Investing

MAXPOWERS_sl said:

I have a unique situation and could use investment advice. I'm a law enforcement officer with a take home car. I live in an area below my means but they let me live here for free. I currently have two student loans (private) approximately 11K at 5% and 15K at 2%, as well as a car loan 12K at 3%. My minimum payments on my student loans combined is 223 but I pay 350 monthly. After over time work and living expenses, I bank between 1500 and 2000 a month. I currently have 8K sitting in the bank. I'm undecided if I should 1. invest it. 2. Pay into loans. 3. Keep saving for a house. 4. Use the money as a down payment on an investment property. Renting it out while still living rent free. I'm open to opinions.

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Don't pay down those loans early - those rates are extraordinarily cheap. You're very lucky to only be paying that much interest.

You should definitely invest it, but in something safe. Do you know any financial planners from highschool / college etc? Try to find one that you trust - maybe a family member can recommend theirs to you or something. Talk to them about starting to plan your future. They'll have the best advice to answer the third and fourth points, which depend on what your goals are in life.

jarrettmp_sl said:

Just found this thread. I invest for a living. Any questions you guys have I'll try my best to answer

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Rebalance my portfolio for me. I'm 29, married with 1 kid. I haven't changed allocations since early to mid 2012 so its been close to 2 years now. Personal Rate of Return for last year was 24.3%.

Here are my current allocations:



Here are my options:

Eyashusa_sl said:

Rebalance my portfolio for me. I'm 29, married with 1 kid. I haven't changed allocations since early to mid 2012 so its been close to 2 years now. Personal Rate of Return for last year was 24.3%.

Here are my current allocations:

Here are my options:

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24% a year, and you want to change!?!!? I would take all money out of fixed income fund and put it into more aggressive equity funds. And I would take some out of equity income fund and put it into small cap stuff. I think bonds are a very bad investment right now, and equity income is going to be similar to bonds.

You're 29, very young, so you have time to be aggressive.

But I am not a financial planner. You should probably talk to one of them. I am much, much, much more aggressive with my trades.

I want to be aggressive so that's kinda why I asked you

and yeah I know bonds are shit and that needs to get changed.

MAXPOWERS_sl said:

I have a unique situation and could use investment advice. I'm a law enforcement officer with a take home car. I live in an area below my means but they let me live here for free. I currently have two student loans (private) approximately 11K at 5% and 15K at 2%, as well as a car loan 12K at 3%. My minimum payments on my student loans combined is 223 but I pay 350 monthly. After over time work and living expenses, I bank between 1500 and 2000 a month. I currently have 8K sitting in the bank. I'm undecided if I should 1. invest it. 2. Pay into loans. 3. Keep saving for a house. 4. Use the money as a down payment on an investment property. Renting it out while still living rent free. I'm open to opinions.

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Can you use your take home car for personal uses? I.e., going to the grocery, details, etc. If so, is there any reason why you need a separate vehicle with a loan? Could you swing selling that vehicle and using the proceeds to pay off the car loan? 3% isn't very high interest wise, but it's pretty high for a car loan. The last I heard car loans below 1% are the norm.

I would personally pay off the 5% student loan as quickly as possible. Maybe throw $2k from the bank at it and as much cash as you can spare each month. You should be able to pay it off in 6-8 months.

Police officer is a pretty stable job, so while you want to keep several months of liquid investments around in case of an emergency, I doubt you need to keep 6 months on hand.

Do you have disability insurance? Police officers have one of the highest occurrences of injuries on the job of any profession. If you don't have a policy, or you have a shitty one, get a new one. You want a policy that will pay for at least a year of wages and medical expenses.

;tldr I would pay off the 5% as soon as possible, using some of the savings. To compensate for the reduced savings, I would make sure to have a really good disability insurance policy. If I could get rid of the personal car and loan I would do so. After the 5% is paid off, start saving for a house or investment property.

The wolf of Oklahoma is trying to set us up for a pump & dump.

What is everyone's favorite trading platform?

Tirant_sl said:

What is everyone's favorite trading platform?

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I use Scottrade and am very happy with it -- but all I do is execute trades, i.e. I don't use it as a research platform. $7 per trade, no other fees. Money that I pull from my bank account via Scottrade shows up immediately (no idea if this is the case with all platforms).

Fidelity because that's where my wife's 401k was rolled into.

It's pretty hard to go past interactive brokers for retail trading.

Robinhood is coming... sometime. You can sign up for early access now.

$0 trading

Robinhood - Zero-Commission Stock Brokerage

Eyashusa_sl said:

Robinhood is coming... sometime. You can sign up for early access now.

$0 trading

Robinhood - Zero-Commission Stock Brokerage

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fwiw nothing is free, this is deceptive advertising imo
they will sell the order flow to wholesalers, which results in the customer paying his commissions via wider spreads, albeit deceptively hidden.

Not that other retail brokers don't do the same. But this way this brokerage firms interests and it's customers intererests are competing is not aligned. The brokerage firm will want to route its customers orders through whoever pays it the most, while it's customers would want the best market price (lowest spreads). These won't be the same.

I just have my account linked directly to vanguard, and purchase bi-weekly without any fees.