So if you had $70,000 to invest what would you do?

[PAB]

Originally posted by: TheNinja
Here's the situation:

I decided not to buy in California right now. The market in my area is far too risky, -7% last year, I'd be getting an Interest only loan, and might only be around 3-5 years. So what should I do with my $70,000? I want to keep around 20k in my savings, which I get a guarenteed 5.05% return. What should I do with the rest? I'm not a big stock picker guy. I'm thinking of splitting 3-4 ways but into what? I always hear about Index funds that get an average of 6-10%. I'm looking for medium to medium-low risk.

<-- Investing N00b


edit: err bonds, not bongs

I'll make the one serious response to this thread so far.

$70k dosent get you much in the world anymore, housing or stock market. Any investment you make in the market is inherently risky. You have to take risk to get a return. If you don't or you're not comfortable with it, you're doomed to just beat inflation by a percent or two.

Index funds track benchmark indicies, a lot of people on ATOT are convinced they're awesome and the greatest thing since sliced bread - I disagree. I like equity funds that arent hampered by picking a stock limited to the Standard and Poors.

Equity based mutual funds can be a great way to diversify your portfolio while keeping costs relatively low. To allocate even $100k properly you're going to have a lot of odd lots of stock in different sectors. Plus, you already admit you're not a big stock picker so thats really not an option.

I've done the homework and if you are not in a wrap eligible account, here are a couple of funds that have probably (I havent compared them against all of them) beat everything from Vanguard and are at the top of their game. These are all no load, I own them all.

JSVAX - Janus Contrarian
JAOSX - Janus Overseas
JORNX - Janus Orion
RYVPX - Royce Value Plus
RGFAX - Royce Heritage

If you'd like to hear other high quality no load funds that my research indicates are strong performers, let me know.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Definitely a HYIP

High Yield Investment Program!!

You can join mine!
10% to 12.5% per month on your money
with No Work and Little to No Risk!!!

I can tell you that the program allowed me to make nearly 100% ROI. I won't charge you a dime to find out exactly what I am doing

PM me for details!!

Example (10% every month):
April: Invest 70K
May: $77,000
June: $84,700
July: $93,170
.....
April 2008: $181,562

Awesome. Sounds like he will be a billionaire in 10 years time.

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I'd buy another house and fix it up. I have my eye on one that's sitting at $60k right now, but I'm betting they'd take closer to $50k.

$60K for a house?? i don't know of any city in the bay area that has houses go for less than a $60K down payment (assuming 20% down).

ricochet, 22-35 is a pretty big range

ok OP, i'm only 19 so don't take my advice too strongly to heart. what i would recommend is what ricochet said (invest in a few stocks). check ATI's last 6 months of stock prices. if it hasn't gone up yet, get some of that. from my observations, when something new's about to come out, the company's stock goes up pretty high (e.g. intel went from ~$16 up to $20 in like 2 months when Core CPUs came onto the market...25% increase in 2 months, you do the math). AMD's going way down right now...maybe you could get some of their stock in a month.

anyway, i wouldn't put more than $20K in stocks. put the rest in something safe like those high interest savings accounts. check up on mutual funds...they may be higher than 5%.

ricochet said you're probably young so you can be riskier. if you plan on using this money for a down payment on a house and you're just saving up, i would be a little safer and put at least $40K of it in low-risk things (savings, CD, etc.). ask around for stocks that are down and should be coming up. i'm sure ATI will be coming up in a few months

 

[Eeezee]

5% interest savings account? Seems like a keen deal to me

 

[JS80]

how old are you?

i'm still at that age where i would "invest" it in ultra risky assets and try to double or triple up.

 

[DaShen]

Put the money in a CD or put a down payment on a reasonably priced house.

 

[maddogchen]

savings and mutual funds! vanguard is good for mutual funds. go read up on that.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Definitely a HYIP

High Yield Investment Program!!

You can join mine!
10% to 12.5% per month on your money
with No Work and Little to No Risk!!!

I can tell you that the program allowed me to make nearly 100% ROI. I won't charge you a dime to find out exactly what I am doing

PM me for details!!

Example (10% every month):
April: Invest 70K
May: $77,000
June: $84,700
July: $93,170
.....
April 2008: $181,562

Real Estate tax liens?

