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big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Vehementi posted:

Is there a downside to going with a private financial advisor person (not sure what the term is) as opposed to working with someone in your bank? As far as I can see, there isn't, but you guys are more knowledgeable. I'm in Canada if that makes any difference.

How is your advisor getting paid? Some work off the trailing comissions and other comissions, making them (potentially) more like salesmen than advisors. Others take 1-2% per year, and some even do it for a fixed dollar amount per hour.

Of course, a bank advisor may end up being aggressive in steering you towards the bank's products, so that's a consideration as well.

EDIT:

Panthrax posted:

So, after a year and a half of working at my current place, I've just picked up all the 401k paperwork, and after reading this thread, and doing some Googling around, I think what we have sucks pretty hard. So, I guess I'd like to know what to do. I need to start saving, but short of a 401k and Roth, I'm not really sure what I should do.

We have the Legg Mason 401k through Paychex, and my company will match 4% if you put in 5%. Looking through the paperwork, all of the stock symbols are accompanied by Classes - A, B or C, which I've found out are loaded funds. Checking the symbols on Google, the loads range anywhere from 4.5 to 5.5%, along with 1-2% expense ratios. Am I right in thinking this isn't a good thing? It seems like we don't have a whole lot of options either - 7 Equity funds, 1 international, 1 "flexible", 2 mixed income bonds/securities.

Even with all the loads and what seems to be high expense ratios, should I still put in at least to get the free money? What other options do I have?

As a Canadian, I'm not well versed in 401k matching. I assume it works like this: If you make $100K, and contribute $5k to the 401k, the employer will give you $4k for the account "for free". It seems like that extra money more than compensates for the lovely front-load. Also, 1-2% MER isn't too bad for an actively managed fund.

big shtick energy fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Aug 5, 2008

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big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Investing it a low-fee index during a low period of the market is certainly a good idea, but it's a little strange to go for something like buying on margin. What exactly is drawing you in that direction?

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Daylen Drazzi posted:

I've always been a little confused about this - when people say put away 10% of your pre-tax salary, do they mean 10% PLUS company match, or 10% WITH company match. For example, my company does a 4% match if I invest 4%. I bumped this up to 6%, so technically 10% of my pre-tax salary is being invested. But should it be 10% plus the 4% company match going into my 401(k)?

It's more of a rough rule of thumb. There's a lot of retirement calculators out there, figure out when you want to retire and with how much (or what level of income you'll need your retirement savings to provide) and they'll be able to tell you how much you'll need to save per month.

quote:

I was thinking that buying on margin might be profitable in the long run, especially as I was told that the interest on the loan is tax deductable. Is it a bad idea?

Maybe, I don't know. Buying on margin isn't something you want to do unless you kno exactly what you're doign and why.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


For anyone who'd like to know more about the ideas 80k is espousing, you may want to read The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (there are updated version with commentary and footnotes). I've got to say that the long term, rational approach makes a lot of sense.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


GamingHyena posted:

Commodities - I put 5% into oil in the expectation that oil prices will continue to rise as world economy continues to recover. I picked this over OIL because USO seemed to have better performance over the past few years. Also, for what its worth, Morningstar analysts seemed to agree.

Well oil inventory levels are way up so who the gently caress knows what will be happening short-term, but yes, betting on increasing oil prices over the long term makes a lot of sense. I tried plugging it into google, but I couldn't figure out a way to compare it to the price of WTI, so I'd suggest doing some research to make sure it tracks its index well.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Here's an asset allocation I was thinking of. I'm canadian, so obviously that changes things a bit.

