[Dylan86]

Responding in bold, to simplify

Originally Posted by XutvJet

I don't know how old you are, but here's my take.

31

1) If you're in your low to mid 30s and don't have at least $250,000 in appreciating assets (own a home in a good neighborhood, solid investments) then you have no business owning a car like an M235 or spending lot of money on mods and other toys.

Current assets on par or close to your eval, for sure, if anything I have a higher equity position, than above. The M235 was bought and paid for within 12 months of ownership using stock profits and disposable income, never sold any assets to acquire it. Also paid for all mods using profits from trading. Never intended to get things paid down so fast, just worked out really well, in a short term period. And I do know some people in Toronto driving 100k vehicles, 50k in rotating debt, making 60k/year, renting an apartment, it's really sad, out there, I know.. The m235i is not a status car, for me, really. As most days you'll catch me in my Chevy Colorado commuting around on the DL, wearing Levi's not 7's

2) I don't believe you should sock away everything you make and live super frugally, but the YOLO mantra so many people live by is disturbing. It's all "Big hat and no cattle". The reality is you'll live well into your 70s thus you better plan for it. You have plenty of time to acquire wealth and the fancy toys, and yes, an M235 is a pretty fancy toy.

Agreed, and I am truly blessed to have what I do. I wouldn't be here, today, without the support of my friends and mentors, I have them to thank, really. Well at least the first one who convinced me to put $1k in the mining sector and wait a patient 12 months before checking my status. That was my first eye opener into investing in penny stocks and the potential

3) One must first focus on eliminating all of their debt except for perhaps their home. However, paying off the home as quickly as possible should be a goal.

My investing goals are to become mortgage free, absolutely my goal, today. If anything, that's a goal to be executed by 39, no later, without investing I can do it without investing, but why not have the best of both worlds? You do miss 100% of the shots, you don't take, so hindsight is always 20/20.

4) If available, fund your company 401K to the company match. Nothing more. Choose low fee S&P 500 index funds. Nothing else.

This is how I started, has worked well with an average of 10% returns, annually thus far. My other options for a "safer" long term hold with great growth opportunities, is an ETF/Hedge structure, where you're investing in a firm who's chosen 20-30 companies all under 1 umbrella, lots of options, starting to do more DD on those..

5) Strongly consider closely following Warren Buffett's "15-minute retirement plan": 90% of your money in S&P 500 index funds and the remaining 10% in short-term government bonds. The book "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" has lots of solid advice and mirrors Buffett's recommendations.

Love Warren Buffet, great to read his successes

6) Buy cars and other toys with cash. If you can't buy it with cash, then you can't afford it.

Amen, never going into debt for a car, again. Lost probably 40-50k in a span of 5-6 years leasing/buying new etc and not keeping the car(s). I now buy vehicles, cash, to own them for 10 years or more

7) Use credit cards and take advantage the rewards perks but ALWAYS pay the cards off at the end of the month.

I travel twice a year with my points, combined with the ability to expense a lot of company purchases with my personal card. Never use CC's because I NEED to. I don't think I've ever carried a balance except for when I was in school, lol

8) Once you pay off your house and have around $1M USD in the portfolio, then consider perhaps a second property or other solid investment vehicles.

Depending on the market, I'd go right into a second rental property using my equity from house 1, but I left that market a few years ago (Toronto) for a better lifestyle..

The medical marijuana investment is intriguing and I'll look into it. However, I hope this isn't all your invested in because it sound quite unstable compared to other investments. I invest in stand alone stocks and higher risk stocks for fun but they represent a very small part of my portfolio. Any money I make on them is viewed solely as fun money.

Nope, only about $5k initially, after I paid off the m235.. It's now worth about $21k? Thinking if I could round up my share position, I'd just be better off for the next few bull runs, then look at the ETF/Hedge options.

I've been in the market for a long time now and have gone through lots of ups and downs and have made many investing mistakes along the way. Believe me, market timing and get-rich schemes is about as risky as it gets. You cannot go wrong in the long-term with bullet #5. Trust me.

Noted, my long hold, 20 year + investment goes to Canadian Tire's A stock. Pays annual dividends of $3.60 and the company is doing big things that haven't even tipped their scale, yet, so I have that going for me, too, worst case lol. Best part about that is, it's money I never technically had, so it gets deposited straight into the stock market, for me (or options I chose) and it grows every 6 months with each deposit based on my performance, at work. The better side to this, is I'm still very young in my career, and most of the growth you receive is through profit sharing, not salary, so if you're a long term employee, you can retire very well. Better than any union retirement structure, as I'm not capped by a 25+ year commitment, I can leave at anytime and take my profit(s).

