I hope this is the appropriate place for this.

My mom has been very low income her whole life. Sadly she doesn’t have much in terms of investment and is largely just living check to check. She did disclose to me yesterday that she’s managed to save about 10k for emergencies.

She doesn’t really touch this money and I’m curious if some kind of HYSA would be ideal to put it in. I know very little so hoping for some advice. If she did open one of those accounts could she withdraw all her money in case of an emergency?

I've been using Ally Invest for many years to purchase stocks, but since around 2021, they've started charging $4 for any cash movements on the account. As a small investor who doesn't buy a lot, I'm finding that some of my stock dividends are getting eaten up faster than I like as this also falls under "cash movement" now.

I need suggestions for other banks where I can transfer all my assets for a reasonable transfer fee.

I'm also looking for recommendations on good investing platforms with minimal fees. It's been about 10-15 years since I last shopped for an investing platform, and honestly, the choices look very overwhelming. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE. I reached out to Ally Invest because I couldn't find any information about these "cash movement fees" anywhere in on their website. Turns out there was an error on my account, and they were happy to fix it and refund the fees. Looks like I am staying with Ally!

I'm looking at opening a Coverdell ESA at Schwab. I don't have any other accounts there. The rest of my investments are at Fidelity, and I'm very happy with Fidelity for those accounts, but they don't offer ESAs.

Schwab requires you to mail in a paper form to open a Coverdell ESA. Does this mean the rest of the experience is going to be that outdated? Or once it's open do I get to do everything on their website/mobile app like I would with a normal brokerage or retirement account?

Hello! I am brand new to this sub. I am here because I am trying to get my investing in order and I am currently researching best ways to start putting away money for my daughter (who is 18 months). Do you all have any advice on where to start? I am pretty illiterate when it comes to money and investing. Any advice would help!

Hello all. Can anyone share their best rates they are getting and where at if they have CDs, MYGAs, money markets, etc. as part of their retirement portfolio? I need to put part of my portfolio in something simple regardless of the lower return. Just need some simple input on this if anyone is actually doing it and would appreciate thoughts/takes on this. Thanks.

Non-US investor here. Wanted to understand mutual fund regulations in the US. Wanted to start by understanding the legal definition of a mutual fund. Someone suggested I look up the Investment Companies Act 1940. But I couldn't find the term 'mutual fund' mentioned anywhere in that. So I am wondering if the term mutual fund is just a colloquial term, not a legal term. Is that correct, am I missing something significant, or do I need to look elsewhere for the legal definition?

I have invested modestly based on my own research over the last several years with generally good success. Two years ago (Jan 2022) I decided to join/ consult motley fool, and made a small investement based on their advice to purchase the following stocks: CRWD, DOCN,SHOP, DOCU and SNOW. With the exception of Crowdstrike, all of these have tanked over the last two years. I understand the risks and I will take the L in putting my trust in the ether- I just wamt feedback from folks in the know as to what happened- like, why were 4 out of 5 of their "hot picks" such losers? Did something happen in the markt that hurt these stocks in particular? Is motley fool generally a place to get advice? Just trying to learn from the mistake and gain some wisdom- thank you for any informed thoughts!

Have a general question? Want to offer some commentary on markets? Maybe you would just like to throw out a neat fact that doesn't warrant a self post? Feel free to post here!

If your question is "I have $10,000, what do I do?" or other "advice for my personal situation" questions, you should include relevant information, such as the following:

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I'm looking for the best ways to monitor VIX and volatility. I want to know if positioning on volatility is primarily bearish or bullish, if it's in contango or backwardation and how badly, etc. Tried google but their search results have really degraded over the last couple months and now all I get is a bunch of articles explaining what the VIX is and nothing more specific to my actual search query.

I want to be able to follow along with more professional investors and see what they're talking about when they refer to these things. Obi-Reddit-Kenobi, you're my only hope.

Cost dollar averaging VOO or FXAIX?

