Where to invest $220K today

[retire2020]

DFALX and DFISX - International Large and Small Cap have been relatively down. You can find equivalent Vanguard funds and invest in them.

 

[Mulligan]

You should decide where to invest for yourself. I listened for advise here on stock selection at the end of last year and now face a huge loss on it, dividends went down a lot too. Very few stocks / bonds are safe now, RE prices may go down in near future if we head to a recession again, CDs, although safe and insured, do not pay much vs inflation and rates easily may go negative depending on future inflation numbers.

Your post reminds me of my favorite blogger South Gent (very informative) on Seeking Alpha. He ends his posts with this favorite comment of mine.....
"All investors need to perform their own due diligence before making any financial decision which requires at a minimum reading original source material available at the SEC and elsewhere. A failure to perform due diligence only increases what I call "error creep".ERROR CREEP and the INVESTING PROCESS Each investor needs to assess a potential investment taking into account their personal risk tolerances, goals and situational risks. I can only make that kind of assessment for myself and family members"




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[Tortoise]

i would DCA into whatever part of my portfolio is currently underweight. We don't have a big lump sum, like $200k in cash, but we do have extra cash after paying expenses every month that we transfer into the underweighted portion of our portfolio. With the run up that stocks have had, we are currently underweight in bonds (tax exempt intermediate term municipal bonds in our taxable account) and CDs, so that's where we are DCA'ing our extra savings each month. And yes, interest rates are low, but bonds and CDs are still paying more than the 1% that our "high interest" savings account is paying.

 

[VFK57]

Your post reminds me of my favorite blogger South Gent (very informative) on Seeking Alpha. He ends his posts with this favorite comment of mine.....
"All investors need to perform their own due diligence before making any financial decision which requires at a minimum reading original source material available at the SEC and elsewhere. A failure to perform due diligence only increases what I call "error creep".ERROR CREEP and the INVESTING PROCESS Each investor needs to assess a potential investment taking into account their personal risk tolerances, goals and situational risks. I can only make that kind of assessment for myself and family members"

Agree. Of course I did my homework and checked recommendations on NASDAQ, read a very positive advise on Motley Fool, other equity analysts in Dec 2015. A few month later after I purchased it same analysts issued a warning on that company (POT) but I do not like to jump back and forth and is going to wait and see. The point is that ultimately you are the only person to decide where to invest to.

 

[Mulligan]

VFK, I have determined researching is useless for common stock. I learned my limitations, and thus largely stay out of them. I bought and sold 3 stocks in last year, breaking even on one, and making about 30% each in about a month on the other 2 (BG, EDE, on small 10k bets). Just luck and only "hunches" that got lucky.
I buy individual preferreds and that is pretty easy to study...Common stocks, I surrender... Indexs or ETF's only for me.


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[VFK57]

Mulligan, I cannot claim that I am a good investor but my philosophy is that even with huge downturns, stocks eventually always clime back. There is always inflation over years what pushes most assets higher.

 

[hesperus]

Mulligan, I cannot claim that I am a good investor but my philosophy is that even with huge downturns, stocks eventually always clime back. There is always inflation over years what pushes most assets higher.

Not true - Companies do go belly up. Indexes however, do not.

 

[VFK57]

Sure some companies go belly up and I hope to get enough warning bells before it happens bit in the past I had Index funds via 401k. I noticed that if Market was up about 10℅, my Fund was usually up 4-6℅, on the other hand if it was down 10℅, my Fund would go down about 12-15℅. I prefer individual stocks (REIT, oil, pharma, agro etc) which pays dividends. As I mentioned above, I am not good with it although as of now stay above 0.

 

[dallas27]

Not true - Companies do go belly up. Indexes however, do not.

But countries do! So don't put all your indices in one political system. See Rome, Ottoman Empire, Empire of the UK, USSR. