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birb_cromble  4d ago (text post)   593 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread - 2027-07-04

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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  • Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
  • Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
  • Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
  • Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Better is better. Celebrate people when they take a step up and work to move their finances in the right direction. Don't flame out because they haven't followed what you consider the optimal path. Everybody has to start somewhere.
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12% per year over 12 years is quite good actually, that's how much Madoff pretended to make at the time, coincidentally.

I am horrible with market timing, so I won't say anything about that. Just relay one story that I find fascinating. One of the first bubbles in history was the South Sea Company bubble. And Isaac Newton (yes, that one), who was by then doing quite well, invested in it too. Since he was smart, he knew it's going to go down some day, so he made a reasonable profit (about 100% on investment) and exited. But the stock kept going up. And up. And up. And finally Newton couldn't bear it anymore and got in again. And promptly lost 20K pounds (a real lot of money). Biographers say he was salty about it for the rest of his life.

That's why I don't feel bad about being horrible at timing the markets. If one of the smartest people who ever lived couldn't do it, what chance do I have anyway? I'll stick to indexes.

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