No, probably not going to lead to a profitable strategy.

Is there really a good reason to buy CDs vs something like SHY(1-3 year treasury)? To me it seems like 0.95% yield + early redemption fees sounds like a scam to pull on dumb people.

I am doing a brokerage promotion where I get $100 if I deposit $1k, make one trade, and keep it there for six months.

I was thinking I should dump the balance in VTI while it sits there?

In case anyone is interested the broker is called Kapitall.

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Don't need the cash in next 1-3 years. Most of my portfolio is in VASGX life strategy growth fund.

It depends on your investment objective and how much you need the principal in the next 1-3 years..

SHY has exposure to interest risk. CDs has exposure to purchasing power risk but for most situations where people need X amount to buy a house in the next 1-3 years, CDs is a great option.

Bonus whoring is good while you're in college. As you get older, time is too valuable and it's probably more worthwhile to work an hour or two in overtime at your job and make that $100.

I agree.

I am 24, a salaried employee, and thankfully have a fair amount of free time. I do some of these offers but try and stick to higher value things. I agree with your point that there is a very finite upside to promos - ain't gonna get that first milly with dese. I have done pretty well with some credit card bonuses in the past tho . I think VTI is a fair choice for general capital appreciation but perhaps it's like asking if you should raise AA pre.

So I'm a noob at investing and I want to save money (in the long term). With todays economy I don't want to save up a whole bunch of dollars then wake up one day and find out the dollar crashed. My friend said gold always goes up and gets even higher during an economy crash, is this true?

No, gold doesn't always increase in value.

If you don't want to save in cash, then you, like most people in this thread, are probably reasonably well advised to invest in stocks and other assets as appropriate.

are there any "safe" stocks to invest in?

Depends on your definition of safe, but from what I've read from you so far I'd say there probably isn't such a thing.

There is no magic way of making money here. All investments inherently trade off returns in exchange for risk. That's why there's the small print at the bottom of every such investment advertisement.

http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/...nvestments.htm

Don't hate me because this is from about.com, but seems like a reasonably good discussion of investment risks.
Everybody seems to fear this risk too much:

"Principal Risk

Principal risk seems to be the risk most people refer to when they imply that they do not want to take any risk. The loss of principal exists with just about any investment that is not protected with some type of insurance or government backing. Investing in stocks, mutual funds, and commodities are some of the investments that carry principal risk"

And forget about this one:
Inflation Risk

"Inflation is what eats away at the buying power of your dollar. Here is an easy way to look at the effect of inflation and the inflation rate. Let’s say that that you could buy a particular car today for $25,000 and in 5 years the same car brand new might sell for $28,250. Let’s also suppose that today you put $25,000 in a 5 year CD earning 2% interest. Your CD would be worth roughly $27,500 in 5 years. Today your $25,000 would be enough to buy the car. However in 5 years, your $25,000 will have only grown to $27,500 and the price of the car grew to $28,250. Inflation is what occurs when your dollars can’t buy enough of the same product in the future as they can today. This risk occurs in investments whose return is lower than the current inflation rate and is often associated with, but not limited to lower yielding bonds, CD’s or other fixed income products."

To answer your question, bigger is usually safer as far as stocks go, but invest in a broad based mutual fund and you will lessen your principal risk greatly.

Just get an S&P 500 index, invest in it for 30 years and that's about as safe as it gets. You're almost guaranteed to get wealthy.

Agreed.

Fairly sure that's just because of lawyers.

You might want to re-think that. Here's the long term S&P returns as a function of the Shiller PE at the start of the period:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pr...ller_Data).png

Current Shiller PE is 25. What not to do is left as an exercise for the reader.

Ok, knowing that, what would you suggest the average investor to do? Divest all equities? Withhold investing new money only? I understand you said what is left to do is an exercise for the reader, but you must have an opinion since you bothered to post the link.

We are debating how to pronounce these metrics at the office (English isn't the first language):

EBITDA
1) Ee-bit-dah
2) Ee-bit deeh ah (EBIT D A)

ROCE (return on capital employed)
1) like the flower, rose
2) row-see

What's your vote? :-)

If you invested in the S&P 500 the last 30 years you made over 9%

I'll take my chances

EBITDA
1) This is how I and almost everyone I know pronounce it.
2) I heard it this way the majority of the time I was in Europe (~5 months, mostly France).

ROCE
I just pronounce all the letters, just like with ROE and ROI. If you wanna cut it short though, definitely not "rose". Row-see and row-chee would probably both be fine.

If your universe is major US fund-type investments, I would be long the S&P with caution. I would go flat or short in the event it spent 13 consecutive weeks below the 40 week EMA and return to the long if it closed > 40week EMA for 13 consecutive weeks.

Reasoning for the above: the S&P 500 has demonstrated major momentum in both directions, with some noise, for its entire history. The EMA crossover scheme captures the momentum. The 13 week delay filters out the noise better than most other approaches (double EMA etc.).

US demographics are **** for investing right now IMO because the baby boomers have bought up everything. So it's hard to recommend something to just go long.

If you actually look at the graph (or as I have, the actual data that you can get off of Shiller's website), equities still have a positive real expected return at a PE>25.

It is also not the only measure of valuation and there is precious little else to put your money in other than other stock markets. Using similar predictive measures based on historical, stocks are the best thing out there right now over long periods aiaec.

(you could use the Edelstein method of value averaging if you have a crapload of cash to put to work, or if you aren't in the accumulation phase of your investing life)

But a negative inflation adjusted return. So your "investment" plan is to buy a high-risk security where your expectation is a loss of buying power?

Good for you, I guess, but you'll excuse me if I opt out of that bet.

You do realize that your last IMO is just false. You can actually check up on what the Boomers are invested in. Right now, Joe Boomer investor underweight stocks. He has been for quite a while.

As far as the rest goes, it had nothing to do with the 20 year chart you posted. PE10 has absolutely no predictive power over short periods and this isn't the trading thread. We do have a trading thread. You should go there. We might be able to use you. I am pretty sure that I am the only one there who uses pe10 (and Tobin's Q amongst other things) as a broad market valuation tool. We can argue there (where it would be appropriate to do so) about whether or not 13-week momentum is as useless as a poopy flavored lollipop.

Also, since I'm feeling a bit cranky about how people word things today, one can't be "cautiously long." You either own crap or you don't. "I'm 120% cautiously long"?!? (I'm not actually 120% long)

It doesn't matter what he buys. He buys T-bonds, the rates fall, and equities go up to close the yield spread.

The whole way you're thinking about this is D- material. Just saying.

This incidentally, is HORRIBLE. There are MANY ways to be cautious and long
- long << 100%
- long with a stop or some price/time stop combination
- long with a put to limit downside
- long in the middle of a bull options spread (so both upside and downside are limited)
- long equities and also long VIX

and so on and so forth.