As for your M235, I'd hold on to it and not sink a penny more into it. I'd focus on maxing your investments, not add a penny more to the MJ stocks, and dial back some lifestyle spending and funnel that into your portfolio. Extra cars and homes will need to go on the back burner for a good long while.

I appreciate your opinion on things, even though I've heard a lot of the same, from family/friends. It's made me far more comfortable with my recent decisions, and yes I probably got a spell of luck and should look into something less "inflated" with my ongoing cash investments/trades. And I bought all of my parts while the car was stored, last year, not a penny more going toward it unless it's labour $$ to have it all finally installed, lol

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by BEM-S4

To jump on the #5 bandwagon, long term you've gotta be damn good and damn lucky to do better than steady investment in a no load index fund like Magellan. Always remember the sage advice of Mr. Lou Mannheim: Quick buck artists come and go with every bull market, but the steady players make it through the bear market. I'm a Bogle devotee myself but it amounts to the same thing.

Not to say opportunistic bets especially in situations like this cannot be good ideas - they absolutely can - but high reward comes with high risk. Most of the folks I know in the MJ game are very wealthy to begin with and it's a passion project for them - like the father died a horribly painful death from cancer and MJ helped - so now they've got foundation money flowing into that.

Yea, interesting you say that.. My uncle suffered from Parkinson's, then we saw something like this, but not as a readily available product, like Iso-Derm which is shown, here:

And then began to source CBD for him, to help him cope with his disease. He passed just before xmas, and I'm taking some of what he left me down this journey and CBD movement. It was the ONLY medicine, in over 20+ years he'd been suffering in critical pain, daily, that made him feel good, and "normal", again. I'm not rich, by any stretch, but I'd be easily willing to give up a liquid asset to invest in something I'm fairly passionate about. My passionate decisions have never let me down, to date.

But I'm holding onto the car, at this point. Starting this thread actually stopped me from doing it, lol

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by Dylan86

Responding in bold, to simplify

Very nice work!

[albertw]

Originally Posted by Dylan86

The trials have been taking place, since 2009, actually. Don't think USA, or Canada, specifically. Think Germany, Israel, Brazil, and Globally, this is the key, everyone's focused on US bullchit, and Canadian legalization, that's about 10-20% of the worlds market share, as Canada will be the dominant growing Capital, worldwide. They've been all over the medical studies for years in foreign country's, already. where CBD is legal, releasing what is now very promising results. This includes recent 2017/8 Government approvals for CBD to be used to treat patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimers disease, Epilepsy, PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Chrons, etc. None of which has made mainstream media, yet, and none of which has hit the retail pharma shelves, it's literally a ticking time bomb, even on a strictly medical basis, this is a multi billion dollar industry. I could give a F about recreational laws, they don't effect my area of focus all that much. If anything, we tend to go up when the weak hands get scared out of MJ stocks. There's a lot of misinformation out there, and like I said before, not trying to make this a debate on investing, really, but if you guys are cool with this topic, I'd be willing to unload the pages of my own notes/DD on the subject, lol

It's not appropriate to get into a long discussion of this here, so I'll just make three points. One, Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons (the regulatory bodies here in Canada) have appointed committees to look into medical marijuana, and they have concluded that the evidence is very weak. You may dismiss this as biased, but I have known personally people appointed to similar committees in my area of research and they were exceptionally honest, diligent and fair people. They had a powerful motivation to do the best job possible - their reputations were on the line if it turned out they missed something important.

Two, I retired early from a career in medical research to have more time for my hobbies, one of which is keeping on top of major advances in roughly 30% of medicine, 10% of biology and 10% of physics. There's hundreds of papers published in those areas each month, so I rely on science journalists to point me to the interesting developments. Many of the best ones (based on how they cover my own area) are in Europe. None of the ones I follow have thought there was anything going on in medical marijuana that was interesting enough to write about.

Three, the placebo effect is real and can be very powerful. What could be a better placebo than having a nephew possibly risk jail to get him his medicine?

[morphomeman]

This has gotten way off track and has nothing to do with cars of any sort at this point. The original question to this forum was whether it makes sense to sell a car in order to invest. The answer to that question is NO, no matter what you are investing in. OP needs to talk to a sensible financial advisor. The rest of us need to go home.

[overcoil]

Sensible responsible advisor starts with fiduciary responsibility - do your research

https://www.cfp.net/about-cfp-board/...duals-by-state

[XutvJet]

Originally Posted by morphomeman

OP needs to talk to a sensible financial advisor. The rest of us need to go home.

