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I must be blind then I dont see dividend listed anywhere on that page or anything about march 29th. For a normal stock like Verizon http://www.google.com/finance?q=vz Its right at the top What am I missing?
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May 4, 2010 00:53
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Google is annoying and for some reason doesn't list mutual fund dividends on the actual page. However, if you search the web for MUTF:VFINX it will display the yield in the information box.
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May 4, 2010 01:26
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So I lost my job some time ago and had a 401(k) set up with them. They said while I look for a job I can just keep the money in the account, which I have been. I just started a new job and am going to set up a 401(k) with them. Now I was talking about planning on rolling over my previous 401(k), but was suggest to instead take my previous one and roll it over into a vanguard account. I was looking into the vanguard and it says it is run at cost. My questions are: Would it be smarter to roll over my previous 401(k) to my new 401(k) or should I roll it over into a vanguard account? If I roll it into a vanguard account do they just take payment from the account? Also any other information you can tell me and or point me to. Thanks
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May 4, 2010 05:09
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I am trying to have all of my expenses centralized through Mint, but unfortunately my 401k can't be linked because my company has a personal 401k site that doesn't integrate well or whatever. Also, I need to start a Roth IRA plan soon, so is it possible to find an established site that offers both roth ira and 401k plans that I can integrate with mint, AND have my company 401k roll into it while I am still employed? Or is a rollover only going to work if I no longer work there? Will the company still match if I am contributing to a different 401k than they offer?
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May 4, 2010 11:48
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Vanguard ETFs are now free to trade with a Vanguard brokerage account. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/commissions-05042010
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May 4, 2010 15:45
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abagofcheetos posted:Vanguard ETFs are now free to trade with a Vanguard brokerage account. Those $7 and $2 trades are a flat rate whether you place the order online or over the phone with a broker. No more $40 premium ot place an order with a broker on the phone!
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May 4, 2010 15:57
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Spread my money from my Vanguard IRA from the target retirement 2050 equally among Small Cap Value Index, Vanguard Value Index, and Vanguard International Value probably add in a couple more funds in 2010 and 2011 contribution years.
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May 4, 2010 20:03
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Just received "Four Pillars of Investing" in the mail today, looking forward to diving into it ASAP.
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May 5, 2010 19:55
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I recently got £2000 inheritance in the form of UK government premium bonds. Now the rate of return on those loving sucks so i want to get that into something else asap. As i'm 22 i'm willing to accept a little more risk for a better return then most saving accounts and isa's seem to provide and was thinking of putting it into a market tracker fund or something else. Any advice?
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May 6, 2010 12:10
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I've realized I need to start working towards my long term financial goal of buying an apartment in the future (probably 5 years from now at least). I have no debt and I'm pretty good at budgeting myself. My employer matches my 401k contributions up to 6%. I pretty much just want to take advantage of this matching to save for my apartment down payment faster. My plan is to contribute to my 401k post-tax (this is not a Roth 401k but a regular 401k that allows post-tax contributions). My employer will match all my post-tax contributions with pre-tax contributions in the same amount. When the time to purchase a home comes and I need funds: -I'll be able to withdraw the post-tax contributions tax-free at any time without penalty, though the earnings on these post-tax contributions will be taxed as ordinary income. -I'll be able to withdraw my pre-tax contributions at some point in the future for a home down payment under the hardship withdrawal rule, and these contributions and their earnings will be subject to ordinary income taxes and an additional 10% penalty. Altogether this amounts to any pre-tax amounts withdrawn will automatically be taxed about 33%. So basically my plan is to just contribute post-tax and take the penalty on the pre-tax employer match contributions. I'll end up only getting 67% of what my employer matches after taxes/penalties but it's free money that I could use towards the down payments. Are there any flaws in my thinking? Anything I'm missing? Better alternatives?
