When did you start investing

[Deleted]

In taxable accounts (outside of your retirement accounts? And individual stocks?

It seems with so many bucket to fill, taxable accounts have dropped to the bottom of the list for us and individual stocks is not even on that list.

I was surprised how many folks my age were buying individual stocks : P&G, Johnson & Johnson,GE, etc. (talking about the stock market during a game of basketball). Some even tried day trading and listened to Kramer (I cannot stand that guy, all he does is scream at the TV).

The only individual stocks I have are my companies and that is because they are part of the profit sharing plan. I always figured that taxable accounts would only come after we could max all retirements accounts first : IRA's and 401k's.

[Deleted]

I dabbled in individual stocks in my early 20's (I'm 44 now), but haven't touched them for 15 years or more now.  I decided the boring dollar cost averaging into index funds was the way to go for me and there is so much room in our tax advantaged accounts we may never get to taxable.

I did a lot of risky (dumb) things with money back then, even my mutual funds were managed sector funds with high fees. 

With age has come wisdom...or fear.  LOL

[Deleted]

cawiau,

Individual stock wise only thing I ever hold was GE. Which I sold it 20 years ago to make a down payment on our first single family home.

I am very familiar with GE and trust the company. I used to say, when GE. goes whole  US economy is in trouble. But not so much as it used to be anymore they have a huge capital investment in financial sector. 

I never interested it in trading A individual stock. You invest it in the company that you know.

[midjd]

I started taxable investing first - I came into a chunk of money and had no clue what to do with it, so just stuck it in a Schwab account. I think I was 26, so about 3 years ago.

Most of our investments are split between large cap/small-mid cap/international index funds, but I own a few individual stocks:

Johnson & Johnson
P&G
Cummins
Ford
Dow Chemical
Eli Lilly
Southern Copper
Sysco

There are a couple I'm disappointed with (Dow) and a couple I'm kicking myself for not buying more of at the time (Lilly). We do have semi-personal connections with a few of the companies - Lilly and Cummins are both based in our state and employ some of our friends, and DH works for a Ford dealership. I don't pretend to know enough about market analysis to pick winning stocks vs index funds, so I'll probably stay in the "sandbox" phase until I have so much money I don't mind losing a lot 

[teachermom]

Most (not all) people I know who are investing in individual stocks......have nothing else......they are hoping for the big payoff. They had no reason, knowledge, etc. before going into the stock market, except they "heard" of people making money. They aren't maxing out their non-taxable options or even their IRA's/401Ks/Roth. Most aren't debt free and don't have an EF or any savings. They are not people I plan to emulate.

For me.....haven't gotten to the point of maxing everything else out....so don't invest in them.

[Deleted]

Apr 17, 2013 8:27:27 GMT -5 teachermom said:

Most (not all) people I know who are investing in individual stocks......have nothing else......they are hoping for the big payoff. They had no reason, knowledge, etc. before going into the stock market, except they "heard" of people making money.

teachermom

"They are listening to those pundit in CNBC. Rich quick scheme raley works in my opinion."

They aren't maxing out their non-taxable options or even their IRA's/401Ks/Roth. Most aren't debt free and don't have an EF or any savings. They are not people I plan to emulate.

For me.....haven't gotten to the point of maxing everything else out....so don't invest in them.

"Good luck to you!  If I were you, go with low cost index fund."

[Deleted]

i started my tdameritrade account with online poker winnings about 12-13 years ago

and yes...i declared the winnings

i had a 401k that i maxxed every year

i also had a small amount in a account at a bank, that invested in bonds

i made a lot of mistakes, especially early

but now, i tend to stay with brand name companies everyone knows

slower growth....good dividends....and safer than most

GE                general electric
SYY              sysco
CSCO            cisco
MDLZ            mondalez (formerly kraft foods)
KR                kroger
STI              suntrust
CVX             chevron

i am missing a few...but you get the idea

great companies....and great brands

[movingforward]

I do a little trading, nothing major.  I have been doing it for about 2 yrs and have averaged a 12% return each year.  I don't do any day trading but will trade over the course of a few weeks or a few months, depending on what the market is doing.  It is a very small portion of my portfolio and I enjoy it.  I will say that if you want to buy individual stocks then do your homework and don't get sucked into anything too risky.  I pick solid companies that pay a good dividend.  I also make certain I have a little money to buy more if the market tanks so I can cost average down.  There is nothing wrong with doing a little trading as long as you have other things covered and you don't fall into the "get rich quick" crap that never works (well, almost never). 

[Deleted]

I actually started a ROTH IRA when I was 16 years old. My dad was a typical boglehead style investor and I became interested after hearing more in my economics class.  So I took the money I had and invested it into a ROTH.

I actually ended up taking the money out before I bought my first house, so I guess i didn't do the long-term investing thing.


But outside of that, I started right when I left college.  And ramped things up around the time I turned 30. 

