How're y'alls retirement accounts doing?

[mrkelley23]

Mine's down over 5% in less than 6 weeks.

Good times.

Wish I'd gotten in on the crypto pump and dump last week.

[BackInTex]

Mine's down over 5% in less than 6 weeks.

Good times.

Wish I'd gotten in on the crypto pump and dump last week.

Is that your outlook window, 5 weeks. Pretty short sighted. Perhaps you should move all of your money to a savings account.

Let's check back on the in, say, 6 months, or year-end, shall we?

[Spock]

Mine's down over 5% in less than 6 weeks.

Good times.

Wish I'd gotten in on the crypto pump and dump last week.

Is that your outlook window, 5 weeks. Pretty short sighted. Perhaps you should move all of your money to a savings account.

Let's check back on the in, say, 6 months, or year-end, shall we?

BiT, you are giving him too much credit as having a 5 week time horizon. It looks to me like his outlook window is only 2 days. Monday and Tuesday were really hard down days. I suspect, that prior to that, he was actually higher for the last 5 weeks-as I was.

[Weyoun]

I think that his point is that there’s gonna be a trade war.

My guess is inflation will be bad also, as Trump will use that as a reason to force out Powell, it was doing a good job until Trump mucked things up.

Also, laying off a bunch of people does impact the economy too.

So there’s no reason to think all of this will be better in six months. I made a new car purchase in December specific because I saw a lot of this nonsense coming.

[Spock]

I think that his point is that there’s gonna be a trade war.

My guess is inflation will be bad also, as Trump will use that as a reason to force out Powell, it was doing a good job until Trump mucked things up.

Also, laying off a bunch of people does impact the economy too.

So there’s no reason to think all of this will be better in six months. I made a new car purchase in December specific because I saw a lot of this nonsense coming.

Why don't you put your money where your extremely large mouth is and pull out any (and ALL) money that you have in the stock market and put in a cash account. If you are right-you should be able to pick up a lot of shares really cheap in the future.

I am in the position of hoping that IBM goes down some. I am way underinvested in the tech sector and I am making a slow accumulation of IBM shares using the dividend money from other companies. For example, I own Coca-Cola but I am not re-investing those dividends into Coca-Cola, I am using that money to buy some IBM.

IBM has a decent dividend which is my main criteria for investing in a company-Plus the tech thing.

[Weyoun]

I think that his point is that there’s gonna be a trade war.

My guess is inflation will be bad also, as Trump will use that as a reason to force out Powell, it was doing a good job until Trump mucked things up.

Also, laying off a bunch of people does impact the economy too.

So there’s no reason to think all of this will be better in six months. I made a new car purchase in December specific because I saw a lot of this nonsense coming.

Why don't you put your money where your extremely large mouth is and pull out any (and ALL) money that you have in the stock market and put in a cash account. If you are right-you should be able to pick up a lot of shares really cheap in the future.

I am in the position of hoping that IBM goes down some. I am way underinvested in the tech sector and I am making a slow accumulation of IBM shares using the dividend money from other companies. For example, I own Coca-Cola but I am not re-investing those dividends into Coca-Cola, I am using that money to buy some IBM.

IBM has a decent dividend which is my main criteria for investing in a company-Plus the tech thing.

IBM, huh? Maybe pick up some Hewlett-Packard and Cray Supercomputer while you’re at it.

[Bob Juch]

I think that his point is that there’s gonna be a trade war.

My guess is inflation will be bad also, as Trump will use that as a reason to force out Powell, it was doing a good job until Trump mucked things up.

Also, laying off a bunch of people does impact the economy too.

So there’s no reason to think all of this will be better in six months. I made a new car purchase in December specific because I saw a lot of this nonsense coming.

Why don't you put your money where your extremely large mouth is and pull out any (and ALL) money that you have in the stock market and put in a cash account. If you are right-you should be able to pick up a lot of shares really cheap in the future.

I am in the position of hoping that IBM goes down some. I am way underinvested in the tech sector and I am making a slow accumulation of IBM shares using the dividend money from other companies. For example, I own Coca-Cola but I am not re-investing those dividends into Coca-Cola, I am using that money to buy some IBM.

IBM has a decent dividend which is my main criteria for investing in a company-Plus the tech thing.

IBM, huh? Maybe pick up some Hewlett-Packard and Cray Supercomputer while you’re at it.

I still have IBM stock that I bought through the employee purchase plan. That was in 1971.

[Bob Juch]

Mine's down over 5% in less than 6 weeks.

Good times.

Wish I'd gotten in on the crypto pump and dump last week.

