patrick.net

I'd move this to the investment forum or you'll get goofy responses from people like me. Click on edit and change the forum in the top right corner.

Good luck, tho. My motto is buy high, sell low.

You might find yourself spread too thin if you're breaking things up that much, and cost per trade (depending on your balance) might start to eat away at your gains. You might want to drop a couple of your groups for now, perhaps combined the last 3 into one group of hand selected stocks.

The biggest thing to remember is to setup a sell rule, and don't break it. From what I've realized, there are a million systems that work. Everyone touts their own system as great. And everyone has their own weird tweaks that make their systems great or perform wonderfully. Every system works, as long as it has SOLID quick sell rules and those rules are followed, 100% of the time.

It's like playing blackjack and saying "I know that next card is a high card, I'm not going to pick it!" There is a system to playing black jack, and if you start changing the rules mid game because of a gut feeling, you'll really lose (not that you're going to win..). It's a mistake we all make and still make.

Everyone makes mistakes in investments, if they didn't, there would be masses of trillionaires out there. Sell fast, and stick to your rules. You might lose a few times, but in the long run the strong rules will pay off.

Be forewarned, if you meet with chucky, you would be pushed into a financial product (based on your survey) where there is no risk of loss (after tying $$ for a certain amount of time) and fancy graphs of gain (where rarely people actually realized) Press them for the drawbacks and (say no)

Invest in your education while the money and risk is small as the education is more valuable than actual results.

Two good stating points may be:

Phil Town's tehcnical analsysis
and value investing type theories employed by Buffet and others.
subscribe to money magazine and wall street journal and skip the sports stuff to get a sense of what is happening in business.

Whatver you do, don't watch CNBC.

The only site you need to read about portfolio allocation: http://crawlingroad.com

cab - index funds typically have very low overhead, nowhere near 1%. It's the actively managed funds that eat you alive through a combination of high fees and market underperformance over the years. Vanguard index funds are the gold standard, created by the guy who arguably invented and definitely popularized indexing, John Bogle.

Personally I'm about 70% in Berkshire Hathaway, which is essentially a diversified insurance-centered conglomerate (with the best, and lowest cost, management in the world :-) But that's not for everyone.

Rookie mistakes which I have made :

1. Impatience - selling off after a short time and missing a profit
2. IRS - if you buy and then sell, the IRS will see ALL of your money as a proceed even if it was a loss. You have to fill out the tax forms to indicate what the purchase price was in order to show that a trade was actually a loss or gain. This could be a severe pain if you buy and sell all the time and dont keep track of the purchase prices exactly. Also, if you do make good profits - all of the profits are taxable.
3. Afraid of the downswings - If you are going to be in the stock market there will be bad days, months, or years. Selling during downswings is very tempting but if you hang on you can realize a decent profit later. It is a roller coaster - you have to be willing to go down to go up and vice versa
4. Dont take advice from strangers on the internet ;-)

Index funds as your core funds and 10% of your assets in explore funds.

Total Marked Index funds are great for a lazy investor, but I'm no pro. I invest up to my yearly max Roth IRA contribution, and that's it.

I wouldn't touch most financial advisors with a 30 foot pole, as I used to be married to one. The entire racket is corrupt. If you actually trust one of these people, my recommendation is to run away. The ones that actually do well as a business do well because they capture your trust. They are trained and polished to do this quite well.

Their sales acumen is no demonstration of their ability to make you money, however. You would better off hiring an INDEPENDENT financial advisor who is starving for clients, who sucks at building trust -- but can clearly show you their investment portfolio from the last three years that shows they have been making their clients 10% or more per year.

Also, if an advisor does not tell you to put at least 20% of your portfolio in precious metals, I wouldn't trust anything they have to say, whatsoever. It's your signal that they do not follow anything other than the news headlines.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of advisors DO NOT trade your accounts. They basically take a commission and then put the management of your money into the hands of other people, from the start. Fund managers from a different firm are generally the ones handling your money. People you will never meet.

The amount of money you have to invest will be directly proportional to the amount of time and energy an advisor puts into your portfolio. If you have less than $1 million, you may ultimately find it is better to trade your own accounts. Best thing to do is see if you can outperform your advisor with a portion of your money. If you can, then learn some technical analysis and chart patterns, and have at it.

Check out ibankcoin.com for some great trading ideas. Some of the bloggers there make 100% or more per year, on average.

I have a specialized RE investment issue I need help with.
I am sole owner of a 2.6M multifamily complex in Texas with a 1.2M loan that's due in 2015. After expenses income is over 10K/ mo.
Bank is out of refinance business so I won't get help there.
Did a couple of short sales last year so my credit is in the crapper. Now is a good time to sell because I can get a premium price for the property. My CPA says because I've done so many 1031 exchanges over the years my tax liability on the sale would be over $500K...I am loathe to do this.
I checked into a few Tenants in common syndicate firms who say I can roll into a 1031 TIC which don't require good credit. I am promised interest rates ranging from 8 to 9 % or more, but I don't know who to believe.
Actually, I'd just like to keep the property with the current 5.2 % loan interest rate.
Does anyone here have any experience with this? Any suggestions?

http://patrick.net/?p=600458 - lets make this one a main thread for investment. There is a really good discussion there on it.

ChrisLA says

http://patrick.net/?p=600458 - lets make this one a main thread for investment. There is a really good discussion there on it.

OK, but how do I make something a "main thread"? I mean, what should the user interface look like? Should there be a "like" button, or a number of stars, and then to view highly rated threads, should there be a "best of" at the top of each separate forum?

Suggestions appreciated.

Did a couple of short sales last year so my credit is in the crapper
This is a commercial multifamily property (I'm assuming over 4 units). I don't believe the banks give a hoot about your credit; they look at cash flow for these types of property. In another words, if you default, will they lose their shirts. From what I can tell, with your LTV, it shouldn't be a problem. What am I missing?

ChrisLA says

http://patrick.net/?p=600458 - lets make this one a main thread for investment. There is a really good discussion there on it.

OK, but how do I make something a “main thread”? I mean, what should the user interface look like? Should there be a “like” button, or a number of stars, and then to view highly rated threads, should there be a “best of” at the top of each separate forum?

Suggestions appreciated.

That sounds really good.

@pkennedy
"You might find yourself spread too thin if you’re breaking things up that much, and cost per trade (depending on your balance) might start to eat away at your gains."

Agreed.

Also most mutual funds fail to outperform the S&P 500 index over a 3-year or longer period. On top of that there is a hefty "management fee" and possibly other fees as well. On ETF I have bought before (but not this year or last, unfortunately is (SPY). It very closely approximates the S&P 500.