$15,000 to spend on 1-5 cards...WWYD?

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

And by holding, or just investing at regular intervals not trying to time, I did much better. See my example. You cannot know if it's generally low in real time. It looks low today relative to 35K, but if it drops 5K, then it was in fact relatively high. I agree with WHAT you are buying, but I maintain just buying in at regular intervals in the long run is likely going to bet better than active management on timing.

We don't know where it will be in 3 months, but when the market is setting records and has already skyrocketed recently, it's not a good time to buy blue chips and index funds.

When the market has fallen 20-25%, your risk floor is way, way lower, especially factoring in the absolute risk floor. It's a much better time to buy. The market is not good right now and prices are way lower. Makes more sense to buy now than when it is setting records.

Of course, like I have said, it may be a better time to buy in 3, 6, 9, or 12 months from now. You can't time absolute lows or peaks beyond luck. But you can choose to buy when things are high or low. By buying this year instead of last year, that money is at 0% instead of -20%. All I'm gambling on when timing it, really, is that when in a new record high market, there will be a lower buying point in the future and I will just wait until it's lower. The odds of this strategy biting me in the rear are incredibly low. My gamble is simply that we will have periods of highs and lows and it is smarter to buy long holds during the lows, which the entire history of the market bears out.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

We don't know where it will be in 3 months, but when the market is setting records and has already skyrocketed recently, it's not a good time to buy blue chips and index funds.

When the market has fallen 20-25%, your risk floor is way, way lower, especially factoring in the absolute risk floor. It's a much better time to buy. The market is not good right now and prices are way lower. Makes more sense to buy now than when it is setting records.

Of course, like I have said, it may be a better time to buy in 3, 6, 9, or 12 months from now. You can't time absolute lows or peaks beyond luck. But you can choose to buy when things are high or low. By buying this year instead of last year, that money is at 0% instead of -20%. All I'm gambling on when timing it, really, is that when in a new record high market, there will be a lower buying point in the future and I will just wait until it's lower. The odds of this strategy biting me in the rear are incredibly low. My gamble is simply that we will have periods of highs and lows and it is smarter to buy long holds during the lows, which the entire history of the market bears out.

If you buy at regular intervals, and hold, you will end up taking advantage of the best times to buy and that will outperform your attempt to time, in my opinion. This is why nearly all investment advisers will tell you to put each month's retirement fund contribution to whatever your preferred allocation is, rather than putting it into cash and trying to self-manage when you invest it.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If you buy at regular intervals, and hold, you will end up taking advantage of the best times to buy and that will outperform your attempt to time, in my opinion. This is why nearly all investment advisers will tell you to put each month's retirement fund contribution to whatever your preferred allocation is, rather than putting it into cash and trying to self-manage when you invest it.

You will take advance of good buying times some of the time doing that. Doing it my way, you take advantage of better buying times (you could still lose) almost 100% of the time. When the market is setting records every day, there will almost always be a better buying time down the road (the odds of this have got to be well over 90%). It behooves one to wait.

Timing with retirement funds rather than cash is different; because of the tax implications. If I didn't use my corporate 401K, took it as cash, and put it in I would be losing almost 50% of that money to the government immediately as taxable income before I even invest it at all. I contribute to my 401K without timing, because my timing won't overcome the fat income tax hit of the feds and my state.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

You will take advance of good buying times some of the time doing that. Doing it my way, you take advantage of better buying times (you could still lose) almost 100% of the time. When the market is setting records every day, there will almost always be a better buying time down the road (the odds of this have got to be well over 90%). It behooves one to wait.

Timing with retirement funds rather than cash is different; because of the tax implications. If I didn't use my corporate 401K, took it as cash, and put it in I would be losing almost 50% of that money to the government immediately as taxable income before I even invest it at all. I contribute to my 401K without timing, because my timing won't overcome the fat income tax hit of the feds and my state.

If you would have waited at 14K, when the market had nearly doubled in a few years, you NEVER would have had another opportunity to buy at a better price and you would have missed 7 or 8 years of opportunities. And you would have sold, or at least not bought, AMZN at 100 which it never saw again. So it really wasn't so high after all even though it seemed so at the time.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

If you would have waited at 14K, when the market had nearly doubled in a few years, you NEVER would have had another opportunity to buy at a better price and you would have missed 7 or 8 years of opportunities. And you would have sold, or at least not bought, AMZN at 100 which it never saw again. So it really wasn't so high after all even though it seemed so at the time.

Like I said, my position is to hold for the long haul for my future, not to sell whenever the market goes up. That is stupid, and isn't what I'm advocating. Don't realize gains anytime you have a gain. I sell if I see a bad future for that specific stock, otherwise I'm holding for the long haul and advocating that. Buy during the dips that repeats over and over and over through stock history. It goes up over time. But my gamble, that the economic high would not last forever and I'd see a better buying opportunity after months of setting records, was a very safe one. Records everywhere = high, down 20-25% = low.

Things go up and down. It has never gone inexorably up without dips. We are in one right now, and everyone knows it. It may dip more in Q4, or Q1 23. But it's down a lot, and I've made a ton of profit by the simple gamble that the market has cycles and to buy when everything is setting records is foolish. I'm not saying sit out the market for 15+ years and miss all the gradual gains. I'm saying some big record points are not a smart time to buy the blue chips and indexes. They will go down again in future, and lower your floor and raise your eventual profit.

I am in a much better position for my future safety by not buying at the big up spike points, which we know and identify in real time.

[Peter_Spaeth]

My final summation, and I've enjoyed the discussion, is that I disagree you can know spike points or much else in real time )2014 looked like a spike point in real time I am sure), but I think you are buying the right things and therefore you will do fine over time. But I think that will be a function of what you own, not of your timing in buying. Read Eugene Fama if you have not.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

My final summation, and I've enjoyed the discussion, is that I disagree you can know spike points or much else in real time )2014 looked like a spike point in real time I am sure), but I think you are buying the right things and therefore you will do fine over time. But I think that will be a function of what you own, not of your timing in buying. Read Eugene Fama if you have not.

I like our debates, thank you for the good faith fun.