Index funds. Don’t they just mirror certain sectors of the market? What good is that? And it shouldn’t take a financial adviser to provide that service. IMO
Correct. A typical S&P 500 index fund is balanced frequently and automatically. No fund manager needed. Index funds inside of 401k plans will typically have the lowest management fees and net out very good returns over the long run. Many beating out highly managed funds by highly paid fund managers.
-J.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>jrrendler wrote:</div>
Index funds. Don’t they just mirror certain sectors of the market? What good is that? And it shouldn’t take a financial adviser to provide that service. IMOCorrect. A typical S&P 500 index fund is balanced frequently and automatically. No fund manager needed. Index funds inside of 401k plans will typically have the lowest management fees and net out very good returns over the long run. Many beating out highly managed funds by highly paid fund managers.
-J.
Interesting. Thanks for the reply Jon. I appreciate the additional details you provided.
I’ve been playing around in the OTC markets lately and getting better than average returns. It’s seems like more and more retail investors are doing this? Anyone else trying this?
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn more
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn more
I am with Jon and his advice. For you, I think looking into maxing a traditional Roth would be great to supplement your pension. Also, work toward having cash on hand as Jon suggested. Really anything after that is just gravy.
I don’t know much of anything about the crypto world but being secure in the above mentioned areas, it leaves me with a “fun” opportunity. For me its like playing a game of craps in Vegas, I enjoy standing and playing at the table more than the money made or lost. Money made is just gravy.
Part of the retirement conversation with my wife has a ton to with my career and outlook on life. I am a white-collar worker with a job I enjoy. I could also make plenty just working 2-3 days a week (post mortgage). So for me, this plays into what I think I should save and invest. If I am going to work til I’m 70 then I sure don’t need as much invested. My outlook on life means I want to enjoy my family and recreation now and not leave a dime behind when the Maker takes me. The worst that could happen is we would be forced to stay home together and play cards. My children will be fine without an inheritance as we have hopefully taught them to do the same as we did.
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn more
Check with your union, a lot of them are offering 401k’s in addition to your pension. Otherwise if you have an insurance agent/financial planner or banker you know, like and trust they may be able to help you setup a Roth. You can PM me if you’d like some names and phone #’s.
If you want to avoid dealing with taxes, trade stocks in your Roth, tax free gains!!
If you want to avoid dealing with taxes, trade stocks in your Roth, tax free gains!!
Exactly what I do. Also play with a cash account.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I wish I had knowledge in any of this. Im a dummy when it comes to this world.Max out your 401k. Max fund a Roth IRA. (Funds invested in S&P500 index accounts) Accumulate 6 months to one year after tax annual salary in cash. Ok to have this sitting in a bank money market fund. (Secured by the FDIC) Once you have that nailed down then go gamble on stocks with any additional funds you have available.
-J.
here is what i will add if you want to dabble in stocks. Read the book “the intelligent investor” by Benjamin Graham. You don’t have to understand it completely. But if that book doesn’t completely scare you away from the concept of buying stocks, at that point you can begin to analyze companies and make decisions.
Index funds. Don’t they just mirror certain sectors of the market? What good is that? And it shouldn’t take a financial adviser to provide that service. IMO
it doesn’t but in reality historically an index investor over the long term will beat the active investor more times than not. Especially after you factor in what you pay CFP. but planning is more than returns. They should be setting you up for paying as little taxes as possible and even helping you figure out a distribution plan in retirement. So there is definitely still value in a planner even if they recommend indexing. indexing still requires some rebalancing here or there.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn moreCheck with your union, a lot of them are offering 401k’s in addition to your pension. Otherwise if you have an insurance agent/financial planner or banker you know, like and trust they may be able to help you setup a Roth. You can PM me if you’d like some names and phone #’s.
I’m union as well and BigWerm is right about checking to see if they offer a 401k. My union is going to start offering it this year as a supplement to the pension. It doesn’t change or take anything away from the pension, it’s an added benefit.
it doesn’t but in reality historically an index investor over the long term will beat the active investor more times than not.
