I have SLV and SLW for longs and SLV is up to 115% and SLW is at 109% for me so I have been pretty happy with both.
Anyone have any insight into SIRI stock? I am no expert but I bought like $25,000 worth when the stock was at .35 cents on 4/13/09. It is at $1.46 today. I been holding on thinking it might go higher in time once there are more subscribers to the service and since competition is no longer an issue with the merger. Think I should just sell now?
Yeah and I still have 600 shares of GE stock I bought at $10.80 that same month 4/3/09. Thinking of selling that too for some new toys.
i did well getting long zsl and short slv. lol it was insane yesterday with the option pricing. freaking front month 35 calls on slv were bid at 11 cents when slv was at like 28.25. 11 days or so til expiration and people needed another 7 bucks for those to be in the money lol. that's how obscene the volatility was. if i was at my old firm, which didn't have the greatest risk checks, i would have been naked selling those things all day. just flat out ridiculous.
What does everyone think about the crazy GM IPO? I've been watching Ford, I think it's a much better company. Also what about the big banks? Specifically BAC, they fell to around $11.50 per share with the foreclosure mess. Seems like it might be a good buy as well? And Citi of course.
At the moment, the four Horseman (GS, GOOG, IBM and AAPL) are all up more percentage wise than SPX is up percentage wise. OIH is roughly flat with CVX and XLE somewhat red. COP and XOM are modestly up. My guess is that the Market (SPX) will be noticeably lower at least for a while on Thursday. There is probably some stealth selling going on with the four Horseman maintaining SPX in the Green to hide the selling in the smaller SPX names.
Ok, so I am out of college and working and I have been making some money - some of which I don't know what to do with. I am not investment savvy but I want to start putting away a few dollars here and there. I know I can play it safe and put my money in some sort of fund that invest in US debt securities, but I would like to find a mutual fund that goes 50/50 on stocks and US government bonds. Can anyone give some advise?
Do you have a 401k? If your employer contributes with or matches your contribution, max it out to at least the total amount that your employer will contribute per year. If your employer matches dollar for dollar, you are automatically getting 100% return which is far more than a mutual fund is going to get you. If you max that out, I would open a Roth IRA. You can contribute $5k a year, it's government backed, and you aren't taxed whatsoever on contributions or withdrawels (unless you withdraw before age 59)...the average return over the last 40 years is about 10%. You can save a little bit to play with shorter term investments (plenty of others can make recommendations on these), but even then it's best to diversify and think long-term. But you could set yourself up for a VERY nice retirement if you have money to put into the Roth.
I am sure this has been asked and answered a million times over, but is the only benefit of the 401k over the Roth the employer match?
I believe that a Roth is funded with after-tax dollars. Withdrawals in retirement incur no tax on contributions or earnings. A 401K is funded with pre-tax dollars. Withdrawals in retirement are taxed.
401k is (usually) taxed when you take it out for retirement, and the max is around 18k per year. Roth IRA isn't taxed when you take it out, since you're investing with after-tax money. Max is 5k a year. I do pretty much what Diehard recommended. First get all the free money you can from the company 401k matching, then max out Roth IRA every year, and finally use the leftover money to either invest in mutual funds, or play around with individual stocks/commodities.
They are different creatures with different sets of rules. The biggest advantage to Roth IRAs is that you do not have to start making withdrawals ever (versus 70.5 years old for non-Roth IRAs and iirc 401Ks/403Bs). Another Roth difference is that you put post-tax monies in and are not taxed on withdrawal. Regular 401Ks take pre-tax contributions and are taxed on withdrawal. (Roth 401Ks behave like Roth IRAs wrt taxes.) There is a catch with the 401k match. There is usually a vesting schedule. A five year vesting schedule is typical, 20% per year of service.
