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NYEMMED

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So now that the stock market is crashing, probably a good time to invest for the long term?

Anybody have any recommendations for smart stock investments?

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So now that the stock market is crashing, probably a good time to invest for the long term?

Anybody have any recommendations for smart stock investments?
Yes. Buy low cost index funds through a tax advantaged account. Vanguard is a good option. There are others. Consider a target-retirement date fund until you feel savvy enough to pick and choose stocks yourself. Even then, realize that the majority of professional investors, all certain they know enough to beat the market, don't. Buy every month from now until you retire, regardless of whether the market is up or down. When it goes up, it will soon go down. When it's down, it will soon go up. The overall long term trend will be up. Don't take a penny out until you retire. Check the balances no more than once every six months. Be patient. Wait for returns. They will come. Patients is rewarded. Panic is punished.
 
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Check out bogleheads.com for amazing forums on what to invest in and what index funds are and how to get your feet wet!!! Fidelity, vanguard, etc are all amazing low cost options to play with :))
 
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Buy all the time, when people are running for the exit buy more than before - sell when you are old and people are crowding the field.
 
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You could probably wait another 1-3 weeks and the DJI will go down more, probably below 20,000. You can buy then. Just buy index stocks.

Look, you could probably buy now for your retirement account and be OK.
The Dow Jones
Feb 13th: 29,432
Mar 13th: 21,300

That is a 27.6% drop in 1 month. On pure fear.

If you get in now all you have to do is wait 1-2 years and it will probably be back up to were it was before. Everything will soon be back to normal once we develop a vaccine or some anti-viral drug for COVID-19.

Now is a fine time to get in for your retirement accounts!

I have about 30K in cash in my SEP-IRA. I'll probably distribute among my 5-6 funds shortly. If it continues to drop another 5-10 percent, I'll probably fully fund my SEP-IRA (56K) immediately for this year and just buy more.

For long term investors THIS IS EASY MONEY
 
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I'm roughly buying 15k per month right now. Vti, vxus, bnd. Keeping it simple. Doing some occasional tax loss harvesting as well.
 
So now that the stock market is crashing, probably a good time to invest for the long term?

Anybody have any recommendations for smart stock investments?

As Sir John Templeton said, “buy when there is blood in the streets”


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I moved some cash from a money market account into index funds over the past week. Got paid friday so have $15k to invest sometime soon. I'm planning to buy when the dow is less than 21k this week then if it falls below 20k in the coming weeks will move some more cash and buy more.

The market will recover by the end of the year imo. This is mostly fear/uncertainty based market psychology rather than any systemic issue as was the case in 2008.

The big temptation for me is to buy energy. several funds are valued >50% less than six months ago and it seems like such a likely way for a 100% ROI sometime in the next few years but its contrary to my investment strategy.
 
You could probably wait another 1-3 weeks and the DJI will go down more, probably below 20,000. You can buy then. Just buy index stocks.

Look, you could probably buy now for your retirement account and be OK.
The Dow Jones
Feb 13th: 29,432
Mar 13th: 21,300

That is a 27.6% drop in 1 month. On pure fear.

If you get in now all you have to do is wait 1-2 years and it will probably be back up to were it was before. Everything will soon be back to normal once we develop a vaccine or some anti-viral drug for COVID-19.

Now is a fine time to get in for your retirement accounts!

I have about 30K in cash in my SEP-IRA. I'll probably distribute among my 5-6 funds shortly. If it continues to drop another 5-10 percent, I'll probably fully fund my SEP-IRA (56K) immediately for this year and just buy more.

For long term investors THIS IS EASY MONEY
1+ Agree
Let the market settle over next few weeks.
 
nyc is on true 48 hour lock in right? Should probably start investing right after that. Economy cant get much lower than 48 hours of no activity from our financial center.
 
i got a pretty significant windfall a few months ago and have been pre-contempletive about getting investments going ever since. i'm a resident who is working a lot right now. paid off my student loans and still have a pretty nice chunk of cash just sitting in a savings account. i have read some intro level stuff, but would love any practical guidance on how i can start investing now that the time seems very right.
 
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nyc is on true 48 hour lock in right? Should probably start investing right after that. Economy cant get much lower than 48 hours of no activity from our financial center.

That's still timing the market, hard to get timing right. I'm my opinion dollar cost averaging is the way to go. I have automated weekly deposits going on.

