My 401k YTD performanceshows 3.4%? (dividends, invested, purchase, 100k)
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When it comes to markets behaving radically different over long periods of time thinking this time is different has been the wrong choice.
thinking this time is different has left those who always think this time is different a lot poorer for that thinking as time and time again gains have been pretty substaintial over an investing lifetime.
I've never seen a poster create fictitious responses to themselves and include them in their posts with the frequency jotucker does. Rather strange behavior
Since jotucker99 is obviously a lost cause when it comes to passive investing in the market, can we go back to the OP's original question and give him some suggestions regarding his asset allocation? I can't be of much help, as I'm unfamiliar with many of the funds in question (especially their expense ratios).
Since jotucker99 is obviously a lost cause when it comes to passive investing in the market, can we go back to the OP's original question and give him some suggestions regarding his asset allocation? I can't be of much help, as I'm unfamiliar with many of the funds in question (especially their expense ratios).
I think mystic's very first response (post #2) was enough that this thread could have ended there. It's been fun though as we wandered way off the subject. I refined my opinion about low-risk assets along the way so it's been a worthwhile diversion.
Since jotucker99 is obviously a lost cause when it comes to passive investing in the market, can we go back to the OP's original question and give him some suggestions regarding his asset allocation? I can't be of much help, as I'm unfamiliar with many of the funds in question (especially their expense ratios).
this is what happens when folks believe their own bull-sh%t and close their eyes ,ears and mind to learning about the opposite side .
this is what happens when folks believe their own bull-sh%t and close their eyes ,ears and mind to learning about the opposite side .
I think he's just very, very risk adverse, and almost hysterically oversensitive to short-term volatility (which makes him feel like he's losing money, even though he isn't) - but the irony is that his risk aversion is actually pushing him into riskier investment strategies. I don't have the guts to try running my own businesses (knowing how often small businesses fail), or to play around with real estate flipping or landlording, or to put all my assets into cash/CDs/bonds when every Monte Carlo simulator out there shows that to be the retirement investment strategy which has historically failed the most often.
But that's often the case. In my (admittedly limited experience) playing to not lose (rather than playing to win) is often the very best way to fail at something. But if investing sans stocks is jotucker99's choice, so be it. He's entitled to make it.
I think he's just very, very risk adverse, and almost hysterically oversensitive to short-term volatility (which makes him feel like he's losing money, even though he isn't)..........
You are correct, I am very risk adverse and I only invest in what I understand. I do not understand, at all, what makes the prices of a Stock or a Stock Fund, appreciate over time.
For example, if I were to invest in the Stock Market I would pretty much be buying Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares:
The price as of right now is $192.68 with $3k minimum investment into the fund. Very low expenses, we are talking about 0.17%. Over the last 39 years since August 1976, the fund has averaged 10.99%, 10 years it's at 7.77%.
So for me, my strategy would be to put a portion of my retirement passive income into this fund and leave it there for 33 years until age 65 when I would start to spread more of it out into other categories that are more "fixed income based" but not totally pull everything out of the fund.
But in order for me to do this investment, I need more information on what is going to make the price go from $192.68 to $200, to $220, to $250, to $300, etc. over the next 10 - 30 years.
If you have a way to provide this information for me, either through a referral, etc., I would be willing to review that information. Like I said, I have spoken to Financial Advisers and nobody is able to give me more information on the prospective trend going forward, they can only provide me charts of what's already happened.
Until I get that information, I can't move on this investment and I have to stay in my 3% investments that I have right now because those are investments I understand. My business is another investment that I understand. I do not invest and I'm NOT investing in anything I don't understand.
so just because YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND SOMETHING makes it gambling for everyone else ?
no one needs to prove a thing nor can they, anymore than you can prove your own company will not fall on hard times . you may control your business but you can't control your competitors .
what moves a stock is greed , fear and perception of future growth of investor money as the company grows .
it is a concept that has worked for 147 years and grew some of the most successful company's on the planet as well as created wealth investors .
the beauty of broad diversification is you don't need to even know which company's are the ones .. you are wrapped up all in your own company , i am wrapped up in 5000
how many small business's were gone as soon as a big competitor opened ? you can't know your own business will be alive and thriving anymore than a public company , in fact odds are less for you since they are that big competitor that usually drives the small guy out .
we went to harlem to do some photography . where as 125th st was always filled with successful small business owners today it looks like any other city street and is just filled with one large box store after another .
all the stores are either chains , franchises or box stores .
Last edited by mathjak107; 08-14-2015 at 02:47 AM..
You are correct, I am very risk adverse and I only invest in what I understand. I do not understand, at all, what makes the prices of a Stock or a Stock Fund, appreciate over time.
For example, if I were to invest in the Stock Market I would pretty much be buying Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares:
The price as of right now is $192.68 with $3k minimum investment into the fund. Very low expenses, we are talking about 0.17%. Over the last 39 years since August 1976, the fund has averaged 10.99%, 10 years it's at 7.77%.
So for me, my strategy would be to put a portion of my retirement passive income into this fund and leave it there for 33 years until age 65 when I would start to spread more of it out into other categories that are more "fixed income based" but not totally pull everything out of the fund.
But in order for me to do this investment, I need more information on what is going to make the price go from $192.68 to $200, to $220, to $250, to $300, etc. over the next 10 - 30 years.
If you have a way to provide this information for me, either through a referral, etc., I would be willing to review that information.
And I have given you that information, to the best that anyone can about any investment, ever: the growth of the US economy over the next 30 years is what is going to make stock prices go up. Economic growth is ultimately what fuels the growth of companies, and thus the growth of the stock market.
Do you think the US economy will be larger in 30 years than it is now? If yes, buy stocks in US companies. (The safest, most conservative way to do so is buy buying indexed funds. The much riskier but potentially far more profitable way is to buy shares in individual companies.)
Do you think the global economy will be larger in 30 years than it is today? If so, buy stocks in foreign companies as well as US companies (same caveats apply as to risk versus reward).
Quote:
Until I get that information, I can't move on this investment and I have to stay in my 3% investments that I have right now because those are investments I understand. My business is another investment that I understand. I do not invest and I'm NOT investing in anything I don't understand.
But again, you DON'T have that information on your current investments either! If you have a bond or a CD that's yielding 3% and the interest rate increases to 4%, your investment you understand is now yielding a profit of -1% (in other words, you're now losing money - the very thing you fear about stocks). And the sort of totally unpredictable black swan event you seem to be especially fearing as far as the stock market goes won't stay confined to the stock market should it occur; it will affect your current non-stock investments, too. Any time an economy contracts (either temporarily or permanently), every sector of that economy is ultimately affected. The Great Depression started as a stock market crash, but it quickly spread to affect the value of bonds, real estate, and even cash. The 2007-2008 crash started in a few local real estate markets, but it spread to stocks and bonds, and also to real estate markets liker mine (Omaha) where none of the fundamentals had changed at all.
Stocks aren't harder to understand than bonds, CDs, real estate, or any other investment, so I don't know why you persistently pretend that they are. And the short term fluctuations in their prices are simply random noise (just like short term fluctuations in real estate prices). You have to think long-term when investing in anything, and you don't want to let fear of short-term paper losses paralyze you so that you miss out on the longer-term gains (which is exactly what most people do, to their detriment).
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