The Investment Thread

[rwa12]

If you are not buying in "bulk", scrap silver coins are easy to unload. If you are not paying numismatic value for them, scrap eagles are basically smaller versions of bars. If you're going to buy 16 ounces at a time, I'd just buy the bar. Silver doesn't typically reach value where liquidating individual coins makes sense. Bars are easier to store as well. If you are just buying an ounce here and there, buy scrap coins. Everyone coin shop will have them.

[wallus]

What do you guys think of REITs right now? (generally speaking of course)

[FVBrewerFan]

If you are not buying in "bulk", scrap silver coins are easy to unload. If you are not paying numismatic value for them, scrap eagles are basically smaller versions of bars. If you're going to buy 16 ounces at a time, I'd just buy the bar. Silver doesn't typically reach value where liquidating individual coins makes sense. Bars are easier to store as well. If you are just buying an ounce here and there, buy scrap coins. Everyone coin shop will have them.

 

Or you could just get a Gold ETF that tracks the price of gold.

[rwa12]

Or you could just get a Gold ETF that tracks the price of gold.

 

Agreed. I didn't read back, I thought they were discussing physically owning precious metals.

[homer]

What do you guys think of REITs right now? (generally speaking of course)

 

From what I've read they are a good hedge against inflation. And many people feel that we are headed to higher inflation based on what the current administration is proposing.

[nate82]

For me I own physical gold as there are ways around paying taxes with physical gold versus ETF. All legal btw.

[LouisEly]

I'm looking at buying a house that is around $550K. If I put 20% down ($110K) the loan is $440K which is a jumbo loan and the interest rate is around 4.375%. If I put down 25% (additional $27K down) it's just under the jumbo threshold and the interest rate is 4%; but if I pay for two points (additional $7K) the interest rate is 3.875%. The points are a lot less than putting down an extra 5%, but the extra 5% goes towards the principal whereas the points are a cost and the points require you to stay in the property for ~7 years to break even.

 

Not sure which is the better option.

They listed the house on Friday and had two offers before the open house on Saturday. Went to the open house on Saturday and during the 15 minutes I was there at least 15 other people walked through. 30 minutes into the open house the listing agent was almost out of brochures. My realtor said she has never seen an open house like that. They set a cutoff for best offers by 5pm Sunday and accepted an offer Sunday night (not mine which was list price).

 

Found another place on line on Sunday that had been up for six days. Contacted my realtor, she called... and was told they had multiple offers and had a cutoff at noon on Sunday (it was 1:30pm).

 

Wow. Housing is not a bad place to be now.

[wallus]

I'm looking at buying a house that is around $550K. If I put 20% down ($110K) the loan is $440K which is a jumbo loan and the interest rate is around 4.375%. If I put down 25% (additional $27K down) it's just under the jumbo threshold and the interest rate is 4%; but if I pay for two points (additional $7K) the interest rate is 3.875%. The points are a lot less than putting down an extra 5%, but the extra 5% goes towards the principal whereas the points are a cost and the points require you to stay in the property for ~7 years to break even.

 

Not sure which is the better option.

They listed the house on Friday and had two offers before the open house on Saturday. Went to the open house on Saturday and during the 15 minutes I was there at least 15 other people walked through. 30 minutes into the open house the listing agent was almost out of brochures. My realtor said she has never seen an open house like that. They set a cutoff for best offers by 5pm Sunday and accepted an offer Sunday night (not mine which was list price).

 

Found another place on line on Sunday that had been up for six days. Contacted my realtor, she called... and was told they had multiple offers and had a cutoff at noon on Sunday (it was 1:30pm).

 

Wow. Housing is not a bad place to be now.

 

That is a dramatically different housing market than the one I am in now.

[brewcrewdue80]

Here's how crazy IPOs are at the moment. Ardagh group priced at 19 yesterday. Up to 22.91 at close today +20%

Goos that canadian goose jacket company has been priced at $17 opening for trade tomorrow. Original range was a $14-16 and prices essentially +20% already.

Likewise Mulesoft probably to be priced tomorrow and open for trade Friday has raised it's offering from 12-14 to 14-16 which low to high is 33% before even opening for trade.

 

We'll see if I can get in for under $18 on Goos and $17-17.50 on Mulesoft which I feel best about. But I'm thinking both will open for trade at 20 or higher immediately leaving me to wait. Just love how the average investor is left to scraps and paying off the rich.

 

edit: Crud, the Goos pricing was in Canadian $$$ so It comes to 12.78 per in US dollar supposedly.

[superfly]

GOOS opened in the $18s, now down to $16.40.

[brewcrewdue80]

GOOS opened in the $18s, now down to $16.40.

 

Im thinking a lot of mistakes like I made on Canadian $17 vs 12.78 US

I clearly am not in this with the first trade pop. Beyond what I look for.

 

Kinda lame, the "Public" offering opened at 18 and today closed just over 16. Now the stock board says up 25% but truthfully its down like 11% ahh, to be rich and buy the true IPO stock offering last night. Would been 40+% gain selling the open

 

MuleSoft priced at $17 from the initial 12-14. And opened for public trading at 24.40. Yep Another one bites the dust for the public. Rich? Another 45% take overnight.