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May 7, 2010 00:21
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It's costly and short-sighted. The primary flaw is that you'd be giving up tax-advantaged retirement savings to buy part of an apartment. The better alternative is use your sharp budgeting skills to contribute additional money to a regular savings account (or CDs, monkey market, GOOG, whatever suits you). In 5 or 10 years, buy an apartment you can afford without tapping into your retirement accounts.
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May 7, 2010 00:54
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Yeah, don't use your 401k to fund a real estate purchase. That's the equivalent of taking a 401k loan. I would only use retirement money to fund something if it was literally the difference between life and death and for yourself or your spouse at that. I'm holding onto a bunch of stock right now because I'd get triple-taxed by AMT, CA state income tax, and because it's a short-term capital gain. So, for similar reasons, I'd suggest you just save up with regular ol' liquid like everyone else besides the get-rich-fast folks.
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May 7, 2010 23:32
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As far as Vanguard funds go, would it be better to invest in VFSTX than VBISX? (Short Term Index vs Short Term Investment Grade)
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May 8, 2010 12:17
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©
bad times fucked around with this message at 17:12 on May 11, 2010 |
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May 9, 2010 01:26
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Is there any reason not to use Vanguard's index funds for all of my taxable account investments? I was thinking of getting a mix of VGTSX, VTSMX, VBMFX and VGSIX.
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May 10, 2010 09:11
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DreadCthulhu posted:Is there any reason not to use Vanguard's index funds for all of my taxable account investments? I was thinking of getting a mix of VGTSX, VTSMX, VBMFX and VGSIX. I use all VG funds in taxable as well as tax-advantaged and it's fine, but while VGTSX and VTSMX are pretty tax efficient, VBMFX and VGSIX are most definitely not, so you might want to look into shuffling things around to make room in your tax-advantaged or look for more tax efficient versions. I don't have any suggestions for REIT alternatives, but for bonds, you might look at the tax-exempt funds or muni funds if they're available to you, though these depends on your tax bracket, really. Quick link that contains links to more stuff: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Principles_of_Tax-Efficient_Fund_Placement
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May 10, 2010 12:17
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I mentioned awhile back, I think, that I thought my father was overmanaging my accounts so I mentioned it to him and I think I might have hurt his feelings because he hasn't touched it since, despite the fact I've added money to it, and I just noticed. So I've ordered the 4 Pillars of Investing but would love it if someone with more experience could take a look at what I'm starting with. I can't really tell if some of these were things he had planned to buy & sell in a short amount of time or whether he left me with what he thought were good long term stocks that he didn't need to play around with. I feel like it's a sensitive subject and either way, I'd love to hear other people's opinions of the breakdown or any advice going forward. I use Schwab and not Vanguard for whatever it's worth and I'm 29, unmarried, no kids and unemployed. Non-Retirement Account: EEM - Emerging Markets - 200 shares IWM - Russell 2000 Index Fund - 100 shares ILF - S&P Latin America - 100 Shares BIK - S&P BRIC 40 ETF - 200 Shares VTI - Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF - 100 shares EPI - Wisdomtree India Earnings Fund - 100 Shares Then there's $5,000 in cash and money market IRA: EWZ - MSCI Brazil Index Fund - 80 Shares Then there's $5,430 sitting in cash and money market Roth IRA: EEM - Emerging Markets - 60 shares EPI - Wisdomtree India Earnings Fund - 100 shares $500 Cash & Money Market Company 401K American Growths Fund - 30% Schwab S&P - 9% Artisan Mid Cap - 16% Ridgework International Equity Index - 14% PIMCO Total Return - 12% Oakmark Equity - 19% The retirement accounts will all be combined into one this year. I used to have a job that disqualified me from a Roth IRA but lost it and now am just on unemployment so this seems like a good time to make the switch for my accounts. It's okay if no one can really judge my stocks but thought I'd give a breakdown just in case. Is it normal to keep a lot in cash in your retirement accounts? I'm a little puzzled by the $5000 here and there that are currently not being invested.
