A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.
Ground Rules
- 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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
So I made a successful tech play and I am trying to decide whether to (1) cash in; (2) re-balance; or (3) let it ride.
The background: I normally invest in boring Vanguard style mutual funds, but a year or two ago a buddy convinced me to take a modest chunk of my overall investments and basically make an AI play. The thinking was that this is analogous to the dot com bubble and people who got in early on "infrastructure" type investments as well as the leading companies ended up doing very well. Some of the investments fizzled, some did rather well, and some did extraordinarily well. Probably the best example is Sandisk which went up more than 50-fold. The upshot of this is that my tech portfolio is now worth a little less than $4 million. It's no longer a small chunk of my overall portfolio but instead is a slight majority of the total value.
At this point, the obvious thing to do is to take some chips off the table, but the tricky part is that part of me thinks that AI is more than just a bubble, that it will have economic impacts which make the Internet seem like pet rocks, hula hoops, and Dutch tulip bulbs. So basically I am left with a question that has been kicking around here for a while: investing in a situation where there is a huge range of possible outcomes, up to and including the possibility of a full on technological singularity. Thoughts?
From a psychological perspective I'd say pull half your winnings out and distribute it hedging against some scenarios you can think of. If AI goes off and the tech stocks don't reap the outside gains what might? A broad index of companies like the S&P500 might get commodity priced intelligence for very cheap and become much more valuable because their size and market position give them the best chance to leverage the boons. Other inherently scarce commodities like minerals and land will likely preform well in any scenario where labor, both physical and intellectual, falls to marginal. So mining companies with mineral rights and REITs might pay off. I'm sure you can think of some other scenarios. In most worlds these investments aren't big winners, but in the worlds where they are you'll be very happy you halved your direct AI exposure, which will be plenty anyways if it pays off, to hedge in them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link