I'm considering getting into stocks or mutual funds in the near future.

A little info on myself so that you may put things into perspective.

I'm 28 - Getting married next year - For the sake of things I'll forgo her financial information due to the fact we are financially separate. She pays her own student loans, car, phone etc. Wedding is being paid for in cash.

After expenses at this point I have 1K each month to stash away.

I owe 80K on the house on a 15yr 3.06% House was appraised for 120K last fall when I refinanced.

I have zero debt other than the house. Credit carts get paid off the end of each month. No student loans as I paid cash through college. Vehicles are paid for.

My credit score last I knew was around 760.

I have 16K sitting in savings. Normally I try to keep 10K minimum for some sort of emergency... Hence where investing a little comes into play here.

I have a SEP through work. Currently I have just over 23K in it and I also have a ROTH with around 9K in it.

My savings in the bank is only earning .5% which obviously isn't enough. My SEP and ROTH have a min interest rate of 3.25%. Over the past few years that's all I'm getting which obviously isn't enough to hedge inflation.

I'm looking to diversify my investments. Either cash out part of the SEP and invest, (Which I'm not too sure on yet) or take the 6K out of savings and play around with it.

I've been looking into things such as gold and silver as they are tangible goods. But I'm not too sure on what is the exact price to buy - However silver seems to be taking a dip and gold seems on a slow but steady incline.

However; I've always been of the understanding that you should invest in companies you are familiar with. Which is what brings me here. We all on this site are familiar with 3d printing or at least have heard of it. I have a feeling this is going to be the next "Apple" so to speak. The potential markets for this industry are endless, consumer, manufacturing, medical, aerospace, automotive etc...

How does one get started purchasing stock in companies like this? Am I better off going it alone like e-trade, ameritrade etc... or should I consult a financial advisor? I'm not talking investing a huge sum of money up front but I'd just like to diversify my investments and make my money work for me; so to speak.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

TL;DR

I have a little extra cash lying around. Should I invest in metals or put it in the market on companies that are involved in 3D printing?

I do a lot of investing and have been rather successful at it.

For starters I would say stay away from the financial advisor, why pay someone to loose your money.

Next, invest in some education. Decide what asset class that you are most interested in (stocks, real estate, precious metals, oil & gas exploration, etc.) Go to Amazon and buy the top 5 books for that asset you're intersted in. Read all the books and take good notes. This will give you a great start.

Now for my personal opinion:

Gold and silver are great but they should be considered a hedge against inflation more than anything else.

Try to look for assets that can give cashflow so that you can increase your income and the amount of money that you can invest.

Stocks are great, but you have to buy the right stocks at the right price. You can buy shares of the best company in world but if you buy it when it's expensive, you won't do very well. You want to get great companies at fire sale prices. I suggest you read "The Little Book of Value Investing" buy it!

Investing into companies with new and emerging technologies is exciting but that excitement doesn't come without risk. If you want to invest into something like 3d printing I would devote only a very small percentage of your portfolio (less than 1%).

I also really like to invest in technology because it's something I understand but I don't have to take a ton of risk to do that. Companies like Intel, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Cisco come to mind. These are all great business that have proven themselves to be world dominating businesses and they all pay dividends (cash flow).

I also like to invest a lot in real estate. Real estate is just stupid, easy money. Rental real estate is very easy to do and cash flows very well. Look at what properties are renting for in the area that you are wanting to invest and then buy properties for less than 8x annual rent. If you do this, you are almost guaranteed to have good cash flow. Robert Kiyosaki has a lot of great books about real estate targeted towards beginners, read them all!

If I was you, knowing what I know, this is exactly what I would do (this is not financial advice, I am not qaulified to give financial advice so anything you do is at your own risk.)
-Cash out all the retirement accounts and pool this with any savings
-Put 10% into gold and silver as a hedge against inflation
-Put the remaining money into a brokerage account with Interactive Brokers (IB is a global broker and has low fees)
-Buy shares of only the best world dominating companies at good prices. You want companies like McDonalds, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, etc.  Make sure you take your time and wait for these stocks to go on sale. There are some options strategies you can do to get stocks for cheaper but I won't get into that here. Also make sure that you don't put more than 10% of your portfolio into any one stock. 10% is considered a large position size but since these are such iconic businesses it's okay. People will be eating McDonalds hamburgers and drinking Coke for decades to come so we are not worried about any short term dips in the market, it just gives us a chance to buy more. Never sell these stocks!

Okay we are half way there. You have 10% of your portfolio invested in precious metals and you will continue to buy a little more every month, quarter, year, whatever. You also have a great portfolio of income producing stocks but this is where things get really powerful.

Now, you are going to borrow against your shares to invest in real estate. You can safely barrow up to 75% of your portfolio to invest. This concept scares most people but it shouldn't. Do you understand how powerful this is? You can safely and conservatively make 20% returns on real estate from the borrowed money from your shares that are earning 8%-10%. The cost of borrowing against your shares is only about 1%.

I don't recommend that you jump into all of this right away. read a lot of books, talk to people who have experience doing this stuff and learn as much as you can.

