birb_cromble
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User ID: 3236
birb_cromble
6d ago
Put simply, there are broadly two ways to invest:
- Loaning somebody money who will pay you back (also called the credit market or debt market, sometimes casually referred to as bonds)
- Buying a (usually) tiny ownership share in a company (equities, most commonly represented by stocks).
When most people talk about "the market", they mean common stocks or funds on public exchanges. It has historically offered the best long term return on investment, but it carries the most risk. Stocks tend to grow, but that's a trend that can't be applied with certainty between any two specific points in time. In a bad year (eg: 2008), you might see the face value of your investments drop by 50% and take several years to recover. If you pick individual stocks and you're very unlucky, every single company could go out of business and cost you everything. You can mitigate those risks by buying into funds, which are baskets of multiple stocks. They won't all be winners, but it spreads the risk at the cost of some potential returns.
birb_cromble
6d ago
I started reading The Moving Target, thanks to a recommendation from @RoyGBivensAction.
birb_cromble
6d ago
Is there any point in investing a sum that small?
I would personally say yes. Every choice you make with money is an investment; the only difference is the return.
If you're talking about equities specifically, it's a more qualified yes. Are you willing to lose it? Can you afford to let it sit there locked up in the market for years if the economy is flat? Can you think of a better use for it (eg: home down payment, paying off expensive debt)? If the answers to those are yes, yes, and no, it's usually a good choice.
birb_cromble
7d ago
I'd love to help you, but I think you're going to need an EU person to offer suggestions. Investments vehicles aren't quite the same. I can try to offer some American advice on that.
I invested in XLU years ago as a conservative counterbalance to my growth funds, and it's been going nuts these last few years.
birb_cromble
7d ago
If you have a big pile up front you're right, but I do it each month as I earn the money.
birb_cromble
7d ago
Got it in one.
birb_cromble
7d ago
I do it every month from cash flow, so it's not like I'm losing out much. I don't have a lump sum to sit on.
birb_cromble
7d ago
Sadly, I've already read Robert E Howard's full collection of works at least three times in my life so far.
birb_cromble
7d ago
This is why I tend to DCA.
birb_cromble
7d ago
Are you American? I've personally seen very little about it. Iran seems to largely be sucking the air out of the room, news-wise.
birb_cromble
7d ago
VTSAX isn't a bad choice. If you really want to forget that it exists, you may want to look at VT for international exposure, or a target date fund if you want to build up some bonds over time.
birb_cromble
8d ago
I love Marlowe
birb_cromble
8d ago
This is a really hard question, because not all lines of code are created equal. A line of Haskell or Scala can be far more dense than a line of say, FORTRAN, and God help all of us if we start talking about Perl.
The comment below about cyclomatic complexity is a good one, especially in conjunction with line count. Internally at work, we also talk about how compressible code is as a mostly-serious joke. It's actually not the worst rule of thumb. If your 3.4Mb of code compresses down to a 5kb zip file, you don't have 3.4Mb of code - you have 3.4Mb of copy/paste.
As an old guy, I've always held that every line of code is a liability. Every branch is a new set of tests that you have to write with a new set of expectations to figure out.
birb_cromble
8d ago
I'm looking for some book recommendations in a specific vein, if anyone has suggestions. I'm looking for something a little pulpy, where the protagonists make a point of doing the right thing, and nothing in God's creation will set them from their chosen course. Think (early) Dresden Files Correia's saga of the forgotten warrior.
Beyond that, I'm looking for earnestness on the part of the author and the protagonist. I recently read Dungeon Crawler Carl after many recommendations, and it just felt a little too meta-ironic and quippy.
birb_cromble
8d ago
What about the one in Korea recently?
birb_cromble
8d ago
That's a bold theory, and it will be interesting to see if your strategy pays off.
I'm of a somewhat different mindset. My personal experience is that we're not seeing the automation gains we expected, the friction involved in scaling is eating into the capability gains, and the hype may have been premature.
Current market behavior looks more like a melt-up to me than anything predictive, and practically speaking, where else would people put their money right now? The federal funds rate has been in the shitter more often than not for a quarter century, so treasuries aren't a great option. Commercial debt took an absolute ass-pounding in 2022, and this year's refinancing cliff could hit it just as things were recovering. Preferred stock is all over the place. Dividends have been kind of shit because of the tax treatment compared to capital gains. All that's really left is capital appreciation on equities, and that needs a pretty significant growth story to justify the risk. Luckily, AI is a great story.
Given all that, I've been tilting into value funds lately. Avantis has one that I rather like.
- I personally think we're in a bubble, but I don't know if it will pop, or we'll have a flat decade as the market digests current valuations.
- Retirement planning suggests that 4% has a 90-95% chance of carrying you through 30 years of your investments covering your entire lifestyle. So, given that, I'd start withdrawing when I was in my late 60s or when I had genuine Fuck You money.
- I think that current world events are going to hit a lot of lower cost goods. Petroleum products are an input into nearly everything these days, either directly or to move materials.
- I can't speak to Bitcoin. I personally think all of it except maaaaaybe Ethereum is insane, but the market clearly disagrees.
- Is reduced physical wants a bad thing? As I get older, I find a lot more value in human connections. If you have the money, use it to buy time and participate in your community. See if you can find somebody to mow your lawn and use that extra hour each week to volunteer, engage in the arts, etc.
As one further bit of commentary, you say
It seems like I am outpacing the rate of inflation with my investments.
I would be careful with that. If you're in your mid thirties, there's a decent chance you've never been financially active in a true down market. 2008 was awful. It didn't matter what inflation was, because everything was down 20-50%. Sequence of returns risk is scary if you ever have to withdraw in that kind of environment.
birb_cromble
9d ago
I had a German acquaintance once upon a time, and one night we were having a get together at his place. He got so high that he forgot the word for "pony", and he called it a "compressed horse".
Now, whenever I hear pony, I immediately think of that and chuckle.
birb_cromble
9d ago
so now I'm considering my exits.
That's probably smart.
Stuff like this is the same reason I don't buy individual stocks anymore.
birb_cromble
9d ago
The blue collar facade
Does anybody actually buy this act? It seems like the same kind of cultural appropriation, or maybe drag, that Pete Hegseth engages in.
birb_cromble
9d ago
For my stocks I'm heavier into Tech and much heavier into American companies. I only recently added an international index fund because of Hormuz, which might be backwards thinking.
Most investment advisors recommend having some international exposure. How much do you have?
birb_cromble
9d ago
Physics first. For aliens to be in our atmosphere, getting here without us noticing, physics has to break.
The obvious answer to this is that they got here before we invented telescopes and have been hanging out in the Hollow Earth ever since.
birb_cromble
9d ago
Antelope have invented crossbows and IEDs, since the last time they went on safari.
Harry Turtledove has an entire series based on exactly this premise.
birb_cromble
9d ago
I have a few other funds that are flat or appreciating though. I understand the rule of thumb, so I thought it was odd that JSI and only JSI was falling.
Do you have an emergency fund already set aside?
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