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How would you invest $100,000 right now?

13

Comments

  • edited September 2023
    Yes, one must have a plan. A "Big Picture" view of what you're after. How long will you stay in the Market, for stocks or bonds or other stuff? How would I "invest" $100k? I've answered this question above, already. Right now? I'd stick with my plan and deploy the money in ways that don't destroy my original intent and goals. Current market conditions should be kept in mind, of course. And what do you expect to happen next year, too?...

    I'm 34% in bonds, a lot of it in junk. I'm not up double digits with it in '23, but close:
    Fund A = +9.11% ytd.
    Fund B = +7.44%. ytd.

    Why have I been adding to my chosen regional bank these days, in such a stinky environment? Because this environment lets me buy shares at a better price than before. The investment pays me dividends while I wait for the sky to turn blue. As mentioned before, I have heirs in mind, not just myself.

    I do not think rates will come down at all in 2024. I hear experts telling me that next year's falling rates are already baked into today's market. What I'm expecting is high rates and cloudy skies for another year. But there's still money to be made. Glad right now that I hold that oil/gas midstream company. (Limited Partnership.)

    I do not own Niterra YET. NGKSY. It looks right now to be very much overbought. It's sitting at a ytd high share price tonight.
    Edit to add: OMG. NGKSY "trades" on a "Grey Market." No, thank you. (Per TRP.)
  • edited September 2023
    @Junkster, you may seen the same posts at Twitter - there are noises that 2023 YTD is shaping as the 3rd down year for Treasuries and "that cannot be". The total bond market and corporate bonds seem to have turned around 2023 YTD. Will that drag Treasuries into a positive 2023 eventually?
  • Junkster said:

    I trade only bond funds because of their persistency of trend combined with their lack of volatility. There are exceptions, but since 2000 there has always been a bond category that has beaten the S@P annually. Of course those exceptions are pretty glaring ala 2013, 2017, 2019, 2021, and so far this year. So with an extra $100,000 would just add it to the bond category that is far ahead of the bond pack this year. That would be bank loans/floating rate which I have mentioned previously, Some are already ahead double digits YTD. Aside of March they have been as steady a trender as you could want. They are massively overbought, ripe for a correction, and with fears of rising defaults. But, ( and I have to continually remind myself of this) overbought in Bondland can stay overbought for long periods of time. Then again, this wouldn’t be an investment just a trade. Investment is a foreign term to me. I think the only time I was ever in a position since the 1990s for more than four to six months was in IOFIX in 2020/2021.

    Junkster, you are the most prominent trader on these forums. I find it very interesting to see what you are trading, but I know I don't have the skill set to "successfully" trade and risk my lifetime retirement accumulations, trying to emulate your investing approach.
  • edited September 2023
    @dtconroe, thanks for the compliment. Wish it were true but it’s not. If I were to believe that I would become full of myself and that has doomed many a trader. All the good traders I knew had particular traits and one was humility. So I try to adhere to that.

    You do a great job staying in your lane. I realize many like you are camped out in money market funds, CDs, and Treasuries and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. The returns there this year for many not only pay the bills but for some have added to their nest eggs,

    @yogibearbull, yes, three negative years in a row for Treasuries is unheard of. Where go Treasuries goes impacts so many bond categories. So trying to figure out the direction of Treasuries short term (an almost impossible task) is always on my mind. Last year rising short term and long term rates negatively impacted everything in Bondland. That hasn’t been the case in 2023” Just look at the performance of bond funds such as HOBIX, DHEAX, BDKAX, to name just a very few. Even junk corporates have more than hung in there especially @Crash favorite TUHYX and one of my favorites CSOAX.

    Edit. The good traders are the ones who can adeptly trade stocks. While I have more than successfully daytraded stock index futures, equity mutual funds in days gone by and bond funds, my particular trading style doesn’t work for individual stocks. In other words, I can’t trade stocks. I realize my limitations there. It is a risk tolerance thing. Any successful trader or investor needs to find their particular niche and stocks aren’t my niche, That has always frustrated me because many of the thrust indicators I monitor have been spot on calling major bottoms over the past many years.
  • edited September 2023
    FD1000 said:

    Well, again, it depends on someone's age, goals, and risk.
    I know the following several investors
    1) 90+% in Munis: This guy sold his company in the 90s for several million and since then he is in 90+% muni, the rest in stocks.
    2) 90+% in CD: This guy has "only" one million
    3) 85% in stocks: This guy has over 10 million and has been invested like this for decades and is now at retirement.
    4) This guy shorted the market, but only at 2-3%.
    5) This couple in their 80s invested it all in stocks since retirement in their early 60s. Why? because their pension + SS is over $25K per month.
    6) Several investors in their 30s are all at high% in stocks

    As you can see numbers 3,5 and 6 are invested highly in stocks but are different. Each of the above has a unique case.

