Don't buy Apple stock, it just dropped 500+ points.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1405120196

:inout:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1405135377

I'm soooo sorry I interrupted the very, very serious discussions on mt.net with my irreverent comment. What a jerk am I.

I have always used TD Ameritrade. They are more expensive than others by a few dollars per trade but I have been happy with their services. I can't compare to the other services like Scottrade or Etrade since I'be never tried them. Typically I can deposit money today and its available next day for trading.

Damn. Knew I should have bought a bit of oil when it was just under 100. 4% in a couple sessions is not so bad.

What kind of return are you guys seeing on your 401k's?

Right now, mine is just under 5%, but I haven't checked it this week.

Over what period?

Since the start of the year, I believe.

Mine is right around there -- 4.7% YTD.

oh right, I have a 401k. I'm seeing 6% for 2014 YTD. I just dump everything into SWPPX and RYLPX and honestly haven't looked at it in a very long time. RoR for 2013 was just under 17%. Not bad for doing nothing.

My all-stock IRA (with which I monkey around way more on an irregular basis) is doing about the same, though YTD is flatter due to the April-May slump of tech stocks.

I haven't checked recently but my 401k did about 15% in both 2012 and 2013.

My wife's 403b which I also manage did a bit better, closer to 20% both years.

PS - I haven't bought any stocks yet so this thread is pointless?

Double post!!!

So i basically pulled the numbers above out of my arse.

I was completely wrong.

I couldn't look up my 2012 RoR but my 2013 RoR on my 401k (Fidelity) was ~27%.

Year to date on the same 401k is 7.8%.

My 401k is 95+% stock funds, selected from a group of available funds. Probably 60% US stocks, 35% international, varying amounts of large cap and mid cap.

The sad thing is 127% of not very much money is....not very much money.

My 401k is barely up over 5% since inception almost 10 years ago...which makes me wonder wtf these fund managers are actually getting paid to do. Shit, my best earning fund is a bond fund which has earned a consistent 3% year over year...at least that somewhat covered inflation. I'll probably rollover to an IRA sometime this year that I can manage myself.

My concern with the current market is that things seem to continue to be "well" and big index stocks continue to rise...but a lot of it is on below average volume and at/near all time highs. In the short term, I think we will see a decent sell-off. I'm holding off buying anything new.

What are you guys paying in expense ratios to the fund managers? My Vanguard small cap index fund is at .09. That's less for the fund managers and more for me than pretty much every option I've seen. And smaller businesses grow better than large ones. A smaller company can readily grow 20% in a year but it isn't as likely General Electric will ever be able to do the same.

I graduated in 2008 and started working in mid '08. I didn't really start contributing to my 401k until 2009 so my returns since inception are a bit misleading since I basically started buying right at the bottom...

Yes, that was good timing. I wish I had actively transitioned my 401k funds to bonds at the beginning of the downturn. I knew what was happening but held stubbornly to what I was already doing. Bonds would not have dropped as far and would have retained more value. Then after the market started climbing upward I could have gotten back into the small cap index funds and ridden it up. Ah, hindsight.

GER is 0.49 for my Nationwide Mod Agress balanced fund. At the time I just picked it because it seemed like the right balance of risk/reward for me and was easier to understand than sorting through hundreds of individual options, but I think I need to shift most of my 401k to something more aggressive.

The small cap index fund is a little piece of a couple thousand companies in every business segment there is. It has very low expenses and great diversification, but always does a lot better than the S&P 500 because smaller businesses grow faster than bigger ones.

I've used several online places but currently do business with E-Trade. Don't worry about how much these places charge. You are doing one trade. $3 extra per trade at E-Trade vs the cheapest place is not going to kill you. Heck, don't worry about what the service is like either. You are hardly ever going to interact with the people there. You are going to log on and make a trade. Not a huge issue.


Now, for some advice which you said you were not asking for. I've been buying stocks since 1984 (maybe 1983). During that time I had made a lot of money and lost a lot of money. I got strangled during the dot com bubble with margin calls and had to raid my 401K just to pay them off. In the past 20 or so years (that is all I have records for) I have beaten the market in all but 3 of them. I currently invest around 70% of my income (maxed out 401K, two maxed out Roth IRAs, maxed out HSA that I do not touch, and two other accts). So, what have I learned in 31 years of doing this?

1) No one has a damn clue where the market is heading. Not your friend you go drinking with, not the guy who lives across the street from you, not even Warren Buffet. Anyone who says "this stock is going to go up" is guessing just like the rest of us.

2) Even stocks that look really good can be dogs. I've invested a ton of money in a tech company that does voice recognition and speech to text stuff. If you own a cell phone or have played a video game that lets you say commands then you have interacted with this company. Microsoft was interested in buying them at one point because they use them for the XBOX so often. Right now about $30,000 initial investment is worth maybe $0.01 (if that - I gave up looking at it a year ago).

3) If you can't afford to lose the money then you don't need to be messing with individual stock. Every person I have ever talked to ends up losing money in stocks. Diversified mutal funds and the like is the way to go.

4) Buy and hold. If you are "investing" you should be doing it for decades, not years, months or weeks.


I have a piece of paper hanging on my wall. I don't always follow the advice I put up there 10 years ago but here it is (with explanation in parenthesis):
1 - Don't listen to anyone (no one knows)
2 - Don't talk to anyone (they will influence your decisions and screw you up)
3 - Look at the market every day (don't get lazy)
4 - Make 1% not 5% (don't get greedy)
5 - Don't fight the market (if it is going up then you should be in)
6 - Make the market your #1 priority (if you have big $$$ in it then it is important)


Good luck!