Too Hot Investment Thread

I don’t know if it’s still going on but when I lived in Breckinridge there was “the” garbage company. Every so often someone else would try to start up a competitor and they would buy them out when the new competition pulled away a contract or two. Happened like clockwork. We jokingly said we’d go start our own trash companies for the pay day. Maybe we shouldn’t have joked about it and just done it.

 

I think there are others like ADA, XRP and TEL are better positioned for that but who knows? If I did I’d be posting from my island in the Caribbean.

 

I think that since Bitcoin is almost infinitely divisible it can fill that role. I am absolutely excited to find out.

 

Not infinitely divisible. The smallest degree it can be broken down is called one Satoshi or .00000001 of a Bitcoin.

Gold is probably a good analogy for Bitcoin because no one pays with gold anymore. It’s impractical as the transaction cost and time are too expensive and long. Same goes for Bitcoin with a currently $22 fee and about 10 minutes. ADA and XRP and very fast and low cost.

 

so why not refinance at a insanely low interest rate and pull equity out of your house to invest?

 

That's why I said almost Mastercard is setting something up to where you can pay directly with Bitcoin. I think we will see some things happen that will make it fast and convenient to pay with Bitcoin in the near future. I'm no pro so I could be very wrong.

Why Mastercard is bringing crypto onto its network

I would think it would be easier to get something like Bitcoin into a usable form unlike gold.

 

not sure what your time horizon is but not really a fan of growth an income mutual funds. Do you have savings outside of your retirement account other than the emergency fund? If not, I would go start investing in low-cost mutual funds in a taxable account. Index funds are an easy choice. I prefer Fidelity over Vanguard mainly because the Vanguard website sucks. I tend to have a mixture of index and actively managed funds. Fidelity Contrafund has been a winner for me for a long time now.

 

I have about 25 years until I am "supposed" to retire.

 

What are folks thoughts on REITs? I've signed up for some of them (informational only) but not comfortable understanding the risk/rewards with them.

 

I agree with this in principal and have accounts at both fidelity and vanguard. However...I have moved my funds mostly out of mutual funds and into comparable ETFs. Mainly for two reasons...

1). ETFs are priced and traded in real time as opposed to mutual funds that only trade at close of bell. I prefer knowing what I am buying or selling my funds at via the ETF vs not knowing until after the fact. If the market is tanking and I want to sell, with a mutual fund I have to wait all day and the market can fall even more. Same if I am buying a fund. I won’t know what it cost until after the fact. Not the case with ETFs. Now, this is not that big a deal since I don’t often trade in and out of funds but I prefer the ETF option.

2) mutual funds are more prone to disburse capital gains at the end of the year vs ETFs and the difference can be substantial between similar mutual funds and ETFs. For me, for portfolios with substantial funds, the capital gains of mutual funds, even in years where the mutual fund loses money, have increased my tax liability - some by a little and some quite substantially. I have yet to have that same problem with ETFs as they are structured differently than mutual funds.

just my two non professional cents.

I also think fidelity website is superior to vanguard. I have accounts at both just in case I have a problem at one. You never know!

 

ive owned a few REIT stocks in the past. They are a good way to help diversify a portfolio and provide some monthly income. My retired father still loves these and has a number of them in his ira.

 

Speaking of ETFs...

Canadian regulator clears launch of world's first bitcoin ETF - investment manager

 

Mathematically, you would come out ahead doing just that. And some do... You will tend to find a .25-.5% higher APR when you do a cash-out refi.

For me, that small fear of job loss and being stuck with higher monthly expenses keeps me from wanting to do it. The current mortgage is relatively comfortable, and scheduled to be paid off around when I intend to retire. For me, that's good enough!

 

Sad story coming. Before my wife and I got married in 1993. She worked for Publix, and Publix stock was going to split 5:1. I had some money that I had saved, and bought 250 shares through her. Then we got married and she needed things, and we sold some. Finally sold it all in the early 2000's. If we had never sold any it would probably be around 13,000 shares. Hindsight.
Now have some bitcoin, etherium, Tesla, Amazon, Freeport McMoran, Walmart, Mutual funds, and some gold miners.

 

The problem with these are:

1. They can stay at a discount a long time. I picked 2, NFJ and AOD, and they have been at a large discount for 5 years.

2. They seem to have higher than average expense ratios

 

'nother sad story. An old friend of mine (since middle school) got hit by a car when he was 15. Got $15k in a settlement. this was the mid 80s. Stock investing took real effort & was not avail to the masses. Turns out his sister (he had 7 siblings) had just become a stock broker & pounced on him. It also turns out that his brother lived in San Fran & told him about a startup called Cisco. So, he put it all in Cisco, his money doubled & his sister convinced him to sell. He visited me in the late 90s & we roughly calculated that it would have been worth 6-7 million at that time. He took it in stride.

 

The thing about Bitcoin is a couple of years ago the argument was it's value was as a future electronic currency. Now even most holders of Bitcoin admit it has some flaws as a currency, and instead have changed the narrative of it is a "store of value". The problem I see with that is somethjng that can lose most of its value in a short span isn't a terribly effective store of value.

Having said that, I make no predictions on Bitcoin's future.