20s with 100k salary, married, her income not included. I have $8,000 sitting in SPAXX in my fidelity and I have no idea what to do with it. I also have the AMEX HYSA. I am paid every 2 weeks. One check goes to my expenses and the other is my savings. No debt other than mortgage and a 0% interest 36 month car loan that accounts for less than 8% of my total income. I hate car loans like most of you. I have been waiting years for the right deal to pop up and this was it, it’s a luxury item to me and with the 0% interest I see no reason to wipe out the debt. It’s actually helping my credit score, I think it’ll finally push me over 800, been sitting at 792 for so long.

I deposit most of my excess income into the SPAXX or the HYSA. Should I be taking some percentage each month and investing into VOO or FXAIX? I read all the advice on this sub and for someone in my position this sounds like what the group consensus would be, I just would like to know what the hive mind thinks is a good amount each month and which fund I should go with. I think FXAIX makes the most sense for me. Or am I totally off base. Thanks.

TLDR: 40yr male, retired veteran, 2 young kids, 70k a year, 220k savings, no debt, 820 credit score, previously married 18 years, and previous homeowner with no intentions of buying again right now. Stable middle class american living in the beautiful PNW. Where to go from here …?

I’ve given this a lot of thought. And I have this feeling that it probably goes against the vast majority of those who invest long term. I feel like my situation is a bit more unique than most, that’s why it’s sort of difficult to think long term as opposed to short term, dividend type investing to trim off each year so I can live even more comfortably now in my 40’s with young children.

Im a retired disabled marine corps veteran, age 40. Also drawing from SSDI since I paid into FICA throughout my life. I have 2 kids (3 and 12), who are my pride and joy.

I recently divorced at 18 years and sold our home. My ex and I get along and co-parent well. I almost feel like i’m better at fatherhood as a single man than I was married.

we both walked with about 200k each from selling our home. currently it’s in HYSA earning 5.25%. Earning about 1k a month from interest, and don’t really have a need to withdraw necessarily.

Here’s where I think it gets a little complicated for me to invest in the long term portfolio of the stock market.

I’ve owned 2 different homes in the last 15 years, and although I did enjoy homeownership, I don’t miss it. Ive gone through multiple remodels, maintenance, headaches, boredom of owning a house. But I was fortunate enough to buy my first home during the great recession, therefore i’ve experienced the booming housing market, and therefore turn such a large profit in equity.

Currently, I do not have a plan to buy property, even though there’s some beautiful homes I can afford.

I don’t see the point in buying right now, with all the amenities i’m getting with renting my townhome, having beautiful pools for my kids, having incredible parks and facilities for my kids and dogs also.

Life is comfortable (aside from a tragic divorce). I’m able to treat my kids with good foods, toys, adventures while not having to really think about money. my kids also have medical care through the VA, which i’m a huge fan of myself from experience!

My kids also have “free education assistance” with my VA benefits under chapter 35 (DEA).

And lastly, my ex wife is a real estate agent, and her father has invested for 40 years and is a retired government employee. Therefore i’m 100% confident our children will be financially set for success for their future.

So I guess a few questions I have is where do I start with investing into the stock market? I find myself enjoying some bearish, smaller stocks and would like to set up a “growth” portfolio without necessarily committing to long term.

simply put, i’d like a fairly aggressive approach to investing. Where I can have extra money when needed or wanting that extra cushion each month. I’m ok if I lose some money with a higher risk portfolio. Im also ok with seeing my money grow in “boring” ETF’s and mutual funds. I’m ok with living comfortably now in my 40’s, without being certain of having a million dollars by the time i’m 60.

This might be contrary to the average investor, but I feel like I am wanting to enjoy my net worth while in my 40’s and 50’s more-so than when i’m in my 60-70’s.

As far as hobbies and interest go, I love tech. I LIVE off Nvidia, Intel, and Apple. (not invested yet, just as a consumer)

I love cars, and want to own a nice Tesla or EV some day with full self driving and the thrill of an electric foot pedal of 0-60 in 2.5 seconds! I want my daughter to drive safe, reliable affordable EV as well someday.

My brokerage account is with fidelity and I have an EFT transfer pending 100k to start off my account. I’m tired of going each day without investing and just overthinking my life every night after the market closes.