Equity - 55%
iShares CDN Composite Index Fund (XIC) - 20%
Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) - 35%
iShares CDN MSCI EAFE 100% Hedged to CAD Dollars Index Fund (XIN) - 35%
iShares CDN MSCI Emerging Markets Index Fund (XEM) - 10%

Fixed Income - 40%
iShares CDN Real Return Bond Index Fund (XRB) - 30%
iShares CDN Short Bond Index Fund (XSB) - 50%
iShares CDN Corporate Bond Index Fund (XCB) - 20%

Other - 5%
United States Oil Fund LP (USO)

Any thoughts? I'm relatively young, but it also possible that a significant portion of this money could end up as a down payment on property in the next 5-10 years, so I wanted to avoid too much volatility.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


var1ety posted:

You might want to consider paring your portfolio down to 2-4 tickers if you can, unless you have a decent sized starting portfolio or free trades. Otherwise it will be very hard to rebalance or contribute new money without spending a lot of money on transaction fees.

I do not personally hold any ETFs in my portfolio, so maybe a person that does can add some advice.

Hmm, I had that thought after looking at it. It's not that I'm nuts about ETFs, it's that aside from a couple of TD canada funds, there really isn't a lot of low-cost stuff available that isn't exchange-traded.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Thanks for the help, I think I'll probably remove the emerging markets and go down to 2 bond funds. The MERs of TD's e-series are pretty good, but their brokerage is a little bit more expensive ($100/year to stick a little R next to my account? gently caress you TD) than iTrade.

And USO wasn't just from a desire to have commodities exposure, I was specifically looking to invest in oil. It's definitely pretty aggressive for an otherwise passive portfolio, but I'm planning on holding it for the long term (at least 10 years or so). I might change the allocation to 50-40-10, though.

The finiki looks like a good resource, which is good, because a lot of financial sites and blogs tend to be written by Cramer wannabes.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Does Korea have any kind of tax-sheltered accounts? I know in Canada, you can hold US equities in an RRSP, so maybe Korea has something similar. I have no idea what there are in the way of brokerages in Korea, but assuming you can find one, one of the Vanguard ETFs would be an excellent way to invest in the american market.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


quadreb posted:

Bonds? Those sound like something for old people. My take is that if you're over 10 years from retirement, there's no call for them. I like venture capital partnerships myself.

Hey maybe we can keep fakeposts out of the investing megathread.

That would be nice.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Juts a quick note here that probably doesn't affect too many people. I had some interest in an oil ETF, and started doing some research. Unfortunately, the oil-price-tracking ETFs like USO seem to be quite lovely investment vehicles. Because they're based off of futures contract (as opposed to buying old itself, which isn't really feasible) they're vulnerable to a variety of problems, chief among them being "contango". Basically, since a fund like USO has to sell the upcoming month's contract before it expires and buy the contract for the month after, the fund can experience a loss if the next contract is trading at a higher price. This can go the other way (where it's called "backwardation"), but it still fucks up the tracking of the fund. Also, since the futures are inherently leveraged, all of the extra cash is put into treasuries, further decoupling the fund from the price of oil.

And this still ignores the fact that USO is big enough that its selling of contracts moves the market a decent ways. Is there a better way to make a long term bet on the price of oil other than ETFs or individual stocks of oil companies?

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


onefish posted:

Would you be able to tell me what the reason for this is? All my investments are in Vanguard (have a checking and money market savings account at Bank of America, but that's it), and I'm not sure exactly why I should go to the hassle of setting up more elsewhere if I can be market-diversified within Vanguard. I tried to google for this info, but I'm not hitting the right searchwords if the accepted argument is somewhere out there. Thanks!

I suppose fraud is always a possibility, although given the transparency of vanguard that seems unlikely. Basically, the risk is that Vanguard would do something really stupid that would somehow cause all their funds to significantly under-perform the index.

Keep in mind that Vanguard going bankrupt/out-of-business actually isn't a risk, because the fund is essentially separate. The only thing that would change in that event is that management of the fund would likely go to another company. Of course, this doesn't apply if you're using ETNs, which are subject to the risk of default of the issuing company.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Here's an overview of my investing strategy:

The overall asset allocation I'm looking at is 65% equity and 35% bonds. This is heavy on bonds for someone my age, but the money is necessarily just for retirement, since there's a real possibility some or most of it could be used for a downpayment on property in the next 5-10 years. I'm also taking into account Graham's advice to stay within a 25-75 range for each section. At this point I'm not looking at other investment types; REITs don't really interest me and the Canadian equity portion gives me lots of exposure to general commodities. Cash isn't included as a percentage allocation, since I'll be holding a fixed amount with any excess used to purchase more assets at rebalancing times.

