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Regnevelc posted:I reallocated my portfolio based on some reading I did online at some websites. I invested more in the Global and International Funds and put money into the small companies. I have until tomorrow at 11:00PM to delete this reallocation and do something else. I had one guy comment that I should just shove all of my money into the 2050 (2045 in my case) fund and let it go. What do people think. Guess this comes a little late, but your allocation should depend on your appetite for risk and your holding period. If you are going long-term and this is a retirement fund then 80% equities/20% fixed income should be OK for now, but as you get older you want to reduce the equities portion to 60% or less, to finally perhaps 20% or no equities at all during retirement. The listing you show above is 90% equities and 10% fixed income I assume? I don't think you need to spread the money into so many equities funds. If you are going to be that diversified then you are better off holding a few equity index funds if they are available in your 401K plan, since they will have lower tax costs and transaction costs than actively managed funds. Index funds also give you some global exposure, depending on how many of the index-member companies generate revenue from overseas sales. Plus the returns will be easier to track in one or two index funds rather than all the types you have listed. I have also read that many mutual funds that focus on equities in non-USA markets (from the perspective of a US investor) have become more positively correlated with US equities markets over the years. Assuming that trend continues then you will not gain much diversity benefit from investing in foreign equity funds compared to just staying with funds that invest primarily in US-based companies (if you are a US-based investor), since the US and foreign market prices will move closely together.
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Nov 29, 2008 23:01
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Sophia posted:My questions are: Answer 1) You need to plan out how much income you will need at retirement to live comfortably, so you can determine how much more you need to save. Once at retirement the financial game is to deplete the savings at the right pace to meet your living standards until death. You need to guess how much you may need to spend a month or year on medical insurance, taxes, living expenses, any household expenses, etc. Once you have those estimated figures you can determine how much monthly income you will need to meet those expenses. For example, if I guess I need about $4,000 a month at retirement age to pay expenses, insurance and taxes, assume my mortgage is paid off, and I think I can earn 2% a year at low risk on remaining savings, and I'll live an additional 20 years past retirement, then I'll need about $800,000 saved up by my retirement age. I'm not including social security in those estimates (don't know if SS will exist by then). There are lots of retirement calculators on the web, so give a search to use the calculators to help you in planning retirement savings. Answer 2) Since you are still young you can afford to allocate more of your assets to equities fund holdings over bond holdings. I believe Vanguard offers some long-term asset allocation funds that are for people who have long-term goals. Go to this Vanguard link and you'll find a selection criteria for long-term retirement funds based on your current age or planned retirement year: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/TargetRetirementList#targetAnchor If you are going to retire in 40 years then the Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund (symbol VFIFX) is ideal since it invests about 90% in equities and 10% in bonds, with very little in cash. Vanguard has some of the lowest expense fees in the index fund industry, so they are probably the best company to go with.
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Nov 21, 2010 18:27
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moflika posted:...Is there generally a minimum that one should be willing to put in when buying shares in a company?... To answer your questions: * There is no minimum, but ideally one should invest an amount that makes the commission cost worthwhile. For example, if you buy one share of a company at $10 the commission might be $9.99. But if you buy 100 shares the commission would still be $9.99. So you reduce your overall cost with the larger purchase. You have to check the commission schedules of the brokerage you work with (either online or through a bank). To keep things simple for managing my cost basis (i.e the current cost of your positions) I like to buy stocks at a minimum of 100 shares, or round to the nearest 100 for larger blocks. But there is nothing wrong with buying odd lots of shares (like 13, 37, 145, etc.). * Vanguard ETFs: You could buy one of Vanguard's ETF funds, either S&P 500 or other broad index. That's a fairly safe starting investment for equities, and gives you the advantage of almost no company risk. For example, you have less risk buying 100 shares of Vanguards VTI ETF compared to 100 shares of British Petroleum (BP). The VTI ETF less impacted than BP to certain offshore drilling risks, such as having a drilling rig explode and create a massive oil spill (which caused BP's stock price to drop over 50%). The ETFs usually pay out a quarterly dividend as well. Once you learn more about investing from your ETF purchase you can look into later purchasing individual company securities, hopefully when you understand the risks better. * Tax time: Any of the free tax software packages should give you enough info to manage the taxes yourself. If you don't sell the ETF position then all you will have to pay taxes on are any dividend distributions. Just get one of the packages and test out the tax preparation steps with dividends from a hypothetical stock or ETF position to see how the taxes are determined.
