Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Commodities, really? Food has already boomed quite a bit (though with drought, perhaps we are reversing the gains of the green revolution).

Oil & natural gas, besides the reduced demand as the BRICs cool down and Europe's recession, the amount of oil and natural gas under NA (shale and tar sands), they are calling the US the next Saudi Arabia. And don't forget the mountain of coal we are now marketing as 'clean coal'.

I like commodities in principle; they have true fundamental and economic value (we have to eat and need to turn on the lights), but I think they are way overpriced right now b/c this has been a lot of people's thoughts over the last 5 years. Much like Treasuries, that ship has sailed... don't get me started on gold...

Or is their some commodity I am not considering appropriately, like OJ or pork bellies?

Oh please, get started on gold!

I've never seen such disdain for any instrument that's gone from $300 to $1800 in a decade.

It isn't so much gold itself but rather the gold bugs that irritate me. Or, tell me again about how the Bilderburgers are ruining your life with their Joo-RAYZ.

Anonymous wrote:Commodities, really? Food has already boomed quite a bit (though with drought, perhaps we are reversing the gains of the green revolution).

Oil & natural gas, besides the reduced demand as the BRICs cool down and Europe's recession, the amount of oil and natural gas under NA (shale and tar sands), they are calling the US the next Saudi Arabia. And don't forget the mountain of coal we are now marketing as 'clean coal'.

I like commodities in principle; they have true fundamental and economic value (we have to eat and need to turn on the lights), but I think they are way overpriced right now b/c this has been a lot of people's thoughts over the last 5 years. Much like Treasuries, that ship has sailed... don't get me started on gold...

Or is their some commodity I am not considering appropriately, like OJ or pork bellies?

Oh please, get started on gold!

I've never seen such disdain for any instrument that's gone from $300 to $1800 in a decade.

Only if you devote a significant amount of time to it and show discipline.

I was able to make a few grand over the years -- invested in REITs between 2002 and 2004, then lost much of that in stock options, and then made some of it back later when Bernanke decided to abandon the dollar and cut interest rates -- I bought the gold, silver, and oil exchange funds, the gold and silver did well and still track the price of gold/silver fairly well, but the oil fund is a dog.

My overall portfolio -- precious metals, bonds, mutual funds/401k, etc., has returned positive returns every year since 2002.

9.85% Jun 1 05-May 31 06
7.59% 06-07
5.76% 07-08
0.35% 08-09
8.04% 09-10
13.64% 10-11
0.88% 11-12

Up 60.3% since Jun 1 2005 -- I try and track it like a mutual fund, so when I make 401k contributions, etc., I increase the # of "shares".

S&P was 1,202.22 that day and it has gone up 17.7% since then.

The only smart thing I did was realize that stocks were going to go sideways for a long, long while in 2001-02 and so they have -- the S&P has done squat in the past 13 years. So I focused more on bonds/commodities and with some focus on stocks.

I was helped *a lot* by buying all the stock of my company I could -- it was sold to Bloomburg last year but I had unloaded by then (my career was going nowhere.)

For pretty much everyone, it is really hard to beat the average returns of the market. Not quite like beating the house in Vegas but close.

The E-Trade commercials crack me up, though. Yep, all I need to make some serious money is a fancy, colorful app for my smart phone, then I'll be rolling in the dough. LOL

Ugh. This is why I hate 401ks.

They give you crappy list of funds and tell you to put your future in it. Unless you're professional or spend mad amount of time on it, best you can really hope for is a low cost index fund.

Treat financial industry for what it is, the bookie. The house always makes money.

too many firms are essentially about the management expropriating the shareholders. Look at Pandit at citibank. Egregious compensation has now become the norm.

Commodities, really? Food has already boomed quite a bit (though with drought, perhaps we are reversing the gains of the green revolution).

Oil & natural gas, besides the reduced demand as the BRICs cool down and Europe's recession, the amount of oil and natural gas under NA (shale and tar sands), they are calling the US the next Saudi Arabia. And don't forget the mountain of coal we are now marketing as 'clean coal'.

I like commodities in principle; they have true fundamental and economic value (we have to eat and need to turn on the lights), but I think they are way overpriced right now b/c this has been a lot of people's thoughts over the last 5 years. Much like Treasuries, that ship has sailed... don't get me started on gold...

Or is their some commodity I am not considering appropriately, like OJ or pork bellies?

No kidding, TIPS are now negative return! Do not buy unless you expect *mad*mad* inflation. Otherwise you are paying Treasury to hold your cash...

Buy commodity stocks and be patient

Anonymous wrote:I don't know, the TIPS I bought from TreasuryDirect seemed to have a 20% return over the 5 yrs I have them (note: that is *not* annualized return, but total return -- annualized, well I could retire ;P).

Haha, we made a great return on TIPS too. I think they were really well-priced when Treasury first came out with them, though. Not sure that's true for today's buyers.

I don't know, the TIPS I bought from TreasuryDirect seemed to have a 20% return over the 5 yrs I have them (note: that is *not* annualized return, but total return -- annualized, well I could retire ;P).

Of course, we are in the midst of a bond bubble/flight to safety, so *that* ship has sailed. Everyone and their brother is talking about real estate b/c of low interest rates, so that *may* still have some opportunity if you can manage to not overpay on the property in your pursuit of a low-rate (this is very hard right now). REITs might be worth looking at, as they might perform well in high-inflation environment, but you do have management risks.

I'm not really bullish on stocks; we are near the 2007 peak despite the mess of the economy, and over the next 30 yrs the baby boomers will be unloading their 401ks and liquidating, so unsure if their will be sufficient demand from Gen X (too small demographic) and Gen Y (no jobs, no money) to support stock prices.

Yeah, I have no good news. Honestly, I think we are looking at a another era of stagflation: no growth, high inflation. Maybe bell-bottoms and disco balls? At least oil will be cheap because we willing to pollute our grand water with fraking to unlock the vast oil shale of the midwest. Hmm, maybe don't by real estate in Ohio/Penn? Well, not for a place to live (and thus drink the water), but mineral rights might be useful.

I hear you. It is not easy. To really 'make money' you have to have assets already, and make it your full time job. Or pay someone else to do that. But even then, no guarantees.

Second to the low-cost index funds. Most small investors don't get anywhere managing their own money because, as PP says, they can't buy instruments to offset the risk. Also, managing your own money eats up a lot of your money in the form of fees and commissions.

The problem with real estate is that it's not very diverse, especially if you make just one big investment, or if you make a bunch of smaller investments in the same region (your investments are all subject to the same economic forces). Also, it can take a while to liquidate real estate, which is bad if you need the money in an emergency. If you're willing to ride out a slow real estate market for the next 10 years (who knows, but that's a worst case scenario), then you could consider it.

Buy low-cost index funds indexed to Standard and Poors 500.

It's really hard as a small investor to get ahead with the methods you list. You can't mitigate your risk.

I don't get it, I've tried everything for the last 10 years.

Buy and Hold
Day Trading
Analyzing markets and corporate earnings

None of these seem to have any correlation to stock prices.

I feel like small investors are led in by trends and something manipulates the markets and causes the opposite action of selling / buying screwing the small guy.

Does anyone else share this feeling? I think i am going to move on to a different investment such as real estate .