I don't think anyone can dispute that paying down the 3-4% mortgage is better than owning Coca Cola any day.

Open up a TFSA and buy TD e-funds, set up a couch potato portfolio and start reading and move it around as you become more knowledgeable.

Get a LOC and use this as an emergency fund, you can then withdrawal from your TFSA to pay off the LOC (but you need 60 days to get it out of your TFSA). It's silly imo at your age to have a large emergency fund if you have a secure job and no debt or property.

indisputable fact, orly?

Huh?

Also mortgage is gonna be over 4%

24
mechanical engineering graduate
currently looking for a job because i am bored with poker
no debt
25k to my name so about 18k to invest
want to split it between high risk and moderate risk

Vanguard Brokerage Services is now offering commission free trades on their ETF offerings. Additionally the first 25 equity/ETF trades are only $7

The only 'gotcha' is a $20 yearly fee on asset bases under $50k.

I would highly recommend anyone with a Vanguard portfolio to consider switching to their ETF's through their brokerage.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/ins...sions-05042010

Very compelling change to their brokerage service if you are a very light trader and are already Vanguard focused.

Indisputable fact: A guaranteed 6% return (paying down mortgage debt) is better than owning Coca Cola, which will only perform better than 6% in very good years.

Similar to my situation. If you want the no-nonsense version, you could just buy my largest holdings: SYY, AAPL, MO, TEVA, F. Another option is to diversify with an ETF portfolio like VNQ, VTI, VBK. Or, just buy all 8.

* From the UK, age 23

* Have around £300-400k to invest

* Risk Tolerance - high for like 100k investments, medium i guess for 3-400k investments

* Timeframe - again depends on amount invested, no problem with 100k in for 5-10 years that i can't touch, but prob not 400k, would like to leave options open for investing in a business/buying more property.

* Let me know if there's more info i can provide, thx in advance for any advice.

If you're considering purchasing a business, just be aware that it's not a passive investment like stocks/bonds. Such stresses & time requirements might interfere with you printing money via poker.

Country: Australia
Income: 60kish (poker)
Amount to invest now: 5k , 45k by the end on the year
Risk Tolerance: high
Timeframe for investment: longterm
Debt: 315k mortgage ( paying ~7% interest) for apartment which i am renting out for 1600 per month.
Age: 25
Mental State: Worried

Awesome thread guys. Im a small stakes grinder, with no academic qualifications who is starting to get worried about the future and have decided to be somewhat proactive(after years of just blowing everything i made from poker) and invest a good portion of what i make this year. Basicially got spooked into moving back to parents house when people started asking me questions about my savings ( none) and what i planed to do when i retired from poker (i dunno). I should have aroud 45k by the end of the year to invest. What % of that should i put into my mortgage and what % in shares ( i was thinking the Vanguard Australian Shares Index ETF). And should i do this as a lump sum at the end of the year or withdraw every month and invest as i earn (e.g take out 3kish every month and put into that Vanguard Australian shares ETF (would this considered dollar cost averaging?)? Any advice would be appreciated and if theres any more info you need let me know. Cheers!

I don't think you have the capital required to invest in stocks at the moment. Build your savings. You've already got a pretty large & long-term investment in the form of a mortgage. Since you play poker and don't have anything else lined up, you should probably have something like $40,000 in savings before you go trying to spread yourself too thin. Worst case scenario, you lose a couple years of 10% stock appreciation (~5-10k, tops, given your current liferoll).

Yeah i mean considering it *at all* at the moment, but wouldn't like to rule it out in the med-long term future. Also by business i was including things like the possibility of large scale staking opportunites in poker, or even putting myself in nosebleed live games idk.

Basically, I don't need much liquidity at all at the moment, but would like to have the option to pull at least some of my money out should my goals/motives change

I'd just stick the 100k into an index portfolio, maybe 50% domestic exposure and 50% international exposure. Rest I'd leave in an interest bearing account, spend some time doing research than pull it when necessary.