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Dec 15, 2010 05:12
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sliceoftoast posted:To my uneducated mind, this seems like a good place to park my money for a few years: MITFX looks good, yield about 3.5%. Note it has a 2% redemption fee if you sell any portion earlier than 30 days of holding. The Oct. 2010 report below gives the net expense ratio as 0.55%, which is the one that mainly impacts shareholders. The price has fluxuated between $9.40 and $10.80 the last 5 years, so expect a little adjustment in the value of your position if you intend to hold for a few years. The price currently seems a little higher than 5-year average but not overpriced. http://www.marshallfunds.com/media/inttaxfreey.pdf Morningstar had no real complaints about MITFX on their website. KSM is a closed-end debt fund. From digging around the management fee appears to be 0.6%. The yield is _really_ high at 7.92%. But the share price can be volatile, as it dropped from $10 to $7 back in 2008. Before the financial crisis it was trading around $12. This fund invests in both low-risk and tax free securities, but also up to 50% in high-yield/junk securities. Seems OK but expect more price movement than with MITFX. GABUX is a Gabelli fund that specializes in utility equities. The net expense ratio is 1.47%, and the price fluxuates as much as the stock market does. It has paid a steady $0.84/year dividend (.07 paid monthly) for the past 8 years, for a yield between 9% and 12%, but the share price moves quite a bit. Also has a 2% redemption fee, but not sure of the minimum holding period. GABUX is the most riskiest play, and not tax-free at all. KSM is a little riskier and MITFX has the least risk. Note for the fixed-income funds you could see slight declines in price in upcoming years if interest rates start to rise. But perhaps the yields will make up for the difference. KSM and MITFX have fairly diversified holdings, so I don't see much price impact if one municipality goes bankrupt. However if we have another crisis and several states go into default, well... perhaps keep half your funds in a CD you can adjust the rate on mid-term.
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Jan 23, 2011 08:03
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Chin Strap posted:I'll let William Bernstein answer why this is misleading and shouldn't really be considered by the average investor: http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/900/15st.htm Just for grins I compared performance of an equal-weighted stock fund (Rydex S&P Equal Weight (RSP)) with Vanguard's VTI (total return index ETF) and SVSPX (State Street S&P 500 index fund ). Over 8 years the equal-weighted RSP fund outperformed both index funds, even though RSP's management fees (at 0.4%) were slightly higher than the index funds's fees, per the linked chart: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...ource=undefined Over a 5-year period the RSP fund also performed better than the two index funds, but during the bear market downturn the equal-weighted RSP fund appeared to drop a little further than the index funds. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...ource=undefined
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Mar 26, 2011 19:06
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CubicalSucrose posted:There are reasonable arguments for anywhere from 0% to about 50% international (as a portion of your equity allocation) for a US investor. Putting some investments in pure foreign markets or companies should help reduce correlations of one's portfolio components, though one would have to first check the correlations of the foreign investment against particular US indexes one already has exposure to. nnnotime fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Nov 7, 2021 19:35
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Mu Zeta posted:How may I contact Computershare? Toll +1 (201) 680 6578 Toll Free 800 649 3593 https://www-us.computershare.com/Investor/#Contact I had to deal with Computershare last year to close out shares for an estate. It took a little time but eventually got the shares sold.
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Apr 8, 2022 07:42
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pseudanonymous posted:The thread is long on I-bonds. Perhaps a dumb question, but how does the Federal government pay back that high rate? If the I-bond adoption rate becomes really high, does the program become somewhat expensive for the Federal government to honor the I-bond payments? Though I-Bond interest is taxable, that's not enough to cover the payments. I assume the more debt the government takes on then that puts pressure to reduce general government spending, so to be able to service the rising debt. Basically the taxpayers who don't participate in I-bonds are contributing to paying the interest back to I-bond holders? I have no idea what I-bonds make up of all Federal debt but I assume the I-bond proportion is rising.
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Jul 3, 2022 20:28
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Valicious posted:I Bonds only track the rate of inflation, so that means they won't earn anything over inflation right? Is there another type of bond that would? I'm not "chasing" ever higher returns, just looking for an extremely-low risk option.
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Sep 20, 2022 05:44
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daslog posted:I am sick today. Not covid, but it still sucks and I'm full of cold meds. So I did what most people do when they are sick and built a Google spreadsheet to calculate if it makes sense to make additional payment to my mortgage or take what would have been those additional payments and invest them in something. It's possible rates may keeping go up, but after the banking problem that's emerged last week, rates may stay in a holding pattern, or possibly even decline slightly, depending on how the Fed, the executive branch, and the market responds. Your $1500 inflow should also be discounted against the estimated inflation rate, which is still slightly higher than the savings rate. But even with the inflation discount the total interest earned is still higher than interest saved on the increased mortgage payments.
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Mar 12, 2023 18:19
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