Is it naive to say all financial management have the same chances of maximizing my return. Does it really matter if I put it in Fidelity, or Vanguard, or even USAA?
I mean all they are going to do (for moderate investing) is put it in a year 2040 or 2045, adjust the portfolio from time to time and the chance of a Company A making the right adjustment is as good as a chance as Company B.
Now I already have a Roth 401k at work with J.P. Morgan, that is set for 2045. So my plan was put my Roth IRA into something with all the aggressive boxes checked and let it ride for 25 years.
USAA came up with something like:
15% SP500
10% large cap growth
10% small cap growth
10% asian/europe market
10% goldfish
10% tech
5% imported chocolate
5% r you reading this
5% money market
2.87341 % etc. etc.
cliffs:
-aggressive
-don’t care
-social security will always be there for me
aggressive and low maintenance is not a good combo. I guess I would go for one or two high risk funds that are properly researched if you want this. Selecting a little of everything just makes you a high risk index fund that will do average at best compared to a safe fund.
If you really want risk than take some risk and manage 3-5 stocks for medium term investment goals (this is the Mad Money Jim Crammer approach). You’ll beat the index with some safety net if you do it right and you don’t have to an expert at trading options to pull this off. The pros here will hate this advice but it’s a safe way to learn to swim.
This is my 401k distribution and has been doing surprisingly well. I keep a eye on any global crisis but since I am only 26, I have time for the funds to grow so I know there will be some ups and downs.
10% in company stock
20% in large growth stock investments FIDELITY MAGELLAN K
20% in large growth stock investments WELLINGTON TC GROWTH
20% in foreign stock investments FIDELITY INTL DISCOVERY K
10% in blended fund investments VANGUARD LS MODERATE GROWTH
20% in bond/managed income emerging markets PIM EM MKTS BD INST
Over a large time period a little bit of everything “risky” should be better than safe.
So let’s say I want to put 75% of my IRA in a generic aggressive blend and I’m willing to put 25% into (4) stocks;
What are medium term goals?
What do I need to know about flexibility/restrictions when playing with that 25%?
I don’t want to maintain this daily, what time investment is needed on my part?
if you pick a little of everything risky it would be like playing roulette and putting $1 on every number. Sure you’ll win, but the losses will offset it. If you pick just a few after some research you’ll have a better change to win big but more risk.
Medium term would be anything between day trading and holding a blue chip for hopefully ever. Maybe an investment in a company you think will do well over the next year or two.
The level or research would be maybe checking for headlines once a week and reviewing earnings reports so you can generally know what is happening enough to change your opinion before something happens that is avoidable. This is the sort of jumping in point that people can use to start trading before getting to an advanced level like tradersbase does.
boxxa - 100% for any period last year is good… I ended up with 0% in my 401k