Speaking of rebalancing, the general rebalancing strategy is to do so 1-2 times per year, with an additional rebalance triggered if an asset is over 50% overweight, although I may still change this.

Specific Allocation (All Percentages of Total):

General Equity - 60%
20% XIC - iShares CDN Composite Index Fund (I like the greater breadth of XIC, but XIU has much better volume/liquidity and a slightly lower MER, so I'm not sure)
20% VTI - Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (Broad US market exposure and rock-bottom MER. I've been convinced that hedging the CAD/USD exchange rate isn't worthwhile over the long term)
20% VEA - Vanguard Europe Pacific ETF (Since the exchange rate exposure is to a basket of currencies, buying one of the funds hedged to USD doesn't make much sense)

Specific Equity - 5% (My commissions are low enough relative to assets that they shouldn't drag even these small allocations too much)
2.5% - BHI Baker Hughes
2.5% - SII Smith International
I decided to invest a small portion in oil field service companies. Originally I was planning on investing this portion in an oil commodity fund like USL, DBO, or USO, but the problems of contango/backwardation and possible rule changes in the futures market make them unsuitable for long-term investment. I found the integrated major producers either ethically (XOM, Chevron, etc.) or financially (ConocoPhilips) unappealing, but I found some good companies in the oil field service sector. BHI, BJS, and SII are all relatively solid value stocks with good long term potential; since BHI is buying BJS, likely by the end of this year, investing in both would be redundant.

Bonds - 35%
25% XSB - iShares CDN Short Bond Index Fund (Short bonds have lower volatility than longer duration bonds, which is an important attribute for the bond portion of the portfolio)
10% XRB - iShares CDN Real Return Bond Index Fund (Having some inflation-indexed bonds seems like a good idea)

The tax strategy is relatively simple. During 2008 I'll keep most of it in a taxable account and keep my TFSA with ING for their promotional rate, but in 2009 with new purchases and possibly movement of existing assets I'll put the foreign holdings in an RRSP and use the TFSA for holding the bonds. How much of the asset base will end up inside the RRSP I'm not sure, but I'll certainly use all the TFSA room I can.

I've set up an account with questrade, since they offer by far the lower commissions: $5 on most of the trades I'll be making, up to a maximum of 10$. My signup bonus will supposedly rebate my first $50 in trades as well. Idle cash in my taxable account will likely be moved to a high-interest savings account between rebalancings.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Given how many good high-interest savings accounts are available now, I'm not sure I'd even bother with a money market fund. Even if the returns ended up being slightly better, you're still giving up FDIC protection for almost no reason.

I'm not sure about the small-cap/value choices, why not just take one whole-US-market fund and get everything. I'm a big proponent of value investing, but I still don't think value-based funds are better than general ones. While being priced conservatively relative to its balance sheet is something I'd look for in a stock, I highly doubt that that measure alone would predict higher performance.

Lastly, you could combine the europe and pacific portions by using whatever the mutual fund equivalent of VEA is.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


g-unit posted:

1) I was trying to increase value exposure based off of reading things like this. What are the appropriate ways to increase value exposure if not through a value index? Is that even something that you would want to do?

Berkshire hathaway? Ultimately value investing requires judgment calls, and that means active management from my perspective. I'm highly skeptical that any group of measures, even value-oriented ones, would automatically predict (in the long term) market-beating returns.

