5 ms·

I'm not in finance, so this is just my uninformed opinion. I imagine it's at least partially because this does affect everyday people, even if they're not dire

I'm not in finance, so this is just my uninformed opinion. I imagine it's at least partially because this does affect everyday people, even if they're not directly investing their own money. People's 401ks & pension funds are likely wrapped up in these (at least partially). Even if you have an index fund, say tracking the NASDAQ, these huge valuations are propping it up (in the FB case). And as long as the valuations stay high, things are great. But if/when it declines and suddenly money evaporates, it can really hurt if you're depending on it for retirement / college / whatever. Even the indirect parts of it.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
The point of index funds is they change their composition when things go south, the S&P 500 index went from 447 in the early 90s to over 1800 today. If you're investing $50/month in that you did quite well.
- bcbrown 12y ago
  Is there a way to invest $50/month in an index fund? All the brokerages I checked charge $5-10 per transaction, making it prohibitively expensive to set up a recurring transaction at such a small amount.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    Do you have an existing brokerage account or were you trying to set up an account just for that? When I left Sun I rolled my 401K over into a self managed IRA and my broker doesn't charge me anything to add money to it.
    - bcbrown 12y ago
      I don't have an IRA, and my funds invested in the stock market are under 10k. I set up an account with Ameritrade, and every so often put another $1000 in, so that the $10 cost is a smaller percentage.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
marincounty 12y ago
Yea, It does matter. As to 401's and pensions; I hope pension managers are getting out of tech stocks like Facebook, and Twitter--just until the bubble bursts. I hope some of the Bubble Boys who make billions on naive, greedy, and professional hedge fund managers help out the millions of Americans who will be close to homeless when it does burst? Do I hold them accountable--kind of--just because of quantitative easing. And the Bubble Boys must know they really don't have the companies they claim. I know I just use FB for posting, and never used my real name. I did reserve my real name because I thought one day it might be useful, but never use the site like FB thinks I do.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

The point of index funds is they change their composition when things go south, the S&P 500 index went from 447 in the early 90s to over 1800 today. If you're investing $50/month in that you did quite well.

bcbrown 12y ago
Is there a way to invest $50/month in an index fund? All the brokerages I checked charge $5-10 per transaction, making it prohibitively expensive to set up a recurring transaction at such a small amount.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Do you have an existing brokerage account or were you trying to set up an account just for that? When I left Sun I rolled my 401K over into a self managed IRA and my broker doesn't charge me anything to add money to it.
  - bcbrown 12y ago
    I don't have an IRA, and my funds invested in the stock market are under 10k. I set up an account with Ameritrade, and every so often put another $1000 in, so that the $10 cost is a smaller percentage.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

marincounty 12y ago

Yea, It does matter. As to 401's and pensions; I hope pension managers are getting out of tech stocks like Facebook, and Twitter--just until the bubble bursts. I hope some of the Bubble Boys who make billions on naive, greedy, and professional hedge fund managers help out the millions of Americans who will be close to homeless when it does burst? Do I hold them accountable--kind of--just because of quantitative easing. And the Bubble Boys must know they really don't have the companies they claim. I know I just use FB for posting, and never used my real name. I did reserve my real name because I thought one day it might be useful, but never use the site like FB thinks I do.