Yeah, that would be inflation since the general cost of stuff is going up. There’s also the various measures of QE that the Fed has thrown around that is devaluing the dollar, and that’s another form of inflation.
Gold is considered a protection against inflation, so its price has gone up tremendously in the past couple years. If that can be considered inflation… not sure. Gold-based products certainly went up, but gold itself is driven mostly by a perception of value than anything else.
Was amazed that VA gas prices were more than 20 cents higher than NC. Filled up at Sheetz for 3.76 on Saturday, passed multiple stations in VA that were 3.99. I think we ended up filled up right before 85 for 3.80 something on the way back.
Had a orientation this morning after benefits; the moderator asked, “If I asked you for a $1000 bucks right now, do you have it?” Most people in the class fell silent, I think 3 people raised their hand.
Case in point, you should never live paycheck to paycheck (if your not in the position to be so); you should have at least a savings account that you contribute to at worse, monthly. To my salary peoples, if your company offers a 401k, you should be putting into it as most (not all) company will match your money…so not putting into it is leaving money on the table. FREE money at that.
Uh, care to elaborate on the bolded?
Mutual funds aren’t there to work for their returns, they’re there to provide diversification (usually false risk reduction). They exist to collect fees from investors by posting such “exotic blends” as small caps in emerging markets, for example. They don’t care where the fund goes, though generally they’d only make an MF for something in which investors have a vested interest, whatever that may be. Index funds in particular are quite guilty of this. Just look at the recent rise of ETFs. There’s no reason you can’t replicate ETF performance on your own; they’re simply flavour-of-the-month products. And they’ve made a shitload of money just selling the “benefits” of lower fees, too.
There’s nothing wrong with putting your money in these if that’s what you want, but you have to understand that these are passive products on which no performance measure is exacted, and that the range of funds offered is just novelty to get people to put their money in them. The one and only true benefit they have is the possibility of lower costs for owning a basket of select assets/products you believe will perform since that could get costly doing it on your own. But they’re also usually diversified such that gains aren’t maximized as much as they could be.
Another big issue is the sheer size of mutual funds. They can post gains of 5-10% per year (which is usually a gamed number for advertisement purposes, btw) and people call that a good return, though in reality smaller, active funds with skilled traders (hedge funds, for ex.) could grossly outperform them by simply being more nimble. So if the fund is too big, it has to find new avenues for investment for the billions it has in reserves. Getting in and out of the market is tough if you’re trying to invest such large sums, so you can’t be as active as you’d like and you have to push out the investment horizon by default.
Now, not all funds are bad. Many try to get the best returns they can, though they are limited in many ways (can’t short sell, or sell assets any time they want due to regulations, maybe they’re too big, etc.). If you want vanilla diversification, then they do a good job.
But if you want performance, you’ll either have to go at it alone, or find yourself a good hedge fund. Those are the only real avenues for performance I know of. Anything else is generally bound for mediocrity or the status quo of owning the market index.
Looks like Wells Fargo is going to charge for accounts. In the process now of moving all my funds from them to USAA. That shit is not going to be fun…
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
HAHAHAHAHA - I got to post this here cause its actually funny to me.
To cut the long story short my wife and I have a joint account that I put extra money in as ‘savings’, as well I have my own accounts with my own saving account with BoA. I didn’t open up a savings a ccount there for the interest, it was purely convienance when I did it. Well I got an e-mail about my monthly statement being available for that account. I think nothing of it because I check my savings account every week to make sure my automatic withdrawls/transfers happen. My savings account is a ‘primary’ house savings (the family savings is more emergency purposes, one day in the far off future I hope for us to have a years worth salary for both of us in there, but that’s like winning lotto ticket future haha)…so I’ve got a decent chunk of change floating in there. Over the past 5 months however I’ve gotten a WHOPPING $0.38 cents in interest! Most of it ($0.22) was from the month of April…
I’m sorry its just hilarious to me that they even bother calling it a ‘savings’ account at that point.
