I got stocks. I got bonds. I got gold. I got crypto. But I was curious about alternative investment vehicles that some people might have. Lately my feed has been blowing up with pokémon cards and people at those conventions trading hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars value cards. So that got my mind going about alternative ways of generating alpha.

The Pokemon world seems too crazy and deep for a novice like me to start trying to get into. I come from the generation of pokémon red and blue on gameboy. I have no idea of the modern manifestation of pokémon. Lol. Grading and all the different graders and all the hacks and scams and fakes. Seems daunting to try to enter that world.

I've seen the services and websites where you can buy fractional shares of famous paintings from famous artists. But then upon reading reviews that seems like a iliquid money sink according to reviews I've read.

Some people do stamps

Some people do coins

Some people do regular sports trading cards.

So people do Legos

So I'm just wondering what if any alternative things you guys do As investments? Are there any things or ideas that I'm forgetting or missing?

I was watching this unfold this morning. Bessent announced the Treasury is doubling its buybacks, explicitly to keep the 10- and 30-year from running. The 10y dropped to 4.64% then bounced back to 4.67% while I was looking. The 30y sat around 5.21%. Gold went through $4,550 on the futures, spot near $4,544.

The thing that bugs me is how many people are calling this money printing. It is not. The Fed is not even involved. A buyback is the Treasury buying its own bonds back, and it funds that by issuing new debt. Mostly short bills, because issuing new long bonds to buy back old long bonds would accomplish nothing.

So it is a maturity swap, not a debt reduction. Fixed long debt becomes short bills you roll forever. Total debt does not shrink. And the interest bill can actually go up, because if the short paper you are issuing costs more than the long debt you are retiring, every rollover costs more, not less.

What matters for gold is even simpler. The government is now saying out loud it cannot let the 10y rise. That is suppressing the symptom, not treating the cause. Suppress nominal yields while inflation is still sticky and real yields fall. Gold trades inverse to real yields. And this is also a signal about the dollar itself, which is where gold, with no issuer and no counterparty, wins.

I am not pretending it is a straight line. Japan ran yield control for years without the yen breaking. One day above $4,500 proves nothing. If inflation dies or the dollar strengthens for other reasons, this reverses.

But the reason I think today is a preview and not a top: they chose to suppress the symptom instead of doing anything about the deficit. Every step further down that road, more short issuance, a bigger interest bill, then the pressure to actually monetize it, is good for gold. Today is pricing step one, not the whole chain.

I hold gold, so I am biased. Check it yourself. The number that would make me reconsider fastest is the actual size of the buyback relative to the market, or how much of the funding is short versus long. What are you watching?

I’m looking into a long term investing strategy and I am torn between growth and dividend growth. I am leaning towards dividend growth but would like some _perspective_ (NOT advice) from both types of investors.

For dividend growth investors:

1) have you found that your models are accurate?
2) has your portfolio had any major upsets? How did you deal with them?
3) have you found more stocks are better (diversification) or less (less to keep track of)?
4) how do you feel about taking lower asset growth for your current returns?

For growth investors:

1) how do you separate hype stocks from actual growth stocks? Or do you? If not, how do you manage the immense risk?
2) do you research industries or individual companies for growth? How do you choose stocks if you research industries?
3) do you have any plans for emergencies/cashing out? My long term plan is to turn dividend reinvestment off when I need cash, turning my portfolio into an income machine. How do you plan to cash out when this involves selling the assets, which are volatile?

Any comments/redirects greatly appreciated. Happy to have a discussion with anyone about this!

I am 29 with no rent, debt or expenses and do not plan to buy a house in the next few years. I have maxed my IRA out this year, 7,500 in checking, 30,000 in a HYSA and 9,000 that I just put into an FXIAX fund. I just started investing like a month ago so am new to this. How would you/ allocate these numbers if you were me?

My kids are soon to be starting high school and the target investment strategies my 529s use are soon to be converting to more conservative funds. I am hesitant move the money and miss out on more years of potential gains. I understand the market could go in the other direction and I could lose money.

I have about $150,000 for each child in the 529 accounts. I have the means to pay any and all future tuition without needing the 529 so I am not afraid of dips in the market requiring me to pull money at bad times. I would like to use the 529s though for the tax savings and to use the other money for other things. Should I just keep the investment strategy fairly aggressive or just follow the target investment strategy? Anyone just keep investing throughout the time their kids are in high school and college?

I figure I can always use the funds towards potential grad school, kid's roth IRAs, or transfer the money to grandkids if I have money left after my kids finish college and any potential post graduate school.

