Feb 17, 2021 Is anybody familiar with a company called SoFi (sofi.com). They got a good write-up in Jan 11, 2021 Investors Business Daily (p. A12) about investing in ETFs, and I liked what I saw on their web page. They originally got started dealing with student loans in 2011 and have expanded since then. I didnt like feedback I saw about their dealings with student loan clients. I have never been able to really trust investment advisors (I know, it's a personal failure) so am looking for some feedback from other seniors. I have almost always "invested" in real estate but as a senior I feel it is now necessary to keep some liquidity. There is virtually no way to earn interest in today's market and I greatly fear coming inflation on my existing retirement cash assets. I see no way to make money in bonds. I I had some "junk silver" but cannot find it so probably stolen and it's too easy to steal if I get medicatly or physically incapacitated. So feel I must bite the bullet and invest in stock market. Yes, Vanguard and Fidelity have good reputations in mutual funds but are not as liquid as I would like. I have fully paid-up long term care insurance but am a little concerned about that being a "sole" asset.
I have been a Boglehead for many years and a participent on their Forum. I am enjoying the results of my past investing endeavors but no longer an active investor.
My ex-employer has VOYA and I've kept my 401(k) there. Even as an ex-employee there were no fees for the longest time. Now I think they charge $3/month. I have other stuff in Vanguard. As an aside, today I heard that the Biden administration is gonna try to impose what amounts to a Federal real estate tax on our homes, as well as a luxury tax on our retirement investments. He concurrently announced more "refundable credits" to "qualifying Americans."
Being self employed for 20+ years, I never had a 401k. I do have a SEP IRA at a bank, and a regular IRA at a credit union. Will have to withdraw /reinvest those somewhere soon.
Investing in the stock market scares me, and yet the idea of having my money, what little of it there is, making money is appealing. I know nothing about how professional investors assess the value of a company, but I have somehow developed some guidelines for myself. I don't buy anything priced at more than $100 a share I buy tiny amounts to start -- like 3 or 8 shares** I increase shares to a number that reduces to 3 or 8** (e.g., 62 shares of this or 120 shares of that) I sell shares if the stock has lost more than 15% since I've held it I don't buy any company I've never heard of I buy only what has a record of steady increase over 1-5 years I pay attention to keeping a reasonable spread over the industry sectors (tech, biotech, consumer staples, etc) I dip a toe in foreign stocks I've heard of from stable countries I set stop loss orders when the market is more volatile than usual I get suggestions from Motley Fool but use my own gut on when & what to buy The 3 or 8 thing is based on numerology. 3 = success, magic, promise. 8 = wealth, success, momentum. I can't say that I "believe" in numerology, but so far this notion seems to be working well for me. Not recommending these steps to anyone else, just curious if anyone else here has your own personal "system".
Everything scares me right now. Massive inflation is being predicted and hyperinflation is a possibility. Sometimes deflation is predicted similar to what happened during the Great Depression. The Biden Administration has handed our energy policy back to OPEC, and those people are fighting among themselves at the moment. (When that happened during the Trump Administration, we were unaffected as we were energy self-sufficient) As energy prices rises, EVERYTHING follows. These are scary tiems for investors. That is why so much money is going into Bitcoin, real estate, precious metals, etc.
I'm a mostly self taught investor who started after attending an investment seminar given by (then) Dean, Witter, Reynolds brokerage firm when I was about 36. I started reading stock market reports, watching CNBC and other market watch shows. I also began "inhaling" financial articles, at first via Money and Kiplinger magazine subscriptions, then via the internet once I got a computer. I've used and changed several brokerages and mutual fund allocations. I've learned by trial and error until now I have my own crazy way of choosing investments and have a portfolio I'm pretty happy with. I'm a buy and hold investor with few exceptions and have done well picking my own investments, most of which are mutual funds and ETFs. In fact the two times I listened to "experts", their investment choices did poorly. I'm skittish about private stocks so only brought a few shares of three companies. I dumped Fitbit, a stock which was highly touted by all the "experts" but had a dismal performance in the midst of an ostensibly successful business. Glad I did, it eventually plunged to only 13% of what I paid for the 45 shares. I only own 14 shares of FB, which I bought at it's IPO on a whim. Wish so much that I had bought more...it's up over 800%. I also only bought 15 shares of Apple. It did a 4 for 1 split last year, after which I added more shares. Sure would be nice if the share price rises in the near future to what it was, or even approaches what it was before the split. It's highly unlikely that Facebook and Apple will tank like Fitbit did. During the big stock market plunge when COVID hit, I bought hundreds of shares of two mutual funds that were already in my portfolio. One is up more than $20 a share, the other $4 a share. There are two reasons I don't panic when the market crashes (but look for buying opportunities). First my pension and social security are more than enough for me to live on. In fact, I've continued to save and invest since retiring 23 years ago. Secondly, the only distributions I take now are my RMDs which are relatively small and tax free. My traditional IRA represents a very small percentage of my portfolio since most of my portfolio is in a Roth. BTW my RMDs are tax free because the brokerage sends them directly to my charity of choice...St. Jude.
A group of us at work started an investment club around 1990. We were all in finance or contract management positions. Each of us was responsible for a market sector, learning about it, following it, making recommendations in it. We started off with an entrance fee and made contributions to invest at each month's meetings. A few years into it and we were still where we started...we did not lose money and we did not make money, either. So we disbanded...at least we were that smart. I only buy mutual funds. I do not own individual shares of stock. I'm no good at it. It is interesting to see how--as others here have mentioned--the long standing advice to get out of equities when one retires is now in the dust bin. Like everything else in the modern world, I question the motives behind that advice. Personally, I think there is fear in what would happen to the market if all these Baby Boomer retirement accounts suddenly sold their holdings and went into other investments. Just because CDs & bonds are not making money does not mean that holding equities at this stage of life is sound advice. "Greed" is not a strategy (a I remind myself.) I found an article by Morningstar to be of interest. Here is their "retirement years" recommendation: Keep the money you know you will need during the next 2 years in cash (for most of us, this means any required augmentation to Social Security and/or other pensions) Keep the money you know you will need during Year 3 thru Year 10 in conservative, liquid investments (CDs & Bonds) Keep the balance of your investments in stocks. The Morningstar strategy is meant to give your stock investments time to recover from any downturns before you are likely to need the money. There are weeds that can be waded through (such as how often do you replenish your "Upcoming 2 Year" bucket.) But the concept has merit. You can tweak the size of each bucket as you wish. The gist is it has you keeping a foot in the market while not putting your next decade's survival at risk to the effects of calamities.
I just got my annual forced redemption from my 401K and looked up current value of my account Despite the fact that I've taken about 50K out for stuff its only down 18K from beginning.
We actually have more in our account now (after making monthly withdrawals) than when my husband retired 6 years ago. I'm astonished.