Is You In or Is You Out

[Danny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbbamI I have an inee...but I digress. You feel comfortable with your AA...you are going to France...life is good. Have a wonderful time.

Merci!

I'll feel comfortable as soon as I find where my and my stocks bottoms are

[JBmadera]

I'm and actually moving about 3% of my cash into equities to get back to my target AA.

time to hold on to your martini's!

[sailwc]

i would agree, the market will not be smooth sailing for quite some time and guarding against some major catastrophie, you will be okay in the long run.

[ESRwannabe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny I'm fairly comfortable with my holdings and at the moment I'm thinking long term picture. If Bernanke, Geitner and Obama have a Rose Garden Moment with shaky voices I would reconsider. Know too well from experience that it's hard to time ins and outs Still if you get enough uncertainity thrown at you you start to wonder. I'm thinking of riding this out. Go to France on Tues for 2 weeks and not think about finance. What's the thinking on the forum?

The "great recession" has made me much more comfortable with holding stocks. I found a "strategy" that works for me and I have no problem holding a high amount of stocks. I'm around 90/10 right now.

I primarily stick to broad market indexes and only buy when the dividend yield meets my minimum of 2% based on the previous year's payouts and the current share price. In 11 years or so when I plan to ESR, I'm planning on only spending the dividends, whatever they happen to be. I'll be around 45 then.

Ideally I will be making 3% or more dividend yield based off of my average cost basis. That should be plenty. I'll keep working part-time and have a few years expenses in cash to offset the dividend fluctuations. When I get into my 60s I will have some pension money and social security coming in. I'll also be able to access my roth ira and 401k. So, at that point I may fully retire.

I have no fear of my investments becoming worthless. I own thousands of stocks from countries all over the globe.

[jimnjana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclemick 1966. So now that the Saints finally won a Superbowl am I supposed to get excited about something or what. heh heh heh - 17th year of ER. Full auto Target Retirement 2015 - PLUS a few good stocks for the hormones. and football is in the fall. . I do get excited when I watch though - but I missed this little dip.

I think I am heading to your route of a target retirement fund and a few stocks. The last year or so I've been spending way too much time trading with nothing more to show for it than what I could have achieved in more passive investments. The time commitment for due diligence and market watching is like having a job...so Vanguard here I come...

[freebird5825]

I was unpacking and getting some household things caught up after 2 weeks out of town, so I missed it all. I heard about it secondhand from a friend. His stocks took a real bath but he's not panicking. Yet. He's preparing to do some minor buy moves.
I'm still wearing my chicken feather suit and sticking to my 40/60 AA, well diversified via a cornucopia of mutual funds. Things migrated a little bit but I'm not worried. Yet. I'm sticking with my usual DCA plan.
I'm IN.

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Are you comparing the stock market with a casino? Oh, surely not! Peter

I am. To celebrate, last night I did something I have never done...I went to a casino with $40 and played poker for 2 hours. I lost it all, of course, but at least I could see where it was going!



Market wise, by coincidence I have more cash than usual right now, my real estate is producing income and my gold and silver are healthy.

Life is good.

[utrecht]

I'm up 3.3% for the year.On track for an decent year. I try not to think about where I was 2 weeks ago and go with the flow. I feel fine.

[CyclingInvestor]

Still 100% equities, all individual large/mid cap stocks with long histories of rising earnings and dividends and stable outlooks for the future (51, retired 3+ years).

I see the situation as pretty smooth. Company earnings rising at a decent clip. KO, ABT, JNJ and PG have raised their dividends as expected this year, by an average of about 9%. The flopping around of market prices (blamed on the latest crisis of the moment) is of little concern.

While I do move my $$ around from stocks I consider over-valued or non-analyzable to other stocks at lesser valuations, I have maintained a near 100% equity position for quite a few years now

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimnjana I think I am heading to your route of a target retirement fund and a few stocks. The last year or so I've been spending way too much time trading with nothing more to show for it than what I could have achieved in more passive investments. The time commitment for due diligence and market watching is like having a job...so Vanguard here I come...

I hear where you are coming from. However, I would like to point out that comparing an active strategy based investment program to passive indexing in a very strong up-market gives too much credit to the indexing.

Ha

[jimnjana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha I hear where you are coming from. However, I would like to point out that comparing an active strategy based investment program to passive indexing in a very strong up-market gives too much credit to the indexing. Ha

agreed. My main point is that active stock trading takes up much of my time, add a bit of compulsive market watching and I lose 10-15 hrs a week, minimum. Not sure of the specific mix of funds but I want to use the Ronco approach to investing. "Set it and Forget it", and really only rebalance and check performance periodically. A Target retirement fund sounds good for a core holding and will probably augment with several sector funds as well as my long term stock positions.

