The Investment Thread

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, zurch1818 said:

This is so true. Just saving 10% to 15% of your pay check can do wonders. Einstein once said “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” From what I read, it can take 5 to 10 years to get the first $100k (I was more in the 5 year range). But once you get over that, getting the next $100k will go so much quicker. I had fun tracking it once it stated to roll.

I'm curious what people would do here. Does it make sense for me to put more money into a 529 for my kids college? My kids are 4, 2, and 2. My dad just transferred money left over from my 529 and according to my financial advisor, it would cover half of their education (thanks to compounding growth). I calculated that I would be 58 when my twins would be graduating. I have my 401k (mostly Roth...but the employee match and profit share is traditional) and my Roth IRA that should be fund the difference without really affecting my retirement. We also have my wife's retirement...but she is 1.5 years younger. I could just take a loan out (if I can't cash flow it at that point in my career) and pay it in full when I turn 59.5. Is this crazy? It would still be after tax growth. Plus it wouldn't then tie the money up into education (if they choose to not get a 4-year degree).

My experience with 529b accounts was mixed. I had accounts for 4 kids and was aiming to pay for 1-2 years of college (started a bit late).  I ended up having 3 of 4 go to college and transferred 1/3rd of the money from the one to each of the other three and paid for 2 years of college. 

However, the only part of college that is covered is the tuition and books.  No room and board (which tends to be really pricy).  So my kids ended up paying some taxes the first couple of years because we were taking out too much (granted it was at their tax rate, so it wasn't much). 

Plus, the administration of the accounts was a royal pain.  You open one type of account when they are minors.  When they turn 18, you have to open another account and transfer money over to it.  You'd think the account would simply convert... but no that would be too simple.  Plus the transfer documentation was only done via paper you mail in... and pray you didn't make a mistake.  I didn't do it once "correctly" and had to mail it in a second time.  

I used both Edvest (WI) and Minnesota Saves plans (I moved from WI to MN at some point - call me crazy). Both plans are administered by the same company, same website, and same painful interface. 

Let's just say that I'm more than happy to be done with it after this next school year. 

So, I'm not sure there is a better option.  529b accounts worked for me... but it was just a pain to administer. 

[madbad2000]

Something else to consider is the transfer of 529 accounts to Roth IRA for unused funds.  "Beginning in 2024, unused funds from a 529 plan can be rolled over to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary, without penalty or tax implications, under the SECURE 2.0 Act. This rollover is limited to a lifetime total of $35,000 per beneficiary".

[zurch1818]

Thanks for the advice @CheezWizHed. I didn't realize that you can't pay room and board out of this. I feel like it's like the Price is Right where have to get as close to the price without going over.

On 6/10/2025 at 11:32 AM, madbad2000 said:

Something else to consider is the transfer of 529 accounts to Roth IRA for unused funds.  "Beginning in 2024, unused funds from a 529 plan can be rolled over to a Roth IRA for the beneficiary, without penalty or tax implications, under the SECURE 2.0 Act. This rollover is limited to a lifetime total of $35,000 per beneficiary".

Oh yeah. I forgot about this. I wish this were something that could roll over faster than 5 years ($7000*5).

I guess worst case scenario is the remaining balance can go to future heirs and pay it forward. This is what my dad did for me.

[BrewerFan]

On 5/14/2025 at 1:06 PM, owbc said:

It’s not that the market panics, it’s that the market is entirely driven by the short term. The current quarter and the next quarter and not much beyond that.  

Been a wild run here. 

NVDA, AMD, AVGO, SMCI...TSM up and down the AI infrastructure is going wild(except for the first start ASML). 

It's just been an insane turnaround since April. Retirement age moving a couple decades back and forth. 

 

I suppose it was kinda obvious when he took off most export controls and opened it up(which...I may not agree with, but what the hell, I'm going to enjoy if nothing else). 

[homer]

On 7/29/2025 at 4:31 AM, BrewerFan said:

Been a wild run here. 

NVDA, AMD, AVGO, SMCI...TSM up and down the AI infrastructure is going wild(except for the first start ASML). 

