excellent, I shall lie away then

I have a large(r) position in an index fund in my IRA. Any purchases require me to wait until the end of the day to get the price.

I'd prefer to switch to an ETF so that any new investments will be at the current price.

How do I go about doing this in the most optimal way? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around selling the index fund and locking in any gains or losses and then buying the ETF at current, relatively lower, prices.

Like, I'm selling low in the index fund but then buying low in a new investment.

Should I just roll the position and let it take care of itself? Or do I just leave the index fund the way it is?

My concern is for this example -- I added some shares at, say $100, which was the end of day price. A few days later, it was trading at $85 so I added more shares, but by the end of the day, the price was back up to $99. I effectively got the same price as I did a few days earlier and missed being able to get in at the lower price. That is what I want to avoid, if that makes sense.

EDIT: Looks like I might not be able to roll unless I roll into another mutual fund.

So I opened a Roth at the worst time in history and ended up investing full 2019 and 2020 contributions in January and February without being aware of the level of threat posed by corona. At the time, I was very much a newb (still a newb, just less of one now) not really paying much attention to the market and just looking to get it done while it was on my mind.

As someone bearish about the next couple months, I was looking today into withdrawing these funds during this little bull run with an eye towards investing them again later upon an anticipated 15%+ drop but it says I have zero funds eligible to withdraw. Anyone know why this would be? My understanding is that I can withdraw contributions at any time. I don't know whether I'm actually going to do this, but it'd be good to know just in case.

You should be able to sell and keep the cash in the roth.

Just put in the max next year. Keep doing that every year and the problem fixes itself.

I’m not sure if the brokerage you use allows you to buy an etf at say 3:30 on the same day you are selling your MF at 4:00, but if you can’t do that you will be in cash for a night which could turn out to be a good or bad thing depending if the market is up or down to open. If you go with the buy and sell the same day realize you have double exposure for a short period. If you have say $2k in this MF you should be able to figure out about how much it is up or down on the day by looking at how an ETF is doing with similar investments in it if one exists.

You said it was an IRA so no need to worry about locking in gains or losses since you aren’t paying taxes on the gains/losses.

Another option is to leave the MF alone if you aren’t trading in and out much and start buying an etf you like with any new money you deposit.

In your last paragraph you say the MF was trading at $85 mid-day but at the end of that day it was selling at $99. The $85 was close of the previous day and $99 was close of that day.

Thanks for the help. I thought about leaving the MF alone and building a new position. Part of me just prefers to have an ETF that trades in real time so I can actually see my daily P/L rather than waiting until the evening when it updates the price.

What I meant by the last paragraph was like, I bought my first position at, say $100. Then, a day or two later (I don't know the exact timing) the market was down a good percentage so I wanted to buy in again during the day thinking it would probably end down for the day. But, that day that I put the order in, the market came all the way back and finished nearly unchanged.

If I had an ETF, I would have gotten the price that it was currently trading at and it would have been the lower price as the market was down at that time. Then, when the market went up, I would have had a profit for that day.

However, as it has been, it hasn't really mattered up to this point because everything went further down after that. haha

For the question, though, it seems that if I want to make the switch, then I'll have to close the MF and reopen a new position in an ETF.

That part of you isn't the smart part. I sincerely hope that your other parts pick up the slack.

I asked a question with my concern. You didn't respond with advice. The better option for you would have been to not say anything at all. It served no purpose to belittle me like that.

Wasn't belittling you at all, unless you didn't already believe you were human.

The advice I gave was pretty obvious, although not quite spelled out since I assumed that the smart parts of you actually exist. Just in case my assessment of you having smart parts was incorrect and you aren't capable of making inferences:

Stop checking your account. Don't check it once per day. Don't check it once per week. Don't check it once per month. Maybe check it once per quarter for rebalancing, but no more than that. Wanting to check it during the day is incredibly stupid* and will lead you to do really stupid things.

*also quite normal, like many really maladjusted things people do

No, I get it. I've been investing/trading for nearly 20 years. I feel I'm quite capable not to freak out at the daily noise. My point still stands that I'd rather make an investment at the current price rather than waiting until the end of the day. Right or wrong, it's still my preference.

