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Stocks Hit New Highs: What's in Your Portfolio?
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atwood



Joined: 26 Dec 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 12:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Otherside wrote:
No_hite_pls wrote:
tran.huongthu wrote:
nora wrote:
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is the book to read.

Quote:
Im new to the stock game, but i got an extra 2 thousand or so a month to play around with. Any of you have good advice on stocks to see about/invest in?


If your attitude is "play around with" might as well go to the casino.


I second this. The stock market is too volatile and no one knows when a fiat bubble is going to burst. I've been buying up physical gold at a discount and expect it to go back up as countries around the world have no choice but to continue to devalue their currency in the short-term.


Gold has little real value, it doesn't produce anything.


That's pretty much the argument. Gold produces nothing, costs money to store, and the only way you make money is by hoping someone else pays more for it than what you paid.

With all that counting against it, it's still been a pretty good hedge against inflation, and even taking into account the recent drop in price it's been a HUGE performer over the past 10 years.

If you take the time to compare a chart of gold's price versus inflation you'll see it hasn't been much of a hedge. That argument is mostly just an old canard.
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Otherside



Joined: 06 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 2:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

atwood wrote:
Otherside wrote:
No_hite_pls wrote:
tran.huongthu wrote:
nora wrote:
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is the book to read.

Quote:
Im new to the stock game, but i got an extra 2 thousand or so a month to play around with. Any of you have good advice on stocks to see about/invest in?


If your attitude is "play around with" might as well go to the casino.


I second this. The stock market is too volatile and no one knows when a fiat bubble is going to burst. I've been buying up physical gold at a discount and expect it to go back up as countries around the world have no choice but to continue to devalue their currency in the short-term.


Gold has little real value, it doesn't produce anything.


That's pretty much the argument. Gold produces nothing, costs money to store, and the only way you make money is by hoping someone else pays more for it than what you paid.

With all that counting against it, it's still been a pretty good hedge against inflation, and even taking into account the recent drop in price it's been a HUGE performer over the past 10 years.

If you take the time to compare a chart of gold's price versus inflation you'll see it hasn't been much of a hedge. That argument is mostly just an old canard.


If you take the time to compare a chart of gold's price vs inflation you'll see it has been an exceptional hedge.

Now, we can both tell each other to do it, or I'll just save you the hassle.
In 1900 (that's far enough back right?) an ounce of gold was worth ~$21 an ounce. Adjusting for inflation, a 1900 $1 is worth about $28.2 2013 dollars. For gold to have kept pace with inflation, an ounce of gold should be worth about $592.. right now it's currently trading at ~$1450 an ounce. So over a 113 year period, gold has outperformed inflation by almost 200%. Not quite the performance of the stock market, but a pretty good "hedge".

Since 2000, the gold price has risen from $272/ounce to it's current ~$1450 level. That sort of performance (and lets assume you didn't sell at the 1900 level), would knock almost any stock market completely out of the water.

While you can cherry-pick periods where gold didn't perform, the same can be said for the stock market. The SP500 reached a high of 1552 in 2000, yesterday it reached an all-time closing high of 1617. That's 4% performance in a 13 year period, talk about a lost decade.

That being said, I'm no gold bug, and my first post on the topic summed up my views on holding gold directly.
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atwood



Joined: 26 Dec 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Otherside wrote:
atwood wrote:
Otherside wrote:
No_hite_pls wrote:
tran.huongthu wrote:
nora wrote:
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is the book to read.

Quote:
Im new to the stock game, but i got an extra 2 thousand or so a month to play around with. Any of you have good advice on stocks to see about/invest in?


If your attitude is "play around with" might as well go to the casino.


I second this. The stock market is too volatile and no one knows when a fiat bubble is going to burst. I've been buying up physical gold at a discount and expect it to go back up as countries around the world have no choice but to continue to devalue their currency in the short-term.


Gold has little real value, it doesn't produce anything.


That's pretty much the argument. Gold produces nothing, costs money to store, and the only way you make money is by hoping someone else pays more for it than what you paid.

With all that counting against it, it's still been a pretty good hedge against inflation, and even taking into account the recent drop in price it's been a HUGE performer over the past 10 years.

If you take the time to compare a chart of gold's price versus inflation you'll see it hasn't been much of a hedge. That argument is mostly just an old canard.


If you take the time to compare a chart of gold's price vs inflation you'll see it has been an exceptional hedge.

Now, we can both tell each other to do it, or I'll just save you the hassle.
In 1900 (that's far enough back right?) an ounce of gold was worth ~$21 an ounce. Adjusting for inflation, a 1900 $1 is worth about $28.2 2013 dollars. For gold to have kept pace with inflation, an ounce of gold should be worth about $592.. right now it's currently trading at ~$1450 an ounce. So over a 113 year period, gold has outperformed inflation by almost 200%. Not quite the performance of the stock market, but a pretty good "hedge".

Since 2000, the gold price has risen from $272/ounce to it's current ~$1450 level. That sort of performance (and lets assume you didn't sell at the 1900 level), would knock almost any stock market completely out of the water.

While you can cherry-pick periods where gold didn't perform, the same can be said for the stock market. The SP500 reached a high of 1552 in 2000, yesterday it reached an all-time closing high of 1617. That's 4% performance in a 13 year period, talk about a lost decade.