It's just been an insane turnaround since April. Retirement age moving a couple decades back and forth. 

 

I suppose it was kinda obvious when he took off most export controls and opened it up(which...I may not agree with, but what the hell, I'm going to enjoy if nothing else). 

I feel dumb for not buying more NVDA back when it was below $100.

[Fear The Chorizo]

On 7/29/2025 at 4:31 AM, BrewerFan said:

Been a wild run here. 

NVDA, AMD, AVGO, SMCI...TSM up and down the AI infrastructure is going wild(except for the first start ASML). 

It's just been an insane turnaround since April. Retirement age moving a couple decades back and forth. 

 

I suppose it was kinda obvious when he took off most export controls and opened it up(which...I may not agree with, but what the hell, I'm going to enjoy if nothing else). 

April/May was when most around here were still in "sell it now" mode, right?

[nate82]

8 hours ago, homer said:

I feel dumb for not buying more NVDA back when it was below $100.

I feel dumb for not buying more of IONQ, RGTI, QUBT and QBTS.  All are up big so far this year well IONQ is up big since I bought it last year at about $8 a share.  The others I bought at about $1 a share each.  But I didn’t buy as much as I did with IONQ go go go quantum computing!

[BrewerFan]

10 hours ago, homer said:

I feel dumb for not buying more NVDA back when it was below $100.

Yeah... well, I did the Math. After I decided to sell the rental properties I owned a couple years ago, I was 5 trades in stocks that, 5 that I'd invested some money into... away from being a billionaire if I could go and live late '23 to '24 over again! No options.  

 

Hindsight often makes us feel stupid. For instance, I bought a few thousand shares of QBTS under 1 dollar. That was for my Nephew, Niece and Nephew(obviously not a 529, I don't like being limited to index funds). And it took off. But it was a speculative play, so I didn't want to risk it just going up on hype due to Google's announcements, I kept setting stop losses. It hit 5, I set it at 4, hit 8, set it at 6. Well, it triggered looong before it topped out at 20(I trigged before it topped out at 10.50 that first leg). In fairness, that wasn't really investing, it was gambling, so I should count it as a win, but I still kick myself for not buying more and holding it.  

I was pretty lucky though, I put most of what I made in NVDA. Irresponsible, but initially my plan was to wait until I figured out the capital gains... which because I didn't reinvest in another property, I had all that depreciation to repay. 

 

Anyway, when it came to "liberation day," I bought mostly AVGO, AMD and then added to AMZN(always add to AMZN... tomorrow I will be putting what cash I have into AMZN. 

 

They're STILL in their growing phase. As soon as they ease up a bit on the capex... they're going to grow even more than they have. They're guiding for ~180 BILLION next Quarter. They'll be at 1T in revenue within a couple years. 

 

Even this earnings report was strong... they beat expectations, just lower margins for AWS... and they lagged behind Azure and Google Coud which grew 32% and 39%.

 

For the time being, that is good news for NVDA, but long-term, when they slow spending, it's going to take off. 

 

The "nobody ever got fired buying IBM," is going to turn into "nobody ever got fired buying AMZN." 

[nate82]

What is crazy about NVDA is that they haven't even hit the peak yet.  Sovereign AI is a thing and it is coming and guess who is right there ready to take the money from these governments?  Yes you guessed it NVDA.  

The next big thing is quantum computing but it is risky and I think it is still in its infant stage.  You could see the stocks fall flat in the next year or they could explode like NVDA did with AI but I think the explosion in quantum computing won't happen for another 5-10 years or longer.  

[BrewerFan]

5 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

April/May was when most around here were still in "sell it now" mode, right?

Not May, but yeah, when we came out with tariffs at the highest level since 1922, higher than the Smoot-Hawley tariffs that caused the market to crash in less than 2 1/2 days of trading. 

I'm lucky, I've got a friend who manages over 1B for one of the largest investment firms in the Country, but even then, he said he had no idea how low things could go. Said he was holding personally, they'd been hedging in the fund before that so they didn't get hit as hard, but nobody knew what was going to happen with those... asinine tariffs. 

