The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: Seattle Carter on February 08, 2018, 07:56:12 AM
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Ms. Okougbo, 26, a business operations manager in Tucson, has an individual retirement account set up through her company and shares she got from her parents for her birthday. In one week, the value of her investments sank 65 percent.
“I don’t think I will be buying or trading on the market again anytime soon,” she said. “I still don’t thin
Sigh.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/07/business/millennial-investors-stock-market.html
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27 year old: "my retirement account slumped 3%"
OH NOES!
It's awesome you have anything saved at 27. I didn't have 2 dimes to rub together until 35.
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Perhaps holding crypto in your retirement account isn't the best idea for someone who just started investing 1 month ago.
Actually the comments on that article are pretty good - "what on earth are you invested in?" being the prevailing question.
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“Looks like the down payment for an apartment I’ve been eyeing will have to wait.”
Sorry, but you had that coming. You tried playing a speculative market for a short term cash need.
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65%!!! What is she invested in?
I learned a lesson about stock picking in high school. My Mom took my savings and my sisters savings and put them into two "amazing" stocks. One went bankrupt, the other totally tanked. Mine was the one that tanked. (My Mom paid me back.) Of course, it was a company stock that paid for my college, since my Dad has options. But it took me A LONG time as an adult to be willing to invest because of that; I never went beyond the company match. I was glad to learn about indexes. But I still hold a lot of cash because I'm scared of the markets.
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Cringe-worthy as some of those investors were, I'm not sure any of them top these clowns:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bitcoin-is-my-potential-pension-what-is-driving-people-in-kentucky-to-join-the-craze/2018/02/03/aaaea3be-05dc-11e8-b48c-b07fea957bd5_story.html
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As a millenial investor, I logged into my Vanguard & stock accounts this week expecting a significant dip... and maybe a chance to pile in some of the money I've been stockpiling into buying new stocks... but I'm actually up 4k. My stocks are down, but everything else is up, so.... SHRUG.jpg Might wait for another, deeper dip to start sinking money back into the market.
Lulled into confidence by the second-longest bull run in history, some had forgotten the passwords to their trading accounts and, to their panic, were locked out.
That is some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard. The "forgot password" function exists for a reason, and why the hell would anyone dump their hard earned money into an account and NOT BOTHER remembering the password?
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why the hell would anyone dump their hard earned money into an account and NOT BOTHER remembering the password?
"We send some money to some guy and he does something with it."
The investing strategy of much of America. Not bothering to log in to that account in months isn't that surprising.
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It’s good that guy doesn’t remember his password. In that family Fidelity study they found the investors with the best returns were dead or had forgotten they had an account.
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why the hell would anyone dump their hard earned money into an account and NOT BOTHER remembering the password?
"We send some money to some guy and he does something with it."
The investing strategy of much of America. Not bothering to log in to that account in months isn't that surprising.
I never remember my password for my investment accounts. I have it all set up on an auto schedule and can view the numbers on Mint. Why would I need to log in?
I also never remember my passwords. That why I use a password manager. This is not hard.
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When I was in high school, we played the Stock Market Game in Economics class. The game was all about trying to pick the best individual stocks and then see if you could make your money grow more than everyone else in class. I think the winner was a kid who put everything into Microsoft, because that was a big stock at the time.
That's what most Americans think investing is. They think it's basically the same as gambling, because they are told that you are supposed to invest in individual stocks and then hope you get lucky and make some money. The financial industry pushes this misconception, because it frightens people into thinking that the markets are magical and only special experts with lots of inside knowledge from years of training can possibly navigate it for them.
Then the stock brokers, investment experts, etc. take the investors' money and blow it all on cocaine and hookers in Vegas. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what they do with it.
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Jags and Teslas. don't forget the luxury cars. Financiers love luxury cars.
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Telling that the guy using the robo-adviser was only down 3%
This one was a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I'm 31, so "senior millennial." We're 100% equities, but haven't seen anything remotely close to the (unrealized) losses some of the people in this article are seeing.