 

I just don't get it on how people buy in at such an initial jump. It's at 25.16 now and that's 3.5% from Open. To get 33% it would have to reach $32.45 Over twice the Initial IPO price offering. Near twice the actual Priced at. Sigh.

[jerichoholicninja]

Not really an investment question but a "money" question. I've some paper and coin currency that my step brother gave me years ago from his travels in the Navy in the 90's from various countries like the Philippines, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. I just want to get rid of it. I would guess some of it isn't even the current currency of some of these countries. Does anyone know where I could even find out if it's worth anything?

[FVBrewerFan]

Sounds pretty cool actually, you don't want to save them?

[superfly]

Sounds pretty cool actually, you don't want to save them?

 

Famous last words of a reason to hoard. Lol

[jerichoholicninja]

Sounds pretty cool actually, you don't want to save them?

 

I've had them for almost 20 years and I've looked at them twice - when I got them and just now when I found them cleaning. I really don't have any interest in keeping them and since my wife and I moved in together I've been trying to get rid of as much of my needless stuff as I can. I guess if they are totally worthless I might make some sort of display but right now it's just clutter.

[rwa12]

I would think one of those currency conversion places could help. If it is out of date, I'd try my luck at a coin shop. I can't imagine it would be worth a ton, but would be rid of it. I brought money back from UAE when I deployed, thought it would be cool. It wasn't.

[brewcrewdue80]

For the most part, its likely not worth much. And some places likely will reauire you to have more before even doing a transaction. I ran in to that problem Given 20 British Pounds as a tip one day. (1.94) per back then. Lost a lot of value today. I went to a couple banks to exchange it and was told they only change the currency with 50pounds or more. Now this is a popular currency. I cant imagine what amount you need with such an irregular currency.

My dad has currency from serving in Vietnam I looked for recently. You can find more info online and try to match with images to find what the currency even is.

Id probably check in with a bank, let them lead you to possible place to exchange the currency. Maybe theres a museum somewhere that would take it for display.

[nate82]

For the most part paper money is going to be worth very little. The coins on the other hand can be more valuable depending on how rare they are. You might want to just keep the coins as they could become more valuable as they age.

[NeedMoreFans]

My wife and I are both public employees in WI, so all of our investments are either in WRS or our Roth 403(b)s that we set up. I am somewhat interested in investing some money that we can liquidate fairly easily. I was looking into mutual funds, but the minimum amount to buy into a fund is more than I am willing to put in, but I came across ETFs. What are people's thoughts on ETFs? I found two that are indexed; one is indexed to the S&P the other a total stock index. They appear to be very similar to an index fund but without minimums other than the cost for a "share."

[nate82]

My wife and I are both public employees in WI, so all of our investments are either in WRS or our Roth 403(b)s that we set up. I am somewhat interested in investing some money that we can liquidate fairly easily. I was looking into mutual funds, but the minimum amount to buy into a fund is more than I am willing to put in, but I came across ETFs. What are people's thoughts on ETFs? I found two that are indexed; one is indexed to the S&P the other a total stock index. They appear to be very similar to an index fund but without minimums other than the cost for a "share."

 

ETF's are better than mutual funds. Here is a good article on ETF vs Mutual Funds. https://www.forbes.com/sites/feeonlyplanner/2013/07/18/whats-the-difference-mutual-funds-and-exchange-traded-funds-explained/#3b42a5ac18ac

 

SPDR "spider" ETF's are also a good investment.

[bball123h]

I'll second ETFs, while noting that I would, generally speaking, set them and forget them. The fact they are easy to buy and sell can be enticing to try and time the market... Don't do that!

 

I have my ETFs at Vanguard, which didn't have any minimums and allows you to buy/sell their ETFs for free (or so has been my experience). There may be fees if you cross a certain number of transactions, but I haven't been charged any transaction fees yet. I'm guessing Schwab/Fidelity/etc have similar setups.

[FVBrewerFan]

I'll second ETFs, while noting that I would, generally speaking, set them and forget them. The fact they are easy to buy and sell can be enticing to try and time the market... Don't do that!

 

Why not? I do it all the time, in fact I just scaled back earlier this month. I get most people aren't comfortable with that. But after a big correction, you better believe I'll be buying, and when we have a long run up, I'm moving a chunk out of the market.

[bball123h]

If you're constantly watching the market, reading up, etc., then I understand. If you're not someone who really has time to devote to it, I wouldn't mess around with that.

 

I just constantly contribute right now. And yes, it is nice to buy at the bottom, but what is the bottom? Where is the top? Is this a one day move, or a signal of a longer-term trend? All difficult answers for a passive investor.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yea, I'm not as engaged as I used to be. And would never pretend to know the exact top or bottom, even if I did follow the markets very closely. But even a passive investor could see this huge run-up and make an educated guess there will be a pull-back. I never go "all in" or "all out" But I have found this has worked for me over many years. I've done that with individual stocks as well, although these days I only have a few left and I pretty much do just leave those alone since they are not in a tax-advantaged plan.

[crickets]

https://www.google.com/amp/mashable.com/2017/03/24/ethereum-bitcoin-explainer.amp

 

Im very intrigued with Ethereum. I have a couple developers that work for me and they brought it up in conversation a few months ago. I bought a bunch of shares last month at $11, now sits over $48.

 

It's the future and some big organizations have been backing it including some Fortune 500 banks