Really, you have to look at what graham was doing with the value investing concepts. The idea was not to predict superior gains (although the hope was that in the long term, this would be the case) but to increase the safety of a stock holding by ensuring that they're unlikely to go bankrupt and have some "real value" holding up the price over the long term. For the average investor, he recommended value picks because they were safe enough to leave alone and thus could get approximately market-average returns - broad market index funds can do this without having to pick stocks at all.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


EchoBase posted:

Hey, Starting next year my fiancee and I are going to start getting our long term finances sorted out, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the mechanics. The issue is that I'm Canadian and all the specific advice in this thread is for the US. Is there anyone that can give a rundown on a Canadian version of the general advice given in this thread. I know that our version of the basic "max your 401k, ROTH IRAs, etc" is "max your RRSP", but after that I'm lost.

Specifically, where should I open an account? Does a Vanguard equivalent exist here (low fees I guess is it's selling point)? If I open an account with a major bank, am I limited in my investment options...? Like I said, I think I'm good on the general planning it's just the details of what I physically need to go and do once we've determined our goals, calculated what we need to save, etc. I'm just not familiar with the investment landscape here.

One specific question: if my fiancee has an amount of money available immediately, but we want to save in an RRSP under my name, can we just deposit her money in my account? I have a feeling that I would have to declare it as income...? OR can RRSPs be joint accounts?

I did find that Finiki link a few pages back and will read it.

If you want to use index mutual funds, you can go to TD bank and buy their Efunds. The MERs are about 0.5%, which is basically the best rate right now for Canadian index mutual funds. You can also open a brokerage account somewhere and use it to buy ETFs, including vanguard ETFs, but that's somewhat more complex and doesn't work as well if you want to buy some every month.

As for account types:
Taxable account: Growth is taxed, but you can contribute and remover whenever
RRSP: Contributions are tax-deductible, contributions are limited, all growth inside the account is tax-free, but all withdrawals are taxed at your full marginal rate
TFSA: Contributions are limited, all growth inside the account is tax-free, and you do not pay tax on withdrawals as well


You can run the numbers, and obviously it depends on what your income is now vs. later, but I think the TFSA is generally better and should be filled first. Of course, the contribution space for RRSP/TFSA carries over between years, so if you don't have enough to fill both this year, don't worry about it. Also, try not to make the mistake of regularly putting in and taking out money from your TFSA, because you'll end up over-contributing and facing big penalties. You can only put in $5000 per year, and if you withdraw, you only get that space back NEXT year.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


KarmaCandy posted:

Am I being crazy?

No, it's entirely reasonable to not want your long-term savings day-traded by someone else. If you do want to be in Dad's Mutual Fund you can always set aside a particular 5k or 10k account for that and keep the rest more conservatively invested.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


In related news, I've had a lump sum sitting in my brokerage account for over a month now, but I haven't yet put it into the portfolio I designed. It seems like every day I have the free time to do it, the market is up a couple of percent, and I'd prefer to wait until it's down a few percent to put the money in. I really need to stop trying to time the market but...aggh.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Solaron posted:

EDIT: For what it's worth, our performance YTD has been 5.93%, which I'm assuming probably isn't that great? 3-month is 2.86%.

Don't try and make decisions based on performance, just develop a plan for how you want your assets allocated, and find the lowest-fee method of sticking to that plan. As for developing a plan, the first post can help you with that.

EDIT: A blog I read today has a decent article on some of the parts of asset allocation people miss: How your life affects asset allocation and risk tolerance

big shtick energy fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Dec 3, 2009

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


KarmaCandy posted:

Any thoughts on this method? I'm still not comfortable with it and am going to go with something more long term, but do other people do something similar to this?

He's acting like taxation is the only reason to buy-and-hold, when there are lots of other good reasons. You're paying a decent amount of fees for an investment method which may be increasing your risk significantly and is unlikely to beat the market average in the long term.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


waffle posted:

Do you guys think there's a better option for the money in our savings account? I hate to see it gain barely any interest, so I've been thinking about putting the money in a capital preservation fund or something. The only thing is that we would need to be able to get the money out on fairly short notice (say, if we had a car accident or something), so it definitely wouldn't be anything with much risk. We've never withdrawn money from it, but it's there to be used if we need the money in a pinch.

