Investing for beginners

[fruitcakesa]

Don't know how old you are, but I'm a boomer and I don't recall that many of my generation started thinking about saving for retirement until their late 30s/early 40s. I didn't really, though I've always been thrifty and lived well below my means.

As far as my parents, they grew up in the depression, and scrimping and saving was deeply ingrained in them. It was a bit easier for them because for a lot of their working years company pensions were still quite common, though in many cases they were self-administered so if the company went feet up, there went the pension fund. My parents were lucky enough that the company they worked for got bought out by a large company and both qualified for that company's pension plan. Of course with inflation, the monthly payout is pretty meager now.

We are also boomers and did not begin investing till the early 90's in our mid/late 40's.
We have always been frugal and avoided any debt in all that time and it has paid off.
Regular investing over those decades has gotten us a steady flow of income in our 60's and 70's.

 

[Fuddy1952]

This is an exaggeration, but just trying to make a point since the premise or synopsis is true:
I've always thought if you want to retire comfortably you need to invest:
$100s in your early 20s.
$1,000s in your early 30s.
$10,000s in your early 40s.
$100,000s in early 50s.
$1,000,000s in early 60s.
Time...do the compound interest math...time.

 

[drssg]

A couple of things I find interesting. One is the 1961 "Mayberry" episode where Andy must evict Frank from his run-down house for non payment of taxes. Frank has very little belongings except he does have a $100
bond issued by Mayberry in 1861. The mayor says "so give him his $100". The problem is the bond has an interest rate of return of 8.5%. The Mayberry bank calculates cashing in the bond, now worth $349,119.27 which the bank has insufficient funds to cover. This illustrates time is key. Thirteen years later in 1974 the bond exceeds $1,000,000, and now the graph skyrockets.

If you recall, they later learned that Frank's bond was issued by the Confederacy and was worthless.

That illustrates another key. Choose an investment that won't go belly up!

 

[GeneV]

IDK. It does get tough at times.. I'm hoping these new investments I'm in now will help during the rocky times !

I'm not a skilled investor, I just let the robot handle the core portfolio. Overall it's been going great, and I'm not cashing out anytime soon, so should be ok overall.

 

[California]

If you recall, they later learned that Frank's bond was issued by the Confederacy and was worthless.

That illustrates another key. Choose an investment that won't go belly up!

And related: Investment results you read today, leave out everything that bombed out before being shown in today's results.

 

[kenmac]

I'm not a skilled investor, I just let the robot handle the core portfolio. Overall it's been going great, and I'm not cashing out anytime soon, so should be ok overall.

I won't be cashing out any time soon either. 8.5 more years (at this point) before RMD kicks in for me.

 

[Fuddy1952]

If you recall, they later learned that Frank's bond was issued by the Confederacy and was worthless.

That illustrates another key. Choose an investment that won't go belly up!

A mutual fund won't go belly up.

 

[California]

Re Facebook, they might lose all their subscribers in the European Common Market due to privacy rules. Look into this before investing!

https://www.cityam.com/mark-zuckerberg-and-team-consider-shutting-down-facebook-and-instagram-in-europe-if-meta-can-not-process-europeans-data-on-us-servers/

 

[Oaktree]

A mutual fund won't go belly up.

Maybe not, but they sure aren't all created equal!!
A lot of brokers, bank investment depts, etc. seem to push Putnam funds because from what I understand they offer high sales commissions. Guess whose pocket that comes out of?
Do your homework, as a rule you can't go wrong with Vanguard or Fidelity, but some of their funds perform better than others.

 

[California]

Maybe not, but they sure aren't all created equal!!
A lot of brokers, bank investment depts, etc. seem to push Putnam funds because from what I understand they offer high sales commissions. Guess whose pocket that comes out of?
Do your homework, as a rule you can't go wrong with Vanguard or Fidelity, but some of their funds perform better than others.

Agree, on each point.

Long ago when we first invested, father-in-law said he had enrolled in a Putnam investment plan but the sales commission ate a lot of the price increase.

We looked into it and in those early days the only plans available to buy mutual funds if you didn't meet their minimum purchase ($25k??), required a contract agreeing to invest a set amount monthly for an indefinite, long, time period.

We chose T Rowe Price for its market-leading results but the contract was nasty. Something like 6% sales commission, immediately, on the first $10k in your investment contract and it would take several months of monthly payments to pay the commission before any of your 'investment' went to purchase the mutual fund.

That investment made a reasonable return but a later opportunity to invest in Peter Lynch's Fidelity Magellan fund was much better.