NO. Do not waste your money on an adviser. Been there, done that, I believed the hype, and subsequently lost A LOT OF MONEY.

Investing is very simple if you stick to what's been provided in this thread (hint hint: Warren Buffett 15 minute retirement plan, simple reading books by Bogle). Get a Vanguard account or similar, invest heavily in S&P 500 index funds and a bit in bonds (shift more to bonds as you get older), and call it a day.

[BEM-S4]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

NO. Do not waste your money on an adviser. Been there, done that, I believed the hype, and subsequently lost A LOT OF MONEY.

Investing is very simple if you stick to what's been provided in this thread (hint hint: Warren Buffett 15 minute retirement plan, simple reading books by Bogle). Get a Vanguard account or similar, invest heavily in S&P 500 index funds and a bit in bonds (shift more to bonds as you get older), and call it a day.

You need to have a lot of money and concerns about estate planning, trusts, tax avoidance etc. before you need anything more complicated that what XutvJet is suggesting. Private account wealth management at most places I deal with starts at $5M, anything under that they are literally going to indexed funds with a casual shift to fixed income, and charge you for the service.

The key to wealth creation is no more complicated than regular saving and investing. Folks are always amazed when they see what happens if you just take something as little as $500 a month and dump it into an indexed fund. Market's up? $500. Market's down? $500. After a couple of months you kind of forget about it and don't even notice it.

[amw896]

I'm just hoping you aren't dumping a lot of money into mj stocks. Take it from an accountant and a seasoned investor. Those stocks are all speculative momentum plays with little value. I've analyzed multiple cdn mj quarterly/annual statements and they're all shit. They are all massively overvalued, offer little revenue, and the few that are profitable, have razor thin margins. The industry is already consolidating, which is a huge red flag.

As for the car, keep it, it's a gem. But if have the means, then upgrade! They're all depreciating, terrible investments. Just toys my friend

[Dylan86]

Thanks, guys, and again this was not intended to be a discussion about MJ stocks, as I'm not technically invested with an MJ LP, more so a Pharma level CBD producer, extremely undervalued when compared to the overvalued MJ stocks, trading at 800% higher prices, with equal or only slightly more revenue. I totally think MJ stocks are over inflated, and there's only one or two I would hold, long, as they've been proven to have a worldwide position, and positive track records in the medical industry, in past operations (like GW Pharma, now CEO of Aphria, now that's a solid company to invest in, if I were to invest in an LP).

Originally Posted by amw896

I'm just hoping you aren't dumping a lot of money into mj stocks. Take it from an accountant and a seasoned investor. Those stocks are all speculative momentum plays with little value. I've analyzed multiple cdn mj quarterly/annual statements and they're all shit. They are all massively overvalued, offer little revenue, and the few that are profitable, have razor thin margins. The industry is already consolidating, which is a huge red flag.

As for the car, keep it, it's a gem. But if have the means, then upgrade! They're all depreciating, terrible investments. Just toys my friend

Exactly, just a toy. My thought was that using the capital I have, in the car, would just do more (financially) for me, than having the depreciating asset in it's current state. As much as it would suck not having this toy, I do have my mtn bike and racing sim to keep occupied, but now very much looking forward to spring and getting back behind the wheel. Not selling

I guess I'm just always trying to figure a way to use money to make money, that's all, lol. It has been an exciting year, I've learned a lot from the industry, both good and bad (but all good in the end). I did well in the MJ/Mining sectors and have moved into less popular CBD companies/producers, as they can CBD itself, can be derived from Hemp and Hops (one company has the patent pending, on the hops extraction). This is going to be the movement focus, itself, once people start nose diving in the inflated MJ companies, they'll soon see the light... I've already seen a strong shift, and the CBD movement is being brought on by celebrities all over the world, now. It's a ticking time bomb, IMO.

2015/16 was the time to get into MJ, 2017/18 is the time to look into the CBD industry, the one that will actually benefit the people, around the world and take billions of sales from Big Pharma companies, the ones killing people with their fabricated medicine. And this isn't for the 30% which will be smoking recreational, but them and the rest, who will be prescribed CBD to treat symptoms like Parkinsons, Epilepsy, PTSD, Fibromyalgia, Chrons, etc, all paid by healthcare, insurance corporations, etc once legislation is ironed out.. It's forecast is said to be a minimum $2B industry (CBD) by 2020, and exceed $3B in 2021 and onward. I don't want to miss the boat on the a brand new industry, it's still in such an infant stage, the hype is all over WEED growers, not the medical sector, yet...

