Ask HN: Do You Like Stocks Crypto or Precious Metals for 2022?

Most everyone agrees the price to earnings of stocks is crazy high right now for stocks. Everyone is expecting a crash at some point. That said, no one has any idea when it's going to happen, and how bad it will be. If history is any indication, eventually the economy will recover and will continue to grow. How long will that recovery take? Again, no one knows. Point is, you will probably be fine with stocks if your time horizon is long enough.

IMO Crypto is a ponzi scheme that is simultaneously hurting the environment. Others feel differently. The only real value I've seen come out of crypto beyond making illegal activity easier is immigrants from El Salvador can now send money home without fees.

Ray Dalio has an interesting "all weather" portfolio for capital preservation regardless of what the market does, part of which holds precious metals. Beyond that, metals and commodities are speculation IMO.

If you are nervous and want to sleep better at night, just adjust your asset allocation to be more bond heavy (ex. 65/35 stocks/bonds). Thanks to inflation, TIPS are killing it this year. Also, max out your Ibonds if you haven't already.

You shouldn’t take investment advice from random people on the internet unless that advice is incredibly bland and basic. HN does not have magic hunches.

1. Stocks.

2. Crypto.

3. That's it. And I don't even like crypto.

If you're taking the prepper stuff seriously, you need to cut it out as soon as possible.

Interesting, so You would say precious metals are just being hyped by retailers and the concerns about currency devaluation/inflation are overrated? You could be right but some of their arguments are very compelling.

Eg. In 1880, 20 Dollars would buy a weekend stay at a nice hotel, a new suit and a steak dinner. If that 20 dollars was in the form of a 20 dollar gold coin(which could be bought for 20 Dollars in 1880) that same gold coin could buy all three things today and at any other point in time over the last 140 years.

I find it hard to dismiss that argument.

- I don't think precious metals are hyped up by anyone, it's probably just your own ad bubble.

- Precious metals aren't the only hedge against inflation (stocks work in the same way but with higher gains over time).

Yeah but it’s more fun to actually hold silver or gold! Not very good investment but I’d recommend most people to get $200 worth just for fun!

Y’know, it actually does sound fun. I would be stoked to have some (reproduction) gold Doubloons. I could keep them in a little satchel.

Yeah it feels good! Having a satchel of gold would be fun but it’s just so expensive!

> The stock markets have treated me quite well the last couple years but recently I have been feeling nervous.

I’ve been investing in the market since I graduated college many, many, many years ago. Over time, the market has gone up reaching new highs.

Every few years I felt like it was overvalued. More recently, I remember looking at my portfolio in 2015 and thinking it was overvalued and bound to crash. In Nov 2017, I felt the same way. In 2019, I was in a meeting with a manager at my company and somehow the stock market came up. We agreed it had grown too much and was due for a significant correction.

In March/April 2020 I had friends who panic sold during COVID.

I follow a few personal finance websites, and there’s a story every few weeks or months about someone predicting a collapse.

My strategy hasn’t changed at all. I’ve been purchasing VTSAX every month for many, many years now.

Of course, it may well be that you were right in 2015, and the rest of the world will realize eventually.

sigh

This isn't financial advice.

But I'd hold ETH/BTC/LRC/MATIC in equal portions right now.

Depends how TEOTWAWKI you wanna get. I think at some point most preppers realize that having a degree of self-sufficiency and a strong community is far better for a collapse scenario than any alternative store of value. I've been splitting the difference between stocks, crypto, and bullion, and I'm looking to buy a home in a smaller community where I hope to try my hand at small scale farming/ homesteading. Ultimately though, having a large number of competent people you can trust with your life is the best thing for any prepper scenario.

I agree, I think I found my way to the prepper community through my homesteading/small farm journey. What I personally have found is that homesteading and farming can be very capital intensive to startup. Sure You can bootstrap any venture but I feel to enable the best chances of success does require cash flow and the more You put in at the start the sooner You can take profits.

EG: My first profitable venture on my homestead was laying hens, I built my own coop and converted an existing dilapidated green house into a run. The materials required to construct and convert cost me ~ $1500 and then the purchase of brooding equipment, waterers, feeders, and chicks ran me another $1000 or so. All in I would say it cost $3500 Dollars and 6 months before I saw my 1st egg and another two years before my hens were hatching out new chicks. I currently make around $100/month profit through farm gate egg sales at $5 a dozen and have a never ending supply of fresh eggs for myself...but that took almost 4 years from my initial investment plus the daily work of egg collection and watering. I am still looking at another two or three years before I break even not including labor, barring any unexpected expenses.

Don't even get me started with my Honeybee operation!!!

My point is yes self sufficient homesteading is my goal but without the investments I made into the markets, the money wouldn't have been available. In my case I was able to grow my "off farm" investments while drawing on their profits to finance my "on farm ventures" which required time to turn profitable. Unfortunately I think those times are over and it is time to reevaluate my holdings before I find myself draining their principal value to fund my living.

Good news; when the economy implodes there will be no financial costs, but you’ll have skills.

5% of the public hunts. My guess is, should society collapse, there will be plenty of work cleaning up the bodies as millions go nuts in shock and kill themselves at home before a civil war can get off the ground.

More optimistically it’ll be like 9/11, NY blackouts; shock, awe, but people settle down and figure it out.

Who knows, maybe this is all embedded paranoia from the Cold War era and complete social collapse is impossible.

Local urban areas will surely clamp down and secure infra. Going it alone in the woods seems like a fine recipe for just putting the gun in your own mouth eventually.

Gold lost more than 50% of its value over the last ~10 years of QE. That's quite a failure.

> So I was hoping I could humbly ask the YC community members to share their opinions on investing in one, two or all three of these market spaces.

For you I'd advise NTSX and chill.

I’m all in on Pogs and Beanie Babies, they’re due for a major comeback!

Lol, I actually just read something about benie babies, apparently the owner of the company chartered a private flight to ensure there would be adequate supply this Xmas.

Land