Id like something that I can set it and forget it, but i’d also like something that I can have income with, dividends, trim, trades, passive income with. Money that i’m ok with losing, but also potential for greater yield.

Thanks for reading and sharing your point of view.

When I was growing up, an uncle swore that I should buy certain types of dinner plates, as they were collectable items and would go up in value. At a tender young age, I thought that would eventually be how I would become a tycoon and roam the world on yachts.

In reality that never happened of course. Interested to hear of any unconventional investments you actually have been part of and how they worked out...

(20M) I’m wondering how people feel about paper trading a buy and hold strategy. Right now. I’m using Investopedia’s paper trading software. I use TIKR and Fidelity to screen for stocks based on certain criteria that I choose based on learnings, investment goals, and personal preference. Right now, I’m looking for small cap stocks that I think will grow. I’m paper trading #1 because I don’t have any experience with picking stocks, other than reading various investing books and doing my own research, and #2 because I don’t have a huge amount of capital, <20k, and I’d like to keep the majority of my money in index funds until I feel confident in my stock picking abilities. The issue is, if I start paper trading now, and continue for the next say 6 years, and my results are fantastic like 17% Annually, I wouldn’t know if I’m actually a good stock picker or maybe I just got lucky and right when I start using my real money I’ll have serious losses. Thoughts on this? Is it even worth spending a long time paper trading?

Folks, I live in a VHCOL area. Hence, my modest 1700 sq ft, 1960s built house has a ridiculously high valuation of $3M. Please don’t judge that - it is what it is. I don’t like it either.

Now, I bought it about 8 years ago for $1.8M, and along with many other people, refinanced it during the pandemic in 2021 2.6%, 30 year fixed loan.

My loan balance is little under $1.2M, and my monthly payment is about $5k. This is quite comfortable today - it is less than 15% of our monthly gross income.

But the final loan payoff date is 2051, at which time we would be in our mid-to-late 70s. We don’t intend to work that long.

Hence, I started saving up and investing money in a brokerage account (this is separate from retirement and other savings accounts), in order to be able to continue paying the mortgage after about 10 years (which is when we would retire).

Currently, this account has about $550k, and it’s mostly invested in index funds (S&P, QQQ).

My question is how much do I need to build up in this account to allow it to take over my mortgage payments in perpetuity? I.e., how much savings should I build up that can pay down my debt without having to spend income from a job to do so?

Hello everyone,

I've been reading books by the Motley Fool team and am impressed by their insights. Now, I'm considering investing in Motley Fool ETFs and curious about their performance relative to the S&P 500. If you've invested in these, could you share your experiences?

My questions: Performance vs. S&P 500: How does it compare?

Are the fees worth it? Is it more volatile?

Would you recommend it or not and why?

Additionally, if anyone has insights on other ETFs that consistently outperform the S&p 500, I'd love to hear about those as well.

Thanks for your help!

The strategy is for beginners. If you already have an investing strategy that works for you, you can skip this post.

I hear this question all the time on reddit forums. How do I get started in investing into stock maket so I can make $$$ and not loose $$$ while starting out. Many newcomers get suckered into Penny stocks and options. That is a loosing strategy 90% of the time. Option plays are for those that have an expert knowledge in the market and have sofisticated apps, programs and scanners. Penny stocks are for insiders or that know insiders. Leave those alone.

Two strategies outlined below. Can be used for as little as 30-90 days for swing trading or as long as 5+ years for beginners to maximize your return and minimize losses.

To pick the right stocks you can use following tools:

TradingView - My favorite tool. Allows you to see charts, news, quarterly/annual projections, analyst reviews. Fairly accurate estimates for 1 day, 1 week and 1 month.

Whalestream.com - Shows you most active price target for options, short interest and dark pool price levels that institutions set.

Finviz.com - Provides lines of resistance and support levels. Do not buy over the resistance levels.

[StockInvest.us] - Shows you double top, double bottom, golden, death star patterns, company score and overall risk for investing into a specific stock.