[gs11rmb]

I'm 39 and opened a vanguard taxable account four years ago that holds the SP500 fund.  My husband and I do max our Roth's but don't max our 403(b) and  401(k) accounts.  I think he contributes 10% (no match but he is vested in a pension plan) and I contribute 6% to get the match.  We use the taxable account to both save for retirement and to be available for a dire emergency.  We do have an actual emergency fund in a savings account and have never had to touch the taxable one but I like the comfortable feeling of knowing that if something truly awful happened, we wouldn't have to resort to cashing out retirement funds.

[jeffreymo]

I haven't started taxable investing yet.  I didn't get serious about retirement savings until 5 or 6 years ago.  Right now I am playing catch up on the retirement.  I came close to maxing pretax last year and I'm on schedule to max in 2013.  Once that's done I'll need to beef up our emergency fund, and then after that I can think about taxable investments.  I'm not sure if I will invest those funds into individual stocks or not.  I like index funds.

[DVM gone riding]

I started my taxable account when Phil convinced me it was better to have as a back up EF then a bunch of cash. It has grown but I haven't added much else to it. its lower on the list to increase funding to. First I want to max the ROTH after contributing to my 401k (I decided 7%+3%match was enough for the 401k and won't get back to increasing that until I am truly maxing the ROTH every year and contributing something to the taxable)  Between the 3 with that plan and reasonable market returns I should do great by the time I retire.

[hsclassic]

Started investing in high school with 1-2 individual stocks. Investing stopped during college years (for obvious reasons), but I started investing again as soon as I was employed post-college. Investing was in DRIP, EF (savings account), US savings bonds, and company stock. Once I was 401(k) eligible, I started investing there also. After getting financial matters settled down after buying the first house, in addition to the above, I also started mutual fund investing. In our early years, DH and I did buy some individual stocks, but gave that up after a few years because it was too time-consuming. Yes, we had winners and losers, but it was just too much time, so we expanded our auto-savings into mutual funds. Good decision for us.

[telephus44]

I was 25.  No, I didn't have maxed out retirement account or anything, but I started with an XOM DRIP and put in $50 a month.  A few years ago I added a JNJ DRIP.  Individual stocks are a pretty small amount of my overall portfolio (about 10% - most of it is in retirement accounts) but I didn't want to wait to start investing.  $50 a month is what some people spend in lottery tickets or cigarettes, so putting it in individual stocks could be worse.

[phil5185]

In taxable accounts (outside of your retirement accounts? And individual stocks?

1963 - Boeing, GE, GM, Lockheed, etc. At that time, retirement accounts hadn't been invented, nor had ETFs, Index Funds, discount brokers, etc. I traded corn futures, options on an index, sold stocks short, bought call options, sold covered calls, bought penny stocks, yada. The last stock that I've owned was GE, sold a rental house in 1995, parked the money on GE, I sold it in 2000 on the news that Jack Welch would be retiring in a year or two. 

IMO, the stock sectors (ETFs) and the individual stocks carry uncompensated risk. The unmanaged generic market trends upward at about 11%/yr, sector stocks are selected from the same generic population of stocks but carry the added risk of an industry failure (eg, buggy whips, sliderules, coal, steel). And individual stocks (also selected form the generic 11% population) carry the risk of the index plus the risk of the sector plus the risk of an individual company failure (GM, etc).  So I avoid the uncompensated risk and assume only the risk of the generic US market.

And you're right, with the invention of 'retirement accounts', taxable accounts have fallen to the bottom of the list - unnoticed, unused - a mistake?  Money in a taxable account isn't permanently locked away until age 59 1/2, that means that you can 'back up the boat', you don't have to worry about investing too much - it's a good place for  your overflow. And it's a good place for the big part of your EF.

[thyme4change]

I opened our taxable account with our wedding money.  I put it in index funds.  We got to a point where we had far more income than expenses, but we knew it was temporary because my husband was going to quit and go to law school and we were planning on having babies.  (Both happened.)  So, we just kept stashing money in there.  We did very, very little investing in individual stocks.  Mostly just kept it funds.  That was also during the "options" hay day - so I got a bunch of options and employee stock purchase opportunities.  I did hold stock in the companies I worked in, but I found after I left, I didn't like holding the stock.  Too much work.  So, I dumped a lot of it when the price went high enough.  

[Deleted]

I started in right before the tech collapse.  Lol.  I hung out on the Motley Fool board, and they did some a really good analysis of various companies.   Yahoo was cash rich at the time and poised to fly high.  I never invested a lot since I was doing it through Sharebuilder.  I actually stopped when the tech sector collapsed.  Like every other investor, I loved to buy high and sell low. 

I got interested again several years ago and did some research on my own.  Costco looked good do I did that for awhile.  Then I got married, and DH convinced me to go with GE.

I finally stopped essentially wasting my money when Phil pointed out how much the stocks would have to rise to offset the high fees I was paying by using Sharebuilder's monthly program.  He was right (of course). 