Sure, but that is compared to an ACTIVE investor. But picking a few sound mutual funds for the long term is as simple as looking for historical returns of 12% or greater. And only pick funds that have been around for decades….not years!
It’s a simple formula that I picked up from a guy named Dave. 
And since I did that, and stopped letting a so called planner pick for me, my retirement accounts have shot upwards. I can look at my graphs and see the day I stopped taking her advice. And this lady told me I was taking to much risk for my age(I was 44). If I had listened to her I would have missed out on the best bull run in history.
By the way, for those of you who are looking to start a Roth. You can do it with a few clicks. Go to Vanguard (or another service), open an account, deposit funds and declare the account as a Roth, then pick funds. It is easy and glad I did that a few years ago. My average return has been 17.5%. I am not bragging and I am definitely NOT an expert in this stuff but I want to say it can be done.
I do a fair amount of investing and, at least for retirement and other accounts where you probably don’t want to trade individual stocks, I have been extremely impressed with a company called Wealthfront. https://www.wealthfront.com/ It’s very simple, it’s extremely low cost/fee, and it invests your money in index funds automatically based on your risk profile (which you develop easily by answering their questions). You don’t have to pick your own funds or know anything to get started. Very easy and very good in my experience.
Also, anyone with a pension – especially a building trades pension – is starting from a very strong position as far as retirement savings goes. Adding a roth ira on top of it is a great suggestion, in my option, and can easily be done through Wealthfront.
FYI, if you get a referral you’ll get the first $5,000 managed for free by Wealthfront. If you want a referral, you can PM me or you can go to NerdWallet or elsewhere and use their referral link. Either way, you’ll get the first $5k for managed for free. I am not pimping them for the referral (the person referring gets $5k managed for free as well, which is otherwise $12.50/month based on the .25% management fee) so I won’t post a referral link here, but I highly recommend it based on my experience.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>hnd wrote:</div>
it doesn’t but in reality historically an index investor over the long term will beat the active investor more times than not.Sure, but that is compared to an ACTIVE investor. But picking a few sound mutual funds for the long term is as simple as looking for historical returns of 12% or greater. And only pick funds that have been around for decades….not years!
It’s a simple formula that I picked up from a guy named Dave.
And since I did that, and stopped letting a so called planner pick for me, my retirement accounts have shot upwards. I can look at my graphs and see the day I stopped taking her advice. And this lady told me I was taking to much risk for my age(I was 44). If I had listened to her I would have missed out on the best bull run in history.
By the way, for those of you who are looking to start a Roth. You can do it with a few clicks. Go to Vanguard (or another service), open an account, deposit funds and declare the account as a Roth, then pick funds. It is easy and glad I did that a few years ago. My average return has been 17.5%. I am not bragging and I am definitely NOT an expert in this stuff but I want to say it can be done.
yeah Dave is great for a lot of things. But hes a real estate guy. not a market guy.
When i say active investing, the act of purchasing actively managed funds is active investing. you aren’t doing the active investing, the fund managers are on your behalf. and the numbers bear it out. over the long term, most actively managed funds do not beat their index. even more so when front loads and AUM fees are applied. That doesn’t mean its impossible, many still do. But the index investor is likely to beat 70% of them over the long haul. for a person with a don’t just do something, stand there! attitude, its the perfect portfolio.
My parents are in a Dave approved American funds (and other loaded funds for small/mid cap) portfolio sold to them by an ELP and they’ve paid so much in fees, a simple index portfolio over the past 35 years easily beats their true after fee CAGR by over 1%. disclaimer i’ve taught FPU for over 5 years. I also am only 75% indexed at the moment.
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn more
Ask a Teamster what they think of their union pension. Save some on your own.
one of my dad’s best friends was a teamster. his wife was set to retire when they cut the pensions. she’s now finally set to retire. He had to get a gig doing odd jobs.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn moreAsk a Teamster what they think of their union pension. Save some on your own.
Thats why I’m a laborer and work. So my pension fund is very good. My old man makes more retired then he did in the field.
And as my original statement says I have a bunch of cash to play with. I save my money. Just don’t understand the investing world. Hence my questions.