I bought NVidia at $5.32 per share. I'm hanging on to most of it.

I bought Bitcoin at $0.054. I sold it all in several transactions in 2016-7.

[Spock]

I think that his point is that there’s gonna be a trade war.

My guess is inflation will be bad also, as Trump will use that as a reason to force out Powell, it was doing a good job until Trump mucked things up.

Also, laying off a bunch of people does impact the economy too.

So there’s no reason to think all of this will be better in six months. I made a new car purchase in December specific because I saw a lot of this nonsense coming.

Why don't you put your money where your extremely large mouth is and pull out any (and ALL) money that you have in the stock market and put in a cash account. If you are right-you should be able to pick up a lot of shares really cheap in the future.

I am in the position of hoping that IBM goes down some. I am way underinvested in the tech sector and I am making a slow accumulation of IBM shares using the dividend money from other companies. For example, I own Coca-Cola but I am not re-investing those dividends into Coca-Cola, I am using that money to buy some IBM.

IBM has a decent dividend which is my main criteria for investing in a company-Plus the tech thing.

IBM, huh? Maybe pick up some Hewlett-Packard and Cray Supercomputer while you’re at it.

I am sure you would have laughed at my Phillip Morris (PM) purchase in the aftermath of the tobacco lawsuits as well. But I have been pretty happy with holding it for the last 25 years (or so). Through spinoffs, It has become 4 companies-PM, Altria (another tobacco company), Kraft-Heinz and Mondelez (a snack company).

I get substantially more in dividends every year from those 4 companies than the original investment was and that does not count the dividends invested in other companies (like IBM currently) after I stopped re-investing back into Phillip Morris and Altria (maybe 5 years ago)that I have gotten dividends on as well.

I really. really, really like my boring dividend snowball plan of investing. I figure owning one boring tech company that pays a nice dividend doesn't hurt.

I won't tell you my total return since about 2000-but, suffice to say, that it is far more than the Dow, Nasdaq, or S&P500.

[Spock]

Here is how boring my dividend snowball investment plan is.

I was more excited yesterday about an extra $15. than I was worried about the massive down day.

I have a small holding of 100 shares of Ford which is currently worth less than $1,000. Ford pays a 6.58% dividend so I get $15 a quarter and $60 a year.

Their regular payout was on Monday for $15 and I put that into IBM. Well, lo and behold, on Tuesday they made a special dividend payout of another $15 which I also put into IBM. For dividend nerds like me that is just awesome.

However, where it gets exciting is that not all the special dividend payouts are so small. Back in January, a company that usually pays out dividends of about $30 a quarter made a special dividend payment of $600. Now that was a fun day, plus a week later I got the regular $30. That was chef's kiss awesome.

[Spock]

Here is how boring my dividend snowball investment plan is.

I was more excited yesterday about an extra $15. than I was worried about the massive down day.

I have a small holding of 100 shares of Ford which is currently worth less than $1,000. Ford pays a 6.58% dividend so I get $15 a quarter and $60 a year.

Their regular payout was on Monday for $15 and I put that into IBM. Well, lo and behold, on Tuesday they made a special dividend payout of another $15 which I also put into IBM. For dividend nerds like me that is just awesome.

However, where it gets exciting is that not all the special dividend payouts are so small. Back in January, a company that usually pays out dividends of about $30 a quarter made a special dividend payment of $600. Now that was a fun day, plus a week later I got the regular $30. That was chef's kiss awesome.

Some might snicker at my $15 and $30 dividends and so forth, but I am reminded of what I say about our farming strategy.

I like to say that most farmers talk about how many quarters (160 acres) they farm, but we talk about glorified 40's (pieces of roughly 40 acres each). In other words, we farm mostly smaller, odd-shaped pieces and that is the way I like it.

As our agronomist said-the first time I told him the "Glorified 40's" joke-he said-"Yeah, but you have a lot of them."

Let's just say-that the $15 and the $30 and the $50 dividends start to add up when you own shares in a fair number of dividend paying companies.

[BackInTex]

I'm up 0.79% YTD as of today.

Annualized that is 4.5%. Not great, but not bad.

BTW, at the same time in Biden's term I was only up 0.35% at this time. Ended the year at +6.6%

[Weyoun]

I'm up 0.79% YTD as of today.

Annualized that is 4.5%. Not great, but not bad.

BTW, at the same time in Biden's term I was only up 0.35% at this time. Ended the year at +6.6%

There was a global pandemic. This seems more self-inflicted.

[Weyoun]

Here is how boring my dividend snowball investment plan is.

