What sort of investments do you have?
By scitrus
@scitrus (131)
United States
January 3, 2007 2:49pm CST
I have the 401k, money market and a fun little portfolio that I've hand-picked. But there are 2 things that I am very into. One thing is the ETF. It's a mutual fund, but you can trade it like a stock. The benefit of this is that you don't have to have the $500 or so needed to get a chunk of mutual fund through a brokerage. You can buy X dollars of the ETF and trade it like a stock. The other thing that I'm really enjoying, and pleased that I've started young is the Roth IRA. You can put up to 4k a year into this retirement fund. The money you make from it when it's time to retire is huge. In 35 years your 4k/year will be worth give or take 700k. That's not a bad little nest egg. Though not recommended, you can also pull money out of your Roth at any time. Only what you put it, none of the interest though. What do you invest in?
3 responses
@Idlewild (6090)
• United States
3 Jan 07
I have mutual funds but not ETFs. I try to invest small amounts of money at regular intervals to do dollar-cost averaging, and the downside of trying to do that with ETFs is that you have to pay a commmission every time you invest. ETFs seem better suited to if you have chunk of money to put in at one time or a few times, so the commissions don't end up eating into your profits. How to you use ETFs? Do you go for stock indexes or more exotic types of ETFs?
1 person likes this
@sigma77 (5383)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I am a option trader and usually trade EFT's. My favorite is the OIH. I sometimes trade SPY,QQQQ,DIA,IWM,XAU, and maybe a few others. I don't hold to many investments for the longer term...don't believe in that type of investing any more. The OIH ETF is very volitile and that is what I like as an option trader. I usually trade deep-in-the-money options which is very similar to trading shares of stock. But it is a lot less expensive to take advantage of the same price moves verses buy the stock. When I had mutual funds, I usually set up a plan to by them monthly. That worked out pretty well over the long run.
1 person likes this
@switze22 (61)
• United States
16 Nov 07
I currently own stocks, and am looking into ETFs, options, and futures. I think ETF's are really cool too and I am excited for the possibility they will bring.
I like the way you have your money, but you should:
1) Put your 401k into a Roth. Much better
2) Take the money in your money market and invest it (stocks, ETFs, etc..) I just can't justify making 4% a year guarenteed a year when I could make 4% in one day with slightly more risk.
@Goranimal (315)
• United States
4 Jan 07
I have no idea on how or where to even invest, as of right now i have no retirement fund and it doesnt seem useful anymore at my age.
@ComplexMind (37)
• United States
23 Jan 07
What is your age (range if you're not comfortable)?
It seems like you just threw up 3 reasons for not investing, but which is keeping you from saving:
Don't know where?
Don't know how?
Too old and will be working till you die anyway?
All 3 are usually used as a smokescreen and can be overcome unless your 80+ and unable to work/save.
