lol as if I have not bad-mouthed financial advisors enough in this thread? there is no way I will let other people manage my money. brain-dead passive is possible.. simple math - if you have a good income and have gone all in since the 2009 bottom, you should have enough by now.
1 more before I go to bed.. to give you an idea how mis-priced stocks have been. today AAPL is over $200.... can you believe it doubled in 2 years? how can the largest company with an established product go up this much in 2 years. in the summer of 2016, it's forward P/E was 10... 10! do anyone still remember? at the time when financial advisors were telling retirees and mom&pops to buy bonds? even junk bonds yielding 5%? junk bonds 5%... but the #1 company in the world is forward yielding 10%? I was like F this... I am gonna take a chance that AAPL would have zero growth forever.. and I will hold 10 years and get the company for free... so I loaded up. today AAPL is still at least 20% undervalued.. but why did financial advisors not tell clients to buy? because job security is always priority #1, why would they care about the clients... today you can still make a similar argument.... JNK is yielding 5.5% and AAPL is forward yielding 6%... does that make sense to you? why would anyone, who cares about his own money, put any bonds in the portfolio? mind you AAPL is still forward looking double digit earnings growth, on its way to transition into a service/software/AI business... even assuming zero growth, it's yielding higher than the JNK, which with some default rate the real yield is closer to 5%.. why are people so blind? it's all about the ego.. they are kicking themselves for missing the rally... they'd feel stupid to buy at $200 now, after missing the chance to buy at $100, $110... so they pray for a market crash, and think that some gold or bitcoin will enlarge their penis and make them whole. isn't that how retail thinks? check sentiment... everything is clear. and meanwhile what are the smart money doing? this year alone there have been at least 2 bogus stories since late Jan - the 'inflation fear' and the 'trade war fear'... and both proven bogus with QQQ and IWM making higher highs... so why do the pros work so hard to shake the tree, to collect every chip possible? because the target is much much higher. all the puzzle pieces are there... but it takes a lot of independent logical thinking to put them together. good luck.
OP: Get that financial planner that cost more then one year of kindergarden... He/She will talk too you about what you want and what your needs are now and in the future. The first question will be: How did you get the money? Is it a windfall or are you going to make more in the same amount? And so on... Only then you will have the advice that will work for you. Good advice cost a lot of money. Bad advice is free, but more costly. If you can not tell the difference between good and bad advice, you need help. Not at daytrading or investing, but how to handle the money and your life with it.
I definetly agree with this. And pay cash. Buy a home cash Buy 2 cars cash Set aside money for kid college fund. Buy a dog Put the rest in savings account for emergency fund. You DON'T have to invest. Get allllll the simple things right first.
agree on the 'simple things first'... however... why pay off the 4% mortgage, when you can get 13% from the QQQ; 1 car is enough.... take uber. college fund.. over-rated.. there are colleges you can get in for free now... in 20 years google university will have all the knowledge you want to get... and who knows, maybe we can just implant a chip and get all the knowledge, without any stupid learning process. dog - yes. emergency fund - yes.
You want to earn? Or simply save? Opportunity cost of the capital that you would lose not investing in the yielding assets is a cost you pay for highest degree of liquidity that money possess. Simply saying, your performance will be best in crash. Just want to take a look on the regular things from the other angle. Sometimes deciding to put money into work is not great idea (now)
Thanks everybody for the time you put here! I realized that i didn't give enough details. Let me expand a little more. I make roughly 90K/year with no 401K. My wife makes 70K/year but I think her business won't survive long and most importantly, she is 37 and just started her IRA last month. One kid on the way. I also forgot to mention that we live in NYC, not the cheapest city to live! I'm lucky to have those $900K, and I know that they can make a long way, but at the same time, if poorly invested, they might not be enough at some point. It is just that everything seems to be so high right now, from the stock market to the Real Estate and bonds. While it is virtually impossible to predict the future, my best goal would be to make that money grow, accepting some risks but not too much....I know I know, that's probably the goal of 90% of the people here.