I was more excited yesterday about an extra $15. than I was worried about the massive down day.

I have a small holding of 100 shares of Ford which is currently worth less than $1,000. Ford pays a 6.58% dividend so I get $15 a quarter and $60 a year.

Their regular payout was on Monday for $15 and I put that into IBM. Well, lo and behold, on Tuesday they made a special dividend payout of another $15 which I also put into IBM. For dividend nerds like me that is just awesome.

However, where it gets exciting is that not all the special dividend payouts are so small. Back in January, a company that usually pays out dividends of about $30 a quarter made a special dividend payment of $600. Now that was a fun day, plus a week later I got the regular $30. That was chef's kiss awesome.

Some might snicker at my $15 and $30 dividends and so forth, but I am reminded of what I say about our farming strategy.

I like to say that most farmers talk about how many quarters (160 acres) they farm, but we talk about glorified 40's (pieces of roughly 40 acres each). In other words, we farm mostly smaller, odd-shaped pieces and that is the way I like it.

As our agronomist said-the first time I told him the "Glorified 40's" joke-he said-"Yeah, but you have a lot of them."

Let's just say-that the $15 and the $30 and the $50 dividends start to add up when you own shares in a fair number of dividend paying companies.

I am very happy for you.

[Spock]

Ha, Ha-Spock is buying IBM instead of NVDA-what a loser.

Well-I listen to a lot of CNBC on Sirius in the tractor when I am planting and, basically, all they talked about in the spring of 2024 was NVDA and it hit a high of somewhere in the 140's last spring. It dropped to the 120's and has bounced around in that range since-I see it had a 52-week high of $153 and is currently at a price of about $115.

Conversely-IBM-

52-week range is $162 to $265 with a current price of $250.

I am sitting on a very decent gain of my earliest purchased shares. Obviously, my later shares have been purchased at a higher price approaching the $250 figure.

I never expected IBM to go this high this soon and it is not good for my strategy that it did. I would rather be buying it at under $200.

I don't like to sell shares, but I sometimes do when these large unexpected gains show up. I might sell about half the IBM(the higher-priced, later purchased ones) and put that money in a different dividend paying.

Oh, and that's right-I have collected a decent dividend on IBM through this whole process-versus the miniscule one on NVDA.

On selling stock-Like I said-I do it once in awhile.

I had bought Phillips 66 at about $85 awhile back-then maybe a year ago it hit almost $200-so I sold half of it and put that money into another company.

Not quite everything I have is a dividend play-I did buy Palantir and it has done well. Plus, I have a fair number of companies that have been spun out of the original companies and most of them don't pay a dividend, but I tend to sit on them anyway.

[Weyoun]

Ha, Ha-Spock is buying IBM instead of NVDA-what a loser.

Well-I listen to a lot of CNBC on Sirius in the tractor when I am planting and, basically, all they talked about in the spring of 2024 was NVDA and it hit a high of somewhere in the 140's last spring. It dropped to the 120's and has bounced around in that range since-I see it had a 52-week high of $153 and is currently at a price of about $115.

Conversely-IBM-

52-week range is $162 to $265 with a current price of $250.

I am sitting on a very decent gain of my earliest purchased shares. Obviously, my later shares have been purchased at a higher price approaching the $250 figure.

I never expected IBM to go this high this soon and it is not good for my strategy that it did. I would rather be buying it at under $200.

I don't like to sell shares, but I sometimes do when these large unexpected gains show up. I might sell about half the IBM(the higher-priced, later purchased ones) and put that money in a different dividend paying.

Oh, and that's right-I have collected a decent dividend on IBM through this whole process-versus the miniscule one on NVDA.

On selling stock-Like I said-I do it once in awhile.

I had bought Phillips 66 at about $85 awhile back-then maybe a year ago it hit almost $200-so I sold half of it and put that money into another company.

Not quite everything I have is a dividend play-I did buy Palantir and it has done well. Plus, I have a fair number of companies that have been spun out of the original companies and most of them don't pay a dividend, but I tend to sit on them anyway.

That’s great. You are so clever.

[Spock]

Update on my IBM

Whenever one of my "Boring" companies (In this case, IBM) has such a large upside move in a relatively short period of time I have to think about taking some money off the table.

In this case, because I was sitting on a fairly substantial gain due to shares purchased under $200 and because I was buying into the teeth of that large upside move-I still had a ways to go to get to the amount of IBM that I wanted to own.

I decided to sell all my IBM and put that money into another company that I have had my eye on for awhile. I will obviously keep an eye on IBM.

