What are ideal investments for fulltime poker players?

luckylucky

I want to take out about 1/3rd of my bankroll as a safety valve, but would like it to earn a bit too . The ideal type of invesment would be something that I could get my hands on if I really needed to within a few weeks, but maybe it would be best if I didn't have instant access to it either. Just wondering what others in the same boat as me invest in(if anything), do you invest in shares, bonds, play the currency market etc?

pierce hard

Shares are a long term investment. I dont know how much your looking to invest but if its a smallish amount its not worth it as broker fees, transaction fees etc make it unprofitable if you need access to it within a few weeks. And unless you plan to do a lot of research etc it isnt going to work

If you need instant access/access within a few weeks then a simple lump sum deposit account is probably best:

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=27891

Most lump sum deposit a/cs are compared/summarised in the above theread.

Again, unless you know alot about the currency markets or plan to research/study them, i cant see this working either.

One more good link:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=75924

One more thing, with the inflation rate being quite high, you really need to be making the most with your money and getting the best rate you can. Hope this helps get you started. If you have any more questions just ask.

RedJoker

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055246983

The Al Lad

luckylucky wrote: »

I want to take out about 1/3rd of my bankroll as a safety valve, but would like it to earn a bit too . The ideal type of invesment would be something that I could get my hands on if I really needed to within a few weeks, but maybe it would be best if I didn't have instant access to it either. Just wondering what others in the same boat as me invest in(if anything), do you invest in shares, bonds, play the currency market etc?

FFS I just wrote out long reply to this and my computer crashed

So in brief what I said was...

*takes deep breath*

You dont wanna put your money into something that you can lose it in, Obv you can lose playing poker but thats in your own hands providing your not a complete tilt monkey

I looked at investing in bonds and shares. Shares can lose you money and the way they are at the minute I was advised to stay well away from them.

Bonds are for investing in the long term and you will be guaranteed to make money, it might be alot and you will have to sign into a contract for a set amount of time, maybe 18 months is the minimum I think IIRC. Also remember that your money cannot be touched for 18 months at the least if you go this route

I spoke to the bank about investing 15k in bonds and for the 18 months I would be without my money for 18 months and I would have got sweet fuuck all back in interest. I advised to go for a high interest account.

One way to go is to put your money into a high interest account in your bank, you cannot lose anything. You have a choice to go into a fixed term deposit account where you can't touch your money for up to 18 months or another type of account which is also high interest and you can have access to your money once a month

So there ya go. My 2 cents worth

pierce hard

The Al Lad wrote: »

I looked at investing in bonds and shares. Shares can lose you money and the way they are at the minute I was advised to stay well away from them.

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?c=$vix,uu[l,a]dalannay[p]

Its a volatilty index. As you can see the market has been very volatile since about june 2007. I guess it depends on your appetite to risk as to whether you want to invest in shares or not.

lee_arama

Buddy of mine suggests AIB shares as a long term investment. They're easily sold as well in case you want to get rid at any point in time.

Idu

The Al Lad wrote: »

Bonds are for investing in the long term and you will be guaranteed to make money, it might be alot and you will have to sign into a contract for a set amount of time, maybe 18 months is the minimum I think IIRC. Also remember that your money cannot be touched for 18 months at the least if you go this route

It's not true that bonds guarantee that you will make money. While people say Bonds are risk free investments they are actually just free from credit risk as in the Government will rarely default on bonds at their maturity. It has happened before though(Russia-1998)

Other factors like the value of the Bonds currency and inflation can affect the value of your bond. So even if you get the same dollar amount on return it may be worth less overall.

Goverments do offer inflation-tracked bonds though to alliviate some of that risk.

In the current climate, IMO, the best way to earn profit on your money is high interest accounts as The AL Lad said previously. Other than that you either need to do a ton of research into the markets and even then there are no guarantees

The Al Lad

janets_on_clubs wrote: »

It's not true that bonds guarantee that you will make money. While people say Bonds are risk free investments they are actually just free from credit risk as in the Government will rarely default on bonds at their maturity. It has happened before though(Russia-1998)

Other factors like the value of the Bonds currency and inflation can affect the value of your bond. So even if you get the same dollar amount on return it may be worth less overall.