[wildcat]

I'm about 75-78% stocks right now so I am sort of in. I do the typical slice n' dice stuff in my 401k and my Roth & Rollover money I choose stocks which lately have been bigger companies as I see the valuations as being the best in that space.

I make bigger bets on the ones I own in an attempt to move the portfolio balance upward faster (or it could always go the other way of course) and b/c I price the stock and not the market I generally ignore these dips. This last drop still didn't make most of what I would like to buy attractive.

I made a small investment in one new stock this past week and it was my first purchase since summer of '09 aside from my DCAing into the 401k each pay period. Biggest position has been PM but I will probably burn in hell for it

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildcat I'm about 75-78% stocks right now so I am sort of in. I do the typical slice n' dice stuff in my 401k and my Roth & Rollover money I choose stocks which lately have been bigger companies as I see the valuations as being the best in that space. I make bigger bets on the ones I own in an attempt to move the portfolio balance upward faster (or it could always go the other way of course) and b/c I price the stock and not the market I generally ignore these dips. This last drop still didn't make most of what I would like to buy attractive. I made a small investment in one new stock this past week and it was my first purchase since summer of '09 aside from my DCAing into the 401k each pay period. Biggest position has been PM but I will probably burn in hell for it

Tobacco has always been my biggest position. Right now PM is my main one also.

No matter how much everyone hates cigarette companies, they go right on coining money. Also, what would auto racing do for sponsorship without Camels and Skoal?

Ha

[tuixiu]

I'm in accumulation phase and love it, I'll spike my hair and love it all life is grand. Love.

[ESRwannabe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildcat I made a small investment in one new stock this past week and it was my first purchase since summer of '09 aside from my DCAing into the 401k each pay period. Biggest position has been PM but I will probably burn in hell for it

I own PM too. I have always liked "sin stocks". I like to keep an eye on the VICEX fund to see what they are buying.

[DoubleDown]

If you are truly diversified these market actions will not bother you. Some of your assets are rising or at least not getting hammered. In times like these Harry Browne's 4 x 25 portfolio and the mutual fund PRPFX shine (or at least don't get slaughtered). DD

[wildcat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha Tobacco has always been my biggest position. Right now PM is my main one also. No matter how much everyone hates cigarette companies, they go right on coining money. Also, what would auto racing government do for sponsorship easy money without Camels and Skoal their co-dependent? Ha

Fixed it for ya

[Danny]

EU Crafts $928 Billion Show of Force to Halt Crisis

I'm still hanging in there. One plus is that I've been able to lose about 4 pounds

[Basenji]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wildcat Fixed it for ya

Wish it were true that tobacco "paid for itself."
(I was thinking that was a corollary of your fix; if it wasn't, please disregard the quote/reference.)
Unfortunately, when one combines the history of enormous tobacco subsidies to farmers and the increased health care costs for the very long and messy end-of-life treatments for smokers, tobacco taxes probably do not match up, I'd bet.
Then again, smokers often die sooner than non-smokers, so they probably receive relatively less in Social Security and Medicare benefits than others, so who knows.

Would be interesting to see if this works out the way road costs do.
The Texas Dept of Transportation (big on highways) determined a few years ago that the gas tax needs to be raised to $2.22 / gallon (it is currently 38.4c/gal) for gas taxes and fees to cover Texas road costs. This means taxpayers in general are subsidizing road-users, especially the ones who drive a lot.

Reminds me a bit of how a downtown resident of a big city like Houston has historically paid over $20/month for phone service while a resident of a remote part of west Texas has paid only $4/month, even though the real cost of service was well under $10 for the big city downtown resident and over $1,000/month for the person living in sparse west Texas. (Yes, it does sound crazy, but if you don't believe it, check out the data in the Universal Service Fund cases at the Public Utility Commission.) (Of course, not that many folks take standalone local phone service any more, but the subsidies continue with the local plus long distance bundles - just not to the same extent.)

Now I will await someone pointing out the ways in which a heavy-driving, heavy-smoking, remote desert dweller subsidizes the rest of us ...

[wildcat]

Gov't relies on tobacco for tax revenue

Tobacco companies rely on the govt for regulation making it difficult for new entrants to replace the incumbants

Point being both rely on each other just like auto racing needs tobacco for sponsorship and vice versa for tobacco & brand marketing

Nothing to do with health insurance and non-smokers subsidizing smokers and other public health costs associated with tobacco usage