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Post by trappnman on Oct 8, 2014 6:53:27 GMT -6
is any one making any money with them?
I'm no financial guru by any means, but even after researching, and changing funds occasionally- all it seems I do is take 2 steps forward, 1 step back. for example last quarter a good gain, this quarter a loss-
or am I expecting too much?
my portfolio HAS gone up in the 8 years I've had it, about 30%- but much of that was early gains, and the past few years its been, more or less, stagnant- one quarter it makes money ,the next it looses money.
am I just a bad manager (which no doubt I am)? my personal thought is its all games because the brokers get paid on either end (selling or buying)
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Post by skidway on Oct 8, 2014 18:41:48 GMT -6
I am. A minimum of 8% annually on mutual fund investments. You don't get rich with mutual funds because most are relatively safe investments and, at your age, safe is a good thing. I used to do my own management also but have done much better with a pro handling my money. Yeah, I have to pay him a small percentage but even at that I'm doing better than bungling through it myself. Especially since he diversified my portfolio. You have to know what you don't know and go from there. Finding someone who will WORK for you is the hard part. I get a call about every 6 weeks from my broker offering advice on what he figures would be a good move.
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Post by bblwi on Oct 8, 2014 20:59:42 GMT -6
I have had mutual funds now for 26 years and my returns are about equal to or just a percentage or so above the market average over those years. I currently have about 90% of my securities investment in mutual funds and 10% in stocks. I have about 65% of my total savings and retirement in securities versus cash or bonds and that is high for a 67 year olds but low interest rates don't grow assets much either. I have more than 60% of my mutual funds in managed funds and they have really not preformed much better than the index funds which are lower cost and have lower fees as well. If I were to do it over I would have put more in index funds and also more in stocks. You get hit with capital gains distribution taxes in non deferred mutual funds. When you own and sell stock you can determine when to trigger your taxable events. I also wish I would have invested a bit more in something like land and been a bit more diversified. By diversified I mean the mix of real estate, land, stocks, securities, home, cash etc. I am very well diversified in my securities and stocks but that still means one has a lot of your assets in the market. My pension is also driven by the market and that even makes my dependence on the market higher.
Bryce
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Post by trappincoyotes39 on Oct 9, 2014 4:34:55 GMT -6
If your getting 8 percent that is great in this economy.
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Post by bblwi on Oct 9, 2014 12:40:44 GMT -6
Steve if you are up 30% in 8 years 2006-2014 that means you recovered from the 08,09 35-40% drop so in reality you have done about 8% per year as well. What you might want to follow are the funds that seem to be doing better the last couple years. As our economy and society change so does not the places to invest for better returns. If I factor in my additional annual cost of distribution taxes my index funds are doing better than my managed as of late say the last 3 to 4 years. There are a multitude of index funds you can purchase that corner every niche in the market. The reason managed funds are supposed to return more as the fund manager can buy and sell stocks that are in the fund to maximize returns. That sounds good but their performance has not been great compared to simple low cost index funds and they generate taxable gain that is passed on to the owner of the fund even though you do not know which stocks were sold and when.
That is a huge, huge, huge tax loophole that Wall street and the finance lobby persons got Congress to pass on to investors.
Bryce
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Post by trappnman on Oct 10, 2014 9:29:29 GMT -6
what slays me- weds- Wall Street has best day all year- Thursday had the worst all year
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