Thanks for the advice. I only counted the stake because it's nearing the end of the term, he's up and it'd take a massive downswing to change it. I just transferred all of my money out of my MM into INGDirect savings in order to get an extra 1% of interest. Small, but it helps. I thought about CD's but figured I'd rather have it more liquid than that. Joined the local real estate club and am doing a lot of research, so I guess keeping everything in my ING acct. is the best idea right now.

Finding index funds in Finland (when investing some 10k's) isn't so easy. I've put some money to Seligson's Finnish stock index, which to my knowledge is the only fund based on Finnish stocks. (They have also a exchange traded fund, ETF, based on Finnish stocks.) In all they have a few other index funds.

To buy emerging market's ETF's you probably need to buy them abroad.

A good source for information is Kauppalehti's board.

I was at Tapiola bank and Evli today talking about investment possibilities. I'm gonna forget Japan (and China). Tapiola wanted to sell me their emerging markets fund, which I already have 4ks in. They predicted South America and Asia/pacific sea, easten europe/russia to have most potential (yeah I know that's like 1/3 of the globe). Evli wanted to sell me their European High Yield fund, which is so far about 50% up this year, and they predict it will rise another 1-2 years. Turns out they also have a free web system for buying stock, which is insane when ALL the banks in Finland charge a lot for the same thing. Maybe I should just read like a few books and then "buy and hold" stock through Evli?

Hi all, I am interested in a short term investment to hopefully quickly increase my roll so I can buy a house, while the market is good for the buyer. I will not get a morgage because I can't prove my income. I have very little experience with inversting, but I want to learn as much as I can to diversify my income and eventually move away from poker if I am successful.


* I live in the UK
* My income is $5000 - $20,00 per month.
* Medium risk tolerance
* Timeframe of 6-12 months
* No debt
* I have $145k to invest and I need to increase my current roll buy ~30-45% in order to afford a house. But I should also have some income from poker.

Thanks for reading.

You shouldn't have any problem making 30-45% in 6-12 months.

Seriously, the likeliest way you will make another 50K in that timeframe is from playing poker. You might be able to make a few K risk free in a CD or other fixed income investment.

The post is a bit long but I don't consider my situation very complicated (actually it's similar to former posters in this thread) so here goes.

Critique/help my portfolio

Background
I've decided to begin with a bit of investing. My risk tolerance is very high. I'm not sure about my time horizon, but I assume I'm investing for the long term (I could get an idea where I need the money but this is unlikely in the nearest future). I plan on buying mutual funds (ETF's) for the equivalent of about $20k. I plan on buying individual stocks on my own for about $5k (giving me a distribution of 80% mutual funds and 20% individual stocks). I'll probably be adding to these numbers somewhat regularily (perhaps every month or every three months depending on the costs and how much poker I'll play).

I've just gotten home from a meeting with my bank advisor. Apparently they got a deal with three different mutual fund companies and expect/advise me to invest in them. The following is just about the passive side of my portfolio. I'll think about my own stockpicking later.


The bank asked me a bunch of questions and their computer spat out a proposed portfolio (I've taken out the bonds as I don't want/need them):

Proposed portfolio
80% BI Basis stocks
20% SI Far East stocks

BI Basis (http://www.bankinvest.dk/DK/showpage...MoreInfoType=0) is from the Danish company BankInvest. Risk profile is high. It consists of 93 different global stocks. Top 3 countires are USA (35%), Denmark (8%) and Great Britain (7%). It's rated 5 stars by Morningstar.

SI Far East (http://www.sydinvest.dk/afdelinger/fjern%C3%B8sten.aspx) is from the Danish company SydInvest. High risk profile. 4 stars from Morningstar. 3 biggest countries are China (35%), Hongkong (33%) and Singapore (9%). I'm a little concerned about the big exposure to the Chinese market as I've seen some posters express that they think the market is overbought right now. Do I have reason to be worried?

I tried looking over the websites of the 3 mutual fund companies, but I'm having trouble deciding which is best and why. Here's what I came up with.

My own shot at a portfolio
60% BI Basis stocks (alternatively BI European stocks)
20% SI Far East
20% SI Latin America and/or
20% BI New Emerging Markets

SI Latin America (http://www.sydinvest.dk/afdelinger/latinamerika.aspx) is rated 5 stars. It's top countries are Brazil (60%) and Mexico (30%). Risk is very high.

BI New Emerging Markets (http://www.bankinvest.dk/DK/showpage...785&m901ID=364) isn't rated by Morningstar yet. It's top regions are Middle East (57%), Africa (19%) and Eastern Europe (10%). Very high risk profile.

Another alternative could be a high risk fund of Eastern European stocks (from BankInvest) rated 3 stars.


Additional questions
Is this a good time to invest? It seems that stocks have advanced somewhat steadily since they hit rock bottom earlier this year. Is this indicative of a coming (shortterm) decline, making it better for me to wait to buy till the market dips a bit?

Instead of a global fund for my big caps I could choose a strictly European fund (avoiding the US market). Would/could this be better?
There seems to be some consensus/advice above that big caps from my own country (remember Denmark is pretty small) could be even better?

Are these mutual funds an ok deal? It seems that the costs range from 2% to 7.5% depending on the fund. I'd actually decided to go with index funds (no management costs) but not sure my bank ”offers” them. I'll go scout for some Danish index ETFs now (and e-mail my advisor) but dunno if I'll find anything.


That's pretty much it. If you have other advice, general or on which markets to look out for, everything is much appreciated.

I've been wondering about the same thing, but I'm leaning very much toward the random walk hypothesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk_hypothesis

Yeah, I know a fair deal about the random walk. I also think that some of the theories that spring from it can be interesting. That said I think it's pretty safe to say that markets arent efficient, so although there'll be a (very) great deal of randomness involving the stock market, I still take notice when smart people express their feelings towards if they think the market will go down/up.

