What Types of Investing Do You Do?

[wjb316]

Hey everyone, I went in as a financial advisor for a while but resigned to return to freelance writing and affiliating. I can tell you that some FA's are garbage but a lot of them are worth the fees they charge.

Internet trading sites often look cheaper at first but can ending up killing you in commissions and random fees that kick in later down the road. On top of that, FA's at the big firms have a HUGE army of analysts and resources behind them. Your FA should be able to help you save money on taxes, make sure you're TRULY diversified, advise you on insurance and plan for your estate.

Being diversified means more than putting money in a mutual fund. That's a great start but you want to make sure you find the right fund, ladder the fixed income side, get the breakpoints, avoid overlap and take advantage of the occasional opportunity (like tax free munis - those are badass).

And yea, FAs will tell you the obvious about sticking it out but you wouldn't believe some of the mouth-breathers they have to deal with.

Anyways, I'm not an FA any more so don't think I'm trying to push an agenda here. But I do think it couldn't hurt you to at least get a referral from a trusted friend and sit down with an advisor. You just might be impressed. If not, you're only out about thirty minutes of time.

[Spry]

I haven't put much in the stock market lately, actually none for the past few years. I like the idea of divesting in "stores of value" like precious metals. I get mocked often for saying put some of your assets into a form of currency that has a 4000 year history of value, like gold and silver.

Start out with some silver... it's a low entry into market, get it on hand, and for you fellow tin foil hatters, bury it in multiple places, lol . IF the US dollar does what some of the other currencies have done in the past (hyper inflation) then at least the precious metals will store the value that they had when I obtained them.

I've personally bought from apmex.com and would recommend, but if you want to, you can even hook up through one of my affiliate sites at www.buy-gold-silver.com and help me buy a new pair of shoes for my daughter .

Down here in Atlanta, you can't watch hardly any tv with out seeing those 'cash for gold' commercials, and they ain't advertising for nothing. Anyway, hedge your bets some, that's all i'm sayin .

[Bryan]

70-80% of actively managed mutual funds fail to beat the market average. And the ones that do beat the average tend to change from year to year. Couple that with a front or deferred sales load (4-6%), and an expense ratio of 1-2% (or more) annually ... and picking the right fund quickly becomes a game I'd rather not play. Not with the money I'm setting aside for retirement, anyway.

Unlike in business, investing is one area of my life where I'm perfectly content with getting rich slowly.

[TheDonk]

Start out with some silver... it's a low entry into market, get it on hand, and for you fellow tin foil hatters, bury it in multiple places, lol

My parents retired when my dad was 49, mostly from investing in silver. Let them mock you all they want. He had thousands of oz's of silver back when it ran to $80 or whatever it was and made a pile of cash. He took that money, bought and sold a few properties, and that was it, he was done working.

Do they still give you the actual bars or just a piece of paper? When I was a kid, my dad used to show me all of the bars he had sitting in his closet piled up. He didn't even bother to put it in a safe or safe deposit box, lol.

[wjb316]

Unlike in business, investing is one area of my life where I'm perfectly content with getting rich slowly.

That's the right way to go about it.

If smart people could get rich quickly in the market, we wouldn't have big brokerage firms.

[Pking]

I'm the same as Jeremy - I would rather invest in my own businesses. Downturns in the economy create fantastic opportunities, and I'm building out like crazy right now.

[wjb316]

Just don't forget to be diversified. Investing in your own business can bring back way higher returns but it can also get all your eggs in one basket.

I know a guy who ran a nice grocery store and always reinvested everything he had into the store. One day Kroger came along and when he went out of business he didn't have anything to fall back on.

[Mathew]

I do my investment in penny stock investing...Penny stocks are a form of low priced stocks where each stock can cost less than a dollar. Nearly all professional money managers do not beat the broad market. The majority of mutual fund managers actually make poor performance in the long and short term.

[MJ]

I invest in domains, poker sites, and living life - but I should probably change that lol. Penny stocks seem like fun, a gamble, but like a good craps run the ride would probably be the fun part.

[superiorword]

I invest mostly in fixed deposits. Here in India the interest rate on fixed deposits are pretty good- between 8-10% per year, and the interest is compounded quarterly in an year.