X2 with Osky. Vanguard has treated me well, and I continue to buy more.

Lately, I have bought Wynn Resorts, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Southwest Airlines, Valero and Exxon Mobile. These are all long-term investments that have been crushed by the virus and appear to be a good value to me.

Be your own investment counselor. There are a number of stock, mutual fund, and bond screeners on the web. You just put in your criteria and see whose fund pops up. You can screen for rate of return, risk, cost to own plus many more.

If you are unsure of what to do you can always call Fidelity, Vanguard, or any number of other investment firms that can guide you without breaking your bank.

Verizon

I just sold Apple, Microsoft and Exxon that I had bought on March 20. 40% profit was unreal. I will buy back if there is a major correction, as I expect. The best advice I can give is weigh carefully any advice you get on the internet, including this site. Do your research, follow your instincts and hope you are right more often than wrong. Nobody can accurately predict what events will happen to affect the market short term but trends can be seen and exploited in the long term. I have always found, for me, that it is much easier to know when to buy than when to sell.

One thing that I have been looking at . With the rise in on line shopping. The packaging materials, required, have been increasing. One I have dabbled a bit in is , intertape polimer, they make all kinds of tapes, etc, pay a small dividend. ITP.T on tse There are other companies as well in that section.. Diversify, keep informed and don't bet the farm on one area. . Cash isn't a bad area now as well.. jmho. old243

Well American Funds is a great place to invest and one is the ICA Fund. Yes you will get charged 5.75% for the first investment and any additions. Now after that you could get charged a $10.00 yearly fee and that's it. Now if you have earned income you could do a Roth IRA for a yearly amount of $6500.00 and after that any growth is totally tax fee when you take it out. All based upon your age to start with. Another one is federated Funds, check out a fund and then the 3yr 5yr 10yr returns and decide if you want to invest. Now you can go with a No Load fund and pay no fees and if you hold it long enough no redemption fees. Federated Kaufman was a great one for me but I think it is a closed to new investors. I have had them for a long time. Currently now is not the best time to invest in anything except money market. Then when you think you want to get back in the transfer into a fund with that company. Just some thoughts.

I used to spend a lot of time on investments and knowledge. Don't spend nearly as much time. My money lately has been going to Charles Schwab, they have a product called Intelligent Portfolios (I think you have to have at least $10,000 to start??) and they manage it all. Mainly invested in ETF's and been very good to me as another investment choice on top of my other investments.

nope--fur

For me that would mean Silver ,gold, and lead and there would be a heavy lean towards lead

John Hancock investments. Currently in Growth fund. Very easy to use. Low maintenance few. Many other options with them

... not if you work for them lol

You stated you are a long term investor. There are free resources that you can utilize that will aid you in finding investments that are designed for the long term investor. There are options available that allow you to invest in growth versus income type funds etc. Some may well depend upon what you intend the investments to be utilized for. Are they for growth which adds assets, liquidity at retirement which is more dividend bases, a combination of those or do you plan to transfer the funds to heirs? If you know what your plan(s) are it is not as complex as one may think.

Bryce

Lots of good advice here, thanks!

I've never had a specific plan Bryce other than to squirrel money away over a broad range of investments where it can grow and let it do that. It's just a cushion between me and poverty I guess. I'm not a savvy investor like some of you guys. I barely pay attention to my quarterly statements. I haven't invested in anything new in several years because I'm satisfied with the performance of the majority of my investments. That's why I figured I'd ask here. And, being a long term investor, I think it's sort of hard to actually lose money over several decades. I guess a company could go bankrupt and you could lose that stock but that's only happened to me once. And that's why I diversify.

Now that I'm older I guess I should form a plan. The surviving spouse will get everything in my relationship and it will be divided among my children after that. In the meantime I will probably use some of it to buy things and partially to live on after I retire (if I ever do). And the wife can use some to bury me with if she needs to.

How's that for a plan? LOL

Give the money to walleyed and he will buy more muskrat traps with it !!

w

The Coronavirus crash created a unique buying opportunity. I bought companies in industries that got hit hard. Restaurants, casinos, Disney, Boeing, cruise lines, airlines, and hotels. I also bought some bank stocks. There are still a lot of companies way off their 52 week high, or pre-crash levels. There is a crazy amount of turbulence and you have to have at least a 2-year share price recovery window, I believe, and be willing to sit through the turbulence. I do believe a vaccine will bring them roaring back and I think a vaccine will be developed within the next 12 months or so. And always try to keep some cash on hand for those bigger drops! Good luck to everyone with your investments!

For the record, you could throw 5 darts at the Wall Street Journal, buy those stocks, hold them for 5 years, and do as good as the professional investment managers. If you don't know what to do and don't want to take a lot of risk, buy an S & P 500 fund and forget it. It is the benchmark that all financial advisors are trying to outperform. Unfortunately, more than 50% of the time, they come up short over a 5+ year time horizon. I spent 12 years in the financial services industry, for what it's worth. Haven't been licensed for a couple years now, so I don't know anything and I am no longer responsible for other people's bad decisions. Lol

[quote=trapperkeck]For the record, you could throw 5 darts at the Wall Street Journal, buy those stocks, hold them for 5 years, and do as good as the professional investment managers. /quote]

This sentence pretty much sums up my investment strategy. LOL.

Only I tend to hold stock for decades, not just five years.

If Wells Fargo wouldn't have pulled that shady crap I'd still be an investor with them.

Yes SLB is a great company but currently it is a lousy investment IMO. I owned it for several years but got out about 4 years ago. It has been downhill ever since. I am sure fossil fuels will be with us for quite some time but not like it was for the past 100 years. I believe oil is a losing proposition for the foreseeable future.
Don't be fooled by looking at the low price on any stock. SLB is trading just over 19$ a share but it is losing $12.95 PER SHARE currently. Low price does not mean high value.

If you're looking at mutual funds, remember that they all have to buy the same stocks depending on investment objective. The only difference between Fidelity and Vanguard is likely the fees charged. They are probably within a couple basis points of each other.

Load funds make no sense to me. You start out in the hole from day one. Also remember that mutuals will charge a management fee every year. That's something I won't do, but that's a personal preference.

What I don't understand is how YOU could possibly have a long term time horizon

I’m not sure how much money you got, but I’d probably just take it easy and enjoy life a little more till it ran out!