The Online Investing AI Blog

We’re pretty impressed with Automated Trading. As a concept, it makes sense, especially for the busy, self-directed investor.

• You have the return power of active trading.
• You don’t have the greed and fear of active traders (if programmed correctly).
• You don’t have the fees and other payment hijinx of mutual funds.
• And you don’t have all the time spent researching the market and waiting to make trades.

So, throw all your money into Automated Trading. Forget about the index funds and long-term investments.

I’m not sure that’s the best idea.
Read more…

Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI algorithmic trading, Automated Trading, index fund, Investing, ira, mutual fund, risk, the wealth singularity, trading, wealth

It’s no secret that we are in a serious financial crisis. Some of the largest companies in the country are facing bankruptcy. Foreclosures are at an all-time high. Layoffs are creating hardship for millions. Many people’s retirement accounts are down 50%. People are wondering how they’re going to survive.

Part of the reason that this financial crisis has been so damaging to millions of people is that they took bad financial advice. Most people who have a 401(k) or IRA account had no idea how to invest their life savings. So, they met with a financial advisor. This advisor may have been provided to them by their 401(k) company, or perhaps they found the advisor on their own.

Most financial advisors recommend putting your money in a combination of stock funds and bonds funds. The traditional idea is to put more money into stock funds when the client is younger. Unfortunately for the client, stock and bond mutual funds are the worst possible investment they can make. There are a few good reasons that these mutual funds are widely recommended and are the de facto investment vehicle for most Americans: Read more…

Investing, Money, US Economy 401k, financial advisors, financial crisis, Investing, ira, mutual funds, real estate, stocks

There’s a factory near where I once lived that was built about 40 years ago and no one has ever retired from it.

Is it because the job is so great no one ever wants to quit? Hardly.

It’s because workers use their 401K plans exclusively to fund their retirement. Unfortunately, the money contributed to these plans must stay there until they reach 59.5 years old and the back-breaking work and ruthless company policies claim these workers long before they can use this money penalty-free.

They either die, or get fired before they reach retirement age.

Retirement accounts that allow you to compound money tax-free are designed to keep you in the work force until you’re too old to use the money. It’s actually a boon for organizations and corporations to maintain a hungry, available pool of labor. The system also benefits the financial industry, which can maintain trillion-dollar accounts (filled with your money) over long time periods.

If the government and your company really wanted you to retire, they would allow you to maintain any investment account tax-free. They could let you compound the money, increasing the balance exponentially, and then tax it when you withdraw it as income. If that was the case, more and more people would leave their jobs once their accounts were large enough to spin off an acceptable level of income.

And then what would your boss do?

This is not meant as advice to abandon your retirement plans. In fact, you should keep contributing and even maxing them out. You should never deny yourself free money, even when the terms are not exactly satisfactory.

But, if you want to retire early, you need to add tools that lie outside of the typical retirement plans. You need to create a trading or investment account that you control now and one that can produce consistent and exponentially-increasing returns. It may sound like an impossible order, but as technology becomes more advanced, investors and traders will have more opportunities to create just such an account.

This is the first post in a series about financial myths that make you poor. For more information, you might want to read the previous article in this series. It’s called Financial Myths That Make You Poor.

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Accelerating Technology, Automated Trading, Business Strategy, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI 401k, finance, finance myths, ira, Money, retirement, retirement accounts

Did I just say, “don’t save for retirement”?

Yep. But maybe I should have said, “don’t JUST save for retirement.”

I think the government and financial industry, whether unconsciously or not, have perpetuated the retirement savings scam. Through the creation of retirement plans, like 401Ks and IRAs, and financial instruments, like mutual funds and index funds, these organizations want you to put your money in a lock box and pull it out, at the point when you’re least likely to enjoy the benefits of wealth.

For the financial industry, this makes sense because the longer it takes you to build wealth, the longer they have to siphon their take away.

For the government, it keeps people financially dependent and reliant on its agencies and decisions. It also keeps people slugging away in cube farms and on factory floors. That’s why they penalize you with fees and taxes if you pull out money in those accounts to… I don’t know… enjoy your life.

These positions, which may be based on good intentions, are no longer tenable. For two reasons:

• Wealth generation should not be crimped in this economic environment. People should be able to invest and use the proceeds of those investments.
• As advanced technology increases, the life span will increase, too. Our savings will then become the carrot that the government will eternally keep out of reach.

I don’t propose to eliminate 401 K and IRA plans. I don’t believe mutual funds or index funds should be eliminated, either. I don’t believe we should penalize people for creating wealth, either. A fairer tax structure that inspires wealth generation should be implemented. Flat tax, sales tax and even a graduated tax structure that protects your ability to compound your money makes more sense than the current confiscatory tax policy.

And, I think that’s the key: the most powerful financial tool you, the average investor, has is the ability to compound money. Go head and tax the money that is taken out of an account as a form of income, don’t tax the saved and growing money.

How hopeful am I that we’ll live to see this day… or even retire to see it? Not very hopeful. People are creatures of habit, to begin with, and most folks have been taught to fear technology and finances. Jealousy also plays a role. People won’t want to see other people get wealthy by making the right decisions.

But I am hopeful that what we’re creating at Online Investing AI will be so powerful that it, in addition to smart personal tax strategies, could render the penalties on investment meaningless.

Until that day… Keep adding to that 401 K.

Accelerating Technology, Business Strategy, Investing, Online Investing AI 401k, 403b, confiscatory, ira, plan, retire, retirement, tax, tax policy