Do you invest?

PinotNero

Trans-Atlantic Zeppelin, Amalgamated Spats, Congreves Inflammable Powders, US Hay and that up-and-coming Baltimore Opera Hat Company.

Dohnjoe

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Of course cryptocurrency is an elaborate scam designed to part real money from gullible 'investors' in return for worthless tokens. It's a scam for the internet age, and it targets the same people who have always been scammed - greedy idiots who think they can become wealthy by doing very little.

However it's incorrect to say people didn't make money from it. I work in banking here in Germany, and we heard about this bitcoin thing back in 2013. We were playing our monthly poker game and decided to buy some of them as a joke for a member of our C-Suite. Circumstances meant we never got to give them to him, and they were quickly forgotten about.

However the whole hysteria around crypto emerged in late 2017, and we sold them for $14700 a pop. This wasn't the peak of the bubble, but better to get out and take your profits, than be left being a bag-holder of virtual beany babies. Not bad, considering we bought them for just over $60 a pop!

Paid my taxes owed on the profits, and managed to purchase a beautiful holiday home in West Cork with the profits. Had enough left over to pick up a beautiful painting for the home, and membership of a local golf club.

Wouldn't go near them again. There's an idea that traditional banking is terrified of crypto - this isn't true. Or that there's institutional money flooding into crypto - there isn't. It's greasy computer nerds and spiteful libertarians trying to offload crap on each other for more than they bought it for.

I don't disagree with any of this, except I would hazard a guess that when you bought at $60 in 2013 you must have noticed the fact that BTC shot up to $1000 that Christmas (the first big bubble) not to mention being all over the news and financial news, people frantically searching for lost hard drives and all that

I bought around the same time, and still buy from time to time when the market dives hard

JohnnyFlash

I invest in my pension and property.

jester77

Sure, a bank account won't even match inflation so you are losing value by just having it sitting there.

weldoninhio

Purgative wrote: »

I have the same view on the bitcoin thing.


Yesterday I had a really weird thing happen. A window popped up from the Daily Mirror with a story that Richard Branson supposedly on GMTV saying he has this app that deals in these things. Then there were stories from 2 of the journos saying they'd invested £200 and made about £6K after a week and then cashed out.


It struck me as odd.


Anyone else see it?

Sounds legit. I'd pile in on that. Easy money.

PhilOssophy

Lilyana Great Abalone wrote: »

I did, when building up my pension fund, but nowadays it's all cash based or guaranteed safe returns. It's a risky business and needs to be viewed as a long term operation.

Depends on your stage of life. If you are nearing retirement, cash is king. If you are in your 20s, inflation will eat the gains.

The problems with investing are
1. The poor returns
2. Tax, tax, tax
3. Tax, tax, tax.

I fundamentally disagree with paying tax on money made on shares, etc - if I have earned it, I've paid tax on it once.

Crypto's are in the same category as horse/dog racing for me. Only invest what you are happy to lose.

SEPT 23 1989

orourkeda1977 wrote: »

I invest in pints

there is no towbar on a hearse

TerrorFirmer

What would be the best thing to do with a relatively small amount of money (let's say 10-20k) rather than having it sitting in a current account?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

What would be the best thing to do with a relatively small amount of money (let's say 10-20k) rather than having it sitting in a current account?

For a tax free guaranteed return there's always State Savings Bonds or Certificates, depending on how long you wish to leave it on deposit.

coffee_cake

Other than my pension i just have a small bit i dont mind losing. Chased around for the highest bank rate i could get and move is whereever to offering the most

valoren

Yes. Long term investor in blue chips. You have to hold stocks for the long term to get the benefit of the compounding. Many rent stocks, speculate in whatever is hot, buying high, selling low. Exponential growth is beautiful over the long term and the crux of proper investing. It's the reason why someone like American Grace Goner, a secretary for Abbott Labs in the 1940's can buy 3 shares of Abbott and become a multi millionaire 50 years later. It's all about getting fair value for me for companies that will never go away, investing savings in them, putting money to work, reinvesting dividends, sitting on your hole, plowing in when the **** hits the fan*, holding firm waiting for that inevitable exponential growth that takes decades to happen but will happen due to simple mathematics.

Speculating is a different ball game altogether. To me that's trading, greater fool territory.

Currently hold (with no intention of selling); AbbVie, Altria, Shell, Exxon Mobil, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, Berkshire Hathaway, Boeing, Intel and AT&T. All good dividend paying stocks (except Berkshire) bought at fair value. You can falsify accounting but you can't fake cold hard cash.