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May 11, 2010 07:15
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My Roth IRA is through Vanguard on their platform and my employer's Roth 401(k) is on a different platform. Is there any site or program (kind of like Mint.com) that can aggregate my total retirement account portfolio automatically? I'm really looking for an easy and quick way to monitor my asset allocation so I can rebalance every three months.
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May 11, 2010 14:21
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I'm curious about choosing an ETF, and since I'm looking at a long-term holding, hopefully this thread is more appropriate than the stock picking one. Basically, I'm looking for advice on an energy sector and commodity equity ETF (or a good no-load fund without a large minimum). The problem is, most of what I've run into seems heavily weighted towards US stocks or particular sectors. Looking around, all I've found that's internationally diversified and not too tied up in one sector are IXC (and even that's mostly limited to oil & gas) and MXI. The expense ratios for both seem reasonable at 0.48%. Does anyone here have any alternatives to those options, or something I should know and missed about them?
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May 12, 2010 15:42
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I presently have a Roth IRA account with Charles Schwab, more or less completely invested in Vanguard ETFs. Would it make any particular sense to open an account specifically with Vanguard instead? Or can I invest in everything they offer already? Also, in looking at their sign-up forms, it seems I can transfer an IRA over to be with them without it being a rollover / without requiring particular circumstances? Is there any downside to that that I'm missing? EDIT: VV Ooooh, nice. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 00:22 on May 16, 2010 |
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May 16, 2010 00:14
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Vanguard ETFs have recently been made commission free at Vanguard, so I would say yes it would make sense.
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May 16, 2010 00:20
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devilmouse posted:I use all VG funds in taxable as well as tax-advantaged and it's fine, but while VGTSX and VTSMX are pretty tax efficient, VBMFX and VGSIX are most definitely not, so you might want to look into shuffling things around to make room in your tax-advantaged or look for more tax efficient versions. I don't have any suggestions for REIT alternatives, but for bonds, you might look at the tax-exempt funds or muni funds if they're available to you, though these depends on your tax bracket, really. So just to see if we're on the same page here, is something like VWITX what I'm looking for in terms of a more tax efficient bond investment?
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May 18, 2010 06:17
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If I open a Roth IRA account, can I deposit the $5000 in one shot or is there a monthly limit like my 401k? My plan is take my income tax refund which is exactly 5k every year and drop it in there.
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May 18, 2010 11:49
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DreadCthulhu posted:So just to see if we're on the same page here, is something like VWITX what I'm looking for in terms of a more tax efficient bond investment? For a bond in your taxable portfolio, yeah, pick whichever of the short/limited/intermediate/long term bond funds match what you're looking for in terms of their average maturation. Since I'm in a higher tax-bracket, I have a mix of tax-exempt limited (2-6 year) and the MA muni (10-25 year) bonds in my taxable to make up the difference in what I can't fit in my tax-advantaged accounts. You should check out http://screen.morningstar.com/BondCalc/BondCalculator_TaxEquivalent.html to make sure that whatever bond your choose is actually going to come out on top in terms of returns. If you're in a lower tax bracket, it might not make sense to go for tax-exempt funds.
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May 18, 2010 11:51
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FateFree posted:If I open a Roth IRA account, can I deposit the $5000 in one shot or is there a monthly limit like my 401k? You can drop it all in one shot
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May 18, 2010 15:17
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I'm thinking about opening a Roth IRA at Vanguard with $5000. I'm debating between mutual funds or ETFs. I'm leaning towards ETFs right now because they're commission-free (as long as I just trade Vanguard ETFs) and mutual funds all have minimum investments so I'd be stuck putting all my cash into one fund, and I'd prefer to do my own allocation between US, EAFE, Emerging, etc. The main thing I'm worried about is that there's some other fees or something that I'm not thinking of. What are the disadvantages of owning ETFs rather than mutual funds in my Roth IRA? If I later decide I want to switch to owning mutual funds, will it be difficult?