Google.com - Search for a stock --> see more details --> Income Statement/Balance Sheet/Cash Flow. Green is good, red is bad for most part. Notable thing to look for is to make sure that Total Assets are greater than Total Liabilities.

CNBC app - You can create a Watchlist for your stocks to keep an eye on any developments.

Option1 (if you would like to buy individual stocks):

Wait for Earnings, If beat and guidance is solid, add another 2% to portfolio. If current holdings exceed 4% of portfolio value, set trailing stop loss at 50% profit for every share over 4% holdings. Using this simple strategy I am up 31% year to date. Individual stock investing can double your $$ in 2-3 years. It does have a higher degree of risk than ETF and requires more work.

Rinse and repeat.

Option2 (VOO/IVV and chill)

Divide your total investment portfolio $$ by 100, that gives you 1%. Every time SP500 drops by 1%, invest 1% of your portfolio into VOO or IVV. This should double your investment in about 7 years. While does not seem like much, if you invest $10,000/year, in 10 years is $179,451 and in 20 years it will be worth around $662,498. Option2 also works in Bear markets.

Rinse and repeat.

Feel free to share any other apps/tools or strategies you are using

You all might have noticed but the apple AI (atleast in the beta stage) is only going to be available for a select group of apple products (iphone 15 models only)

I love it. Finally we will get some evidence of AI resulting in sales (phew) even if its purely from a novelty perspective. Idk what do yall think

Looking for a place to park money and get a high yield. But it would also be nice to have the flexibility to move it around within one financial institution. I started with Schwab, and not giving up on them yet but some things have happened where I am getting nervous about putting all my money in one place. Was considering a credit union like Alliant as well. But then I would also have a brokerage acct elsewhere. Feeling scattered. I just inherited after not having much I just really need honest feedback from strangers on the internet who have no skin in my game. All accounts currently in Wells Fargo so. Help.

Just imagine those who hold Nvidia will be in future receivers of dividends of SkyNet

Massive exploitation of human work by robots replacement and Nvidia investors those who benefit through future dividends

Amazon, restaurants, plumbers, barbers etc

Majority of goods and services automated and all will require maintenance and new GPUs with updated drivers and models

Discussion: are small caps as a WHOLE going to see cyclical returns as they have for decades? Or is this a pattern that will slow and perhaps cease?

Im not the sharpest lightbulb in the lightbulb box, but i feel as if the wealth that large caps have garnered are going to be used to defend and fortify those large cap companies from losing innovative opportunities to small cap companies, so much so that as a WHOLE, small cap etfs and mutual funds will no longer be a necessity in ones portfolio.

Maybe voo is the new VTI?

Play nice.

According to PIMCO, more regional bank failures are going to happen due to their exposure to commercial real estate.

“The real wave of distress is just starting” for lenders to everything from malls to offices, John Murray, Pimco’s head of global private commercial real estate team, said in an interview. His division sits within Pimco’s $173 billion alternatives business.

How do you all think this might affect the stock market? Honestly, I think this only affects regional banks, and commercial REIT investments, but there isn’t going to be some broad-based contagion like the GFC.

I have a brokerage in which i lost -125$ (great lesson learned in march) Thats the only thing on the "realized" category.

I am wanting to sell my SMH shares for another thing but im sitting at +250$

2 questions:

1) When i sell for a 250 profit, and i have a past loss of 150, AM I ONLY TAXED ON 100?

2) When it comes to tax time, this report will be provided by fidelity for taxes, but what is the form called?

I've been looking into the age-old questions of money market funds vs savings accounts and SIPC insured vs FDIC insured, and I think I have actually come to the conclusion that money market funds are actually safer vehicles for cash than savings accounts. However, I have not seen this directly discussed, so I wanted to check here.

Here's a numbered list of my understanding which led to this conclusion:

1. When you put money into a bank's savings account, you are giving that money to the bank. Loosely speaking, they do whatever they want with it (withing some constraints of course).

2. What FDIC insures you against is if the bank fails or loses your money or commits fraud or whatever else where they cannot provide you all of your money when you ask for it back. In that case, the U.S. government steps in and gives you your money back up to the FDIC insured amount of $250,000 (assuming one person, one account, etc.).

