[floridaorange]

**For those with $50K+ in the market or designated for the market**

Are you buying, holding or selling right now?

Are you a long term investor or short term trader?

Are you investing in mostly etf's, mutual funds, individual co's, crypto or all of the above?

[Watching The World Burn]

All of the above, but feels like I should take some sort of fixed income position as well in case things go pear shaped. Hard though with the returns the market is currently giving.

Holding mostly, no new investment. Have a couple BRK-B shares I look at (which do nothing, no dividends, have been flat lining recently with no movement up or down) which I question why I hold them, but I just like their cash pile that Berkshire holds.

I'm in for the long term though - if it goes pear shaped, I don't think I'll need to sell, should be able to wait it out.

[floridaorange]

I'm in half individual stocks and half mutual funds at the moment. Was holding a bunch of conservative stocks that were not doing much and decided it was time to make some aggressive moves into what I saw as good opportunities based on momentum.

I like the approach of buying only stocks that I would buy if I had the money to buy the entire company and holding until they are up at least 50% before either buying something with the returns or just letting it compound.

Was in a mix of large caps and small caps, but sold my small caps to buy more large caps with strong balance sheets, and it is paying off so far. Mostly all in the tech sector.

What I am most interested in right now is the bull cycle, as jobs become somewhat replaced by AI, we will seem more boomer $$$ inherited and invested into the future of AI. That is biggest transfer of wealth in the history of civilization, plus we all can trade on our phones, I think we see the market continue to go up as AI continues to become more and more monetized and create new tailwinds.

[zx10guy]

I've always been a slow and steady investor that looks at everything in a long term fashion. I never sold or repositioned during any of the major financial crisis' and in fact kept putting money in. I was doing what now many financial advisors have coined ABB...Always Be Buying. While it did sting looking at my investment accounts during these crisis' with how big of a hit my balances were showing, I always kept in the back of my head that these are just paper losses and only become actual losses when I sell. I trusted I have good quality funds that I've been invested in.

Case in point, my non qualified investment account to a major hit when I got divorced in 2020. Dropped the balance down to the very low 5 figures because I had to pay out the majority of the value of the account to the now ex wife. Plus taking the tax hit at tax time didn't help either. But today through regular investing through dollar cost averaging and having also put in additional money when the market dropped has put this account above 6 figures.

I'm meeting with my financial advisor in a couple of weeks to discuss further plans on how I'll be investing going forward. I don't do crypto because I can't comfortably wrap my head around it. But I'm looking to start investing into specific funds that are only available to qualified investors. I'm also looking bounce the idea of slowing my savings rate as I'm wanting to start enjoying life more with freeing up cash to do it. I'll still be putting away money into investments. With at least doing 6% with my 401k as my company match is also 6%, but to focus more on my non qualified investment account and Roth contributions in my 401k.

My financial advisor ran some scenarios where if I stopped all contributions into my various investment accounts that I'd still be in good shape at retirement of age 67. It's just convincing myself to left off the gas that's been the hard part.

[2000cs]

Very long term investor, holding in my taxable account but buying (reinvesting) in the non-taxable account. The effect is cash (money market funds) is growing in the taxable account but the IRA has just enough cash for one year’s withdrawal (if needed) and it generates more than that currently.

I’ve moved heavily to ETFs over the past several years, but I still have some favorite individual stocks. IRA has high dividend covered-call ETFs, taxable account has high growth ETFs.

I rarely sell as the portfolio can generate enough cash. I’m retired as well so SS covers most expenses while the portfolio grows, which is the plan so if SS diminishes down the road the portfolio can carry the full weight of our spending.

Portfolio is geared for 30 years remaining life expectancy although I hope it is significantly shorter!

[RickFLM4]

Cashed in some gains lately (including NVDA I bought when market dipped earlier this year) and have that cash in a money market type account for now.

Otherwise, long term and mostly broad market index fund and bond fund type investments. 2025 has been a great year for investing if you could stomach the volatility and headlines earlier this year.

