Lets talk MONEY !!

[Speedling]

Sounds like it's time to quit your day job and do this for a living

My dad does. My 2 jobs limit the time i have to do it thus the dividends

 

[jdonalds]

This is a pretty tough subject right now. I'm retired and we have to live partially off our investments. I started investing in 1991 for retirement and did pretty good on my own. I found stock brokers sometimes gave me bad suggestions so gave up on them long ago.

I have primarily invested in equities or equity funds over the years, with some dabbling in individual stocks. I have a high risk tolerance which has resulted in some nice average returns. I stayed fully invested through the downturn. But at the moment I feel, as do many investors, the stock market is peaking so I don't want to put any more money there. I have way too much cash at the moment. Cash loses value over time.

I'm not interested in anything that returns less than 5% so that excludes much of the bond market, CDs and money markets. Corporate bonds have higher returns. Being retired dividends are interesting to me. I've gotten some good dividend returns from some funds. To make use of some of my cash I recently bought into five different corporate bond funds with low annual fees. With bonds if you find high dividend returns you have to be willing to hold onto them for the long run as the bond value itself may drop below your buy price. I just let the dividends come to me in checks and ignore the fund share value.

I will invest in gold if it hits $800/oz. I met a man one day a couple of years ago who had 100% of his funds in gold. He asked me if I had money in gold and I told him about my $800/oz. target to buy in. He said it would never be that low again and he was looking forward to $5,000/oz before 2020. At the time gold was about $1,800/oz. Gold dropped as low as $1,200/oz. this year so my $800/oz. target isn't looking out of the question. If it drops that low I will buy some but not more than 5% of my portfolio.

I like real estate but have learned, from personal experience, buying property carries too many headaches for me. I do invest in REITs though and feel there is some room to grow in those funds. I hear these advertisements on the radio to buy into rental properties that have guaranteed 5 year returns, low taxes, and guaranteed property value. All I can think of is if it's so good why aren't those who are advertising buying them all up themselves.

The giant returns from individual stocks I've owned came during periods of run away stock market situations (like the 1990s). I don't see any of those types of returns in this market. I'm holding out for a 20% correction before I try that again. I did dabble in options for a while, making some great returns, but that requires a lot of attention and research. Selling covered calls is fun and very low risk.

I recently put a small amount into The Lending Club which seems to be doing well but those funds are locked up for 3 to 5 years. If it continues to do well I may add some more cash to The Lending Club. I'm experiencing 12.7% annual returns so far but my investment here is so small it won't make a dent in my needs. So far I'm reinvesting the interest I'm earning but will likely switch to receiving monthly checks to augment my income. The 3-5 year tie-up of funds bothers me.

I like petroleum, financials, and real estate equity investments. I've never dabbled in commodities.

Inflation is coming. The way the government is spending and the huge federal debt guarantee high inflation. Inflation can eat up bond funds and shrink the value of dividends. Equities generally adjust to inflation so they are still my primary focus for my portfolio.

I don't really have an answer right now. I still have way too much sitting in cash.

 

[Speedling]

Yeah, I gotta be honest, I have about a third of my ira in cash right now too looking for paticular movements. There's money to be made, but you have to be very carefull, and it's small amounts at a time. I made my 60% return by essentially just waiting for a big stock, like GE for example, to dip a couple dollars, quick buy it, and then immediatly put a sell at the price it just was say a week ago. This is all after I do my graph watching, my history checking, etc. but it is usually a 2-3 day trade start to finish. 100 shares at $1 is $100, easy enough. Not too greedy, and not going to be a get rich quick scheme. But do this continually with decent amounts of money, that adds up quick!
There's always this to invest in though:

http://carlibux.blogspot.com/2011/02/awesome-yacht.html