 

[PAB]

Originally posted by: alimoalem

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I'd buy another house and fix it up. I have my eye on one that's sitting at $60k right now, but I'm betting they'd take closer to $50k.

$60K for a house?? i don't know of any city in the bay area that has houses go for less than a $60K down payment (assuming 20% down).

ricochet, 22-35 is a pretty big range

ok OP, i'm only 19 so don't take my advice too strongly to heart. what i would recommend is what ricochet said (invest in a few stocks). check ATI's last 6 months of stock prices. if it hasn't gone up yet, get some of that. from my observations, when something new's about to come out, the company's stock goes up pretty high (e.g. intel went from ~$16 up to $20 in like 2 months when Core CPUs came onto the market...25% increase in 2 months, you do the math). AMD's going way down right now...maybe you could get some of their stock in a month.

anyway, i wouldn't put more than $20K in stocks. put the rest in something safe like those high interest savings accounts. check up on mutual funds...they may be higher than 5%.

ricochet said you're probably young so you can be riskier. if you plan on using this money for a down payment on a house and you're just saving up, i would be a little safer and put at least $40K of it in low-risk things (savings, CD, etc.). ask around for stocks that are down and should be coming up. i'm sure ATI will be coming up in a few months

What does Allegheny Tech have to do with CPU's?

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: PAB

Originally posted by: TheNinja
Here's the situation:

I decided not to buy in California right now. The market in my area is far too risky, -7% last year, I'd be getting an Interest only loan, and might only be around 3-5 years. So what should I do with my $70,000? I want to keep around 20k in my savings, which I get a guarenteed 5.05% return. What should I do with the rest? I'm not a big stock picker guy. I'm thinking of splitting 3-4 ways but into what? I always hear about Index funds that get an average of 6-10%. I'm looking for medium to medium-low risk.

<-- Investing N00b


edit: err bonds, not bongs

I'll make the one serious response to this thread so far.

$70k dosent get you much in the world anymore, housing or stock market. Any investment you make in the market is inherently risky. You have to take risk to get a return. If you don't or you're not comfortable with it, you're doomed to just beat inflation by a percent or two.

Index funds track benchmark indicies, a lot of people on ATOT are convinced they're awesome and the greatest thing since sliced bread - I disagree. I like equity funds that arent hampered by picking a stock limited to the Standard and Poors.

Equity based mutual funds can be a great way to diversify your portfolio while keeping costs relatively low. To allocate even $100k properly you're going to have a lot of odd lots of stock in different sectors. Plus, you already admit you're not a big stock picker so thats really not an option.

I've done the homework and if you are not in a wrap eligible account, here are a couple of funds that have probably (I havent compared them against all of them) beat everything from Vanguard and are at the top of their game. These are all no load, I own them all.

JSVAX - Janus Contrarian
JAOSX - Janus Overseas
JORNX - Janus Orion
RYVPX - Royce Value Plus
RGFAX - Royce Heritage

If you'd like to hear other high quality no load funds that my research indicates are strong performers, let me know.

lol i love you guys who own 5-10 mutual funds...congrats you own pieces of thousands of companies while paying high management fees when you could achieve the same diversification of risk with an S&P 500 or Russell 2k ETF.

efficient frontier

 

[zinfamous]

Is booze and hookers an investment?

after the first 20k of that is gone, I'd use the rest to buy Detroit

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: PAB

Originally posted by: alimoalem

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I'd buy another house and fix it up. I have my eye on one that's sitting at $60k right now, but I'm betting they'd take closer to $50k.

$60K for a house?? i don't know of any city in the bay area that has houses go for less than a $60K down payment (assuming 20% down).

ricochet, 22-35 is a pretty big range

ok OP, i'm only 19 so don't take my advice too strongly to heart. what i would recommend is what ricochet said (invest in a few stocks). check ATI's last 6 months of stock prices. if it hasn't gone up yet, get some of that. from my observations, when something new's about to come out, the company's stock goes up pretty high (e.g. intel went from ~$16 up to $20 in like 2 months when Core CPUs came onto the market...25% increase in 2 months, you do the math). AMD's going way down right now...maybe you could get some of their stock in a month.

