Stock market investments now or later and who?

[gslander]

My thinking is the exact opposite of what you are describing. I believe in trading more, and taking more chances when young, then becoming more conservative as we age. Two of my father's friends were HEAVILY invested in tech stocks in the late 90's. After the crash, one of them had to come out of retirement and go back to work for several years. The other had to delay retirement many years.

Several years back I created a spreadsheet that calculates our projected monthly income at various ages based on 401k withdrawals, SS, pensions, and E-trade accnt withdrawals. Our goal is to work until we have saved a VERY comfortable buffer such that if another massive crash hit the markets, we would not have to change our lifestyle in retirement. So far things are looking good.

Since you mentioned 2025, the S&P500 went up 17.9% that year. Trading a 5% move 5 times in 2025 would have beat an index fund, but you would be required to pay short term capital gains tax on all of those transactions. Were you able to beat the S&P500 in 2025 with your trading of SPY and accounting for paying short term capital gains tax on what you made? Can you do it year after year after year? If so, hats off to you because that is VERY hard to do.

The other piece is if you have a full time job it's very difficult to sit there with multiple screens up of candle stick charts watching price moves all day. I have a hybrid office/plant role and I was either in a meeting or on the floor the entire day the market was open yesterday for example.

If I ever get laid off/AI'd out of role, or hopefully retire early, I'll probably be trading some of my stuff during the day.

 

[benXJ]

if there is anything left to trade!!!

 

[Will Carter]

The other piece is if you have a full time job it's very difficult to sit there with multiple screens up of candle stick charts watching price moves all day. I have a hybrid office/plant role and I was either in a meeting or on the floor the entire day the market was open yesterday for example.

Nah man. That's intraday trading. What I'm talking about is making one investing (trading) decision every week at 3:55 on Friday. Most weeks you do nothing.

@drkelly I don't think you're understanding me no matter how I try to explain it. Again, you're not alone, it's the way it's been sold to you for decades.

 

[justjeepin86]

Nah man. That's intraday trading. What I'm talking about is making one investing (trading) decision every week at 3:55 on Friday. Most weeks you do nothing.

@drkelly I don't think you're understanding me no matter how I try to explain it. Again, you're not alone, it's the way it's been sold to you for decades.

So, are you creating your own ticker or using a certain platform to follow the trends?

 

[gslander]

Nah man. That's intraday trading. What I'm talking about is making one investing (trading) decision every week at 3:55 on Friday. Most weeks you do nothing.

@drkelly I don't think you're understanding me no matter how I try to explain it. Again, you're not alone, it's the way it's been sold to you for decades.

That makes more sense

 

[drkelly]

@drkelly I don't think you're understanding me no matter how I try to explain it. Again, you're not alone, it's the way it's been sold to you for decades.

 

[jeepinmatt]

Nah man. That's intraday trading. What I'm talking about is making one investing (trading) decision every week at 3:55 on Friday. Most weeks you do nothing.

@drkelly I don't think you're understanding me no matter how I try to explain it. Again, you're not alone, it's the way it's been sold to you for decades.

So if you make 1 decision a week, and most weeks you do nothing, then how often are you actually trading? And if you're not actually trading, how are you making money?

 

[RatLabGuy]

And if you're not actually trading, how are you making money?

You only have to trade 1 time to make money.
The money follows the good trades.
you only need more trades if (when) your prior one turns out to be no longer a good one.

 

[VortecJeep]

I tend to mostly buy ETFs now that track different indices. I’m not smart enough or have the time to where I could beat the market, so I’ll settle for mostly matching the market.

 

[jeepinmatt]

You only have to trade 1 time to make money.
The money follows the good trades.
you only need more trades if (when) your prior one turns out to be no longer a good one.

Thank you for the wisdom. I was wondering how trading works. I now understand. I'm going to start trying to trade things now that I know what to do.

I'm just trying to figure out if @Will Carter is actively trading on a weekly basis, or only occasionally trading every few weeks based on some kind of chart indicator. Because it sure seems like mixed messages to me.

