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2025 / 2026 Investment Thread

I don't know much, but somehow I have the same $$$ amount of stock after using said stock to find my life since 2024. Not complaining now, but I'm sure I will when it all crashes down.
 
Riders, annual administration and maintenance fees, as well as commissions paid to the adviser who sold you the annuity......I don't see the point

What do you have against budman/Riders? we are all riders here. Or at least people who like motorcycles.


Annuities are great for.... people who suck at math.
 
So far I am not impressed with Fidelity, although it is early days with them. I doubled my wife's main portfolio in 5 years (dumb luck, not skill), but I will take it for what it is. I am astounded with the number of investment vehicles that we have been invested in. Thankfully (we have been told) they refund all of the investment fees / ERs, and are not double-dipping. I will see if this is true when the first monthly statement arrives. If true, they can churn all they want if they keep us positive growth net their fees. I feel there are tough times ahead re: the market, (thank you, Cockwomble), and I don't have the savvy to weather that storm and headwinds if correct. Hopefully they do. If not, look for me on season one of "The Apprentice", with its turd son, saying "Michelle, you are FIRED!"
 
I doubt Fidelity would do anything more exotic than split your money across the same Fidelity funds you could have purchased yourself. Not only that, but I really doubt they do anything besides "buy and hold", with a rebalance once or twice a year. No market timing, news timing, geopolitical research, charts/technicals, or options trading. So my line of thinking is, why pay someone who proposes to do LESS than what I do myself.
 
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What annuity pays out 18% annually?
Sign me up, I could have retired a decade ago, if it actually existed
Like I said I got shared info from my aunt, and when I looked it up they were the #1 annuities holder in usa for past few years.

This is the Athene Ascent Pro 10 annuity, you can choose what type of withdrawal you want once the term vests, if not you gotta pay fees to pull $ out just like any other set investments with guaranteed deposits that has a minimum floor, the 20 year vest was seriously almost 20% payback annually, and if you chose indices payout, it start low but you get market compounding
 
Rider fees, annual administration and maintenance fees, as well as commissions paid to the adviser who sold you the annuity......I don't see the point
Please elaborate more, all these fees are paid out from the growth of earnings of your original vested amount, it's not like I get less $$$, I just need to leave it squirreled away for 20 years, and then you get all your $$$ back in the first few years (the growth is all theirs) but if you stay alive for like 20-30 more years, you definitely dipped into that growth they made off your initial investment

Also don't think about this investment vessel as a big % of your portfolio, I am only thinking 10-20% max of my net worth squirreled away here for 20 years, and if market poops the bed in the next 20, well at least this annuity payout will balance it out

I looked into % of retirement who have a annuity, it's around 5-6%, where 401k is 39% and ira is 29%< the remnants are fed/state and private pensions.

So as we all know like less then 1-2% of workforce does the max tax savings of loading 401k, HSA, Roth ira, so now I am not surprised that only 6% of ppl have this, it seems like this is a 4th investment vessel after you have great growth in other retirement investments which we know 98% of ppl don't ever do this, and lastly this is guaranteed income for the rest of your life, it's not for exponential growth
 
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We had them and sold them a few years back.

The performance reflected the fact that annuities are money makers for the vendor, not the client.
I understand that completely, and it goes both ways, if the market shits the bed in the next 20, they get stuck paying me until I die, and if the market did fully crash, I'd be made hole within the first 6 years, and every other year I remain alive, I get that 18% again and get to say my annuity saved me from the last 2 decades of the market

It's a set distribution, it's not for growth, it's like a insurance policy the way I am looking at it, and I still suggest having other investments and not be more then 10-20% for this vessel
 
I understand that completely, and it goes both ways, if the market shits the bed in the next 20, they get stuck paying me until I die, and if the market did fully crash, I'd be made hole within the first 6 years, and every other year I remain alive, I get that 18% again and get to say my annuity saved me from the last 2 decades of the market

It's a set distribution, it's not for growth, it's like a insurance policy the way I am looking at it, and I still suggest having other investments and not be more then 10-20% for this vessel
this assumes that the company holding your annuity doesn't go down with the market
 
That was my thought. Everything goes to shit, but this annuity company is fine and will keep paying. I have doubts.