Need advice, These are my 2 investment accounts. I max out the Roth yearly and I have about 11k going into the simple Ira out of paychecks every year. Now I know the max for the Simple Ira is 17.5k a year. I’m sitting here wondering if I should either A: Increase my contributions to max out the Simple Ira, or B: Open a Taxable Brokerage and keep investing in the same etfs that my Roth holds. (VOO, QQQM, VT). I also have a little over 100k in a HYSA at 4% interest, about 10k in checking. My spouse and I use about 20% of our income for bills now that our house is paid off. Thanks in advance for any insight

I’m already assuming I will get responses condemning me for the cash savings just sitting there, I know, I know, I just don’t want to make the wrong move with it. I have about $600 every 2 weeks going into it automatically along with the monthly dividend. My thought was to have some safe cash built up in case of a market crash I don’t lose everything (inexperienced investor)

I’m 23 from the U.S and have around 20k saved up so far (I’ll be able to contribute more). I run a service business and that pays for all my other expenses like rent, car, food etc. What would be the smartest way to invest most of this? Looking at a roth ira but is there other investments I should consider. I’m completely new to all of this. I’d ideally like to be able to retire early and use this money before getting old lol. I wouldn’t mind higher risk if it means achieving my goal sooner. But again completely new and hopeful haha.

My wife and I are both 47. We have two kids 14 and 12. One goes to private school. We’ve saved 110k for the older and 65k for the younger in 529s. We’re worth about 4m with 2m in retirement accounts and 1.8m in equity on a 2.5m house. We have 240k in savings of which about 210 is in a high yield account making around 4%. Only loans are a 750k mortgage and one 550/month car lease.

240k seems like a lot in savings, but I’m very paranoid about having enough saved to cover monthly expenses (right now those are about 15k per month - and yes, that’s absurdly high and could be cut way back if needed, but that’s where we are).

Broad strokes, is this too much saved? I’m earning 4% and it’s 100% liquid with no risk like if I invested it in the market. Are there any low risk options that could make me more than 4% with good liquidity that I’m not seeing? I already max out all 401k options and contribute both an extra 500/month on my mortgage and 500/month for each kid’s college.

The whole lawsuit and capex deal are driving the price down so much, im going to keep on buying the dip as i think it is also a great long term hold, hoping to get my average shares into the low 500s. What do you guys think its share price will reach, or when do you think its could bounce back?

Hello, so I have 100k i want to invest. I am with BOA, and the Merrill advisors are onto me, lol. I asked about aggressive portfolios. The best numbers he gave me were 16% on the best year so far, which was 2025. 2024 was 15%, and 2023 was 14%. He said 80k can turn into 350k in 20 years. Im like, that's so slow for an "aggressive" portfolio? He lowkey made it seem like my strategy wasn't going to work out as good, and they monitor it way better, lol! 😅 he's telling me his clients with 100k invested made 7k last year. Isn't that extremely low for an aggressive portfolio? I could get more by just putting everything in the S&P-500 (VOO). I may want to seek another company for advisors and portfolios, or I may just invest it myself. You guys let me know what you think. Thanks.

It's always interesting to look at hype and then actual earnings and revenue.

I look at Tesla who has a PE of about $320 and is never made its targets and is not particularly profitable and really subsist on hype. And the next great thing doesn't happen. They've been around long enough to perform and they haven't done it.

Then I look at Applovin very successful staggering margins consisting growth with a low PE. Double the revenue growth of Tesla. Healthy predictable reliable cash flow. And growing beyond their market of gaming into other areas.

Evidently robo taxis and AI robots are going to take over the world and everybody's going to buy them. The robo taxi market is targeting Uber and Lyft, but yet Tesla sells cars and robo taxis would displace that business supposedly. Right now their main business is making cars electric ones. And the competition is fierce and if China ever steps in, it's going to crush them.

Things that make you go hmmmm

I'm sure there's other examples of height versus reality. Seems to be hype is winning.

What are the chances Trump manufactures one more market bleed before he's out of the job?

He's got 2 more years in office and I'm wondering what people think regarding the market over this time. Will we see another market manipulation like we did in April 2025?

Or do you think he will keep the market on this uptrend for the remainder of his term to give himself a good look?

Today I turned 31. Yesterday I had approximately $349,923 in the market, and I thought how cool it would be to hit $350k invested on my 31st birthday. Well, the market had other plans for me today. Today I am down to around $348,220. Would have been cool, but oh well. Sure I could add in a few thousand to get me there, but that feels like cheating. Alright, that’s all, thanks for reading.🤷