While this move was maybe sped up by this thread-I have been thinking for awhile how I want to handle IBM in that $250 range. I am just not comfortable buying more at that point and, hey, I walked away with a very nice gain on a company that Weyoun laughed at me for buying.

[Spock]

Some might wonder why I immediately invested the IBM proceeds in another company rather than sitting on that cash and see where this downturn goes. That is not the purpose of the account. I never sit on cash there as the purpose of the account is to always be fully invested in stocks. You can easily miss good things such as a special dividend or a spin-off and such if you are not fully invested.

[Bob Juch]

Ha, Ha-Spock is buying IBM instead of NVDA-what a loser.

Well-I listen to a lot of CNBC on Sirius in the tractor when I am planting and, basically, all they talked about in the spring of 2024 was NVDA and it hit a high of somewhere in the 140's last spring. It dropped to the 120's and has bounced around in that range since-I see it had a 52-week high of $153 and is currently at a price of about $115.

Conversely-IBM-

52-week range is $162 to $265 with a current price of $250.

I am sitting on a very decent gain of my earliest purchased shares. Obviously, my later shares have been purchased at a higher price approaching the $250 figure.

I never expected IBM to go this high this soon and it is not good for my strategy that it did. I would rather be buying it at under $200.

I don't like to sell shares, but I sometimes do when these large unexpected gains show up. I might sell about half the IBM(the higher-priced, later purchased ones) and put that money in a different dividend paying.

Oh, and that's right-I have collected a decent dividend on IBM through this whole process-versus the miniscule one on NVDA.

On selling stock-Like I said-I do it once in awhile.

I had bought Phillips 66 at about $85 awhile back-then maybe a year ago it hit almost $200-so I sold half of it and put that money into another company.

Not quite everything I have is a dividend play-I did buy Palantir and it has done well. Plus, I have a fair number of companies that have been spun out of the original companies and most of them don't pay a dividend, but I tend to sit on them anyway.

NVDA's 10 for 1 stock split was in June last year. I assume you retroactively adjusted the price?

[Weyoun]

Ha, Ha-Spock is buying IBM instead of NVDA-what a loser.

Well-I listen to a lot of CNBC on Sirius in the tractor when I am planting and, basically, all they talked about in the spring of 2024 was NVDA and it hit a high of somewhere in the 140's last spring. It dropped to the 120's and has bounced around in that range since-I see it had a 52-week high of $153 and is currently at a price of about $115.

Conversely-IBM-

52-week range is $162 to $265 with a current price of $250.

I am sitting on a very decent gain of my earliest purchased shares. Obviously, my later shares have been purchased at a higher price approaching the $250 figure.

I never expected IBM to go this high this soon and it is not good for my strategy that it did. I would rather be buying it at under $200.

I don't like to sell shares, but I sometimes do when these large unexpected gains show up. I might sell about half the IBM(the higher-priced, later purchased ones) and put that money in a different dividend paying.

Oh, and that's right-I have collected a decent dividend on IBM through this whole process-versus the miniscule one on NVDA.

On selling stock-Like I said-I do it once in awhile.

I had bought Phillips 66 at about $85 awhile back-then maybe a year ago it hit almost $200-so I sold half of it and put that money into another company.

Not quite everything I have is a dividend play-I did buy Palantir and it has done well. Plus, I have a fair number of companies that have been spun out of the original companies and most of them don't pay a dividend, but I tend to sit on them anyway.

NVDA's 10 for 1 stock split was in June last year. I assume you retroactively adjusted the price?

If you invested $10,000 in Nvidia five years ago, you would have about $256,000 today.

But let the man have his lecture

[Beebs52]

Ha, Ha-Spock is buying IBM instead of NVDA-what a loser.

Well-I listen to a lot of CNBC on Sirius in the tractor when I am planting and, basically, all they talked about in the spring of 2024 was NVDA and it hit a high of somewhere in the 140's last spring. It dropped to the 120's and has bounced around in that range since-I see it had a 52-week high of $153 and is currently at a price of about $115.

Conversely-IBM-

52-week range is $162 to $265 with a current price of $250.

I am sitting on a very decent gain of my earliest purchased shares. Obviously, my later shares have been purchased at a higher price approaching the $250 figure.

I never expected IBM to go this high this soon and it is not good for my strategy that it did. I would rather be buying it at under $200.

I don't like to sell shares, but I sometimes do when these large unexpected gains show up. I might sell about half the IBM(the higher-priced, later purchased ones) and put that money in a different dividend paying.

