Do you invest? - investment and wealth discussion thread

[largh]

I did not find this type of thread from RPGwatch. If it exists, please make a link to it, and I'll delete this one. If this topic is deemed politically incorrect (it shouldn't be), move it to the corresponding sub-forum.

Investing is essentially the act of saving wealth into something one believes to maintain or increase in value. In other words, just having money in a bank account or cash under a pillow does not count as investing because inflation predictably reduces the value of money by 3% per year on average globally. Material and immaterial things, however, may keep or increase their value. For example, the long-term average increase of the stock market value is about 7%, meaning that one would earn about 4% per year when inflation is subtracted. If inflation were not considered, one would double the invested savings about every 10 years because compound interest functions exponentially. This all applies in an ideal average world. The real world is more volatile than long-term averages - and for example, the US tends to have higher long-term returns than the rest of the world with as high as 25% index (S&P500) growth in 2024.

I have understood that especially in the US where there is no well-functioning governmental pension system, private investing is a necessity to secure enough funds to be able to retire. As many of you are well-informed about technology, one could use that knowledge as an edge when saving wealth for the future. For example, NVIDIA, which has been discussed here for years, has seen a stock price increase of 150% during the last year due to the currently ongoing AI boom.

Further, people like to support their favorite studios by buying their games sometimes at a higher than ordinary price (collectors editions and such). Some of these studios, or companies that own them, are listed publicly on stock exchanges. Disregarding the economic feasibility of such investment, by owning a gaming company such as CD Projekt Red stocks, one indirectly funds their business.

I am curious to hear how many watchers invest some of their savings in stocks, funds, or bonds. I would also like to use this thread as a discussion place for business-relevant news about technology and gaming relevant companies. General game industry news with discussion already has its thread here.

The obligatory disclaimer at the end: investing is always associated with a risk, everyone makes their own investment decisions, and the content in this thread should not be taken as safe investment advice.

 

[Pladio]

I tend to invest in funds, through what's called an ISA in the UK (untaxed investment account). I tend to select 5-8 funds and been keeping my money in there since I started about 10 years ago. The only time I took money out was to renovate my house. To your point, annualised return has been 8% since I started re-investing a few years ago - after renovating my house. Due to having a child in nursery, which costs a fortune, I have not been able to add much money to it though.

I also have a rental house, which has not been making any money over 7 years and only started doing so last year, as I had to put a lot of money into getting it liveable. Hopefully, it's only going to go up from now on. However, the laws are getting less and less favourable for small landlords - you used to be able to deduct mortgage interest rates from your tax, but that is no longer the case, so any income is lessened considerably.

I don't have anything else at the moment, but my goal is to start putting money into the ISA again once my child finishes nursery.

 

[largh]

For a long time, I have been putting all my free money into my home and mortgage feeling a little bit guilty that I could not be bothered to study or care about finances seeing that I am getting older and had no savings and retirement plan. People were telling me to start saving small sums for a retirement fund. This autumn I found the motivation to study the subject listening to a couple of audiobooks and making my savings strategy.

While still prioritizing the mortgage, I put a small sum of money each month into a general retirement fund, and another small sum into index funds or stocks. The idea behind the index fund/stock money is to learn about investing. I have bought the typical US technology-based funds that rule the market at the moment, but also stocks I find promising. I try to do the evaluation once a month to force me to follow the market, but I am generally too lazy to do deep analyses of companies and end up investing in index funds. I have also a regular, even smaller sum, which goes to cryptocurrencies, although one needs to follow them even more than the stock market. In addition, I invested a larger sum of savings from my bank account into funds and stocks. The problem with stock investing is that one has to follow the market, which takes time, but is also surprisingly interesting once one has some pre-knowledge.

So far my cryptos have fared clearly the best out of my investments followed by an S&P500 index ETF. US and technology funds have also done well, as one technology company stock I put some money in. The worst ones at the moment are industrial companies, developing country funds, and small-company funds. I regret a bit that I did not wake up to this a bit earlier before NVIDIA and others skyrocketed, but that's how it is with life. I would not put my money in any of the gaming software companies, though. People are just too unpredictable. Adding social acceptance of games on top of the world's political volatility and general stock market fluctuations makes the industry too risky for my taste.

AI is big right now, but investing in AI company stocks apart from the Magnificent 7 seems too risky to me due to the market hype which will burst at some point. The next big thing might be quantum computing - although maybe not in many years. There seems to be a meme coin type of market hype around some of the quantum computing company stocks, which one could try to utilize if one wanted to do some gambling. Funny enough, the stock price of a company called Quantum has increased by over 200% during the last months, possibly due to the hype, even though the company has nothing to do with quantum computing. The company was founded in the 1980s when quantum computing was science fiction at the most.

 

[JDR13]

Wth is a fond?

For example, NVIDIA, which has been discussed here for years, has seen a stock price increase of 150% during the last year due to the currently ongoing AI boom.

I sold my shares of Nvidia last year. I wish I had kept them a little longer, but I certainly can't complain. You mention a 150% increase during the last year, but they went up around 700-800% if you go back another year.

 

[largh]

Wth is a fond?

Misspelling of fund. It was not possible to edit the fields in the poll without deleting them, so I didn't bother fixing that typo. I thought people would understand...

 

[JDR13]

Misspelling of fund. It was not possible to edit the fields in the poll without deleting them, so I didn't bother fixing that typo. I thought people would understand...