 

[gslander]

Thank you for the wisdom. I was wondering how trading works. I now understand. I'm going to start trying to trade things now that I know what to do.

I'm just trying to figure out if @Will Carter is actively trading on a weekly basis, or only occasionally trading every few weeks based on some kind of chart indicator. Because it sure seems like mixed messages to me.

Same, seems more like a play on dollar cost averaging but with a few astrict's after it. I guess selling on Friday afternoons make sense though. Curious as well

 

[RatLabGuy]

Thank you for the wisdom. I was wondering how trading works. I now understand. I'm going to start trying to trade things now that I know what to do.

I'm just trying to figure out if @Will Carter is actively trading on a weekly basis, or only occasionally trading every few weeks based on some kind of chart indicator. Because it sure seems like mixed messages to me.

He's told us previously... he's not trading anything at all, this is just intellectual masturbation about all the money he would have made if he actually did anything

 

[Will Carter]

I'm just trying to figure out if @Will Carter is actively trading on a weekly basis, or only occasionally trading every few weeks based on some kind of chart indicator.

Yes.

Because it sure seems like mixed messages to me.

What I do daily and what I’m telling people to do for investing are waaay different. And I understand that I’ve thrown a bunch of rando

Like right now. I got short last night and added this morning and have been losing all day until about 5 minutes ago.



But no one on this thread should be doing that.

My 401k is long SPY about 25% of its worth since the first 5% pull back. I’m still looking for the lower prices I’ve called out earlier in the thread or until the chart says “get in or we’re leaving”.

I have another standing order at 10% drop for another 25% if it’s worth. Just missed it last week.

Sell them when they go up to their respective 5 and 10% profits then wait for the next one.

That’s what I’ve told people to do in this thread if they don’t want to learn some basics in charts. If you do educate yourself on things like swing points and breakouts you can hold onto those investments a little longer sometimes.

My other pretty pictures of charts are just to say “hey, it’s all about risk reward, nothing else matters”.

First hardest thing is ignoring the Trump tweets of the world and associated opinions.

The second hardest thing is pressing the buttons on your own life savings. That’s why there’s a whole market of ‘advisors’ who will press the buttons for you (even though most commercial advisors don’t hit any buttons at all, they just sell you their brand of etf and shove you in for the long haul, Jesus take the wheel)

The third hardest thing is that you’ll spend some of your time in cash. And everyone has been sold that’s the wrong way to do things.

I’ll provide receipts tonight when I get back to the computer.

If I can convince a few people here maybe I’ll start my $129.95 trading course! You all are helping me refine my notes.

 

[Will Carter]

Yes.


What I do daily and what I’m telling people to do for investing are waaay different. And I understand that I’ve thrown a bunch of rando

Like right now. I got short last night and added this morning and have been losing all day until about 5 minutes ago.

View attachment 454833

But no one on this thread should be doing that.

My 401k is long SPY about 25% of its worth since the first 5% pull back. I’m still looking for the lower prices I’ve called out earlier in the thread or until the chart says “get in or we’re leaving”.

I have another standing order at 10% drop for another 25% if it’s worth. Just missed it last week.

Sell them when they go up to their respective 5 and 10% profits then wait for the next one.

That’s what I’ve told people to do in this thread if they don’t want to learn some basics in charts. If you do educate yourself on things like swing points and breakouts you can hold onto those investments a little longer sometimes.

My other pretty pictures of charts are just to say “hey, it’s all about risk reward, nothing else matters”.

First hardest thing is ignoring the Trump tweets of the world and associated opinions.

The second hardest thing is pressing the buttons on your own life savings. That’s why there’s a whole market of ‘advisors’ who will press the buttons for you (even though most commercial advisors don’t hit any buttons at all, they just sell you their brand of etf and shove you in for the long haul, Jesus take the wheel)

The third hardest thing is that you’ll spend some of your time in cash. And everyone has been sold that’s the wrong way to do things.