 

I mean, we still don't completely know as it takes years to work out a trade deal, so even the trade "deals" we're getting are just... broad outlines like we're trying to do with China... the one Country we ACTUALLY needed to deal with due to their trade practices, but the EU, Canada, Japan, Mexico? It was all nonsense. 

 

What Trump DID do... which I love as someone who's invested heavily in AI in my brokerage account, was lift export restrictions for Nvidia(and AMD) on Saudi Arabia, Qatar... and China. 

Not sure if that's good for the Country, but it's good for me. 

 

4 hours ago, nate82 said:

I feel dumb for not buying more of IONQ, RGTI, QUBT and QBTS.  All are up big so far this year well IONQ is up big since I bought it last year at about $8 a share.  The others I bought at about $1 a share each.  But I didn’t buy as much as I did with IONQ go go go quantum computing!

I bought QBTS and RGTI for I THINK 77 cents and RGTI for 1.50, but as I said... held for, IDK, 7-8 months and then when Google came out with their Quantum "breakthrough," and it went up, set that stop loss. It was +/-15-20% a day. 

Again, all speculative(and then I bought SLI, LAC, TTI and several others that were of little value). But when Jensen came out and said we were 20 years away from Quantum being viable and it tanked the sector, my stop losses triggered.]

If I had any actual faith in it, I'd have held, but being as they were still operating at a loss and QBTS had just the one large client, I didn't hold. 

 

But, can't complain too bad. That was set up for my Sisters kids, so they got a nice head start and they're not even starting school yet. Moved it into SMH, TSM and AMZN. 

 

My biggest regret is spending years investing in rental properties and let my Roth sit in index funds. 

 

Oh, and Ethereum. That's one I'm investing in heavily right now. Hoping Tom Lee ends up being right about that one. 

[BrewerFan]

2 hours ago, nate82 said:

What is crazy about NVDA is that they haven't even hit the peak yet.  Sovereign AI is a thing and it is coming and guess who is right there ready to take the money from these governments?  Yes you guessed it NVDA.  

The next big thing is quantum computing but it is risky and I think it is still in its infant stage.  You could see the stocks fall flat in the next year or they could explode like NVDA did with AI but I think the explosion in quantum computing won't happen for another 5-10 years or longer.  

That's... exactly what I'm thinking. I also think AMD ( as well as AVGO, SMCI, VRT) are going to see big returns also as will... but that's just because of the scope of the investment. Projected to be 1T a year by 2030). At 270B, AMD can get to 1T much easier than NVDA at ~4.5T(I know it dropped today, but when it hit it's ATH) will hit 13T. 

But... it does still have a massive runway. It's clearly the 1500 hundred pound Gorilla in the room...

Nvidia really is just... an incredible story.  And I think we did the right thing by allowing them to sell the H20 and...I'm hearing the B20 may be approved next year to China. Far better to keep China dependent on Nvidia, the Cuda platform. Better than Huawei developing GPUs that can compete for now. 

**I also read a story that there are at least 5 companies now specializing in fixing H100 GPUs or even the H200 NVL. 
Now if there is that type of demand in China for GPUs that were never legal to sell there...

 

As for the Quantum stocks, I suspect they'll see 5-7 again, but there's plenty of time to get back in on those. 

[Samurai Bucky]

On 7/31/2025 at 9:11 AM, homer said:

I feel dumb for not buying more NVDA back when it was below $100.

I friend of mine bought NVDA back in the early 2000's.  He liquidated two years ago and is now building a house on the shores of Lake Michigan.  That wasn't his only awesome investment, though.

We got in before one of the last few splits.  It also helps that I like NVDA because they give a lot of grants, etc. to MSOE -- where my son attends college.

[BrewerFan]

Oooh.... I took a spanking last night...(and the earnings reports did poorly🫢).

 

Seriously though... SMCI... I know they're run poorly, but they're so cheap and expectations were so low...and George lived down to them again!

Also, AMD... they actually had a good Quarter. I picked them up after liberation day, so ~84 to 180 to 165, I'll live. They at least have massive tailwinds for Q3 and Q4, so I'll hold. 

SMCI was sold last night before it dropped under 50. As soon as I saw the EPS and then margins which are 9%? For the demand they should be in?