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When I was in high school, we played the Stock Market Game in Economics class. The game was all about trying to pick the best individual stocks and then see if you could make your money grow more than everyone else in class. I think the winner was a kid who put everything into Microsoft, because that was a big stock at the time.
That's what most Americans think investing is. They think it's basically the same as gambling, because they are told that you are supposed to invest in individual stocks and then hope you get lucky and make some money. The financial industry pushes this misconception, because it frightens people into thinking that the markets are magical and only special experts with lots of inside knowledge from years of training can possibly navigate it for them.
Then the stock brokers, investment experts, etc. take the investors' money and blow it all on cocaine and hookers in Vegas. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what they do with it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Money_(2018_TV_series)
Am watching episode 3 about Valeant pharmaceuticals. Interesting to hear how the various participants analyzed the business.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeant_Pharmaceuticals
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Telling that the guy using the robo-adviser was only down 3%
This one was a bit of a head-scratcher for me. I'm 31, so "senior millennial." We're 100% equities, but haven't seen anything remotely close to the (unrealized) losses some of the people in this article are seeing.
I expect a lot of them are invested in high-fee mutual funds and got hit harder than the index. At least one of them said they were all-in with crypto.
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It’s good that guy doesn’t remember his password. In that family Fidelity study they found the investors with the best returns were dead or had forgotten they had an account.
This. Unless those people were frantically trying to log into their account so that they can "buy the dip", being locked out was the best thing that could have happened to them.
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It’s good that guy doesn’t remember his password. In that family Fidelity study they found the investors with the best returns were dead or had forgotten they had an account.
This will now become my investment mantra.
Invest like you're dead.
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Really? I'm a millennial investor too and all we saw was a tiny downward blip last month. Due to age, this was the first time I've ever seen a decrease in my investments, but from reading here I've learned that it's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. I'm going to keep piling as much money in as I can :) silly alarmists.
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27 year old: "my retirement account slumped 3%"
OH NOES!
LOL, millennials don't appear to be made of the stoutest material. In 1987, when I was a 24-year old LT in the Army, the stock market dropped 23% in one day.
I didn't turn into a panicked puddle of goo like some of these kids today. I just kept investing.
His $33,000 stock portfolio had plummeted by more than 40 percent, to $19,000 in value
What the heck are these clowns investing in? I could see this kind of tanking if they "invested" in Bitcoin or similar, but how does an entire stock portfolio drop that much during a MINOR HICCUP in the market?
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Really? I'm a millennial investor too and all we saw was a tiny downward blip last month. Due to age, this was the first time I've ever seen a decrease in my investments, but from reading here I've learned that it's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. I'm going to keep piling as much money in as I can :) silly alarmists.
It's bizarre because that "blip" came after a monster January where we had close to a 7% increase in the S&P.
Also, did you miss the correction in 2015? I think that was a legitimate >10% correction in like a week. This tiny drop isn't even worth paying attention to.
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LOL, millennials don't appear to be made of the stoutest material. In 1987, when I was a 24-year old LT in the Army, the stock market dropped 23% in one day.
I didn't turn into a panicked puddle of goo like some of these kids today. I just kept investing.
If you accept the premise that no one knows what their risk appetite is until a downturn, then of course these people are getting burned.
I'm an older millennial; I entered the working world in 2007. I contributed enough into my 401k to get the match, and it lost a ton of value in those first years, but nothing minus nothing, carry the nothing....bottom line is, I didn't feel it.
I know that the day is coming when I will lose six figures on paper. I know, intellectually, that the best thing to do will be to be greedy when others are fearful. I know that the second-best thing to do will be nothing. But I haven't actually experienced this yet.
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27 year old: "my retirement account slumped 3%"
OH NOES!
LOL, millennials don't appear to be made of the stoutest material. In 1987, when I was a 24-year old LT in the Army, the stock market dropped 23% in one day.
I didn't turn into a panicked puddle of goo like some of these kids today. I just kept investing.