[kscarrol]

Fully invested with little bond exposure. Got out of bonds back in late 2019. Being retired, I have dialed back the growth exposure some and have shifted to dividends for income. Keep appropriate cash levels which has been needed given my wife’s cancer journey. I would post the MD Anderson bills in “picture of last item you’ve bought” thread but that would be too depressing for the thread…

[eleven11]

FSKAX/FTIHX and chill.

[tracknut]

I'm pretty active in that I watch the market daily, but for a number of years now I've been largely invested in NASDAQ and S&P index ETFs (QQQ, SCHG & VOO). I measure anything I even consider against their performance, and most of the time I end up back at those. I do have a small stake in 3-4 other things, but mostly them. Right now I have 25% of our money in cash-equivalent investments, which is higher than I would in normal times.

[Gnome440]

I've done really well with the Vanguard managed mutual funds. We do play with a individual stock purchase periodically but not often, we got into Nvidia years ago on a good low and hold it. I've ridden Tesla up on ridiculous STG rises and sold off.

[XutvJet]

Sweet!! A new money/investment thread.

My investment style remains as it has since around 2015 when I fired my financial advisor and took total control of my investments and went to Vanguard. I am 51 and would call myself a very simple, high risk, long-term investor. I don't screw around with my portfolio much at all. I don't do a ton of research nor track things closely.

I am heavily invested in stocks (90% and nearly all domestic) including largely S&P 500 index funds (75%), Berkshire Class B (17%), and the 8% in other stocks. The remaining 10% of my portfolio is short term reserves, cash (a bit over 1 year of gross salary), and bonds. My wife and I have a brokerage account, his/her Roth IRAs, a traditional IRA from an old 401K, and my work 401K (3% match, I only put in 3%). House was paid off 10 years ago. Cars are paid off too.

Our two kids have 529s. My daughter will be getting a full ride to play DI VB so now we need to figure out what we'll do with her 529 once she's actually going to school in 2027. Our son, who's in college now, should graduate with around $30K left in the 529. He's already managing his own Roth so I imagine he'll transfer over some of that to his Roth and go from there.

My overall expense ratio for the last 8 years has been 0.05% which is miniscule and a FAR cry from the whopping 1.7% I was spending with my financial advisor and high expense actively managed mutual funds with him. I didn't realize just how much of my portfolio was being crushed by fees until I peeled back the layers. It wasn't easy either as Morgan Stanley does one hell of a job hiding those fees.

I'm an odd ball as 60% of our portfolio is in the brokerage account. Odd? Yep. Ideal? Most likely not. I plan to retire in 2 years or so and see my brokerage account as a way to fund my retirement for a number of years until I want to tap into my retirement accounts.

Our portfolio has snowballed over the last 10 years. We are getting to the point that I will need help in re-evaluating our portfolio, redoing our will/trust, etc. I am about ready to post to Bogleheads for some input. I'm sure I'll be ridiculed for my investment strategy. However, it's been extremely lucrative, at least I think it has.

When I retire, our expenses should go down substantially with our daughter out of the house and we won't be playing $10-15K/yr on club volleyball and related expenses. The wife and I will downsize from our moderate 40 y/or 1900 ft2 home to something more like 1200-1500 ft2, lots of outdoor living space, a big garage for me, etc. We don't want to expand. We want to reduce and have less shit. I want LESS complication and stuff to manage. Not more. The most complication in my life I want is maintaining older German cars.

[c1pher]

I have a chunk of cash earning 4% as my base, I also have some crypto and physical precious metals (less than 5%). Most of my investments are in S&P500, value and growth. I don’t really do bonds as they haven’t done a lot the past decade despite everyone always recommending them as part of your mix. I also allow myself to buy 1-2 individual stocks during “buy” opportunities. I bought Exxon during Covid and will divest soon and bought Palantir and will probably start to sell in chucks since it’s becoming more than 10% of my portfolio.