Over the next few months, businesses especially the hotels, restaurants, and travel industry will start laying people off. World wide economies will see drops in their gdp. Earnings from the quarter will start showing drops, analysts will start doing downgrades. What happens when some large corporation goes bankrupt? What if a smaller country goes bankrupt?

So yes, things can still continue to go down even after 48 hours of new York shutting down. No one can truly predict what will happen. Dollar cost averaging is the way to go. If there is a day with a massive drop, of course you can add more on those days into the market.
 
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That's still timing the market, hard to get timing right. I'm my opinion dollar cost averaging is the way to go. I have automated weekly deposits going on.

Over the next few months, businesses especially the hotels, restaurants, and travel industry will start laying people off. World wide economies will see drops in their gdp. Earnings from the quarter will start showing drops, analysts will start doing downgrades. What happens when some large corporation goes bankrupt? What if a smaller country goes bankrupt?

So yes, things can still continue to go down even after 48 hours of new York shutting down. No one can truly predict what will happen. Dollar cost averaging is the way to go. If there is a day with a massive drop, of course you can add more on those days into the market.

fully valid.

but i wouldnt even start until AFTER that. and I do think the economy has dropped enough already that getting in after the next nice big drop would be a point where you can feel (as) confident (as possible) that it will turn you a nice profit from there with enough time, even if it continues down for a long time still.
 
i got a pretty significant windfall a few months ago and have been pre-contempletive about getting investments going ever since. i'm a resident who is working a lot right now. paid off my student loans and still have a pretty nice chunk of cash just sitting in a savings account. i have read some intro level stuff, but would love any practical guidance on how i can start investing now that the time seems very right.


Step 1) decide stock to bond allocation depending on your perceived risk tolerance. For example , I'm 85 percent stock.and 15 percent bonds.

These graphs on the link below from vanguard can help you decide on what asset allocation you are comfortable with


Step 2) decide US to international stock ratios out of your stock portfolio. For example: I'm roughly 60 percent US, and 40 percent international. Vanguard has a white paper where they show a bunch of graphs and believe between 30-45 percent is an optimal percentage of international stocks for returns and decreased volatility. Google "vanguard international investing white paper" and you will get links to several pdf files.

Step 3) start dollar cost averaging (weekly deposits) into a broker account of your choice.

Step 4) buy VTI, VXUS, BND in the above determined ratios.

Step 5) intermittently as the market keeps dropping, do tax loss harvesting. This only applies to a taxable account, which someone putting in a large chunk of money will require. Tax loss pairs are as following:

Vti pairs well with schb, Iwb, itot, SPY, schx
Vxus - ixus, veu
Bnd - Agg

Step 6) rebalance every now and then to maintain your desired asset allocation as above.

And that's about it. That's all there is to it.

Alternatively if steps 4-6 seem too difficult. Invest in a Target retirement fund and just keep doing that automatically and forget about it.
 
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2 - At the moment I type this post the stock market is up 9% from where it was 5 years ago. Noone on this forum is going to become homeless because of COVID 19.
You make an incredibly good point. You often hear that we should expect the stock market to go up 6-8% a year in the long term and not to expect anything more or less than that to last. So I did some more research, like you did. The S&P 500 was 782, twenty five years ago (3/1/95). Then, even considering the post 9/11 crash, '08/'09 crash, and the current crash to 2,296, it's been up 7.7% per year, every year for 25 years. Go back 30 years to 3/1/1990 and it's gone from 645 to 2,296, which is 8.5% per year, every year for 30 years, including the current low point we're at today.

Lessen: The stock market is very risky in the short term. In the long term, if you're someone who hopes to be around in another 10, 15, or 25 years as I would like to (God willing), it's very safe. But you gotta get in and stay in through these ups and downs, for decades. If you try to time the market, you'll end up selling when it's down (because that's when everyone's panicking and telling you the stock market's bad), and not selling when it's up (because everyone's saying, 'Stay in, it's only going to keep going up') and that's the opposite of what you want to do, which is, "Buy a low prices, sell at high prices." You almost have to the opposite of what everyone else is saying at any given time.

 
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You make an incredibly good point. You often hear that we should expect the stock market to go up 6-8% a year in the long term and not to expect anything more or less than that to last. So I did some more research, like you did. The S&P 500 was 782, twenty five years ago (3/1/95). Then, even considering the post 9/11 crash, '08/'09 crash, and the current crash to 2,296, it's been up 7.7% per year, every year for 25 years. Go back 30 years to 3/1/1990 and it's gone from 645 to 2,296, which is 8.5% per year, every year for 30 years, including the current low point we're at today.

