Retirement Investing

2ndtry

Wanted to start a thread for anything related to retirement investing.
I don't want this to be about wild speculative (short term capital gains) trading thread but more safe, long term investing thread.

I'm currently maxing out 401k, maxed out roth ira, and have a small personal brokerage account.

What do you guys have on Roth IRA and personal brokerage if you have one?

CalebWetherell

WhenFCAS?

I max all of my 401k, Backdoor Roth, and HSA. You might find this interesting as well. I go with 100% index fund allocation. We can't all be TSLA heroes like MrWeeWee. (I do love Tesla)

Everything that can be is at Vanguard in 0 or close to 0 fee funds.

I recently spent my brokerage account on a down payment so need to work on building that back up.

Does buying Seattle Kraken season tickets count as a retirement investment?

BigPeePee

I've been maxing my 401k for 4 years. Everything is in total stock market index.

So I put in around 75k. With employer matching, it's around 105K in total contributions.
That account is now worth around 140K.

I had a personal account with only 20K in it 2 years ago. I didn't add a single cent to it, yet that account is now worth more than my 401k.
401K is terrible. I think contributing up to your employer match is a good idea, but anything more is a waste. Sure, there are tax advantages, but you're restricted to diversified funds, and those are terrible investments to people who know what they're doing.

My investments in my Roth IRA and personal accounts are TSLA and bitcoin. I will be making a move into ARKG, as I believe the next parabolic industry this decade will be genomics.

2ndtry

I agree but the point is, 99% of people don't know what they're doing so the 401k and the index funds are available for those people.

Speaking of TSLA, what do you think about those Chinese EV stocks like NIO and XPEV? I thought about it but I just don't like Chinese stocks, too much political risks.

BigPeePee

WhenFCAS? NIO and XPEV are just riding on the coattails of Tesla. None of them have the advantages that Tesla has:

Supercharger network
In-house FSD solution
In-house manufacturing
In-house battery production
Brand

I make no prediction on stock prices, but I highly doubt those 2 companies will become a tech giant like Tesla. Their margins will be poor and sales will stagnate/fall off a cliff when legacy autos enter.

BigPeePee

One thing to note is that in technology, a disruptor (Tesla in this case) that is dominating in so many areas and is continually looking to innovate will almost never be caught with their pants down by competitors.
NIO and XPEV aren't doing anything that makes them stand out from the competition, and that issue comes from the fact that they're not producing anything in-house. Their products can be easily replicated by legacy auto or any new EV company.

Now is it possible that NIO and XPEV can do what Tesla is doing by bringing things in-house and inventing innovative components like the octovalve? Maybe, but the problem I have with their stock price is that retail investors are acting as if these 2 companies will do that and improve their margins to Tesla's levels. That is pure speculation. Tesla's valuation is at least defendable, because it's pretty obvious that the competition is failing and that Tesla will eventually achieve 20 million sales at a high gross margins. Tesla has a 40% revenue marketshare in China, and the Model Y in China is already at 30% gross margins, which is insanely high for an automobile.
There is no reason to think NIO and XPEV can create compelling products when other companies are also creating EVs with similar specs.