Ross Young

Comments:

• Good article. One way you can beat the market is by choosing certain sectors that historically outperform the S&P 500. There is additional risk that one sector will not always beat the market, the individual ETF may not have same top ten holdings weighting, and the expense fees will differ. However these risks have been worth it to many investors who purchased QQQ or VGT as tech sector ETFs have had superior historical returns to the S&P 500 for example VGT is a vanguard index fund mapped to the tech sector that has out performed the S&P500 for numerous years https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VGT/performance/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VOO/ VGT performance as of 6/5/2024 1 year 29.7% 3 years 10.38% 5 years 19.38% 10 years 19.79% Compare that to VOO vanguard’s ETF that mirrors the S&P 500 1 year 26.63% 3 years 8.02% 5 years 13.15% 10 years 12.37% Overall we see the tech sector being a much more profitable sector than just the S&P 500 which is only weighted 30% in the tech sector.

  Post: Beat the Market?

  Link to comment from June 5, 2024

• 4 Week Treasury Bills are currently paying 5.48%. That's 100% guaranteed and beats these options listed. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/marketable-securities/treasury-bills/ https://ycharts.com/indicators/1_month_treasury_rate?_gl=1*1kyiwpi*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTUxNDc3OTY1Ny4xNzE3MjQ0MDgx*_ga_29JVRYKWPW*MTcxNzI0NDA3NS4xLjAuMTcxNzI0NDA3NS4wLjAuMA.. i bonds are paying 4.28% https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/

  Post: Risk at Every Turn

  Link to comment from June 1, 2024

• If you think higher taxes are coming you have a few options. 1) Pay taxes now by converting things to a Roth to avoid paying taxes later. IE convert an IRA to a ROTH IRA 2) Move to states with no personal income tax (NV, TX, FL, TN, ...). It's an easy way to avoid any state taxes increase. Plus if you do a Roth conversion you save 6-10% by not paying the state taxes during conversions. 3) Invest in options that avoid state taxes. Certain things like munipal bonds, iBonds, and other US treasuries often don't have state taxes. So it's another way to minimize paying taxes

  Post: Will tax rates inevitably increase—and, if so, how should we prepare?

  Link to comment from June 1, 2024

• 1 month treasury at 5.48% now. You might put 10% of you savings in those and 90% in something like S&P 500. Combine this with Social Security, Pensions, and any other rental type income you have and you basically execute the 90% stock approach Warren Buffet recommends. Other than that you can look at various portfolios recommended by professionals here: https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/lazy-portfolios/

  Post: What’s the best strategy for generating retirement income?

  Link to comment from June 1, 2024

• Absolutely not worth it. Let's say you wanted someone to manage your assets for you because you are too busy. Option 1) You go to a financial advisor who charges 1% of assets per year Option 2) You go to a financial advisor who charges a fixed fee per hour to review without charging you a % based on the assets you bring to the table Option 3) You could just go to Vanguard and put all of your stocks into a target day mutual fund. Here your expense fees are .08% https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/target-retirement-funds For people who want a low cost hands off approach. These target funds seem like the easiest way for people to set it and forget it.

  Post: Is a good financial advisor worth 1% of assets per year?

  Link to comment from June 1, 2024

• Generally if you plan to live in a home > 5 years then it's a better investment to buy the home. Essentially there's the costs of buying and selling a home and those are hard to recoup in only a couple of years. >5 you usually have good appreciation on your home prices.

  Post: When does it make sense to buy a home?

  Link to comment from May 20, 2023