JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

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What short term investment should CO throw some coin at?

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Casual Observer
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JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Since you're all probably doing much better than me from a saving for retirement standpoint (except for the commander of course), I thought I'd see if anyone has some investment advice (or something looked up on Google that's completely unrelated, Tdarcos) for a couple of different scenarios:

1) Just started my first 401k (at 46, ugh) and the company match is pretty good so I need to start thinking about investment strategy. What do you guys do for that?

2) A little more fun, lets say I have an extra $500 - $1500 from an unexpected CA State tax refund to throw into an investment (shorter term) today, what do you think is the best thing to put it on?

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bryanb
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by bryanb »

I recommend index funds for investing for retirement. It's a boring strategy, but it works decade after decade. Very few people can beat the market consistently, and the neat thing about index funds is that they have a self-correcting mechanism that other investments tend to lack: companies that fail or decline are dropped from the index and replaced by companies that are still thriving. I'd try to find the lowest fee index fund available in your 401k and stick to that. Vanguard ETFs would be a good option if available...look for VTI (Total Stock Market) or VOO (S&P 500). I use VTI myself. There's your retirement bucket covered.

I also invest in individual stocks and non index funds, but my reasons for doing so might not seem terribly relevant to you. When I was younger especially, I used to be afraid I would lose my job and then be left unemployed for a potentially long period of time. This fear drove me to start investing in dividend stocks with the idea that I could potentially use dividend income to survive a rough patch without a salary coming in. I own a lot of boring dividend stocks, some of which I've owned for many years, such as Coca Cola, International Paper, Nucor, American Electric Power, W.W. Grainger, and General Dynamics. My apocalyptic long-term unemployment fears have yet to be realized, but I'm in a much better position to weather drops in income now than I would have been otherwise. However, I'd have a bigger net worth if I'd just put everything in index funds because my dividend stocks have appreciated less than the market. I've also made some questionable investments in the blind pursuit of yield like GameStop, even though it was a healthy, successful company when I first invested and would've have rewarded me extremely handsomely if I'd just believed more in the power of Wall Street Bets. Many investors think dividends are pointless since you can just invest in growth companies and periodically sell them for income, but I like that dividends tend to get paid even when the market is declining as long as you're invested in financially strong companies.

I also do some investing just purely for fun or the chance for mega profits, and I'd say that would be a totally reasonable thing for you to do with your tax refund if you felt so inclined. If there's a company or sector out there you believe in or just believe will make a lot of money, there's nothing wrong with putting a bet and seeing where things go. It can certainly be a thrilling and rewarding pursuit. I'm a cautious enough person that I have more regrets about what I didn't invest in than in what I did. For instance, I thought a lot about investing in Google when it IPOed and even considered telling my dad to invest too, but I talked myself out of both things for reasons I don't remember now. It seems like an absolute no-brainer in retrospect. Most investments opportunities aren't and never will be Google, of course. Be careful not to risk more than you can afford to lose, and make sure you can handle seeing your investments decline in value psychologically. I never panic sell and essentially have only ever sold stock for a loss if I legitimately feared a company might be headed for bankruptcy.

I like the idea of you investing in your business as well. That's you investing in yourself and that could pay off for many years down the line. Most businesses fail, but your business sounds much less risky than, say, a restaurant would be. You can run it from home so you don't have to pay for office or retail space, and I imagine you probably don't pay a ton to your employees, you greedy outsourcer you.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Have you considered investing in Eastern Poland?

So, I was going to inline that image. For fuck's sake, has the internet really fucked up inlining images. Way to make the entire experience crappier, god.
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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Image

Image (a lot more alt coins I there I could not squeeze into the screenshot. Expect to keep up with about 10 different coins.

I started out throwing about 400$ at each though I do have quite a bit of “legacy” btc. (About 5k that started as 20$) Turned 80$ into 580$ with the stupid GME thing and took that to throw at TSLA.

