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Hi friends,
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my Monday night newsletter about stocks for clueless newbies aka all of us (and if not, this newsletter probably isn't for you), who are trying to get their money together before society collapses. Better Have My Money is a gif-filled rundown of the stock market, from being high af on weed stocks to why we should care about shares when the world is burning.
The last month of stocks has been really terrible! (The Dow fell 600 points in a day, all the gains of 2018 were wiped out, tech stocks were particularly badly affected). I found it a tad depressing to watch all the money I'd "earned" suddenly disappear, although then I just treated it like playing a video game I had no control over and that the level would end soon.
And there's one thing I keep coming back to, when mass sell-offs are happening...
This week, things are looking better, reminding us all just to ride that wave.
Confusing term of the week: "Dow", "Dow Jones" etc — one of those obvious ones that we all pretend to know but can't actually define, the Dow Jones Industrial Average refers to an index of 30 major blue-chip stocks that is often used as an indicator for the market itself. Yes, the Dow is just the average of 30 major companies from a mix of different industries. It's price-weighted, so the more expensive stocks make up a bigger portion.
Some companies that make up the Dow: Nike, Walgreens, Apple, Disney, Visa, Coca-Cola. Some companies not in the Dow: Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Netflix.
Reader LisaRose sent me in a really interesting question this week:
I’ve been purchasing single stocks and noticed that I need to diversify my portfolio since it’s very tech-heavy. I’m allowing myself $500/quarter for investment purposes. Is it better to purchase more shares of what I already have (I own 7 shares in 6 companies. Four of the shares are tech.), or is it better to diversify my portfolio so when the market dips like it did last week, I don’t take such a big hit?
This is a super great question! I've talked beforeabout how important it is to have a fairly diverse portfolio across different industries, but it can be really hard when you don't have a huge amount of money to immediately diversify ($500 per quarter is an excellent target for investments tho, well done to you).
I had been meaning to work out how much percentage each company's stocks made up of my stock portfolio, so this question was as good a reason as any to learn how to make spreadsheets do equations. Here's a look at my stocks right now and what percentage each one makes up:
First of all you'll see that Netflix dominates my portfolio, with nearly 28% of my account. Netflix has dropped 10% in the last three months overall, but the last month has been even more brutal. On October 1, Netflix shares were trading at $381 each. Last week it was trading at $285.
And so since Netflix is nearly a third of my portfolio, I am really noticing all these drops!!!
This is all to say, that I would highly recommend to you LisaRose that you buy some more diverse shares for a bit, since tech has been hit so badly lately. But that is my very unprofessional opinion, simply just what I'm trying to do at the moment.
In the last edition of Better Have My Money, I asked people what their "enough" for their investments and money would be. The answers were srsly great:
Beth: "Enough is being able to take my kids to and from school. Truly. Sad yet true. Being present for everyday moments is my enough. No figure but a dream."
Haley: "'Enough" for me doesn't exist. I never dreamed I would be making the amount of money I do now, but I also never grew up wanting to be a millionaire. For me, enough will be when I have a consistently positive net worth and probably have ~10-15k in savings. However, with more money will always come more problems, as Biggie once said.
Jennifer: "My enough would be paying my student loans off, about 70k, and buying my parents a home."
Joel: "Enough for me will be $2M in an IRA. $2M will allow for $80,000 a year on a 4% drawdown. My wife and I can easily live on $80,000 a year, and at 4%, I will still be making money (typically, my net holdings grow 7-16%/ year). A good place to park money: FUSEX (S&P 500 Fund). There are numerous other S&P 500 funds available. I use this one because I use Fidelity as my brokerage. Cheap trades at either $4.95 or free."
(Here's my regular reminder that if you open a Robinhood account, which lets you buy and sell stocks with zero fees, use my referral code and we both get a free share.)
Tuesday, it's midterms in the US. It's been a really tough few weeks here and it can feel like it's hard to make things better. First, I'd suggestdonating some moneyto the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, who were targeted for being Jewish and helping immigrants.
Second, go out and vote!!!!!!!
Better Have My Money is on Twitter @bhavemymoney, so please tweet nice things (aka the link to our sign up page) and tag us. Got a mate who needs to vote? Forward this onto them and tell them to subscribe.
As always, if you've got any questions about stocks, this is a shame free zone. Just reply and ask away.