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May 19, 2010 02:14
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ETFs will actually be cheaper, expense ratio wise, until you are eligible for Admiral shares for the mutual funds. Switching between the two will be cake, you will be able to do everything nice and simple on their website. I opened a brokerage account there when they announced the new fees (in addition to my previous mutual fund account) and the experience has been pretty painless.
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May 19, 2010 02:32
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I got a document in the mail earlier this month from my mother's employer saying that when she died she had a retirement savings account and I was listed as the beneficiary. This was something as a surprise, since she died in 2001, but whatever, money is good. They also mentioned that I could roll the 20% taxable portion of the amount into an IRA. I don't yet have an IRA, so I guess I'm asking two questions: 1) Is this a good idea, and 2) Is there a good, simple IRA I can set up quickly for this purpose, that I'll eventually start adding more funds into.
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May 19, 2010 20:14
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I realize this isn't strictly retirement savings but it sort of falls into this category. If this is outside the scope of the thread, I apologize. Basically, I'm currently sitting on a bunch of cash in an ING direct account (I'd prefer not to say how much because other people I know read this forum, but rest assured it's well over multiple years of maxed Roth IRA contributions). I've maxed my Roth already for 2009 and plan to do so for 2010 very soon, but other than that, I don't really know what I should do with the rest of it, and I feel like it's just rotting away in my ING account doing nothing. Additional information which may be relevant: - Married, no kids. Wife and I likely do not want children for at least 4-5 years. I'm 26, she's 23. - Currently renting, have no plans to purchase a home in the next 5 years unless we move to an area with a much lower cost of living (currently Chicago). I am highly opposed to purchasing a condo due to the headaches that come with HOAs. - Wife may want to go back to school for her masters degree in the next couple of years, most likely at a state school to keep costs down. - My employer does not offer any 401k matching, and the 401k has insanely high fees (we're talking 2%+ expense ratios on simple index funds!). If you remember in Cornholio's thread when he posted his retirement options, I have the same provider (Principal Financial Group). I currently do not contribute and don't plan to unless my employer changed providers and offered better funds. Basically, for everything but the retirement money (which is all in VFIFX right now), assume that I may need it in 5 years. I'm looking at bond funds as a vehicle for investment for much of this cash (VBMFX in particular). Is this a good approach, or are my assumptions flawed?
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May 19, 2010 23:22
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Scipio posted:They also mentioned that I could roll the 20% taxable portion of the amount into an IRA. I don't yet have an IRA, so I guess I'm asking two questions: 1) Is this a good idea, and 2) Is there a good, simple IRA I can set up quickly for this purpose, that I'll eventually start adding more funds into. 1. Yes. 2. Many companies offer IRAs. As an example, you can set one up with Vanguard online. Their expenses are also very low. If you just want an easy option for parking the money, pick a target retirement fund close to the date that you want to retire.
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May 19, 2010 23:45
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As some of you may have seen in my other thread, my uncle (who lived far away and nobody was close with, so no condolences are needed) killed himself on monday because he supposedly lost everything in the stock market. Turns out he was big on https://www.investorvillage.com and snail-mailed a suicide letter to somebody there he was close with. Part I Part II Can somebody explain to me in layman's terms what happened? It sounds like there were some controversial rulings and court orders and somehow the shareholders got screwed, but none of it makes much sense to me.
