rkbabang

That's pretty much what I do as well. I also use Yahoo Portfolios to track my portfolio value and see current news feed so that I don't have to log into my brokerage account unless I want to make a trade, view statements/history, etc. The reason I use Yahoo for this is that, for one, I've been using it for a long time and all of my trades since about 2005 or so have been entered into it. And two, it allows me to track stocks (large & small caps, OTC, BB), options, and warrants, some other online portfolio sites I've looked at only do stocks. I also have a Yahoo "portfolio" of watchlist stocks that I don't own. This contains hundreds of companies that I find interesting for one reason or another, but that I don't yet own. For an example of how I use this, a glance at my watchlist this morning what stood out to me right away is that Fiat is up 13% today, then a look at the bottom of the page I saw the headlines that they acquired the rest of Chrysler. I like Gurufocus for browsing around who's holding what and finding possible ideas, but the only two sites I look at daily without exception are Yahoo Finance and this board.

Why shooting so low? You should aim impossibly high so that even if you miss by a mile you still do great. So I'm setting a goal to make billions by compounding at 200% yearly for only 7 years. See, that way, even if I only make 1/8th of my goal every year that is still 25% CAGR, if you make 1/8th of your goal you'll barely beat inflation, thus you have to come much closer.

Consumer sentiment is fairly low, there is still a lot of negativity out there. http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Michigan-Consumer-Sentiment-Index.php

BBRY BBY BH CBRL FB GME HLF MJNA NFLX TWTR EDIT: I thought it was up to ten, not at least ten positions. I added 3 more.

Things aren't going well for those involved with Silk Road 2 :( Alleged Top Moderators Of Silk Road 2 Forums Arrested In Ireland, U.S. In International Sweep

I just went back to read it. Yes it is fascinating and it makes sense. When the value of the money goes down, things of value cost more. That includes labor. So people get paid more. Services, real goods, and real estate cost more, what gets wiped out is cash savings and anyone on a fixed income. This is why I think of cash as a very short term storage. To put it in computer terms, cash is the equivalent of data being stored in the SRAM cache by the processor just long enough to use it, while stocks are the equivalent of data being stored on the hard drive long term for when its needed.

It doesn't matter. It is open source. If there was a backdoor or a weakness in the code it would most likely have been seen by someone by now. When the source code is open for all to see, it doesn't matter who originally wrote it. What if Shakespeare didn't write Hamlet? We have it, does it really matter who wrote it at this point?

I think of money as a means of short term value storage to facilitate transactions. I don't consider any form of money a good long term savings vehicle. I am worried about future inflation of the US dollar, which is why I remain fully invested in securities. I think that stocks are the best protection against inflation as long as the entire system doesn't collapse. And if I thought that was going to happen I wouldn't be buying gold or bitcoins either. I'd be buying guns, ammo, non-perishable food, toilet paper, razor blades, non-electric handtools, building greenhouses, raising more animals, etc.

I love it. Actually, a Flooz sounds better than some of this stuff. I could actually at least get a book from B&N with some Flooz. There was also eGold around the same time, right? I don't know what this sudden interest in bitcoins and similar cyptocurrencies mean in terms of where we are on the bubble cycle. I have long felt that social media companies have been bought and traded at insane valuations. But can it be a bubble when the public at large can't partake? Bitcoin seems to be an extension of whatever's been happening in social media to me at least. I used to have a little online business selling bumper stickers back then (rkbabang.com). I accepted e-gold, GoldMoney, and of course paypal. I actually lost some money when the feds shutdown e-gold. One of the allures of bitcoin is that the feds can't shut it down.

I actually tend to disagree with this approach. e.g., if I were to invest in the S&P, I would not do it in the same manner I would invest in stocks. For example, some of the skill is identifying when is a good time to buy a security, and which may correspond to a market downturn (e.g., 2009/2011). An indexer will not do this; instead, they would dollar cost average and never pay any attention. Thus, I think putting the same amount of money in the S&P at the same time either gives too much benefit to the S&P benchmark if you are right, or doesn't give credit to the S&P benchmark if you are wrong. It depends on your investment style. I've been 95-100% invested for the last 10-12 years or so. When I have new money to invest I immediately put it into my best idea. This aversion to holding cash has cost me at times (like in 2008 I was down around 35% and at one point in 2012 I was down 20% for just two examples out of many), but the benefits of this strategy has far outweighed the negatives (>40%/yr since 2005, unfortunately I haven't calculated my gains pre-2005 when I moved to Fidelity, but they were pretty good as well). If I was an index fund type investor, I would put money into the index fund at about exactly the same times as I invested money in my top pics, so the approach of keeping track of when new money would have gone into the index would be a fair comparison for me. I don't keep track of that though.

