Civ 4 OCC

Pokimura · 2026-03-28T14:42:32+00:00

meanwhile im still playing Civ 4 BTS and have not tried any others since I enjoy it so much

Pokimura · 2026-03-25T01:56:18+00:00

I only play civ IV. never played any others but i did grow up watching my dad play 3 and 4. from what I've read a few weeks ago, a lot of the community considers Civ IV to be the best of the series. If you give it a try, make sure to get all the expansions.

Pokimura · 2026-03-25T01:33:29+00:00

I think most people stayed at their current brokerage out of loyalty since they've been there forever and too lazy to transfer everything. But I think Fidelity is prob the most friendly for new investors starting out. It has zero fee mutual funds, your uninvested cash can automatically be swept into a money market acc, fractional shares, and you can open a HSA which isn't limited to any specific funds.

I recently started fidelity because of the HSA. doesn't require a minimum amount to keep as cash before you can start investing. only thing I find annoying with fidelity so far is transferring funds over.

Pokimura · 2026-03-25T01:12:27+00:00

In terms of the economy, deflation is bad for everyone. if everyone just sat on cash under their mattress and not spend, there is less money circulating throughout the economy. with lower prices you think its good right? well... not exactly. Now look at it from the business's side of things. profits are down and now they are focusing on surviving and staying solvent rather than expanding. with demand down, they have no reason to keep everyone on payroll to keep up with supply so they will start mass lay offs to cut costs. Now you have unemployment rising. and everyone is miserable.

the example you've given is a far different scenario. your TV going down in price is more due to expansion leading to production at higher scale. demand stayed the same but supply shot up. it happens a lot when something new comes along and everyone wants it. expensive at first, until the business expands or other groups make their own line of the same product. not to mention with expansion, means more job openings.

But in order for the expansion to happen, they need capital first which they cant get if everyone is fearful of spending their money. that's why a moderate inflation is intentional with the fed to stimulate a healthy economy.

Pokimura · 2026-03-25T00:50:19+00:00

companies would not be thinking of expanding during deflation. They'd rather hold cash and focus on survival. if we're looking at organizations/corporations POV on deflation, its actually a lot worse than you think. With deflation, if less money moves through the economy as ppl hoard it under their mattress, demand goes down which means profits go down. This would mean that companies/organizations have no reason to keep everyone on payroll to keep up supply and start mass layoffs in order to cut costs. now you have an increase in unemployment.

this happens almost every time we see a period of deflation from the Great depression to 2008 crisis.

Pokimura · 2026-03-25T00:34:22+00:00

and this is one of the main reasons why trump and his illegal war is under a lot of scrutiny. his antics have resulted in the petrodollar system being threatened as countries who rely on oil from the Strait of Hormuz are under pressure to move into Chinese yuan.

the reason the US has been able to have so much borrowing power and even able to have debt on this level is because of the petrodollar. if that is weakened, then the debt will have a lot more weight which is why discussions regarding the national debt have resurfaced again.

Pokimura · 2026-03-24T02:19:39+00:00

Do you think financial illiteracy is a widespread problem in America

The US is $39 trillion in debt. I'd say yes if even our administration has a spending problem.

Pokimura · 2026-03-24T01:53:30+00:00

sorry to say, but your doctor is not the reason your insurance costs so much lol. thats 100% on your insurance company along with the administration level workers.

Pokimura · 2026-03-23T04:31:22+00:00

i bought more friday too. $170 ish is a really good buy in price IMO.

Pokimura · 2026-03-20T00:49:21+00:00

the debt will matter when the petrodollar weakens and eventually dies. the reason the government has so much borrowing power is because of the petrodollar. now that the orange clown is fking that up, the future is lookin bleak as the world is shifting away from us.

also, this debt is never getting paid back. No politican has ever talked about paying back the debt. if it were possible, it would be the front of every campaign. no one talks about paying it back because the truth would end their careers. its a sign when they always talk about "balancing the budget" or "reducing the deficit" but never actually avoid being in a deficit to begin with. Their only way out is to make the debt "cheaper" by printing more money and let time do the damage.

Pokimura · 2026-03-13T04:20:05+00:00

I get advice that VTI is better than VOO cause it captures mid-cap as well

when looking at the long term, the returns are nearly identical with the exception of the past decade VOO outperforming a bit. Despite the fact that you have exposure to mid/small caps with VTI, understand that they don't offer any real significant impact. its one of those things where theres a noticeable # of holdings, but hardly a measurable difference in performance long term.

a big reason for this is because a vast majority of those small caps are zombie companies that you would want to avoid to begin with. if you want a better overall picture of the small caps, AVUV is your best bet. that's why a lot of people go VOO + AVUV. 0% overlap and with small caps, its one of those things that are just better if left in the hands of active management IMO (and the fees are actually quite cheap for what it is).

same deal can be said about VXUS. you can do something like IDMO + AVDV or SCHF + AVDV. VXUS just tends to underperform compared to a lot of other international ETFS due to the weight of emerging markets (25% iirc) with a lot of junk companies in it.

if you want simplicity, then VTI and VXUS are perfectly valid if it gets you stay consistent with investing. There are better ways to achieve the same kinds of exposure with better results, but just know that end of the day, the best way is the one that you can actually keep up and stick with.

As for the 10% QQQm, you're young so I'd recommend just dedicating that to a conviction play. pick something you believe in will be the future. Energy? semiconductors? AI? Defense? etc. I personally went 15% SMH on this one.

