109
If you need that money for a payment 3 1/2 months away, then you need to be extremely risk averse. Maybe even to the point that you may want to spread that $1mil to several banks to stay under the FDIC limits of $250k/account. You will not get great return, but you will be sure to have it when you want it such a short time away.
62
Lots of people will post lots of advice about what to invest in, or which research blog to read, but definitely the best advice is:
Talk to a financial planner
As newbie investors there are lots of basic mistakes you can make that will cost you dear. A good financial planner will avoid them, even if they don't get you the absolute best theoretical return. ...
23
In addition to R.Hamilton's answer (upvoted), I would add that there is some not insignificant risk at the moment of financial crisis #2 due to the demand and supply shocks, (covid 19 + oil market drops ), overstretched corporate borrowing, and central banks having run out of ammo trying to keep 2007 on ice.
I think it would be very wise to split the money ...
21
The Japanese economy has had a unique history, with a huge bubble in the 1980s and a long unwinding afterward.
I don't see why that would result in a market that appears to have brief periods of growth. If anything, I'd expect their recent economic history to produce a market that goes straight down, rather than inconsistently hovering back up.
Apart ...
20
As long as I can buy it today and sell it at a date of my choosing
Typically investors don't purchase shares representing indefinite ownership of commodities, instead they are traded as futures. Oil Futures have a settlement date, i.e. they expire and you have to buy them again.
Let's take a look at NYMEX WTI Light Sweet Crude Oil futures.
Here we can ...
18
Short answer:
It probably makes sense to avoid the PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), but it ultimately depends on how probable it is that you are unable to pay the monthly installments with/without the extra savings.
Long answer:
While i am not an expert on the specifics of the US mortgage market (I presume the question pertains to US), it seems that a ...
14
In my opinion that there is no better resource than bogleheads.org. This site is founded on the opinions of John Bogle, who is credited with founding the first index fund. There are tutorials, articles, and very helpful folks that help get you started. If you ask a question, they will ask for more information like your current income and assets, your ...
13
To me, there are two great reasons to invest passively. The first is that it is impossible to time to market. Bargains may come along and you may choose to do some individual stock investment then, but it will be for meaningless amounts of your portfolio (< 5%).
The second is that you are far better off concentrating on your chosen career then trying ...
9
"The fact that that exists appears to indicate that they would have a way to see if an employee was engaged in this."
Are you suggesting that laws only exist when there is surveillance of your compliance? Petty theft is illegal even if there is no camera looking at the till.
To answer your question, no your employer cannot see your investment holdings ...
8
Understand how investing works for yourself
You need a freshman's understanding of investing and how the industry works. Fortunately this isn't hard at all: John Bogle's book "Common Sense on Mutual Funds" is a great place to start.
You need that so you have enough intuition to recognize poppycock when you see it. We're not asking you to get an MBA.
I ...
answered Mar 11 at 17:03
Harper - Reinstate Monica
40.1k8 gold badges62 silver badges131 bronze badges
7
Imagine if you had put your funds into a diversified equity mutual fund 2 weeks ago. You might have lost ~15-20% of the value of your downpayment savings.
In a scenario where you need funds on the short term [and 3 years is short term for these purposes], you want to take on as little risk as possible. That means a savings account, or some form of a ...
7
What are good areas for me focus on that are likely to see eventual high gains without requiring too high an effort or understanding in trading from me?
A low-cost stock market index fund. Preferably one that is internationally diversified. If you can't find an internationally diversified stock market index fund for low cost, buy market-specific funds to ...
7
The only certain things about investing are taxes and fees.
So, calculate how much you lose to taxes when making the transition. Calculate how much you would save on fees every year after making the transition.
You didn't specify the details of the taxation scheme. I'm not familiar with US tax system, but at least in Finland we pay 30% capital gains tax on ...
5
I would argue that you have three possible options, two tax advantaged and one not.
Backdoor Roth - Make a non-deductible contribution to a Traditional IRA and immediately convert it to a Roth. This is essentially the same as contributing to a Roth but with no income limits.
You said that you currently have a pre-tax IRA, this can complicate things. You ...
5
Unless you want take a more significant risk, that's probably anout the best you can do.
Investing it into the market - bonds or ETFs or even shares - would give you a chance to earn a lot on it, but also to lose a lot on it. With a short time horizon like this, you would not be able to recover losses. If you had ten years, the recommendation would be to ...
