In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I think I will stick with the plan we put in place. Earn two incomes, spend one and retire on the second one. berkeley the market and the thieves that work there. See signature line for complete details!
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I think I will stick with the plan we put in place. Earn two incomes, spend one and retire on the second one. berkeley the market and the thieves that work there. See signature line for complete details!
In reply to NOHOME :
sounds like you should be investing in dividend stocks.
Ok, so it doesn't appear the market is going to recover this week & my WAG is it'll take a while before it returns to where it was at the start of this month. So I'm thinking I should take advantage of it.
However, other than each of our 401Ks and a rollover IRA from a previous employer, I've never done any investing. So, a few questions:
Pete Gossett said:
- Our 401Ks are each mostly invested in "target" funds. It seems the smart thing to do is leave that money alone & let it ride out. Correct? YES. Anything you take out now will be sold at a lower level, don't do the "buy high, sell low" thing that a lot of panic investors do. The prospectus should have the words "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on the front.
- What if I want to take $500 or a grand out of savings to buy while the market is low. Is that a good idea, and if so, how/what/where? I have zero knowledge about that stuff. ALSO YES, anything bought while the market slumps is considered "on sale".
- Conversely, would we be better off increasing our 401K contributions by a small amount instead? If you can, max out your contribution... at least to the point of getting as much employer match as you can. But not instead of the above.
NOHOME said:The old adage of "Never invest in anything you don't understand" has been replaced with what is basically tossing a dart at a list of stocks and chanting for profits. There is absolutely no way that the average consumer can see deep enough into a stock-pick to make an educated decision.
Cowplop bingo players and retail investors have a lot in common.
And because you don't understand it, nobody can. And so anybody buying stocks is an idiot. OK, thanks for the very helpful insight.
@Pete Gossett: Even after this "correction," stocks are only down to where they were this past October (2019). If you weren't chomping at the bit to buy then, you don't need to get too worked up now. The important part is not to sell any time soon, so if you're thinking to buy now and sell in just a few months I think you might be disappointed. But if you're hoping to capture a few extra percent in money you were going to save long term anyway, there's no harm in doing it now.
Keep fees low, keep trading to a minimum, and hold long term and you'll be fine. Buying at the dips or at the peaks doesn't make a big difference long term but it can be a psychological motivator. I had some money sitting from eBay sales so I swept that into my brokerage account and bought yesterday. It was money I was going to do that with at some point soon, I just happened to be reminded to do it when I saw all the red on the stock charts.
NOHOME said:In reply to 1988RedT2 :
I think I will stick with the plan we put in place. Earn two incomes, spend one and retire on the second one. berkeley the market and the thieves that work there. See signature line for complete details!
How do you "retire" on an income? Only one of you is going to retire?
I have a note about to my investor guy to tell me when to drop some cheddar in my kiddos stock funds. Was going to do it shortly anyway and have no need for it for 10 more years.
.
Pete Gossett said:Ok, so it doesn't appear the market is going to recover this week & my WAG is it'll take a while before it returns to where it was at the start of this month. So I'm thinking I should take advantage of it.
However, other than each of our 401Ks and a rollover IRA from a previous employer, I've never done any investing. So, a few questions:
- Our 401Ks are each mostly invested in "target" funds. It seems the smart thing to do is leave that money alone & let it ride out. Correct?
- What if I want to take $500 or a grand out of savings to buy while the market is low. Is that a good idea, and if so, how/what/where? I have zero knowledge about that stuff.
- Conversely, would we be better off increasing our 401K contributions by a small amount instead?
Unless you have a specific investment in mind that's not offered through your 401k, I'd just increase your contributions there. It will be untaxed money going in instead of money that's already been taxed once (so you essentially get more money earning interest on your behalf than you would if you contributed after tax money. And it has the additional benefit of reducing your taxable income, which can make a refund more likely. You may also find that you don't miss that little bit of money each pay period, making it more likely that you continue doing the investing rather than a one-time thing.
If you're not happy with the options in your 401k, or you want to invest in something else, I'd put the money into your IRA and an investment of your choice.
Ok, so I was right on NIO :) , here's my latest tip:
3M
$149.24 today.
Stable company with dividends that has happened to be down for the past 6 mos or so.
But, they make N95 masks, which are in very high demand right now.
(Some are selling for over $50 EACH on ebay right now).
I will have to look up Tesla stock......
before looking i would think it went down alot because of the New Chinese plant not working.....
$887 Feb 4th........$667 today.......
Alrighty then let's bring this one back up to the top. New thoughts?
I like XOM
I'm waiting for a moratorium on short selling to be put in place; should have done it on Monday.
I've decided to get in on this for cheap as well.
Using RobinHood (there was a thread earlier - if you don't have a RobinHood account, you can sign up at no cost and get 1 free share of stock for you (and one for your referrer) - my link is https://join.robinhood.com/gregors869 but I was introduced to Robinhood about 2 years ago because someone else on the board shared their link.