That being said, I'm no gold bug, and my first post on the topic summed up my views on holding gold directly.

I don't think comparisons when the U.S., and the rest of the world, was on the gold standard are very helpful. Inflation was nonexistent during that time for the most part since everything was pegged to the price of gold. Start with when the U.S. went off the gold standard and you'll get a different picture.

Holding gold as part of a portfolio is fine, but as a hedge, especially against black swans, I'm doubtful of how if will hold up.
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atwood



Joined: 26 Dec 2009

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To get back to the poster asking for information on investing, you really owed it to yourself to educate yourself on investing. Any time you spend will be extremely worthwhile.

To be more specific than my last post, start by reading The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein.

And as for company's tpo invest with, the fact that more than 15% of the money invested in mutual funds is with Vanguard speaks for itself.
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Otherside



Joined: 06 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 4:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Atwood, fair point.
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No_hite_pls



Joined: 05 Mar 2007
Location: Don't hate me because I'm right

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 5:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Vanguard is great company and their low fee ETF's have made the whole industry better.
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PRagic



Joined: 24 Feb 2006

PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2013 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

was in global growth and emerging market funds early after they tanked. those are now up...way, way up, bout 40% and 50% respectively. my investment manager thought i was nuts to buy those back then as they're not small positions. hmmmm...

the large and med cap u.s. funds and fund of funds (just have two) are now back in the black and heading north. whew. those are the ones that my investment manager suggested i ride out. hmmmmm...ok. safe!

malaysia etf up 15%. indonesia etf even but heading north if they can get their political act together a bit better. fundamentals sound there. good long term hold IMHO.

brazilian infrastructure etf bought last year. figured their getting ready for a world cup and an olympics and their infrastructure is crap. kind of a gut call. still even, but hoping that heads north when they start pooring in funds to speed up. they just got slammed for being behind schedule. could go either way, but it's a small position.

got into newer diversified funds last year and earlier this year. smiles all around on those. different manager, too. everything made from the accounts gets reinvested.

don't have the time or desire at this point to do individual stocks. and, hey, as an american, obama's new tax on dividends makes those less appealing anyway given the risks. hastle at tax time, too. maybe if i were younger. we've gotten into a few korean ipos over the years and have done well. you have to have a serious wad of cash to even get into one, though, to make it worthwhile (i'd say half a million...bucks, not won lol)...and you need to be able to cash out asap to play it smart.

we just want to get a very large chunk of change working for us concervatively with 5-7% a yr return, reinvested, and build on that even more until i decide to retire.

play ball....
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atwood



Joined: 26 Dec 2009

PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2013 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PRagic wrote:
was in global growth and emerging market funds early after they tanked. those are now up...way, way up, bout 40% and 50% respectively. my investment manager thought i was nuts to buy those back then as they're not small positions. hmmmm...

the large and med cap u.s. funds and fund of funds (just have two) are now back in the black and heading north. whew. those are the ones that my investment manager suggested i ride out. hmmmmm...ok. safe!

malaysia etf up 15%. indonesia etf even but heading north if they can get their political act together a bit better. fundamentals sound there. good long term hold IMHO.

brazilian infrastructure etf bought last year. figured their getting ready for a world cup and an olympics and their infrastructure is crap. kind of a gut call. still even, but hoping that heads north when they start pooring in funds to speed up. they just got slammed for being behind schedule. could go either way, but it's a small position.

got into newer diversified funds last year and earlier this year. smiles all around on those. different manager, too. everything made from the accounts gets reinvested.

don't have the time or desire at this point to do individual stocks. and, hey, as an american, obama's new tax on dividends makes those less appealing anyway given the risks. hastle at tax time, too. maybe if i were younger. we've gotten into a few korean ipos over the years and have done well. you have to have a serious wad of cash to even get into one, though, to make it worthwhile (i'd say half a million...bucks, not won lol)...and you need to be able to cash out asap to play it smart.

we just want to get a very large chunk of change working for us concervatively with 5-7% a yr return, reinvested, and build on that even more until i decide to retire.

play ball....

Sounds like you know as much as your advisor? Why not ditch him and save the cash?
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OneWayTraffic



Joined: 14 Mar 2005

PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2013 4:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Always good to have someone to blame Razz

If you invest in individual stocks, make sure that you know the business and the industry well. If you don't... you may as well throw darts.

Having said that my bit of money in BBRY was a bit of a flirt. I think that they have a solid product, a loyal fanbase waiting to upgrade, and a moat (security advantage) but still cellphones are a volatile market.

Seagate is one of the best risk reward tradeoffs out there. The business is priced at levels that assume it's going to implode, when the market for hard drives is still increasing and generating plenty of cash to go into SSDs later if need be.
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PRagic



Joined: 24 Feb 2006

PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2013 5:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@atwood...Thanks...I think!

Easier to have someone who can balance your strengths. Mine are in macro analysis, theirs are in portfolio management and wealth building. We are at the point where we don't need or want high risk, heavy trading positions, so having someone in your corner can help spell out trends and options. It's what they do and we don't have time to do. Must be doing something right as we just emerged from a financial fiasco that wiped away 20-60% of some people's portfolios, but all told, we came out up in double digits.
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