I've never paid anyone to fix something that I've done first. (ok - I've only been in this house a few months so nothing has gone wrong that I've touched..... but it will :D ) Houses will cost you.you can mitigate some of the expenses - or at least postpone them... You must be a better plumber than I . :)

This is all very true. I'd never go back to renting for the reasons I said here (mhdousa, you should read this thread as it is evolves to this topic), but it cracks me up when I hear people say that their house is an investment. If I was analyzing my home as a possible investment I would absolutely never buy it. I've spent so much time and money on my homes over the years it isn't even funny, and I'm someone that tries to do almost all maintenance/upgrades/repairs myself. When I hire someone it is because something I tried to do went horribly wrong.

Yes, but the only way to discover which 1 or 2 make sense is to let the market create a thousand of them and see which 2 survive. Does the Diners Club card still exist? Maybe in 20 years everyone uses one of 2 or 3 virtual crypto-currencies, but bitcoin isn't one of them, or maybe it is. Who knows?

All good advice so far. The best advice I can give to any home owner is don't borrow against your house for anything other than money you need to spent on your house (like say a new roof). So many people got into trouble borrowing for vacations, RVs, Christmas gifts, cars, you name it. There are people who have lived in their house for 35 years and despite the fact that they originally paid a ridiculously small amount for their home (by today's prices) they still owe more than its worth and can't retire because they have a mortgage to pay. 30 years from now if you still live in that home you want it paid for. Congratulations, btw.

I love that quote. Some of my other favorites are: "Never trust quotes you see on the internet." --Abraham Lincoln "YOLO" --Thomas Jefferson

I manage my wife's RothIRA as well, this was started by a roll over of her old 401K into an IRA when she quit her job to be a stay at home mom 13 years ago, so anything that has been added to it has been money I've made. I also manage UTMA accounts in my kids' names, that they invest portions of their allowance as well as Christmas/birthday money from relatives. Even their accounts have significant amounts in them now due to the growth (5 figures each). But I still answered "No" to the poll, because neither my wife nor my kids pay me to manage their money for them. Maybe I should start charging a fee. :)

Not a chance. I never try to calculate my returns myself. I just go by what Fidelity tells me every year. This is their disclaimer on their rate of return calculation: I'm sure someone saying that their return is over 100% would still show great returns even if a different method was used.

Someone else mentioned this in the how old are you thread. It is an interesting question, so I thought I'd create the poll. I'm not even going to try to predict the outcome of this one....OK I'll take a guess: 25% yes, 75% no.

I'm 41 and married with two kids. My portfolio isn't small, but it isn't Ericopoly-sized yet either.

Sounds like another new poll is needed.

Seems that the average age is significantly lower than your guess. Don't think it's that surprising since this is an internet forum after all. Yes, that seems to be the case. If the poll's to be believed we have at least one centenarian on here. I wonder if that is really the case or if maybe this is the same person who voted "Other" on the gender poll.

Since this seems to be the week for polls. Here's another one. My bet is 40s end up with the most votes, but I really have no idea.

Oh yes, the finger chart.

Congratulations! That must feel pretty good.

Haha, guilty...But I must say this board is spectacular. I think the newbies get so excited that something like this exists after they emerge from the purgatory of yahoo message boards and motley fool and seeking alpha comments and have an urge to participate. I know I do. The debates are almost always very civil and both sides generally are trying to seek the truth, rather than just scream at each other and make ad hominem attacks. It's truly something special. Even the ever exclusive VIC comment streams can be worse than here. So who wants to debate the value of Jim Chanos and alpha generating shortsellers? LOL *Smiles* I agree somewhat I think thepupil is right that there is quite a bit of excitement when someone first finds this board and realizes the wealth of information on it. I certainly acted the same way when I first started out. The again, I've been here three years and only have about 500 posts. I'm moderately impressed with my self-restraint given that I'm a former windbag lawyer. I've been a member since 2008 and only have 900 (but I don't remember when the switch to this new board was that 900 is probably only since then). I wouldn't want to discourage people from posting though. What makes this board so valuable is all the info posted by some incredibly smart and talented people. As Warren says "It's better to hang out with people better than you." lol.