments. With both you and your Wife contributing to a plan you should have a comfortable retirement.

 

[kenny1773]

I think people don't share strategy details for a variety of reasons.

I started out trading individual stocks, and I lost some and I won some, didn't have time to keep up with it, over all I wasted a lot of time and didn't earn enough to notice.

I went mostly to ETFs and Mutual funds at the large brokers for money I didn't have a high risk tolerance for, buy over time and let it ride - this has done the best for me.

I will tell you to search the "coffeehouse portfolio" and either copy it or come up with one of your own. I came up with one of my own that basically has me in large lower cost funds that cover almost every sector to some degree. I add the twist of re-evaluating every so many years (not going to put a number on it) and ditching the lower performers (or just wanting to add a new fund). I hold no more than 10-12 funds at any one time in this method. You will not get rich overnight with this plan.

I have another account that I treat like walking in a casino in vegas and putting it all on the craps table. Stuff I do here, I will not share with others. I have won big and I have lost big (like invested in shit that went out of business so no coming back from that)

and don't get investment advice from a shooting forum search out the bogleheads forum

 

[Hobo Hilton]

The stock market coronavirus thread has me wondering what type of investment strategies you fellow 'hiders employ.

Personally, I'm an index/ETF guy. I started to dive in and learn about investing about 7 years ago, when a coworker who was passionate about investing lighted a spark in me. I read a bunch of articles, online forums and some books, and investing in an index seemed to make more sense to me then trying to time the markets with individual stocks. Statistically the numbers are against you. Mutual funds are a rip-off as they have such high MER's.

My investing account that I'm leaving in Canada is setup with a 4 fund portfolio - one in CDN equities, one in US equities, one in Int'l equities and lastly CDN bonds. Just setup the wife's investing account, which is using a 3 fund strategy - US broad market equities index, US bonds and Int'l equities.

With my strategy, I constantly contribute a percentage of each of my paycheck (historically it's been ~15-20%). There's no timing the markets, no "active management" on my behalf. I don't even rebalance my portfolios, I just let the winners be winners and the losers be losers. It's really simple, it's very boring (by design), and it completely takes the emotions out of investing. It's worked well over the past 7 years, but it's certainly been a big help to have participated in the longest running bull market in Wall Street's history.

There's lot's of different strategies that people use successfully, and I'm curious to hear what some of you guys are using. It sounds like a few of you are gearing up to take advantage of the current sale that the stock market is putting on, and I'm curious to hear what people are planning to do to take advantage of that.

How is your strategy working out ?
I'm watching indexes. A lot of shuffling going on in individual stocks in preparation for the recession. Appearing that is keeping the indexes up, somewhat.

 

[kthomas]

How is your strategy working out ?
I'm watching indexes. A lot of shuffling going on in individual stocks in preparation for the recession. Appearing that is keeping the indexes up, somewhat.

Honestly I don't look.

I'm in it for the long haul, I don't do any short term trading.

I'm sure my stuff is down, but the plan is to keep it in there for decades (I'm in my 30's), so what it's doing today is of no real consequence to my plan.

 

[Hobo Hilton]

Honestly I don't look.

I'm in it for the long haul, I don't do any short term trading.

I'm sure my stuff is down, but the plan is to keep it in there for decades (I'm in my 30's), so what it's doing today is of no real consequence to my plan.

Understood... Lots of different strategies out there. Watching the experts daily is entertaining.

Bigfatcock​