How to allocate money to my portfolio asset to get a higher rate of return? (funds, pay)

[financehunter]

I have a 401k portfolio with a certain number of mutual funds in it. However my rate of return of the portfolio is always low, is there a way that I can allocate my money to get a higher rate of return for 401k portfolio?

[broadbill]

more information required here:

What do you consider a low rate of return? Is this a recent thing (in case you haven't noticed, the economy is in the crapper right now)...FWIW...NOBODY has a good rate of return these days!

Other thing to check:

Are you properly diversified?
What mutual funds are you in and what are your expense ratios?

[lchoro]

In the future, you might have to pay attention to how much you're paying for companies instead of just allocating it among different market caps and investment styles (essentially a buy-and-hold strategy for stocks since almost all of the groupings are equities). Stock were very overpriced by historical measures. I think the Russell 2000 had a 75 P/E at its all-time high in 2007. Historical ranges for price/earnings ratios are around 10 (cheap) to 20 (expensive). The market has just spent the better part of 15 years near or above the historical range because of excessive levering of the financial system.

P/Es & Yields on Major Indexes - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com

[oleo]

No. You can't.

The only thing you can do is move your money into bonds, or something that is less risky.

Gaining a high rate of return on a low risk investment is a violation of the law of finance.

Investors want to be compensated for choosing more risky assets. The compensation is lower for a low risk investment.

[killer2021]

Originally Posted by oleo

No. You can't.

The only thing you can do is move your money into bonds, or something that is less risky.

Gaining a high rate of return on a low risk investment is a violation of the law of finance.

Investors want to be compensated for choosing more risky assets. The compensation is lower for a low risk investment.

lol yup.

The real answer is that you want a well diversified portfolio based on your needs. This helps balance out the risk and reward for people. These days people make the mistake of going for, "the highest return." What they don't realize is that higher return means more risk of loss.

Just look at all these people who were buying homes they couldn't afford. They bought them because they thought they were going to be rich! Well, you can see what happened to them.