Investing

[BIGSHCLUNK]

Okay I know this is WAY off topic!! But I cant help but wonder what others are doing. Personally, I dont feel I'll see much in the line of Soc Sec. the government will blow most of it by then! And I know I dont want to have to live with that as my only source of income. I'm sure lots of you younger guys dont think about this much, I know I didnt. But I'm 55 now, perspectives change. I've got lots of opinions on this but what about yours??


BTW you can vote 2X

[brads70]

Well I can say I don't trust the investing thing much anymore. I had 30K invested and it's now worth 12k. It was a locked in deal from a pension plan I had at a previous employer. I couldn't take it out, just direct it somewhat.
 I think buying another house to rent after you get your house paid off is a good move. Around here anyhow? Can say I'll ever trust the wall street/ mutual fund type investing ever again!
I figure I'll have to work till I die? I missed the boat ....I was born to late?

[dodj]

Been putting a few $ in mutual funds every month since I was 26. As Brad was saying, they didn't perform as well as I might have hoped/was suggested. Still, it is $ for traveling around the world after retirement - hopefully in 11 years. Always wanted to see Australia/NZ and South Africa.

[Katfish]

I've been investing 20% of my salary for the last 20 years.  There was a time maybe 5yrs ago that I thought I could retire by the time I was 55.  The last 2 yrs have effectively eliminated any gains I had made. 

I do think Wallstreet is rigged against the little guy.  No easy solutions, just work longer I guess.

[Challenger6pak]

Social Security is already in the red. I'm 46 and I don't see any in my future.  I look at it for what it is; another tax.  I have investments.  They are now pennies on the dollar, due to the devaluating of assets these days.  I have spent months looking for a niche where I could become valuable to the workplace again. I also wanted to be valuable in a world economy.  I plan to invest $120,000 in the next four years in myself; re educating.  The first steps have already been taken.  My home is paid off, I have no credit card debt, no car payment, and really no debt at all. What many of us have done for a living or what we have invested in prior to now is gone.  It just doesn't exist anymore. It's tough.  Oil is a good investment. Food commodities are going up because there is less food per person in the world every day. Energy is good in companies that focus on or have alternative energy sources.  I like silver coins that are not really collectible, but are good to have for their silver content. They are easy to spend if needed and they follow gold wherever it goes with far less restrictions. I no longer consider my cars an investment with a monetary return.

[priderocks]

I used to be in the market, and made some money on Cisco during the dotcom era, and Telephonos de Mexico but came to realize when the dotcom bubble burst and when Mexico devalued the peso that all these so-called market analysts with their experts stationed around the world and sophisticated computer programs have not a clue what is going on. How could these so-called experts not have seen the devaluation of the peso coming?  Long and short, the people who tout the market loudest are the brokers and financial planners who profit from your investment. They say despite the cyclical variations, the market has shown to be the best investment over the long haul which is only of benefit to you the investor if you don't happen to retire or need the $ when the market is in its down cycle.

That was then, and this is now.

I bought gold at $360/ounce, and everyone laughed at me. I just bought thirty ounces a couple of weeks ago, and only wish I could have afforded more. I have seen predictions gold will hit $5k/oz. I didn't base my purchase on some bs website prediction, but on the following; peak oil (look this up, its interesting and scary) will cause massive inflation as oil prices skyrocket; US monetary policy, of which there isn't one, will cause massive inflation; confidence in the dollar will erode, shifting $'s to what is most stable (gold); foreign governments, notably China and India are beginning to purchase gold as a hedge against  falling confidence in the $. More reasons? The Korean peninsula I predict will go up in flames. Israel will blow the crap out of Iran and the middle east will once again be at war. More reasons? I predict this nation will have a permanent unemployement rate of 12-15%; I predict the housing market devaluation is just beginning. (The LA Times ran an article in which the Federal Reserve said an unemployement rate of 9% might well be permanent.) Like the words in Springsteens "My Home Town", "those jobs have left son, and they ain't comin' back".

Your investment paradigm should be based on what you consider the future to be like. If you think things will someday be like they were, that will dictate a radically different strategy than my own, which is based on a much more pessimistic outlook. Oil, gold and food will see sharp increases, and I will invest accordingly.

