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Roaring Kitty’s posts that kicked off the GME craze had some very thoughtful analysis. And recently I watched some videos about dividend investing on YouTube th

Roaring Kitty’s posts that kicked off the GME craze had some very thoughtful analysis. And recently I watched some videos about dividend investing on YouTube that I would consider reasonable investment advice. I agree that there is a lot of gambling and excessive risk taking going on. And I myself stick to a 3 ETF portfolio because I like the simplicity. But to call it almost entirely just gambling I think is missing the point. There is some interesting and good stuff happening now in the intersection of social media and low cost trading, and it makes sense I think for VCs to be investing in that space.

danlugo92 6y ago
What 3 ETFs do you invest on?
- freetime2 6y ago
  SCHB, SCHF, and SCHE. That's a bit of an oversimplification because I do have some other assets I've picked up over the years. But the bulk of my net worth is invested in those 3. If I were to start over again I might even just hold SCHB, which I feel has enough international exposure to make SCHF and SCHE somewhat redundant, while also being more efficient for taxation purposes.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    As a Canadian, I have a similar stance: the US stock market provides enough intl diversification. Canada has a lot of resource companies which largely follow the global economy. Most big corps have less than half of their sales in US. Developed markets still pay with a visa/MasterCard and have iphones. Or the US owns a stake in their local equivalent. Or Amazon is expanding there. Truly emerging markets barely have a stock market, but their citizens probably eye a Coca Cola, have an intel PC and an android phone doing searches on Google.
  - tim333 6y ago
    There's a potential tax advantage in splitting into different holdings. If you need money you can sell the one that hasn't gone up thus delaying or avoiding capital gains tax.
cbozeman 6y ago
> I watched some videos about dividend investing on YouTube that I would consider reasonable investment advice. Do you happen to have those links?
- freetime2 6y ago
  Sorry I don't remember who the videos were from, and to be clear I don't personally use either YouTube or WallStreetBets as a source of investment advice - I tend to just stick to a super simple passive investment strategy. I just remember seeing some videos in my feed on YouTube and thinking "wow this is actually better than a lot of what I've seen on CNBC". As an example, I did do a quick search just now on YouTube and a guy named Charlie Chang came up. [1] I haven't actually watched any of his videos before, but I took a look through his introductory video and it all looks like pretty sound advice to me. He also does monthly videos where he recommends specific stock picks, and his fundamentals-based approached seemed totally reasonable to me. This is the type of content I had in mind when I said there are reasonable videos being published on YouTube. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giGcuofIYis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giGcuofIYis
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mysore 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIoajswdMTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIoajswdMTk
hogFeast 6y ago
Without being totally dismissive of every person who has contributed to the platforms you mention...99.99% of the stuff on YouTube is terrible, and most of the stuff written about GME was total nonsense. It is difficult to convey this because, in the end, you have no idea either so you don't know whether there is useful stuff on YouTube or if I am just talking nonsense too...but it is so bad, and it gives the misleading impression that picking stocks is very easy. It isn't, people do CFAs (allegedly, a hard exam), MBAs, and work in fund management every day for decades...and will never come close to being profitable (indeed, what is amazing is how many people have no knowledge but end up doing okay...it is remarkable...the post is a perfect example, no content, no apparent understanding of investing...somehow the guy is a billionaire from investing, like Chamath...amazing). It is gambling (the distinction between gambling and investing is information), what most VCs are doing in the space is financial terrorism (stuff like WealthFront is an unbelievable scam, it is 1980s-style financial advice), and most people should take your approach (although it is still very easy to go wrong with 3 ETFs...most people will get there though).
- ec109685 6y ago
  Why is Wealthfront so bad? Their fees don’t make them cheap, is that it?
  - hogFeast 6y ago
    Correct. What they are selling you is an asset allocation, this turns on it's head all the innovation since the early 90s...and the performance you likely get will be indistinguishable from what most people could achieve on their own. One of the big advantages that savers have today are open platforms (there was a time when fund managers ran their own platforms), low dealing costs, low spreads, and ETFs. All that investors need to do is just work out the asset allocation themselves and they will save huge amounts. And I would guess 95% of people reading this are able to do it. Just to be clear, we are looking for a least bad situation. Asset allocation is very complex, there is no way most investors can get an amazing result themselves but what most investors don't know is that WealthFront have zero chance too. So the aim is to equal what they do without their mad fees (I have no idea how they charge so much, marketing? I don't know, I know small advisers that were profitable charging lower fees...it makes no sense).