You will definitely make money faster with crypto, but certain stocks are not to be pissed on and some are shit stocks that may bloom. I treat this stuff like video game money. Never invest more that comfortable with and never do it if you are not having fun keeping interest in yr investments.

Camron Grimes from my home state explains..


Edit: just made some more money selling WAVE coins and buying more DOGE.
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

bryanb wrote: Mon May 03, 2021 7:48 pmI imagine you probably don't pay a ton to your employees, you greedy outsourcer you.
You betcha! Going rate for marketing research there is $3/hr, pay for appointments averages $50 (I charge US clients industry average $500/appointment) so yeah there's huge potential. The first couple ladies are being paid US wages because they've done well a few times for me and I've already expensed generators for them so they dont have blackouts or the rainwater floods their computer equipment. Hoping they can help manage much cheaper workers going forward. Interestingly the roadblock to growth right now isn't money but my time to build the website and infrastructure and cold call for more clients. Investing in help building the site and a caller for internal sales is a good idea.

Bryanb, thanks for excellent perspective and advice.

Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Jizz. I'm totally keen to trade crypto but afraid I've missed the boat. I've heard from traders wanting 20% which seems excessive and scammy. How do you recommed i start to learn about this?

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ChainGangGuy
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by ChainGangGuy »

Casual Observer wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:40 am I'm totally keen to trade crypto but afraid I've missed the boat.

Jonsey, why don't you take a well deserved break from Cyberganked and program up an exclusive BBS cryptocurrency? I'd be down for investing in some Jolt Country Jinglers or whatever.

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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Casual Observer wrote: Tue May 04, 2021 3:40 am Jizz. I'm totally keen to trade crypto but afraid I've missed the boat. I've heard from traders wanting 20% which seems excessive and scammy. How do you recommed i start to learn about this?
Yeah 20% is way too high. I personally use binance.us but years back I used cex.io until they banned trading in my state for some reason. Once you create account just throw 40-100$ at it, look at the graphs for if coins are trending up or down.. and buy accordingly. BTC has become so overvalued I basically just hang on to the 4000$ worth of it (it was old. Originally like 40$ worth I traded high and bought back low years back) in a bitpay wallet. Sometimes I transfer BTC from bitpay to the binance.us account to buy other alt coins. DOGE coin is still a pretty cheap investment compared to even Litecoin that should continue to rise.
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Super helpful, thanks, I'll try it out this week.

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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Threw another 20-40$ at DOGE late Monday - early Tuesday. Now my 2100 DOGE is worth 1,283! Woo!
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Buying on the curve!!
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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Just noticed DOGE took a 10% dip. HOLD. Totally normal for how fast it blew up. People short-selling a LOT yesterday. As of now I am down 94$ (on all crypto aside from BTC) and that ain't shit. It will come back. If anything, buy more while it is down. Especially before SNL this Saturday.. (heh-heh)

Image
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Jizz, what do you think about the buzz that Elon Musk will give Dogecoin a bump when he's on SNL this weekend?

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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Casual Observer wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 2:47 pm Jizz, what do you think about the buzz that Elon Musk will give Dogecoin a bump when he's on SNL this weekend?
TOO THA MOON!! Ahahahaah

I hope you were already holding like 2 days ago but you sure as shit better buy before that episode airs.

HOWEVER

Note that you may need to short sell after if you bought a lot and you see a dip of more than 8%. Let that shit chill out, then buy back in DOGE and/or other alt coins. That is a big part of the trick. If you see a coin starting to leap you sell a stagnant one and buy some of that before it spikes too high. Don't sell crypto that is is "dead" for a week or not moving. That is usually a good long-term investment. If you don't have much and you believe in it and you lost like 20-100$, keep it. If you feel something is overvalued, sell it. It all boils down to buy low and sell high and with crypto this is sooo much easier to see patterns with and make money from than stocks imo but I do both.
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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Just threw about 375$ more at it with DOGE being up to 70 cents on the dollar even thought I bought in mad cheaper earlier. This is still worth investing in. Do it before the SNL episode. People speculated that this would take at least a year to happen. I knew they where wrong. Still, KEEP AN EYE on your shit. Set up alerts!