Teamsters and a few other trades like carpenters have junk pensions. But thats what they signed up knowing. Thats why I chose a job that had a great pension fund
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gizmoguy wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
I do not have a 401k. I am union so I have a pension. I have never looked in to a Roth, or anything similar.
Is there a place to look or people to speak to that I can learn moreAsk a Teamster what they think of their union pension. Save some on your own.
Thats why I’m a laborer and work. So my pension fund is very good. My old man makes more retired then he did in the field.
And as my original statement says I have a bunch of cash to play with. I save my money. Just don’t understand the investing world. Hence my questions.
Teamsters and a few other trades like carpenters have junk pensions. But thats what they signed up knowing. Thats why I chose a job that had a great pension fund
All of the MN building trades pensions are very solid, including the laborers and the carpenters. The teamsters central states fund is the problem child. Western states teamsters fund is very well funded. Most of the people who say your pension plan won’t be there for you at retirement don’t have a horse in the race. They’re usually uneducated about it and wrong.
Consider wealthfront for your extra cash.
Teamsters !! 
Yes I “WAS” a Teamster back in the early 90’s… one contract negotiation I was involved in, a Strike was imminent… literally a BIG announcement 5 minutes before the vote, our Teamster rep stood up in front of us all and informed everyone that the Strike Fund was dried up, so if we vote to strike, there would be no benefit payments… guess what… they passed it & no dues payments were disrupted. Such power…. 
I leave the stocks and bonds to my adviser. The only things I trust myself buying is Hormel stock, gold and silver. All three treat me well.
Let’s resurface this post a year from now.
It’s funny how folks suddenly get interested in investing after the markets form a bubble. They don’t want to miss out, hop-in, and pump the bubble up even more. These are the same folks that are gonna get hurt when the markets drop back down to where they should be. They’ll then complain about how the market is rigged.
Being disciplined by living frugally, getting debt free, saving $, and paying your dues over the long haul by consistently investing in Roth 401k, Roth IRA & HSA accts is the path to financial independence for the average chump.
If you think you can to trade individual stocks and beat the market, good luck. You can read all the books you want on technical analysis, etc, etc, and it still probably ain’t gonna happen. Mutual funds hire the best stock pickers in the world and they are lucky to beat the S & P. Broad index & mutual funds are the way to go over the long haul.
Depending on anything outside of your own savings like a company pension and/or the government is not a good idea either.
Sorry to come across as bit negative here. I’m just trying to be a realist.
If you think you can to trade individual stocks and beat the market, good luck.
I’m up 709% since April. Am I beating the market? 
Mutual funds hire the best stock pickers in the world and they are lucky to beat the S & P. Broad index & mutual funds are the way to go over the long haul.
your post is pretty much spot on. dot come bubble turned novices into professionals.
That said, mutual fund managers are not really a fair comparison. the individual investor has WAY more freedom than a mutual fund stock picker. most have to stay within a stylebox and have diversification stipulations based on their type of MF. they also have to stay within a specific turnover, beta, and alpha, Rsquared, etc etc. They are also bound by the company they work for as well.
We have the freedom to do what we want. buy, sell, rebuy, short, options, leverage, etc etc etc.
I read about a manager who got fired from his position because he was shorting reits in 2007. his fund was like severely underperforming compared to other REITS. had his management stuck wth him, 2008 would of returned the fund 75% while the market (and that fund) dropped like a rock. that fund company doesn’t exist anymore.
i haven’t beat the market by much but I also have the ability to inject new money as the market dictates.
As previously stated, my retirement pension and Roth are completely separate from my”dabbling.”. I would never suggest someone buy stocks or cryptocurrencies with $$$ they factor into retirement on their own.
In the small time fun money world, I couldn’t help myself and threw a few hundred into Dogecoin a couple days ago before jumping out with a quick $40 profit. That thing is way too volatile. The second I saw a profit I was out. The only trend I’ve seen for it is price and volume being related to social media mentions. I’ll stick to the bigger cryptos in the future along with stocks.