Ah ok. I thought maybe it was a term for bond-funds or something. With investing, I don't know how universal the terminology is in other countries.

 

[largh]

Ah ok. I thought maybe it was a term for bond-funds or something. With investing, I don't know how universal the terminology is in other countries.

Yup, me neither. It's not always easy to keep track of terms in three different languages. I guess fond is fund in Norwegian possibly.

 

[Pladio]

I forgot to mention I put 10% of salary into my pension fund too.

 

[Carnifex]

Mortgage, CD's and a few choice bonds, that's where I put what little funds I have. I like to wager on sure things.

 

[Philistine]

I don't have enough money to invest, and have no retirement fund. I'll work until health prevents me and/or my son looks after me. Also as a fervent socialist I resent capital investment even if I could afford it.

 

[basharran]

I put a fixed amount of money into a index fund every month, extra money into my mortgage and when I have a certain amount on my savings account I put it into a deposit for low risk extra interest compared to the normal savings account.

Pension is arranged and paid for via my employer, so I don't need to do anything extra for that.

 

[largh]

I put a fixed amount of money into a index fund every month

Which index fund are you using?

 

[basharran]

Which index fund are you using?

It's an index fund from my bank (SNS Bank). It contains over a 1000 companies/states and is listed in the Netherlands. You can choose a risk profile which is aggression based (low / medium / high) to determine in what part of the fund most of your money will be invested and this determines the potential rewards you can expect.

Since this fund follows the overall stock market(s) trends, it's currently doing very well. This has not always been the case since I started. But overall it's a decent way to get something more for your money than on a static savings account. Important is to keep your invenstment steady, have a long enough horizon (at least 10 preferably more years) and don't panic when the going get's tough.

 

[largh]

Since this fund follows the overall stock market(s) trends, it's currently doing very well. This has not always been the case since I started. But overall it's a decent way to get something more for your money than on a static savings account. Important is to keep your invenstment steady, have a long enough horizon (at least 10 preferably more years) and don't panic when the going get's tough.

Yeah, when investing in funds, there's no reason to panic as long as you have done your research before purchasing the fund. It sounds like your bank is offering a combination fund with the high aggression likely containing close to 100% stocks (or a distributed index funds across the world, which contain stocks). Lower aggression levels are likely to contain bonds too. Prices are quite low these days due to competition, but it's worth checking that you do not pay too much. Something around 0.5% or less as total costs per year is good. If the costs are around 1% and the fund is doing as well as index funds, it might be reasonable to look for other combination funds that are cheaper. 0.5% is a lot over time since the growth is exponential.

 

[basharran]

Yeah, when investing in funds, there's no reason to panic as long as you have done your research before purchasing the fund. It sounds like your bank is offering a combination fund with the high aggression likely containing close to 100% stocks (or a distributed index funds across the world, which contain stocks). Lower aggression levels are likely to contain bonds too. Prices are quite low these days due to competition, but it's worth checking that you do not pay too much. Something around 0.5% or less as total costs per year is good. If the costs are around 1% and the fund is doing as well as index funds, it might be reasonable to look for other combination funds that are cheaper. 0.5% is a lot over time since the growth is exponential.

Yes, you are right. For this index the costs are 0,3% to €100k, with an additional 0,15% for anything above that. So not too bad

 

[Qayto]

I have got some savings and an isa, I go for absolutely no risk savings and have no idea where the money is invested, aside from my bank claiming to be "ethical"

I have my employment pension for when the time comes to officially retire. I could take it early but at a penalty.

@Pladio I expect you already know but the junior isa accounts can be quite good. My friend got her grandkids one and gifts to that, she's hoping that it will be a little help towards university or house buying.

 

[JFarrell71]

Technically, yes. I have no interest (no pun intended) in risky ventures. I have enough money to be satisfied and don't have a more-more-more mindset. I also don't have kids, so nothing to leave behind.

So I just have an interest bearing checking account and a CD that I re-up periodically to the best possible deal at the time, which has been around 4-4.5% lately. I may switch to a longer term fixed rate annuity soon because the rates for CDs are declining. That will get me a couple more percentage points at the cost of committing 3-5 years to it.

I also have a small pension fund through an employer I no longer work for. Some years it goes up by ~$600, some years it practically loses money. Helps remind me how much I hate risk.

 

[Pladio]

I have got some savings and an isa, I go for absolutely no risk savings and have no idea where the money is invested, aside from my bank claiming to be "ethical"

I have my employment pension for when the time comes to officially retire. I could take it early but at a penalty.

@Pladio I expect you already know but the junior isa accounts can be quite good. My friend got her grandkids one and gifts to that, she's hoping that it will be a little help towards university or house buying.

Yup, I know about the Junior ISAs, but I don't even have enough money to invest in my own one at the moment, so very little to nothing goes to my kids at the moment.
Also, I'd rather not give them too much money when they are 18, so until I max out my own ISA, it's unlikely I'll be putting more than a few hundred pounds a year in theirs anyway. The Junior ISAs become theirs as soon as they turn 18...

 

[largh]

The AI and technology stocks are free-falling due to the DeepSeek news this weekend: https://au.investing.com/news/stock...sday-for-ai-infra-bernstein-weighs-in-3641596

Weird.

 

[largh]

The innovation in Deepseek seems to be to use a large LLM to train a smaller more focussed LMM as far as I understand it:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/24/how-chinas-new-ai-model-deepseek-is-threatening-us-dominance.html