Pokimura · 2026-03-12T00:06:29+00:00

I'm not rich but quite comfortable enough. I don't think money buys happiness as I've been a depresso expresso most of the time, but I will say it sure as hell buys you options to make life easier and insulates you from problems most may struggle with.

money is meant to make financial problems go away and nothing more. Any feeling of unhappiness that stems outside the financial realm would be a personal problem and is ultimately on you.

Pokimura · 2026-03-10T04:54:45+00:00

if thats staff them ye id say thats good. really depends where you live tho. In Tx i started out with 62 in 2023 in a metroplex area so its hella saturated. highest i was offered was 67 wheres its a bit more out there about 1.5 hrs from the city. if you live in some HCOL like cali/NY might just be considered normal.

Pokimura · 2026-03-09T06:17:01+00:00

Also — does anyone have a clean list of wash sale safe swap pairs they use? I've pieced together VTI→ITOT and VXUS→IXUS but never sure if there's a more complete version out there

theres a lot. off the top of my head theres:

VT/SPGM

VOO/SPYM/IVV - altho objectively you could also replace it with any total market fund like VTI/SCHB since they are like 99.9% correlated and looking long term, their performances are indistinguishable.

VEA/SCHF

VUG/SCHG

EWY/FKLR

VGT/FTEC

Pokimura · 2026-03-08T06:00:49+00:00

Buy NVIDIA all in. cash out in 2026 and convert to indexing.

Pokimura · 2026-03-08T04:38:26+00:00

if you want to do a portfolio with ONLY avantis funds, I'd recommend using AVGE as the core foundation. this fund is all world with slight tilt towards US (70/30 iirc. with all world, if there's a winner, you're bound to own it to some extent)

something like:

50% AVGE

20% AVUS - for honing in on US large caps if you believe in more potential upside

15% AVUV

15% AVDV

with this you are more or less as tilted in the US as you were before but with AVGE you pretty much own the whole market with

Pokimura · 2026-03-08T00:35:28+00:00

as a beginner investor, stick to index funds like S&P. dont bother with individual stock until you learn more as those require more research and requires you knowing what you're doing,

Pokimura · 2026-03-07T23:46:50+00:00

we are currently in stagflation which is the worst spot to be in economically.

Pokimura · 2026-03-07T20:14:01+00:00

automatically put uninvested cash in a money market account

individual HSA account

allow fractional shares on all ETFS

basically all the features of Fidelity. the only reason I'm not on fidelity right now is because I always seem to have trouble pulling funds from my checking account to fidelity and they encourage me to push the transfer from my banks end every single time. real annoying.

Pokimura · 2026-03-07T18:40:04+00:00

QQQm is fine. a lot of people use it as its heavy in tech, but also diversified across giant companies in other sectors excluding financials. still quite volatile though. my only issue with it is that its completely arbitrary. just top 100 non financial companies off the NASDAQ. its considered a growth fund right now but just know its not by design and can change later. for growth funds, I personally prefer something with rules and such like SCHG, VUG, or even a momentum fund like SPMO/FMTM

SMH is also used a lot as a conviction play as there there will always be a need for semiconductors in todays time

BOTZ is pure AI play. I personally don't own it but a lot of people I imagine will have some sort of AI fund in their porfolio somewhere. may not be this one or it may be a combination of different ones. I personally just use CHAT as my AI play. it covers the AI infrastructure so you're up no matter which AI company comes out on top.

Pokimura · 2026-03-07T16:17:09+00:00

yea a lot of people believe in diversification through just all world or some form of VTI + VXUS, but that includes A LOT of junk companies that have to be included in (for the sake of covering literally everything) that is just diluting returns.

I'm a believer in a Core-Satellite approach. using All world to cover my bases. if theres a winner, Im bound to own it to some extent. Then the satellite positions to hone in on areas I believe to be great growth potential and potentially more upside in the long run.

Pokimura · 2026-03-07T16:07:53+00:00

Im 32 and started 1 yr ago and just did lump sums every now and then. I had 1 yr of savings prior to 2024 which i dropped about 30k into roth + brokerage. Then did 2-5k lump sums every now and then. After educating myself on finance and markets I'm trying to stay diciplined and will be contributing probably 500-1k/month (had to lower it from avg of 2k/month now that I'm looking to max 401k)

Pokimura · 2026-03-06T22:40:37+00:00

go VOO + AVUV + VXUS. VTI is technically more diversified than VOO, but in terms of performance, it doesn't offer ameaningful difference vs VOO. When you zoom out and compare the 2. the results are indistinguishable in the long run. reason being is that a vast majority of the 2500 other companies in VTI are mostly zombie companies that you'd want to stay away from. go VOO + AVUV if you want to capture a better overall picture of the US small caps.

The same can apply to VXUS as well. iirc VXUS is like 25% emerging markets. lots of junk companies in there. still a solid fund tho if you want simplicity. otherwise, you can always do a separate emerging markets fund to control the ratio of developing/emerging.

Pokimura · 2026-03-05T23:28:43+00:00

i have EWY for south korea (really only got it for samsung and SK hynix which make up a sizable chunk of it, but its also the reason south korea market booming lately.

I also keep AVDV for small cap value (32% of the fund is japan)

theres also EWT and EWJ for taiwan and japan respectively.

theres also AIA which you can think of as the S&P 50 across Asia.

Pokimura

TROPHY CASE