 

Anyway, both are getting beat up, but AMD had a lot of write offs as they haven't gotten their export license for China, BUT... they are still loading up on the MI300 for China(I think it's MI300). 

MI355 ramping and they're raising prices in Q3 due to demand and they have the MI400 coming out which compares favorably to the B200 for inference...kinda. 

 

The only concern is Trump talking about Semiconductor tariffs coming this week. That's... kinda baffling.

 

May not make much sense to some to hold NVDA and AMD, but AI CapEx is expected to reach 1 TRILLION by 2028. If they would have had China sales for last Quarter, their growth would have been closer to 30% in DC revenue and... they'd be looking at 200 a share. 

 

Still have about 20X NVDA as AMD just due to the splits, but I like both. And of course AVGO slots in between the two. 

[wallus]

Not a lot of conversation about the value of the dollar going down quite a bit.

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, wallus said:

Not a lot of conversation about the value of the dollar going down quite a bit.

I mean... when you just run up endless debt, that's going to happen.

And then the next discussion is who is responsible for this... and the answer is of course everyone, but who is MORE responsible. then we may go to more recent policy decisions that are making that worse...and then it gets into politics and I do that enough elsewhere.

 

If there's a side of the discussion you want to have beyond that or a solution or suggestion... I'm eager to hear it. 

The person I know who manages 1.5B is not a Crypto fan. So if you want to explain to me how that's a hedge against our fiat currency, I'd be interested in hearing your take on that. 

I did just buy a lot of ETH, but... I really did it without knowing why other than Tom Lee. That was the extent of my rationale. It was 2800 and I've seen people saying they think 15-20K in 18-20 months, so I pulled the trigger. Just the share of my investments that are speculative. That's what I consider crypto at this point. I also bought a little over 1BTC when it was not far off ATHs. That's about as big of a chunk as I feel comfortable leaving up to speculative investments(that and I own FUBO as I think it'll pop when Disney completes the takeover which is inevitable). 

It's hard for me to explain a rationale for investing in Crypto. I can read it's revenue, margins or any fundamentals. It's basically just this agreement or belief that.... we're all going to keep buying this. 

Gold has intrinsic value. We're just assigning value to Crypto, right? And I get we're assigning a LOT of value to it, but... that's been my issue hereto-now in any event.

 

[SeaBass]

I don't really do much investing wise, I dabbled back in 2020-2021 when the markets were recovering from the crash but didn't really know what I was doing. I had some BTC back then back when it was valued around $11K (ugh should have kept it there) but it kept losing or staying about even and I got impatient with it and sold out of it. It was never a lot that I invested, maybe around $1000.

Anyway, I had about a $500 investment in a S&P 500 index fund for about a year, VOO in Fidelity and it's made around $100. But I'm kind of interested if I should put my little investment elsewhere. 

I'm thinking of bumping it back up to $1000. What do you guys think would be a good place to put it? I haven't read the whole thread but just the last day or two so I'm seeing Amazon, NVIDIA, Etherium and those seem interesting to me. Curious what anybody has thoughts on. I think I prefer to just put it in one place, $1K isn't that big of a sum to try spreading it around.

[LouisEly]

If you don't know much about investing, put 90-95% of what you can afford to invest in a S&P 500 fund and keep it there.  

Invest the other 5-10% in speculative things such as crypto.

Tortoise and the hare.  It's a lot easier to get rich slowly, and as you have learned, you never make or lose money on anything until you sell it.

[nate82]

Some risky stocks I have invested in recently are QS and SES.  Both are lithium batter manufacturers or developers or whatever they want to call themselves.  Very risky but I think one could be a $30-50 stock if they figure things out.  Both are trading under $10 right now.

[CheezWizHed]

On 8/2/2025 at 10:49 AM, Samurai Bucky said:

We got in before one of the last few splits.  It also helps that I like NVDA because they give a lot of grants, etc. to MSOE -- where my son attends college.

Yes! A fellow Red Raider! 

On 8/6/2025 at 2:06 PM, LouisEly said:

If you don't know much about investing, put 90-95% of what you can afford to invest in a S&P 500 fund and keep it there.  

