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Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

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Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#101

Post by kcorbitt »

ryandrake wrote: post #95
kcorbitt wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there are people in the FI crowd trying get by on $15k a year. Not my cup of tea, but if they're happy that way I say more power to them. But the community is a spectrum -- there's also a fairly large contingent (composed mainly of doctors, engineers and other high-income workers) whose savings at early-retirement time seem to cluster around ~$3M, allowing for retirement spending of $90-100k. That buys a solid…

Do-able? Maybe. High-earning is an understatement though. If you want to reach $3M in 20 years, you'd need to save about $100K per year, assuming, say, an annually compounding 4% interest rate across your savings and investments. A lot of people who might consider themselves high-earners don't even make that much in a year, let alone are able to save it. Even assuming you're a gambler and put all your savings into st…

I don't think a 7% interest rate is unreasonable. One of the advantages of planning on early retirement means that you can take on a lot more risk with your investments, eg. putting everything into stocks (which isn't really "gambling" -- over long periods they've only ever gone up). If the markets are totally hammered the year you want to retire, no problem -- just keep working a few more years until they recover. And saving $75k a year is also quite reasonable if you have a high income, like a doctor or well-compensated engineer. I’m only a couple years into my career and am supporting my wife and kid, but we’re on track to save a bit more than that this year.

Of course, the lifestyle choices we make aren’t for everyone, and that’s fine. But they’re also not totally crazy. We can save that much still live about as well as the median American, and a lot better than the median human.

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#103

Post by Uroboric »

UK-AL wrote: post #90
Uroboric wrote: post #44

Something that's never made sense to me about stocks: Unless you're extremely wealthy, any money you are able to save (outside of retirement money) is probably money you are going to want to use for something to improve your life in the semi-near future. Buying a house or car (or just a better one) for example. With that assumption in place, under what circumstances does investing in index funds make any sense whatso…

Because some people value retiring a few years earlier over having biggist house or best car. It also allows you build up capital to say start a business or take some years out.

I'm not sure if my original post just wasn't clear enough or something. Retirement is great, my point was about non-retirement money.

Building capital for a business is exactly the kind of medium-term goal I was referring to, where you wouldn't want it getting spoiled by a market crash at the wrong time.

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#104

Post by Uroboric »

austenallred wrote: post #88
Uroboric wrote: post #44

Something that's never made sense to me about stocks: Unless you're extremely wealthy, any money you are able to save (outside of retirement money) is probably money you are going to want to use for something to improve your life in the semi-near future. Buying a house or car (or just a better one) for example. With that assumption in place, under what circumstances does investing in index funds make any sense whatso…

Where are you investing your retirement funds? Your 401(k) or IRA can be in index funds, too.

My retirement funds are in stock index funds. That and my daughter's 529 are the only stocks I own. Everything else is bonds, cash and real estate.

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#105

Post by UK-AL »

Uroboric wrote: post #103
UK-AL wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people value retiring a few years earlier over having biggist house or best car. It also allows you build up capital to say start a business or take some years out.

I'm not sure if my original post just wasn't clear enough or something. Retirement is great, my point was about non-retirement money. Building capital for a business is exactly the kind of medium-term goal I was referring to, where you wouldn't want it getting spoiled by a market crash at the wrong time.

Normally you mix with bonds to get the level of risk you want

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#106

Post by pc86 »

jjeaff wrote: post #81
fpgaminer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, same here, mortgage is huge in these expensive areas. But having the house paid off is part of our FI plan. That's probably not true of the more hardcore FI crowd. They believe, rightly so, that stocks are better investments than a house and that a mortgage is basically just free investment money. I don't disagree, but I want to own a home ... just cause. So our investment portfolio is definitely real estate he…

Borrowing on your home to invest is just a terrible idea. You may see higher returns on the aggregate in the market but doing so is a good way to lose your home. Too much risk and like you, I think the small spread (and it is very small) between your mortgage and market returns doesn't even cover the risk premium of the potential to lose your home.

If you borrow against your home to invest you don't lose your home if the investments tank, you only lose your home if you can't make the loan payments.

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#107

Post by jonathanjaeger »

objclxt wrote: post #53
jonathanjaeger wrote: post #24

If this is about index funds specifically, that is definitely not clear. If anything I think this is NOT about index funds, but individual stocks. Index funds are basically set it and forget it, so why would I want to continuously use this app? Just buy some $SCHB, $SPY, $VTI, or whatever combo of index funds you want and that's it. Daytraders, swing traders, and people buying individual stocks would want to use an a…

> Index funds are basically set it and forget it, so why would I want to continuously use this app? Just buy some $SCHB, $SPY, $VTI, or whatever combo of index funds you want and that's it. Because of re-balancing. Say you invest in three index funds at a 70/20/10 split. One of those funds performs much better than the others over time, leaving you with a distorted ratio. So you re-balance to get back to your origina…

Fair enough, that being said, I'm not sure I need an app/community for that (i.e. a Stocktwits clone for index funds).

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#108

Post by sl03 »

lukewrites wrote: post #73
baccredited wrote: post #25

Warren Buffet tells his heirs to go 90% SP500 and 10% Bonds. So just buy VOO and BND, rebalance yearly and you are done. OR do a 3 fund portfolio like: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio OR buy a target retirement fund from Vanguard: https://investor.vanguard.com/search/?query=Vanguard%20targe... OR fill out a risk profile on Wealthfront/Betterment and invest there. Bottom line is pick an approach a…

Yeah, I think "a community for index fund investors" already exists, and it's the boglehead forums and wiki. Index fund investing is (relatively) simple and (relatively) boring. Honest questions: What does an app with leader boards, individual portfolios, and stock picking add to that or how does this app fit in with that philosophy? (edit for grammar)

My thought when going around the investment communities is that the challenge is not really the quantity of information/advice, but the quality. Anyone can give stock picks. To me, I'd like to understand more about the person's track records (historical returns) before following his advice.

I started working with my colleague to build Keel to facilitate the verified information flow. People who are selling their stock/fund ideas on Keel will have to integrate directly with their personal brokerages. This way, users who are looking to follow credible ideas can see not only the historical returns, but also the real buy/sell activities.

Working around brokerages is challenging but I believe transparency is an important missing piece in all of the online/offline sources of investment advice. Hope this will help those who offer credible ideas shine, and save time and money for those who look for advice. And (here comes to the self-promote part), if you think this is interesting, check it out: https://keel.io

Of course, if you don't think it's interesting, still let us know how we can make it more interesting to you!

Re: Show HN: StockNerd – A community for index fund investors

#109

Post by mancerayder »

pc86 wrote: post #49
hamstercat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty popular in the Financial Independence crowd, where the goal is to get enough money to be able to live on interest alone. It's not for the extremely wealthy, rather the somewhat high-income middle class. You can even make it work with less income if you can manage to cut your expense. Most people adjusts (ie: increases) their spending when they get additional income, but it doesn't have to be that way. In…

The FI crowd is 90% expense management and 10% investment. It seems like most folks there have a goal to stop working but are willing to do that and live like a pauper the rest of their lives. If that works for them, great, but I'd much rather work at a job I love, make very good money, and enjoy my life, rather than "retire" at 35 and live on $24k/yr in interest for the rest of my life. I'd love to see a Financial I…

What confuses me most is how people expect to pay for healthcare costs, which keeps going up. I'm an independent contractor and it costs me 1k a month. More than double with family.
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