WAY OT: Money Gurus, recommend good places to park money

Realty Income Corp. (O). It is safe, has a 4.40% yield, and has continuously raised its dividend the last 20 years. With the yield, averages around a 10% return each year. Best stock around in my opinion.

never take money advice from a blog. You need to have a plan that's right for you, which means knowing when you'll need the money, etc.

Secondly, never buy a stock based on someone's recommendation on a blog. In fact, unless you know exactly what you're doing then you should invest in index funds and call it a day. There's a bet that Warren Buffett is winning based on this principle (and actually his bet was that index would outperform managed hedge funds).

Third: avoid unnecessary taxation. If you don't need the money now and can put it away into something that avoids taxation, then go that route. That also means not cashing out of stock early and getting hit with an increased cap gains rate.

Fourth: diversify. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you own a home (or a mortgage), then you have a pretty big investment in real estate already.

As others have said, there is no one "right" answer. It depends on you and your needs. If you don't have a plan or direction, then you'll never get anywhere. There is no perfectly safe investment, so you need to know how much risk tolerance you have (i.e. can you afford to lose the whole thing? is there a chance that you'll need the money in a year?).

Fifth, never take money advice from a blog. (Remember the five rules of dodgeball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge).

Six: ?

Seven: Profit.

I wonder if 11W has a similar thread topic..

Word has it the cold winter has not adversely affected the harvest. Therefore: Frozen concentrated orange juice. Be careful though. The Dukes are trying to corner the market.

Oil is a dying investment.  Batteries for airplanes and cars that will not run on oil are forthcoming.  As the largest consumers of oil, once the airline market generates solar powered aircraft (the Prius of the skies, which is coming) oil will falter and never recover. Cars that are self-driven will not be made by the big automakers, yet they will rule the market in 20 years.  New home batteries, like those that will be used to store a solar-powered airplane's and your car's excess power will drastically alter the energy market. Investment implications:

Apple and Google are laying the groundwork to overtake the big automakers by getting into the car and battery business, like Tesla but with infinitely more money.  This is evidenced by:

Comparative advantage: Apple is the biggest company in the world and has enough "cash on hand" to buy Mercedes, Ford, GM and other major auto manufacturers and still have billions in cash to spare. Meaning even the big boy manufacturers can't compete with Apple's resources.

Strategic Vision: Google has mapped the world (Google Earth).  With the assistance of this technology, they announced they will have a self-drive car on the market within five years.

 http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-sees-self-drive-car-on-road-within-f…

Turning Cash into resources: Apple and Google are in the process of purchasing assets to begin development of a new era of cars (they don't think the big automakers are very innovative and I agree).  Apple bought a research company's entire line of car battery engineers and is being sued fby that company because Apple can own anybody they want.  The engineers for Apple prove they are in it to compete with Google for the self-drive, fuel independent automobile market.  

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/lawsuit-claims-apple-poaching-engineers-bu…

Google just leased the world's largest indoor hangar owned by NASA for the Shuttles (no longer in use) in Silicon Valley.  This purchase suggests Google needs massive amounts of manufacturing space (a new car plant).  

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/10/7190057/nasa-leases-moffett-airfield…

Apple views it's only threat to world domination as Google, and visa versa.  The car and energy markets are some of the biggest in the world and these two companies mean to see results in 10 years and own them within 20-30 years.

 

Conclusion:  Buy Google and Apple stock, or those companies they will look to own!

Avoid: Competitors or competing substitutes: Woe be the car manufacturer that thinks they can go toe-to-toe with Apple and Google and won't see their market share and profits decline.  Oil is out as renewable energy is coming in.  

 

 

And invest in ALCOHOL!

or if you want a risky investment, invest in AMBS which seems to be the first bonafide company with a test to determine ALZHEIMERS via a blood test using among other interesting pipeline items like MANF, MS diagnostic, and long awaited skin replacement technology.

Under your mattress!!!! THE MARKET IS EVIL

Pork bellies

Which are used to make bacon. Which you might find in a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich

Had good advice for picking specific companies and how to look at them to maximize the few advantages you have on the professionals. That said, mostly I'd echo what others have said. Stick to your plan, don't let emotions change your plan, decide on a goal and when you expect to want the money before you put the money somewhere. Don't trust us, do your homework, and most of all be patient. The dollar cost average into a no-load index fund is the simplest way to go - have a small amount tapped from each paycheck into your investment account and use that fixed amount to buy something with a low/zero transaction cost.

I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned some of the newer, more tech-savvy options out there...

Lending Club and Prosper offer Peer to Peer lending. If you wouldn't require quick liquidity it's a pretty good way to be fairly protected from the market and still earn nice returns. You need to develop some strategies as to which loans you want to invest in. But there is lots of good advice and tools out there to help with that. Over the last 3 years I've earned a solid 12% annually.

Robo-Advisors such as Betterment and Wealthfront are another option. While an actual financial advisor will charge you 1% - 2% these services charge only a fraction of that. In fact I believe Wealthfront waives the fee for accounts under $15K. They basically use Modern Portfolio Theory to do asset allocation via a set of ETFs and other instruments (typically Vanguard offerings). You could do it yourself if you wanted to... the services just do all the legwork for you. So, it's more of a set it and forget it model. You won't seriously outperform the market with any of these. But hopefully, you'd be protected from downside as they would exit/re-allocate should things take a downturn.

If you feel like being a bit more hands on then something like Motif might be interesting. I saw it mentioned earlier. Basically, it allows you to own lots of stocks without having to actually pay for them individually. One downside, they don't do dividend reinvestment. But say you liked Companies Based in Michigan for some reason, you could build your own little mutual fund of sorts that was made up of those stocks. So, while more forgiving perhaps than owning a single stock, you'd still need to closely monitor the market and investments.

Obviously there's no one right answer... everyone's situation, risk tolerance and requirements are different. So, I'm not suggesting these are necessarily appropriate for you. Just wanted to make sure they were part of the discussion.