quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Mine landed short of inflation Mostly cash (T bills) but I'm very risk averse at this stage in my life.

A couple more years and 90% of my holdings will be in fixed interest. I know someone who lost most of what he had in 2008 and was too old to recover. I do not want to worry about a market crash depleting my savings when I am retired.

Not being greedy and taking too much risk is something I like to avoid.

Looking at my Fidelity overall which includes a taxable, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA and managed R'over IRA by Fidelity: YTD 29.74%, 1-year 21.44%, 3-year 12.89%, 5-year 19.53%

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Mine landed short of inflation Mostly cash (T bills) but I'm very risk averse at this stage in my life.

A couple more years and 90% of my holdings will be in fixed interest. I know someone who lost most of what he had in 2008 and was too old to recover. I do not want to worry about a market crash depleting my savings when I am retired.

Not being greedy and taking too much risk is something I like to avoid.

2008... The wife and I were tired of our accounts getting their asses kicked so we sold out and went all in on IBM. That worked out nice. A really risky move and I do not recommend it. We are conservative (and lucky) as hell right now.

We're conservatively invested and highly diversified. We didn't lose much last year nor gain much this.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Looking at my Fidelity overall which includes a taxable, Roth IRA, Rollover IRA and managed R'over IRA by Fidelity: YTD 29.74%, 1-year 21.44%, 3-year 12.89%, 5-year 19.53%

We have most of our investments with Fidelity as well. A few years ago, in an effort to transition into a slightly more conservative strategy I let their Private Client group manage my SEP IRA. I have never been impressed with their performance and last week looked at their 3 year performance. It was half of what I was able to get managing it on my own. Then when you factor in the management fee it really began to suck. Two days ago I fired them and will now start managing it myself again.

I’m also going to fire my advisor as she has done zero for us and all we got from her are corporate mailings about quarterly. Fortunately, my sister is also in Fidelity and has a really good advisor so we will be interviewing him next week.

On another note it’s actually not surprising that the vast majority of investors and professional managers CAN’T BEAT THE S&P 500 INDEX. Food for thought…

^^^ sml, like you, Fidelity hasn't done as well as I have, but somewhat in their defense, they are investing a bit more conservatively (the 10% of the overall portfolio) than I do.

I'm glad they aren't managing more. I'll let them keep going and monitor.

Nvidia has really kicked ass for me this last year. I bought it many years ago at $6.37 and another batch just above $20. Apple is my biggest holding, Nvidia, Amazon, Netflix and Shopify following up. Despite those more aggressive holdings, most everything else is in solid dividend paying companies.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
On another note it’s actually not surprising that the vast majority of investors and professional managers CAN’T BEAT THE S&P 500 INDEX. Food for thought…

I didn't beat the S&P this year. But I did beat it last year.

I have some conservative holdings to help blunt bad years like 2022. But that does mean that it holds me back a bit in good years like 2023. Safer things like bonds weren't a great investment this year.

I'm going to be doing some restructuring in 2024. I had originally set things up with a mix that was a little more conservative, since I was planning to be able to retire early. But with some recent job changes, that's almost certainly no longer in the cards. So now I need to start planning around a traditional retirement at 65ish, which means I can take some more risks due to the additional 10+ year horizon.

I'm awful at managing money and actually hate it. I have roughly:
1/4 sitting in Vangard brokerage account which returned 1.6%
1/4 in banks which made about 2%. (Recently moved to 5% CD's)
1/4 in various local bank stocks which increased an average of 11%.
1/4 in ASMI stock which roughly doubled this year.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
1/4 sitting in Vangard brokerage account which returned 1.6%

That's a shockingly low annual return, even for very conservative investments.

If you don't mind me asking, what is it invested in within that Vanguard brokerage account? Or is that just sitting in the money market settlement fund?

I ask because some folks make the mistake of moving money into an investment/retirement account, but not actually picking investments with those contributions. So the money just sits in the settlement fund, which acts as a "holding tank", and which doesn't earns you much of a return at all (about equivalent to a savings account, or less).

Happens with 401ks too. People go their entire career contributing to a 401k, but don't understand/pay attention (and the HR benefit admins don't notice or don't care) and don't actually pick investments. So they head into retirement age having made 1% per year on their 401k that's been sitting in the settlement fund the whole time.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

That's a surprisingly low return, even for very conservative investments.

If you don't mind me asking, what is it invested in within that Vanguard brokerage account? Or is that just sitting in the money market settlement fund?

I ask because some folks make the mistake of moving money into an investment/retirement account, but not actually picking investments with those contributions. So they just sit in the settlement fund, which acts as a "holding tank", and which doesn't earns you much of a return at all (about equivalent to a savings account).

Not surprisingly low for me!
Yes I think it's just sitting in the money market settlement fund. Any suggestion where to have them move it?