Goverments do offer inflation-tracked bonds though to alliviate some of that risk.

In the current climate, IMO, the best way to earn profit on your money is high interest accounts as The AL Lad said previously. Other than that you either need to do a ton of research into the markets and even then there are no guarantees

About the bonds, the ones I looked into with the bank were risk free and I was told by a bank official dude that the particular bond I was going for was indeed risk free and that the only downside was that my money was out of my reach for at least 18 months.

spectre

Halifax have a very good current a/c with 10% interest up to a max of €2000 per annum. I think you have to lodge a minimum of 1500 per month though. So by lodging 20K for your first month and the bare 1500/month for the rest of the year, you should make €2k.

One way to go is to put your money into a high interest account in your bank, you cannot lose anything

What if the bank went broke? Very unlikely of course but if it did, you may lose your money (or so I'm told - open to correction)

luckylucky

RedJoker from his linked post wrote:

If you're putting money into non riskfree investments make sure that it is SEPERATE from your bankroll. I.e. Cash it out and don't count it as part of your bankroll. There are a few reasons for this:
- Investments are volatile, a downswing in your investments coinciding with a downswing in poker may force you to drop levels to be properly bankrolled.
- If you were looking at your investments everyday you may be affected by large losses or large gains which could adversely affect your play.
- If you noticed a large drop in your investment you may panic and cash it out at the worst possible time (i.e. at the bottom).
- If you needed to use it as part of your bankroll the frequent transactions would cause a lot of transaction costs (commissions, spreads, penalties/fees, etc.) which would eat into your return.

So if you were happy to stay at the same level for a while and not move up you should definitely cash some out and start investing it. The best thing for an inexperienced investor, who doesn't have the time or inclination to learn, is to passively invest your money.

You can put your money into funds. Index funds are unmanaged funds that track whatever market you want, they buy a basket of shares that comprise the market and hold them. Mutual funds are managed funds which try to beat whatever market they're working in, they trade in and out of shares in the market to try and gain an edge. Mutual funds typically charge higher fees to pay their managers and cover commissions. ETFs (exchange traded funds) are similar to index funds, except that they are traded like other stocks. There are other differences but I won't go into them.

On average, about 80% of mutual funds underperform index funds/ETFs after fees. If you can pick the 20% of mutual funds that will outperform the next year you should do so, however that's not easy for a number of reasons which I won't go into. Therefore you should be investing in index funds/ETFs. Mutual funds aren't a bad investment, they just underperform index funds/ETFs.


If you have a large number of buy-ins that you probably won't need but would like to keep as part of your bankroll there are many online banks which all pay fairly similar interest (+/- around 1% of each other), some people constantly move their money around trying to get the best rate, others don't want the hassle for the sake of marginal differences. You could also keep it in brick and mortar banks here too if the rates are better.

I'd recommend checking out www.askaboutmoney.com and 2+2's finance and investing forum. Another very useful site if you want to know what any of the jargon means is www.investopedia.com.

Just thought I'd requote this here as several very good points made I think.

I would be counting the money this time at least as part of my bankroll, so I guess a risk-free or low risk investment is the best option for me.

Idu

The Al Lad wrote: »

About the bonds, the ones I looked into with the bank were risk free and I was told by a bank official dude that the particular bond I was going for was indeed risk free and that the only downside was that my money was out of my reach for at least 18 months.

And they would never lie!!

Seriously though as I said you can get them tracked to inflation to eliminate that risk but I dont know if you can track it with currency.

You'll always get your entire investment back but the point is €1000 now might not be worth the same as €1000 in 18 months time

pierce hard

The Al Lad wrote: »

About the bonds, the ones I looked into with the bank were risk free and I was told by a bank official dude that the particular bond I was going for was indeed risk free and that the only downside was that my money was out of my reach for at least 18 months.

No bond is entirely risk free. Government bonds are the safest as the risk of default is practically zero. Corporate bonds are riskier as the risk of the company going bust etc and not being able to pay is greater.