Country you live in: US
Income: $100k/yr
Age: 27
Risk Tolerance: uhh, med-high i guess?
Timeframe for investment: Retirement (...asap )
Debt: $350k mortgage @ 5.75%

i'm kind of in the "lol dollar is going to collapse" mindframe, so i don't exactly have much faith in traditional investments per se, but at the same time i already have money locked up in it and i don't know much about anything anyway

i've got money in various places and i have no idea what i can/should do with it. maybe i need to talk with a financial advisor lol

~24k cash
~12k physical gold/silver (in-hand)
~4.5k in a rollover ira from a previous employer's 401k that is currently invested in nothing i think. i don't really know what i can do w/ this atm tbh, but its at wells fargo advantage funds and they appear to have the std variety of mutual funds/etc
~7.5k in a simple ira from a previous employer at wells fargo advisors. again, std variety of stuff i can likely allocate to
~15k in current employer's 401k that i have no control over. a pooled investment account run by someone, etc
~20k in 2 different universal life insurance policies through nationwide (~13k in one for me, ~7k in my wife's) that is kind of dual life insurance/investment vehicle. i have control over where these get invested, again, typical choices/allocation stuff

i think that covers everything. ~85k between cash/metals/current investments. i may be off here or there, but thats the basics

i've been buying silver (probably 10k in silver, 2k in gold) the past few months because i hate fiat bla bla bla. i still have some spare income to invest. right now i'm putting in the minimum for my 401k to get the maximum match (6% for 3%). my wife suggested paying off addtl principle on the mortgage each month, which is certainly an option.

even with the "lol dollar", i want to keep a certain amount of savings available should the worst happen (i'm only income-earner, w/ a wife and son at home)

thoughts on how i should diversity my current investments as well as where i should put any future monthly investment growth (probably a few hundred/mo)? should i just stick to using whatever "aggressive" options these various places mutual funds' offer? continue buying silver w/ spare income and/or paying off addtl mortgage principle?

18, live in Las Vegas.
Income: 250-500k
Amount to invest: ~25k
Risk Tolerance: Low risk to be preferred since I'm new to this and just looking to hear from a lot of people before I decide what I'll do
Timeframe: I don't know what the norm is for these things, but 3-5 years would be cool
Debt: Nope
Other info: Don't have many financial obligations. Help family out from time to time, but other than that gas, internet, phone.

Hi guys

I am thinking of investing £5k into a balanced portfolio at my bank (uk) i would be looking to invest for aprox 5 years.
Is this a good time to be putting money onto somthing like this with the economy the way it is and a new goverment in power? or should i leave it say 6 months-1 year and see what happens first?

thanks

I'm definitely no expert, but if you're just looking to try your hand at investing with 25k, look at some of the vanguard ETFs, do a little research, see what you like and invest in one of those.

I mean, waiting 6 months-1 year to see what happens is meaningless, what information are you waiting for exactly that will give you an advantage? You give up money by waiting to invest unless you have an edge through timing/waiting, which you don't.

dumb question: how do you short a currency? pls explain like to a 6 year old.

+1 on burning squirrel's question.

This seems like a good deal. Is the correct place to discuss this (making sure there's no more catches, maybe discussing ETFs vs Funds, talking about how to move money from current broker to Vanguard (handling the lag that will be present), etc.) or should I start a thread about it?

Sorry for the double post, but I was too late to edit my previous one. Vanguard lets you see if their ETF or fund is lower cost at this site: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/fac...ltsContent.jsp

It seems like in general ETFs are more cost efficient, but if you have 100k (not sure if it's total or in each fund) you can get more efficient funds which are almost equivalent to the ETF (and I think usually better).

Age: 20
Country: Central Europe
Risk Tolerance: Low/Medium
Time-frame for investment: 1-6 years
Debt: none
Income: 15-80k
Expenses:10-15k

Amount to invest: 75-100k

possibly saving to buy an apartment as soon as I have the money (300-350k)
not committed to the money I'd be investing
money is on my savings account right now at 1%/year

Age: 23
* Country you live in : Texas
* Income ~$300k
* Risk Tolerance Arrr in baby
* Timeframe for investment: the dream is to retire when I'm ~30 and start pulling from my portfolio a little then
* Debt House, just refinanced $200k principal left @ 4.5%
* Any other information you might have that would help us
No other debt/obligations, and my spending is pretty tame.

I've gone to a couple of advisors and I'm really tired of getting jerked around, they are either obviously lazy or unconcerned, or they try to rack up as much sales commission as possible (which is no surprise). The current guy I'm talking to seems very undiversified and just deals w/ individual stocks it seems.

I have ~$425k available to invest, and would like to keep $50k-$75k liquid to make sure my BR is adequate/taxes/incidentals. Now I have a money market account at my credit union that seems pretty reasonable for that.
Thank you