Need Opinion

[MEDICALJMP]

It's all about how much risk you want to assume. Buying a MY and selling/trading it in will surely be worth less than just sitting on the money. But, if you have to be paying on a car anyway, why not a MY? They'll hold their value pretty well if they follow the pattern of the M3. Buying stock could pay off big or could be at a low when you need the money the most.

Opinions are like ... well, you know the rest of that. I think I'd put half into Tesla stock and sit on the other half in some easy to cash out interest bearing account of some sort. Then, maybe that original $20K will have done well with Tesla stock and between that and the $20K in the safe account, you'd be able to buy the CT when available without owing much if any. Again, depends on the amount of risk you want to take.

This is close to where I am right now. My wife's MY has me wanting one of my own and I don't want to wait 2 years or longer to get it! So, I'm weighing the possibility of buying a M3 to sell when my CT gets made... I look at it as a "forced savings account with a crappy negative return" but it lets me ride in a M3 for a year!

Basically agree with you with one exception. I would do $20K in Tesla stock and $20K in a total stock market exchange traded fund using a low cost provider such as Fidelity, Vanguard or T. Rowe Price.

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[Handy Artie]

Please don’t forget the principles. The stock market is a market of many individual stocks both long term winners and losers and short term winners and losers. Betting on averages and indexes instead of individual stocks limits your upside as well as your downside.
Holding individual stocks for more than a year helps make up for the costs of maintaining a trading account by lowering your tax bracket to the capital gains rate, which is now 15% of net gains. You only realize gains when you sell.
Staying in cash loses you 50% of it over 20 years on average because of dollar inflation and the consumer price index.

 

[alan auerbach]

Financial advisors?

If they knew (or just had a reasonably good handle on) what the market, -- no, what a market sector -- no, what just one stock is about to do, why wouldn't they invest their own money and make a killing, rather than advise you what to do in exchange for a few pennies of commission or however they profit from you.

 

[ajdelange]

Why would he risk his own money?

Financial advisors charge you annually something like 1% of whatever they are managing for you. A good one, i.e. one with a good reputation, with a book of 50 - 100 high net worth individuals is thus pulling in $10 - 20 M per year in fees whether the market is going up or down. In addition to which, of course, he has his own portfolio.

How to tell a good financial advisor from a bad one: Ask him whether you should buy Tesla stock.

 

[CyberJagg]

Sounds like it's time to set up your own Charles Schwab account and do your own trading, really easy to do, you will like it. Jumped in the pool last May 2019, holding on for the long haul, ten years and then I'll decide what to do "when I grow up."

I stopped using a financial guy and became my own financial guy. I grew my investment 300% over 2 years. I suggest you start doing your own homework and just dollar cost average(buy continuously). Find a company that allows you to buys fractional shares and just buy, buy, buy.

 

[ajdelange]

Well I guess I'll just fire my financial advisors and do that then.

 

[OneLapper]

Well I guess I'll just fire my financial advisors and do that then.

Whoa! You still need that guy on your side!

But I will say, I have left my investments to their hands for the last 25 years and I'm, quite frankly, pissed about the lack of returns. I compare this to what my parents have invested, and there's a substantial difference in performance.

I recently told my FA that I was pulling out $X amount to manage myself and suddenly he had a change of heart. We're now actively discussing options. Fortunately I did buy the Tesla stock I wanted, but not quite WHEN I wanted, but it's still up significantly........

 

[ajdelange]

Oh absolutely! That post was completely sarcastic. Only a very unsophisticated investor would think he can manage his family's future with dollar averaging.

Obviously your advisor built a portfolio for you in which he recognized that upside return comes with downside risk and minimized the latter at the expense of the former. This is, in these turbulent times, I feel a wise thing to do. Yes, it is frustrating to listen to your friends and neighbors say "Well my guy put me in NKLA and its up 100% this month". OK, it was, but its now back down. That bubble burst amazingly quickly.

You financial adviser is there to serve you. If you are greedier than you are fearful then you have the option to do exactly what you did. Tell your man you want to accept more risk. When you started out with him he should have had you fill out some forms on where you want to be on the risk axis. Or, and this is what I did, quietly pull out some change and give it to another manager and tell him pedal to the metal. That account obviously returns more than the conservative manager's one and it is more likely to go into the toilet but when it does the first account won't. And finally, I took a few bucks and bought some TSLA (I couldn't stand being the only guy on here that didn't have any) without telling any adviser (because none of them would even consider buying any) in a little eTrade portfolio I set up. I'm beating the tar out of my professional advisors (annualized growth over 200%) but I'm not stupid enough to think I can maintain that.

So sure, pull out a bit and have some fun but think about risking what you have worked so hard for.

 

[alan auerbach]

Please don’t forget the principles. The stock market is a market of many individual stocks both long term winners and losers and short term winners and losers. Betting on averages and indexes instead of individual stocks limits your upside as well as your downside.
Holding individual stocks for more than a year helps make up for the costs of maintaining a trading account by lowering your tax bracket to the capital gains rate, which is now 15% of net gains. You only realize gains when you sell.
Staying in cash loses you 50% of it over 20 years on average because of dollar inflation and the consumer price index.

I'm unqualified to advise anybody except myself but I've been in and out of the market for seven decades. Presently there's a chance that the vaccines will make Mr. Covid mutate into a deadlier form, whereupon the best occupation will be grave-digging -- which is hard to invest in. That's why all my liquid assets are in cash (equivalents). Sure, the return is about the inflation rate, so my golden egg is not growing. But that's OK at my age -- because it's not shrinking.

If you're still deciding, you could try this. Contact 5-to-10 qualified financial advisors and ask if they'd handle your $40,000, and, if so, what they'd do with it. After they all ask you similar questions (they're required to get to "know" their clients), write down their answers. When you realize that no two are the same, think about what that's telling you.

 

[TyPope]

if you buy the model y will you be truckless? i wouldn't do it. invest the cash. maybe not all in tsla tho...

It's up 65% since June 23rd... I was editing a post directly above this one when I saw it. Made me smile. Hindsight is 20/20 so they say. I'd have bought TSLA a LONG time ago if I had any kind of vision.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, I hope Mark bought in! ^-^

 

[Handy Artie]

Speaking of opinions NOT politics, what do future Cybertruck owners think is the root cause of the forest fires threatening population centers on the west coast of the US again this summer. I personally believe bad Forest Management is the immediate cause not global warming. I’m a part time resident of ME for the past 42 years and even though peak temperature were frequently as hot as South Florida this summer we’re not plagued by Forest fires. We have active logging industries in ME and Florida. Keeping the Forest from encroaching on the family homestead is kind of a family tradition in these parts. Felling trees against the lean using wedges is kind of generational education to many of us.

 

[ajdelange]

That's an easy one. It stems from putting population centers in places where fires are part of the normal scheme of things.

 

[TyPope]

That's an easy one. It stems from putting population centers in places where fires are part of the normal scheme of things.

That's probably the biggest contributor to the problem. Though, those fires tend to sweep through the forest quite well with no houses around.

 

[Luke42]

I purchased Tesla stock at $165 and the profits will pay for a large portion of my Dual Motor. In hindsight I should have purchased more! I do think the stock will hit $1200 after Battery Day though.

I suspect that a lot of what will be announced on Battery Day is already priced into the stock.

We've seen lots of rumors, and it seems that most TSLA investors follow the same blogs and rumors the rest of us do.

TSLA has already had one of the greatest stock runs of my lifetime, and the Tesla company is already worth more than other car companies which sell a lot more cars. That's important to keep in perspective.

I hope to be wrong, though. I'd love to see my TSLA stock go up more. But I'm also prepared for it to go down, or stay the same.