One more thing, if it is a sizeable amount of money you are investing, it may be worth going into the bank manager and trying to negotiate a better rate.

ocallagh

what about share spreads as an alternative to actually purchasing shares? No tax on capital gains either which generally makes up the bookies margin.

obv you need to know what you are doing, but if you can get some good advice might be a good option.

www.worldspreads.com

Idu

there's a thread on something similar on the business boards if you fancied a look for some ideas:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055199191

The Al Lad

janets_on_clubs wrote: »

And they would never lie!!

Seriously though as I said you can get them tracked to inflation to eliminate that risk but I dont know if you can track it with currency.

You'll always get your entire investment back but the point is €1000 now might not be worth the same as €1000 in 18 months time

pierce hard wrote: »

No bond is entirely risk free. Government bonds are the safest as the risk of default is practically zero. Corporate bonds are riskier as the risk of the company going bust etc and not being able to pay is greater.

One more thing, if it is a sizeable amount of money you are investing, it may be worth going into the bank manager and trying to negotiate a better rate.

Yeah, I actually meant to say Government bond ty

spectre wrote: »

Halifax have a very good current a/c with 10% interest up to a max of €2000 per annum. I think you have to lodge a minimum of 1500 per month though. So by lodging 20K for your first month and the bare 1500/month for the rest of the year, you should make €2k.



What if the bank went broke? Very unlikely of course but if it did, you may lose your money (or so I'm told - open to correction)

lol AIB gone el busto

pierce hard

spectre wrote: »

Halifax have a very good current a/c with 10% interest up to a max of €2000 per annum. I think you have to lodge a minimum of 1500 per month though. So by lodging 20K for your first month and the bare 1500/month for the rest of the year, you should make €2k.



What if the bank went broke? Very unlikely of course but if it did, you may lose your money (or so I'm told - open to correction)

I think your misinterpreting it. The €2k means that the rate of 10% applies to your first €2k in the account, and a rate of like .1% applies to balances of over €2k. Not that the max interest you can earn in a year is €2k

They accrue the interest daily so what a lot of people do is leave €2k in the account, transfer in €1.5k for a night, and get 10% on €2k, which is pretty good. This is one of the best rates you can get on €2k.

I think AIB have a similar account now, don’t’ know much about it though.

El Stuntman

spectre wrote: »

What if the bank went broke? Very unlikely of course but if it did, you may lose your money (or so I'm told - open to correction)

this is actually very likely at the current time
i.e. that a high street bank will go broke, given prevailing market conditions

do not put more than the amount guaranteed by the regulator into any one financial instituion (think it's about 20k per bank). Of course, Northern Rock is now ironically the safest place in the world to have your money!

also, do not invest in AIB shares or indeed shares in any Irish bank. The worst is yet to come here.

ionapaul

And don't go to the banks asking for advice on where to put your money! It's like asking someone in mortgage brokering / property development / real estate when is a good time to buy: their answer will be always!

The banks' financial advisor people are almost always going to recommend saving / investing through the bank, this makes business sense for them but not always for you. You'll get better advise here than from the high-street banks on where to put your money.

Idu

AFAIK - and I could be wrong - most Irish Banks have limited exposure to sub prime losses and their poor performance is more to do with general market sentiment towards banking stocks than actual banking management issues.

Still wouldnt be buying shares in them though

Killme00

El Stuntman wrote: »

also, do not invest in AIB shares or indeed shares in any Irish bank. The worst is yet to come here.

+1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

About another 6 months methinks

Just wait for the rebound and lump in then.

cooker3

El Stuntman wrote: »

this is actually very likely at the current time
i.e. that a high street bank will go broke, given prevailing market conditions

do not put more than the amount guaranteed by the regulator into any one financial instituion (think it's about 20k per bank). Of course, Northern Rock is now ironically the safest place in the world to have your money!

also, do not invest in AIB shares or indeed shares in any Irish bank. The worst is yet to come here.

