Indexing or Active approach?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha Or more to the point, prostitutes.

I still think they should name a breakfast cereal "prostituties".

[mathjak107]

your not really paying them for sex. your really paying them to go home after the sex ha ha ha..

thats what i told my wife when she asked me why our former governor elliot spitzer paid for sex .

[Surfdaddy]

There's a saying "If it flies, floats, or f***s, it's cheaper to rent than to own".

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Surfdaddy There's a saying "If it flies, floats, or f***s, it's cheaper to rent than to own".

There is also "Buy appreciating assets and rent depreciating ones".

[easysurfer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mathjak107 your not really paying them for sex. your really paying them to go home after the sex ha ha ha.. thats what i told my wife when she asked me why our former governor elliot spitzer paid for sex .

Not sure how the topic ended up moving to talking about governor spitzer.

Anyhow...here's a story in the news...

Looks like the client list is varied:

Zumba Prostitution Ring Case: Officials Might Release Names - Yahoo!

I bet a lot of her johns are sweating it out (and not in a Yoga way) at the moment .

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by easysurfer Not sure how the topic ended up moving to talking about governor spitzer.

There really isnt any reason necessary for sudden changes in topic, regardless of how uncorrelated...

[mathjak107]

lets see whats more interesting , index funds or sex... let me think....


to bad food wasnt a choice ,that would be a no brainer.

[mathjak107]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny I still think they should name a breakfast cereal "prostituties".

how about ho-eos. ha h ha

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mathjak107 how about ho-eos. ha h ha

Big G, little ho, go with Cheerihoes...

[RobLJ]

I read, quickly, all the responses.
1) When I was your age until late 40's I used a fairly simply allocation model between different equity sectors, with a small allocation to bonds and rebalanced either once or twice a year. The early re-balancing occurred if a sector had really ran up or seemed over-under valued.
This saved my bacon in the 1998-2001 run-up in the S&P and tech, by the way; I shifted gains in Fidelity Contra to Fidelity Low-Price, although the wisdom wasn't apparent until 2003-4, since I first significantly lagged, then very significantly lost less than the market, then significantly out-gained the market (i.e. S&P). I was both lucky and good, the latter because I stuck to my discipline despite an underperformance in the boom of 15% if I remember correctly.
The question is whether you can stick to your allocations.
2) I allowed myself to cheat on sector allocations of up to 5%, if I thought one sector was significantly over or under valued (see above and S&P in the 1998-2001). I used PEs, which the S&P was 4 times mid/small value. Again, in hindsight that was brilliant. Will the HFTs allow this to persist now--I don't know.
3) ETFs were not available to me, but if you're using a portfolio sector allocation, because of low fees, they are ideal. My suggestion is if you want to play with active or other (individual stock), set aside anywhere from 10-20% of funds and use those as your crazy money. I did this in a small roll-over for my wife, made mistakes, got better, and now I've tracked the market overall.
4) Increase your dividend-income allocation as you get older. In my late 40's in the mid 2000's I got increasingly worried about my low bond allocation, then got worried about the housing market in late 2005/2006, so started to dollar cost average into bonds from a 95-5 or 90-10 portfolio to the point that I was 55-25-20 before the crash.
Better to be lucky than good or timing is all. That's the point of sticking, within limits, to your allocation discipline and limit your play money to a percentage allocation if you want to play with beating the market.
I've out performed the S&P the last 10 years significantly but underperformed the previous 5 years, luckily when I had very little assets.