Finances, Stock Market, Money Market, Mutual Funds, Investments, Savings, etc.

[baymule]

This is a good thread. Thanks for starting it.
You can buy stocks through Computershare.com There are no brokerage fees or commissions. Pick a solid stock that pays dividends and park your money there. D.R.I.P. stocks build up. Dividend Re-Investment Program. The dividends go into your account, quarterly the dividends purchase stock and grow your stocks.

 

[baymule]

I don't play in the stock market. (Period). The reason is simple... I don't like money, it creates way to many problems, 1 Timothy 6:10.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

Don’t knock wealth. Sure, many wealthy people are not that concerned about others, but it’s what you do with it that counts. Money, used wisely, is a good thing. It takes money for practically everything so giving to churches and charities helps others less fortunate.
Don’t forget, a wealthy man gave his very own new tomb for the body of Jesus.

 

[flowerbug]

This is a good thread. Thanks for starting it.
You can buy stocks through Computershare.com There are no brokerage fees or commissions. Pick a solid stock that pays dividends and park your money there. D.R.I.P. stocks build up. Dividend Re-Investment Program. The dividends go into your account, quarterly the dividends purchase stock and grow your stocks.

it's been ages since i've thought of DRIPs, and also about the actual stock certificates that you could hold instead of having them at a brokerage - when you bought or sold that meant those certificates needed to be sent through the mail and you sure didn't want to lose them. so in the end it just made more sense to leave things with the brokerage.

waxing nostalgic here a moment more for the older days when i was in an investment club and first learned about DRIPS and started doing them on my own too. before the computers were really going and the brokerage did not keep track of your basis in what you bought and sold so you had to keep track of that yourself. i am not doing DRIPS any more (explained below), but i did have a portfolio of about a half dozen stocks besides my regular ones (that were not set up to do DRIP).

i don't really miss that though now. computers can keep track of this and do the math when needed. so i'm happy for that. i do keep an eye on things. sometimes computers make assumptions that are not correct.


ok, so let's talk about basis, capital gains and losses.

as a beginning investor when you buy something the price you pay (plus any commission/fees) is the basis for that purchase. when you sell it, the price you get (minus commission/fees) is the net amount.

subtract your basis from the net amount and any positive amount is a profit called a capital gain (of which part may be needed to pay some taxes). if the amount is negative then that is a capital loss and there is no capital gain tax. some of the loss may be written off against income. note however, that all of this gets a bit fun when reading through the IRS publications or if you are doing complicated things and have a lot of other financial stuff going on you'll deal with your accountant or tax preparer.


back to DRIPS... (no it's not raining )...

with a DRIP plan each reinvestment was an accounting event and i had to keep track of each of them. when i got to where i was starting to sell some things off i decided to simplify my life and accounting and sold the DRIP stocks off so that i was back to just my blocks of shares stocks that i'd been holding forever. gladly since then times have changed. computers and brokerages are required now to keep track of things better.

now the brokerages will keep track of your gains and losses and basis automatically but you will be asked what accounting method you want to use for your stock sales. FIFO, LIFO or something else. FIFO is first in, first out, LIFO is last in, first out. etc. but all of this is important because you do need to know another thing about a stock purchase and sale. that is how long you've held it. because things you hold for the short term can be taxed differently than those you hold longer term.

all of this is described in the IRS publications. if you need something to read sometime...

 

[flowerbug]

Don’t knock wealth. Sure, many wealthy people are not that concerned about others, but it’s what you do with it that counts. Money, used wisely, is a good thing. It takes money for practically everything so giving to churches and charities helps others less fortunate.
Don’t forget, a wealthy man gave his very own new tomb for the body of Jesus.

i'm not sure how a person could save up for retirement or buying a house or a car without some basic idea of savings and investing?

 

[flowerbug]

I'm not sure about the stability of the stock market.

it goes up and goes down. there are ways of spreading the risk around and also hedging but that involves things i don't do myself. i've always taken the long view so that any momentary changes down usually mean that a longer term investor will be buying regularly so that you're buying when it is cheaper along with the rest of the time.

over the past 50 years the downward moves have often been good buying opportunities for companies i've been following for a while (for those willing to buy individual stocks along with their other investments - i also have mutual funds).

ultimately though you do have to accept that the stock market is not a risk free investment and that it can go down. that is why i always recommend that people have a savings cushion built up and other investments too.

 

[Trying2keepitReal]

what about cryptocurrency...anyone dug into it? I have no idea/clue about how it works, if I should start investing or what the long-term probability is. I am so uneducated when it comes to financial investments

 

[flowerbug]

what about cryptocurrency...anyone dug into it? I have no idea/clue about how it works, if I should start investing or what the long-term probability is. I am so uneducated when it comes to financial investments

i do understand them, but i won't get into them. ethically i do not want to put my money into something that uses a lot of electricity to generate and maintain. also it may not recoverable in case it gets stolen or lost. i don't consider them mature enough or secure enough so that even adds more to the "too risky for me" part of the evaluation.

when i pay for something with cash there's nobody taking a cut of the transaction to enable it (there are often taxes but that's a different issue ) and i don't have to have access to any device to be able to do it. credit cards and checks can involve some fees but that's different because you're not usually paying a conversion fee for going between different currencies.

 

[Medicine Woman]

I do look at a few stocks and make investments as I am able. I also look at the big picture and peoples fears and concerns. Do in 2016 Hillary was definitely gonna win the presidency. I wasn’t voting for her but no one had Trump winning. So I was like….people are gonna be buying guns and ammo like crazy so that’s what I invested in. Well I won my vote but what happened to my investments didn’t go well. But I refuse to sell at a loss because that goes totally against my plans. It took 6 months to recoup. Then I made changes.
My broker doesn’t like some of my decisions. I have done well with some of my purchases. I save money and when I have extra I invest with the idea….well what do people think they have to do right now? So when people froze to death in TX I was thinking I would invest in wood burning stoves or alternative energy. Look at what people fear and what they will do to cancel out the fear and see if you can tap into that.

 

[FarmerJamie]

what about cryptocurrency...anyone dug into it? I have no idea/clue about how it works, if I should start investing or what the long-term probability is. I am so uneducated when it comes to financial investments

The wife played in crypto in 2020/2021 with a some fun money and turned out a nice little profit.

She exited her position after some shenanigans by some brokerages pumping and dumping, as well as dragging out fund transfers on personal accounts.

We don't view crypto as a long term solution right now. New players are entering the playing field with their own "coin". Fun trading these if you like the day trader mentality and rapid up and downs. *I* don't enjoy it.

The Feds are taking it seriously enough to enact special tax rules. Lol.

 

[FarmerJamie]

i do understand them, but i won't get into them. ethically i do not want to put my money into something that uses a lot of electricity to generate and maintain. also it may not recoverable in case it gets stolen or lost. i don't consider them mature enough or secure enough so that even adds more to the "too risky for me" part of the evaluation.

when i pay for something with cash there's nobody taking a cut of the transaction to enable it (there are often taxes but that's a different issue ) and i don't have to have access to any device to be able to do it. credit cards and checks can involve some fees but that's different because you're not usually paying a conversion fee for going between different currencies.

Device to do it? Are you specifically talking about "mining"? To trade, you can do over your phone, like any other stock/security. Easy peasy to trade