Play money

Just wondering if forum members have an allocated amount they set aside to try and beat the market be it by speculative stocks or a couple favourite individual stocks and if so how much do you set aside for this adventure?

Say an individual can allocate savings of 50k per annum to invest and does this via a couple etf's and or lic's how much would they allocate to maybe picking a stock winner ( 1k or 2k) or if this person was seeking fun and adventure would you recommend them going to a theme park or cinema and not gamble hard earned dollars?!

Read this question on another forum and am interested in the response rate!

 

I allocate none at this stage. Have done in the past but nowadays my interests lay elsewhere.

If you're going to do this at least try to tilt the odds a little in your favour. Perhaps check out this thread and ask questions there:

Incrementally improving strategic accumulation using TA & other info

 

I started investing in individual stocks, mainly Reits (being a property investor since 18 it was an easy first step into shares) and top20 stocks. I now mainly buy LICs (MLT,BKI and ARG). I try to keep everything in allocated percentages. I still buy individual stocks but for me a speculative purchase was buying a few TLS shares at $4. In the future I will NOT buy any individual stocks inside the top20 as this doubles up too much on my LICs (which are 60+% top 20).

To be honest, I used to spend hours researching individual stocks....now I prefer to leave it to the LIC managers.

 

I have other things that interest me more at this stage to spend time on, so this activity is a much lower priority. So not for me.

 

I do sometimes but its more like nearly all of my capital. PIO a year ago, PLS 2 years ago and same with A2M when it was $1 (been doubling down through out).
Luckily hit the jackpot with those 3.
Usually I stick with stocks on the ALL ORDS but sometimes like to dabble in the penny once I get bored. Don't have a family to feed.

 

Yep. I have about 30-40% in direct shares.

 

I like to allocate a certain amount every now and again for some speculative "fun".

I generally go for black and the number 32. Sometimes the 6 line at the end if I want to hedge.

 

No.

I prefer to use income from "investing" to have "fun". And to me, fun does not involve speculating.

 

Sounds good. The only speculating I do nowadays is about what to spend our dividends on. A nice wad of cash from WBC, ANZ and MQG hit the bank account in recent days. Off to the coast again next week to celebrate.

 

I have a friend who invests in aroubd 40 or so Aus shares and does really well. So it can be done.

Three reasons for me to not wanting to invest in direct shares at this stage:

• Time
• Comfortable with the returns LICs give
• To be good at investing in direct shares requires lots of reading and learn how to value a business which goes back to point#1 above

 

Great response! Yes I was in similar thought however if one is investing say 50k a year in lics I was just wondering if ppl would allow themselves 1k or even 500 dollars a year to buy a penny dreadful or a similar stock to get it out of their system! Whilst in the meantime the lic's are doing the bulk of the work and supplying the dividends long term!

 

NO! I wouldn't!

 

That's a bold reply!

 

I bought bitcoins.

 

I was reading some boglehead books where it mentions allocating a percentage of your investment portfolio say 1 to 5 % for these get it out of your system stock purchases and monitor the performance! However the catch was if and when it does diminish you can't use any more funds, so in essence it's play money but when it's gone it's gone whilst the index funds promoted in the book will do the bull of the heavy lifting for you returns wise!

 

Ditto and ditto. The stock market has too many variables that change too quickly for me to a) be skilled enough to monitor and respond to, and b) be bothered to think and respond to. I'm wanting shares to be a passive investment and so will leave it to the LIC managers.

 

That's a NO then!

 

Don't know. I can't spell.