I mainly focus on indexed ETFs, not actively managed because the expense ratios jump to at least 25 basis points that you have to overcome and active funds rarely do IMO. I use Vanguard and like it a lot. I have averaged 17.8-18% over 20 years despite all the ups and downs. No Nancy Pelosi but hopeful I’ll retire one day.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Sweet!! A new money/investment thread.

My investment style remains as it has since around 2015 when I fired my financial advisor and took total control of my investments and went to Vanguard. I am 51 and would call myself a very simple, high risk, long-term investor. I don't screw around with my portfolio much at all. I don't do a ton of research nor track things closely.

I am heavily invested in stocks (90% and nearly all domestic) including largely S&P 500 index funds (75%), Berkshire Class B (17%), and the 8% in other stocks. The remaining 10% of my portfolio is short term reserves, cash (a bit over 1 year of gross salary), and bonds. My wife and I have a brokerage account, his/her Roth IRAs, a traditional IRA from an old 401K, and my work 401K (3% match, I only put in 3%). House was paid off 10 years ago. Cars are paid off too.

Our two kids have 529s. My daughter will be getting a full ride to play DI VB so now we need to figure out what we'll do with her 529 once she's actually going to school in 2027. Our son, who's in college now, should graduate with around $30K left in the 529. He's already managing his own Roth so I imagine he'll transfer over some of that to his Roth and go from there.

My overall expense ratio for the last 8 years has been 0.05% which is miniscule and a FAR cry from the whopping 1.7% I was spending with my financial advisor and high expense actively managed mutual funds with him. I didn't realize just how much of my portfolio was being crushed by fees until I peeled back the layers. It wasn't easy either as Morgan Stanley does one hell of a job hiding those fees.

I'm an odd ball as 60% of our portfolio is in the brokerage account. Odd? Yep. Ideal? Most likely not. I plan to retire in 2 years or so and see my brokerage account as a way to fund my retirement for a number of years until I want to tap into my retirement accounts.

Our portfolio has snowballed over the last 10 years. We are getting to the point that I will need help in re-evaluating our portfolio, redoing our will/trust, etc. I am about ready to post to Bogleheads for some input. I'm sure I'll be ridiculed for my investment strategy. However, it's been extremely lucrative, at least I think it has.

When I retire, our expenses should go down substantially with our daughter out of the house and we won't be playing $10-15K/yr on club volleyball and related expenses. The wife and I will downsize from our moderate 40 y/or 1900 ft2 home to something more like 1200-1500 ft2, lots of outdoor living space, a big garage for me, etc. We don't want to expand. We want to reduce and have less shit. I want LESS complication and stuff to manage. Not more. The most complication in my life I want is maintaining older German cars.

The part that worries me is the last paragraph. Wife and I are not yet on the same page about this side of the ledger in retirement. While she is not an extravagant spender, I think our expenses need to go down substantially as we approach and enter retirement. Much smaller house in a different, lower-cost area and more thoughful spending / budgeting (including how much we spend on our dogs!) are essential in my mind. Aside from bringing expenses in line with lower income, things like escalating and unplanned medical bills worry me. Aside from investing, this is where I need to invest time in planning, "alignment" and action over the next couple of years.

[TR930]

https://youtube.com/shorts/bLuO07gMx...NwPUdGGrxmxVUU

[tracknut]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

The part that worries me is the last paragraph. Wife and I are not yet on the same page about this side of the ledger in retirement. While she is not an extravagant spender, I think our expenses need to go down substantially as we approach and enter retirement. Much smaller house in a different, lower-cost area and more thoughful spending / budgeting (including how much we spend on our dogs!) are essential in my mind. Aside from bringing expenses in line with lower income, things like escalating and unplanned medical bills worry me. Aside from investing, this is where I need to invest time in planning, "alignment" and action over the next couple of years.

