I am not suggesting or promoting M1 Fi. This guys video was more about a three fund strategy. Not a particular company. Yes, I am not happy with VG for a few reasons. I might look at Schwab or Fidelity.
We might all be licking our wounds no matter who we use or what strategy we try to employ.

It is feeling like our options are to watch our retirement get sucked down the drain.

I know I am doing the doom and gloom deal. But after running the numbers over the last year and looking ahead to this one it is not feeling all that great.

My portfolio is going up slowly but steadily so I don't feel like it's getting sucked down the drain.

I was down around 25% or so but now it's only perhaps 12%.

stock market portfolio up 13%, since when?

You truly are smarter than everyone else, like you think

Mean while down the drain for the rest of us.

Why such hostility every time you post about investing, orc? You create or post in thread after thread about investing, yet inevitably turn to lashing out at other members. Are you just taking out your frustration and fear of the future on the forum members?

My stock portfolio did very similar last year. Down almost 21% at one point (end of September), but ended the year only down 10%.

So yeah, back up around 11% from that September low through the year's end. Part of that was the bump from my year end dividend distributions. Much of it was the partial rally in the market in the fourth quarter.

Therefore, Flash-LB's portfolio going from -25% to -12% isn't surprising. I don't understand your incredulity.

Here's the 2022 US stock market. Note the climb back up from the bottom starting in October:

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
stock market portfolio up 13%, since when?

You truly are smarter than everyone else, like you think

Mean while down the drain for the rest of us.

And you truly are a major asshole. I can't imagine what it must be like to be someone like you, but that's your cross to bear.

My stocks are managed by my financial advisor, not me and the up I mentioned is since it hit bottom in 2020

quote:

My portfolio did very similar last year. Down up to 21% at one point (September), but ended the year only down 10%.

^^^^^^^^^^
I did a little better but very similar. I have been through ups and downs since I bought my first stock. Investing is first about knowledge and secondly about handling your emotions. Fear and greed and a few others.

I have been in this game a long time and still remember Louis Rukeyser, Joe Granville and the like. I watched Wall Street week so often my kids thought Rukeyser was the guy on the dollar bill.

That is a reoccurring message from you. So maybe, just maybe you have the problem. Might try putting me on your ignore list or at least avoid my threads.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
stock market portfolio up 13%, since when?

You truly are smarter than everyone else, like you think

Mean while down the drain for the rest of us.

He is not up 13% he is still down 12% and made back some of his losses.

I dont know your situation but unless you are retiring tomorrow you have to let these things ride out.

You think you are somehow going to outperform the market and investors who do this for a living?

What exactly is your strategy? Pull your investments at a loss and hold cash, but miss out on returns when the market corrects? Try to guess what stocks/funds/bonds will be the winners and losers?

You can look at the stock market performance charts and see it has only gone up. Sure there are some dips along the way but for the most part it only goes up.

I worked with a guy who was big into investing. He would run around and mope to everyone about how much money he lost. But he never told you how much he made all those years.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
My portfolio did very similar last year. Down almost 21% at one point (end of September), but ended the year only down 10%.

Ours didn't recover quite that well, but we did see some recovery. We were down about 20%, compared to about a year ago, and now we're down by a bit less than 15%.

I had a conversation with "our guy" a couple months back. We talked about the possible future directions things might be headed, various social-political influences, etc., and our investment strategy. He's confident we're invested about as conservatively, as "safely" as we can be, while still yielding some opportunity for growth when there are gains to be had. He's got an excellent track record, so I'm disinclined to second-guess him.

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
He is not up 13% he is still down 12% and made back some of his losses.

Reading comprehension is fundamental

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
I don't know your situation but unless you are retiring tomorrow you have to let these things ride out.

Even if he is retired: There's no sense in panicking. What's done is done.

Do I wish, when I saw we were so far up a year ago, I'd called our guy and said "I think it might be wise to take some profit?" Sure I do. But our investments were going up like a rocket. The dip came unexpectedly (for me), and more steeply than I'd expected.

No sense in crying about it. It is what it is. It's dipped before and it's come back before.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gpbst3:

I dont know your situation but unless you are retiring tomorrow you have to let these things ride out.

You think you are somehow going to outperform the market and investors who do this for a living?

What exactly is your strategy? Pull your investments at a loss and hold cash, but miss out on returns when the market corrects? Try to guess what stocks/funds/bonds will be the winners and losers?

You can look at the stock market performance charts and see it has only gone up. Sure there are some dips along the way but for the most part it only goes up. "Quote"

I cannot argue with you and Rogue. I have been with Vanguard for a long time. Certainly not huge money by any stretch of the imagination. Was hoping to have a decent retirement with some SS. Doing the best we could trying to retain most of it by balancing the stock to bond mix a few years ago. And then having the market tank like it is and probably will continue too is really disappointing. VG wokeism does not help either.

ensigmatic, that is about the same here.


I won't start any more of these threads for a while. Thanks for the advice guys.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Why such hostility every time you post about investing, orc?

It's just his usual attention seeking behavior of being a contrarian. He's seeking validation by getting responses to his petty posts.

