“Not timing the market” doesn’t just mean buying and selling randomly or at your appointment date–more likely it would look like weekly or biweekly or paycheck contributions to some sort of retirement or investment account. These amounts wouldn’t change depending on whether the market is up or down, so you don’t have to worry about “timing” the market.
The reason most don’t try to time the market is that the “knowledge and past history” that you mention is unlikely to be enough to give people an edge, and it’s much easier to go by some sort of “set it and forget it” rule than to invest your time and effort (or theirs) chasing an edge that you’re unlikely to get.
The reason for not timing the market is that you risk being out of the market on days with large gains. A common behavior for “active” investors is to buy when stocks are going up and sell when stocks are going down, and that generally leads to horrible performance.
It is really hard to beat in the long run a simple investment strategy of just regularly buying low fee mutual funds that more-or-less track the average of the market with a portion of every pay check, and never doing anything else until you retire and have to start cashing out. People like to think that they want to buy low and sell high, but selling when things are going down and buying when they’ve gone back up again will often lead to selling at or near the bottom and buying back in right before the next drop, and thereby underperforming someone who just kept buying and holding. When saving for the long term, the time to buy low is right now, and the time to sell high is as long from now as possible.
The stock market provides the opportunity for people to have ownership positions in profit-making firms across every sector and region of the world. Broadly speaking, participating in that opportunity with as much of your income as you possibly can is the path to financial independence.
This really has nothing to do with using knowledge and past history to figure out how to ‘buy low and sell high’.
I wouldn’t do it. They’re still nondischargable by bankruptcy, you won’t get anything forgiven if that happens in a few years, and I’m sure its harder to get forbearance from SoFi than what you currently have.
An advisor that tells you they DON’T try to beat the market is much LESS likely to be a slimy salesperson that rips you off. Here’s what you actually want from an investment advisor:
Guidance on clearly articulating your goals and a reasonable plan to get there.
Transparency on fees and demonstrated value for fees paid.
Guidance on taxes and how to tax optimize your investment plan.
If an investment advisor says I’m here to pick stocks for you, or sell you an expensive product where the portfolio manager picks stocks for you, then you should wish them a very nice day and leave.
Why do you need an advisor at all? Since the correct strategy seems to be just to buy some mix of unmanaged stock index funds and unmanaged bond index funds with the lowest fees possible, with that mix being determined by how close to retirement you are, wouldn’t it be better just to “google” the correct mix here and the lowest cost index funds and do it yourself?
You don’t need an advisor, but if you really lack confidence to do it yourself then you should seek out an advisor like the one I described.
Like I said, advisor value (when you can find any) comes from coaching people that need help clearly converting their vague aspirations into actionable plans, and make sure you don’t make mistakes that create tax drag on your portfolio. Those things aren’t addressed by “just buy index funds”.
Also, if you’re prone to making irrational fear-based decisions (I know, no one would ever do this, but still), it’s good to have an experienced advisor to keep you from doing that, or at least to be able to try to talk you out of some of the dumber things you could be doing with your money.
The problem with advisors is by the time you know how to pick a good one, you don’t need one.
There is a set of people who know what they’re doing generally who need advisors though, and that’s people who just can’t help themselves from constantly trading in and out of stocks (usually panic selling) even though they know better. If you’re in this camp, try to get a flat fee advisor. AUM fees are return-killers.
The flat fee advisors are also good at the basics, like telling you if you are saving enough or if your existing portfolio is stupid. They’re not a bad place to start for someone who doesn’t even know how to start.
Anyone got any knowledge of surprise-that-shouldn’t-be bills from service providers?
We live in upstate NY and signed up w our elec and gas supplier (NYSEG) for auto monthly payment from our bank acct a long time ago, Typical gas+elec is 200/mo summer and 300/mo winter.
Just this week I got a statement saying we owe $1200 cos they haven’t billed us since last Aug (we’re now end of Jan). I obv assumed they had taken what they needed the whole time, but they fucked up while we assumed they took what they needed.
The nos are prolly correct (we used the elec/gas) but NYSEG didn’t take $$ out those months, while we assumed autopayment happened and now they - out of the blue to us - want this whole lot. But AUTO is AUTO, no?
Our budget has not planned for this hit atmo cos it was already totally fucking meant to have been taken care of by THEIR agreement, that they encouraged us to sign up for.
Not sure it’ll be successful but if you haven’t already paid, maybe you can call and try to set up a payment plan?
Outside of that, while I can appreciate the financial pain and frustration with utility companies that are generally terrible, I’m not sure what recourse you have. The auto pay system “worked” - you were billed nothing (taking your words “they haven’t billed us”) and nothing was debited. And now you were billed for what you seem to agree is the appropriate charge for a few months of utilities.
I want to tell them that each month they failed to debit us (under THEIR agreement), then the bill is null and void for that month.
‘Cos what I signed up for was not having to bother about what the elec/gas bill was. Not being slammed randomly for four figures. So now I’m (righteously) in fuck ‘em mode.
Agree with the above. I don’t think you have a reasonable case for not paying utilities you used, but if you cause them enough pain and annoyance, they may do something.
I’m sure they have the legalese covered with their small print, but I’m damn sure I’m absolutely 100% entitled to swear the fuck out of whatever higher up I can get the phone drone to pass me on to. God will approve of that.