About me: 39 year old. Taking a year off work to travel and play poker and just relax, the past couple years have been very hard and I’m burned out.

Financial status: well invested in stocks, savings account and backup and all that. 0 debt, 0 loans, 0 mortgages, 0 credit cards. I have around $35 000 of money that I’d like to invest that’s just laying around. I am willing to take maximum risk as this money doesn’t mean too much for me so to say, it does not come out of work/life budget.

Thinking about waiting out the turbulence in crypto, trying to target the bottom of BTC and ETH and dump it in there for 2 years with a 50-50% split.

Pros/cons? Any other ideas? All on red?

TWTR betting on Elon buying at $54 by choice or court order.

Aren’t there multiple “argue about bitcoin” threads without turning this into another one?

Yes, no bitcoin/crypto discussion here....there's other threads for that.

Hey guys

I want to put 20K I have laying around into the s&p500. I have never purchased any stocks or shares before.

What is the cheapest/most cost effective way for me to do this? Lowest fees/charges ect

Many thanks

what's your outlook? IE is this for retirement or something you may want/need to access in a few years

i don't know the optimal way, but the people who do can better answer your question if they have this info

I have a K-1 form coming because I traded some UCO. The 1099 doesn't have a cost basis. If I put the correct cost basis in will my taxes be correct or do I need to wait for the K-1? TurboTax doesn't ask for any other information.

Hello -

28 year-old American (Texan)

$55K salary, $60/hr playing live poker, ~750hrs/yr. No debt.

I have eclipsed $20,000 in savings for the first time in my life and I have grave concerns that I could be smarter with my money. I have a poker bankroll that is the almost the exact same size (cash and mostly chips) in a safety deposit box at the room I play at the most. $7K in checking acct.

I have no equity. I don't own a car; my job is full time remote, and I spend about $600/mo on Uber/Lyft getting to and from the cardroom. I am renting an apartment with my girlfriend for which I pay half of; about $1200/mo out of my pocket in living costs - rent, utilities, groceries. I have to wait a couple more weeks as a drivers' license suspension from out of state expires.

I feel like I have reached an amount of money where it's blatantly dumb to have it just sitting there. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts about where to put $3k-$5k of this to generate even the smallest of ROI, or to make my savings work for me in any way possible? Please forgive my ignorance. Although some have had more equity, I think this is about as much cash as an individual in my family has had for a couple of generations. Thanks so much in advance.

Bitcoin

You could invest a large portion in one or more index funds. Or perhaps a mutual fund. You could choose to invest a small percentage in Bitcoin as well - if you've read the whitepaper and understand what Bitcoin is and does.

I suggest going through this thread in order to find more detailed responses from more knowledgeable peeps. I'm not American, so I'm not familiar with the Vanguard thingies or capital gains tax.

Open an account with Vanguard. Invest in an S&P 500 index fund. Or XLE, a SPDR fund in the energy sector that has paid over 20% for the past year.

Yup, get off zero

Vanguard

I think i will copy paste this 50 times per day if i read this thread...

Vanguard SP500

Read:

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Book Big... (John C. Bogle)

I am not advocating you should buy bonds , the idea is you understand fundamentals , in your age i would go 100% on SP500

I have around 75% of my capital in stocks (mainly SP500, some tech stocks and other smaller picks) and 25% in cash.

I'm considering using a larger part of the 25% to buy long-term government bonds (US/Europe). Any advice for/against this? I'm asking purely in terms of investment strategy, I have access to emergency money should I need it.

It is usually fine and helpful to have long-term gov't bonds instead of cash. Last year it definitely was not.

I like short-term bonds better. Currently higher rates than long-term and less risk. I am long BIL with a portion of what would be in cash.

The SP500 is always the best decision over a bank provided you understand there is short term variance similar to poker. In your position though I think you need to do something more aggressive - you don't make a lot of money and 20k is really nothing, so continuing what you're doing right now is a path to mediocrity/financial insecurity. If you make 60/hr at poker just quit your job and use that time to play more poker but also explore other avenues of income. Understand you're at your lowest cost of living most likely during your adult life - you're renting an apartment that you only pay half for and have no kids/mortgage/car payments/etc. Look into sales - can be done remotely and you can make a lot of money if you grind it out. The worst thing you can do is stick to your current job as your bills will rise as you get older and eventually you'll be behind the curve.

@ Wilfram

Paypal is currently paying 4.15% per year on savings.

https://www.paypal.com/us/digital-wa...04.15%25%20APY.

I'm very familiar with the Boglehead approach to investing & the importance of diversifying. That said, for a 30 yrs old with a 6 months emergency fund & a safe, steady and reliable income stream that pays 100%++ of their annual expenses, why would investing a VERY LARGE portion of their investment in a 100% tech EFT or mutual fund be a bad idea?

I'm aware that the S&P 500 is already tech-heavy, and investing in it might be adequate. But presumably no one thinks the internet/computers/cell phones/AI is going to do anything other than continue to grow & become even more entrenched in our lives over the next 20+ years, so why would investing in a diversified tech fund for someone with a 20+ year investing outlook be overly risky?

The only risk this noob sees is, if when they are older and need to diversify into less volatile investments, tech happened to be super down that year & for whatever reason(s) they were unable to put off selling / transferring their tech etf/mutual fund investments.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

I think the principle of the Bogle investing is that overall, prices are pretty close to efficient.

If you think that the Tech (or some other sector) is under priced, then that implies you know something that the rest of the market does not know. I would be sceptical of claims that funds that include stocks such nvidia are meaningfully under-priced relative to their "true", long-term, value. I can think of various occasions in recent years where tech (or some other sector) has been the subject of various price bubbles. Your confidence that we are not currently in such a price bubble might be misplaced.

Because tech isn't guaranteed to return as much as something like VOO or a periodically rebalanced portfolio of VTI and VXUS over the next 20 years, and certainly not without added risk...I present you exhibit A:



In other words, you and everyone else, in reality, has no idea how tech will perform in the next 20 years. Today is just a speed bump, and for all we know, we're just in an AI bubble. And have you seen AI lately? Dude is massive now. Ready to pop!

Does anyone have experience with callable CDs? I just noticed them on Vanguard with a 5.6 interest rate. I guess they pay simple interest rather than compounded but still comes out better in a year than the 5.25 I could find locally. Do they get closed out early often? Should I expect them to call it early based on interest rate predictions for next year?

in my two seconds of research i've determined the bank can call the note at any time it becomes financially prudent to do so.

There will usually be a callable date on them. They can't call it before that date.

And obviously if it is financially prudent for them to call it, they absolutely will. They are paying you (a pittance) for the option to do so.

Since the entire idea of a CD is to lock in a rate for you and for the bank, callable bonds kind of defeats the purpose for you.

Comrade rede