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May 21, 2010 16:03
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I think I get the gist of it. Your uncle was a shareholder in Rambus and then Rambus got involved in some corporate litigation, which I assume caused the stock to plunge (huge corporate lawsuits take many years to resolve and if the chance of a company-ruining judgment was out there, that tends to have a big negative impact on a stock). Most reasonable investors would swallow their losses by selling their stock at whatever they could get from it and move on. It would appear that instead, your uncle obsessed over the progress of the case, held his stock, and at some point even started buying options (that is, paying cash money for the opportunity to sell his stock at a given price, regardless of the market price, on a given day; this is leverage, because it allows you to 'double-down' on a particular bet). This was of course incredibly stupid, because it is a very bad idea to bet on the outcome of corporate litigation, and your uncle was already (I assume) looking at huge on-paper losses. It looks like he feels the outcome of the case was unfair (presumably he wanted Rambus to 'win', which would allow the stock to recover). Years ago, when I first started learning about investing in stocks, I was given some very excellent advice that I really took to heart (I don't remember by whom); Don't fall in love with your investments. It was very timely because at the time I was buying stock in companies whose products I really liked (AMD, Meade (telescopes), Marvel (comics), etc.). Falling in love with a security means you make emotional decisions about that investment instead of cold, clear-eyed assessments. It's fine to root for your favorite team, but we are very irrational about who we root for, often gravitating towards underdogs, and becoming loyal to a team that perennially loses... that kind of thing. I'm making a lot of assumptions and between-the-line reading from your uncle's letters, but what does seem to be clear to me is that he fell in love with Rambus and couldn't detach himself from it. If he'd given up when the litigation first started (ten years ago?) he'd have had a decade to rebuild his portfolio and recover from the losses. Instead he seems to have put more and more money into a terrible gamble because he was sure that any day now, 'justice would prevail' and his beloved company would recover, making all his thousands of lost dollars re-appear. His behavior was probably facilitated by a like-minded echo-chamber of obsessives in some tiny forum online somewhere (investorvillage Rambus subform), which is a shame, but I suspect rather increasingly common.
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May 21, 2010 19:02
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My wife and I have gotten a late start on the investing and retirement train and we have been wracking our brains reading all this info on what, where and how we should be investing for the future. We are ready to get serious now. Quick breakdown: Myself: 31yrs old 403(b) 4250 contributed, 4970 vested Wife: 28 401(k) around 7k last time I checked. (she is going to find out what the max employer match is) We have about 3k in savings and are working on paying some debts down and recently paid one off. We want to immediately take the money from that and start up roths or some other type of investment, but after reading all this stuff I am having second thoughts and confused at what to do. I am not sure if I should contribute more to the 403b or wipe my savings and start a vanguard roth and start dumping money into that and keep my 403 contributions the same, or are there other good companies to purchase a roth without a large initial investment. We should be comfortable contributing 100-200 a month to each roth after maxing out my wife's 401. Guess I am just looking for a little guidance to avoid a bad decision I would regret later. We are hoping to retire at 55, living on my pension (if we am lucky enough to stay working at my current job for the next 24 years) and savings until 591/2 when we can start pulling from the 401/403 and roths. Our contributions will continue to increase as debt goes down. Of course a lot can happen in 24 years, but this is what we are shooting for. Any advice would be awesome.
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May 21, 2010 21:03
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You probably need to maintain at least $3000 in cash savings against car breakdown, job loss, etc. I keep 6 months' expenses in cash, just to give you an idea. The 401k vs Roth vs debt payoff balance depends on your employer match if any, and the interest rates on your debt. Give more details if you want more advice. It sounds like those are the three places you should be putting your money, though.
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May 21, 2010 21:36
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slap me silly posted:You probably need to maintain at least $3000 in cash savings against car breakdown, job loss, etc. I keep 6 months' expenses in cash, just to give you an idea. The 401k vs Roth vs debt payoff balance depends on your employer match if any, and the interest rates on your debt. Give more details if you want more advice. It sounds like those are the three places you should be putting your money, though. Debt consists of two car payments both at 7% interest and a mortgage at 6% which we have been doubling up on because, well, gently caress mortgages: Car 1 balance: 17900, 395/mo Car 2 balance: 15400, 360/mo Mortgage balance: 124,500, 1170/mo (includes insurance and prop taxes) I was leaning toward leaving the 3k in savings and adding to it, but wasn't sure if it would be better in a roth or something. My wife just told me the employer match is 3% on her 401k (she already contributes 5%), my 403(b) has no match and I currently contribute 150/bi-weekly, but I am vested in a pension. Choicecut fucked around with this message at 23:09 on May 21, 2010 |
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May 21, 2010 23:04
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Ugh, you bought two cars you couldn't afford. Never mind "gently caress mortgages", think "gently caress car loans." At the minimum payment, those are going to weigh you down for 4 more years, the cars steadily losing value the whole time. I would think about maxing out the employer match on the 401k and whatever is needed to get the best from the 403b, then putting everything else toward the car loans - that's really not too extreme to consider. Also, you probably need more cash savings since you have $1900 of fixed monthly expenses before groceries, gas, car repairs, etc. Dual incomes helps you here but I don't think you can manage all your expenses on one income right now, can you?