Very few people understand this concept and it is not something that is widely known. If you showed this strategy to a financial advisor he would probably say it is extremely risky and then proceed to sell you a basket of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds that will likely lose money. Ask your financial advisor if he is a millionaire, if he says no why would you take financial advice from him? Learn from people who are successful, rich, and know their shit!

Is your mind blown yet?

Your welcome.

+1 on real estate.  I just got into it last year and it is great money.  Takes more money to invest though, so you might have to build up to that, unless you can join up with somebody you trust.  As stated above, gold and silver as a hedge.

This is some of the worst advice I've seen in this forum.

OP - You are already doing a lot of things right. What you have to remember is that your emergency fund is insurance and insurance costs you money. It doesn't earn you money. So, although the returns are paltry, the funds are liquid in the event of an emergency. Get a good financial adviser. Put more into your Roth.

Take the extra $6k out of your savings account and open a brokerage account (I like Fidelity).  Set up a monthly automatic transfer of $1k into it.  

Start buying a few ETFs and large cap multinational companies (blue chip dividend paying stocks).  There are several good ETFs that pay monthly dividends (I like PFXF, PFF, PCEF and BTZ for starters).  Don't buy your full allocation all at once:  Buy in two or three installments.  For the stocks you can look at ABT, ED, GE, GIS, JNJ, KRFT, KMB, KO, MAT and PG.  Don't put more than 5% of your portfolio in any one stock.

I agree. Using leverage to invest (investing borrowed money) is too much risk in my opinion. If everything goes perfect you can make a ton of money. If it goes wrong you can get wiped out. Investing is not a microwave it is a crock pot. Slow and steady wins. I see no need in hiring financial advisors. Do some reading over at bogleheads. I have 80% of my investments in two funds over at Vanguard - Total stock market and total international. These two funds cover the majority of the stock market. I don't think or worry about them I just buy more every month. The other 20% do what you want with. It could be some precious metals, sectors you like, etc. Personally I have my 20% divided up among 3 other Vanguard index funds that target certain categories.

Those suggesting buying single stocks are suggesting something very risky. The Vanguard total stock market index (VTSMX) consists of 3622 stocks. With it you get to ride the wave of the whole stock market. You don't have to worry about investing in Enron or having all your egss in one basket so to speak.

I can't remember the exact figures but I was reading somewhere the risk calculations and even if you picked ten stocks the amount of risk involved in that vs a fund like VTSMX with thousands of stocks was orders of magnitude higher.

Investing is index funds you are not going get the home run but you are also not going to get the loser either. Right now year to date return on VTSMX is nearly 30%. It doesn't always do that around 10% is the norm but my point is you don't have to get into super risky or elaborate things to make good returns.

stopped reading.  your reply is dildos.

ar-jedi

I'm another fan of taking 6k out of your savings account, opening a Vanguard account with it in VTSMX (total stock market index), then setting an auto-transfer to buy 1k each month. Set it and forget about it. Buying single companies is great if you have a magic crystal ball, but I can't stomach the exposure to a single company that it would take to get over the fees with purchasing a single stock and the time expense of research. I like the broad exposure and returns of index funds.



If you feel like 3D printing is the next thing, you can do you research and put some of your money in that if you want, I just wouldn't put all of it in.

Some of the worst advice possible in this thread.

Do your own homework on the market, learn why shit happens and familiarize yourself with all the investing/trading knowledge you can.

Do you want to invest or trade? They are very different. Trading generally requires you to actively watch the market through the day, not so much with general investing.

Homework can not be emphasized enough.

As a lurker, thanks for this thread. Learning a lot.

invest in machine guns.

I'll touch on a few things.

1.) Pay off your debt.  I have a buddy who is in his early 30s, net worth north of $1M, he has a thing for paying off houses in like 5 years.  Did it since he was in his 20s with a couple houses.  Something to consider as you could easily pay of your house in no time flat.

2.)  Don't consult a financial advisor.  They are not worth the fees.  You either get some FA that thinks they're the next John Paulson and is betting your money in risky investments or you get the index mutual fund guy which frankly you could do the exact same yourself without the fees.

3.) When it comes to investments I'd recommend sticking to indexed mutual funds/ETFs.  Unless you're trained by the best and work for a top hedge fund you should not be "picking" stocks.  Now if you want to go ahead and put 10% or so of your investments in specific companies such as 3D printing stocks like SSYS, I'm all for it and even do it myself.  No harm in that, just don't have a significant portion of your investments in that.  Also,  read a book or two about the markets.  Just something basic on mutual funds, portfolio theory, stocks, just to get some idea of what is going on.  The market is not a fun place to dabble for the ill informed.

4.)  Buying gold and silver is good.  I like having tangible assets such as real estate, pm, guns/ammo for very obvious reasons.  First things first, do not buy tangible precious metal for speculation or as an 'investment'.  A bar of gold is not an investment, it is an asset that will hold its value.  Precious metals for the most part are just hedges against inflation, see it as such and buy it as such.  If you want to speculate in PM or any other commodities do it through the futures markets.

5.) Brokerage account,  I recommend TD ameritrade.  I get $5 stock trades and 3 free mutual fund trades a year.  Customer service is decently good.

My $.02

I thought gungod was spot on for a lot of what he was saying.  Where exactly is the bad advice?

His theory was sound.  I wouldn't recommend any leverage for someone who is new at this though.