Ask HN: How would you invest money if you were 25 again?

> I don't want to lock it in long term bonds because I want to be free to take it out whenever I want.

Lots of bonds have secondary markets, that mean you can sell them at any time. Of course, you find the most liquid secondary markets in government bonds --- and those, in general, do not yield much at the moment.

> I don't want to risk all of it in stocks but I want a better yield than the net Are you talking about nominal or real yield?

Whatever you invest in, make sure that you do not pay too many fees. (Low fees are the primary incentive to go for exchange traded index funds.)

And of course, there's always the possibility to invest in yourself.

If stocks have gone down, that's not the right time to sell. When stocks are valued much more by the market than you think is reasonable, then selling might be interesting.

Avoid transaction costs and other fees as much as possible.

Right now, were in a high inflation environment, with the interest rates being forced down below the inflation rate. This is very similar to the scenario that created the housing bubble, only there is no longer a mania in housing. We have an ongoing sovereign debt crisis in europe, most of which is not being recognized and an even bigger one in the USA which nearly nobody recognizes, and hasn't even started yet.

This means that the dollar is poised to crash, interest rates will have to rise sharply, and both of these are very bad for bonds. Stocks will rise in an inflationary environment but this is really due to the decline in the value of the dollars used to price them.

I'm sure I'm going to be down voted for saying this because it is popular to believe that inflation is low (by changing the baskets of goods to pretend prices aren't going up) and that the "recession is over" etc. Etc. It is popular because it makes the government's job easier and the government wants to just print money like never before without consequences. But there are always consequences.

I've been around a long time, and when I was 25 I was not wise enough to save. If I'd bought stocks then, it would have been a good investment, but having many hears of investing experience now and having studied investing and studied economics, I have learned a thing or two. After I made a killing from knowing the housing market was going to implode, I got out of every asset with counter party risk. I've done better than %25 a year holding the "dumbest", least fancy investment you can- bullion. Meanwhile, the derivatives bubble is just getting going, with one of the largest bubbles being in paper gold, btw, such as etfs. Buy physical gold, silver and platinum, and hold onto it for a couple years.

2008 was the rough equivilent of 1929. We're just now entering the first part of the truly great depression. If you do want ot invest in stocks anyway, make them Canadian mining companies or canadian royalty trusts. Two reasons- commodity based businesses will do better, and thevcanadian dollar will do better, so assets in Canada and priced in canadian dollars will provide some protection from the decline in paper money.

We have about 90 years of inflation that the us has managed to export to other countries. This means we've benefited from low cost of living by exporting our inflation abroad for a very long time. This only owkrs, though, when you're a major industrial power and the other countries want to finance your debt because they believe you will be able to repay it.

The US has recently passed the levels where repayment is traditionally considered viable, and has inly increased the rhythm of the printing presses...at the same time we are longer the manfuacturing power we were.

This is going to be a very painful crisis.