[Challenger6pak]

Priderocks, I hope you have the gold and not just the certificates.  In the past Governments have confiscated the gold leaving the certificate owner with a piece of paper.  In the past I would say that the U.S. would never do that.  Now I wouldn't trust them.  I agree with you.  Now, is a whole new ballgame. 

[Sean]

I got two mutual funds that we've been paying into for many years now.  They have gone down to about 1/2 their peak value.  Good for me as I don't have any need to pull money out of them now and my money buys more shares.

Sean 

[Challenger III]

I am in the same boat. My stuff isn't worth as much as it was, but I'm buying much more at a time now!

[tx9aarcuda]

I'm 50 and like most people I don't think  SS will be around when I'm eligible I have been in the market the last 20 years I have made some money. When I started my job I thought I would be able to retire at 55, and not have to work again. Thats not going to happen, right now I'm just trying to get out of debt. 

[sadil340]

I don't know anybody who came out of the last few years with most of their investments still profitable. I agree that the little guy (us) does not profit from investments like the fund managers do. This bothers me; the richest ones now are the guys making money off of money not by creating goods and services. We are partly to blame for that; cheaper prices mean more to most people than where things are made. I for one would pay a premium for American made goods because they are usually superior quality to the Chinese stuff that had brought down prices at the expense of American jobs.

Pride's analysis of what to do if all hell breaks loose is pretty well thought out. I hope that it doesn't come to those predictions though.

[Challenger III]

  I think the best thing to do is try to make the best of what we have been dealt. I bought the commercial building I have my company working out of, and got myself out of debt. I can't think of a better situation to be in the way things are now.

[the_engineers]

Losses are only "on paper" until you make a change.  Be judicious about any major changes to your portfolio before you doom yourself.

['Cuda Hunter]

I purchased some Iraqi Dinar back at the start of the war. 
Iraq has the worlds second largest oil reserve. 
I feel it can only be a matter of time before they get their act together and get the oil online. 

Oil, gold or food.  Seems like the right combination.

[JH27N0B]

I don't think social security will disappear, but I think the benefits will be scaled back and the retirement age increased again at some point.  It gets ridiculous at some point, how old should you be to collect social security, 90??  If they make the retirement age high enough, they won't have to pay out any benefits! 
I'd be a lot happier if I was allowed to invest at least some of the money they withhold from my paychecks in investments.
I've been investing since I was in college, I'm not Warren Buffet, but I have accumulated a nice nestegg.  I think the best advice is to diversify, don't put all your eggs in one basket.  I have stocks, stock mutual funds, bond mutual funds, savings accounts, even at the worst of times, not everything I have is dropping.
My other major piece of advice is not to chase the hottest investment of the day.  In fact, more often than not, contrarians do best, buying when no one else is buying.
Over and over again I've seen it, in the late 90's everyone was buying tech stocks, they were going through the roof, but then they crashed.  Then people were jumping into real estate, but that crashed.  Now gold is hot.  Everything seems to point to it continuing to rise.  But I keep thinking I've seen this movie before, many times.
So we'll just have to see what happens.
For the last 10 years, dividend paying stocks and foreign bond and mutual funds have done best for me.  I like large older companies that pay a nice dividend.  It's like you are getting paid to own the stock while you wait for it to go up.  CD's are only paying 1% or so, but there are tons of good solid companies out there paying 3%, 4%, even 6% yields, companies like Johnson and Johnson, Kimberly Clark, Coca Cola, AT&T, Verizon.  Even Microsoft is paying over 2% with its dividend.
If you want to get a little riskier, there are stocks paying even higher dividends.  Real Estate investment Trusts often pay over 10%.  I've got one that is paying over 15%!
Emerging markets have a lot of potential, but again, don't put all your eggs in one basket, but having 5-15% of your portfolio in emerging market mutual funds and foreign stock mutual funds very likely will pay off in the long run.
Last piece of advice I can give is don't panic when things crash, they more often than not come back after awhile.  Too many people follow the trends, buying near the peak and then selling at the bottom.  Don't follow the herd!