Really th only other option with capital preservation is a money market fund, but you're giving up FDIC protection and possibly some liquidity for returns that may not be any larger. A savings account is really the best place for an emergency fund.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


I just bought some ETFs for the first time. It's sort of exciting considering it was just putting in numbers into boxes. The liquidity is kind of impressive, even the odd lots I was buying were filled within a second or two within a cent or two of the market price.

One quick tip for Canadians buying ETFs: I was going to go with the iShares XSB for my bond portion, which is short-duration bonds including both government and corporate bonds. Instead I went with CLF, which is solely 1-5 year government bonds and has a slightly lower MER (.15% vs. .25%). It's not that I have a problem with corporate bonds, it's just that Canada's market isn't very diverse and most of XSB's corporate bonds are in the financial sector.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


EchoBase posted:

I'm starting an RRSP (Canadian retirement savings plan), just waiting for the paperwork to be finished and transfer the starter money in. I'm going to do a basic allocation using ETFs (equities by geography, Can bonds, etc) but I'm confused about the choice of ETFs. Am I locked into buying ETFs that are Canadian or are any ETFs available to me? I understand Canadian companies offering ETFs for the TSX, Canadian bonds, etc, but why would I buy a Canadian ETF for US equities if there's lots of US options? Am I only able to buy what's listed on a Canadian exchange or does the exchange rate make buying US ETFs off an American exchange not make sense? Whenever I do any reading about Canadian retirement stuff, all the comparisons, reviews, etc are for Canadian ETFs only and I feel like I'm missing out on some better options.

There are some sources that will talk about buying US ETFs, such as https://www.canadiancapitalist.com . Pretty much every canadian broker will give you access to all of the standard american exchanges, where you'll be able to buy the funds, and many of the vanguard funds are excellent options (I now hold VTI and VEA).

However, keep in mind that you're buying these funds using US dollars, so you're exposed both to the fluctuation in the fund and the fluctuation in the currency exchange rate. There's been a fair amount of discussion recently about hedging the currency risk by instead buying a fund that employs currency hedging, and the general thought is that over the long term, hedging might not be worthwhile. That said, a fund that attempts to hedge away the currency exposure, like XSP, may still be worthwhile. Personally I like the idea of a bit of diversification when it comes to currency holdings.

You'll generally want to put US/foreign holdings in an RRSP, because in a taxable account you'll pay your full marginal rate on dividend distributions, and 15% or 30% (depending on if you filled out a W8-BEN) withholding tax will be taken by the US government, although you'll receive a tax credit for it.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Diseased Yak posted:

So the time has come to make my 2nd ever Roth IRA contribution. I started it in 2008, putting the entire initial $5k into Vanguard's VTI ETF. Then the bottom fell out, and it's spent the whole of 2009 climbing back up, and is still -8% from when I first purchased it.

Now I'm wondering what I should do with 2009's contribution. Should I start to diversify on such a small scale, given I've just started? I was thinking of picking a Vanguard international ETF and a bond fund (like BND) and dividing it between the two, giving me 50% stock market, 25% international, 25% bond.

Does that sound ok? Should I look in a different direction?

Sounds fine. For the international component I'd suggest going with VEA rather than VWO, unless vanguard as a fund that combines those as well.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Mongolian Squid posted:

I've been reading Bernstein's [u]Investor's Manifesto[/b] and he briefly talks about real-estate and how the real dividend on real estate is pretty much zero. Also it is not really an investment since you have to live there, therefore it is a consumption item.

Now going along with this, is there a benefit to maybe renting for most/all of my life and using the rest of my income for investment etc...?