anyway, i wouldn't put more than $20K in stocks. put the rest in something safe like those high interest savings accounts. check up on mutual funds...they may be higher than 5%.

ricochet said you're probably young so you can be riskier. if you plan on using this money for a down payment on a house and you're just saving up, i would be a little safer and put at least $40K of it in low-risk things (savings, CD, etc.). ask around for stocks that are down and should be coming up. i'm sure ATI will be coming up in a few months

What does Allegheny Tech have to do with CPU's?

nothing. i checked the stock symbol "ATI" and found that Allegheny thing...i was under the impression ATI the graphics card manufacturer had stock of some sort. i know they had that deal with AMD but i wasn't sure if that was the reason i couldn't find their stock.

anyway, i don't have the money to invest in anything at this time so i really can't speak from experience. i gave the example of intel to show that if you know something big is coming out from a tech corporation (we are posting on AnandTech so we should know something after all) then purchase the stock a couple months before it releases its product. ATI's coming out with the R600 and iirc AMD has something coming out too. that's all i was saying

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: Fmr12B
$70K - and you want short term and pretty low risk

Stick it all into a CD at around 5.5%. Check the Fatwallet finance forums for the best rates.

Market is extrememly volatile and not a guranteed 8% increase per year as the global economy is taking a beating.

Heck, he could probably get 5.45% from an online savings account (usually a minimum of $50k for those rates) and get more liquidity

I think my ING is up to 4.75% or so with no minimums. Before '01, the rate was up to 7% I believe...

 

[Ricochet]

Originally posted by: alimoalem
ricochet, 22-35 is a pretty big range

Hey, don't they say 40 is the new 30?

Anyway, it's good to know you're thinking about investing at 19. At that age I was a broke college student with my mind more on beer and girls than anything else.

 

[Ricochet]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: PAB

Originally posted by: TheNinja
Here's the situation:

I decided not to buy in California right now. The market in my area is far too risky, -7% last year, I'd be getting an Interest only loan, and might only be around 3-5 years. So what should I do with my $70,000? I want to keep around 20k in my savings, which I get a guarenteed 5.05% return. What should I do with the rest? I'm not a big stock picker guy. I'm thinking of splitting 3-4 ways but into what? I always hear about Index funds that get an average of 6-10%. I'm looking for medium to medium-low risk.

<-- Investing N00b


edit: err bonds, not bongs

I'll make the one serious response to this thread so far.

$70k dosent get you much in the world anymore, housing or stock market. Any investment you make in the market is inherently risky. You have to take risk to get a return. If you don't or you're not comfortable with it, you're doomed to just beat inflation by a percent or two.

Index funds track benchmark indicies, a lot of people on ATOT are convinced they're awesome and the greatest thing since sliced bread - I disagree. I like equity funds that arent hampered by picking a stock limited to the Standard and Poors.

Equity based mutual funds can be a great way to diversify your portfolio while keeping costs relatively low. To allocate even $100k properly you're going to have a lot of odd lots of stock in different sectors. Plus, you already admit you're not a big stock picker so thats really not an option.

I've done the homework and if you are not in a wrap eligible account, here are a couple of funds that have probably (I havent compared them against all of them) beat everything from Vanguard and are at the top of their game. These are all no load, I own them all.

JSVAX - Janus Contrarian
JAOSX - Janus Overseas
JORNX - Janus Orion
RYVPX - Royce Value Plus
RGFAX - Royce Heritage

If you'd like to hear other high quality no load funds that my research indicates are strong performers, let me know.

lol i love you guys who own 5-10 mutual funds...congrats you own pieces of thousands of companies while paying high management fees when you could achieve the same diversification of risk with an S&P 500 or Russell 2k ETF.

efficient frontier

I won't underestimate mutual funds. One of my biggest money maker last year was TREMX which outperformed nearly all my individual stock picks. And I definitely won't scoff at anything that PAB has to say.

 

[TheNinja]

Originally posted by: JS80
how old are you?

i'm still at that age where i would "invest" it in ultra risky assets and try to double or triple up.

Sadly, I'm almost 30. I want to invest for probably 2-3 years and then pull it out for a down payment. I almost bought something but with the way the market is looking I'm not touching it for another year at least, especially in the bay area california where a townhome 5 years ago was $300k and now it's "worth" $450k. I just can't believe that those prices can increase or really even hold.