I had a few people say "hey this coin that coin" etc but I knew the "full retard on DOGE" was the way to go this year so far.

Now holding 2,435 DOGE coins, dudes. If I get slightly rich off this I promise to buy TDARCOS his next pizza pie. People that don't spread just a bit a wealth will be met with the disapproval of Maat.
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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

In case anyone is wondering.. I did not get burned! DOGe dropped like a rock as soon as a bad joke was made lol. Sold 2000 coins when started dropping. Would have got burned bad if I wasn’t paying attention. Throw some more $ at QTUM and MATIC coin and my shit is going back up.

Edit: Hell yeah, actually made 300$ shifting things around in the last 4 hours haha
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Tdarcos
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Tdarcos »

Simple answer: gold coins. A solid commodity, has been a great means to protect capital against the rages of inflation and devaluation for over 5,000 years. Also, if a particular money "goes broke" (e.g. U.S. Confederate Dollars, Weimar Republic German Marks, Zimbabwe Dollar), gold will be even more valuable. Gold, silver and other precious metals are the only money that passes the seven rules for safe money, in which every form of money that did not follow all of them eventually "went broke." (Became worthless.)

Gold is a true "buy and hold investment" that can be expected, over time, to keep its value or even increase. Consider that, in 1912, a 1-ounce $20 gold piece would buy a really nice suit from a tailor. Fast-forward 100 years, and today a 1 ounce gold coin is worth about $1800. Will that buy you a nice suit? Yeah, you could buy six, for about $300 each. When it was legal to own gold again in 1971, gold was $35 an ounce. Anyone who bought, say, $1,000 worth then (equivalent to about $6,750 now), at $38 an ounce (a 10% premium to cover the dealer's profit) would have about 26 ounces. Today, those 26 ounces are worth $46,800, meaning one would have made almost 7x their investment over 50 years, and almost anything you could buy for $1,000 then you can buy for $46,800 or less now.

Gold is a good secondary investment and I recommend people own about 10% of their assets in gold coins. You can even go small, you can buy 1/10 ounce coins to make it easier to purchase. Don't buy gold larger than 1 ounce size, in larger sizes there is a risk of counterfeiting (shaving bars then replacing the gold removed with less valuable metal.) In 1 ounce or smaller there ain't a lot of money available by shaving down coins. Or buy numismatic sealed coins in pouches for extra protection.

A good choice is the American Eagle 1 ounce coin (or 1/10 ounce) issued by the U.S. Mint. It is legal for investment for 401(K) plans, and one possibility (to buy more than you can afford to pay cash all at once) is to buy it using a bank loan because the interest paid on the money borrowed is tax-deductible (if you itemize deductions); it is one of the few forms of tax-deductible interest payments remaining.

If you can afford it, investing in gold coins - or anything else - using a Roth IRA where you use income that was already taxed (as opposed to pre-tax income in the case of a 401K or regular IRA), anything you make off the investment when sold or converted to cash is tax free! Back in 2019 I recommended to my brother he buy about $20,000 of gold coins by borrowing the money from his 401(K). The advisor him and my sister used advised him against it. Based on the highest price in 2019 of $1,340 (and when he would have bought it the price would probably have been less), $20,000 would buy 14-1 ounce coins or 149-1/10 ounce, which now, about a year and a half later, it would be worth $25,200 now, or more than 25% per year return on investment.

Let's say you do the same, buy just $20,000 worth of gold coins, and put them away in a safe or safe deposit box. Let's say you don't buy any more. You'd have 111 1/10 ounce gold coins. Twenty years from now, presuming gold only has a 10% annual rise in value, the $20,000 now would be worth $134,550 in 2041. Gold, then, would be worth about $12,231 an ounce.