    Without the right context(age, goals, and risk), you can't learn much in depth. Even that isn't enough. Suppose someone says, I like treasuries right now. Well, what % do you own? is it 5% or 20%? The % you committed to anything you posted you own makes a difference.

    $100K out of 10 mill is only 1%. I doubt this investor would make any significant change to her portfolio. A $100K to someone without saving matters a lot more than the 10 mill.

    Lastly, when I read dtconroe's post I got the context pretty well.

    Doesn't really matter at all how it affects anything. It is HOW YOU WOULD invest it. If I had $10m I would go buy something nice.

    C'mon FD....you never once said how YOU would invest it.
  • I read this thread as NOT a general question about investing, but just a very individual question, that each investor will answer for any reason they choose. I hope it does not regress into which decision is "better", or which is likely to make the most money. I don't personally care to take the risk to "potentially" make the most money, and the best decision for me, is to preserve principal, make a respectable total return, so I can enjoy my retirement with minimal stress.
  • @dtconroe- Exactly- same here.

    However...if answering this question prior to maybe five years ago the answer would have been entirely different. The financial positioning is entirely different when comparing accumulation years and preservation years.
  • edited September 2023
    What I meant to ask @Baseball_Fan (and forgot to) is:

    ”What’s different about this particular $100,000 compared to all your other invested money?”

    Anyway, @Gary1952 was very emphatic and precise (all capital letters) earlier and specified that that the amount had to be exactly $100,000 and that it had to be ”NOW”.*

    I therefore rewrote my earlier submission(s), adding the exact date / time of day / amount ($100,000) and broke every investment down to the exact penny. As far as I know, I’m the only one who met or exceeded this requirement. I hope my effort may serve as an exemplar model for FD1000 and others to follow.


    *While to us it seems that time (“NOW”) is absolute, it is not. The measure of time will differ depending on what sources of gravity are nearby and the relative speeds of the clock being measured and the observer.”
    https://prancer.physics.louisville.edu/modules/time/index.html
  • oh-oh... we may be losing @hank...
  • Old_Joe said:

    oh-oh... we may be losing @hank...

    giggle.

  • 15% - VDADX
    15% - VTSAX
    70 % - t-bill ladder
    *3-month 20% 6-month 25%; 1-year; 25%
  • Pretty much same here- would add to existing T-Bill and CD ladder.
  • edited September 2023
    CDs at Schwab Brokerage are slowly seeing ongoing rate increases--some short term CDs are now at 5.6s, with most inching up above 5.4%. It is very encouraging for me personally, and anytime I get a "spare" $100k, it appears I will have some very attractive retirement options to consider. I do see some positives in a few bond oefs that I follow, but I am not quite ready to shift away from CD options for now.
  • edited September 2023
    Same here in still staying almost entirely out of risk assets, with a twist in the last couple of months: trying to extend maturity in Treasuries I own to 1-2y at 5% or greater, and if 3y ever hits 5%, I'll be there too. For ultrashort maturity, it's funds, with a heavy lean toward floating rate, all but entirely investment grade.

    Full disclosure about the T maturity extension: I have been accused (rightly) of thinking too far ahead at times.

    So a new $100k now would prob'ly go about 50-50 into those two types of investment, maybe with a little kicker to the fairly small cash allocation at the moment. Actually that's pretty close to a real plan, with a chunk of T's maturing in the next month.
  • edited September 2023
    ” … anytime I get a "spare" $100k …

    Sounds like me. Empty the coin jar once or twice a year. :)
  • edited September 2023
    There are few pockets of bond funds that are doing well, but they are heavily overbought as @junkster mentioned. So watch for defaulting if and when recession strikes. For now short term T bills and CDs are still attractive, yielding 5.5%. We continue rolling over T bills as they mature.

    @junkster, would treasury floating rate bonds be reasonable alternative to FR/BL funds?
  • edited September 2023
    Sven said:

    There are few pockets of bond funds that are doing well, but they are heavily overbought as @junkster mentioned. So watch for defaulting if and when recession strikes. For now short term T bills and CDs are still attractive, yielding 5.5%. We continue rolling over T bills as they mature.