NEVER put “savings” into a brick and mortar bank! Well…I don’t need to explain why seeing that you pointed how much you gain in interest
I do have a question concerning that. Who is the best place to start a savings account? Near the end of the year I’m expecting to get a small sum ($5000) and I’m gonna put it away. Where would be the best place to do it? As you’ve said and I’ve learned, the regular physical bank ain’t exactly the place to make money grow.
-Starhammer-
YEAH!!!
I just got insta-approved for a Chase Preferred Sapphire card. I was going to wait another year before applying for this card, but went ahead since my credit union approved a loan for my car’s transmission that died last week. I thought I was going to get a pending approval which is typical if your credit score is below 780, but when I uncovered my eyes after my application finished processing and saw “approved” in my task bar under the window I went to my YT favorites.
[media=youtube]JE7lhEpqzrA[/media]
I’ve been meaning to get more proactive with my investments since my IRA isn’t moving as fast as I like. Anyone got any good tips on companies, etc to invest in?
Also, am I the only one who thinks investing in Facebook is not a good idea? The idea of it having to more than quadruple its earning power in the next couple of years to remain viable seems like a HUGE risk.
Honestly, look to the bank that has the highest rate…why settle for less money?
IMO Facebook has grown as much as its going to grow. It withstood Google+ (haha) there might be a little room for growth, but there is a reason they are waiting until NOW to make it public…
You would be amazed at what they have planned sir. You forget we cleared their IPO before market release.
Doubt that…FB is essentially a tech company now. Their can be MANY branches to come off that tree
I’ve been on the fence on buying FB stock.
As far as user base is concerned, I agree there is little growth to be had. But I can definitively see opportunities to better monetize the product: if they can get people to buy shit directly from Facebook with their credit card, have them rate (like) and recommend products to friends, and use what people purchase as a portfolio to recommened more products to buy (like Amazon), that can spell bug bucks for FB. Remember, they have a network of millions of people, each with information that make advertisors and marketors drool.
Having said that, FB seems way overvalued and their IPO presentation was oddly vague on their future plans.
I don’t like to recommend specific companies because I am not always right (no one is). However, I will share one strategy I like to use:
I like to find Beta 1 stocks that drop due to an event that has no direct (or indirect) relation to the company or the industry(s)/market(s) it competes in. When the event ends, that stock usualy rises back to normal levels and money is made. For example, the Greece economic crisis has lowered U.S. market prices, so now would be a time to invest in such a stock (or, if you think the bottom hasn’t hit yet, wait).
Its a safe strategy that has served me well, but can require a lot of patience. I use it as a foundation strategy that I pool the majority of my money in because overall, I’m always up at the end. It allows me to use other, more risky strategies without worrying about losing money (a fear that only makes things worse).
Note that I am not an expert and am small time. I only have a little under $100 grand in and I’m still learning. I’m reading and researching constantly trying to level up; which you should do too.
With that I can (by security rule) say this much. Its technically not an IPO. It has traded already before and getting a ‘taste’ will be a mutha regardless. That is all I can truly disclose to you. Lets just say my department had a blast handling this tech “ipo”.
Also that second part where I noted about getting a taste. I had about 60+ calls of people complaining (normal everyday investing citizens with loot) of not being able to dive in. Amazing it is overall. I advise anyone wanting to really look at it go find the secondary market it was initially traded on… oh wait it takes certain things to even do that. So again these next two weeks should be very entertaining.
Hmmm… I remember I could have bought Google stock at 55 bucks, now it’s worth what? 600?? I would like to avoid another mistake like that.
Do you work in the Securities department for a Financial Institution? I used to work right next to the Securities department for HSBC and they would tell me similar tales.
I made a similar mistake with Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG). It had all the things I like in a potential investment: steady roadmap for growth, run by original founder, solid mission statement, great financial report, etc. But an adviser I trusted told me they were overvalued, so I didn’t buy. This was last summer when they were around $260. But he was wrong.
Dead wrong.