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Both IRA and mutual funds. Long term meaning, 20-30 yrs.
This answer doesn't make sense. You can hold a mutual fund in your IRA. An IRA is just a tax shelter. You can hold cash, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds that buy stocks & bonds in your IRA. I hear you can even hold real estate in an IRA, although it's complicated.
I didn't withdraw. It just seems the market isn't the safest bet these days.
If you are in for long term. Say 10-15-20 years and beyond then there is no need to worry. Infact if you continue to buy shares into a down market then you are dollar cost averaging which means more gains in the long run.
Actually your missing the cash part.. Its 25% in each.
I use tlt,gld,vti and cash. the cash is an important part to temper volatility. many are using a short term bond fund like SHY instead of cash.
Another possibility - use the remaining 25% to bet on dollar strength instead of going cash. (i.e. put 25% in UUP, the dollar index ETF.) When cash is king, the dollar will rise. This seems to lower volatility considerably while only limiting returns slightly, at least in my own backtesting
old harry would turn over in his grave with that one. gold is already the weak dollar bet. two catagories betting on the same outcome would never fly in this mix. especially if it had the possibility of being volatile itself or dropping.
the cash acts as the anchor to volatility and serves as reinvestment money, emergency cash . what has worked acceptably is using SHY for a cash proxy
Last edited by mathjak107; 08-20-2011 at 12:58 PM..
The problem is not investing in mutual funds, to me, it could be the fund (or funds) that you invested your money in 15 years ago could be the problem. Many people have made a ton of $$ investing in mutual funds/equities over the past 15-20 yrs. Not all funds are alike...many are real stinkers w/high fees and lousy management.
Here's a chart on the S&P annualized returns over the past 20 years....
I bought some mutual funds about 15 years ago thinking that was a smart to invest for the future. Boy was I wrong. I have yet to see my funds surpass what I've invested. They have declined drastically but finally over the past year things were looking good and they were on an incline. Now in the past few days, I've lost a large amount again. All I was trying to do was recoup my initial investment and I was out of the stock market.
I know they say don't sell during the panic which I'm not intending on doing. I wish I could just get my initial investment back. It seems like I'm in it for the long haul again. I'm 40 now, so maybe I will see my initial investment by retirement.
BTW, my mutual funds are solid, at least I think. I own TWCUX and BREAX.
It depends on a lot of things whether you should dump or hold. How much money is tied up relative to your entire net worth is an important question (which is nobody's business but yours). Do you really need or are you really counting on that money to be there in the future, or is it more or less just play money you're disappointed hasn't shown you outrageous returns?
Selling it right now is probably not a wise idea given the wild ride the market has been on the past couple of weeks. If you don't feel good about the investment after 15 years you should look to get out and do something else, but I'd probably give it 6 months to a year to give it a chance to bounce back a little. Nobody has a crystal ball though unfortunately.
Thanks for the response about PTTRX. With regard to TLT, GLD, SPY, etc. I think from now on the markets are going no where. Instability is at an all time high, and the debt ceiling and QE issues are going to be constantly impacting market sentiment. Besides cash in dollars, GLD is probably one of the better bets, as well as some other currency. I like FXF and FXA and stay away from non-Swiss and non-Australian (and non-NZ) currencies. Japan is now at the end of "the lost 2-3 decades" instead of the lost decade.
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They have declined drastically but finally over the past year things were looking good and they were on an incline. Now in the past few days, I've lost a large amount again. 
All I was trying to do was recoup my initial investment and I was out of the stock market. 
