275
votes
Why do people save so much?
When people over 60 reflect back on their life, they generally do not say:
I wish I took out more student loans.
I wish I bought more expensive cars.
I wish I bought fancier clothes.
I wish I didn't ...
- 47.3k
219
votes
Why do people save so much?
Why do they need so much money as old people?
The future is unexpected.
My country has universal healthcare, so medical expenses are not a worry.
Will it have UHC in 50 years? Probably... but ...
- 50.8k
111
votes
Why do people save so much?
The reason some people save so much so young is that they understand the growth potential of COMPOUND INTEREST.
Every dollar that I put away for my daughter at 2 years old can be worth $1,000 when she ...
109
votes
Accepted
If a broad long-term investment in the stock market is such a good deal, why don't banks do the "obvious" things?
Fundamentally, I think there's a high level (and perhaps unsatisfying) answer to this. It's because that's not "banking" as a business, and a bank is established to do banking, not to get ...
- 17.1k
71
votes
Why does risk level matter?
Because we don't have the rest of time to recover our losses. Since we'll all want to actually spend our money in a few decades at most, an investment that may have suffered a sharp fall at the time ...
- 23.5k
67
votes
Why does risk level matter?
Before getting into a practical example, I think it would be valuable to define what "risk" actually is.
Risk is by definition the magnitude of variance in possible results. When you put $1k in the ...
- 42.9k
60
votes
Why do people save so much?
For myself, I saved because having accumulated a nice pile of money - enough to live modestly on the income (what I call being "independently poor") is both security and freedom.
Take security. What ...
- 11.2k
60
votes
Accepted
What's funny about "He leveraged his @#% deep into soy beans and cocoa futures" in The Jerk (1979)?
The joke contrasts a low risk investment strategy with an extremely high risk strategy. The modern equivalent would be "He leveraged his ass deep into Bitcoin and GameStop futures."
The low ...
- 821
57
votes
Accepted
How risky is real estate?
Where is the risk? The short answer is...
Property damage from weather, termites, tenants, whatever.
How about tenants who stop paying the rent and you need to go through legal channels to evict ...
- 76.9k
56
votes
Why cannot LLCs be used to negate increased risks when doing leveraged investments?
Answer: Due diligence by the lender.
It occasionally happens, and sometimes the lending officer is in on a scam, but banks do not tend to loan money where there is a large chance that they will not ...
- 78.6k
50
votes
Why do people save so much?
I'll be living in my own house that is already paid off at that
point, so no rent or mortgage payments.
This very much depends on where you live. In the major cities of the costal USA many folks ...
- 13.9k
44
votes
Accepted
Is putting money in a 401(k) plan risky?
Mutual fund investments within a 401(k) plan (or outside a 401(k) plan for that matter,) are NOT covered by the FDIC regardless of whether the plan administrator is FDIC-insured or not; they are not ...
- 31.6k
41
votes
Why do people save so much?
My country has universal healthcare, so medical expenses are not a worry.
People in their 20s (and 30s) thinking about the future may choose not to gamble that the government in 50 years will look ...
- 6,788
38
votes
Why should I hold stocks for the long term when the risk of more companies going bankrupt increases over time?
Whenever I see advice for "long term investing" it usually includes the caveat of making those investments into diversified index funds such as VOO or VTI. As opposed to investments into ...
- 10.1k
35
votes
Does dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later?
The paper you are referring to is likely the Vanguard report Dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later.
The thrust of the paper is that lump sum investing outperforms dollar cost averaging ...
- 5,107
30
votes
Accepted
Must a company have a specific number of employees to do an IPO?
While there is no legal reason to have a minimum number of employees, there can be a practical reason.
They want to look like a good solid investment so that investors will give them money, which ...
- 750
30
votes
Accepted
Why would long-term investor care about volatility?
If you really do not need to withdraw the money, it is just for psychological reasons. Excessive volatility makes many people uneasy and probably rightfully so given the amount of money involved after ...
- 7,462
30
votes
Accepted
Why do secured bonds have less default risk than unsecured bonds?
Unsecured bonds are backed by all assets of the issuer
No, they are not secured by any specific assets (hence "unsecured").
With a secured bond, in the event of default, the bondholders ...
- 140k
29
votes
Accepted
What does a well diversified self-managed investment portfolio look like?
"Diversified" is relative.
Alfred has all his money in Apple. He's done very well over the last 10 years, but I think most investors would say that he's taking an incredible risk by putting ...
- 116k
28
votes
Is putting money in a 401(k) plan risky?
Investments are usually insured by SIPC instead of FDIC, however it is a different kind of protection. Essentially it just protects you from the broker going under, not the investment losing value.
...
- 53.4k
27
votes
Why cannot LLCs be used to negate increased risks when doing leveraged investments?
Alright, so the bank would still, then, agree to lend 10K against the 10K in equity, right? That still significantly increases profits (24% vs 15%) and would afford the same loophole.
As a general ...
- 21k
25
votes
Must a company have a specific number of employees to do an IPO?
No, there is no minimum employee limit in order for a company to initiate an initial public offering.
- 49k
25
votes
Accepted
Should I be worried that I won't be given a receipt if I pay with cash?
If this is because he wants to avoid paying taxes, will I get in trouble if I agree to have him work on my vehicle?
You should check your state and local sales tax laws to be certain, but in my state ...
- 140k
25
votes
How risky is real estate?
where is the risk?
Losing renters
Damage done by renters
Unexpected maintenance
Legal liability
Capital losses
Other factors that should be included in expenses:
Routine maintenance
Paying the ...
- 140k
23
votes
Accepted
As a 22-year-old, how risky should I be with my 401(k) investments?
At 50 years old, and a dozen years or so from retirement, I am close to 100% in equities in my retirement accounts. Most financial planners would say this is way too risky, which sort of addresses ...
- 78.6k
22
votes
Why do people save so much?
Everyone has different retirement goals. Some people want to retire before they are 70, the earlier they want to retire the more they need to save now. Other people want to travel in retirement and ...
- 70.8k
22
votes
Risks of using home equity for high risk market investing
The United States (S&P 500) is a great example of Survivorship Bias.
There is no reason to believe it will continue to deliver returns as good as the last hundred years going forwards.
There are ...
- 2,509
21
votes
Why should I hold stocks for the long term when the risk of more companies going bankrupt increases over time?
While some companies go bankrupt, some continue to exist, paying dividends until they ultimately liquidate or get bought out by another company. 'Nearly all companies go bankrupt' is an incredibly ...
- 42.9k
20
votes
How risky is real estate?
The biggest problem your friend has isn't the risks associated with real estate per se, and the existing answers have covered those pretty well.
The problem is that your friend is about to sink their ...
- 1,867
19
votes
Accepted
Yield on municipal bonds versus treasury
In a lot of situations municipal bond returns are "triple tax free." No federal or state income tax and no AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax -- which is largely irrelevant at this point) liability.
This ...
- 49k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible