Investing

In the ensuing years; I've definitely made money from their investment selections and I've never felt their fees have been too high. However, a number of personal events and changing circumstances have motivated me to put this under closer evaluation and make better use of my money.

I know I have zero interest in options and day trading; as is my pattern I would rather spend a lot of time up front learning and then sit back and let investments grow.

Through google searches, reviews, and forums I found a list of books that seem like a good places to start; they are as follows

Guide to Mutual Funds - Postive reviews, but some reviews accuse of simplicity; seems like a good start

"Dummies" Series for Mutual Funds, ETFs, and Bonds - I anticipate these will be what I invest in

Common Sense of Mutual Funds - Good reviews but long and boring; a later read after I have an initial understanding

A Simple Path to Wealth - I like overcomplicating things; this feels like a good step back for after a ton of dense, technical reading

Advanced Portfolio Management - Quant book if I want to try this

One key detail I want to learn is not just how to pick funds and build a portfolio, but how to determine risk and assess based on financial goals. I know different goals will have different approaches and I doubt it's as simple as "more/less stocks"

Objectives

Determine how to set my own financial goals
Determine how to make my a portfolio and organize my own investments for different goals

12/24/2023 - Guide to Mutual Funds

Book is by a group, Moringstar, they rate mutual funds and provides investment advice

Book is from before 2008; so it will not discuss that crash, which is interesting

Reviews suggest book is too simple, but for me it might be a good starting point

12/27/2023 - GtMF: Picking Mutual Funds

Book is definitely not too simple for me right now

Moringstar Style Box classifies mutual funds based on size and growth vs value

Discussion of growth vs value

Discuss style investing

Risk

Fund manager analysis

KEY- You know your future expense ratio and costs; you don't know your future return(windshield vs rear view mirror)

12/29/2023 - GtMF: Portfolio Ideas, Building, and Monitoring

Brings up the idea of a "core holding" the basis of a porfolio. Usually growth or value fund for stocks

Fund prospectuses are good resources for funds; but can very complicated

Bonds are either treasuries or municipal. Muncipal bonds can be tax free; VERY important if you're in a high tax bracket

Goes into extreme detail of specialized funds to use as auxillaries for both stocks and bonds

Recognize that buy and hold is better; DON'T time the market

Goes into detail for how to make portfolios for different goals. THIS IS WHAT I WANTED

Indexing and checkups

Best kind of advisor is time based one

12/31/2023 - GtMF: Review

Very good introduction

Not sure how good morningstar is, but good place to start

Good learnings with growth vs value, importance of expense ratios. Value of indexing

1/1/2024 - Mutual Funds for Dummies

Good start; reviewing mutual funds; what they are; drawbacks, etc

AGAIN, costs of mutual funds are huge; biggest drawback is not paying attention to your costs(where have i heard this before?)

Notes importances of paying off debts, having insurance, emergency funds, etc before investingj

1/3/2024 - MFfD: Funds and Alternatives

Two different types of securities "ownwership" and "lending".

Does not reccomend individiual stocks; difficulty and diversifying is hard. Makes sense; I want to have a life

ETFs; a lot of good points for ETFs. Author claims they're too complicated and most people shouldn't bother. I don't know if I like this. There are a lot of pros; but a big one is buy/ask spread

Hedge Funds have high costs and the author claims they are too complicated and too hard to enter anyways. Agree they're too hard but I don't like ignoring something just because it's too complicated(index funds have demonstrated value of simplicity but it shouldn't be automatic)

Rules about advisors

1/5/2024 - MFfD: Selection, Crafting, and Monitoring

Good stuff on indetinfying funds; morningstart referenced again; I guess it is a good resource

Prospectuses(discussed previously, brought up again)

Where to buy funds

Understanding asset allocation

Different types of funds MMF, Stocks, Bonds, Specialties

Taxes

1/7/2024 - MFfD: review

Good informaiton; understand mutual funds; how to proceed with them; asset allocation works well with what I learned from Morningstar

Again, buying and holding index funds with some diversification is key

1/8/2024 - Exchange-Traded-Funds for Dummies

Excited to finall learn more about Exchange Traded Funds, which have come up a lot but are still a little unclear to me

Very interested to understand pros and cons vs mutual funds

1/9/2024 - ETFfD: What are ETFS?