Can't edit my post above, but I've done some more research and found another Danish mutual fund company called DanskeInvest. My bank isn't allowed to advise it so that's probably why my advisor didn't recommend it. After looking through their funds I came up with a new portfolio.

Portfolio
x% Index Europe BNP
y% Index Far East
y% New Markets (accumulating)


Index Europe BNP is a big cap European index where weightings are made according to the BNP of the countries. It is high risk, rated 4 stars by Morningstar. Yearly costs are 1.32% and maybe (can't quite see through this) up to a maximum of 1.5% in administration fees.

Index Far East is again a high risk big cap index. The biggest country is China (30%). There's nothing from Japan. Rated 4 stars. Yearlt costs are 1.48% with up to a maximum of 1.5% in administration fees.

New Markets is an active managed mutual fund. High risk, rated 5 stars. The biggest countris are Brazil (17%), India (14%) and China (10%). Yearly costs are 1.72% with up to a maximum of 2% in administration fees.

My initial thoughts were for x=60% and y=20%, but I'm thinking about x=50% and y=25%.

My biggest worry is the reasonable big exposure to the Chinese market (8%/10% of total portfolio when y=20%/25%...doesn't sound that bad actually).

Any comments from you guys? Look alright?

Seems like not having any Japan in an 'Far East' fund is silly.

I would probably prefer to see the 'new markets' be a smaller percentage, but thats a risk attribute only you can answer/choose.

Is there a reason why you are ignoring North America/US? Our economy IS 50% of the worlds. Maybe something like this if you want more weighting away from the US.

35% Index Europe BNP
30% "Index US"
25% Index Far East
10% New Markets (accumulating)

Bonds have their place. Whether you feel you need them or not. I wouldn't totally dismiss them.

tyvm, very useful. I guess the reason I ignored USA was that it was mentioned to buy the index of your country. As Denmark is pretty (very) small I just took Europe instead. But I think your advice have alot of merit and I'll probably do that.

I can't find an American index in Denmark. An alternative could be buying the before mentioned BI Basis as my primary big cap fund. Although it's actively managed the costs are fairly low (yearly costs 1.67% with 2.1% costs when I sell). 35% of this fund consists of US stocks.

So
60% BI Basis
25% Index Far East
15% New Markets
(the US market would make up 21% of the portfolio).

or maybe
30% BI Basis
30% Index Europe BNP
25% Index Far East
15% New Markets (accumulating)
(the US market would make up 10.5% of the portfolio).

Country you live in: canada
Income: $300k/yr from poker
Risk Tolerance: low
Timeframe for investment: few years
Debt: 0

im an investment noob. ive read some buffet books and a couple others recomended from this forum. i read bloomberg/cnbc almost everyday.

ive got approx. 220k CAD and 100k USD. i'd probably want to invest like half of that to start, and possibly more if things go well.

i have a account handler through the HSBC Premier program, but she sucks and ive made a grand total of $4.57 on a 50k cad money market fund so far.

i'd like to use some of my usd to buy something that covers the dow/nasdaq etc. i dont want to get into anything too specific there.

for my CAD, i'd like to buy stuff in canada so i dont have to convert to usd. i pretty much have no idea what to buy?

help!

Country you live in: United States
Income 10K
Risk Tolerance: zero
Time frame: 9 months
Debt: 0

I have 10k earmarked for school next summer which is in 9 months. I want to invest it with zero risk of losing it. Any ideas?

I'd diversify into index funds and some bond funds too. If you're investing in the US, I might wait before investing everything, there's been a huge rally and its probably not the best time to get in with a time frame of only a few years. Here's how I'd break it down:

US Money:

- 50% Government Bonds
- 20% Cash management intending for a delayed investment into a vanguard S&P index tracker
- 30% in a high yielding vanguard real estate fund

Canadian money:

- 50% canadian government bonds
- 25% Cash management interest account (where you can easily withdraw but earn a variable interest rate)
- 25% Canadian index fund that tracks your general stock market.

Vanguard should offer for both countries. I'm also going to talk about this stuff in my next pod cast if you would like to listen.

If you don't want any risk at all I guess that United States government bonds is the way to go.

thanks Art!

Online savings accounts are currently offering rates better than gov't bonds and 1-yr CDs. I would just put in a savings account like FNBO (1.5%) or ING (1.4%).

united states
income: 200k/year
risk tolerance: fairly high
debt: 0

So I want to move out of my parent's house. I have about 100k of disposable money. Would I be better off buying something to live in or renting and investing the money elsewhere?

Not sure thats a question we can answer as its really more about you then about whats best for the money.

Huh? Isn't what's best for the money what's best for me?

These kind of questions are really hard to answer because they're very complicated. It depends on several factors. Including if you pay income tax, what kind of house (price) you're looking for, how long you're going to stay there, etc etc.

Now for a generic answer: you said your risk tolerance is high so you might want to invest the 100k in equities and take out a mortgage to buy the house.

But this answer is most likely too generic for you. If you give more info we might be able to give you a better answer but these things are very complicated so no guarantees.

To make money, renting is unequivocally the best way, factoring in added flexibility. If you're looking for a house to be a home for you, you'll be hard pressed to find really solid real estate deals (real +EV deals are hard enough to find). Not only that, if you have to move for whatever reason, selling is a huge expense that kills your bottom line.

There might be exceptions, like if you're planning on owning the home for 20+ years because you have a family and you can use the tax-related benefits and you know you're buying in a strong market, etc.

Also you guys should check out my latest podcast, I go through passive investing in a nutshell, good food for thought and aimed at newbies:

http://www.colindocherty.com/2009/09...ast-episode-3/

life insurance