Stocks and investing: Get Megashockingly Rich, or Go Broke Trying

Reticently · July 16, 2024

It's one of those weird mornings in biotech where almost everything is up a bunch for reasons that have nothing to do with how good or bad the companies or their products are.

NinetiesArcades · July 16, 2024

Awesome thread!

I stopped being lazy this year and finally migrated my roth ira to Vanguard and holy shit...

... the vanguard index/etfs i have access now is amazing! They also make it easy to warn when you reach the cap for the year. Took about 2 weeks from start to finish for the migration to finish but overall it was super easy to do.

Stock-wise; so happy I bought 1 NVIDIA stock earlier this year before the split.

Also been watching this dude's yt videos. Has a lot of solid general financial advice.

https://www.youtube.com/@TaeKimFinancialTortoise/featured

And of course, mandatory podcast everyone needs to listen to: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-stupidest-thing-you-can-do-with-your-money/

NinetiesArcades · July 16, 2024

Also my best performing stocks so far are:

COIN(Coinbase):

*I bought em the moment they went live in the market. Gonna hodl this for a LOONG time. I have a funny feeling Coinbase will be the goto platform for anything crypto in good 'ole usa. Now that US gov't is finally slowly approving/denying more crypto etfs/index funds; just overall means more activity.

LOW(Lowes Company Inc):

*Yup, that home retail company. I believe I got em six years ago(?) when I notice these type of companies tends to pop after hurricane/storm season. It was either Lowes or Home Depot when I was selecting em.

GE(General Company):

*Bought em 2 years ago I think; that era when they were at their lowest and wall street said these 'dinosaur' companies are bound to go extinct. The new ceo/board literally turned the ship around; cut bloated area and expanded other parts of the business etc. They ventured out to other industries as well; see GEHC and GEV.

..and the worse:

AMC(AMC Entertainment Holdings):

*Yes, I participated in the subreddit AMC meme saga😂. I should've left when it was +50% but meh. In a twisted way, I'm hanging on to them because I still enjoy going to my awesome local theaters on weekends to enjoy a popcorn/good flick. At some point, they even separated the official 'AMC' stocks and the 'AMC' meme stocks(?) but now I don't see it listed anymore.

TDOC(Teladoc Health Inc):

*I don't feel too bad on this one since these were leftovers I kept after I sold majority of em during height of Covid when this thing was 3x at least.

PGEN(Precigen Inc):

*Biotech company amirite😅

I also have GOOG which is almost double now in value which is crazy unto itself considering how gigantic they are already as is.

BB_Hoody · July 16, 2024

2 hours ago, NinetiesArcades said:

Also my best performing stocks so far are:

COIN(Coinbase):

*I bought em the moment they went live in the market. Gonna hodl this for a LOONG time. I have a funny feeling Coinbase will be the goto platform for anything crypto in good 'ole usa. Now that US gov't is finally slowly approving/denying more crypto etfs/index funds; just overall means more activity.

LOW(Lowes Company Inc):

*Yup, that home retail company. I believe I got em six years ago(?) when I notice these type of companies tends to pop after hurricane/storm season. It was either Lowes or Home Depot when I was selecting em.

GE(General Company):

*Bought em 2 years ago I think; that era when they were at their lowest and wall street said these 'dinosaur' companies are bound to go extinct. The new ceo/board literally turned the ship around; cut bloated area and expanded other parts of the business etc. They ventured out to other industries as well; see GEHC and GEV.

..and the worse:

AMC(AMC Entertainment Holdings):

*Yes, I participated in the subreddit AMC meme saga😂. I should've left when it was +50% but meh. In a twisted way, I'm hanging on to them because I still enjoy going to my awesome local theaters on weekends to enjoy a popcorn/good flick. At some point, they even separated the official 'AMC' stocks and the 'AMC' meme stocks(?) but now I don't see it listed anymore.

TDOC(Teladoc Health Inc):

*I don't feel too bad on this one since these were leftovers I kept after I sold majority of em during height of Covid when this thing was 3x at least.

PGEN(Precigen Inc):

*Biotech company amirite😅

I also have GOOG which is almost double now in value which is crazy unto itself considering how gigantic they are already as is.

Damn dude you know how to pick'em. Good on ya. And yeah AMC/GME got me in the game back in 2020. Made a 100% on AMC. But that yolo trader mentally was stuck in my head for a while. Not good.

Bouncing back after 2 years of basically degenerate gambling. Stock market will really have you feeling like you're not as bad as dudes losing their life savings in a Vegas Casino. When you objectively are.

BB_Hoody · July 16, 2024

JOBY is on FIYA! It was at these prices back in December of 2023. But sold off hard since then. But after steady progress. And this news with hydrogen ele tric power 5x the range of the Aircraft.

It seems big players are starting to take JOBY seriously and hold this time around.

Here's how I'm looking. And this portfolio isn't even 12 months old yet.