    @junkster, would treasury floating rate bonds be reasonable alternative to FR/BL funds?

    @Sven, no not a reasonable alternative, Treasury floating rate bonds are up around 3.60% YTD while bank loan funds are up on average 8.89%. A couple bank loan funds are up over 11% and many are up over 10%. Since the last week in May a few bank loan funds have had but three down days. The epitome of trend persistence and the sector is on track for its second best year ever. Massively overbought but has been that way for some time now. When this category finally cracks will be looking elsewhere such as BDKAX which I mentioned at the beginning of July. New managers there took over last December and its performance has been more than impressive since. Then again, better to seek out under the radar funds that get no mention/attention on the boards,





  • Thanks. High quality bonds have been so so this year but high yield corporate and BL/FR excel with high single digit total return. For now I am focus on short term high yield bonds while keeping my eyes on the gain already made on high yield corporate and BL/FR.
  • edited September 2023
    Gary: Doesn't really matter at all how it affects anything. It is HOW YOU WOULD invest it. If I had $10m I would go buy something nice.
    C'mon FD....you never once said how YOU would invest it.

    FD: I thought I did, maybe in another thread. I would just add to my current holdings now an all the way when I started years ago.
    $100K is not meaningful to change someone's life.

    Buying something isn't investing.
  • "$100K is not meaningful to change someone's life."

    A total disconnect to the reality of human life. And there we see a person for what he really is. Not pretty.
  • edited September 2023
    d
  • edited September 2023
    deleted
  • “100k is not meaningful to change someone’s life”. I am sure all of us here disagree but that money could pay for life saving medical treatment,,,, put your kid thru four years at a decent enough state school, free a family from debt,, have a down payment and closing costs on a house in some places. Start a retirement account for a young person that will grow over the next 40 years. We all know this with the exception of one person here so I thought I might give him a few reasons why he is so wrong.
  • edited September 2023
    Old_Joe said:

    "$100K is not meaningful to change someone's life."

    A total disconnect to the reality of human life. And there we see a person for what he really is. Not pretty.

    The above is a disconnect from the subject. We are discussing how would you invest $100K.
    Examples:
    If you are 35 years old and saved $100K already and it's in stocks, now you got another $100K, you should invested in stocks again.
    If you are retired, age 65 with $400K and invest at 50/50, you would probably invest the extra $100K in the same way.
    Hence, in many cases one wouldn't change his/her portfolio meaningfully.
  • FD100. Your statement about how much money is meaningful to change someone’s life is a disconnect from the subject.
  • As well as reality.
  • edited September 2023
    d
  • Well stated Old_Joe. Think about what 100 grand would do for a newly homeless working poor family priced out of the rental market. That might provide a MEANINGFUL change to their life.
  • edited September 2023
    @FD1000. "$100K is not meaningful to change someone's life." Excuse me, but I MUST chime in, here: as my beloved uncle with the wry sense of humor would say: "I do not follow your non-sequitur." Grin.

    To disconnect money from living and HOW we live, is to disconnect money/investing from any questions regarding the quality of life, and disconnects money/investing from any ethical considerations, as well. I suppose we each must decide upon our own individual filters; apparently, some of us just don't worry about ethics at all. And we can all see where that decision (or lack of a decision) has brought a certain Orange Disgrace--- despite all the effort by so many in his Party to attempt to ignore the facts. ("Just ignore the facts, maybe they'll go away.") And sadly, there are too many more just like him.

    In addition, to assert that "$100K is not meaningful to change someone's life" only sounds like braggadocio, too.
  • edited September 2023
    "You can't stop him. You can only hope to contain him!"

    Um, maybe best to start a rebuttal of his wild-eyed statement with some, you know, facts:
    https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-net-worth-by-age/
    Excerpt:

    Household net worth by age
    Age of head of family
    Median net worth

    < 35..... $13,900
    35-44..... $91,300
    45-54..... $168,600
    55-64..... $212,500
    65-74..... $266,400
    75+..... $254,800

    Source: The Federal Reserve


    So his wild-eyed statement that
    "$100K is not meaningful to change someone's life"
    is (of course) FACTUALLY incorrect.

    But that still, IMHO, does NOT affect his status as the new (well, as of 2016),
    Most Interesting Man in the World.
    (Click on photo below twice)

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