Down goes the Dow

So after a year of day trading and wasting a lot of time, my account has been pretty flat this year. I would have been better off buying and holding FANG stocks or VTI this whole time.

I have 63k in my Roth. I kinda want to put 10k each into Apple, MSFT, Amazon, Google, Tesla and NVDA. Thoughts? Or should I just throw it all in VTI?

Hard to know. But of those Amazon has been stalling out. I would expect that that has something to do with it being more of a lock-down play and we have been opening back up.

seattle prattle wrote:

Hard to know. But of those Amazon has been stalling out. I would expect that that has something to do with it being more of a lock-down play and we have been opening back up.

Sideways movement is good right? Consolidation before a breakout.

investing noob wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Hard to know. But of those Amazon has been stalling out. I would expect that that has something to do with it being more of a lock-down play and we have been opening back up.

Sideways movement is good right? Consolidation before a breakout.

I wouldn't assume that to be the way the FANG stocks work. Hey, it's probably a good long term play, but might take some waiting.

Maybe I'll just do VTI then.

investing noob wrote:

So after a year of day trading and wasting a lot of time, my account has been pretty flat this year. I would have been better off buying and holding FANG stocks or VTI this whole time.

I have 63k in my Roth. I kinda want to put 10k each into Apple, MSFT, Amazon, Google, Tesla and NVDA. Thoughts? Or should I just throw it all in VTI?

I own a lot of VTI and putting your money in it would offer less risk but also less upside. Those 6 stocks make up combined about 20% of VTI should you would be essentially watering down the upside potential of those booming stocks. I would suggest maybe putting $30K in VTI and $30K in maybe 4 of the other stocks.

investing noob wrote:

I have 63k in my Roth. I kinda want to put 10k each into Apple, MSFT, Amazon, Google, Tesla and NVDA. Thoughts? Or should I just throw it all in VTI?

QQQ gets all those FANG stocks and some others.

Top 10 Holdings (55.70% of Total Assets)Get Quotes for Top Holdings

Name Symbol % Assets

Apple Inc AAPL 11.00%

Microsoft Corp MSFT 9.82%

Amazon.com Inc AMZN 8.35%

Facebook Inc A FB 4.01%

Facebook Inc Class A FB 4.01%

Tesla Inc TSLA 3.90%

Alphabet Inc Class C GOOG 3.90%

NVIDIA Corp NVDA 3.65%

Alphabet Inc A GOOGL 3.53%

Alphabet Inc Class A GOOGL 3.53%

This VTI vs QQQ convo does raise some questions

well, one question

given the massive performance from tech stocks...should we own ONLY a tech stock index if we understand the risk?

Tech seems to be what creates high stock price appreciation. I mean look at them, one after the next.

tech is up 22% per year for the last 10 years. That's extraordinary. Wish I had owned VGT and nothing but VGT.

the US is up 16% per year over 10 years. Which is very very good but not 22%

and right on cue, the nasdaq hits a new all time high today

but not the sp500 or dow or r2k

agip wrote:

This VTI vs QQQ convo does raise some questions

well, one question

given the massive performance from tech stocks...should we own ONLY a tech stock index if we understand the risk?

Tech seems to be what creates high stock price appreciation. I mean look at them, one after the next.

tech is up 22% per year for the last 10 years. That's extraordinary. Wish I had owned VGT and nothing but VGT.

the US is up 16% per year over 10 years. Which is very very good but not 22%

our approx. household allocation:

Tech (equities & ETFs):40%

Nasdaq ETF: 5%

S&P 500 index: 15%

Growth funds: 15%

Small Cap funds/ETFs: 15%

Other: 10%

seattle prattle wrote:our approx. household allocation:

Tech (equities & ETFs):40%

Nasdaq ETF: 5%

S&P 500 index: 15%

Growth funds: 15%

Small Cap funds/ETFs: 15%

Other: 10%

SP,

what proportion of your net worth does that represent? I've just done the math for us, and excluding a defined benefits pension (likely worth about the same as I calculate otherwise in net present value), we break down like this:

Real estate 60%

Cash and equivalents 15%

Company shares 14%

US equities (mainly QQQ and VOO) 5%

non-US equities (index-tracking ETFs) 3%

Bonds 2%

Art 1%

This is a much different (way more conservative) breakdown than even two years ago (much heavier in RE, cash and company shares), and may look overly conservative on first glance, but I find I sleep at night and rarely check our investment accounts, whereas when we were even just a little more aggressive, I was rarely away from the online broker more than an hour or two, which surely must have been bad for my health... We are way too close to the possibility of retirement to put our nest egg (and retirement lifestyle) at real risk.

is that real estate the home you live in or something else?

agip wrote:is that real estate the (1) home you live in or (2) something else?

(1) yes

(2) yes

Part of the real estate equity comes from the house we currently live in.

understood and I applaud your good judgement.

For us,

Cash and equivalents: 3%

Real Estate: 10%

Investments: 87%

We have a pension we are currently drawing upon which is 30% of one former income., and will be drawing upon SS at age 70.

No debt.

Don't sleep through the night, but I can live with that,

Thanks for sharing and taking an interest. I do appreciate it.

top down, I'm at

Stocks 47%

My home 26%

Bonds 21%

Cash/Gold 6%

Need some Bitcoin and Eth in dat dere portfolio.

I agree with Nassim Taleb: “Crypto makes Nasdaq 2000 look rational.”

seattle prattle wrote:Thanks for sharing and taking an interest.

Right back at ya! I realize that was a fairly intrusive question, sorry about that.

It's interesting to see we each have widely different risk thresholds, for whatever reason. In my case, I've never been particularly interested in money, but I love math, data and patterns, so dabbling with investing has always been a fun activity that tickles my funny brain. I'm not a gambler, though, and never have been. So in the past when I have what were (for me at the time) "big bets" it always felt very uncomfortable.

Mostly through sheer luck, we've ended up at a place where we are not wealthy but we are solidly secure and will be comfortable in retirement, able to live the lifestyle we would like (like active retirees, not like rock stars...). But there's still time for me to screw things up and throw away a month of travel per year in retirement... :-)

Very cool.

I can learn a lot from that approach. And should.

I am about to rebalance, and that is overdue by all accounts, but I just have it in my head to not do it until i return to my all time high. That could be at market close, in 32 minutes.

A sane person would just say 'close enough'.

Good talking to you and glad it's working out!