July 1989 Money Magazine: Where to put $1000 Now!

[Dean56]

I started reading Money Magazine around that time. I didn't have any extra money to invest back then, but just for fun I picked a mutual fund and kept my eye on it for the next 20 years. I picked Fidelity's Equity Income Fund and it did very well. Not as good as the Magellan fund, but not bad either. The Equity Income Fund was later closed to new investors and then Fidelity started the Equity Income Fund II.

I bought my first house in 1989 and my interest rate was fixed at 10%. Coworkers would ask me what my interest rate was and when I answered 10% they would say that's great. Because they had bought houses a couple years before and were paying 12-13% interest.

 

[GrayHare]

I suspect investing $1000 in 1989 into a fund with even a 50% load would make you richer now than if you'd kept ten $100 Benjamins all that time.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[MarieIG]

I remember reading Money Magazine back in the day . . .

 

[Golden Mean]

Well, the small print is difficult to read but I don’t recall any of the gurus suggesting the SP500. According to Shiller data it’s up 13x since then, and in real terms, 11x. I wonder if any of the recommendations come even close to this.

In Vivaldi (Chromium based), if I click (on the image) 3 times I get the image by itself and larger and can then hit keypad "+" to zoom even more.

 

[foxcreek9]

The 2 mutual funds mentioned vs the indexes (the bottom 2 performers). Best NASDAQ, then SP500

 

[Cayman]

NJHowie thanks. A real blast from the past. I loved Money magazine and read it faithfully in high school and most of college. Wouldn't be my reading choice today, but it sure was back in the day!

 

[jollystomper]

The two financial advisors recommended mutual funds with a 5.75% load. Too funny.

What jumped out for me was two mentions of mutual funds with 5.75% front-end loads.

Actually one other advisor in that article recommended a non-load mutual fund, one that invests in Treasuries - Benham Capital Preservation Fund (now American Century Capital Preservation Fund).