I’ll provide receipts tonight when I get back to the computer.

If I can convince a few people here maybe I’ll start my $129.95 trading course! You all are helping me refine my notes.

Man this guy needs to get a job.

 

[jeepinmatt]

Man this guy needs to get a job.

I know where there are 2 available, haha.

 

[drkelly]

If I can convince a few people here maybe I’ll start my $129.95 trading course! You all are helping me refine my notes.

You're going to have to explain what you do a LOT better if you want people to pay you. Or maybe I am the only one who doesn't understand.

 

[drkelly]

The US dropped some bunker buster bombs on a munitions depot in Isfahan and Iran requested a ceasefire. Trump says the war will be over in 2-3 weeks. Nice turnout in the markets the past two days.

 

[Will Carter]

Disclaimer: As I've said before, putting arbitrary date constraints on your investment performance is foolish. All that matters is that you're happy with your return curve (hopefully it's better than inflation) and don't have big divots of draw down.

Because what if you need your money tomorrow and you're smack in the middle of a 20% correction?

Vanguard won't go smaller than monthly on a performance graph but this is my lady friends IRA that I don't fuck around with. Just go by the book. This is a 32.4% gain over this time with a gentlemen's 5% draw down back when the world was down 20%. There were several 5% and at least one 10% corrections during these time frames as well. There was no outside cash added to this account (which vanguard so conveniently just piles in as 'gain'). I think total SPY hodl was 40%.

I also admit that I got cocky and broke my rules in April 25 which cost me 2-3% that was unnecessary. I think I actually called the 'seller trap' at this time in this thread before it really printed and acted on it which was a mistake. But hey, it's still not 20% down.

100% SPY

Sure you could constrain the time and say that the 5% draw down was only in the time frame of a 15% gain YoY. But then do I at least get credit for the 18% gain with less than 1% draw down the year before?

To attempt to frame the grand point that I'm trying to make:

People (and financial salesmen advisors) like to celebrate things like the SP500 (or whatever shit they're selling) made 17% in 2025 (or insert whatever fuck percent/date range), but they gloss over that it also had a draw down of 20% in 2025 (and 30% in the early 2020's, and 50% in the 2008's) and you're just expected to ride out losing chunks of your money on any given day like it's business as usual?

"But my money is diversified and in safe funds. I'm happy if I make 6% a year!" That's great, but If your draw down is over 6% during that time frame your investment/diversification/mutual fund/stocks to bonds ratios/etc is shit. (Whether it's you or your money manager/advisor is making the calls). Accepting 100% of risk for 100% of reward is losing in the long run. (and then you got inflation)

Hedge funds and traders get judged with the Calmar ratio. Look that up and see where your portfolio falls. You can also do it for your favorite mutual fund you to which you subscribe... Yikes.

I think one of my first comments in here was something like "It's not what you make, it's what you don't lose". That's winning the game.

If you sense any hostility just know it's all directed at financial 'experts' who peddle this shit. And yes, I'm trying to become a licensed finance person for the same reason I became a real estate broker and sell shit for 0.5% commissions to piss off the blonde women walking around in Spanx peddling that racket.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

 

[DSM Turbos]

The US dropped some bunker buster bombs on a munitions depot in Isfahan and Iran requested a ceasefire. Trump says the war will be over in 2-3 weeks. Nice turnout in the markets the past two days.

Or that is what they are telling us...

 

[jeepinmatt]

I'm trying to become a licensed finance person for the same reason I became a real estate broker and sell shit for 0.5% commissions to piss off the blonde women walking around in Spanx peddling that racket.

Now that is doing the Lord’s work

 

[RatLabGuy]

The US dropped some bunker buster bombs on a munitions depot in Isfahan and Iran requested a ceasefire. Trump says the war will be over in 2-3 weeks. Nice turnout in the markets the past two days.

Note he said the same thing 5 weeks ago.
Market proves people are idiots