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Not that it is an unimportant question, but HN is not a finance forum. If you need advice about this, please consult a qualified professional instead of asking

by WJW 5y ago

Not that it is an unimportant question, but HN is not a finance forum. If you need advice about this, please consult a qualified professional instead of asking essentially random people on the internet.

silicon2401 5y ago
From the HN guidelines > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > In Comments > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. We are in an active period of economic and societal uncertainty. Hence the original post gratifies my intellectual curiosity and my comment expresses my curiosity about how to navigate the situation. If you want to be pedantic, I'm curious about how to hack this intellectually curious time to protect or grow my wealth. I appreciate your concern, but I'm not going to take some stranger's advice and follow it to a T. I'm curious to see what people's thoughts on the matter are and use that to adjust my own research.
- WJW 5y ago
  Alright, perhaps I've been exposed to a few too many overenthusiastic colleagues who hype a new shitcoin every day. At least a few of those have already lost large-ish sums due to this and it has given them significant worry that I would not wish on anyone else. OTOH, finance is indeed an interesting topic so why not. FWIW, my short term obligations (mortgage, food, etc for the upcoming few months) will be met with cash since I work as a freelancer and income is "lumpy". For the long term, stocks in companies with a long term competitive advantage (strong brand, technological know-how, etc) is where I think it is at. They will be able to raise their prices in the face of inflation and maintain profitability. Investments that I would stay away from are most forms of fixed-rate bonds and companies with capital-intensive/low margin activities because the rising costs of inventory and depreciation will eat up a significant chunk of their free cash flow. As you can probably tell from the previous paragraph, I am personally a firm believer in investing in economic activity of some sort, either purchasing a share of (the earnings of) a company or lending out money to a company or government and therefore I stay away from "inert" investments that don't generate income by themselves like currencies, gold, commodities and/or crypto. That's just my preference though, and plenty of people would advise gold or bitcoin as an inflation hedge. Some of them have even done well, though a similar amount of people have done poorly in gold or BTC so buyer beware.
csomar 5y ago
> please consult a qualified professional instead of asking essentially random people on the internet. I guess that worked out really well for lots of people?
- WJW 5y ago
  I'd be very surprised if, in a careful study into people taking advice from either random internet people and people taking advice from qualified financial professionals, the people taking advice from financial advisors did worse overall. Take into account that the "random internet people" group not only invested in bitcoin and Amazon but also in MtGox and the Titan stablecoin. EDIT: see the ["Cryptocurrency traders struggle to sue Binance"](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/12/22573812/binance-crash-cryptocurrency-regulation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/12/22573812/binance-crash-cr...) for an example of what I mean. Treasuries and (unleveraged) diversified stock portfolios may not make you a billionaire overnight but they also won't make you lose everything overnight.
  - grumple 5y ago
    Why discuss anything outside of one's domain at all then? There are many examples of intelligent cross-disciplinary contributors throughout history and you've probably met some in your life (especially if you're in software engineering, where many enter the field without relevant degrees). How many people spend 5-10 years in a career and then switch? It's more common than you think. And I'd consider 5-10 years of experience enough to make someone an expert (that's 1-2 PhDs worth of experience!). Many HNers have lots of experience with finance, both as professionals and as affluent people who have received excellent advice from finance professionals, good educations, and private study. Obviously you shouldn't ONLY listen to uncredentialed randos on the internet when making important life decisions, but randos on the internet can certainly contribute positively to discussion and spark thought.

by WJW 5y ago

silicon2401 5y ago

From the HN guidelines > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > In Comments > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. We are in an active period of economic and societal uncertainty. Hence the original post gratifies my intellectual curiosity and my comment expresses my curiosity about how to navigate the situation. If you want to be pedantic, I'm curious about how to hack this intellectually curious time to protect or grow my wealth. I appreciate your concern, but I'm not going to take some stranger's advice and follow it to a T. I'm curious to see what people's thoughts on the matter are and use that to adjust my own research.

WJW 5y ago
Alright, perhaps I've been exposed to a few too many overenthusiastic colleagues who hype a new shitcoin every day. At least a few of those have already lost large-ish sums due to this and it has given them significant worry that I would not wish on anyone else. OTOH, finance is indeed an interesting topic so why not. FWIW, my short term obligations (mortgage, food, etc for the upcoming few months) will be met with cash since I work as a freelancer and income is "lumpy". For the long term, stocks in companies with a long term competitive advantage (strong brand, technological know-how, etc) is where I think it is at. They will be able to raise their prices in the face of inflation and maintain profitability. Investments that I would stay away from are most forms of fixed-rate bonds and companies with capital-intensive/low margin activities because the rising costs of inventory and depreciation will eat up a significant chunk of their free cash flow. As you can probably tell from the previous paragraph, I am personally a firm believer in investing in economic activity of some sort, either purchasing a share of (the earnings of) a company or lending out money to a company or government and therefore I stay away from "inert" investments that don't generate income by themselves like currencies, gold, commodities and/or crypto. That's just my preference though, and plenty of people would advise gold or bitcoin as an inflation hedge. Some of them have even done well, though a similar amount of people have done poorly in gold or BTC so buyer beware.

csomar 5y ago

> please consult a qualified professional instead of asking essentially random people on the internet. I guess that worked out really well for lots of people?

WJW 5y ago
I'd be very surprised if, in a careful study into people taking advice from either random internet people and people taking advice from qualified financial professionals, the people taking advice from financial advisors did worse overall. Take into account that the "random internet people" group not only invested in bitcoin and Amazon but also in MtGox and the Titan stablecoin. EDIT: see the ["Cryptocurrency traders struggle to sue Binance"](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/12/22573812/binance-crash-cryptocurrency-regulation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/12/22573812/binance-crash-cr...) for an example of what I mean. Treasuries and (unleveraged) diversified stock portfolios may not make you a billionaire overnight but they also won't make you lose everything overnight.
- grumple 5y ago
  Why discuss anything outside of one's domain at all then? There are many examples of intelligent cross-disciplinary contributors throughout history and you've probably met some in your life (especially if you're in software engineering, where many enter the field without relevant degrees). How many people spend 5-10 years in a career and then switch? It's more common than you think. And I'd consider 5-10 years of experience enough to make someone an expert (that's 1-2 PhDs worth of experience!). Many HNers have lots of experience with finance, both as professionals and as affluent people who have received excellent advice from finance professionals, good educations, and private study. Obviously you shouldn't ONLY listen to uncredentialed randos on the internet when making important life decisions, but randos on the internet can certainly contribute positively to discussion and spark thought.