Ask HN: How do you invest? - thewarrior
======
lutusp
I don't know your reason for asking, but if it's advice you're after, avoid
investment counselors, and invest in index funds. Here are the reasons:

[http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths](http://arachnoid.com/equities_myths)

Warren Buffet has chosen index funds as the basic approach for his estate and
relatives after he's gone.

------
OGiR
I personally own (not through a broker) shares in a diversified portfolio of
companies, all of which offer Dividend Reinvestment Plans with optional cash
purchases of additional shares directly through the company's transfer agent.
This means that I pay no fees when purchasing additional shares for my DRiPs,
in fact, a lot of the companies I invest in offer discounts on shares
purchased through their Share Purchase Plan. I mostly invest in large
companies that pay reasonable dividends with long histories of stability and
dividend payments/increases. My goal is to almost never stop buying, making
use of dollar cost averaging, and earn a safe return that ought to still beat
the market in order to save for retirement/other future investments.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Buying DRIP stock has a lot of tax complexity. You establish a new cost basis
for stock with every dividend you receive. I.e. 4x a year.

    
    
       Above all, the importance of recordkeeping cannot be
       overstated. Unlike other tax-related documents, DRIP
       statements, recording all reinvestments and OCPs,
       should be kept indefinitely. [1]
    

But if you die and leave everything to your heirs, all is forgiven. They get a
brand new tax basis and it no longer matters when you bought.

[1]
[https://finance.yahoo.com/education/drip/dspp_plans/article/...](https://finance.yahoo.com/education/drip/dspp_plans/article/101139/Tax_Considerations_of_DRIP_Investing)

~~~
OGiR
Thanks for the advice. It is important not to overlook the downsides of any
investment strategy, and I do keep very diligent records.

The downside to DRiPs as you mentioned is the amount of paperwork you have to
do and the difficulty in selling. For me, however, I am willing to incur that
cost for the upsides which are particularly maximized by my personal
situation.

I am not sure about how difficult US taxes are, but in Canada they are fairly
straightforward for someone adept at math and logic.

------
th1agofm
I'm a buy & hold stock market investor in companies which have good
management, care about the shareholders and of course, good balances.

I use the simple strategy of (1 - my_age)% in the stock market and the rest in
fixed income funds(or less risky investments, including some hedge in gold and
dolar due the fact that I live in the third world and currency fluctuations
happen frequently).

It's funny because even though I work with software development, I don't have
much interest about internet companies(read FB, TW and so on). The other
sectors in the industry are less of a gamble and I like that.

------
dangrossman
Of the money I invest --

25% in Vanguard dividend growth index fund

25% in Vanguard total stock market index fund

25% in Vanguard total bond market index fund

25% in stocks I chose myself

------
panorama
Betterment and Bitcoin speculation for the most part. With the right
knowledge, you can certainly outperform Betterment, but as a programmer I'm
content just outsourcing that and saving that time for other things (like
getting better at programming, for example, which implicitly earns me money as
well).

------
marioluigi
The Taleb way - 90% in debt instruments and 10% buying options for the black
swan event.

------
akuma73
Read about asset allocation and mean variance optimization. The rest will
follow.

------
mnort9
Haven't used it yet, but I'm intrigued by WealthFront.

~~~
adamnash
I'm CEO at Wealthfront. Saw your note - check out our whitepaper. It's full of
information on how to allocate assets (both taxable & tax-deferred accounts),
and which ETFs are the cheapest / best index funds. You can use the info
yourself, or have Wealthfront automate it for you.
[https://www.wealthfront.com/whitepapers/investment-
methodolo...](https://www.wealthfront.com/whitepapers/investment-methodology)

------
kelukelugames
poorly.

now i just buy aaa bonds and sp500. lost too much gamblin' alreafy.

------
majurg
bitcoin

