So I've been reading a lot about finances, retirement, etc as it relates to the job I'm starting soon. Curious though, what do you all recommend for financial news, learning, or other just related subjects? Did you have any success with any of those investment apps? Perhaps you prefer crypto-currency? Let's discuss.

investopedia

Hello Paugi!

I recently started investing in the stock market. Some websites that I use to see stock prices and news are: yahoo finance, marketwatch.com, euronext.

Basic financial keywords are: stocks, bonds, derivatives, NAV, mutual funds, futures, options, NYSE, bear market, bull market, etc...

The Warzone Forum is the best place to ask serious questions about finances .

I've heard a lot of good things about Yahoo finance which is odd, wouldn't expect Yahoo to be a good source for anything anymore lmao. But I'm a big fan of Bloomberg when it comes to news at least on iPhones (I assume android is the same way) because of the live news feature it has, will occasionally just tune in when I'm getting ready in the morning and such.

Wondering if there is any success stories with Robinhood? I've looked into TD Ameritrade but I'm just saving my money at the moment, will probably look more into it when I have actual funds to invest or just invest with an actual broker though most of those take a pretty substantial starting amount to begin with (I think it's like $5000 for Edward Jones for example but that's only in America, Canada, UK or at least they were last time I checked). Perhaps it's lower with like Merrill Lynch or such because it's not such a personalized experience though, need to find that out.

Also looked a little at Acorn but that seems more for small amounts.

It's not an entirely inane place to look considering the heavy abstract and mathematically element of the game. There must be a few players with a solid understanding of economics / finance willing to shed some light on this topic. I say try /biz/ as a good starting point for esoteric advice on crypto. "Peak Prosperity" has good coverage as it relates to coronavirus and the economy.

invest in guns and ammo

Edited 6/1/2020 03:06:45

US has a great choice of low fee brokers

So I've been reading a lot about finances, retirement, etc as it relates to the job I'm starting soon. Curious though, what do you all recommend for financial news, learning, or other just related subjects? Did you have any success with any of those investment apps? Perhaps you prefer crypto-currency? Let's discuss.

I'm a software engineer but I find it hard to see a case for investing in a crypto currency other than me finding a greater fool who is willing to pay more than I did. When I skip over those crypto news I also always see lot's of so called technical analysis on how it should trade in the future however I never read of any path about this becoming a real established currency. A currency which highly fluctuates in value is garbage anyways.

The only advice I can give you is that you aren't smarter any everybody else out there and that you won't find an online guru who makes you rich for free. I can go to the casino, put all my money on black and walk out with double my net wealth. However at the end of the day the casino always wins.

Since you live in the USA you might want to look into a low cost S&P 500 index fund and then call it a day.

There's a pretty good 16-page book introducing millennials (and now zoomers) to the basics of retirement savings: https://www.etf.com/docs/IfYouCan.pdf (that's the whole book). It covers all the starting bases and would basically work as an answer to this thread.

For passive investing, I use and strongly recommend M1 Finance (basically an entire platform and brokerage built around Modern Portfolio Theory). Given that markets are generally efficient (and the statistics we have about stock-picking almost always underperforming robo-advisors or even just the S&P in the long run), aiming for adequate returns seems a lot more sensible than aiming for extraordinary returns. Staying a little ahead of inflation and a little safe from risk via a 3-fund portfolio (even something like VTI + BND + VXUS) is an easy starting place to have a good shot at a comfortable retirement.

On the retirement side, you can avoid capital gains taxes* for something like $66.6k/yr worth of investments, using your (Roth) 401k ($19.5k+employer match), Roth IRA ($6k normally or $6k Backdoor Roth + $37.5k-[401k employer match] Mega Backdoor Roth), and your triple-tax-advantaged HSA ($3.6k). Even just a maxed-out and matched 401k on (100-your age)% VTI + (your age)% BND should work as a baseline retirement strategy (while learning more and improving your approach).

The only real no-no, imo, is not taking advantage of your 401k to at least the employer match or not knowing how your 401k is getting invested. You're already on the hook for all the risk (since you've got a 401k and not a pension), so might as well exercise the control you have.

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* For the appalled non-Americans, no, this isn't legalized criminal tax evasion. If you can take advantage of the whole Mega Backdoor Roth, your average income tax rate (federal + state + Social Security + Medicare) is probably above 40%. So you're taking ~$108.6k, paying $42k/yr in income taxes (HSA is pre-tax), and investing $66.6k/yr. Even with a 20 year horizon (only true for the early years) and 5% annual return, you're gaining about $110k, so you're avoiding ~$32k in taxes (i.e., you're paying about 15% in taxes for dollars you'll see decades from now, instead of 34%). Which is fine, because that's how retirement savings incentives work- you accept the long time horizon in exchange for lower taxes. You get pensions and robust social safety nets, we get... this mess where we're on the hook for everything and most of us screw it up or get screwed over. Welcome to America.

Edited 6/3/2020 22:19:49

Paugers which websites do you use?

Generally just invest in index funds over the long run, like those suggested by Knyte. If you really want to pick stocks, then look at the annual reports for a stock you're interested in. In particular, you want to compare multiples to similar companies on the market to determine if it is overvalued or undervalued. You can also try to forecast forwards the financials to estimate a discounted cash flow value for each share. Then just use google and general knowledge to try to figure out why the market has overpriced or underpriced the security. Generally, most websites will be fairly reliable if you check that other sources are saying the same thing. If a single website is saying something then unless it is from a very reputable source for market information like Bloomberg, probably don't trust it, but don't assume it to be false or invest against it either.

Generally do not invest in cryptocurrency. Any kind of investment in currency is very risky in general, because you really need to consider all factors affecting every person that uses the 2 currencies minimum you're investing in. a way to simplify this to compare the real value of 2 currencies is through purchasing power parity, which expresses the exchange rate that prices goods the same in 2 currencies. This can be compared with the real exchange rate at that moment of time for arbitrage if you expect prices to change towards PPP. However, note that the difference between exchange rate and PPP likely represents costs of transport and storage between the 2 countries. You can grab PPP indexes from the OECD or The Economist. With cryptocurrency, it is significantly more difficult to calculate PPP, which you'd probably need to do yourself. In particular, there is no real way to forecast inflation for cryptocurrency due to the lack of a central bank, massively driving up risk.

The other option for currency investment is to see if any country has been naughty by trying to do all 3 of these at the same time, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_trinity and then short it's currency.

When you make any investment, you should consider why you're doing it. Generally, this will be for 2 reasons, to make as much money as possible or to fund a cause you're passionate about (e.g. impact investing in startups, investing in green energy, Tesla). If you're aiming to make as much money impossible you need to consider the value of your investment. This comes from two factors. The first is the value that investment will produce to you from dividends and money that is paid back to you. The second is from expecting to be able to sell the investment on to someone for a higher price later on, which will cause a bubble and is incredibly risky to base investments off on its own. Part of the reason cryptocurrency or startups are regarded as bad investments is that they have no or very minimal returns, and you need to find someone who will value it more than you to make a profit. However, by all means invest in a startup if it's something you care about and hope succeeds (plus then you will make absolute bank).

I would highly recommend avoiding some of the absurd comments prior, which recommend a new investor to consider arbitrage opportunities or taking on FX positions.

If you are interested in making the leap into investing, I would begin with consuming information. You can run a free trial to the journal or FT, both great sources or even try Yahoo finance. Don't expect to understand why the federal reserve is making decisions on the first day but start slow and keep reading. I would recommend Robinhood due to the lack of fees and easy gui. but I highly highly suggest you conduct some thorough research prior to any trades. If you're interested in more pm me.