Not huge returns compared to extremely risky investments like cryptocurrencies, but an extremely safe investment that can produce very good returns, and is useful as a secondary investment.
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Tdarcos
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7 rules of safe money

Post by Tdarcos »

In the prior article I mentioned the "seven rules of safe money" that have worked for 5,000 years to ensure a reliable store of value, without listing them. They are (in no particular order), along with other potential valuable items:
  1. Must be fungible. One gram or one kilo of .999 silver or gold is the same as any other. So precious metals like gold, silver, platinum all pass. Paper money also passes this test. Jewelry-grade diamonds fail this test as different diamonds of the same size and shape can have different values. Real estate fails this test, as one acre of land in downtown Chicago is not going to be of equal value to one in Washoe, Nevada or North Korea. Cryptocurrencies pass this test. Artwork fails this test.
  2. Must be easily divisible. Gold and other precious metals can be sold as bullion, coins, foil, wire, or dust, so they pass this test. Diamonds fail this test as they are not easily divided without sophisticated knowledge and specialized tools. Real estate passes this test as a plot can be subdivided. Paper money can't be divided, if you have a $20 bill, to purchase something costing less, you can't simply break off a piece (you'd have to exchange it for other lesser value bills), so it fails this test. Artwork also fails this test. If you can have fractional ownership of a bitcoin or other cryptocurrency it also passes this test, otherwise it fails.
  3. Must be liquid, that is, easily portable. Precious metals, diamonds, paper currency, artwork, and cryptocurrency all pass this test. Real estate fails this one.
  4. Must have fixed, intrinsic value. Precious metals are always worth the same value, as an ounce of gold has a fixed value of one ounce of gold, so precious metals pass. Real estate fluctuates based on an estimate of what people think it's worth, so it fails this test. Cryptocurrency also passes this test, e.g 1 bitcoin is worth one bitcoin. Diamonds require appraisal so they fail this test. Paper money's value is the number arbitrarily printed on it, the only difference between a $100 and a $1 is the ink (and anti-counterfeiting features) on it, so it fails this test. Artwork requires appraisal so it also fails this test.
  5. Must have utilitarian (use) value other than as money or a store of value. Gold, silver and other precious metals have hundreds of uses: wire, gold plating, electronics, fillings, jewelry, etc., so it passes. Diamonds have use as cutting tools and jewelry, so they pass. Real estate can be used to store things or to put structures on, so it passes. Artwork can be loaned out to be put on display or looked at yourself, so it passes. Paper money and cryptocurrency have no other use than as a store of value, so they fail this test.
  6. Must be rare, in limited supply or hard to obtain. Real estate passes this as while there is lots of real estate available, there is a finite supply, and desirable real estate is much harder to find. Diamonds have to be mined, then cut, shaped and polished, whether for jewelry or as cutting tools. Jewelry diamonds pass this test. Precious metals (or any metals) must be dug or mined, extracted from ore, smelted and minted into coin or bullion, and precious metals are "precious" because they are rare, to get an ounce of gold you might have to process ten tons of copper. Precious metals pass this test. Artwork passes this test as any piece of art made by hand is a bespoke creation. Cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) is only limited in the number that can be issued by convention, the underlying blockchain technology is not limited in the number of units that can be issued, so as it could be issued in unlimited quantities, it fails this test. Paper money fails this test, as the number of currencies that have "gone broke" through unlimited printing to hyperinflation is enormous.
  7. Must be transferable either without technology or using pre-electricity technology. To accept precious metals you need a scale, and the chemicals that will test counterfeits, e.g. vinegar won't change the color of gold, but will change other metals; weighing a known-good coin or amount of precious metal against the piece offered will tell you if it's the same, so precious metals pass this test. Diamonds, artwork and paper money pass this test as they can be transferred by delivering them. Real estate passes this test as ownership changes can be recorded at the county clerk's office using paper and pen. Cryptocurrency fails this test.
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Flack
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Flack »

Awesome. I am on my way to the bank right now to withdraw my 401k and invest in gold doubloons.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I'm not going to get into it, but Bitcoin isn't fungible, and what kind of moron thinks silver bars are a better investment than a house. Christ.
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