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May 21, 2010 23:27
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slap me silly posted:Ugh, you bought two cars you couldn't afford. Never mind "gently caress mortgages", think "gently caress car loans." At the minimum payment, those are going to weigh you down for 4 more years, the cars steadily losing value the whole time. I would think about maxing out the employer match on the 401k and whatever is needed to get the best from the 403b, then putting everything else toward the car loans - that's really not too extreme to consider. Also, you probably need more cash savings since you have $1900 of fixed monthly expenses before groceries, gas, car repairs, etc. Dual incomes helps you here but I don't think you can manage all your expenses on one income right now, can you? We could on mine, but it would be tight on my wife's meaning cut cable/trim phone bill etc. Sound's like my best bet right now would be to keep my investments the same, pound out the car loans and throw some more at savings for awhile. We really just started taking saving seriously in the past 5 months, been blowing cash for a long time and not knowing where the gently caress it was going. Choicecut fucked around with this message at 23:52 on May 21, 2010 |
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May 21, 2010 23:50
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Choicecut posted:Debt consists of two car payments both at 7% interest and a mortgage at 6% which we have been doubling up on because, well, gently caress mortgages: Should be paying the cars off long before the mortgage for 2 reasons: 1) The car loans have a higher interest rate 2) You can deduct mortgage insurance from your taxes if you have a big enough deduction to override the standard deduction on taxes... which with your payment is very likely to be the case. What this means is that the interest rate on your mortgage is effectively even lower than 6% when you take into account what you deduct from taxes. For example, if you're in the 25% tax bracket and lets say just for shits and giggles that you don't have state income tax (because that could count as yet another deduction), then your 6% mortgage is more like 4.5% = [0.06 * (1-0.75)] Edit: Since your matching is so low, it might be worth it (depending on your tax situation) to reduce your 401(k) contributions in order to "pound out" those car loans that much faster. Its up to you, but getting 7% guaranteed return on "investing" in those car loans will be pretty difficult to reproduce (without substantial risk) by investing it in your 401k. flowinprose fucked around with this message at 03:41 on May 22, 2010 |
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May 22, 2010 03:33
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Help me understand this weird situation with withdrawing one's IRA or 401k. I know that the penalty is 10%, and you have to add taxes on top of that, but what happens if you withdraw in a year where your income is 0? For example say you move abroad, but you still have a 401k or an IRA, and you need to withdraw them. Do you only end up paying 10% when you pull the funds out?
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May 24, 2010 08:08
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I'm still pretty young and I have about 70% of my investment allocations as stock/high risk in my 401k. I usually don't look at it at all but recently my friends have all been talking about the stock market and how it isn't doing well. So I took a closer look and see that I am losing money this quarter. I look further back and see that I lost about 8k in 2008, so in addition to not making any money, I am losing money from my pile. It just makes me want to switch the allocations around to something else instead of having so much in stocks. The thing is, with that much in stocks, when the market is doing well, the account can really rake in money. So is it just newbie jitters and paranoia or should I stop looking at the account and just let it ride till I am older? My current 401k balance is about 75% of annual salary.
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May 25, 2010 05:02
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