Lessen: The stock market is very risky in the short term. In the long term, if you're someone who hopes to be around in another 10, 15, or 25 years as I would like to (God willing), it's very safe. But you gotta get in and stay in through these ups and downs, for decades. If you try to time the market, you'll end up selling when it's down (because that's when everyone's panicking and telling you the stock market's bad), and not selling when it's up (because everyone's saying, 'Stay in, it's only going to keep going up') and that's the opposite of what you want to do, which is, "Buy a low prices, sell at high prices." You almost have to the opposite of what everyone else is saying at any given time.


Yeah even after all this fall it is only back to the January 2017 range.
 
i got a pretty significant windfall a few months ago and have been pre-contempletive about getting investments going ever since. i'm a resident who is working a lot right now. paid off my student loans and still have a pretty nice chunk of cash just sitting in a savings account. i have read some intro level stuff, but would love any practical guidance on how i can start investing now that the time seems very right.
Advice is simple

1) Buy Vanguard total stock market index funds and Vanguard bond funds

2) Don't buy individual stocks

3) You can't time the market. If you buy today it might just go up or it might go down by 50%. No one knows which.

4) DON'T buy stock market index funds unless you have the discipline not to sell if the market stays in free fall. If you lose 50% of your investment tomorrow you need to leave it there and let it climb back, which might take quite awhile. The less you are willing to lose the more you need to put into bonds.
 
Bond yields are something to keep an eye on as we go forward. Fascinating times. Color me bearish. Assets prices must fall or gain value only in nominal terms as we inflate our way to a bigger future crisis. But again, if rates increase, that will make servicing existing debt crippling. If I had the money, I’d put it towards productive land.

 
It's profit share portion of 401k time and had planned on filling our Roth IRA buckets this month, so $40k will go to our standard allocation tonight.
That's still timing the market, hard to get timing right. I'm my opinion dollar cost averaging is the way to go. I have automated weekly deposits going on.

Over the next few months, businesses especially the hotels, restaurants, and travel industry will start laying people off. World wide economies will see drops in their gdp. Earnings from the quarter will start showing drops, analysts will start doing downgrades. What happens when some large corporation goes bankrupt? What if a smaller country goes bankrupt?

So yes, things can still continue to go down even after 48 hours of new York shutting down. No one can truly predict what will happen. Dollar cost averaging is the way to go. If there is a day with a massive drop, of course you can add more on those days into the market.
 
Don't do target date in taxable.
Step 1) decide stock to bond allocation depending on your perceived risk tolerance. For example , I'm 85 percent stock.and 15 percent bonds.

These graphs on the link below from vanguard can help you decide on what asset allocation you are comfortable with


Step 2) decide US to international stock ratios out of your stock portfolio. For example: I'm roughly 60 percent US, and 40 percent international. Vanguard has a white paper where they show a bunch of graphs and believe between 30-45 percent is an optimal percentage of international stocks for returns and decreased volatility. Google "vanguard international investing white paper" and you will get links to several pdf files.

Step 3) start dollar cost averaging (weekly deposits) into a broker account of your choice.

Step 4) buy VTI, VXUS, BND in the above determined ratios.

Step 5) intermittently as the market keeps dropping, do tax loss harvesting. This only applies to a taxable account, which someone putting in a large chunk of money will require. Tax loss pairs are as following:

Vti pairs well with schb, Iwb, itot, SPY, schx
Vxus - ixus, veu
Bnd - Agg

Step 6) rebalance every now and then to maintain your desired asset allocation as above.

And that's about it. That's all there is to it.

Alternatively if steps 4-6 seem too difficult. Invest in a Target retirement fund and just keep doing that automatically and forget about it.
 
Don't do target date in taxable.

It's not optimal, but people who know absolutely nothing about investing and have no willingness to learn, they can benefit from dumb Target date funds and life strategy funds.

But really vti, vxus, and BND/VTEB (vteb if taxable), is the way to go in my opinion.
 
I wish i had a lot of assets to invest :( i guess I'll keep doing my dollar cost averaging -_- but i wish i had an extra 1 mil in cash just lying around right now to put into the markets.
 
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Our Roth IRAs are 100% VASGX. At this point the balances are high enough that I could convert all of it to admiral shares of the underlying funds and drop the international bond portion, but I just haven't felt it worthwhile yet.
It's not optimal, but people who know absolutely nothing about investing and have no willingness to learn, they can benefit from dumb Target date funds and life strategy funds.

