Interesting, but I doubt people tend to invest this consistently and regularly. They probably have an easy time investing when times are good (and they actually have a few extra bucks to gamble with), and tend to not invest when times are bad (they're trying to eat). Take someone who was doing pretty good during the tech and real estate bubbles, and decided to invest their spare change in 1998, 1999, 2005 and 2006, b…
You're wrong. If you only invested lump sums in the S&P 500 in 1998, 1999, 2005, and 2006, you'd have made money by today. Not as much as you would have historically, but still a fair chunk - and while yes, inflation would have eaten a large, large portion of it, it's way better than leaving your cash under your mattress. There's no way you lost money if you were in the S&P 500, unless you were pulling it out of inve…
If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
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Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#62What would the present value of that money be, if in a bank? Something to compare to would be instructive. For me, the stocks would be ~$260K. Simple interest (7%) would be $207K
Where can you find bank interest over the 1.1% ally is offering? Even if you did CD ladders,the last 15 years or so have had interest offerings of < 5%, mostly < 4% on 5 year CDs.
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#63Hey guys... I made the page. Just saw lots of traffic coming from here so figured I'd come check it out. A couple things I figured I should address after reading the comments: 1) Yahoo!'s historic S&P 500 data does not factor in dividends. So the returns would likely be 1-2% higher each year (which over time makes a very big difference). I should probably add a note on the page mentioning this. Here was my conundrum…
Through Yahoo's api, can't you use "Adj. Close"? That's what I do for historical S&P.
That's technically what I'm using, however, if you look at the S&P 500 historic data - http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EGSPC+Historical+Prices - the Adj. Close is the same as actual close (meaning there's never dividends or splits to account for). That Adj. close is what the main site - http://stockchoker.com/ - uses for all symbols, so for pretty much everything else, splits and dividends are accounted for... but nothing else I've found goes back anywhere close to 1950 (and is also representative of the stock market as a whole).
So that's why I'm leaning toward still using the S&P500 data, but adding an "average" dividend payout each year (which I'll do some research on.. guessing a little over 1% a year).
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#64I invested my spare money in a computer, and it's definitely paid back more than the S&P 500 in salary. Using up limited funds in childhood on financial investments is just madness
I don't think anyone is suggesting to not educate yourself and instead invest, but the point is what even a small amount of money can do over a long time.
...or how little it can do.
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey Toado, Your webpage gave me a screen takeover popup that was unavoidable on my phone :/ Even hitting back button would re-launch the popup. Chrome on iOS if it helps.
Ewww... never heard of that happening. I tested on iPad with Chrome / Safari / Firefox. Is this on iPhone? If so, which one?
Here's what it looks like on iphone: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160309_JW_14VA/
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really do not think the creator of this site is suggesting that children invest in the stock market. After all, how exactly does a 1 day old child do so? Instead, I think this is just an interesting tool demonstrating a "what if?" scenario. That said, investing a dollar a day on behalf of your child and tracking the progress of the account with them over time would be a cool way to teach them about money. You could…
Instead of $1/day, do $365/year to limit transaction fees. You could even offer to let them withdraw the dividend each month as an allowance or let it reinvest.
Yes, practically speaking that'd make more sense, but you could still frame it as a dollar a day for a child.
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#67I am 65. No one 66 or older can use your site because you don't plan for anyone born before 1950!
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#681983 seems to be a magic year (there is couple of years in 1970s and 1950s). Coincidentally it is my birth year too. It intrigues what is happening with other peoples investments born on that year. Looking at my investments, how much are they worth? Not as much as what the tool says, but I do have 75%. These years (1983,1970 1950), are they special in a way? How are others doing?
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#69I invested my spare money in a computer, and it's definitely paid back more than the S&P 500 in salary. Using up limited funds in childhood on financial investments is just madness
I don't think anyone is suggesting to not educate yourself and instead invest, but the point is what even a small amount of money can do over a long time.
I think the point is that there are some non-stock investments that also pay off. Looking at something like this can feel very either/or: "If only I didn't do X, I could have invested the money."
Re: If you invested $1 a day, starting when you were born
#70What would the present value of that money be, if in a bank? Something to compare to would be instructive. For me, the stocks would be ~$260K. Simple interest (7%) would be $207K
Where can you find bank interest over the 1.1% ally is offering? Even if you did CD ladders,the last 15 years or so have had interest offerings of < 5%, mostly < 4% on 5 year CDs.
I'm older than 15