With all of that said, the risk is high, but with proper DD on the right companies, there's still a $3B+ industry on the table, that hasn't even hit the main stream focus, yet. Pick the company you believe is positioning itself, worldwide, with distribution channels and a strong experienced management team with relevant history in the health sector, and you'll have a successful investment, imo. Patience is key, don't invest more than you're willing to loose. Go LONG

Takeaway: I'm NOT willing to "lose" my car, to invest, at this point. So that means I'm not moving forward with my option to sell the car to a friend, and use that money to invest. I'll find it from somewhere else.. Cheers, guys, seems like we have strong knowledge, in here. Would love to start a thread in an off-topic to discuss, more.. I'm getting sick of the stock forums, lol

D

[VIN240i13]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Lastly, this is a terrible time to be throwing money into the market. It's very overvalued. A correction is coming and is due. I've been through all of them since the late 1990s and it sucks, but it is what it is.

I disagree…

Yes a correction is coming but the exact time is impossible to determine at this time and as the market is climbing people who listen to the pessimistic “don't invest now, a correction is coming” attitude simply miss out on making profits today. The foretasted stock market collapse after Trumps election never happened, in fact its been the complete opposite and then some, for me I can say thank you Mr. Trump!


You do not need a stock broker nor do you need to be glued to your computer 24/7 as a day trader. There are plenty of free and paid resources available for the self-investor, you can start with as little as a few thousand dollars. You have to take the time to educate yourself on the stock market and the different types of stock orders available for beginning and experienced investors. You need to devote the required time for investment research and to maintain your investment accounts daily. With proper investing and leveraging different order types when the correction finally arrives, you will have a solid foundation that will dramatically limit your losses and be in the right position to take advantage of cheap stocks after the storm.

One quick example, remember when the US car industry was taking a dump and several manufacturers had to beg and borrow from the government? One company did not, this was Ford and its stock dropped to under $2.00 in November 2008. Educated investors saw an opportunity, this is the core of smart investing, taking the time to research, find opportunities and have confidence on your decision to pull the trigger. I purchased 5000 shares @ $1.45 in November 2008 then sold 4000 shares in January 2011 @ $18.45 each, you can do the math to see what the gain was. Since then Ford has been decreasing, today it was around $11.00 at close so the remaining 1000 shares are still in the green. If Ford continues to drop, I have my online stock account set to “auto sell” when the price dips to $6.00 where I still make a profit at the end of the day.

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by VIN240i13

I disagree…

Yes a correction is coming but the exact time is impossible to determine at this time and as the market is climbing people who listen to the pessimistic “don't invest now, a correction is coming” attitude simply miss out on making profits today. The foretasted stock market collapse after Trumps election never happened, in fact its been the complete opposite and then some, for me I can say thank you Mr. Trump!


You do not need a stock broker nor do you need to be glued to your computer 24/7 as a day trader. There are plenty of free and paid resources available for the self-investor, you can start with as little as a few thousand dollars. You have to take the time to educate yourself on the stock market and the different types of stock orders available for beginning and experienced investors. You need to devote the required time for investment research and to maintain your investment accounts daily. With proper investing and leveraging different order types when the correction finally arrives, you will have a solid foundation that will dramatically limit your losses and be in the right position to take advantage of cheap stocks after the storm.

One quick example, remember when the US car industry was taking a dump and several manufacturers had to beg and borrow from the government? One company did not, this was Ford and its stock dropped to under $2.00 in November 2008. Educated investors saw an opportunity, this is the core of smart investing, taking the time to research, find opportunities and have confidence on your decision to pull the trigger. I purchased 5000 shares @ $1.45 in November 2008 then sold 4000 shares in January 2011 @ $18.45 each, you can do the math to see what the gain was. Since then Ford has been decreasing, today it was around $11.00 at close so the remaining 1000 shares are still in the green. If Ford continues to drop, I have my online stock account set to “auto sell” when the price dips to $6.00 where I still make a profit at the end of the day.

I haven't been around the market all that long. Started through work with CTC.A stocks through my profit sharing and it sparked an interest to look into penny stocks and day trading. Then Crypto Currency was a "thing" late 2016 early 2017 so I dabbled into that and quickly exited when I made 3000% profit, and then started to work with the MJ sector, and it has proven to be a winner, for me.

There is a lot of hype and inflation out there, but one must go with their own gut, because remorse is a mofo!


There are growers, equipment mfg, ETFs, and Pharma companies all within the sector (and more obv.), best is to diversify. My position is 90% with CBD sector (one company), and day trading my other 10% on MJ stocks (like Aphria, Namaste etc). If I had a large amount of cash to drop on 1 company, it would be Aphria, but it's a long hold at this stage, I missed the $1 train on that beast, it'll be over $30 by summer, without a doubt in mind.