I do watch the stocks, though.  Costco has done extremely well , and GE has done fine.  They are both DRIPS, which helps increase the number of shares I hold.  Yahoo has even managed to get back to where I only have lost money due to commissions. 

I should probably sell these.

[swamp]

2001 when I wnet into private practice, paid off my student loans and started getting bonuses.

[sesfw]

Around 1972 DH#1 started investing.  The first investment was a company called Nucor and at that time each share was $10, and we put in $100.  We bought through Merrill Lynch and were issued actual stock certificates.

Many years later (1990?) through splits and everything else that goes on, we had around 350 shares that we sold.  Can't remember the final price.
 
After his death I invest conservatively/moderately in mutual funds.  Easier on my ulcer.  LOL

[reader79]

Apr 17, 2013 7:48:56 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

In taxable accounts (outside of your retirement accounts? And individual stocks?

It seems with so many bucket to fill, taxable accounts have dropped to the bottom of the list for us and individual stocks is not even on that list.

I was surprised how many folks my age were buying individual stocks : P&G, Johnson & Johnson,GE, etc. (talking about the stock market during a game of basketball). Some even tried day trading and listened to Kramer (I cannot stand that guy, all he does is scream at the TV).

The only individual stocks I have are my companies and that is because they are part of the profit sharing plan. I always figured that taxable accounts would only come after we could max all retirements accounts first : IRA's and 401k's.

I started playing around with penny stocks a few years ago. Mostly because I liked owning 285K units of something for under $200 (I guess these are fractional-penny stocks?) They went up and down, and I found that I was spending way too much time online tracking shifts in price of .0001 trying to time a buy. I gave up and sold most of them after they did a reverse split on one of my holdings. Also, I was really pissed that I had passed on AIG at under $2, which is now trading at $38.

So I guess I wasn't approaching it as investing, but more as gambling, which is why I wasn't very successful at it. I currently still own the shares of the app companies that I bought for .00016, total value is around $300 on a good day. I had avoided share-builder, etc., because of the fees involved, but probably ended up spending more on multiple individual transactions. I don't think I will re-enter this sphere until I max out my retirement savings. Then it will be just a plain vanilla Vanguard fund for me.

[8 Bit WWBG]

Today!  I just executed the purchase of Schwab S&P 500 mutual fund (SWPPX).

I've had my TSP for a while, but it was in the bonds fund until the beginning of this year.

[nogooddeed]

I started in my 20s when a relative left me $10,000 at her death.  She always loved using what she termed "play money" to make stock purchases.  She did really well too.  So, I used that money to invest in various stocks through the years.  I've  bought and held and bought and sold.  That $10,000 is now considerably more and part of it is my play money.  I loved buying Williams Companies below $10 and selling at over $30.  I also bought some Berkshire Hathway B just so I could say I own Berkshire Hathaway.   Bought it around $70 and it's now at $105.  Might be time to sell.

[SVT]

Apr 17, 2013 10:58:14 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

In taxable accounts (outside of your retirement accounts? And individual stocks?

And you're right, with the invention of 'retirement accounts', taxable accounts have fallen to the bottom of the list - unnoticed, unused - a mistake?  Money in a taxable account isn't permanently locked away until age 59 1/2, that means that you can 'back up the boat', you don't have to worry about investing too much - it's a good place for  your overflow. And it's a good place for the big part of your EF.

Is this response using math over emotion? 

By the way, there seems to be a lot of people who invest in taxable before maxing retirement accounts, so I don't see the same thing you're seeing in regards to taxable accounts falling to the bottom of the list.  I bet there are many here who invest in taxable and don't max retirement accounts.  That's not the best use of ones money, using math.

I haven't started investing in taxable yet but I will be very soon.  I've been tempted to invest in individual stocks but never have.

[beergut]

I started 10 years ago with a Sharebuilder account. They had some deal where you could make 6 trades a month for a $12 a month fee (or $2 per trade), so I set up an auto-draft from my bank to the account, and then set the same 6 trades each month. I was simply dollar-cost averaging some companies I like.

I believe in the "invest in what you know" mantra, and bought shares of Altria (MO), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Wynn Casino (WYNN), Las Vegas Sands (LVS), MGM, Boyd (BYD), et al.

Think the best trade I ever made was buying LVS at $7 a share. It is now trading at $53 a share. 

I'm a big believer that sin never goes out of style, so investing in cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling never hurts.

The max number of stocks I had at any one times was ten.

I had to leave Sharebuilder when I began working for an investment company, so now my all my accounts are with them. 

It is a little disappointing, because if you want to dollar cost average with stocks, Sharebuilder/ING is god for that.

I still buy stocks, but still stick with what I know.

I mainly use technical indicators to tell me when to buy and trade. 

I also take advantage of a 401(k), and trade stocks in my IRAs.

I like individual stocks more than mutual funds because you have more freedom with stocks, but since I was only able to invest in mutual funds in my 401k, that is where all of my mutual fund investing takes place.