It would have been a little more tactful for you to mention that instead of insulting my intelligence.

I have nothing to prove. It was my mistake for feeling like I could ask an honest question. Please, don't feel the need to respond again as I'm not going to continue.

So I opened a Roth last month and funded it with cash. What should I actually safely invest that money in at this point or with all these waves let it sit as cash?

It is usually considered best to just invest now, assuming that you are investing for some far off thing like retirement.

This is because waiting for things to calm down usually means never investing at all. Additionally, things won't seem even slightly calm until prices are higher than they are now - Waiting for things to be more expensive isn't a particularly good idea.

Investments go up and down. With any luck you will get used to that.

As far as safety goes, I assume you want something that doesn't go down in price. That sort of thing doesn't exist. The only safety comes from being broadly diversified and keeping those investments for a really really really really long time.

I have to defend my fellow mick. The response he gave was over the top mean, but it is better than a lot of responses in here that are just bad advice.

What's the best option here and what does it all mean?

Just do it now. Buy a Target Date fund.

If this is in an IRA and it's really your only retirement investing, just leave it with that default option (reinvest everything).

If your situation is more complicated (such as taxable accounts), then the answer might be different.

I have a 401k where I use employee match as well as a brokerage account

I'd expect you could be able to vary the designation based on each individual account. It may help to sign in on an actual computer, sometimes mobile/app settings don't give you the full options.

Two questions:

1. What is it called when you have a position falter and instead of moving on you would rather buy more at the lower price to try to force it into being a winner? Do you guys feel this way as well? How do you cope with it?

2. When you buy call or put options and they basically double in value over a short time period, are you likely to sell or to hold. I've seen this a bunch and it's lol sample size so not sure if it's confirmation you took a good position or you're running hot and should lock in the profit while you can.

I'm aware this is very much one of those "it depends" answers but for example I bought MGM $15 4/17 puts at 1.38 and the last sale was 2.12, is this a spot to just lock it in or hope it keeps snowballing? I worry I'm being too greedy, but also a little worried I'm not being greedy enough since entire point of options trading is to get high risk returns

It is referred to as averaging down. When I first started trading I had this urge. People have written about this and the psychology of taking a loss. My approach is “sell first, ask questions later.” If my reason for making a trade was faulty then I just move on. Taking a loss ASAP is the goal. I got bearish on treasuries recently but I was just wrong basically. Keeping a loser weighs on your psyche.

On options, yeah that is more of a strategy question. Personally I want to make much more than double on an options trade.

As an aside, I think you are asking good questions FWIW. Again, FWIW, I would recommend reading about financial theory specifically about the fundamentals of valuations. Also about portfolio theory and asset allocation.

Aswath Damodaran has written excellent books and has YouTube videos.

While we are at it examine 10-Qs and 10-Ks. They’ll seem incomprehensible at first but studying them will raise important questions. Knowledge of financial accounting doesn’t hurt.

thanks adios, much obliged

One answer for both questions:

Assuming that you like money, you need to act as if you do not have a position when determining what action you should take.

If you wouldn't put on the position right now, then you get rid of it. Your position size should be determined in a similar manner.

If you don't like money, but do like win streaks, then you do otherwise.

Nope. Assuming that you like money, taxes, commissions, and bid/ask spreads should all factor into your trading decisions.

Commissions don't matter, since you shouldn't be trading if your size is so teensy weensy teeny tiny that they are meaningfully large by comparison. Also, commissions are either tiny or non-existent nowadays.

Bid/ask spreads should matter about never, since (assuming still that you like money) you wouldn't even consider trading something where the bid/ask spread would affect your trading decision. Like poker, avoiding putting yourself into situations where you have to make marginal decisions is smart. Unlike poker, you can completely avoid those situations, which can ultimately be called "flushing your money down the toilet for no good reason."

Taxes do matter, but not for making a decision whether to hold or close a position. You might be thinking of "investing," which is a different thing than "trading." I find it helpful in remembering the difference between the two words by noting that they have different letters in them.