Altria dropped 5% yesterday. The same old short-termism that people won't be smoking anymore. Turns out Altira (formerly Phillip Morris) was the best investment of the 20th Century. I will be buying more shares later. Our two year old daughter has Johnson & Johnson, Exxon, Disney, 3M and Berkshire Hathaway. Any cash gifts, allowances will be invested for her. By the time she is 20 she'll hopefully have a minimum of $100k compounding away, the dividends reinvested, and by the time she is middle aged, she'll be a millionaire. She's only 2 and owns a stake in those businesses. She watches the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and she owns a stake in the company who made it. Something cool about that. Her sibling is due in September and will also have their own investment account.

We don't even have ISA's in Ireland. We're just not an investing society. It's a bug bear to me to be honest. I grew up less than a mile from where Apple's european headquarters are. Apple, one of the most successful investments in recent years, and I never owned one damn share of them. It never seemed like something you could do as Investing was something rich people did and they did it with ridiculously expensive stock brokers who creamed it on fee's and commissions.

* those companies aren't going away, and stock market panics are in actuality stocks on sale. The stock market is the only market where when the prices drop almost everyone runs out of the shop.

EmmetSpiceland

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

Of course cryptocurrency is an elaborate scam designed to part real money from gullible 'investors' in return for worthless tokens. It's a scam for the internet age, and it targets the same people who have always been scammed - greedy idiots who think they can become wealthy by doing very little.

That’s it. The desperation of the one left “holding” the “magic beans” trying to get others to buy in smacks of Amway sellers trying to get you to become a salesperson too.

sk8erboii wrote: »

pyramid schemes will make you rich if you get in early

That is certainly true but the keyword there is “early”, the ship is most certainly sinking for the crazy money-making but it seems like the rats, who bought in at the wrong time, are clinging on as opposed to leaving.

Amirani

Yeah, I invest through a pension that is made up primarily of broad-based world equity indices. It's by far the most efficient way to invest in Ireland (not counting family home as investing here).

Policy Review

Purgative wrote: »

I have the same view on the bitcoin thing.


Yesterday I had a really weird thing happen. A window popped up from the Daily Mirror with a story that Richard Branson supposedly on GMTV saying he has this app that deals in these things. Then there were stories from 2 of the journos saying they'd invested £200 and made about £6K after a week and then cashed out.


It struck me as odd.


Anyone else see it?

Yes i've seen similar on FB etc. And all our scams to be honest, sometimes they mentions dragons den stars etc too. Bit of research and most of this apps lock in any funds you put in or rip you off till you have nothing left.

beejee

Its all a gamble, from the more obvious stuff like cryptocurrencies to the likes of drip funds.

Just because something is more convoluted and complex, doesn't make it anything more than sticking a fiver on a greyhound. It just takes longer.

If you lose on your coca cola shares its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah", if you win on a horse its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah". Its all gambling on peoples sentiment (odds), which of course changes with the wind. The result is entirely independent of strategy as you cant strategise sentiment. You can guess, you can make educated guesses, but all youre doing is guessing at the end of the day.

The only thing that is a true investment is 100% knowledge, and that's basically insider trading. Or that you know a sniper is going to shoot all the other horses during the race.

Time is more important than anything else for making money.

Amirani

beejee wrote: »

Its all a gamble, from the more obvious stuff like cryptocurrencies to the likes of drip funds.

Just because something is more convoluted and complex, doesn't make it anything more than sticking a fiver on a greyhound. It just takes longer.

If you lose on your coca cola shares its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah", if you win on a horse its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah". Its all gambling on peoples sentiment (odds), which of course changes with the wind. The result is entirely independent of strategy as you cant strategise sentiment. You can guess, you can make educated guesses, but all youre doing is guessing at the end of the day.

There's a big difference between buying a share in a company and making a bet on a horse. Something like spread betting would be more analogous.

If you buy a share in Coca-Cola, the only way you really "lose on your shares" is if Coca-Cola go bankrupt and are wound up. Outside of these, you always own part of the company and have a claim on any future profits it makes. This is entirely different to having a punt on a horse.

valoren

beejee wrote: »

Its all a gamble, from the more obvious stuff like cryptocurrencies to the likes of drip funds.

Just because something is more convoluted and complex, doesn't make it anything more than sticking a fiver on a greyhound. It just takes longer.

If you lose on your coca cola shares its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah", if you win on a horse its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah". Its all gambling on peoples sentiment (odds), which of course changes with the wind. The result is entirely independent of strategy as you cant strategise sentiment. You can guess, you can make educated guesses, but all youre doing is guessing at the end of the day.