For the moment, I have a free share of Groupon, which was $4 or so when I got it, now worth something like 72 cents. I added a few bucks tonight and have orders in for 1 share each of:
Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY) per earlier recommendations. Now down to $6.10
GE (GE) because it's $6.99
Mazda (because Mazda) Currently $2.83
I'm looking at:
- Microsoft and Amazon (because cloud / working from home, etc)
- Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx (because home delivery)
but Amazon's way out of my "buy a share" budget at $1633/share and currently they don't do fractional shares. Staying under $500 total buy-in for now.
I'm definitely open to more ideas!
AngryCorvair said:I like XOM
Why? They look to have been fairly stable for the past 5 years, and now are at ~1/2 their previous. Bargain?
Greg Smith said:I've decided to get in on this for cheap as well.
Using RobinHood (there was a thread earlier - if you don't have a RobinHood account, you can sign up at no cost and get 1 free share of stock for you (and one for your referrer) - my link is https://join.robinhood.com/gregors869 but I was introduced to Robinhood about 2 years ago because someone else on the board shared their link.
For the moment, I have a free share of Groupon, which was $4 or so when I got it, now worth something like 72 cents. I added a few bucks tonight and have orders in for 1 share each of:
Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY) per earlier recommendations. Now down to $6.10
GE (GE) because it's $6.99
Mazda (because Mazda) Currently $2.83I'm looking at:
- Microsoft and Amazon (because cloud / working from home, etc)
- Amazon, Walmart, UPS, FedEx (because home delivery)but Amazon's way out of my "buy a share" budget at $1633/share and currently they don't do fractional shares. Staying under $500 total buy-in for now.
I'm definitely open to more ideas!
Ford (F) is looking pretty good to me right now. They've had some struggles internationally, but they're trading for way less than similar automakers, the new Explorer and Aviator seem to be through their launch problems and should be cash cows, the Bronco should be highly profitable, and the Mach E is coming later this year as the first real Tesla competitor for normal people. They've partnered with VW and Rivian to bring a bunch of EV models to market in the next 2-3 years. Plus I think I read recently that the dividend is in the 10% ballpark these days!? A $500 budget could net you over 90 shares at current pricing.
It wouldn't be a good short term stock as new vehicle sales were flat before the market tanked and everybody was more or less told to stay home. They're likely to get worse before they get better. But I think there's room for a bunch of growth over the next couple of years when we get past the current downturn if you can hold out for however long that takes.
I noticed that MMM (3M) is not doing well and was rated as "overvalued". I thought they would be doing well as a producer of masks and other PPE products. Anyone know why?
I did pick up some GE and NVDA. I'm not thinking that we are at THE bottom of the market, but news fatigue is setting in and Corona has been hyped so much that I think that the actual outcome of the Pandemic will not be as severe as the marketing for it.
In reply to STM317 :
Yeah, Ford is on my radar. I'm thinking we will have more drops and maybe be able to pick it up cheaper though. 
AAZCD said:I noticed that MMM (3M) is not doing well and was rated as "overvalued". I thought they would be doing well as a producer of masks and other PPE products. Anyone know why?
If I had to guess: They can only produce so many masks, and are not the ones reaping the profits of panic demand price gouging. On the other hand, the increasing likelihood of a major global recession would do significant harm to the market for pretty much everything else they make.
RHHBY is Roche Holding AG, their fast coronavirus test kit was given emergency FDA approval yesterday (Th 12-Mar). I bought at $38.09 at about 10AM Fri 13-Mar. I'll keep you posted.
I know it's a Gamble and is out of character with my long view buy and hold strategy.
Greg Smith said:AngryCorvair said:I like XOM
Why? They look to have been fairly stable for the past 5 years, and now are at ~1/2 their previous. Bargain?
Because oil will go back up, and because XOM pays a nice dividend. Always reinvest the dividend!
With the market going way down and big losses on my CPRT stock, I transferred another $1,500 into my, once abandoned, $500 gambling fund.
It looks like Copart is going to be slow on the recovery. *You can still probably buy in cheap this week.
GE has been doing pretty well. I got in near the current bottom. They are in the news for helping out in the crisis.
Nvidia (NVDA) has been staying well ahead of the index since it bottomed. It has made up for most of my loss on CPRT. Too late for a good buy?
Hard to say. I just got started and got a share of Slack near its valley at $20 and one of Microsoft at the same time. Picked up another share of Microsoft today.
Would also consider ZM, but more long term as people get on their platform for free now (less profits, but larger installed base). Microsoft Teams adoption is going like gangbusters though.
and yet...https://robinhood.com/news/article/40836e43-4120-3633-8ecd-bebfec4ca50d Zoom has 3x user count average of Teams for March. I suspect that's because of a lot of distance learning / school use which they were offering for free. I also think a lot of the MS uptick is people starting to use a tool they already had licensing for, but were previously not seeing the business need for.
I'm sitting on a share of BBBY that may take years to come up to purchase price. and I picked up some Sirius XM on the way down. Then it kept going.
Copart may be a good choice for the long term though.
Ford is getting down close to my buy point. May wait a little longer.
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