Since starting to mess around, I’ve earned about 35% on top of what I have put in. I think some bubbles will eventually pop, but not until the stimulus packages are done and the fed tries to bump interest rates a bit.
I find it interesting that so many people try to “time the top” or wait for some “market crash”. I think of all the people who withdrew their 401k’s last spring in fear, only to miss out on one of the most incredible bull runs in the last couple decades.
I guess my point is scared money don”t make money. Lots of good viewpoints in here. Good reading.
market timing involves 2 decisions. when to get out and when to get back in. i know people who got out at the right time. neither got back in at the right time. they even missed their break even point. meanwhile a guy down the road from us, pulled out of the market before the election. last talking he hasn’t gotten back in yet. he’s certain it will drop like a rock again. he may be right. but if the market goes up another 20% before it gets there, sheesh.
I’m always willing to share my successes and struggles. Hopefully some others here who are recreational traders have “hit it big”. I’m currently sitting at a 21.02% growth on my investments from the past calendar year.
Positives in My Portfolio:
-Delta Airlines: My only regret is not buying up more shares. They seem to be a steady but confident business that should continue to grow if the pandemic stays under wraps
-Spirit Airlines: I don’t like their sheets as well as Delta’s, but they too have brought in some nice returns for me.
-Litecoin: I jumped in at $130 and sold too much at $190. I’m still holding the last third as it’s in the $245 range.
-Raytheon Technologies: This is being stashed as a longterm hold. Their diverse business model makes them seem like a low risk way to see steady growth.
-Dave & Busters: I admittedly took a flyer on this on the recommendation of a coworker. He’s far more in-tune with the stock market than I am. I’ve just about doubled my initial investment and will likely jump off of it soon.
Negatives:
-XL Fleet: They have a great business model and contracts with many companies along with great projections, but this sucker has a lot of shorts dug in and lacks a real marketing presence to push what seems to be a great idea.
i bought IEC in june of last year. and then i rebought a larger amount when it started going up in december. and it has since kind of pooped out. i’m in the red on that right now.
also LHX – L3Harris Technologies. they provide surveillance stuff to the gvt. have owned them for about 2 years and i’m basically even on.
Bump.
My fun money investments for the year have slowed down a bit. I’m still averaging about 16% growth with some winners and some losers mixed in. It sure beats just throwing extra cash in savings account. I figure these little investments have netted me a few guns or upgrading sonar units for the boat (if I pull just profits). I plan to start taking some profits and playing it safe as the global covid outlook still looks rough and inflation could be a factor.
My Winners:
-Raytheon Technologies has been good to me. The government continues to spend big $ through them
-Litecoin has been good to me, but I no longer hold any
-Bitcoin has been OK, I wasn’t in on it real early but hold some worth a nice profit.
-Delta and Spirit airlines have plateaued but brought solid returns early. It’s probably time to look at jumping ship.
-GE has made a lot of conservatively smart moves as a corporation slashing debt – they’re a long-term hold for me
My Losers:
-Ballard Power has cost me some money. I was late getting in on it and green energy businesses have plateaued and some regressed
Yet to be Determined:
-Ford has made me some money as a recovery play, but I’m tempted to jump out with this chip shortage impacting their growth.
-United Microelectronics has a strong balance sheet and a favorable price within their market, but movement is rarely more than 0.5% here or there
Now seems like a good time to resurface this post. The good news is that we are heading towards “investable” markets once again. Bad news is there’s a lot of hurt still to come.
The suckers who bought into the stock market bubble still probably have time to get out. The S&P and NASDAQ indexes are still way overvalued when compared to long term averages. My guess is they will go down another 20% (probably more) when the economy goes into recession from inflation/high energy price combo.
The Fed used all their ammo to over inflate the bubble and will now be stuck raising interest rates into a declining economy.
IMO – positive time for investors since we may see some bargains once again.
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And since I did that, and stopped letting a so called planner pick for me, my retirement accounts have shot upwards. I can look at my graphs and see the day I stopped taking her advice. And this lady told me I was taking to much risk for my age(I was 44). If I had listened to her I would have missed out on the best bull run in history. 