I'm no expert and don't really like to make recommendations, but you could do worse than putting some into ExxonMobil (XOM)

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
Yes I think it's just sitting in the money market settlement fund. Any suggestion where to have them move it?

Ah. Yeah, you need to take the additional step of using that money within the settlement fund to buy actual stocks/bonds/mutual funds.

If it's a tax-advantaged account like an IRA, the easiest and lowest maintenance option would be to invest it in a Vanguard Target Date fund. https://investor.vanguard.com/...get-retirement-funds They have them in 5 year blocks: 2035/2040/2045/2050/etc. Pick whichever one is closest to the year you'll hit retirement age (usually ~65). This gives you a fully diversified investment that tracks the performance of the total market. And as you get closer to that target date, it automatically adjusts itself to being more conservative, to ensure you don't lose it all just before retirement without time to recoup.

But you typically don't invest in those outside of a tax-advantaged account like a 401k or IRA, due to the constant internal shuffling around that occurs to keep it balanced, which can result in extra tax liability if held within a standard investment account.


If it's not an IRA, then a really simple thing would be to just stick it in a S&P 500 index fund like VFIAX or VOO.

Or, if you want to be even more diversified and a bit more conservative, you can create a simple 3 fund portfolio that will be broadly diversified across the entire stock and bond market using these three Vanguard funds:

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX)
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VTIAX)
Vanguard Total Bond Market Fund (VBTLX)

Split your investment either 80% stocks and 20% bonds or 60% stocks and 40% bonds, depending on your risk tolerance (more stock is riskier). Within the 80%/60% stocks, split it 80% US stock fund and 20% international stock fund.

So an 80/20 stock/bond split would look like:
64% VTSAX
16% VTIAX
20% VBTLX

Or a 60/40 would look like:
48% VTSAX
12% VTIAX
40% VBTLX

If you want to be a bit simpler, you can omit the international stock fund, and just go with a 2 fund US-only portfolio with a straight 80/20 or 60/40 split between VTSAX and VBTLX.

A target date fund sounds like a great idea!

quote:

Originally posted by mrvmax:
I know someone who lost most of what he had in 2008 and was too old to recover. I do not want to worry about a market crash depleting my savings when I am retired.

Not being greedy and taking too much risk is something I like to avoid.

A lot of people who retired just before either the tech-wreck of 2001 or the crash of 2008 had their nest egg horribly damaged beyond recovery. And then many of them will take big risks with what is left to try to gain back their losses, only to then lose even more. One of my relatives had that happen.

We retired 2 years ago, so exactly that situation of losing about 20% right away. We've gone very defensive right now, expecting further stock market decline in 2024. We are fixed income t-bills, i-bonds, and TIPS, and an equal amount of silver with a bit of gold. Some high quality dividend stocks, and a bit of tech.

The good news is our home value is up greatly, and we are cashing out asap.

The 2024 election is a huge wildcard. Normally it is good for the stock market. The true fundamentals are so bad right now, so idk.

As an example my vanguard 2030 fund did 17% this year. So their not to bad right now.

Tommy

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

Ah. Yeah, you need to take the additional step of using that money within the settlement fund to buy actual stocks/bonds/mutual funds.


....Split your investment either 80% stocks and 20% bonds or 60% stocks and 40% bonds, depending on your risk tolerance (more stock is riskier).....


60/40 might look like:
48% VTSAX
12% VTIAX
40% VBTLX

Many thanks for the suggestion, I'll work on figuring out how to get this done.

2023 became unbelievable from the end of October. Just ride what I have through 2024 or move positions to even more aggressive ones? Not trying to introduce politics into an otherwise apolitical topic, but what's the history of the stock market in election years? I'm afraid this particular election year will portend much differently.

quote:

Originally posted by Keystoner:
2023 became unbelievable from the end of October.

Yeah, a large majority of my 2023 gains occurred in just November and December. I was only at ~5% as of October.

I am not averse to taking some risk. My main account was +126% this year. I'm glad because I have been on sabbatical and haven't worked the last 2 years. I have been taking care of my parents and have been glad to be able to spend time with them.

I try to keep individual stock 8 trades going in a taxable account. I know that's not near enough diversification for most folks but it works for my risk tolerance, and this is NOT my retirement account. I have my retirement wrapped up in rental real estate.
NVDA and RELY ran over 100%
RIOT over 200%
CORZQ I bought at .04 cents and then it ran 1000% and I took some profits in the last 2 trading days.

My best returns were crypto related but I am glad to be out of active crypto coin trading. I spent most of 2019 trying to day trade crypto. It drove me crazy and I found out I am not a good day trader. I need to make my picks and leave them alone for a while.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
My what?

I think it has something to do with pictures of cows.