Maybe. Although if you're planning to stay somewhere for a long time (ie. 20 years) buying is probably better.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Okay the last few posts confused me. What are BDCs, SPVs, and PE funds? Google/investopedia are not being particularly helpful.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


EchoBase posted:

I found something interesting offered by my defined contribution pension plan provider: a series of those target retirement date funds (where all your allocations are taken care of by the fund) that you see from most mutual fund providers, but these have a guarantee on the value at the end-date. If you're holding the fund at the end-date, you sell out for the peak value of the fund over its history. I imagine that this will just make the managers extremely conservative as they want the end date to be the peak so they don't take a loss, but still, it's an interesting idea. The fund is insured somehow, that's how they guarantee the payout. The MERs are ~0.99% too, I was expecting a huge MER to cover the insurance costs...but it's not that bad (relatively speaking).

If you don't understand how it works and why it's better for you, don't put your money in it. Don't leave it up to an advisor/salesman to do the understanding for you.

I'm not sure I really understand myself what you've described. It sounds like something between a Principal Protected Note (PPN) and whole life insurance, which is a red flag because neither of those financial products are particularly good for most people.

big shtick energy fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Jan 14, 2010

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


quote:

I've been investing for retirement since 2001 and was disappointed to see much of my investment earnings from college wiped out and due to a personal situation unrelated to market conditions, I was unable to capitalize upon the market return in later 2009.

It sounds like your tolerance for risk was a lot lower than you thought. Remember that if you need to pull money out in the near future, or there is a significant chance that you'll need to, your tolerance for risk/variance is pretty low. If you've been investing since 2001, you should still have some small growth overall, unless you were investing in something that didn't follow the index or you pulled money out in 2008. The "lost decade" is only such without dividends and assuming a lump-sum investment, not regular contributions. Of course, the gains are still pretty crappy, but that'll happen sometimes.

quote:

Employer Stock Options in Merril Lynch brokerage account ~$45k market value post-tax

AAAAAAAAhhhh like half your money is in options for one company, unless you work for "Deity who Prints Money Inc." and maybe even then you need to start selling some/most of these.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


Hello Pity posted:

Having just got a lump-sum payment for some work I did a while back I'm looking at investing, other than my work pension (where I pay the maximum the my employer will match), for the first time beyond just sticking a money in a savings account.

Were taxes withheld when it was paid out to you? If not, you'll probably owe a whole bunch so keep some money around for that.

As far as what to invest in, the advice remains the same. Low-cost index funds split between the stock market and more stable fixed income. You'll have to do some legwork to find the best index mutual funds in Britain or best domestic index ETFs, but for your international component you can always buy vanguard ETFs.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


DreadCthulhu posted:

Out of curiosity, what's the general consensus on holding preferred stock of too-big-to-fail companies such as Bank of America and just milk the dividends?

Too big to fail doesn't mean the equity isn't wiped out.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


asmallrabbit posted:

My TFSA I consider a short-mid term savings account for things like a car/house/etc, and gets an auto contribution of 400 a month, going into mutual funds. It has the following allocation:

TD CDN Index - 20.650%
TD US Index Currency Neutral - 20.920%
TD Int'l Index Currency Neutral - 20.100%
TD CDN Bond Index - 38.320%

It sounds like this is a shorter-term fund, so your equity exposure is probably too high. If you're really a fan of stocks, you can maybe have them as much as 25% of this account, but probably not a lot more than that.

quote:

My RRSP is as follows:

ATVI:US - 23.52%
TD:CA - 43.33%
VT:US - 18.80%
VWO:US - 12.63%
Cash - 1.74%

With a current market value of $6500.

So 2/3rds of your retirement savings is in two companies. What do you see in these companies that the rest of the market doesn't? Can you explain why your strategy is likely to significantly beat the market average?

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


asmallrabbit posted:

Are mutual funds a bad choice for a short-mid-term fund or do I need to just carry different funds? I like the ETF's because of the lower MER but beyond that I'm open to suggestions.

