GRRRR

[danaeris]

So Investor's Group got back to us and they are basically not doing anything for us. No reduction of fees, nothing. As my mother said, they are morally bankrupt. Fuckers.

That means that if I take out my money:
in 2003, 2.5% fee (~$680)
2004, 2% fee (~$550 at current value, but investments do increase in value...)
2005, 1.5% fee
2006, 1% fee
2007, no fee

I don't trust these people to handle my money. But the Canadian dollar is climbing what with the war and all (no one trusts the US dollar right now). As soon as I think it is dropping again, I'm going to pay that damned fee and move my money here.

Anyone know any investment firms in SF area that they trust?

Gah. I'm very angry but I have to focus.

In other news, I'll be making $200-400 for the article for Home Energy Magazine. w00t. And if they decide they like me, maybe future business as well.

Comments

What are you actually trying to do with your money?

[earthdragon.livejournal.com]

If you are willing to manage your own funds, and pick stocks or mutual funds or index fun, you might want to look into a national discount broker. I use ameritrade for my Roth, and have been happy. I also have some money with schwab, fidelity, and directly invested with vanguard, and have had no problems with that (an inheritance, investments from my parents, and a direct only mutual fund respectivly).

It is nice to find one with a local office. (In my case, the schwab office in harvard square is much better then the fidelity one in mid-town boston).

If you are looking for someone to activly manage your money, I can't help there...

You are also better off reading the terms of services and picking one based on how much money you have, what you plan to do witt it, and how often you plan on altering your investments.

(and if you think this is a bit much, I wound up explianing ETFs and Shorts to someone last night, and their head almost exploded).

Re: What are you actually trying to do with your money?

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. I mean, I have this chunk of money and I have no idea how to manage it. I think I want to invest it in something reasonably safe so that eventually, combined with other inheritances etc., it will either provide me with a small stipend in dividends/interest, or it can be used as a downpayment on a house. Right now I have ~40K Canadian and when my grandfather dies I will get about 50K US.

I'm willing to manage the money myself, but I'm not sure I know enough to do so competently.

Re: What are you actually trying to do with your money?

[earthdragon.livejournal.com]

1) I highly recommend The Motly Fool as a place to read a bit about this stuff www.fool.com

3) Most professional money managers are not that great at it either. If you are willing to put in the effort, and go slowly, and make sure you understand what you are doing, I expect you to be able to do fine.

3) investment is a tradeoff between risk and reward.
from safest to most risk you have:

Cash: no risk(except theft)

US Treasury Bonds(considered the safest investment in the world): Low returns, backed by the government, if they don't pay, you have bigger problems to worry about besides your investment.

Money in a US bank(savings account): insured by the government up to 100k. Very easy to get at.

Certificates of depostit(CDs). it costs to get at them before a fixed time, better interest then the a normal bank account.

Money market funds: A pool of money used to back very shrot term loans. generally not insured but failry safe, tends to beat savings accounts reliably but not by much.

Bonds: effectivly loanding money to companies. Most people tend to buy bonds in mutual funds. The more stable the company, the less they pay. Bonds are rated from AAA on down.

Stock indexes. Large groups of stocks used as a measure of the whole market. The S&P 500(the 500 largest companies by public stock value traded in the US), the Dow jones industrial average, etc. You can also buy them in mutual funds. They track the movement of the market over time, but protect against the poor performance of any given company.

Individual stocks: high risk, high potential reward. You are betting on the performance of a given company.
If they go bankrupt, you will be left with virtually nothing(Enron). If you pick something that goes off to succed wildly, you will get a lot of money back(if you had invested your current money in microsoft in the mid 80s you would be a millionare now).


That all said, if you think the US stock market is going to be generally going up over the next few years, and you will be able to survive if it does not.
The Vanguard S&P500 index fund(VFIN.X) is one of the best managed index funds around. If you specifically want interest or dividens, you might want to do something else.

Also, if you are thinking of staying in the US permenently, you might want to start some kind of IRA(individual retirement account) as soon as you can afford it. You can currently contribute up to 3000 earned dollers a year, and get cool tax benifits. If you are freelancing as a journalist, then its a good long term plan, ask be about it some other time, its not relevent to the discussion at hand.

Feel free to ask me more...

[neuroptik78.livejournal.com]

Fidelity Investments (http://www.fidelity.com/), the company I work for.

They are one of the largest privately owned investment firms in the country. They have an Investor Center at Market & Montgomery (8 Montgomery Street).