Sorry for the thread derail, was never meant to be about my personal investments, in particular, but I'm glad to have sparked the interest of others

D

[Sportstick]

Originally Posted by VIN240i13

... for me I can say thank you Mr. Trump!

#factsfirst

[XutvJet]

I work in mergers and acquisitions and can say with a straight face that Trump has had very little impact on why the market is where it's at right now.

I would never tell anyone not to invest, but I would caution them on buying anything risky. I would only buy solid performing stocks. The problem with that is you'll be buying very high and could stand to loose 10% to 20% in the near term, especially given the current political climate in the US and internationally.

[VIN240i13]

Originally Posted by Sportstick

#factsfirst

Nice charts... means nothing.

Who cares on what president had the highest market bump.. the "fact" is the projected market crash from the "Snowflake" community did not happen.

The market is doing just fine and my investments are making money... end of story.

....and hopefully the end of this thread, its gone south..

[Sportstick]

Originally Posted by VIN240i13

Nice charts... means nothing.

Who cares on what president had the highest market bump.. the "fact" is the projected market crash from the "Snowflake" community did not happen.

So, we’ve lowered the bar so much this past year that great appreciation (and relief?) is now expressed if we simply avoid yet another White House disaster?

[bimmerfile]

Originally Posted by Sportstick

So, we’ve lowered the bar so much this past year that great appreciation (and relief?) is now expressed if we simply avoid yet another White House disaster?

[XutvJet]

Dylan,

Give it another two weeks to watch how things unfold (it could get a lot worse), but now is the time to consider getting in if you've got some extra money sitting around. These corrections come without warning. I think the market will shed at least another 5%. And we should also expect Trump to blame Obama, HRC, the FBI investigation, or the Democrats for the drop. LOL.

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

Dylan,

Give it another two weeks to watch how things unfold (it could get a lot worse), but now is the time to consider getting in if you've got some extra money sitting around. These corrections come without warning. I think the market will shed at least another 5%. And we should also expect Trump to blame Obama, HRC, the FBI investigation, or the Democrats for the drop. LOL.

lol, yea, It's been interesting out there.. I'm not in a poor position, thankfully. I'm averaging about 30% lower can current SP (still up over 400% since October), in my primary holding. Looking forward to fall, post Canadian legalization and general market recovery. I'm glad I didn't buy two-three weeks ago, that's for sure! Shorters are having their way with things too..

[albertw]

In case anyone is thinking of following Dylan 86 in investing in medical marijuana, here's a very recent summary of clinical evidence regarding its usefulness.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...erta-1.4537039

Seems pretty clear to me, unless of course you believe like Dylan 86 that no one in conventional medicine knows anything.

[tripitz]

Originally Posted by XutvJet

NO. Do not waste your money on an adviser. Been there, done that, I believed the hype, and subsequently lost A LOT OF MONEY.

Investing is very simple if you stick to what's been provided in this thread (hint hint: Warren Buffett 15 minute retirement plan, simple reading books by Bogle). Get a Vanguard account or similar, invest heavily in S&P 500 index funds and a bit in bonds (shift more to bonds as you get older), and call it a day.

LOL. Vanguard. Fidelity. Those jokers exist only because our government gives us incentives to funnel money to them for deferred taxes under the guise of retirement. Do I have money with them? For sure since I'm incentivized to do so. Do they do a good job with it? No.. invariably, through multiple funds with both I seem to catch most of the downside and a portion of the upside. Yay.. glad I pay all those fees. My advice, never give a company that has no real incentive to do a good job your money (they don't have an incentive.. they're going to get my money regardless because that's what was offered in my 401k plan!).

I worked at a hedge fund for reference for many years. I've met with, interviewed with, and been offered jobs at these firms.

Also... with all the sanctimonious financial advice here... you only live once. Have everything in balance and enjoy your life. In today's age, a car payment/loan at 0.9% interest is far less an issue than the large amounts of money we throw away without thinking on cell phone service, internet service at home, media services, and apps. Those often total more than the loan on a car...

[Dylan86]

Originally Posted by albertw

In case anyone is thinking of following Dylan 86 in investing in medical marijuana, here's a very recent summary of clinical evidence regarding its usefulness.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...erta-1.4537039

Seems pretty clear to me, unless of course you believe like Dylan 86 that no one in conventional medicine knows anything.

Wiki would be a great starting point, for you. Most, like you, have a lot to learn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol