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OnceIWasAnOstrich posted:I realized recently that I need to do something with the cash I have sitting in savings accounts (aside from my 403(b)). I read through most of the thread and got a pretty good idea of what to do and started to open a Vanguard account, and then I remembered I still have ~$15k in 5-6.5%apr student loans. Is it in my best interest to pay those off before I start investing any extra money in retirement accounts? Yes, pay off the loans.
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# ? Dec 1, 2011 03:22 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:08 |
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spinflip posted:Yes, pay off the loans. I don't think it's as easy as that. Lets say he/she hasn't contributed to their Roth this year. Now the money in the Roth could earn you a similar, if not better rate than what is still outstanding on the student loans. There is also a chance he/she could use the interest on the student loans as a deduction. Under those circumstances, losing a year of contributions to your Roth (which is a use it or lose it deal) could be a worse move long term. Especially considering the long term tax savings from a Roth when he/she retires. So if they have $15000 to spend, it might be better to put $5000 into a Roth IRA for this year and then use the rest toward paying down the higher interest student loans first (the 6.5% ones).
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# ? Dec 1, 2011 05:02 |
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OnceIWasAnOstrich posted:I realized recently that I need to do something with the cash I have sitting in savings accounts (aside from my 403(b)). I read through most of the thread and got a pretty good idea of what to do and started to open a Vanguard account, and then I remembered I still have ~$15k in 5-6.5%apr student loans. Is it in my best interest to pay those off before I start investing any extra money in retirement accounts? 5 years ago the advice would be; if your rate of return in the investment account is greater than the interest rate on your loans, you should invest instead. Nowadays I don't think anyone would suggest that given how temperamental and prone and large swings the market has been over the last few years. edit: well, I guess some people would suggest doing that
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# ? Dec 1, 2011 15:25 |
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In the last month I became employed full-time and am now eligible for the company SIMPLE IRA plan with Lord Abbett. I'm 24. I have some questions. I think I'm going to set up a Roth IRA with Vanguard because I already have some money with them(not sure what since I haven't been interested in it without a decent job.) But I figure I should at least meet my employers match of up to 3% with this SIMPLE IRA. But should I invest more here? I did the math and I could afford 7% of my salary bringing me up to 10% with my employer match. That should be my goal, right? The second thing is that I need help picking some funds. It doesn't seem like a lot of money to save, so I don't know if I should still pick multiple funds to invest in, or if I should just pick one. If you want to look at my options: http://www.lordabbett.com/us/la2/funds I see a few that look OK, but I'm interested in what you guys would pick. Also what's up with the tax-free income funds listed at the end, because their returns and expense ratios seem way better than the rest of my options. Is there a catch? Am I missing something? Happysafer fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 2, 2011 |
# ? Dec 1, 2011 17:09 |
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Happysafer posted:In the last month I became employed full-time and am now eligible for the company SIMPLE IRA plan with Lord Abbett. I'm 24. I have some questions. I would go in this order. 1) Simple IRA until you've maxed out the company contribution (which is at 3%) 2) Max out Roth with Vanguard 3) Add additional to Simple IRA You definitely want to get the most out of your employer first. After that though, I think the Roth is more valuable considering your age. Especially considering the options don't seem great with Lord Abbett from a cost standpoint. Hopefully someone else will be able to help with the funds. I'm not familiar with them at all.
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# ? Dec 1, 2011 21:01 |
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Thanks for the reply, Niwrad. I'm definitely only going to contribute 3% of my salary to get the match from my employer. I'll put the rest in vanguard. Speaking of which, I set up my vanguard online account, which was extremely easy. Looks like my relatives gave me a few thousand dollars that I have sitting in VFINX. I could actually use them to max a Roth IRA for this year, but that wouldn't leave me with much, and I'm doubtful I'll be able to max one again anytime in the near future. I don't make that much money. Should I try to put about 4% of my salary into my Vanguard Roth IRA as monthly payments, and then see how close I can go to maxing it at the end of the year? Is that the right strategy? Edit: I'm thinking maybe I want to go with some sort of fixed income fund from my work IRA and then go 50/50 in vanguard with domestic and international stocks. Does that seem sound? Happysafer fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Dec 2, 2011 |
# ? Dec 2, 2011 05:06 |
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In regards to how much you put in, that's entirely up to what you can afford. You don't want to put yourself in a bad financial situation over it, but should try and contribute as much as you can. If you can work out a monthly percent that works for you, I say that's a good strategy. The more you put in at a young age the more it'll pay off down the road. One nice thing about a Roth is that you can pull your contributions out at any time without a penalty (and since you already paid taxes on that income, you don't have to pay tax on it either). It's not ideal to pull the money out, but it is there in the event of an emergency.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 05:34 |
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I have some money spread around in various old 401k accounts that I never rolled over. I would like to try and consolidate this money into one place, but I am not sure what my options are. Any advice?
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 15:15 |
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archangelwar posted:I have some money spread around in various old 401k accounts that I never rolled over. I would like to try and consolidate this money into one place, but I am not sure what my options are. Any advice? The amount you are able to transfer depends on the company you worked for. All companies will have different rules to become fully vested. If you are 100% vested with an older 401k you will be able to transfer the full amount. You'll have to contact all financial institutions involved for specific information on completing the transfer.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 15:43 |
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Dr. Mix posted:The amount you are able to transfer depends on the company you worked for. All companies will have different rules to become fully vested. If you are 100% vested with an older 401k you will be able to transfer the full amount. All of the accounts are fully vested. I guess my question is what is the best vehicle for consolidation, since they have passed the "can be rolled over to new 401k before X date." Can I, and should I move them to a new consolidated IRA, or is there a better vehicle for doing this?
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 16:02 |
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archangelwar posted:All of the accounts are fully vested. I guess my question is what is the best vehicle for consolidation, since they have passed the "can be rolled over to new 401k before X date." Can I, and should I move them to a new consolidated IRA, or is there a better vehicle for doing this?
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 16:30 |
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gvibes posted:Roll them over into a rollover IRA with Vanguard. Vanguard does seem to be a pretty big consensus choice. I will look into that.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 16:35 |
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I'm 23 and just became eligible for my company's 401k offerings and they will contribute 3% even if I contribute nothing. Currently have no retirement accounts. The lowest investment expense grosses available are 0.90 in S&P 500, 400 and 600. Should I just take it and split it across those three and then set up a Roth account on my own that would be much more balanced?
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 17:17 |
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icehewk posted:I'm 23 and just became eligible for my company's 401k offerings and they will contribute 3% even if I contribute nothing. Currently have no retirement accounts. The lowest investment expense grosses available are 0.90 in S&P 500, 400 and 600. Should I just take it and split it across those three and then set up a Roth account on my own that would be much more balanced? So there isn't any matching it is just they throw in 3% of your salary period? Then I would just throw the whole amount in the S&P 500 account and use the Roth to balance it out with international and bonds. If you max the Roth then start contributing to the 401k.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 17:49 |
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icehewk posted:I'm 23 and just became eligible for my company's 401k offerings and they will contribute 3% even if I contribute nothing. Currently have no retirement accounts. The lowest investment expense grosses available are 0.90 in S&P 500, 400 and 600. Should I just take it and split it across those three and then set up a Roth account on my own that would be much more balanced? Do you work for a large corporation? If you work for a smaller one, I'd try and ask HR why they chose that 401k provider as .9% for an S&P 500 fund is HIGHWAY ROBERY! Obviously, if it's not a small company, you're likely better off banging your head against a wall, but if you think you'll be there more than a few years, you might try getting the ball rolling. Do not put $0.01 in before you know you can get your $5k into your ROTH. If you make enough, it is still worth it to do your 401k before taxible investments (see my post above) but good god that kills my soul a little inside.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 19:56 |
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KennyG posted:Do you work for a large corporation? If you work for a smaller one, I'd try and ask HR why they chose that 401k provider as .9% for an S&P 500 fund is HIGHWAY ROBERY! Obviously, if it's not a small company, you're likely better off banging your head against a wall, but if you think you'll be there more than a few years, you might try getting the ball rolling. They choose those providers because it's much cheaper for the company, the provider makes their money off the employees instead of the employer.
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# ? Dec 2, 2011 22:40 |
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I work for a fairly small one, but its my first professional job and I'm really just trying to build up experience and savings since the work isn't that tough. Lack of meaningful learning opportunities and disorganization between all departments are killers so it won't be long. I'm close to getting ~4k emergency fund saved up so as soon I stop contributing that I'm going to start paying down my student loans hardcore. No other debts. While I'm paying aggressively paying (~40% of monthly income) off student loans (~2 years) I'd like to contribute about $2500 a year to a ROTH account. Does my employer have to offer it (don't believe they do) or do I only need to give them some forms? Are there any articles/userposts I could search for about investment expense gross/ratios that explain what a good percentage is and why 0.9% is robbery? icehewk fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 3, 2011 |
# ? Dec 3, 2011 02:39 |
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Man, these Lord Abbett funds are terrible. I just realized that the fund I had settled on Developing Growth Fund is closed to new investors... I guess the Affiliated Fund is my next best option? I'm bummed that a 0.85% expense ratio is the best that I can do. The Lord Abbett SIMPLE IRA is my only option at work. It's still worth it for the 3% company match, I guess, but it seems pretty sub-par compared to what I have with vanguard. I'm handing in my IRA application on Monday, so any final advice would be welcome.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:05 |
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Happysafer posted:I guess the Affiliated Fund is my next best option? I'm bummed that a 0.85% expense ratio is the best that I can do. The Lord Abbett SIMPLE IRA is my only option at work. It's still worth it for the 3% company match, I guess, but it seems pretty sub-par compared to what I have with vanguard. I'm handing in my IRA application on Monday, so any final advice would be welcome.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:36 |
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Is Just2Trade a good brokerage? I'm thinking about moving my Wells Fargo accounts there.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 03:53 |
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icehewk posted:I work for a fairly small one, but its my first professional job and I'm really just trying to build up experience and savings since the work isn't that tough. Lack of meaningful learning opportunities and disorganization between all departments are killers so it won't be long. First, you want to get as much as you can out of the company. So whatever is the max amount they will contribute, you should try and get that. You mentioned they will contribute 3% and you don't have to put in anything. That is great and you should do it no matter how lovely the funds are. Do they offer the ability for them to contribute more, or is that their max? If they'll only contribute 3%, and you don't have to put in anything, then use your money elsewhere. They don't have to offer a Roth and they are very different vehicles. Your 401k is going to be taken out pre-tax while you'll pay taxes on the money you contribute to your Roth (but won't pay on anything it makes over the next 40+ year). You don't need to give them any forms at all and they will have nothing to do with your Roth. Just setup an account at Fidelity, Vanguard, or another investment company and get going. The only person you report it to is the IRS I believe on a line in your taxes. Expense ratios change based off the type of fund and how it's managed. That's why it's tough to tell you what a good one is since it's based off what you're looking to do with it. Most people recommend Vanguard because they tend to have the lowest rates in the industry. As for why it's robbery, just run some retirement calculators and cut .6% from the return over the 40+ years. You'll see that something even that small can have a huge impact on your overall return. An example is that if you put in $5000 a year from age 24 until you retire at 65 earning 6%, you'll have $825,238 in there. Now lets say you invested at a higher expense ratio which took .6% off your annual return. You would retire with $707,317 at retirement. That's over $100k just by going with a lower expense ratio. Now while that's important at all times, it'll become much more important later down the line when you have more in the account.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 05:57 |
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Okay so I've opened up a money market fund at Vanguard just because I wanted to put it into my Roth IRA before the end of the year. I'm happy with following the OP's advice for target retirement funds for the moment and given that I'm in my mid 20s, it seems like I should just buy VFIFX so I can retire in 2050(ish). Is it bad to put all my money in a single fund? I'm thinking it's okay for now since I'm just starting out but once I get some more money, I should start diversifying. I plan to read more about this investing business but it's pretty close to the end of the year already TIA
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 06:15 |
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totalnewbie posted:Okay so I've opened up a money market fund at Vanguard just because I wanted to put it into my Roth IRA before the end of the year. I'm happy with following the OP's advice for target retirement funds for the moment and given that I'm in my mid 20s, it seems like I should just buy VFIFX so I can retire in 2050(ish). The target funds are made up of other funds. So they are incredibly diverse. For instance, VFIFX is made up of their Total Stock Market Fund, Total International Stock Market Fund, and Total Bond Market Fund. And those 3 funds are very broad and own shares in a lot of companies and different types of bonds. The target retirement funds are made to be diverse for those who don't have the money to do it themselves. As long as you are OK with their allocation, you don't have to worry about diversity, even as you accumulate more in your account. Niwrad fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Dec 3, 2011 |
# ? Dec 3, 2011 06:26 |
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Roth IRA Income Limitations Question: I see that if you make above $110k/year but below $125k/year there is a graded limitation on how much you're allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA for a year. My job's estimated annual income is right at the lower edge of that range, so presumably overtime or some tax deductions would push my Adjusted Gross Income up by a hard to predict amount. So the meat of my question is: how do I avoid over-contributing to my Roth IRA if I don't know what my limitation will be until I file taxes for that year? Wouldn't it already be too late to contribute at that point?
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 06:41 |
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keiran_helcyan posted:Roth IRA Income Limitations Question: Don't worry too much about over-contributing. Worst case is you have to recharacterize the portion of the Roth to a Traditional IRA. It's a simple form and the place you hold it will likely be able to walk you through the steps to changing it. If you still want the Roth, you can also use a little loophole that lets you convert existing traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs. This should be common stuff to your investment management company and they can walk you through all the steps on this too. Basically you take your Roth, recharecterize to a Traditional, then convert back into a Roth. It seems much more confusing than it is though. I guess my point is that you shouldn't worry about the limits too much. Everything can be adjusted at the end of the year.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 07:24 |
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I just learned that my job may be offering a Roth 401k as part of their retirement plan. The problem is that the funds they offer are all really terrible (think 2% expense ratios on S&P index funds), and there's no matching. I was thinking of investing in a Roth 401k and then rolling the funds into my existing Roth IRA if I were to leave the company. My potentially dumb question is, if I were to enroll in the Roth 401k, would that affect my ability to contribute to an existing Roth IRA, or are the two totally independent?
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 09:26 |
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keiran_helcyan posted:Roth IRA Income Limitations Question: You can contribute to a Roth IRA for the "current" year as late as April the following year (the deadline is the same as your default deadline for filing your tax return). So if you don't know how much you will earn in 2011, you can wait until 2012 and still make a contribution that counts towards your 2011 limit. Just be sure when you make the contribution that you specify what year it is for.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 15:25 |
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crazyfish posted:I just learned that my job may be offering a Roth 401k as part of their retirement plan. The problem is that the funds they offer are all really terrible (think 2% expense ratios on S&P index funds), and there's no matching. I was thinking of investing in a Roth 401k and then rolling the funds into my existing Roth IRA if I were to leave the company. My potentially dumb question is, if I were to enroll in the Roth 401k, would that affect my ability to contribute to an existing Roth IRA, or are the two totally independent? The limits are independent. There are different "groups" of retirement accounts in which the limits overlap. For example 403b and 401k are both in the same group. Traditional and Roth IRAs are in another group. The Roth 401k contributions therefore will not count against your Roth IRA limits.
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# ? Dec 3, 2011 15:37 |
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Okay, I have an uncommon question regarding savings... What I want to do is establish a side account that's conservative in terms of risk, but will yield me more than a money market would. It doesn't need to be very liquid, either. I want to kind of use it for seed money for a future endeavor, the timing of which can't be predicted. So basically, I need to invest like a retiree who's going to be withdrawing their money anytime in the next 4-10 years. Right now, I'm thinking of sinking it into Vanguard's TIPS fund (VIPSX), or Vanguard's Total Bond Fund (VBTLX). The TIPS seem to be yielding more than the bond fund, but I can't necessarily tell if one has more risk, or if the TIPS beating out the Bond fund is something that's likely to continue over the next 10 years. Or maybe there's an investment out there that I'm completely overlooking. Can someone with more knowledge of treasury/bond investing help me out on this?
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# ? Dec 4, 2011 00:52 |
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Rekinom posted:Okay, I have an uncommon question regarding savings... What I want to do is establish a side account that's conservative in terms of risk, but will yield me more than a money market would. It doesn't need to be very liquid, either. I want to kind of use it for seed money for a future endeavor, the timing of which can't be predicted. So basically, I need to invest like a retiree who's going to be withdrawing their money anytime in the next 4-10 years. You can get 3-5 year CDs that yield north of 2%, which is terrible but if you don't want to risk the principal you aren't going to get much return right now. http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/682884/
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# ? Dec 4, 2011 02:25 |
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greasyhands posted:You can get 3-5 year CDs that yield north of 2%, which is terrible but if you don't want to risk the principal you aren't going to get much return right now. Well, it's not that I want 0 risk.... I just want a conservative near term investment vehicle.
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# ? Dec 4, 2011 19:32 |
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This thread inspired me to take a hard look at my investments and really try to learn this stuff. I'm 25 years old and started my retirement savings about a year ago, maxing out my employer's matching (4% base + 4% my contributions + 6% match). Over the past week I tried learning everything I could about asset allocation and reducing the cost of my portfolio, which lead me to read "The Intelligent Asset Allocator" (thanks for the recommendation, OP) and switch my accounts from Fidelity to the much cheaper TIAA-CREF. Anyway, I ended up writing a (very long) blog post describing my research and findings. Most of it is E/N and stuff you all would know, but I wanted to write it down to share with my friends and coworkers who probably have never heard of things like asset allocation, index funds, and expense ratios. After a lot of analysis and research, I ended up with the following AA which I'm pretty happy with. pre:Asset Class Allocation Fund Symbol ER ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dom Equities 36% TIAA-CREF Equity Index Fund TCEPX 0.24% Intl. Equities 36% TIAA-CREF Intl. Eq. Index Fund TRIPX 0.25% Real Estate 8% TIAA Real Estate Account None 1.01% Bonds 20% TIAA-CREF Bond Index Fund TBIPX 0.28% Weighted Expense Ratio 0.31%
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 06:50 |
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MrStaticVoid posted:If anyone has a few minutes to read my blog post, I'd really appreciate some feedback.