Invest the other 5-10% in speculative things such as crypto.

Tortoise and the hare.  It's a lot easier to get rich slowly, and as you have learned, you never make or lose money on anything until you sell it.

I started diving into investing 30 years ago when Motley Fool was new and day trading was going wild.  But I realized that this wasn't where I wanted to invest my time.  I plugged into index funds and will retire comfortably via the power of time and dollar cost averaging. 'Tis enough for me. 

Best advice for investing is: Start yesterday.  Second best is: Start Today. 

[BrewerFan]

On 9/2/2025 at 4:39 PM, CheezWizHed said:

I started diving into investing 30 years ago when Motley Fool was new and day trading was going wild.  But I realized that this wasn't where I wanted to invest my time.  I plugged into index funds and will retire comfortably via the power of time and dollar cost averaging. 'Tis enough for me. 

Best advice for investing is: Start yesterday.  Second best is: Start Today. 

I started day trading with 500 dollars and now I get 17,000 dollars every two weeks following Kelly Anne Fischer. You should look her up on Whatsapp!

My BIL watched one of those YouTube videos about day trading and wanted to borrow 30K to get started(that's apparently the magic number, you need 30K to be able to turn a profit... I asked why you couldn't start with 3K and just invest 1/10th as much and... I got nothing). 

 

I think you can have a self managed portfolio, but you just have to... really be patient and realize there are going to be times when you're going to lose a LOT of money if you sell whenever something happens. I think NVDA has gone down 40% or more 6 or 7 times since I invested in it and a lot of people who don't have the patience or stomach have sold. 

 

I have maxed out my Roth since my early 20s with index funds and then I put everything else into a relatively small number of stocks... though never without checking with a friend who manages very large fund. NVDA, AMZN, AVGO, TSM, GOOGL, then QBTS and OKLO have been my... own 'what the hell,' investments that hit(along with... 7 or 8 that have no that I don't even want to mention). Also... I bought some AMD against all advice. I just think that DC market is going to be so big and AMD was not at it's yearly low of 76 or whatever, but it as beaten down after we were "liberated" in April.

The one thing I didn't do was ever invest in Crypto. My Cousin did. My Cousin started his a business when he was still in HS, made a lot of money, sold it. And he was bit into BTC. His wife or widow as he died from Cancer said he put 10-15K into it. I'm skeptical of the claim, but I know he was a big fan of it. Problem is, it didn't just sit in your fidelity account and she can't find where he left his wallet or the the password.

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, BrewerFan said:

I started day trading with 500 dollars and now I get 17,000 dollars every two weeks following Kelly Anne Fischer. You should look her up on Whatsapp!

My BIL watched one of those YouTube videos about day trading and wanted to borrow 30K to get started(that's apparently the magic number, you need 30K to be able to turn a profit... I asked why you couldn't start with 3K and just invest 1/10th as much and... I got nothing). 

 

I think you can have a self managed portfolio, but you just have to... really be patient and realize there are going to be times when you're going to lose a LOT of money if you sell whenever something happens. I think NVDA has gone down 40% or more 6 or 7 times since I invested in it and a lot of people who don't have the patience or stomach have sold. 

 

I have maxed out my Roth since my early 20s with index funds and then I put everything else into a relatively small number of stocks... though never without checking with a friend who manages very large fund. NVDA, AMZN, AVGO, TSM, GOOGL, then QBTS and OKLO have been my... own 'what the hell,' investments that hit(along with... 7 or 8 that have no that I don't even want to mention). Also... I bought some AMD against all advice. I just think that DC market is going to be so big and AMD was not at it's yearly low of 76 or whatever, but it as beaten down after we were "liberated" in April.

The one thing I didn't do was ever invest in Crypto. My Cousin did. My Cousin started his a business when he was still in HS, made a lot of money, sold it. And he was bit into BTC. His wife or widow as he died from Cancer said he put 10-15K into it. I'm skeptical of the claim, but I know he was a big fan of it. Problem is, it didn't just sit in your fidelity account and she can't find where he left his wallet or the the password.