danlugo92 6y ago

What 3 ETFs do you invest on?

freetime2 6y ago
SCHB, SCHF, and SCHE. That's a bit of an oversimplification because I do have some other assets I've picked up over the years. But the bulk of my net worth is invested in those 3. If I were to start over again I might even just hold SCHB, which I feel has enough international exposure to make SCHF and SCHE somewhat redundant, while also being more efficient for taxation purposes.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  As a Canadian, I have a similar stance: the US stock market provides enough intl diversification. Canada has a lot of resource companies which largely follow the global economy. Most big corps have less than half of their sales in US. Developed markets still pay with a visa/MasterCard and have iphones. Or the US owns a stake in their local equivalent. Or Amazon is expanding there. Truly emerging markets barely have a stock market, but their citizens probably eye a Coca Cola, have an intel PC and an android phone doing searches on Google.
- tim333 6y ago
  There's a potential tax advantage in splitting into different holdings. If you need money you can sell the one that hasn't gone up thus delaying or avoiding capital gains tax.

cbozeman 6y ago

> I watched some videos about dividend investing on YouTube that I would consider reasonable investment advice. Do you happen to have those links?

freetime2 6y ago
Sorry I don't remember who the videos were from, and to be clear I don't personally use either YouTube or WallStreetBets as a source of investment advice - I tend to just stick to a super simple passive investment strategy. I just remember seeing some videos in my feed on YouTube and thinking "wow this is actually better than a lot of what I've seen on CNBC". As an example, I did do a quick search just now on YouTube and a guy named Charlie Chang came up. [1] I haven't actually watched any of his videos before, but I took a look through his introductory video and it all looks like pretty sound advice to me. He also does monthly videos where he recommends specific stock picks, and his fundamentals-based approached seemed totally reasonable to me. This is the type of content I had in mind when I said there are reasonable videos being published on YouTube. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giGcuofIYis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giGcuofIYis
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mysore 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIoajswdMTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIoajswdMTk

hogFeast 6y ago

Without being totally dismissive of every person who has contributed to the platforms you mention...99.99% of the stuff on YouTube is terrible, and most of the stuff written about GME was total nonsense. It is difficult to convey this because, in the end, you have no idea either so you don't know whether there is useful stuff on YouTube or if I am just talking nonsense too...but it is so bad, and it gives the misleading impression that picking stocks is very easy. It isn't, people do CFAs (allegedly, a hard exam), MBAs, and work in fund management every day for decades...and will never come close to being profitable (indeed, what is amazing is how many people have no knowledge but end up doing okay...it is remarkable...the post is a perfect example, no content, no apparent understanding of investing...somehow the guy is a billionaire from investing, like Chamath...amazing). It is gambling (the distinction between gambling and investing is information), what most VCs are doing in the space is financial terrorism (stuff like WealthFront is an unbelievable scam, it is 1980s-style financial advice), and most people should take your approach (although it is still very easy to go wrong with 3 ETFs...most people will get there though).

ec109685 6y ago
Why is Wealthfront so bad? Their fees don’t make them cheap, is that it?
- hogFeast 6y ago
  Correct. What they are selling you is an asset allocation, this turns on it's head all the innovation since the early 90s...and the performance you likely get will be indistinguishable from what most people could achieve on their own. One of the big advantages that savers have today are open platforms (there was a time when fund managers ran their own platforms), low dealing costs, low spreads, and ETFs. All that investors need to do is just work out the asset allocation themselves and they will save huge amounts. And I would guess 95% of people reading this are able to do it. Just to be clear, we are looking for a least bad situation. Asset allocation is very complex, there is no way most investors can get an amazing result themselves but what most investors don't know is that WealthFront have zero chance too. So the aim is to equal what they do without their mad fees (I have no idea how they charge so much, marketing? I don't know, I know small advisers that were profitable charging lower fees...it makes no sense).