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 07:53 |
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Rekinom posted:Well, it's not that I want 0 risk.... I just want a conservative near term investment vehicle. If I was inclined to be snide, I'd just say the short-term stock picking thread is thataway--> but actually I think you deserve a better answer about why this thread might not be the right place for your question. Long-term investment, and particularly retirement investment, boils down to a few operating principles that most of us can agree on. Here is a very brief list, not necessarily in order: -Take maximum advantage of employer matching funds (which is free money) for your retirement accounts, if available -Take maximum advantage of tax-advantaged savings options -Diversify a portfolio across many asset types to minimize risks that stem from overexposure to a single category of investment -Make regular contributions to get the benefit of "dollar cost averaging" -Occasionally (quarterly at the most frequent; annually is probably fine) re-balance your investments to return your portfolio to the asset allocation you've chosen -Let it ride. You're in it for the long haul, so try not to flinch as the market moves up and down - in the long run (decades), you're better served not trying to time the market with your retirement savings However, you are looking for short-term conservative investment. While all of the above factors are focused on "long term" rather than "short term", you might suspect that (since we're discussing retirement savings) we're at least focused on the "conservative" part of things, so maybe we can help? But actually "conservative" in an investment sense really just focuses on risk tolerance, and the one thing I didn't mention specifically in my list up there is the overall risk in the portfolio. Most advice to the retirement investor is that you can tolerate higher risk while you are young (because if you lose a large fraction of your portfolio, you have decades in which to make up the loss through higher contributions), while reducing risk as you age (because you have less and less time before retirement to react to a downturn). But the exact level of risk a given retirement investor can tolerate is highly dependent on their personal circumstances. Many young investors go with a 100% equity portfolio. Some folks advise a split between equities and bonds equal to one's age (so, at 30 years old, you should be 30% bonds, whereas at 50 you should be 50% bonds, etc.). Some folks feel more risk-averse and may allocate even larger percentages to bonds, or even move some amount into money-market, CDs, or outright cash. Which is all just a lot of words to get at a simple point, which is that this thread is much more about the stuff I put in my bulleted list, and much less about recommending a particular investment vehicle/risk level. If someone tells us their risk level, we can suggest a particular balance between equities and bonds, but that's not that helpful for you. We can also discuss maximizing diversity, and topics like international vs. domestic equities come up... but again, diversity is a way of reducing risk primarily for the long-term investor to avoid localized downturns. (Not that diversity is bad for the short-term investor either! It's just not the focus of our discussions here, generally speaking.) We do tend to suggest Vanguard for their very-low-expense-ratio funds. We also tend to recommend broad funds with very low ERs, such as index funds. But in both cases, we're recommending based on diversity and low ERs, not (necessarily) risk, and especially not risk in the short term! So, while there are probably several regular posters in this thread who could give you the advice you're looking for, that advice has little to do with either long-term, or retirement, investing. In the short term you have to pay a lot more attention to "where is the market going right now." That's a guessing game that more people get wrong than right, and something long-term/retirement investors are specifically encouraged to avoid completely through aforementioned strategies. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Dec 5, 2011 |
# ? Dec 5, 2011 09:45 |
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I'm maxing out my TSP contributions right now and want to open a Roth IRA for some excess funds. Basically I just want to park a couple hundred bucks a month into a lifecycle fund and not have to deal with it. Who is the "best" provider right now?
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 10:03 |
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bam thwok posted:5 years ago the advice would be; if your rate of return in the investment account is greater than the interest rate on your loans, you should invest instead. Nowadays I don't think anyone would suggest that given how temperamental and prone and large swings the market has been over the last few years. You say that as if there are some time periods when the market can not be temperamental and prone to large swings.
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 10:35 |
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jerman999 posted:I'm maxing out my TSP contributions right now and want to open a Roth IRA for some excess funds. Basically I just want to park a couple hundred bucks a month into a lifecycle fund and not have to deal with it. Who is the "best" provider right now? Vanguard. Great service, low expenses.
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 11:58 |
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Fuschia tude posted:You say that as if there are some time periods when the market can not be temperamental and prone to large swings. Well, there's some periods of time where volatility is below average and some where its above (the VIX has been above its 90-day average since July) but I get your point. Caveat emptor, investments may lose value and all that jazz.
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 16:08 |
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I know market timing is bad and all that (I read Bogleheads) but I'm wondering if it makes sense to consolidate my investments into US based funds, rather than trying to diversify worldwide, given how bleak the Euro is looking. Thoughts?
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 19:16 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 17:08 |
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smackfu posted:I know market timing is bad and all that (I read Bogleheads) but I'm wondering if it makes sense to consolidate my investments into US based funds, rather than trying to diversify worldwide, given how bleak the Euro is looking. Thoughts? Are you investing long term? If that's the case, buying when things are looking bleak is likely when you'll find some of the best bargains.
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# ? Dec 5, 2011 19:41 |