I'm sure I could've made money day trading, but the time it takes just wasn't something I was willing to "invest".  Time is something you never get back. 

Yeah... ouch on the BTC password part.  A few years ago, I realized that my wife would have no idea where I invest money so I documented that in our fire safe along with my will. Probably a good reminder to update that as I've consolidated previous 401ks...

 

[BrewerFan]

21 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

I'm sure I could've made money day trading, but the time it takes just wasn't something I was willing to "invest".  Time is something you never get back. 

Yeah... ouch on the BTC password part.  A few years ago, I realized that my wife would have no idea where I invest money so I documented that in our fire safe along with my will. Probably a good reminder to update that as I've consolidated previous 401ks...

 

I'm sorry, I should have put that in blue. That's just on every financial channel you see on YT or X. It's always these wildly unrealistic returns from day trading.

Maybe you could have made money, but it's an exceptionally small amount of people who do. 

 

I'm of the belief that there is a time and a place for trading, but I'm at a point where I just want my money invested. Vanguard just put margin on my account. I didn't ask for it, don't want it. Don't want to have to pay 12% to borrow money. 

I won't risk more than 10% of the money I have in my brokerage(so not touching my Roth, not touching my joint retirement account, just the money I actively manage and that's what I'll use for anything speculative). 

 

As for the BTC, I don't have a clue what happened. It's become family lore now. I know he sold his first company for 8M when he was like 25 and then he started another, by 27 it was growing and then bone cancer. 

I'm GUESSING he sold it when he was going all over trying to find a cure. He did leave a 7 figure trust for his daughter, enough for his wife(who had gotten her nursing license) a good chunk and again, paid off house and vehicles.

I've set up trusts and spoken with a lawyer in the event of an untimely demise. The only thing that I don't... openly share is money that I inherited and then bought some property with and then subsequently sold and now manage on my own but even on that, I've named an my beneficiaries. They just don't know about it. 

 

[LouisEly]

Another weak jobs report.  Not just that it's lower than expected, but the fourth weak jobs report in a row.  Revisions showed a net loss of 13K jobs in June.  Wholesale trade and manufacturing saw declines of 12K for August.  Unemployment ticked up to 4.3%.

I took pretty much a flat 10% across the board trim on my holdings (a little more on S&P 500 and NVDA, and of course, sold them at the lowest point of the day) and put it in bonds.  Yes, the markets are pricing in three cuts for the rest of the year but... the reason for the three cuts has me worried.  And we're in September and October, historically the two worst months for selloffs.

Wondering if I should be trimming more like 25%.  Or more.

[nate82]

19 hours ago, LouisEly said:

Wondering if I should be trimming more like 25%.  Or more.

No do the opposite.  You should be buying during dips.  Historically people who buy during the dips come out well ahead of people who sell and wait.

Unless you are day trading or you are already at a loss you should be buying and not selling.

You could trim now and then buy again in October. But trying to time the market is usually a losing strategy.  I have been buying more in the down months and it has been paying off this year so far.

[BrewerFan]

On 9/5/2025 at 5:17 PM, LouisEly said:

Another weak jobs report.  Not just that it's lower than expected, but the fourth weak jobs report in a row.  Revisions showed a net loss of 13K jobs in June.  Wholesale trade and manufacturing saw declines of 12K for August.  Unemployment ticked up to 4.3%.

I took pretty much a flat 10% across the board trim on my holdings (a little more on S&P 500 and NVDA, and of course, sold them at the lowest point of the day) and put it in bonds.  Yes, the markets are pricing in three cuts for the rest of the year but... the reason for the three cuts has me worried.  And we're in September and October, historically the two worst months for selloffs.

Wondering if I should be trimming more like 25%.  Or more.

I think October is actually... one of the better months. August is one of the worst and Sept is the worst.

But I'd agree with Nate. Just keep buying. If you're in long-term, you'll be good.

I am selling AMD, but... I'll just put more into TSM and GOOGL(which I still think is undervalued). I also feel like I should buy PLTR, but... I can't help but feel like there's going to be a chance to add some lower. And I keep saying that and I haven't found a price that I want to add at(since April and I didn't buy in April).