Basically a stock whose value is tied to a mutual fund(usually index fund)

Can be cheaper than index mutual funds

Easier to keep track of capitol gains/losses

Buy/Ask spread is a potential downside

Recurring investments are not common; reinvestments must also be manual

Same classes; growth, value, etc

1/10/2024 - ETFfD: Other types of ETFs

ETFs also exist for bonds, commodities,

Leveraged ETFS; analysis

Update with John; should investigate more

1/12/2024 - ETFfD: Review

Good lessons; combination of ETFs and mutual funds is ideal

Recurring investments and autopilot investing is probably better with mutual funds(Fidelity exception)

ETFs still have advantages and important to recognize and leverage

Again, discussions about advisors

1/13/2024 - Bonds for Dummies

Bonds are included in Mutual Funds and ETFs; would like to learn more even if I don't intend to buy individual bonds

Same author as ETFs for Dummies; so I think it's good option

1/15/2024 - BfD: Bonds and their Usage

Bonds are BORING. Finally have met my match in something that can bore even me

Reviewing what bonds are; loans with interest rates

How bonds go up/down in value

Callability

Treasuresis, corporate bonds, agency bonds, municipal bonds

1/17/2024 - BfD: Selecting Bonds and Fixed Income

Understanding how to select bond funds and how much to put in bonds

Recognizing how to combine bonds and cash for fixed income portfolios in retirement

1/18/2024 - Learning about the Intelligent Investor and Other Discussions

Learned about Intelligent Investor book from two different friends.

Discussion with Brad about market timing

Predicting the market

Started reading but book seems very simple and even more boring than bonds. Will start listening to as audiobook

Talking to Gus; he mainly invests in VOO instead of VTI Also a buy and hold investor

1/21/2024 - BfD: Review

Bonds are boring, but good understanding of internals and makes it a bit easier to select bond funds. Probably overkill for most people unless they want to invest in individual bonds(not advisable)

Bonds are only for stability; have very little use otherwise

1/22/2024 - A Simple Path to Wealth

Wanted to read this later after I learned a bit so I could approach the simple perspective with knowledge

1/22/2024 - ASPtW: How to Become Wealthy

Good, simple advice. Don't get into debt recognize how your money can grow 50% savings rate is hard; but monk parable is good Importance of gap money Market trends(revew) Another overview of bonds Asset allocation

Retirement. VERY good advice

More opinions on investment advisors

Very engaging book

1/25/2024 - ASPtW: Tricks and Withdrawing

Index funds; market idiots

Really interesting con discussion

Retirement; withdrawal tactics; social security(levers idea)

Foundation

1/25/2024 - ASPtW: Review

Excellent book; should've read first. My main rec to anybody, especially people who don't want to care too much

1/31/2024 - Intelligent Investor: Review

Mostly boring and simple, but good understanding Felt like this was the base of everything I've learned

Key detail about markets(I don't know and I don't care, just like ASPtW)

2/2/2024 - Advanced Portfolio Management

Final book, interested to learn how quants and hedge funds actually work

Unlikely I'll actually use this but at least I can learn. May not finish book

2/4/2024 - APM: Factor Models

Hedge funds make sense Alpha and Beta Previous authors don't get it, BUT risk still exists Even though they don't get it; their advice is still decent Multiple factors

2/8/2024 - APM: Incomplete Review

Can see where this is going. Multiple factors, identifying market details Not relevant to me and I should move on May come back later but leaving for now

2/12/2024 - Discussions with Another Friend

Discussed with friend; generally supportive of advie but thinks I'm conservative Mentioned leveraged etfs and talked about volitaility decay Point about market following leverage dfunds(invested in pandemic) Will investigate further later

2/18/2024 - Common Sense on Mutual Funds

Book by John Bogle; started listening to audiobook like Intelligent Investor Likely similar to Intelligent Investor; good advice and details but probably not worth read Listen is enough; will provide review once finished to listening

11/24/2024 - Common Sense on Mutual Funds - Bonds

It's been some time been; listening to book raises interesting point on bond funds. Indicates bond funds are always worse than bonds in performance Understand risks and issues with bonds but I'd like to do the mat on this myself. I'll add it to my analysis