If I might offer an idea.... Several years before I retired, while deciding if I could retire, I created a spreadsheet that would include income and expenses over time (ie until we'd be dead). That was all pretty easy until I needed the "what we spend each year" data, which didn't exist. We realized we needed to track our actual expenses for an entire year to get that number. Buy a candy bar, add it to the list. It was very accurate, and gave us the starting point for that one last piece of data. I had placeholders for emergency medical expenses, dog emergencies, periodically buying a new car, etc.

That one spreadsheet was instrumental in deciding so many things about our future expenses, my retirement, when we'd start drawing from IRA's, etc. I can't tell you how valuable it was. I'd recommend anyone preparing for retirement go through that kind of analysis.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by tracknut

If I might offer an idea.... Several years before I retired, while deciding if I could retire, I created a spreadsheet that would include income and expenses over time (ie until we'd be dead). That was all pretty easy until I needed the "what we spend each year" data, which didn't exist. We realized we needed to track our actual expenses for an entire year to get that number. Buy a candy bar, add it to the list. It was very accurate, and gave us the starting point for that one last piece of data. I had placeholders for emergency medical expenses, dog emergencies, periodically buying a new car, etc.

That one spreadsheet was instrumental in deciding so many things about our future expenses, my retirement, when we'd start drawing from IRA's, etc. I can't tell you how valuable it was. I'd recommend anyone preparing for retirement go through that kind of analysis.

I’ve been tracking spending for years in Quicken so I have the data. The bigger issue is just coming to grips with reductions in discretionary spending.

[floridaorange]

Data has shown that savings have been steadily depleting since Oct 2024 and credit card debt rising. Inflation = food costs, insurance costs are the culprit, stagnant wages etc.

Because of those facts we’ve cut back a little, albeit not much (3 vacations and a new car) lately. Im just glad I chose to put money in the market before things got tight, it has done well and should continue especially as rates are cut.

I was a trader now long term investor and what a difference that has made. Making less but also feeling more financially stable, less tax implications. But the itch to day trade in this market is always in the back of my mind.

[RockCrusher]

Originally Posted by tracknut

If I might offer an idea.... Several years before I retired, while deciding if I could retire, I created a spreadsheet that would include income and expenses over time (ie until we'd be dead). That was all pretty easy until I needed the "what we spend each year" data, which didn't exist. We realized we needed to track our actual expenses for an entire year to get that number. Buy a candy bar, add it to the list. It was very accurate, and gave us the starting point for that one last piece of data. I had placeholders for emergency medical expenses, dog emergencies, periodically buying a new car, etc.

That one spreadsheet was instrumental in deciding so many things about our future expenses, my retirement, when we'd start drawing from IRA's, etc. I can't tell you how valuable it was. I'd recommend anyone preparing for retirement go through that kind of analysis.

Good advice.

There have been articles in Barron's and I think in the Schwab magazine I get that recommends some kind of trial/practice retirement at least several years *before* retiring. Essentially limiting one's expenses/spending to stay within retirement income budget to see how things go.

I didn't do this but my habit for years prior to retirement was I tried to live well within my means and I had a good idea of what it would cost me to get out bed the 1st day of the month -- so to speak -- once I retired and living on my estimated retirement income.

As it turned out my retirement income is higher than what I made while working and on top of this my after taxes income is higher -- no SSA/Medicare deductions nor a "massive" contribution to my 401(k).

But I still live well within my means and put the bulk of my retirement income into FDIC insured CDs.

[RockCrusher]

Originally Posted by floridaorange

**For those with $50K+ in the market or designated for the market**

Are you buying, holding or selling right now?

Are you a long term investor or short term trader?

Are you investing in mostly etf's, mutual funds, individual co's, crypto or all of the above?

Every person will have his/her own choices. No one size fits all in this regard.

But for me I'm old school so none of that newfangled stuff like crypto, ETFs or (obviously *not* newfangled) gold/precious metals.