His $33,000 stock portfolio had plummeted by more than 40 percent, to $19,000 in value
What the heck are these clowns investing in? I could see this kind of tanking if they "invested" in Bitcoin or similar, but how does an entire stock portfolio drop that much during a MINOR HICCUP in the market?
Hammer, meet nail. Bitcoin took a substantial hit right about the same time the stock market did.
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I'm an older millennial; I entered the working world in 2007. I contributed enough into my 401k to get the match, and it lost a ton of value in those first years, but nothing minus nothing, carry the nothing....bottom line is, I didn't feel it.
I am right there with you. I remember maxing my contributions to my 401k in 2007 and 2008 and being so happy when the balance finally broke 20k in 2009. It was disconcerting at the time to be pouring money into an account that would be worth less the day after contributions went in than before. A decade later and the funds I contributed during that time period are still sitting in the index fund. The picture is much rosier now.
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This was actually a really disappointing article for the NYT. It seems that they just picked a few people of millenial age who had bad investments. Then they blanket that whole outlook to the entire millenial generation.
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This was actually a really disappointing article for the NYT. It seems that they just picked a few people of millenial age who had bad investments. Then they blanket that whole outlook to the entire millenial generation.
Wait, you're saying we shouldn't generalize an entire generation of 80 million Americans based on anecdotes from four random people chosen by the New York Times to fit their story?
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It’s good that guy doesn’t remember his password. In that family Fidelity study they found the investors with the best returns were dead or had forgotten they had an account.
This will now become my investment mantra.
Invest like you're dead.
+1
Hilarious article btw, thanks for posting.
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This article intrigues me because it's yet another reminder how otherwise very intelligent people are just dumb with money.
When I graduated from law school, I did some reading on how to invest. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the best thing to do is invest as much as you can, buy and hold, and buy index funds. That seemed too easy, so I kept reading, and this only confirmed my hypothesis.
I just don't get how people with access to the internet don't understand this. I have plenty of friends who are much smarter than I am talking to me about selling stocks, picking this or that, blah blah blah, and I just have no clue where they get all this information. It's a complete mystery to me how nobody can figure out how simple and easy investing is.
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This article intrigues me because it's yet another reminder how otherwise very intelligent people are just dumb with money.
When I graduated from law school, I did some reading on how to invest. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the best thing to do is invest as much as you can, buy and hold, and buy index funds. That seemed too easy, so I kept reading, and this only confirmed my hypothesis.
I just don't get how people with access to the internet don't understand this. I have plenty of friends who are much smarter than I am talking to me about selling stocks, picking this or that, blah blah blah, and I just have no clue where they get all this information. It's a complete mystery to me how nobody can figure out how simple and easy investing is.
Because 99% of Americans are smarter than the average American. They're also better drivers.
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This article intrigues me because it's yet another reminder how otherwise very intelligent people are just dumb with money.
When I graduated from law school, I did some reading on how to invest. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the best thing to do is invest as much as you can, buy and hold, and buy index funds. That seemed too easy, so I kept reading, and this only confirmed my hypothesis.
I just don't get how people with access to the internet don't understand this. I have plenty of friends who are much smarter than I am talking to me about selling stocks, picking this or that, blah blah blah, and I just have no clue where they get all this information. It's a complete mystery to me how nobody can figure out how simple and easy investing is.
Free information delivered by strangers on a frugality discussion forum can't possibly be true.
You have to listen to radio or watch TV where experts promise they'll teach these skills. You'll need to buy the book and speak to a expert adviser that comes with a fee for the info to be real.
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My guess would be that some of these "investors" with big losses were actually speculating with derivatives, like bets on the VIX. All it takes is for a smidge of turbulence in the markets to make those go south in a hurry.
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I never remember my password for my investment accounts. I have it all set up on an auto schedule and can view the numbers on Mint. Why would I need to log in?
Be careful doing this, granting login access to 3rd parties often invalidates the fraud/theft protection offered by the financial institution hosting your account. I stopped using Mint after checking the terms and conditions at my credit union and brokerage.
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Did you replace Mint with anything else? Your story has made me worry...