Oh, and that's right-I have collected a decent dividend on IBM through this whole process-versus the miniscule one on NVDA.

On selling stock-Like I said-I do it once in awhile.

I had bought Phillips 66 at about $85 awhile back-then maybe a year ago it hit almost $200-so I sold half of it and put that money into another company.

Not quite everything I have is a dividend play-I did buy Palantir and it has done well. Plus, I have a fair number of companies that have been spun out of the original companies and most of them don't pay a dividend, but I tend to sit on them anyway.

NVDA's 10 for 1 stock split was in June last year. I assume you retroactively adjusted the price?

If you invested $10,000 in Nvidia five years ago, you would have about $256,000 today.

But let the man have his lecture

It's good to know the good doc can fall back on financial consultancy if the medical thing goes into the toilet.

[Spock]

NVDA's 10 for 1 stock split was in June last year. I assume you retroactively adjusted the price?

If you invested $10,000 in Nvidia five years ago, you would have about $256,000 today.

But let the man have his lecture

It's good to know the good doc can fall back on financial consultancy if the medical thing goes into the toilet.

I assume that the good doc invested multiples of $10,000 in Nvidia 5 years ago and now spends a significant amount of time on his private island.

Or is he just good at retroactive financial advice?

Once we get our upcoming land purchases squared away, I am going to get Li'l Spock going on a Roth IRA.

Just start small with a couple thousand for now. I have been debating whether to split it into a few companies or put it into one.

I am looking at ADM and thinking about NVDA. I think we can double our money in ADM faster than we can double it in NVDA as conditions are today.

Current conditions have NVDA as a 2.86 Trillion dollar market cap with a miniscule dividend so it has to become a 5.72 Trillion dollar market cap company to even double your money and, while it might happen-it might take a while. And even, Wow!!! You have a double-big whoop-to double again it would have to become a 11.44 Trillion dollar market cap.

NVDA was 3 Trillion market cap last spring and it and (I think) Microsoft and Apple are the only companies to even approach that figure. I guess 6 trillion of market cap is possible-but, I am not going to play in that space-Same for Microsoft-to get a basic boring double it would have to become a 6 Trillion dollar company.

I play for doubles and triples and such and looking at ADM (Archer Daniels) with a 4.5 % dividend and selling for $48 which is near the bottom of the 52-week trading range-interestingly, 3 years ago-it sold for about double its current price so it is not out of the realm of possibility as it looks to be for NVDA.

The way my total return has beat the pants off the total return of the Dow, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq over the last 25 years is to collect the 4.5% dividend (as with ADM)and re-invest those and wait for a double. At that point, sell half of it and put that money into a different company. Hell, maybe NVDA will drop so much that we can sell all the ADM (or whatever) and buy NVDA cheap.

Admittedly, I am sitting on several companies that have doubled or tripled or more-but I just like owning them so I don't really want to sell them even if they end up going down.

[Spock]

Oh, bTW-you don't get to employ survivor's bias and pick one stock out (NVDA) and say that Spock is an idiot for not buying it. Maybe there were a hundred other tech stocks ten years ago that would have been a good idea to buy-but NVDA just turned up aces.

I really hope you invested a lot of money in NVDA 10 years ago-more power to you-but I long ago chose not to play in that space long ago when I lost money in companies like Sun Microsystems with no "There There."

[Weyoun]

Oh, bTW-you don't get to employ survivor's bias and pick one stock out (NVDA) and say that Spock is an idiot for not buying it. Maybe there were a hundred other tech stocks ten years ago that would have been a good idea to buy-but NVDA just turned up aces.

I really hope you invested a lot of money in NVDA 10 years ago-more power to you-but I long ago chose not to play in that space long ago when I lost money in companies like Sun Microsystems with no "There There."

Believe it or not, I was actually teasing you more about you being so overbearing about this. I actually have quite a few dividend bearing stocks in my own portfolio. Although I am also happy that I bought Nvidia before most folks did.

[Beebs52]

Oh, bTW-you don't get to employ survivor's bias and pick one stock out (NVDA) and say that Spock is an idiot for not buying it. Maybe there were a hundred other tech stocks ten years ago that would have been a good idea to buy-but NVDA just turned up aces.

I really hope you invested a lot of money in NVDA 10 years ago-more power to you-but I long ago chose not to play in that space long ago when I lost money in companies like Sun Microsystems with no "There There."

Believe it or not, I was actually teasing you more about you being so overbearing about this. I actually have quite a few dividend bearing stocks in my own portfolio. Although I am also happy that I bought Nvidia before most folks did.

.ooh! Fanboy!