@aj485 This is a great list! Thanks for posting it.
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Nvidia. :). Started just over a year ago after a 5 year stint at Arm.
Thanks for all the replies. I have access to people at Fidelity (they do our 401k) and Schwab (handles RSU’s). So maybe I need to spend some time with each about these questions, see what they say too.
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07/29
Just a data-point. Was in the Bay Area and stopped at a local library in the Silicon Valley suburbs (Morgan Hill CA). A husband-and-wife couple are perusing a bunch of newspapers. Wife peruses one newspaper quickly and hands the media over to the husband, and starts on another newspaper. Husband reads the paper more intently, and about 5 - 10 minutes into the reading makes a comment – we own this fund, and about 10 seconds later identifies the fund, “Fidelity Contra Fund seems to be doing okay.” Wife wasn’t too interested in continuing the discussion and more interested in some article in the paper in front of her.
In my own family, I know I could have a conversation about stocks, bonds and mutual funds with my dad. But, a less engaging conversation about the same topics with my mum. Oddly enough, my mum was the more math capable of my two parents.
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I helped out a coworker way back with his 401k and education savings accounts for his young kids. He is a smart guy, but had everything in guaranteed interest funds. I explained time frames, and how stocks outperform over time, and how interest funds lose out to inflation over time, etc. I still remember his eyes getting a glazed look, lol. He finally just said “what would you do in my situation”, so after making 100% sure he understood that stock prices fluctuate, put him into the stock funds. And we had a very, very simple group of options in our 401k, 5 fund choices in total.
Chatted with him recently, and his lack of interest in finance turned out to be an asset. He has totally stayed the course, contributes every paycheck, not taken any loans out against his 401k, and has seen his balance balloon. He jokingly tells me I’m a financial wizard, and I laugh and quickly tell him I am not, lol.
I guess everybody has some type of blind spot, the trick is finding out how to make lack of interest a positive, lol.
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Yep. Years ago I read something from Vanguard’s John Bogle in a newspaper interview that went something like this.
“Buy index funds and don’t open your statement until age 70. Then sit down in a chair, take your heart medication, and open the last one. You’re going to be shocked.”
intercst
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