I will say that having a small hedge in this area may not be bad. Maybe.
 
I understand this investment is not fdic insured

But neither is your stock market

So now it really plays into what Apollo groups (brokerage firm) look at their track records - like I said I have no real con info and am trying to figure it out

But AI says they can't default due to their insurance holdings for being a annuity provider and state would force them to have their own insurance, and if some reason that fails the state themselves have insurance for these annuity companies, looks like each state is different but Cali state insurance is 80% of your annuity can be replaced as long as it does not exceed 250k, some states insure up to 500k

And tbh, it's like 90% of the posts about this are outdated, and the newer annuities have way to many options now, I do stumble on a few posts in reddit threads where ppl say it definitely makes sense, as long as you know about it but it's definitely not for everyone, since 98% ppl don't even max out everything else

Also side note, I don't expect soon to be retirees to be doing this (even though this is the ppl who they aggressively sell to) that vested period before you touch for 10/20 years is a long wait if your nearing retirement, I'm in my 40s and can squirrel the funds away for 20 years

The weird things that ppl hang onto is, if you die before it vests or whatever nothing gets given to your heirs, but I am pretty sure there is some new language in the contract that helps out with this that I am trying to figure out
 
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Thinking of moving over money from VTI over to FXAIX.....hmm....should probably do it.
 
Ah crud.

I linked the Dead Kennedy's song, kinky sex makes the world go round

Perfect song about leaders choosing war for corporate profit. It is disturbingly prescient to our current goings on.

Give it a listen

Here's the lyrics, which happen as a conversation between Margaret Thatcher while she's being pleasured, and some American bureaucrat...



Greetings this is the secretary of war at the state department of the united states.
we have a problem, the companies want something done about this sluggish world economic situation.
profits have been running a little thin lately and we need to stimulate some growth.
now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property, it doesn't look like they'll ever get a job.
it's about time we did something constructive with these people.
we've got thousands of 'em here too they'Re crawling all over.
The companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together and start another war.
the president? He loves the idea! All those missiles streaming overhead to and fro
napalm, people running down the road, skin on fire.
the soviets seem up for it the kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years.
hell, afghanistan's no fun.
so whadya say?
We don't even have to win this one.
We just want to cut down on some of this excess population.
Now look just start up a draft draft as many of those people as you can we'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on, hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use An automatic rifle and send 'em on their way.
libya? El salvador? How 'bout northern ireland? Or a moderately repressive regime in south america?
We'll just cook up a good soviet threat story in the middle east.
we need that oil.
we had libya all ready to go and colonel khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up
I tell ya that man is unreliable
the kremlin had their fingers on the Button just like we did for that one.

Now just think for a minute, we can make this war so big, so big, the more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper!
we can get rid of practically everybody on your dole que
If We plan this right take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls.
now don't worry about demonstrations, just pump up your drug supply
so many people have hooked themselves on heroin amd amphetamines since we took over, it's just like vietnam.
we had everybody so busy with lsd they never got too strong.
kept the war functioning just fine.
It's easy, we've got our college kids so interested in beer they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again.
put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard, they wouldn't even know what it looked like.

so how 'bout it?
Look, war is money.
the arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse, the soviets are in same boat.

we all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say? !?
<Thatcher moaning in pleasure,>

That's excellent we knew you'd agree the companies will be very pleased.
 
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Meh.....that would be even more biased towards certain big tech than VTI is
Fxaix is fidelity mutual fund of the sp500, it's got super low fees, and from what I recall VTI is a vanguard index for entire market

Is your interest in the smaller russel cap?
 
Fxaix is fidelity mutual fund of the sp500, it's got super low fees, and from what I recall VTI is a vanguard index for entire market

Is your interest in the smaller russel cap?

80-85% of VTI is the S&P500, the rest is mid/small cap. The fee is 0.03%
 
Spacex is IPO next week

I made a bet with a friend. Lrcx vs mu who would hit $100 first back in 2024, Mu just 10x for me haha, Nvidia moved another 10% or so but I also missed SanDisk and sk hynix, but lrcx already 3x for me as well since 2024
 
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