Thinking this thread is about wrapped up. Thought I would add a couple of things.
I know very little about investing. If it wasn’t for the 401-K, I wouldn’t have been able to retire. I also lived through a couple of local investment planners that made more money on my investments than I did!
I went with Fisher. The reasons?
1- I knew exactly what they would charge me.
2- they have a team of experts to help me with whatever issue I have. When to draw S.S., what to do with my $100,000 annuity that my previous planner pushed me into. When can I afford to retire.
3- one of their goals was to educate me as much as possibly to help me make better decisions. They have hundreds of short Y.T videos discussing individual subjects (I honestly didn’t know the difference between growth and value stocks).
For me, having a fiduciary is a must.

quote:

Originally posted by TBH:
Thinking this thread is about wrapped up. Thought I would add a couple of things.
I know very little about investing. If it wasn’t for the 401-K, I wouldn’t have been able to retire. I also lived through a couple of local investment planners that made more money on my investments than I did!
I went with Fisher. The reasons?
1- I knew exactly what they would charge me.
2- they have a team of experts to help me with whatever issue I have. When to draw S.S., what to do with my $100,000 annuity that my previous planner pushed me into. When can I afford to retire.
3- one of their goals was to educate me as much as possibly to help me make better decisions. They have hundreds of short Y.T videos discussing individual subjects (I honestly didn’t know the difference between growth and value stocks).
For me, having a fiduciary is a must.

I'm not arguing with you, just sharing war stories. I was with Fisher too from 2017 to Mar 2022. Like you I was impressed with the educational material. I also decided to go with them because they said they predicted 4 of the last 5 bear markets (this was in 2017) and they missed 2008. I went with them because I figure for sure they'll be on the ball and not miss the next time. I gave them a pass in 2020 because who knew about Covid except for the politicians. And, besides, the portfolio rebounded in 2 months.

But in fall of 2021 with inflation, even a blind guy would have seen interest rates going up which means bonds would go down. Also, market volatility was up. I thought it was a no brainer for them to cut down on my bond exposure but they didn't.

I also remembered one of their missives showed that the pattern of 2022 was relatively flat for the first 3 quarters but volatile and then going up near end of Q3. And, yet, they didn't do jack with their portfolio. I figure why stay in stocks for the volatility with no upside? That's why I quit them. They also made it difficult for me to change my bond / stock mix.

I figured Fisher is just like a mutual fund with high fees. I've gone back to just managing it myself by bucketing my money in time horizon buckets and etfs.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by gpbst3:
I don't know your situation but unless you are retiring tomorrow you have to let these things ride out.

Even if he is retired: There's no sense in panicking. What's done is done.

Do I wish, when I saw we were so far up a year ago, I'd called our guy and said "I think it might be wise to take some profit?" Sure I do. But our investments were going up like a rocket. The dip came unexpectedly (for me), and more steeply than I'd expected.

No sense in crying about it. It is what it is. It's dipped before and it's come back before.

The first big market decline in an investor's awareness is the toughest. The first big dip in a retiree's portfolio is panic inducing.

A retiree will typically experience at least 3 bear markets while retired. It is a lot harder to stomach seeing the losses when there is no paycheck coming in, but realizing that this is a "circle of life" kind of inevitable part of the economy should blunt the distress.

I try to keep in mind that I need to position both to reduce losses and make gains. My net worth will vary both up and down during retirement. Being either too defensive or too aggressive will work against me.

"When it comes to investing, having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control."

"You need patience, discipline, and an ability to take losses and adversity without going crazy."

"Some people do not have a good temperament for investing. If you're not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50 percent two or three times a century, you're not fit to be a investor."

-Charlie Munger (One of the most successful investors in the world, and partner/right-hand-man in Berkshire Hathaway to Warren Buffet, the most successful investor in the world)

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

The first big dip in a retiree's portfolio is panic inducing.

A retiree will typically experience at least 3 bear markets while retired. It is a lot harder to stomach seeing the losses when there is no paycheck coming in, but realizing that this is a "circle of life" kind of inevitable part of the economy should blunt the distress.

I try to keep in mind that I need to position both to reduce losses and make gains. My net worth will vary both up and down during retirement. Being either too defensive or too aggressive will work against me.

Good info and sage advice. Thank you for it.

Fear and Greed the emotions that rule Wall Street.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
"When it comes to investing, having a certain kind of temperament is more important than brains. You need to keep raw irrational emotion under control."

"If you're not willing to react with equanimity to a market price decline of 50 percent two or three times a century, you're not fit to be a investor."

-Charlie Munger (One of the most successful investors of all time, and partner to Warren Buffet in Berkshire Hathaway)

True, but... for most people these days their retirement will be self-managed savings rather than a pension. Which means most people will have some awareness of how their portfolio is doing and what the markets are doing even if they hire someone to manage the investment details.

^^^^^^^^^
There however are a substantial number of us who have investment portfolios outside of a pension plan.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
True, but... for most people these days their retirement will be self-managed savings rather than a pension. Which means most people will have some awareness of how their portfolio is doing and what the markets are doing even if they hire someone to manage the investment details.

He's not saying to ignore your portfolio or the market performance.

He's saying that you have to have the temperament to not panic during bear markets/recessions, and the patience and discipline to ride it out without making stress-induced bad decisions.


If you are honest with yourself and recognize that you don't have the necessary temperament for that, then you don't need to be self-managing your portfolio. Entrust it to someone else with the right temperament, like a fiduciary financial advisor, as discussed earlier in the thread.