But really vti, vxus, and BND/VTEB (vteb if taxable), is the way to go in my opinion.
 
I agree with everything here that consider yourself buying an asset at a discount for something that has, historically, appreciated on average 8% a year. Do not worry about timing at this stage. Dollar-cost averaging (or simply investing a fixed amount of money on a regular schedule) is a no-brainer way to do this.

If you are a short term trader these are terrible times with lots of uncertainty. I suppose you could do it but that is NOT for me.

I'm a set it and forget it kind of guy. Many years ago I bought in my IRA
VTI ~40%
VCIT ~25%
VEU ~20%
VBR ~10%
VWO ~5%

These were not quite the ratios but close. And every few years I'll just pick a day and rebalance my portfolio.

A few days ago I bought VTI when the DJI was at 20,600, and I felt VERY good about that. Easy long term gains.

I'm probably going to fully fund my SEP-IRA now and buy more stock in the coming weeks, I'm not trying to time the market but you are getting good value now for the long term investor.

Don't overthink this.
 
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I wish i had a lot of assets to invest :(((( i guess I'll keep doing my 20k/month (...)

I also have been putting away considerable amounts and wish I had a million dollars to invest, but listen to how you sound.

Respectfully, this is also a time for us to be grateful for the still-fortunate positions we worked very hard to be in relative to what it could be, especially right now.
 
I also have been putting away considerable amounts and wish I had a million dollars to invest, but listen to how you sound.

Respectfully, this is also a time for us to be grateful for the still-fortunate positions we worked very hard to be in relative to what it could be, especially right now.

Agreed we are fortunate in a financial sense. But some of us doctors will die or endanger the lives of loved ones. I know plenty of 60+ year old doctors who are still working.

So I'm not sure how fortunate we are if we're on the front lines, without protective equipment, endangering our lives. And for the record, while the numbers are showing that kids will be fine. As a father, no money is worth the health of my 8 week old baby's health. If something happens to her because i brought something home, then I'll never forgive myself.

Fortunate are those who can work from home, get paid, while being safe. We are only fortunate in a financial sense.
 
Our Roth IRAs are 100% VASGX. At this point the balances are high enough that I could convert all of it to admiral shares of the underlying funds and drop the international bond portion, but I just haven't felt it worthwhile yet.

It's not worth it in a retirement account.

But in a personal account i think it's worth it for the tax loss harvesting benefit
 
Why are precious metals going down in value? This doesn't make any sense...
 
Well if you bought today, it should settle at market close, right?

VTI is an exchange traded fund (ETF) so it acts like regular stocks. As soon as you buy it, you own it at that price. Mutual funds, on the other hand, are bought after the market closes that day.
 
Dumb noob here. Why is this a bad idea (other than tax-advantaged is better than taxable)?

Worse for tax loss harvesting. Individual items are better to tax loss harvesting. For example if US stocks are down and international are not, then you can tax loss harvesting the US stocks. The all in one portfolio may not give you as many opportunities to tax loss harvesting essentially.

Secondly, it contains the total bond market. High income earners may be better off keeping total municipal bond funds as they are tax free in a personal account.

Also, the all in one funds do not contain the admiral funds which have the lower ER.
 
Difficult to tax loss harvest. Potential issues with distributions and capital gains.
Worse for tax loss harvesting. Individual items are better to tax loss harvesting. For example if US stocks are down and international are not, then you can tax loss harvesting the US stocks. The all in one portfolio may not give you as many opportunities to tax loss harvesting essentially.

Secondly, it contains the total bond market. High income earners may be better off keeping total municipal bond funds as they are tax free in a personal account.

Also, the all in one funds do not contain the admiral funds which have the lower ER.

Thanks for the replies.

Any recommended reading material on the specifics of this for a total beginner? I read the Whitecoat Investor book a while back and remember it being good on the general ideas (live like a resident, tax-advantaged accounts are good, fixed-asset allocation is the way to be), but quite light on the logistics on how to implement these plans.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Any recommended reading material on the specifics of this for a total beginner? I read the Whitecoat Investor book a while back and remember it being good on the general ideas (live like a resident, tax-advantaged accounts are good, fixed-asset allocation is the way to be), but quite light on the logistics on how to implement these plans.

Start with bogleheads 3 fund portfolio and "the smartest portfolio you'll ever own".

Those two books basically have enough info to have someone more or less set up for their investing career
 
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