With all the hoopla about breaking 25K, I took a look at my Defined Contribution retirement account.

Today’s balance, minus my contributions from Nov 2016 to now, I am up 23.8%. Overall, I am up 27.7% over that past 14 months.

Retiring at 60 looks a lot more possible now, thank you President Trump!

Im waiting for the market correction so my dollar gets more and I have more buying power.

quote:

Originally posted by bald1:
I reduced the risk element of my accounts significantly when I retired 11 years ago. So these days the return is commensurately less than when I was younger. Mid-high single digit percentage is all I see now.

Same here. We've been retired for 7 years and I reduced our risk considerably. 3 annuities and 2 IRAs all making mid single digits. This is just fine for us and it allows for a good nights sleep not worrying about our assets disappearing like in 2007-8. We're able to pay cash for everything we need at this point, so no worry's.

Jim

I'm primarily in two Index Funds. Both have earned ~20% last year. It has made me very happy.

I could happen tomorrow. It could happen in a year after it's gone up another 15%.

I'm pricing in a 10% correction, but I don't pretend to know when, or from what level.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Im waiting for the market correction so my dollar gets more and I have more buying power.

quote:

I could happen tomorrow. It could happen in a year after it's gone up another 15%.

Right.
Timing is a fools errand.
Reducing risk is not.
I'm usually 85-90% equities, but I'm reducing that now... to about 60-65% equities, the rest bonds and cash.

Well that escalated quickly...

Having surpassed 25,000 at the open on January 4th (surging from 24k to 25k in a record 23 days), The Dow Jones Industrial Average has opened today above 26,000...





Crossing that 1000-point gap in a record-smashing 7 trading sessions...



And more accurately, this is the most-aggressive rise in The Dow ever... triple the pace of the 24k to 25k advance

I'm fairly conservative in my investments and I'm up a little over 20% since the election. It's up 2.45% just since January 1st.

If we could have 1 more year like this.....I can retire in 5 years

At some point something bad is going to happen, and financial gravity will take over. I'm not sure the economic conditions are really good enough to support this valuation run up.

But it's fun while it's going on.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

Right.
Timing is a fools errand.
Reducing risk is not.
I'm usually 85-90% equities, but I'm reducing that now... to about 60-65% equities, the rest bonds and cash.

Chellim1, your post sparked a thought for me. I understand and have heard and have come to believe in effect "timing is a fools errand." One or two financial managers I talked to included as part of their spiels that most gain backs from bears occur relatively short.

And this is something I've been considering and I want to confirm with you: We can't time the market to be out of the market and back in again reliably to avoid corrections/bear markets so it can't be an on/off thing.

But it does sound like you believe you can throttle back when you think a correction/bear market is imminent and step on the gas if you're going uphill. Am I correct in reading you? And do you differentiate between corrections and bear markets?

What triggers you to throttle down? and what's your throttling down steps? from 80% to 70% to 60% in stocks and so on? or is it just sort of on and off like from 70% stock to 30% stocks?

In the last 12 months, almost 19%. Since Feb 2016 (the lowest for me), up 42%!

My Fidelity managed SEP earned about 21% last year while our other funds earned about 25%.
I am rather aggressive with our investments and realize that there will be a correction (maybe in the second half of this year) but I am comfortable in riding it out and don't plan on withdrawing anything until required to at 70 1/2.

I learned my lesson in 1986 when the market crashed and my Magellan Fund went down about 50% and, like a fool, I sold it...

quote:

And this is something I've been considering and I want to confirm with you: We can't time the market to be out of the market and back in again reliably to avoid corrections/bear markets so it can't be an on/off thing.

But it does sound like you believe you can throttle back when you think a correction/bear market is imminent and step on the gas if you're going uphill. Am I correct in reading you? And do you differentiate between corrections and bear markets?

What triggers you to throttle down? and what's your throttling down steps? from 80% to 70% to 60% in stocks and so on? or is it just sort of on and off like from 70% stock to 30% stocks?

Yes, I do believe you can "throttle back" ... particularly in retirement accounts managed for the longer term, where there are no tax consequences in doing so.

It's simply a risk assessment. How much risk is it prudent to take at this point in time?
My "normal" allocation is something like 85-90% equities, as stated above. But if you look at RSI and P/E and just a "feeling" that it's not different this time you would have to believe that this bull market is getting toward the end of the cycle. That's not to say I'm able to time it. I just think that the risk of being 90% equity is a little too high at this point.

And I will throttle back gradually rather than all at once.

As for how you differentiate between corrections and bear markets? Well, the technical definition of a correction is -10% and a bear market is -20% so.... for the first -10% there is NO difference between the two. From there, it's another risk assessment, and probably smart to put that money on the sidelines back into the market gradually as well.

Just did the math, and was disappointed to see that as of today we are up just 11% since one year ago (end of Jan. '17). Did the math on the S&P and the Dow in the same exact timeframe, and those are 22% and 30%, respectively. My positions are not aggressive, but at around 70% equities, they're not particulary conservative, either.

Just another reason to find a new brokerage house and broker. This was already on my agenda for early this year for a variety of reasons that have been building for the last couple years, but this was the clincher. If I can only make barely into the double digits in this type of screaming market with the position breakdown I have, something isn't right.

quote:

Originally posted by at-home-daddy:
Just did the math, and was disappointed to see that as of today we are up just 11% since one year ago (end of Jan. '17). Did the math on the S&P and the Dow in the same exact timeframe, and those are 22% and 30%, respectively. My positions are not aggressive, but at around 70% equities, they're not particulary conservative, either.

Just another reason to find a new brokerage house and broker. This was already on my agenda for early this year for a variety of reasons that have been building for the last couple years, but this was the clincher. If I can only make barely into the double digits in this type of screaming market with the position breakdown I have, something isn't right.

www.fidelity.com

They are generally conservative but have the experience and research capabilities to take advantage of markets.
Also, their website is very easy to use...
Or you can just invest in a few index funds and skip most of the fees.

A lot of people are probably just better off buying index funds/ETFs that mimic the big indices. But an S&P fund, buy a NASDAQ 100 fund, There are small cap and global index funds also. This way you don't have to worry about what individual stocks do.

quote:

Originally posted by at-home-daddy:
Just did the math, and was disappointed to see that as of today we are up just 11% since one year ago (end of Jan. '17). Did the math on the S&P and the Dow in the same exact timeframe, and those are 22% and 30%, respectively. My positions are not aggressive, but at around 70% equities, they're not particulary conservative, either.

Just another reason to find a new brokerage house and broker. This was already on my agenda for early this year for a variety of reasons that have been building for the last couple years, but this was the clincher. If I can only make barely into the double digits in this type of screaming market with the position breakdown I have, something isn't right.

I just got married in July. I haven't told my retirement calculator that there's two nest eggs in this household. So, that's pleasant.

Have an account with Principal financial. Up 3% since jan 1 2018.
Up 3% previous 14 months in the run up. Same investment allocations, wtf.

It is an employer offered account. Or else it would be somewhere else.

Thoughts?

I'd start asking questions...3% Does it have hefty fees? Is it a "managed" account or one you allocate your money...managed usually takes a percentage or an annual fee?

My 401k is up a little over 17% for the last 12 months; portfolio is mostly conservative.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Have an account with Principal financial. Up 3% since jan 1 2018.
Up 3% previous 14 months in the run up. Same investment allocations, wtf.

It is an employer offered account. Or else it would be somewhere else.

Thoughts?