Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The single most powerful factor behind successful investing?

All you gotta do when a broker calls is this:

"I manage my own money, but I will entertain letting you do it under one condition. When I make money based on one of your recs, I'll pay you 10%. When I lose money based on one of your recs, we will split the loss 50/50." Brokers wouldn't be nearly as confident in recommending their picks if they were under this fee structure.

Another thing I hate about Wall St is when the CEO pulls in $10M+ while the company stock is retreating or stagnant. Total BS.

Yep.

They do take care of their own, not unlike the govt.

Bonuses paid to executives while VA incompetence was killing Vets.

Lavish IRS parties while the agency persecuted the Tea Party.

You reckon all that may have a little something to do with the electoral revolt now going on, D and R.

And Wall Street is on that agenda, those tight with the Street, not doing so well.

DF

My neighbor's father recently had a heart attack and turned his finances over to an advisor. That guy quickly lost half the money. So he went to another. That guy quickly lost half the money. So he is in his 80s and working his way back up from 25%.

40 years ago I helped build a mansion with an artificial lake. The owner was an investment advisor. I can understand some big fund manager in NYC, but this was in Lynnwood WA, home of average American strip malls.

The single most powerful factor behind successful investing?

STAY OUT OF DEBT! If you can do that most of your working life, you can't keep from building wealth...



X-VERMINATOR

Consistent monthly investing in growth and index funds over the long haul will get you there. Advisors aren't really necessary for most people and I found most of them to more interested in lining their own pockets. The biggest problem most people have is maintaining consistent disciple in putting the monthly dollars in.

A few have mentioned the virtues of low expense ratio ETF's of which I agree. I own a few of these and think some are worth researching for your portfolio:


Ticker Name

SCHD- Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF

VYM - Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF

VIG - Vanguard Dividend Appreciation ETF

DGRO - iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF

HDV - iShares Core High Dividend ETF

DLN - WisdomTree LargeCap Dividend ETF

DGRW - WisdomTree U.S. Dividend Growth ETF

SPHD - PowerShares S&P 500 High Dividend Portfolio ETF

XLU - Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF

VDC - Vanguard Consumer Staples ETF

Hey thanks Orangeokie. It seems like noone want to give their portfolio out. I see the ETF's and like them. I am going to go to index and ETF's . I sold my madcap growth fund yesterday., It charges 1.35% expense ratio. This stock goes up and down so much it drives me crazy. It is not worth it so I will go with a Vanguard VOE ( value madcap .08% expense ratio or the Vanguard madcap VIMAX. I will look at your portfolio funds. Thanks,

Ihookem,

I went all in just after the Jamie Diamond Bottom.

Outside the 401K's I'm mostly invested through ETF's. Right now I'm holding a dividend growth fund, a small cap value fund, equal weighted finances and an India fund.

I work in Telecom, so half my 401's invested in telcom so I try to avoid that sector outside the 401K.

Within the retirement accounts I'm diversified across the majority of investment classes, growth, value, small, medium and large caps. Currently they are almost all domestic. No bonds (with interest rates so low they are all risk and no reward) or precious metals, but I do hold some real estate in the form of REITS.

Hey thanks Antelope Sniper. I also own very little in bonds and only because they are in a balanced fund that my advisor suggested. I do like my Reits though more than anything, but my BP oil is looking good lately. My portfolio is 6% bonds and that does not bother me, even at 53 yrs old.

At the top of the next interest rate cycle I'll buy bonds, a lot of them, with long matures, low coupon rates, and deep discounts, but that might be a long time from now. In the mean time, with rates near zero, equities are the only real game in town.

Currently, that fee structure is illegal.

The closest you can get to something like that is with a hedge fund. If you are looking at actively managed funds, I do like it when the fund manager is invested as well. Keeps their interests aligned with yours.

I'm thinking the same way. Waiting for bond prices to fall (ie. TLT) and yields to rise.

Me too. By the time I'm ready for bonds I will be near 60. I'm almost 53. OrangeOkie, I see you like higher dividends. That is kind of like have a bond. I use reits as bonds right now. I also know someone that is an investor. She said he bond money right now is cash.

Since 1994 I have made +18% compounded annually on stocks, per my wife's Quicken program.
Before 1994 I was losing ~20% year.
In 1994 I sat down with my father to see how he was making +20% per year and I why I was -20%.
It turns out I was buying all the right stocks, just keeping them an average of 5 months and selling if it went down.
My father kept everything more than 5 years and invested based on where he thought things would be in 5 years or more.

Now I am turning 65 and worry I will not be able to see 5 years into the future. I used to design state of the art electronics and supervise software engineers. Now I cannot understand how to use all the functions of my smart phone.
But once I get old enough, all I will care about is watching TV and eating ice cream.

What do all you stock pickers think of CLF?

What do all you stock pickers think of CLF?

Looks like Cliffs Natural Resources Inc drove off a cliff.

It has, was down to below twp dollars, bug it appears to be in rally mode now.

Very interesting read, and honestly generally when a thread goes 6 pages here you sift through a lot of crap.

I'm 27, been married for almost 5 years

I was just dropping off some stuff at my in-laws and my father-in-law commented on a house that is up for sale and how I should look into it. Although I pretty much hate the house my wife & I are living in we rent it for $300/month (from the in-laws) to go buy anything with the acreage we need for 2 horses we are looking at $200-300/month just in taxes, so although I hate this house it provides the necessities and allows us to really stash away some $$

Roth: I'm self employed so max out my ROTH every year, have the wife maxing hers out but in different funds (diversification, I actually have 3 or 4 roths at the moment to diversify)
401K: my wife's company puts money into a retirement account every year, vested but she has been there long enough she gets the full amount. Interesting thing the company automatically puts it into an account that makes 0% (doesn't want to risk losing employee's $$) but there is still a small management fee so I'm sure some of her co-workers are losing money. Since the company doesn't offer a match we just invest what is given from the company and leave it be

I was fortunate that my parents started me out very young with investing, started retirement funds, ect... For those curious, I really like that my parents set me up with Vanguard, low fees, easy to get to a real person who can answer questions, lots of Q&A available ect... so I feel that God willing if I keep on this path I will retire comfortably even though we don't make a lot of money

I will say i'm not a huge fan of individual stocks, although I should revise that I'm not a fan of relying on sole stocks. I love following the market, learning about companies, trying to find the next diamond in the rough (would love to find the next Berkshire hathaway at $32/stock I have 40 years to watch it turn to $220,000) I buy small amounts of individual stocks hoping it will turn into something but not relying upon it, I invest in funds figuring they diversify my purchases although I pay a small fee for those I feel vanguard's fees are small enough that it's worth it to me.

so far compounding interest has worked quite well, I have some stocks/funds that showed a loss at the beginning of the year when the markets were down (and I was buying) but when you look at what I invested from the bank I was still ahead because of compounding interest being reinvested

Maybe the "old man" is trying to tell you something...

Just saying...

DF