So the basic question is, looking for suggestions on where to put $35K right now - with a goal of growing it to $120K in two years (or at least less than 5 years).
I'd like to park it on only 2 or 3 places. It's in a 401K account currently, but it's flexible and I can put it essentially any stock (a partial portion of a larger portfolio). Looking at things like PLTR and QBTS over the past year, that would have been good. But chasing individual stocks is what got me in this situation in the first place.
Now the funny context/story part: As most of you know, awhile back Schwab bought up TD Ameritrade. I used to really love the TDA website. And long ago, my company had this program that allowed you to self-manage a portion of your 401K. So I did that, something like 30% at the time. The TDA website was slick, and I noticed little things like around 2AM local it would start reporting on Europe markets. But then eventually, Schwab took it all over - and I just loathed the Schwab website. It wasn't fun to use anymore, and gradually I just used it less and less. That's the "funny emotional" story - people might trade on emotion, and here I let emotions on changes of the trade website itself get to me! I even wrote letters to Schwab about "I wish you guys were more like the old TDA website" or "when is the old TDA website coming back?"
It so happened around this time I also got distracted with a contractor who ended up taking my left over income bucket of money for a large construction job. Long story, big pains - whole days wasted, while I was on site trying to manage things myself for a while. Then finding a new contractor, while fighting the old contractor, etc, etc. I neglected to do stop losses, and that awful Schwab site just went far to the back of my mind -- maybe for about 6 months. Over the following major holiday, I reviewed accounts, and yeah - a lot of damage had been done. I'll go over it in a moment, but first to say I understand all investing has risk. Part of the risk of active management is it needs active attention - my routine had changed, and I didn't pivot on my plans (and as mentioned, I did let that irritating website change get to me -- at least Schwab isn't as bad as Vanguard's site
).
Ok, the damage can be summarized like this: basically I had two buckets - $200K in various ETFs and then $150K in various individual stocks. As most might guess, the ETF portion has fared well. Probably didn't beat the overall market, but it's held together. The individual stocks, however, tanked - hence the $35K number I'm asking about. As an example of one of the worst picks I had: NKLA. I'm not normally into Stop Limits (it's giving info to the brokers, whether they admit it or not) - but if you're going to step away for a while, they're probably prudent. (incidentally, it boils me up that after all that NKLA drama, then Trump pardoned Trevor Milton - but that's a topic for elsewhere, I just have to have faith that there was some kind of justified reason, like the Feds collected most the $$$ anyway, so no real reason to sit that guy in a cell?).
So, I'm down but not out, since I'm about 50. I sold those stupid individual stocks (except a couple that were at 99% loss already, just as nice painful reminders). And as a challenge, I'm wondering if we could someday witness this $35K clawing back at least to the $150K cost basis (two years would be nice). We'll never know what my trash original picks would have done - I've purged them from memory, no looking back (well, another one was SKLZ as an example, boo). I'm over the anti-Schwab website rant - it's still awful. Incidentally, I can report that my "self managed" portion of the 401K did seamlessly transition over from TDA over to this new broker. No issues on that at least.
Some thoughts:
1) All PAXS (or similar CEF)? Might get it to $50K in a couple years.
2) All PLTR or QBTS? Think those rides are over for now (I've done well with them in other accounts). My problem with "darling stocks" is that when they are swimming in cash and everything looks wonderful, then BAM "turns out accountants were cooking the books" or some kind of catastrophe happens. (and that can be ok if you're seriously actively managing things) But for this, I'm leaning more towards a CEF/ETF.
3) However, maybe 50% UNH? It's an interesting idea, just given how beat down they've gotten lately.
4) DCA the balance $500/wk back into something like ITOT, or similar (VOO, SPTM, QQQ)? It's high right now, but that's why one DCA's - fire and forget. (or maybe $2K every 2 months or something like that)
5) China? I've been eyeing China market, still quite down overall.
6) Sit and wait for the next 20% market drop day?
I'm no day trader, but can be active throughout the week. I wouldn't want this $35K going to 0, but on the other hand that wouldn't kill me either (it was on its way to 0 as it was). Account isn't setup for Options, and withdrawing isn't really an option either (although that be a little nice to offset some of the legal cost dealing with that first contractor-- still ongoing {I got a lien on him at least!}, but totally separate matter; the build itself is complete though, and can break even on that deal at least).
