Finance thread

[createdtoworship]

a former neighbor was a financial planner & talked us into annuity but it's never grown

we did IRA for us each one year & still stuck at 2000

only thing that's gone up is 401K

An IRA is just a type of account and so is a 401k. The company that hosts the plan, offers investments, usually 12 or so. So whatever investment you picked when it opened is most likely what it still has. My 401k made 18% last year, and this year is was down 10-20% from the crash, but recovered fully it's losses. I am broke even for the year now. So it just depends on what risk allocation you have in your account. The nice thing with stocks, is you can add a column to your watch list called "historical volatility" and it will tell you how risky it is. The higher the number the higher risk.

UCO is a very volatile fund it's over 1 for historical volitility.
TECL is very volatile too but it's about half of what UCO is at a .69

the general market funds, like mutual funds for example will run about .25 or .18 for a risky investment.
which is what a general market index typically is. I look for a fund called a leveraged fund. You have 1X which is no leverage, then you have 2X or 3X, which is double or triple leverage.

See this list of stocks, JNUG is a triple leveraged (3X) gold fund, and it's volatility is about .82, and that is a good one to buy when Gold is rallying.

so you can do that with most commodities, natural gas, oil, gold, silver, even biotech or market indices.

UPRO is a triple leveraged sp500 market index. You can't buy into these leveraged funds in a typical 401k or IRA, unless you have your IRA or 401k rolled over to a stock broker like TD ameritrade, Etrade, Fidelity, or other.

But being in a very volatile fund at the right time allowed me to be up about 60% today in about a month. I lost some this last week due to sideways markets. I was at a high of like 78% last week. And it can still go that high by next week. Most 401k's or IRA's are lucky to return 10-20%. My again was up 18% for last year. Some coworkers were up like 24%. But that is about as high as a return you can expect in a single year. Again my account was up about 68% in like 4 weeks. And mine is an IRA too, compared to a typical retirement at 20% a year.

so it's good to learn about investing, if not to make more in your existing retirements, to research the funds and find a good one. I think now is the time to be risky. Markets are generally oversold right now still and will continue to be for probably another six months or a year.

But again it's important to stay broken before the Lord and realize that wealth is a tool. You don't take out your screw driver and stroke it and dream about it. No, it's just a tool. But money can be really enticing. Especially after you know how to make it consistently. You start to dream about it literally. So at that point it's always good to take a snap shot of the whole picture. Who made the mountains, and the stars and the galaxies. Not me. IF someone told me to create a bug from thin air, I would be scratching my head. I am not God, I am just a person. But it's weird how money can change someone's status, simply from how much one has. Conversely, if you have no money how it can affect one's self worth. So all that is something to take into consideration before going into investing. My dream is to quite my job and just trade all the time. But I don't know if God will make that happen. I don't know if I truly want that. But I would like to work at home for a few hours and then spend the rest of time with kids. But what if I have a bad day? Will I yell at the family? Will I get stressed out and resort to drinking. What will happen then? So I don't know if I am ready for that phase. But I get excited about it simply because it can give other people breakthroughs that are living paycheck to paycheck and are struggling finding the money to pay the rest etcetera. So you can make money at trading, but is it God will for you in particular. That is not an easy question to answer. I even question if I should even train people in it. I ask myself all the time, will they use this to make void their faith in God. Sometimes success will cause people to just forsake God. It's in the valleys and the dark times that we truly meet with God intimately, but then when everything is fine and we are loving life, we live like a prodigal. So I take all that into consideration. At some point in my life I may find myself reigning in my investments if I find them causing spiritual pride, or self sufficiency. I wrote a document that I read pretty regularly of all my flaws and failings, all through life. It's keeps my head on straight. I remember my root being, that I am just a sinner and I dont' have much to offer anyone, and I am not even really that good of a person w/o Christ in my life. I also have a prayer list that I try to pray every week. I usually do it once a day, but recently it's been on a weekly basis. But that list is humbling too, I see all the answered prayers from God that I prayed for and that He answered, that I could not do myself. From healings, to getting jobs, cars, houses. To getting out of debt, to having the kids pass a class, or graduate a grade etc. All stuff that I may or may not have been able to do, and in my desperation asked God to do. I have lists and lists of answered prayers. I read that too. So I won't forget what He has delivered me from. That helps me too. But if I didn't do that, and if I didn't humble myself regularly, God would be forced to humble me. And that does not always look good. It can come from a failed investment, or typing in the wrong number on a trade ticket, and losing a bunch of money, it can come from getting sick with covid 19, or getting in a car wreck, or losing a job, or having a death in the family. Believe me, you don't want to live with pride, God will humble you, and it's not fun. So if you do become successful, manage your pride, and your self worth. Realize you have worth first of all, but that worth is in God, not you yourself. And also realize that if other people knew what you yourself know, they may be much better at what you do, that you are. In fact all of our mountain tops, are someone elses bottom.

 

[createdtoworship]

a former neighbor was a financial planner & talked us into annuity but it's never grown

we did IRA for us each one year & still stuck at 2000

only thing that's gone up is 401K

There is after 2008 what is called a low volatility SP500 fund. That is supposedly safer to buy into at the top of a market. I was looking at it's last few months performance in the dip of the market. The market fell 35% (SPX), while SPLV fell 31%. So it did do it's job sort of. But it is recovering slower. It recovered only 21% of it's losses, while SPX recovered 27%. So they are roughly about the same level. So I suppose it's good enough, but it's historical volatility is about the same. But ultimately I like a lower volatility index fund. I think more of them will come out as the markets get more turbulent. The concept is the rise slower, but they also fall slower, so they average about the same yearly gain as a normal market fund. I would not use it right now, as market is still low. I would use a higher volatile fund. But anyway, I forgot to mention that in my last post.

 

[createdtoworship]

Oil update:

Now OPEC+ meeting is on June the 4th. Russia has no problem with that. What does it mean? it means, meeting is just a formality as decision to cut more are already in place. I see no reason not to go up way higher. Businesses are opening, travel restrictions are being lifted off slowly, people are moving around. Demand will increase for sure. No more fears. UCO can possibly hit 100. Before I thought it would hit 300 but not exactly sure. Oil is half recovered. And UCO has not recovered half yet. There is ETF decay as well, explained here:

 

[createdtoworship]

a way to get around 3X etf decay is by doing far out calls and put options. I am currently doing a volatility test on a 600 day out call on oil. It was real cheap. But regardless I want to see what the daily volatility is for that option. Right now in oil options there is plenty of liquidity. I mean I don't believe I have ever seen this much liquidity in an option before. And that is great. But anyway, whether it's an option or a 3X eff your into, you want to utilize trailing stops. Here is a video on how to do it in my favorite platform think or swim, which is free to those who use think or swim. (also called TOS). Also I don't use limit trailing stop orders, I use regular trailing stop orders. In a free fall of a market limit orders offer you no protection. So just think of that before you do what the video says and turn on limit trailing stops.

 

[createdtoworship]

More positive news for oil:

The oil-rig count has now fallen for 11 weeks in a row, suggesting further declines in domestic crude output. The total active U.S. rig count, meanwhile, also fell by 17 to 301, according to Baker Hughes. The plunge in rigs is reflective of an industry that is still in contraction. That is a strong source of underlying support for oil prices.

https://m.investing.com/analysis/energy-report-trying-to-find-balance-200526299

 

[MarIllos]

Hello guys! What do you think about cryptocurrency? Is it worth investing? Maybe some of you had such experience? I read a lot of articles about trading and I want to start working with godex.io platform. What do you think about this?