The Long Term Investor

It's clear the path to success is consistent, long term, investing. Buy some VOO every month and go out of your way to not check your balance until you are ready to retire. You will be pleasantly surprised.

Having said that.... I got into equity investing in 1983 but started studying it in the late 1970s. At the time, I was reading every brokerage text book and reference that I could get my hands on. I was close to two people who had profound wisdom and I respected their words as heaven sent.

At the time, I literally didn't know who Warren Buffet was but I watched him on an episode of Wall Street Week with Luis Rukyser. It was during a period of much pessimism. He had a simple graphic on a sheet of paper that demonstrated a person would be substantially better off to buy shares of a life insurance company than it would to buy life insurance. P/E of his example company was 1.8:1. He showed several scenarios that involved distributions and inflation. It wasn't even close.

Conditions are the inverse, right now. The only way pretty much any company is worth it's current market cap is with substantial growth.

So, slow and sure does indeed win the race but I think there is something to be said about pushing yourself as hard as possible during periods of tremendous value.

 

Not a bad week in the markets as a whole. Green it is.

We are closing in on the half-way point to the year. Time is flying by already. Does it seem we should be almost half through? Not there yet, but soon enough.

Of course, it is the long weekend with the Memorial Day holiday. Many refer to that as the official kick off to the summer season here. I hope each of you have a nice extended bit of easy time.

Speaking of holidays and time away.

If I remember correctly, rg7803 was preparing an additional getaway type property. Any updates rg?? Should be a nice thing for the family and future generations.

 

Yes indeed.

 

The key to success is NEVER touch your principal. Just keep adding money to your account, like Smokie said "You will be pleasantly surprised. I know I am , and I started with VOOG and QQQ , as far as I'm concerned it is darn hard to beat that combination. I now have a balance in my account that is far beyond what I dreamed of, just keep socking it away and "KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF IT" That is truly the only secret to success.

 

From the posts above, a bit of history and current products available today for investors to choose from. It is amazing to think about back then versus now.

Of course, there are an extensive amount of individual companies to choose as usual, but the amount and type of funds available today is almost endless.

You can find just about anything that suits your fancy. There are solely tech funds, semiconductor, financial firms, health funds, consumer staples, dividend funds, real estate, defense funds, aviation, oil/gas, treasury funds, bond funds, value funds, small cap, large cap, mid cap, and the list could go on and on. There are even funds to leverage funds by 2x, 3x, etc,etc.

There are more choices probably than reasons to choose them. I've only listed a grain of salt above compared to what is available.

You could spend a lot of time researching what is available long before ever even considering individual companies. I'm not complaining or saying that doing either or a combination is right or wrong. That is always up to the individual.

One advantage we have now days is the competition of the many brokerages. It has driven costs down significantly. Many ETFS and other type funds have some very cheap expense ratios. However, you must pay attention to this. There are still many funds out there that charge more than what I would consider and effectively get beat by a similar fund with a lower fee. Those fees compound too over time despite whether you are up/down in any given year.

One can create a pretty decent and cost effective portfolio. Easy to mange and execute over time.

For me, I wouldn't get overly complex with it. Complexity tends to invite more decisions. Before too long one begins to tinker too much. And yeah, I have zero interest in any leverage funds. There is already enough risk to your money in average funds, why increase it by 3x the given amount.

It has been an amazing time to be an investor with some of these changes.

 

Since time was available over the long weekend I spent some time looking at my portfolio and checking things out. Looking good and sitting once again near/at ATH. No changes to be made or anything like that.

Contributions going in like clock work and I have a bit of extra money to add here pretty soon.

As we have seen for a while now the chatter about market ATH's and things getting expensive. We seem to see this throughout bull markets all the time. They make such a big deal about it. Every time we hit a new marker. This is pretty normal and the markets set these fairly regularly. They make a big deal about it in reverse too. When the market tanks, out come the doom wizards and the wreckage is unheard of.

There is always something to crow about. The porridge is never just right.

 

I recently spent several months in Asia. We ended up at an expat dinner of roughly 35 people. After dinner, the topic turned to sustaining themselves in retirement. They started brainstorming ideas.

The three, and only three, ideas they came up with were: Crypto trading, GoFundMe, and Poker

That's not a joke.

I asked about finding a local Asian craftsman who does a good job of making something, have him make enough to fill a shipping container, and then sending that container to an Amazon warehouse in North America. A few people did not respond, so I have no idea of their view on that idea, but the people who did respond with contempt. The general feeling was, "We can't afford to take that kind of risk with our money." Again, this is not a joke.

One guy approached me on the way out and said, "Hey, I want to talk to you about your ideas." He then proceeded to ask me to fund his crypto trading habit which was a guaranteed money maker. He was even going to cut me in on some of the profit.

I apologize if this dims your world view, as it does mine.

I believe that someone who understands how an economy works can do better now than ever in history due to a pervasive ignorance. There are people who build things of value, there are people who sell things of value, and there are people who service things of value. Everyone else is a parasite.

Trading anything is a redistribution of wealth. Currency, commodities, collectibles... the only way you can make money on that stuff is if someone else loses. Trading does not create wealth where it did not exist.

The people in here know this. Extreme few others do. This is the Rosetta stone of success.

 

Maybe they imbibed a bit more of a drink than they should have!?

Oh no, it wasn't the "ideas" he was after, but your $$$.

 

As to the above, I can't imagine not having a plan. Hope and winging it is not going to be statistically favorable.

Most of us here are DIY investors and planners for the most part. So, it seems just nuts to us.

There are places out there that will do some management for a decent fee. Some of it is even geared more passively so that costs can be pretty low. Even the well-known brokerages now offer this type of service. I'm sure one would get a few sales pitches from time to time depending on your wealth, but easy enough to be direct in what you want.

Of course, there are places that are complete sharks too. High fees and too much complexity. I could never recommend those types.

Not everyone can manage their plan. Sometimes they can't separate emotions and would likely do dumb things. Some simply don't have the time or inclination to learn much about it. All understandable. My point is there is an option out there that would be far better than hope and winging it.

 

"Far more money has been lost preparing for corrections, than by the actual corrections." - Peter Lynch

 

Golden words, Andrew.

 

I don't believe anyone was drunk. These were people 40~55 years old with me being an outlier well above that range.

They simply do not understand how wealth is created.

I'm so old and grumpy, this is what I hear: "Go and hunt for meat to feed my family? You must be joking. I'm going to find something to use as a club so I can kill someone who has the food I need and then take it."

 

LOL. Classic TB16 post.

 

I'm surprised OnlyFans, MLM sales, and organ donation was not suggested. It's amazing the energy spent trying to get money in new and idiotic ways instead of the tried and true (albeit boring) ways. The crypto and betting bros are the worst. Such wastes of flesh.