The only thing that is a true investment is 100% knowledge, and that's basically insider trading. Or that you know a sniper is going to shoot all the other horses during the race.

Time is more important than anything else for making money.

That's the thing. To use an analogy of horses there is a form guide. Coca Cola have been paying an annually rising dividend for the past 50 years. I would hazard a guess that they are very likely to pay out next year and considering they are the dominant beverage company they'll probably be paying out for decades to come. Not only that, the payout will be increasing as well i.e. the price of a can of coke in 10.20.30 years will not be what it is today. It might not have the rockstar return of a high growth sexy company that get's speculated to the moon and which ultimately burns people wanting a decent return but it's form is solid, reliable and very boring. The beta of the stocks price will not have the kind of volatility that scares the bejeesus out of you either. It ebbs and flows. Up a percent today, down a few here and there, back to even etc.

Consider someone with €75,000 sitting in a credit union account earning them a minuscule dividend. They could but 1,750 shares in Coke and get €2,130 (after taxes) this year. They could do whatever they wanted with that money and based on the form guide the pay out will increase next year, and the next and the next. Due to the compounding, the secret sauce, the annual payout at some discernible point in future will match and exceed the €75k they invested to begin with. That's the goal of investing. Imagine them adding their savings, combining it with dividend and buying more Coke stock every 3 months without fail and that happens much faster. You will see the whole point of investing soon enough; exponential growth without touching the principal. Sure, the principal (the 75k savings which is put at risk) will fluctuate but over time as you say particularly with the companies that make the world go round you back the right horse because something like Coca Cola is in all probability not going away.

Mad_maxx

beejee wrote: »

Its all a gamble, from the more obvious stuff like cryptocurrencies to the likes of drip funds.

Just because something is more convoluted and complex, doesn't make it anything more than sticking a fiver on a greyhound. It just takes longer.

If you lose on your coca cola shares its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah", if you win on a horse its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah". Its all gambling on peoples sentiment (odds), which of course changes with the wind. The result is entirely independent of strategy as you cant strategise sentiment. You can guess, you can make educated guesses, but all youre doing is guessing at the end of the day.

The only thing that is a true investment is 100% knowledge, and that's basically insider trading. Or that you know a sniper is going to shoot all the other horses during the race.

Time is more important than anything else for making money.

Plenty of common misconceptions there

Mad_maxx

valoren wrote: »

That's the thing. To use an analogy of horses there is a form guide. Coca Cola have been paying an annually rising dividend for the past 50 years. I would hazard a guess that they are very likely to pay out next year and considering they are the dominant beverage company they'll probably be paying out for decades to come. It might not have the rockstar return of a high growth sexy company that get's speculated to the moon but it's form is solid, reliable and boring. The beta of the price will not have the kind of volatility that scares the bejeesus out of you either.

Consider someone with €75,000 sitting in a credit union account earning them a minuscule dividend. They could but 1,750 shares in Coke and get €2,130 this year. They could do whatever they wanted with that money and based on the form guide the pay out will increase next year, and the next and the next. That's investing. Imagine them adding their savings, combining it with dividend and buying more Coke stock every 3 months without fail. You will see the whole point of investing soon enough; exponential growth without touching the principal. Sure, the principal (the 75k savings which is put at risk) will fluctuate but over time as you say particularly with the companies that make the world go round you back the right horse.

Coca cola is more or less like buying AAA bonds, you get your annual dividend - coupon but increase in value is unlikely

Stock has barely moved in years but is ultra low beta, probably dropped less than any blue-chip in 2008

Policy Review

"Those companies aren't going away, and stock market panics are in actuality stocks on sale. The stock market is the only market where when the prices drop almost everyone runs out of the shop."




I just want you to know i'm stealing this, nail on the head right there........

wyf437gn6btzue

beejee wrote: »

Its all a gamble, from the more obvious stuff like cryptocurrencies to the likes of drip funds.

Just because something is more convoluted and complex, doesn't make it anything more than sticking a fiver on a greyhound. It just takes longer.

If you lose on your coca cola shares its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah", if you win on a horse its all "well, obviously it was due to blah blah blah". Its all gambling on peoples sentiment (odds), which of course changes with the wind. The result is entirely independent of strategy as you cant strategise sentiment. You can guess, you can make educated guesses, but all youre doing is guessing at the end of the day.

The only thing that is a true investment is 100% knowledge, and that's basically insider trading. Or that you know a sniper is going to shoot all the other horses during the race.

Time is more important than anything else for making money.