Reticently · July 16, 2024

2 hours ago, NinetiesArcades said:

PGEN(Precigen Inc)

So I wasn't familiar with this company, but having hopped on their webpage it looks like their pipeline is a bunch of stuff that's hard to make work, they don't really say a whole lot about WHAT their technologies actually are, and their "publications" link leads to absolutely nothing?

I hope that's all just their webdesign people kind of sucking.

BB_Hoody · July 16, 2024

5 hours ago, NinetiesArcades said:

Awesome thread!

I stopped being lazy this year and finally migrated my roth ira to Vanguard and holy shit...

... the vanguard index/etfs i have access now is amazing! They also make it easy to warn when you reach the cap for the year. Took about 2 weeks from start to finish for the migration to finish but overall it was super easy to do.

Stock-wise; so happy I bought 1 NVIDIA stock earlier this year before the split.

Also been watching this dude's yt videos. Has a lot of solid general financial advice.

https://www.youtube.com/@TaeKimFinancialTortoise/featured

And of course, mandatory podcast everyone needs to listen to: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-stupidest-thing-you-can-do-with-your-money/

Ok maybe you can help me. I posted my portfolio in a previous reply. Given I already have some gains. Would it still be worth it to put those shares, in a tax differed or free account like a Roth IRA?

I was thinking to maybe put the VOOG ETF in a Roth or something. Because I want to be able to access my JOBY shares should it really take off. Or maybe create a seperate account for investing in JOBY in a Roth IRA

NinetiesArcades · July 17, 2024

Hmm...it really depends per person as my finance scenario maybe different than yours etc but if you want to start going a separate retirement account, open a roth ira.

General info about it:

-you can't withdraw until you are at least 59 1/2

-has annual max contribution of cap $7k this year

More info: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rothira.asp

What to invest once you have an account? My general advice is get one of the popular Vanguard total market etf (VTI, VTSAX or VOO) and one of the bond etfs/index funds(ie BND, VBTLX etc) for 'safe' coverage as starting point. Adjust once you familiarize yourself/situation changes. Just remember this is long-term; you can't withdraw them at all; well you can but you will be taxed heavily by uncle sam.

Personally I opened a roth ira 8 years ago because I already maxed allowed contribution at my work retirement and I was looking for more retirement vehicle. Mine is set super-aggressive and ngl i'm invested in various etfs but big picture:

Detail breakdown:

Spoiler

- VTI and VOO is the majority; both are technically the same/'duplicate' index funds.

-TOKE is a gamble that is performing very poorly; lost 69% value. It is one of the earlier cannabis etfs that hit the market.

-since US gov't approved some crypto etfs this year; I invested in a few just so i have crypto exposure. If it blows up, awesome! If not, meh its small lose. They also have ridiculous uber expense fees!

- the rest are in various caps/growth/value and 'future'-centric etfs/index funds that tracks robotics,ai, biotech, quantum computing etc

The way I see it; this roth ira account will be extra income on top of what I'll be getting from work retirement+ social security(assuming it will still be around). In a 20 year timeline, i'm pretty confident it will grow alright.

Good luck| get paper!

Reticently · July 17, 2024

@BB_HoodyAlso, it's a good idea to have a Roth IRA just sitting around, even if you don't contribute much. There's an income cutoff where you aren't allowed to open one anymore, but you're still allowed to do stuff with a pre-existing Roth account, and some high earners take advantage of that for some tax dodge loopholes.

As for tax deferred accounts in general, like Nineties said it's really an 'it depends' situation. Some rules of thumb:

if your employer offers a matching contribution to a retirement account, do at least whatever it takes to get the maximum match. That's free money, and people for some reason love leaving it on the table.
if you are trying to maximize a traditional retirement, this is the normal order of how you want to fund retirement accounts: employer's program until you hit their maximum match > IRA until you hit the annual contribution limit > back into your employer's program until you hit THAT annual limit > normal brokerage account
if you think you have stock plays that could payoff into the "retire early" levels of money, you can consider putting some of that into a Roth, but you really want most of that in a traditional brokerage (there are some circumstances where you can pull a little money from a retirement account without getting fucked on taxes, but generally speaking trying it will get you fucked on taxes).
if you have a stock you think is going to be a big winner, you want to try to be in it at least a year before it pays off so you'll pay low capital gains tax instead of high income tax on it
nobody knows what the tax laws will be like when you finally retire, so no one can really answer whether Roth is better for you than not-Roth in the long run

A bunch of the above stuff also changes a great deal if you're self-employed or a fuck-you rich trust-fund baby.

Edited July 17, 2024 by Reticently

NinetiesArcades · July 17, 2024

^solid advice right there; 100% agreed.

The other reason I also opened a roth ira is because the available funds/etfs available at my employee program are very limited. I wanted more access to Vanguard ones. The expense ratio on some of them are also kinda steep; here's an example from my work: VIIX(.12) vs AMINX( .88). Note the the effect of expense ratio over 30 years:

https://www.omnicalculator.com/finance/expense-ratio

And of course, last plug on this amazing podcast: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-stupidest-thing-you-can-do-with-your-money/

It's what got me into really looking into retirement many years ago.