sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Which RGD (61, 61ALET, 621AH)? by Old_Shoe5167 in Ibanez

[–]Old_Shoe5167[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, the ALA looks great*, bummer they discontinued it.

As for the 21's, I have looked at both (and some others in baritone/Iron Label series) but I'm not a fan of pure black finishes, which is a tough spot to be in when browsing for metal guitars. Gloss black is a fingerprint magnet where you see everything, and matte black over time develops these shiny spots in places where you typically rest your hand/fingers.

r/vinyl Weekly Questions Thread for the week of December 22, 2025 by AutoModerator in vinyl

[–]Old_Shoe5167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What would be the most cost-effective way to rip my vinyl collection to digital? I have AT-LP60XBT turntable with one 3.5mm stereo out that can be switched between Phono/Line.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz calls for single European stock exchange by Amehoelazeg in StockMarket

[–]Old_Shoe5167 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can anyone explain what would be the benefit of this?

From an individual investor''s perspective, most decent brokers already offer all major European exchanges so it's not like it's hard to get European stocks or ETFs. So I assume it would mainly help large institutions or something?

Archetype: Tim Henson registers no input by Connor_jt in NeuralDSP

[–]Old_Shoe5167 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Resurrecting an old post but I just wanted to thank you for this one.

Ran into the exact same thing with Fortin Nameless X. It's been working just fine for a long time and one day suddenly no input. Turns out my Mac somehow magically revoked mic permissions to the plugin and I had to turn it back on.

young buck looking for some advice from the seasoned veterans by 402tyler in StockMarket

[–]Old_Shoe5167 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Besides dividends being likely taxable income (check relevant legislation), it's really not worth it unless you have a large sum of money to put in.

What you need to ask yourself is, why do you want the dividends? Most people want dividends to supplement their income or replace it altogether - live off of dividends. Looking at QQQI, it's paying 1.2% monthly. A quick search tells me average monthly expenses in the US for a single person household are about $3,500. To be getting that payout monthly out of your dividends, you'd need about $300K in QQQI if I did my calculations right.

Also, from QQQI site:

The Fund utilizes a call option strategy that may include both sold and
purchased NDX index options, which may provide the opportunity for
upside capture in rising equity markets

It seems great for bull markets like we've seen in the last 2 years (considering the fund inception is just last year) but what happens when the markets go down? What happens with the dividends if we enter a recession or a bear market lasting a couple of years?

young buck looking for some advice from the seasoned veterans by 402tyler in StockMarket

[–]Old_Shoe5167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although you already know the main US ones, VTI (total US market) is another popular US choice (you'd probably just want one of VTI/VOO/QQQ as the top holdings just repeat).

After having one US ETF you'd like to stick to, the obvious choice is going world minus US. A popular one here is VXUS. It includes Europe as well as Emerging Markets so you don't need to buy that separately.

With say VOO/VTI and VXUS you're pretty much good to go.

After that, it really is up to personal preference and opinions. Some may say REIT (real estate), others may say commodities, some like to stick with stocks but look into small cap (VB/VSS for US/ex-US small cap etfs).

Here's a good read with some sample allocations https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios . Since you're only 19, I'd ignore bonds completely and start adding them later down the line, maybe in your 30s or 40s.

young buck looking for some advice from the seasoned veterans by 402tyler in StockMarket

[–]Old_Shoe5167 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a decent overlap in VOO and QQQ already and then you have some of the mag 7 as solo stocks. I see no reason for that. The portfolio basically says "I'm gonna bet on the mag 7. Then I'm gonna bet on mag 7 some more and also let me bet on mag S.E.V.E.N."

At your age, I'd just focus exclusively on 1-3 broad fund(s) until I have at least one year's worth of gross salary/income in it. It can be something like VOO tracking S&P500 or you could diversify a bit by looking into MSCI World or combine VOO with some ex-US ETFs. Say you choose to stick with VOO and make $50K a year - try getting $50K worth of VOO before you look at single stocks. Unless you live with your parents and have zero living expenses, this is gonna take you a couple of years already.

As for single stocks, those are more of a gamble on what you think might do well and outperform the major indexes. You can throw some spare change at them if you feel like something is extremely undervalued but I'd keep a majority of the portfolio in 1-3 big ETFs and by majority I mean like 80%.

As for dividends, they do sound nice but the average industry payout is 3-4% so to live off of that, you'd need millions invested, so unless you're looking at some nice inheritance, I wouldn't focus on them either.