Hard-won lessons about money and investing • Hacker News Board

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#11

Post by jamesaguilar » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:05 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #7

I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years. I'm expecting a market crash somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Most of my money is in cash, but I do hold a few select stocks like AAPL, GOOG and TSLA. I also believe that the stock market is a game , not an investment vehicle. The nature of the market has transformed every since the day trader, qua…

> I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years.

When you say "now," are you referring to the period from when financial markets were discovered until the present? Or some more specific period? As far as I knew, boom and bust are not exactly new developments.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#12

Post by jamesaguilar » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:07 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

j_lev wrote: post #3

> If you’re an employee working for salary, it’s going to be hard to reach that level of independence. ... You can try to radically lower your financial burn rate, but few Americans have taken that step. So many people are quick to dismiss living well within one's means as a way to financial independence. Here's the link to the facts again: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim... TL;DR: Live o…

And don't have kids.

Or do, and cut from other areas/don't get on the hoighty-toighty daycare/lessons/private school treadmill. But kids are definitely an expense.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#13

Post by kirillzubovsky » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:12 AM UTC

FYI, if "tax loss harvesting" is something you'd like to consider, there're companies out there which (for a fee), would do it for you. Their entire business model is to lose money for you, in a smart way. That said, if you need to use this method, you're probably wealthy enough to know how/where to use it.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#14

Post by ForHackernews » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:13 AM UTC

arkem wrote: post #10

I've been considering moving from holding Vanguard ETFs (one of their Total Retirement funds) over to Betterment or Wealthfront to take advantage of their automated tax loss harvesting. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether automated tax loss harvesting is worth the 0.15-0.25% fees that the robo-advisers charge?

Probably not worth it unless you have a very large portfolio and you're too lazy to do the tax loss harvesting yourself. It's especially not worth it if you're correctly holding most of your retirement savings in tax-advantaged accounts (401k/403b/IRA/HSA). You are, right?

Also, it's worth noting that Schwab is launching a free robo-advisor service early next year[0] so that may be the nail in the coffin for startups like Betterment.

[0] http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/us-charles-schwab-...

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#15

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:14 AM UTC

arkem wrote: post #10

I've been considering moving from holding Vanguard ETFs (one of their Total Retirement funds) over to Betterment or Wealthfront to take advantage of their automated tax loss harvesting. Does anyone have any thoughts about whether automated tax loss harvesting is worth the 0.15-0.25% fees that the robo-advisers charge?

[deleted]

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#16

Post by phamilton » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:19 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #4

j_lev wrote: post #3

> If you’re an employee working for salary, it’s going to be hard to reach that level of independence. ... You can try to radically lower your financial burn rate, but few Americans have taken that step. So many people are quick to dismiss living well within one's means as a way to financial independence. Here's the link to the facts again: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim... TL;DR: Live o…

And don't have kids.

Having kids doesn't change the math. That's MMM's point in the post. It's all about savings rate. Kids mean it is harder to save 35%, but the math doesn't change.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#17

Post by justincpollard » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:20 AM UTC

steven2012 wrote: post #7

I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years. I'm expecting a market crash somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Most of my money is in cash, but I do hold a few select stocks like AAPL, GOOG and TSLA. I also believe that the stock market is a game , not an investment vehicle. The nature of the market has transformed every since the day trader, qua…

One of the nice things about Vanguard is that the fee structure is much less than 1-3% for many of their funds. I invest with them in some of their index funds and pay no more than 0.4% in fees; usually much less than that.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:23 AM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #5

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started Short version: Open a Vanguard account and invest >=15% of your salary in the appropriate target date fund for the year you want to retire. P.S. Where possible, become a millionaire in Google's IPO.

[deleted]

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#19

Post by steven2012 » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:26 AM UTC

jamesaguilar wrote: post #11

steven2012 wrote: post #7

I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years. I'm expecting a market crash somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Most of my money is in cash, but I do hold a few select stocks like AAPL, GOOG and TSLA. I also believe that the stock market is a game , not an investment vehicle. The nature of the market has transformed every since the day trader, qua…

> I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years. When you say "now," are you referring to the period from when financial markets were discovered until the present? Or some more specific period? As far as I knew, boom and bust are not exactly new developments.

I'm not talking bear markets, I truly believe there will be 50%+ drops every 7-10 years, which is something that you wouldn't expect pre-2000, except 1987. I think the stock market is a battle ground for amoral participants who are willing to break the stock markets in order to make as much money as they can, and the NYSE and NASDAQ don't seem to care.

Re: Hard-won lessons about money and investing

#20

Post by phamilton » Sun, Nov 30, 2014, 6:26 AM UTC

mcfunley wrote: post #6

> Think about working for equity vs. salary It's really common for people to drastically overestimate the value of startup equity, or to just not understand the basic mechanics of it at all. In my experience people look at the face value of their options and are pretty clueless about how taxes (or even their strike price!) affect what they might actually wind up with.

I've seen more than once that in a acqui-hire situation employees are left with very little value in their options and lots of value in their retention package. Not always the case, but it adds to my opinion that equity is really impossible to value.