I know some of us old timers recommend bonds as valid and preferred investment. Should an investor who cares about growing his nest egg count on bonds? I am not talking about the multimillionaire who is content and cares about maintenance earnings, I am talking about you when you were beginning with 200 shares of something....


My bond funds slowed my growth down when I invested as an employee. I listened to the same noise: Bonds are good investment. Is it? I like honest evaluations of why I should pursue bonds compared to good company stocks, common and/or preferred, with or w/o dividend?

I am not implying bonds are bad investment under any circumstance. I want to zero on the young investor and, in general, on the growth interested investor with reasonable risk.

want a conservative fund/ETF with monthly income. 

I've been looking at various threads and different approaches to investing.
I'm 35% Cash and equivalents, 65% Equity investments with a tendency towards Growth.
How does your personal Matrix compare?
What I've done is to take a Screen Shot without displaying amounts.
If you can post up your comparative Matrix, I'd like to see them.
     

I have completed the Fidelity Retirement Planner.  It gives me information that indicates that I may be secure to take the next step.  I'm not basing my decision solely on the results with the system, but I am wondering what others think of the system and results it gives. 

I am getting near the finish line at 57 yrs old and currently am semi retired( working 20 weeks a year). We have no debt and currently have 800k in roth 401k,roth IRAs, and brokerage accounts. We also have 60 k liquid cash for emergency fund.I currently max out my 401k and my wifes and my roth IRAs as well as add to our brokerage accounts as cash is leftover. I currently gross around 85k a year and we are putting roughly 50% of my gross into retirement every year. We plan to use our social security to cover our health insurance when I retire,so it is not being factored into our expense equation. Since we have no debt our expenses are low and are currently living comfortably and able to do the things we enjoy. I am thinking I should be in good shape to pull the plug at 62 1/2 knowing I will have to fund our insurance for 3 yrs until medicare kicks in. We do not see any major expenses on the horizon as our home is only 6 yrs old, son is done with college and our Motor-home, and cars are only a couple of yrs old( tend to drive our vehicles for 10 yrs or more before replacing them) Am I missing something?????

What is your best fund that has been closed to new investors.
Even though the fund is closed it can still be harvested for new ideas;
 
One of my three Funds FCPGX just got closed to new investors.     This does not surprise me;
 
If a fund grows too big (attracts too much capital) it loses its ability to function
---its cannot execute its strategy
---It might move the market with money flow
 
I have sort of noticed that some of "the best funds" I have identified for potential buys tend to be closed to new investors.
That where a tool such as "trading baskets" or "Motif" would really be useful.
 
Here Morningstar is showing you what the fund added in the near-past.   I think this is really useful in finding new ideas.

Every time I read an article or follow a discussion on “how to choose an individual stock”, I come back with several pointers. For example, look at the
P/E ratio, if PEG is under 3, its a good buy, check Debt to Equity ratio, read a 10K etc etc... So, most of the times I have shied away from individual stocks and just stuck to some index investing and a few stocks I buy during euphoria...
 
To people who have been investing successfully in stocks for so many years, please share your wisdom. You will help a lot of savers like me who are kind of lost with overload of “complicated” information around.  What are the few things that you have looked at when you bought a stock in all your investing years? I am looking to learn from you and make a buying list when a bear market comes around(long haul)
 
Thanks so much!

My wife just asked for a divorce, what happens to the 500k+ in the account. Can it be divided in half without it being treated as a withdrawal?

    In answering another question, I pulled up some charts of 10 year performance of several different categories of funds, from money market to aggressive growth technology funds. It's got me rethinking some conventional wisdom. While it's common sense that the money market would suffer the least from a major event like the great recession, but how would these funds (TRBCX, PREIX, PRGTX, SPAXX, VSCGX) compare after a few months, at the end of 2009? By that point the growth funds had recovered the quickest, with PRGTX leading the way at $11,565. The S&P fund PREIX was the laggard at that point, at $9,039. At the end of 10 years, PRGTX was far ahead of the others, at $58,491, with the money market at the bottom with only $10,246. Consequently this data suggests that for periods of 10 months or longer, growth funds may have lower risk than even conservative or money market funds based on 10 year data including the great recession and the correction of 2018. This is contrary to the usual measures of risk including the Morningstar risk meters in the image below. Thoughts, opinions?

Do both our social security annual amount and our RMD annual amount count towards the calculation of what we pay for medicare?
 
My SS is $32k and my RMD will be $60k. That puts me over the $85k base for the lowest payment for Medicare.
 
Any one have any experience with this???
 
Seems very unfair that the older I get, the bigger my RMD will be, and the higher my Medical premiums will be.