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2025 / 2026 Investment Thread

I don't understand the point of chasing high dividends unless they're qualified dividends with lower taxes. Most are not, which means you're stuck paying ordinary income tax on them. You'd be better off selling holdings when you need to, and just pay capital gains which, if they were held long-term, tops out at only 20%
 
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I'm not buying it; I just thought the dividend seemed too good to be true. I will stick to more well-known decent divided stocks such as Coca Cola for my dividend vehicles.
 
Problem is, the vast majority of high dividend payers aren't in tech or any other "growth" sector, so over a long time horizon your total return will be lower. So all those early retirees (30-40 somethings) are gonna be missing the boat on that potential growth.

Even if someone thinks they're only gonna live another 10 years...........Check the returns on SPYD, which is composed of the top 80-90 highest dividend payers in the S&P500. Its share price grew only 64% over the last 10 years, versus 256% for the total S&P500. Even if you factor in its higher yield of 4 something percent instead of just 1 percent, you wouldn't get anywhere near 256%
 
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If i wanted dividends I would invest in AGNC. Monthly dividends reliable income and they have held it steady for over 5 years. Its priced high right now but when it dips to sub $9 its a def buy for me.
 
byke said:
Being in or out of tech or growth isn't an inherent positive or negative, because it's relative to goals and timelines and whatnot. And pretty much every covered call strategy is clipping highs in favor of also clipping lows. You're using the loss of potential growth as a universal negative, but it is not when it's desired for the purpose of limiting loss in downturns. This is not a strategy for peak growth at some point in the future. Run a test for this scenario, you're 65, you don't know if you will live 1 year or 35 years, you want to retire right now,, you need as consistent income as possible for the rest of your life, you have $300k in your 401k. Go.
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There are some advisors/bloggers who say retirees should just leave everything in the S&P500.....No bonds, no CDs, nothing else. It's not something I would probably ever do, but I'm just saying it's not unheard of. Maybe they're only thinking of people who have $1-2M plus, not just 300K
 
Margin loans or SBLOCs allow borrowing much of the equity out of the security with the advantage of still being subject to the dividend yield. The danger is in margin calls on ML's, but with consistent dividend payment history, it should be simple enough to collateralize a call with Treasuries, etc.
 
My positions are up almost 10 percent YTD.

Defense stocks and international stocks.

Wonder what will happen to the latter now that tariffs have been struck down.
 
Supreme Court says taco tarriffs are illegal.

Same day 🌮 says 10% tarriffs for everything and then says I will just do tarriffs in some other way and we will be in court for 5 years+ over these refunds.

CEOs and CFOs were literally cheering and toasting and now this.

Who knows what will happen come Monday meow
 
There was always a backup plan....
 
FXCLM5 said:
Supreme Court says taco tarriffs are illegal.

Same day 🌮 says 10% tarriffs for everything and then says I will just do tarriffs in some other way and we will be in court for 5 years+ over these refunds.
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Thing is, Congress in 150 days has to vote to keep that new tariff in place.

Will they do that?

Methinks not.
 
GAJ said:
Thing is, Congress in 150 days has to vote to keep that new tariff in place.

Will they do that?

Methinks not.
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Agreed, but 🌮 will just spin it in some other way and drag it out.

I do hope small businesses get some kinda break, the big boys will obviously push prices down to consumers, but small businesses don't get that luxury
 
it doesn't have much of a brain, and as a consequence cannot conceptualize anything. Except when it feels wronged.
 
cheez said:
Deflating how? It's just paused in its grown, not contracted at all.

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Keep a close eye on it. Don’t be caught holding the bag.
 
I am really really not a fan of covered calls, except with very strict application (buy out of the money, .1 delta or less.) They are like an extra small dividend payment. All of those ETFs that buy at-the-money covered calls on the SPY are not a good deal. You lose so much upside and the premium isn't even that great, nor will it protect you substantially in a major downward trend.

If security is what you are after, you need to do an equity collar. That's where the covered call premium is used to buy a put. You don't get any extra return but you do get downside protection at the cost of more limited upside.
 
Alright, what are the BARF nerds investing in these days? I don't understand puts, calls, yada yada etc. etc., and have a little cash in various brokerage accounts I would like to invest.
 
Your goals may be different than others. Do you want to double your balance in a few years or keep the nest egg you’ve worked to accumulate? 75% or more of the sp500 gains in the last couple of years have been from tech companies investing in ai and data centers. There may be some pullback from that over the next few years.
 
SPY is a ripoff, it's 0.09%. VOO is the exact same thing but only charges 0.03%. The only advantage of SPY is that it's higher volume, which can be good for options traders.

I never buy either of those anyway, I buy VTI which covers the S&P500 and nearly everything below it (~3,000 stocks). And the fee is the same as VOO's.

For foreign stocks I buy VXUS which covers all size categories, not just large caps. Last year I was roughly 50/50 VTI/VXUS, and did better than I would have with just VTI. And I expect that trend to continue this year. The US is overvalued IMO.
 
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Das MotorRad said:
Your goals may be different than others. Do you want to double your balance in a few years or keep the nest egg you’ve worked to accumulate? 75% or more of the sp500 gains in the last couple of years have been from tech companies investing in ai and data centers. There may be some pullback from that over the next few years.
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Simple way to reduce your tech exposure is to put only 50-60% of your money in the total market, and the other 40-50% in something like RSP, which is an equal-weight S&P500 where each company gets the same weight, instead of the big tech names dominating. The fee is a bit high though, at 0.2%

Or instead of RSP you could buy a dividend aristocrat fund. Those funds are skewed away from tech and more towards banks, healthcare, utilities, and consumer staples.
 
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900ss said:
Alright, what are the BARF nerds investing in these days? I don't understand puts, calls, yada yada etc. etc., and have a little cash in various brokerage accounts I would like to invest.
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Guns.

SHLD.
 
I got shld and euad on the same day a while back...

Screenshot_20260226-095838.png
 
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