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Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#381

Post by limedaring »

jtcond13 wrote: post #323
limedaring wrote: post #206

I wrote Hello Web App and Hello Web App: Intermediate Concepts ( http://hellowebapp.com , they're learn-to-build-a-web-app books using Django) and self-published both in 2015. Just checked and this year I've made about $13,000 in profit. It's mostly passive — this year I started using a fulfillment company so the majority of my work is sending them orders (and answering questions about the book.) Hoping to continue t…

This is a great product. Glad to see it doing well.

Thanks for the compliment!

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#382

Post by rovr138 »

AtticusTheGreat wrote: post #378

I just recently launched a statuspage aggregator at https://statusbeacon.io which has been pretty cool to work on. I've also got an online multiplayer boggle game that has made me low 3 digits per month since about 2008, http://serpentinegame.com , mostly ad revenue but also paid memberships.

Looked at statusbeacon.io. Is there a place to see all the providers you monitor without having to sign up?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#383

Post by enraged_camel »

StevePerkins wrote: post #225
FrancoDiaz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4.9% isn't even close to being the real unemployment rate.

Nor does it reflect the stagnant/decreasing income of the jobs that people DO have.

Not to mention hordes of underemployed college grads.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#384

Post by qwrusz »

Rainymood wrote: post #353
hackerboos wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that book this year. The entire book can be summarised as. Don't attempt to beat the market. The market cannot be beat (many examples in the book). Invest in index funds long term which is the right mix of risk/reward for most people. It does have a chart in the back which tracks your age and situation. For example as you approach retirement you should start to liquidate your funds and buy government bonds so…

>The market cannot be beat. I really would like to believe this, but please explain to me how then how firms like Renaissance can exist ... Not sure whether it's relevant but I'll add that I'm an economics PhD student.

The market cannot be beat by 100% of amateurs piddling away on their brokerage account during a few spare hours a week.

The market cannot be beat by 99.9% of professional investors spending all their time day and night trying and with a team of people helping them.

I'm calling your bluff on you being an econ PhD student or maybe you have been one for a month or two at most...? If you are an econ grad student you know what RenTec is doing more or less. At least in theory if not specifics, people talk and there's plenty of econ papers explaining what's underneath major quant strategies.

People need to chill bringing up RenTec when finance comes up (Buffett too). Just like they need to chill bringing up Facebook when talking about startup valuations. Outliers are outliers.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#385

Post by ceejayoz »

Rainymood wrote: post #353
hackerboos wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that book this year. The entire book can be summarised as. Don't attempt to beat the market. The market cannot be beat (many examples in the book). Invest in index funds long term which is the right mix of risk/reward for most people. It does have a chart in the back which tracks your age and situation. For example as you approach retirement you should start to liquidate your funds and buy government bonds so…

>The market cannot be beat. I really would like to believe this, but please explain to me how then how firms like Renaissance can exist ... Not sure whether it's relevant but I'll add that I'm an economics PhD student.

Renaissance is part of the market, and it's the sort of thing that we individual investors can't beat. "The market can't be beat" doesn't mean no one can see better returns - it means a random yahoo like me simply can't compete with the information, processing power, and access funds like Renaissance have.

Thus, an average investor is a lot better off with an index fund instead of trying to pick individual stocks. (Funds like Renaissance's Medallion simply aren't available to people without tens of millions of dollars to throw around, too.)

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#388

Post by retube »

dorfsmay wrote: post #252
madaxe_again wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man alive. Here in the UK a five year treasury bond yields precisely nothing - potentially less than nothing. I have a mountain of cash and nothing to invest it in here. Even property doesn't present a meaningful yield any more. It also doesn't look like it's going to get better, just worse - so as far as I can discern the best course of action is just to spend it before it becomes completely valueless. To stay ahead…

A quick google search shows UK inflation for the year at .9%. Why are you saying you need a 10% yield.

A common refrain in the UK is that inflation figures are an elite conspiracy with the reality being much higher than reported.

There's an awful lot wrong with CPI/RPI measures, but needless to say this is tinfoil-hattery.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#389

Post by robius »

I used to do index funds. Then I went looking for an active portfolio manager. After a few years I found one, he was good, but 6mo in he switched jobs and left for another career.

The next guy wasn't good and eventually didn't want to actively manage the account. I kept looking until this year when I found fractalgo, which is used by large institutional investors to trade through science without emotion and second-guessing.

Downside is you needed to be a qualified investor.

I called up the owner curious about how the fractal tech worked and found out he was setting up a service for everyone, not just the big guys.

After some research I moved my IRAs left over from previous 401Ks to a custodian that can do directed investments + broker and let the automated system go.

Couldn't be happier. No humans required once set up, and it keeps growing like a weed while I sleep.

Do your own research for what works for you and seek it out. You will find it, eventually.

https://fractalgo.com

Since doing so well, they just opened a fund using the same technology.

https://fractalternative.com

Re: Ask HN: What was your best passive income in 2016?

#390

Post by cpach »

velcro wrote: post #93
jrheard wrote: post #13

Young hackers who have a surplus of income and have funds to spare that aren't being channeled toward debt / family / donations, heed me: save as much of your salary as you can, and put it in boring investments (index funds / etc), probably through vanguard.com (no affiliation, I just use them and have heard nothing but good things from people I trust). You can pretty easily set up your job's direct-deposit system so…

Any tips for something solid vanguard-like in the EU?

That probably depends a lot on which country you live in.
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