 

[DaveSimmons]

High-interest savings makes sense for a chunk of it.

Since this will be non-retirement (non-tax-sheltered) investing, you need to remember that you'll pay some taxes on capital gains and dividends each year, whether you're trading single stocks or buying and holding ETFs (exchange traded funds) or mutual funds.

People recommending individual stocks and actively managed (stock-picker) funds over stock index funds are suggesting you add extra risk for the hope of extra gains.

If you're willing to settle for (historically) 10-12% with extremely low risk, you can't beat an S&P 500 index ETF or mutual fund like Vanguard's VFINX. The annual tax bite is also lower than most other stock funds since there is low turnover in the 500 stocks that make up the fund.

Edit:

want to invest for probably 2-3 years and then pull it out for a down payment.

That's a short time span for investing in the stock market (vs. gambling on single stocks). If you're planning to take all of the money out in 3 years then CDs might be best.

Are you fully funding your Roth IRA and 401k?

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: TheNinja

Originally posted by: JS80
how old are you?

i'm still at that age where i would "invest" it in ultra risky assets and try to double or triple up.

Sadly, I'm almost 30. I want to invest for probably 2-3 years and then pull it out for a down payment. I almost bought something but with the way the market is looking I'm not touching it for another year at least, especially in the bay area california where a townhome 5 years ago was $300k and now it's "worth" $450k. I just can't believe that those prices can increase or really even hold.

sadly, in (desirable neighborhoods of) SF and LA, I don't see Single Family homes dropping too much (if at all) and possible see condo prices falling only because there are so many new construction condos and condo investor money has fled.

 

[TheNinja]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
High-interest savings makes sense for a chunk of it.

Since this will be non-retirement (non-tax-sheltered) investing, you need to remember that you'll pay some taxes on capital gains and dividends each year, whether you're trading single stocks or buying and holding ETFs (exchange traded funds) or mutual funds.

People recommending individual stocks and actively managed (stock-picker) funds over stock index funds are suggesting you add extra risk for the hope of extra gains.

If you're willing to settle for (historically) 10-12% with extremely low risk, you can't beat an S&P 500 index ETF or mutual fund like Vanguard's VFINX. The annual tax bite is also lower than most other stock funds since there is low turnover in the 500 stocks that make up the fund.

Edit:

want to invest for probably 2-3 years and then pull it out for a down payment.

That's a short time span for investing in the stock market (vs. gambling on single stocks). If you're planning to take all of the money out in 3 years then CDs might be best.

Are you fully funding your Roth IRA and 401k?

I'm 6% plus my company matches 6% for my 401K. I have no Roth IRA right now. Maxing out 401k would be smarter than Roth yet from my understanding...correct?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: TheNinja

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Are you fully funding your Roth IRA and 401k?

I'm 6% plus my company matches 6% for my 401K. I have no Roth IRA right now. Maxing out 401k would be smarter than Roth yet from my understanding...correct?

The rule of thumb is:
1. do 401k up to % that employer matches (there is usually a limit, such as "we match 50% up to 5% of your salary")
2. then Roth IRA unless income is too high (something over $100K, check irs.gov or google)
3. then 401k up to max allowed

You can still get a Roth IRA for 2006, it's worth starting one at Vanguard or Fidelity and putting in your $4K + $4K for 2006 and 2007, since it grows tax-free, is tax-free when you take it out at retirement.

If you find in 3+ years you need the money for your house you can take out your original contributions to the Roth (but not growth) without penalties. If you're a first-time homebuyer you can even take out the growth (but only after 5 years).

 

[MustISO]

I put most of my cash in a 5% bank account, some in a 5.2% CD and a little in a small portfolio. So far it's doing okay but if you have time to really watch the market, you can make a good amount.

 

[MustISO]

Originally posted by: J0hnny
Definitely a HYIP

High Yield Investment Program!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HYIP

 

[GasX]

I'd buy a rental property that was cash flow positive out of the gate.

 

[TallBill]

About $10,000 into mutual funds, $30,000 into my 5% savings account, then $10,000 each in 1, 2, and 3 year cds.

 

[piasabird]

Oil Futures, Electric Company. Some in the Bond Market.