When you say likely, while it is much more likely to happen now considering market conditions, %wise I imagine it's still very unlikely

El Stuntman

cooker3 wrote: »

When you say likely, while it is much more likely to happen now considering market conditions, %wise I imagine it's still very unlikely

money where your mouth is please Mr Cooker, what odds are you giving me that a major high street bank won't fail within the next 12 months in the Western world? (USA and EU)

YULETIRED

El Stuntman wrote: »

money where your mouth is please Mr Cooker, what odds are you giving me that a major high street bank won't fail within the next 12 months in the Western world? (USA and EU)

I'm losing me bearings on this thread.........buy the Zloty.

cooker3

El Stuntman wrote: »

money where your mouth is please Mr Cooker, what odds are you giving me that a major high street bank won't fail within the next 12 months in the Western world? (USA and EU)

I was talking Ireland in relation to AIB discussion. Western world wise, yeah I agree odds much higher

SuperHans

Taking a bit of a break fro poker at the mo so I decided to get my money off poker sites/neteller and get myself some interest(and out of the dollar exposure).
Had a quick scan/comparison of rates being offered on totally flexible terms and first active seemed to be the best.
I get 5.1% EAR (that's 5% a month compounded annually) on their e-savings account. No restrictions on getting money out. I can transfer online between my current account and it takes 3/4 business days to show up.
Interest is calculated monthly and the account is purely online.
As I said you can deposit and withdraw at your leisure without being penalised.

mocata

Use 5k as a starting stake for trading on betfair. Takes a bit of prep work and studying, but there are a lot of upsides. Tax free income for one

Goodluck2me

The Al Lad wrote: »

lol AIB gone el busto

LOLignoranceisblissaments.

El Stuntman wrote: »

this is actually very likely at the current time
i.e. that a high street bank will go broke, given prevailing market conditions

do not put more than the amount guaranteed by the regulator into any one financial instituion (think it's about 20k per bank). Of course, Northern Rock is now ironically the safest place in the world to have your money!

also, do not invest in AIB shares or indeed shares in any Irish bank. The worst is yet to come here.

Actually AIB whilst possibly not the best investment are not the worst medium term investment, their P is at its lowest for quite some time and serious value could be had in a more medium term investment in them. The said could be said for BOI. If you aren't risk adverse and don't mind the portfolio fluctuating a but then over a significant time its good value.

janets_on_clubs wrote: »

AFAIK - and I could be wrong - most Irish Banks have limited exposure to sub prime losses and their poor performance is more to do with general market sentiment towards banking stocks than actual banking management issues.

I wouldnt go quite that far, as most/much of their business is dependant and stemming from the English and American companies, if they start to feel the squeeze at home, they could quite easily pull out = job losses etc, bad sentiment.

El Stuntman wrote: »

money where your mouth is please Mr Cooker, what odds are you giving me that a major high street bank won't fail within the next 12 months in the Western world? (USA and EU)

I'll give you 3-1 up to €500. Stake payable immediately.

cooker3 wrote: »

I was talking Ireland in relation to AIB discussion. Western world wise, yeah I agree odds much higher

Much shorter you mean?


- This is all in my opinion of course -

The Al Lad

goodluck2me wrote: »

LOLignoranceisblissaments.


Actually AIB whilst possibly not the best investment are not the worst medium term investment, their P is at its lowest for quite some time and serious value could be had in a more medium term investment in them. The said could be said for BOI. If you aren't risk adverse and don't mind the portfolio fluctuating a but then over a significant time its good value.


I wouldnt go quite that far, as most/much of their business is dependant and stemming from the English and American companies, if they start to feel the squeeze at home, they could quite easily pull out = job losses etc, bad sentiment.

I'll give you 3-1 up to €500. Stake payable immediately.

Much shorter you mean?


- This is all in my opinion of course -

Joe ??? STFU

Goodluck2me

The Al Lad wrote: »

Joe ??? STFU

Sound, well thought out response - how have not been initiated into the clique yet?

The Al Lad

goodluck2me wrote: »

Sound, well thought out response - how have not been initiated into the clique yet?

How ??? because I don't frequent the george on a weekly basis:pac::pac::pac:

cooker3

goodluck2me wrote: »

LOLignoranceisblissaments.
Much shorter you mean?

yeah, I meant percentage wise much higher