100% most investment is just guessing at the end of the day, nobody can predict the future,

That being said some investments are relatively predictable if the timing and economic conditions precede it, gold for instance is getting more expensive to take from the ground and has historically went up most times there has been an economic lull. Property prices are usually send down in a bad economy, for those with the means there is a massive opportunity if they time it correctly.

Mad_maxx

Brielle Old-fashioned Slope wrote: »

100% most investment is just guessing at the end of the day, nobody can predict the future,

That being said some investments are relatively predictable if the timing and economic conditions precede it, gold for instance is getting more expensive to take from the ground and has historically went up most times there has been an economic lull. Property prices are usually send down in a bad economy, for those with the means there is a massive opportunity if they time it correctly.

Gold is not an investment, it's a speculative bet, read what Warren buffet thinks of the yellow metal

EmmetSpiceland

Mad_maxx wrote: »

read what Warren buffet thinks of the yellow metal

Isn’t he currently raking it in imprisoning poor people in “mobile” homes?

Mad_maxx

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Isn’t he currently raking it in imprisoning poor people in “mobile” homes?

No idea but most listen when he speaks on all things money

beejee

Amirani wrote: »

There's a big difference between buying a share in a company and making a bet on a horse. Something like spread betting would be more analogous.

If you buy a share in Coca-Cola, the only way you really "lose on your shares" is if Coca-Cola go bankrupt and are wound up. Outside of these, you always own part of the company and have a claim on any future profits it makes. This is entirely different to having a punt on a horse.

I'm being very general, of course. But to say it's entirely different is incorrect.

If a horse won it's races 100 times in a row, you'd call it a sure bet. But no guarantee, just an educated guess.

Same with coca cola. It's done very well over the years. But betting it will continue to do so is just an educated guess.

The only difference is time, one is a much longer gamble than the other. The horse could break it's leg (a very quick incident relative to the bet), equally coca cola could go arse ways in the space of 10 years (a slow incident relative to the bet). A universal sugar tax, off the top of my head, could ruin coca cola for example.

I don't think the comparison is entirely wrong at all. If anything it's uncomfortably apt.

If it was all fool proof to bet on coca cola, everyone would do it. But you generally don't make money that way, you make it off the people who bet against you.

All guessing.

Mad_maxx

beejee wrote: »

I'm being very general, of course. But to say it's entirely different is incorrect.

If a horse won it's races 100 times in a row, you'd call it a sure bet. But no guarantee, just an educated guess.

Same with coca cola. It's done very well over the years. But betting it will continue to do so is just an educated guess.

The only difference is time, one is a much longer gamble than the other. The horse could break it's leg (a very quick incident relative to the bet), equally coca cola could go arse ways in the space of 10 years (a slow incident relative to the bet). A universal sugar tax, off the top of my head, could ruin coca cola for example.

I don't think the comparison is entirely wrong at all. If anything it's uncomfortably apt.

If it was all fool proof to bet on coca cola, everyone would do it. But you generally don't make money that way, you make it off the people who bet against you.

All guessing.

That's some good rubbish you just typed

super_furry

I have a pension fund that's managed on my behalf which I really should take more of an interest in.

beejee

Mad_maxx wrote: »

That's some good rubbish you just typed

Is it that unsettling that your bets are nothing more than glorified bookies visits that all you can say is "rubbish"?

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Mad_maxx

beejee wrote: »

Is it that unsettling that your bets are nothing more than glorified bookies visits that all you can say is "rubbish"?

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

I might read back over your posts some night I'm struggling to nod off

dotsman

• I'm predominantly invested. As at today, I am up precisely 25% since January. Not a bad return! And I don't do leverage/high risk etc (although maybe not as diversified as I would like).
• I have some cash tucked away (couple months salary)
• I have a couple grand "playing" with P2P lending
• I have about €500 worth of crypto. Too small to care about, but if there is another large rally in the crypto merry-go-round, I'll cash in.
• I have a relatively decent pension invested in high-risk plan
• I have circa 150K equity in my home.

While having some cash handy is essential, any more than a few months salary is a wast and should be invested.

Lilyana Great Abalone wrote: »

I always say to never forget the power of compound interest.
Even €500 per month at a low 0.75%, after thirty years is in excess of €200,000

I would counter and say "never forget the uselessness of $hite interest rates!" That is an horrific return and is the equivalent of burning money.

Lilyana Great Abalone wrote: »

For a tax free guaranteed return there's always State Savings Bonds or Certificates, depending on how long you wish to leave it on deposit.

Or you could light a bonfire and throw the cash on that. State Savings makes great sense when interest rates are very high and other investment classes are likely to underperform. But when the states savings is worth less that inflation and there is good money to make on the markets and property (if you have the minimum funds to hand), they should be completely avoided.