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1) Despite gaming all the time 2 years ago, you were already investing?
Yes but small potatoes. Investments tend to snowball if you are doing it right!
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2) How the *bleep* can you make 105k a year as a 25 yo? Did you get super lucky with stocks or something?
3) Do you have a 'normal' job or do you live on investing?
Lastly, a personal question: What's your goal in life? Making more and more? Or is there a limit you'd like to stop at?
I'm good with computers, that is my normal job. I also own a business that adds to that as well. My goal is
Financial Independence. I don't want to have to rely on others to provide for myself. I don't want to sit in a corporate office and watch my mouth all day every day and force my personality into their mold because god forbid i say one thing wrong and it haunts me in my review a year later. Fuck that.
I work for a corporation now. Hopefully I won't for much longer.
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4) Do you actively trade stocks, or get your income from dividends?
It depends. I am experimenting right now with timing the market. It's something I don't really think can be done. Technical analysis shows that the next couple months the market as a whole will pull back. So I am HOLDING all my stocks, (no selling!) and waiting to see. I have lots of cash sitting in my brokerage account waiting to pounce.
I really don't believe in technical analysis but I am still learning so I will run this experiment and see if I can supplement my successful fundamental analysis and value investment strategy.
Regarding Dividends: I reinvest those back into the same stock. This is called a DRIP. It is desirable because you get more stock for no commission and it causes a compounding (future dividends pay more as you have more shares). Dividends are nice--this is called Income investing. My investment strategy picks dividends stocks (stocks that will pay you $ regardless...) and conduct fundamental analysis of the company. What I am looking for is catalysts for growth. Meaning, not only do I get $ from dividends, but I also see the potential for growth in future products (example: intel).
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5) Do you own bonds?
None right now. Anyone who owns bonds in this (USA) environment is daft. Without this ridiculous Fed policy of QE, government bonds are a crazy place to put your money. For that matter, so is cash! Keeping money in cash = losing money to deflation.
In a normal environment, I am a 25% bond investor, 75% stock investor (Stephen Graham style).
For the same reason, company issued bonds are not as good of a move right now as stocks. But like I said, we might be in the midst of a correction. I do not plan to buy more stocks until Mid May 2013. For now, I wait and watch.