The idea is that the bond market is a lot less volatile than the stock market. The stock market can easily make huge moves, which is fine if you can patiently wait out the 10+ years it could take if you invested at just the wrong time, but if you're using the money on a shorter term, you can end up taking a big (30-40%) loss from selling at the wrong time.

quote:

ATVI I bought more because I like the company as a gamer myself, and TD was similar because I bank with them and they've done rather well. The only reason 60% of my savings is currently between the two has more to do with the fact that I've only started contributing since last year and im trying to do larger trades with fewer stocks so as to keep commission costs low. Hence I want to do a bit of rebalancing now so it isn't so lopsided.

Yes, but why is investing in these companies going to earn you returns that are much, much better than the market average?

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


asmallrabbit posted:

What would a better balance be for my TFSA then? I'm planning on using it to get a car in the next few years. Should I move to mostly bonds/gic's with only a small portion in the index funds?

If your time scale is a few years, yes that'd be a good idea. The choice between individual (government) bonds and bond funds is a somewhat interesting one, but with that account size you'd be looking at bond funds or GICs most likely.

quote:

I don't particularly believe that they would return more or less then the market average. In particular with ATVI i really should have bought it in a non registered account, but they are both strong companies with good potential and sound performance so far.

This is essentially the point I'm trying to get at. If your strategy isn't going to beat the market, why take on a bunch of extra risk by being so concentrated? If all you're going for is the average, get a good index fund and let it be.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


You have no bonds/fixed income at all, and 25% of your money is in the venture exchange, so it's a very aggressive allocation. If say, tomorrow, your portfolio lost 50% of its value, would you be okay with that? If you are, excellent, but since people generally over-estimate their volatility tolerance it's an important question to think about.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


ShaneB posted:

I don't know, say Fidelity has some kind of internal corruption erupt and FFFGX becomes worthless overnight somehow...

That's a pretty low probability event, but yes, there are some conceivable scenarios where the fund could lose a lot of value independent of what the index is doing.

Of course, then you also have to look a broker risk (are the securities in your name vs. the broker's, how much does the gov insurance protect you), the risks of the currency becoming worthless, the risk that you will get hit by a car tomorrow and should have enjoyed the money today, the risk of a major disaster wiping out the financial system...

It's not unreasonable, and being split between a few investment companies might be a good idea, but it's a line of thinking that ends in a bunker in Montana filled with canned beans and ammunition.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


greasyhands posted:

Tell that to the people invested with Madoff

My point is that some worrying about diversification is warranted, but if you take it too far, you end up in the bunker. So yes, if you reach the point of millions, you may want to think about things a bit, but obsessing over it won't do any good.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


I recently got my annual report for the VEA shares (along with the associated mutual fund) I hold, and I noticed that they mention a 1% fee on any shares redeemed after being held less than 5 years. Is this just an issue for investment bank types doing arbitrage with the ETF or are those who hold the mutual fund version of VEA paying that 1% as well?

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


alreadybeen posted:

So I've noticed vanguard has put out a lot of ETFs to mimic their mutual funds. Should I be putting money in the ETF or the actual fund? Does it matter how long you plan to hold it?

The ETF versions have lower MERs, but you need a brokerage account and have to pay a commission every time you buy/sell an ETF. This makes the ETFs better for those with a larger amount of assets who buy/rebalance only a couple times a year, and the mutual funds better for people with less assets or who want to buy monthly.

big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


bhaltair posted:

Except Vanguard doesn't charge any commissions on trading their own ETFs.

I didn't realize vanguard had their own brokerage. There's still the small cost of bid-ask spreads, but otherwise I guess there's little reason not to use the ETFs.

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big shtick energy
May 27, 2004


poofactory posted:

A a US investor, I am 100% into investments that will benefit from an increasing money supply and loss of confidence in fiat currency. Bernanke's #1 goal is to avoid deflation and is doing everything in his power to inflate asset prices.

My investments are about 55% precious metals, 10% agriculture and 35% oil. The ag stocks payout mediocre dividends but the oil stocks are paying about 4% on average.

I hope you aren't in USO or another rolling-futures type fund because if you are boy are you in for a surprise.

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