As you said, Vanguard or Fidelity are what I would recommend to the beginner. Vanguard is no-nonsense lowest cost, so potentially slightly better in the long term. Fidelity was our choice. Phone service is 24/7. The person you talk to is intelligent and knowledgeable. To me that is worth paying a few $ per year in comparison to Vanguard. The other brokerages offer good service but seem to be oriented more toward pushing what is profitable for them.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Maybe not, but they sure aren't all created equal!!
A lot of brokers, bank investment depts, etc. seem to push Putnam funds because from what I understand they offer high sales commissions. Guess whose pocket that comes out of?
Do your homework, as a rule you can't go wrong with Vanguard or Fidelity, but some of their funds perform better than others.

I've never used a broker...ever. Just buy direct.

 

[Oaktree]

I've never used a broker...ever. Just buy direct.

That's a lot easier today than it was even 10-15 years ago. Lots of info online, and the the major fund websites allow you to compare and make better choices. They also let you open accounts with smaller balances than they once did, that's a huge plus to someone just getting started investing.

When I first started investing (80s) most of today's resources didn't exist.

 

[California]

I've never used a broker...ever. Just buy direct.

Yeah. We've always bought direct.

Long ago Fidelity had a campaign to push their professional investment advisors. I thought we might learn something from at least a one-time consultation. We prepared all the the records they asked for - wage income, mortgage balance, etc.

A few minutes into the meeting I could see things were going sideways. I halted the 'advisor' and asked him if he was considering the other, separate money we had in employer-controlled IRA's. Which exceeded our Fidelity balance.

He replied no, that larger amount of outside money was no concern of his, and wasn't included in his projections for our future. We walked out.

And similar, years later. We attended a retirement-planning seminar offered by our employer. I listened then interrupted the presenter, a representative from some investment company. I asked if she considered our substantial pensions in her projections of savings needed for retirement. No, not her responsibility, she was there to talk about investing. The huge Net Present Value of future lifetime medical care, and a monthly pension that would nearly replace our wages at retirement time, were not figured into her projections. Ok, whatever, then this is nothing but a sales pitch.

 

[Fuddy1952]

That's interesting California since I've had the opposite conversations with Fidelity and Vanguard consultants, available at no cost and they shy away from called a financial advisor.
They basically said I was a little fat here, thin here referring to what I chose (mix of stocks/bonds/etc). I tend to be aggressive, my wife I advised her to be more conservative.
Over the years I've had good advice, things I never thought of doing. Nothing high pressure, just ideas.

 

[California]

That's interesting California since I've had the opposite conversations with Fidelity and Vanguard consultants, available at no cost and they shy away from called a financial advisor.
They basically said I was a little fat here, thin here referring to what I chose (mix of stocks/bonds/etc). I tend to be aggressive, my wife I advised her to be more conservative.
Over the years I've had good advice, things I never thought of doing. Nothing high pressure, just ideas.

Yes I've gotten some useful advice incidentally when I called into Fidelity, considering a transaction. But that time where I thought I was offered comprehensive portfolio planning, then he wouldn't consider my (larger) employer IRA in his forecast, put me back to thinking I can do as well, planning for myself. Compared to paying a percentage of our savings for investment management. My second college degree, in the 70's, was an MBA. At least I've been exposed to many alternatives even thought I didn't have any money to invest back then.

Since this thread is responding to a first-time investor I should add: In the early days of PC's, the DOS era, there were only a few programs that were pro-grade for long term retirement planning. I bought QuickBooks' version and it was extremely useful for projecting future results of actions taken at the time, showing how annual compounding causes much better results than one might expect. I don't know what's comparable today but surely there are now even better programs. I recommend investment/retirement planning software to anyone starting out. Our experience since than has closely tracked (actually, exceeded) what that software projected back then. I think this simply duplicates what an advisor can project for you.

 

[fruitcakesa]

I buy direct and only buy dividend paying stocks. I buy and hold as long as the company continues to pay dividends. I also reinvest the dividends in a high yield mutual fund that pays a decent rate of interest. Have been using this formula for about 10 years and while the market has been very volatile during the past few years I am still ahead in overall value and have a good growing dividend nest egg that will be my income stream when I start taking my RMD next year.

 

[California]

... If you're ever looking for more advanced trading strategies or professional day trading insights, you might want to consider consulting with a prop trading firm.

Is that suitable advice for a beginner? Looks to me like a prop trading firm makes its profits by fleecing the naive, the new 'customers' who sign up believing they can beat the pros (who have instantaneous access to data) at in/out day trading.

What proportion of your customers are net winners/losers in their first year?

And ... How long have you been in business? I can't find anything about you on the internet.

 

[KennyG]

When a new users first post on a tractor site promotes a stock trading firm, I would assume it's a scam. But, hey, maybe I'm just a skeptic.

 

[California]

 

[Oaktree]

When a new users first post on a tractor site promotes a stock trading firm, I would assume it's a scam. But, hey, maybe I'm just a skeptic.

Well, given that the post California quoted seems to have been deleted, I'd say you're justified.