5
Yes, it could mean selling low and buying high, but it could also mean selling high and buying low. There really is no way to know.
Because it is inside an HSA, there are no immediate tax implications; you don’t have to worry about paying capital gains or triggering wash sale rules as you might if you were liquidating and rebuying in a taxable account.
...
answered Mar 24 at 16:42
Ben Miller - Remember Monica
90.3k23 gold badges254 silver badges325 bronze badges
4
Possibly, invest the funds long-term and re-finance the land debt from a position of better credit standing.
Also, close to 50% of the funds in a brokerage account can be taken out of the account on margin and institutional margin rates can be found. Then an interest-only loan can be developed such that simply future performance of the investment possibly ...
4
This is a fundamentally opinion based issue but I feel at 18 your plan had two flaws. Firstly it is a bit too risk averse. You have many years to invest and bonds tend to give very poor yields in the long term.
Second you have no international exposure. In most cases if you have a longer time horizon it can be worth having some international funds.
I would ...
4
You're right, there's not a strong line between "short-term" and "long-term" other than for taxes, where 1-year distinguishes between short-term and long-term capital gains.
What you really want to know is "what are the chances that I'll lose more than 5% in 3 years if I invest in X", which is not a simple answer.
If you want to use history as a guide, ...
4
Is it possible to trade these commodities on the stock market?
No. Commodities are traded in a commodities market. Stock markets are for stocks. Please do a lot of research prior to executing trades it is akin to options investing. However you can trade companies that benefit from increasing prices in oil and gas. For example Exxon or for a more ...
4
Common advice given is that if you decide to become an active or passive investor, you should stick with the choice you've made.
No you shouldn't. It is perfectly fine to supplement an active portfolio by passive index funds, or to supplement an index fund portfolio with several carefully chosen stocks.
What is bad advice is to buy lots of various active ...
4
Common advice given is that if you decide to become an active or passive investor, you should stick with the choice you've made. That you're less likely to be successful if you try to pursue both active and passive investing strategies.
Do you have a source for this? That advice is so very wrong. It suggests, that once you make a choice you can never ever ...
4
Assuming you are sure you want to make the move (and I agree, I did the same):
The best time is when they are (both) rather low. That way, you 'harvest' losses for taxes. You get less when selling, but you also pay less when buying, which about evens out. This is true for any taxable investments, so do it on a (near) bottom-day.
It does of course not apply ...
3
I created a simulation to test the performance of cash, crab, and "falling knife" strategies in a variety of random market conditions. What I found is that in a rising market, the "crab" strategy outperforms both "falling knife" and "cash". In a roughly flat market, all three strategies are roughly the same performance. In a falling market, "cash" ...
3
Interesting idea. Dont catch the falling knife strategy sounds like you're buying while the stocks are appreciating (e.g. they are trending up) - which seems like the opposite to the Warren Buffet advice:
Be fearful when everyone else is greedy. Be greedy when everyone is
fearful
I think Crab investing is the way to go, dollar cost averaging spreads ...
3
Many of the online tools will allow you to look at the financial details of the company. They typically have a section/tab that list the largest investors. This includes people, investment companies and mutual funds.
for example:
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/holders?p=GOOG
Top Mutual Fund Holders
Holder ...
3
Copied from the comment by @BobBaerker, so some poor sap wouldn't have to experience my last few days...
There is an online system that allows doing just that
One can look for overlaps in funds and also find funds with specific stock
3
Invest the entire amount into an index fund as soon as possible. You're not going to be able to time the market. You're not going to beat the market. You'll be amazingly lucky if you can even get close to average returns since you have to account for fees, even on index funds. Source: https://www.moneycrashers.com/reasons-shouldnt-time-market/
Your current ...
3
For what it is worth, if you work in some regulated industries an employer CAN make you provide access to your investments for compliance checking. Mine does, as do most of the other big Accounting firms. They can't do anything except see what my investments are, not even sure if they see the dollar amounts.
At my company they download it every day and ...
2
First, a small terminology correction. You don't buy a naked call. That's an outdated form of description from decades ago. A naked call is a short call that is not covered by long stock or a long call.
Your broker allows such trades because the margin requirement (the risk) is the difference in strikes less the premium received.
My broker ...
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