I'd like to park it on only 2 or 3 places. It's in a 401K account currently, but it's flexible and I can put it essentially any stock (a partial portion of a larger portfolio). Looking at things like PLTR and QBTS over the past year, that would have been good. But chasing individual stocks is what got me in this situation in the first place.
Now the funny context/story part: As most of you know, awhile back Schwab bought up TD Ameritrade. I used to really love the TDA website. And long ago, my company had this program that allowed you to self-manage a portion of your 401K. So I did that, something like 30% at the time. The TDA website was slick, and I noticed little things like around 2AM local it would start reporting on Europe markets. But then eventually, Schwab took it all over - and I just loathed the Schwab website. It wasn't fun to use anymore, and gradually I just used it less and less. That's the "funny emotional" story - people might trade on emotion, and here I let emotions on changes of the trade website itself get to me! I even wrote letters to Schwab about "I wish you guys were more like the old TDA website" or "when is the old TDA website coming back?"
It so happened around this time I also got distracted with a contractor who ended up taking my left over income bucket of money for a large construction job. Long story, big pains - whole days wasted, while I was on site trying to manage things myself for a while. Then finding a new contractor, while fighting the old contractor, etc, etc. I neglected to do stop losses, and that awful Schwab site just went far to the back of my mind -- maybe for about 6 months. Over the following major holiday, I reviewed accounts, and yeah - a lot of damage had been done. I'll go over it in a moment, but first to say I understand all investing has risk. Part of the risk of active management is it needs active attention - my routine had changed, and I didn't pivot on my plans (and as mentioned, I did let that irritating website change get to me -- at least Schwab isn't as bad as Vanguard's site
).Ok, the damage can be summarized like this: basically I had two buckets - $200K in various ETFs and then $150K in various individual stocks. As most might guess, the ETF portion has fared well. Probably didn't beat the overall market, but it's held together. The individual stocks, however, tanked - hence the $35K number I'm asking about. As an example of one of the worst picks I had: NKLA. I'm not normally into Stop Limits (it's giving info to the brokers, whether they admit it or not) - but if you're going to step away for a while, they're probably prudent. (incidentally, it boils me up that after all that NKLA drama, then Trump pardoned Trevor Milton - but that's a topic for elsewhere, I just have to have faith that there was some kind of justified reason, like the Feds collected most the $$$ anyway, so no real reason to sit that guy in a cell?).
So, I'm down but not out, since I'm about 50. I sold those stupid individual stocks (except a couple that were at 99% loss already, just as nice painful reminders). And as a challenge, I'm wondering if we could someday witness this $35K clawing back at least to the $150K cost basis (two years would be nice). We'll never know what my trash original picks would have done - I've purged them from memory, no looking back (well, another one was SKLZ as an example, boo). I'm over the anti-Schwab website rant - it's still awful. Incidentally, I can report that my "self managed" portion of the 401K did seamlessly transition over from TDA over to this new broker. No issues on that at least.
Some thoughts:
1) All PAXS (or similar CEF)? Might get it to $50K in a couple years.
2) All PLTR or QBTS? Think those rides are over for now (I've done well with them in other accounts). My problem with "darling stocks" is that when they are swimming in cash and everything looks wonderful, then BAM "turns out accountants were cooking the books" or some kind of catastrophe happens. (and that can be ok if you're seriously actively managing things) But for this, I'm leaning more towards a CEF/ETF.
3) However, maybe 50% UNH? It's an interesting idea, just given how beat down they've gotten lately.
4) DCA the balance $500/wk back into something like ITOT, or similar (VOO, SPTM, QQQ)? It's high right now, but that's why one DCA's - fire and forget. (or maybe $2K every 2 months or something like that)
5) China? I've been eyeing China market, still quite down overall.
6) Sit and wait for the next 20% market drop day?
I'm no day trader, but can be active throughout the week. I wouldn't want this $35K going to 0, but on the other hand that wouldn't kill me either (it was on its way to 0 as it was). Account isn't setup for Options, and withdrawing isn't really an option either (although that be a little nice to offset some of the legal cost dealing with that first contractor-- still ongoing {I got a lien on him at least!}, but totally separate matter; the build itself is complete though, and can break even on that deal at least).
Last edited:
