Today's Salt Lake City Bookkeeping blog post is a guest article from an anonymous author. The author has had a wild ride on the stock market in the past few years and tells his story of where his head is at now. The story is interesting as are the questions the author asks at the end. Comment with your thoughts and share...enjoy!
With the exception of my four or five 401k’s, I recently ended my relationship with the stock market. No more worrying about debt-ceilings, fiscal cliffs, or sequesters. I won’t lose sleep anymore when there is a pending earnings report or when the (bogus) unemployment rate is announced. True, all these things can still affect my life to varying degrees based on how they contribute to an economic recovery or recession but they no longer have control over my short to medium term money. Nope, that is securely stashed away in a savings account earning…wait…what?...seriously? .30%? Uh-oh…is it too late to get my debt ceiling back? Joking, I knew this before my exit. The real reason for my exit was that my overly aggressive strategy no longer meshed well with the goings on in my life (newborn, potential career change, imminent roof collapse, etc.).
The question now is; what to do with all this cash? To be honest, it’s not a lot of cash but enough where I should be putting it to work. Maybe it should go back into the stock market but I like not being in the stock market. I want my money to be in something more tangible. I want to have more of a say in the risk management. I went all cliché and looked up the definition of "invest". This is my favorite, "Devote (one's time, effort, or energy) to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result." When I blindly dump my money into a mutual fund where's the devotion of my time, effort, or energy? How does a small investor find something in which they can devote their time, effort, and energy?
For conversation sake let’s say you had $100,000. You have no short term debt to payoff (car loan, credit card, etc.) and no other immediate (5-10 years) need for the cash. You were convicted of insider trading and are no longer welcome to invest in any type of security (stocks, funds, bonds, reits, options, etc.).
How would you invest the money?
Would you want to have an active role in the "investment" or would you rather someone else focus on that and concentrate full time on your career?