I've been following thing thread fairly closely, first time poster. First off let me say thank you for all the great information and perspective thus far!
My first question is: what proportion of your assets would you recommend investing vs. locking away in savings account? I'm 25 years old, been investing for ~4 years with mixed success, have ~80k in the bank and 55k in the market. Have a work related 401k but haven't really been paying attention to that besides picking the "extremely aggressive" setting 3 years ago.
About 30k of the market money is tied up in some long term DOWN money (namely CitiBank). I have 22ish in cash left in my Etrade after pulling 50k out of the market and putting 25k back in savings.
Currently living in London, most recently from San Diego and would like to return there within 365 days and purchase a house (will eventually need a downpayment).
Need to re-assess what to do with my DOWN Citi, as well as find some better long term plays to put my money into. I like the feeling of having a year of net salary in the bank - but is that the wisest thing to be doing with that chunk of change? I realistically won't be losing my job anytime soon (effectively on contract through October) and have 3+ months of vacation that they'll have to pay me out. What would you guys recommend? I've been reading a lot in here about this dividend investing scheme and I'm quite interested. Seems like a good long term play for me to get into.
Second question: What to do with a 4 year+ 90% loser? I put $700 or so into some oil speculation penny stock and it's currently worth about $40 and hasn't moved in a year. Should I just pay the $9 trade fee and pull clean out that terribly depressing line in my account?
Thanks. Look forward to participating more. Keep this thread alive!
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