I currently have 90% of my money in a Roth IRA split between Vanguard and Interactive Brokerages. I use Vanguard for set it and forget it index funds and IBRK for slightly more active trading - nothing too risky - no options tradings, no day trading, all long positions on individual stocks. I occasionally use indicators like RSI and MACD to time my investments into stocks that I was already planning to buy.
My current portfolio looks like this: 40% VTI (Total U.S. Stock Market), 30% VEA (International Developed Market), 10% VWO (International Emerging Market), 10% BRK.B (Berkshire Hathaway), 10% Mixed Bag of Individual Stocks.
I thought about making it simpler by just doing VTI and VEA. As I near retirement age I plan to gradually increase my bond allocation but right now having any bonds at all seems detrimental. If I had a higher risk appetite and a more positive outlook on the big tech stocks right now, I might replace VTI for VOO as it has better historical performance (not an indicator of future gains, blah blah...) but I really am concerned by how concentrated the S&P 500 is.
p.s. there's nothing special about Vanguard ETFs. I just find that they typically have competitive expense ratios and like the idea of having all/most of my index funds from one brokerage. I think Fidelity and Schwab are great options too. I've also heard good things about M1 Finance but they seem a little experimental so I just stick with Vanguard and IBKR.
Here are some of the stocks in the mixed bag, 10% allocation, traded on IBKR: TRI, SSP, SCHL, CHGG, LMND, TQQQ, UTHR, WAB, PGR, JPM.
I have a credit score of 799 and have never missed a payment (thanks Mom for letting me be an authorized user on your credit card). Three cards make up that score (Chase Freedom Flex, Some Random Discover Card and a STEP Card). I have considered looking into a money market account at Chase so that my savings/emergency fund can earn a little more but don't fully understand it enough atm to pull the trigger.
I have been super fortunate to have been supported financially by my parents. Up until this point I have had decent transportation to and from school/work, plenty of food on the table, quality electronics and resources for studying, gaming and programming (not to mention clothes and a roof over my head). Most of the money I have now came from working at a local credit union over the summer and fall of last year along with saving all the money I got from things like Christmas and Birthday. I also worked for my Dad every once in a while as a kid and he would sometimes pay me depending on the work (bringing him tools for his construction/repair/contracting/renewable energy business). My largest asset is the Macbook I'm typing this on (I'm a reluctant mac user :p). Neither of my parents are fabulously wealthy and they don't plan to contribute anything to my college education (I'm hoping I might be able to live at home during some transition periods so I don't have to drain my savings on a rent deposit when I haven't figured out my employment situation or things like that). Oh, and also I have no debt (woop woop!).
On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate my finances? How fortunate is the situation I am in in terms of privilege and do you have any advice for how to contextualize all of the privilege I have been given. There is certainly some bad shit that I have intentionally left out of here but I am curious from a purely financial standpoint where I stand in terms of what percentile of people have it as good as I do at 18 and what part of that is due to making informed decisions or being given parental support.
Are there any problems with the individual stocks that I chose or should I have a more concrete/outlined strategy in that section - perhaps swapping out larger companies like JPM, for more small cap stocks to even out the large caps that tend to be in low-expense ratio ETFs like VTI? How redundant is having 10% BRK.B and can that be justified? Does TQQQ have any utility? Feel free to answer all or none of these questions.