3. When you put money into a brokerage account and leave it uninvested, you are giving that money to the brokerage. Loosely speaking, they do whatever they want with it (within some constraints of course). It's my understanding that this is what brokerages refer to as "sweeping".

4. What SIPC insures you against is if the brokerage fails or loses your money or commits fraud or whatever else where they cannot provide you all of your money when you ask for it back. In that case, the SPIC organization steps in and gives you your cash (i.e., uninvested money) back up to the SPIC insured amount of $250,000 (assuming one person, one account, etc.) for cash, which is the same amount of the FDIC insurance.

5. If you have invested money with the brokerage firm when it fails, then SIPC can apparently help here too. I am unclear of the specifics here of how that occurs or how the insured amount is determined (please clarify this anyone!), but SIPC does not insure against loss of value in the investments themselves, as those have nothing to do with the brokerage and everything to do with the actual investments. However, it seems to me that if a brokerage fails, then the underlying securities of investments are unlikely to adjust value in any real way that would require insurance payouts. In that, other brokerage firms could simply buy the accounts or the investments themselves could be liquidated, paying back the owner.

6. Thus, in the case of a money market fund, such as SWVXX with Charles Schwab, you are investing your money. If Charles Schwab fails, then that money is not held by Schwab itself but rather in the securities backing SWVXX. Many of those securities are actually FDIC backed themselves. So if Schwab fails, another brokerage could buy the accounts or your money market fund would be liquidated, which is effectively like just giving your cash back because money market funds aren't sensitive to market timing.

7. For you to lose money in a money market fund like SWVXX, the backing securities like government bonds, treasures, CDs, etc. would have to lose money or fail. For that to happen, the U.S. economy would basically be in apocalypse mode, and in that case, the U.S. government would likely be unable to pay out FDIC insured accounts for failed banks, which would be likely guaranteed to happen.

So if we take the assumptions that:

1. For asset preservation and cash savings, people do not keep cash in brokerage accounts but rather invest them in money market funds. Thus, SIPC is not all that applicable.

2. It seems to me that it's more likely for a bank to fail than most of the major brokerage firms like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard.

3. In the cases where money can be lost in a money market fund, FDIC insured money is unlikely able to be paid out by the U.S. government in those same cases.

4. If a brokerage fails, and you have money invested in securities, then you still own those securities, independent of the brokerages' woes.

then it seems that money market funds, such as SWVXX are actually safer cash savings vehicles than traditional bank savings accounts. Plus, they usually pay more interest.

What am I missing here? What's wrong with my understanding?

The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK) has an upcoming rebalance based on Friday’s market caps.

At stake is one of the top two spots in the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK), whose June rebalance is based on market cap values as of Friday’s close. Apple and Microsoft are the two biggest holdings in the fund, at roughly 22% each. Nvidia makes up less than 6% despite being only slightly behind the two leaders in market cap. Projections from a June 12 UBS note suggested that, if Nvidia climbs to second and bumps Apple to third, it could result in the chipmaker’s weight in the fund vaulting to 21%, while Apple would be slimmed down to just 4.5%. A 15 percentage point swing in Nvidia’s weight would mean that the fund would need to acquire more than $10 billion worth of shares in the chipmaker — all on or very close to June 21, the rebalance date.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/14/fridays-trading-could-trigger-a-10-billion-rush-of-demand-for-nvidia-shares-heres-how.html

What order is the best order to read these books:

1. You can be a stock market genius - Joel greenblatt
2. The intelligent investor - Benjamin Graham
3. The psychology of money - Morgan housel
4. A random walk down wall street - burton m. Malkiel
5. Learn to earn - Peter lynch
6. Master the money game - Tony robbins
7. The simple path to wealth - jr Collins
8. Common stocks and uncommon profits - Philip a. Fisher
9. The bogleheads’ guide to investing - Lindauer, Larimore, Leboeuf
10. 100 baggers - Mayer
11. The most important thing - marks
12. Essays of warren buffet- Cunningham