Just low cost index mutual funds -- spread out over 4 mutual fund companies -- with CDs but not at the companies that manage my retirement accounts.

I'm a holder I guess. It is one thing to decide when to buy. Easiest is just dollar cost averaging.

More complicated is deciding when to sell.

Years ago I watched a Wall Street Week show in which the host interviewed an elderly and very successful stock market investor. Think the gentleman was in his late 80s maybe in his early 90s. The host asked the usual questions about what/when to buy. Then he asked when do you sell your stocks? The guest replied never.

Prior to seeing this show and since I have read that when the market is down that when the recovery starts the bulk of the gains occur in just a few days and there is no real forewarning this time the rise in the market is the start of a real recovery and not just another dead cat bounce.

In short being out of the market means one can easily miss out on the biggest gains as the market recovers.

Added: I forgot to mention my mutual funds were held in retirement accounts, tax deferred.

I've never owned mutual funds in a taxable account. I understand that mutual funds in a taxable account are subject to capital gains even if the funds decline during the year after going up earlier in the year.

And dividends are taxed even if one gets into the mutual funds *after* the dividends are paid.

The Growth Act -- if it becomes law of course -- would eliminate this special taxation and tax mutual funds like other capital gains producing investments.

[leopard print]

I was fortunate to pick up Palantir and Micron on Robinhood at $26 and $95, respectively. My plan is to hold for the foreseeable future. I max out my 401k with Vanguard which has worked out pretty well too.

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by RockCrusher

…
Years ago I watched a Wall Street Week show in which the host interviewed an elderly and very successful stock market investor. Think the gentleman was in his late 80s maybe in his early 90s. The host asked the usual questions about what/when to buy. Then he asked when do you sell your stocks? The guest replied never.

Added: I forgot to mention my mutual funds were held in retirement accounts, tax deferred.

I've never owned mutual funds in a taxable account. I understand that mutual funds in a taxable account are subject to capital gains even if the funds decline during the year after going up earlier in the year.

And dividends are taxed even if one gets into the mutual funds *after* the dividends are paid.

The Growth Act -- if it becomes law of course -- would eliminate this special taxation and tax mutual funds like other capital gains producing investments.

The host was Louis Rukeyser; I don’t recall the guest but I’ve heard that advice several times in my investing life - never sell. However I’m getting increasingly anxious about 2026 politics and political strife given the inability or unwillingness of Congress to simply pass a CR and work on anything else, and of course the midterms. That creates uncertainty which is not good for the economy and the stock market, so I am selectively selling down to hold more cash (15% now going to 30% or more).

Contact the mutual funds you are interested in or the ones you hold in your deferred account to see about tax treatments. My understanding in general is that the holder (you) is not taxed on capital gains until they are paid (and some of their dividends are gains, some returns of capital, and some dividends as those terms are used in the tax code). In other words, you get cash but get somewhat favorable tax treatment. There are other investments like publicly traded limited partnerships that you can be taxed on your share of income whether paid or not, and some of them are taxable in part or whole if held in tax deferred accounts.

These days ETFs are more popular and more liquid than most mutual funds or CEFs, and there is such a great variety that they are worth spending some time to research. They can be held in a taxable account (SCHG is an example of one focused on growth with low dividends, so low taxes. Designed for appreciation so capital gains, not ordinary income) or tax deferred accounts (SCHD is a dividend ETF with a decent yield; SPYI or JEPQ are dividend ETFs that juice the returns with covered calls). I mention these not to recommend them but because they are popular, widely held, so there is a lot of info on them pro and con.

[ASAP]

I know this has been ad nauseam... but no one here thinks there is an actual correction coming?

If you discount the 7 companies that are consistently passing money amongst each other based on hopes of AI and other companies that are making profit based on major cost cuts - there is really nothing out there that's doing too well...

Layoffs are skyrocketing as well and all interest rate cuts so far haven't proved to result in anything. Not even going to get into the major political / tarriff turmoil.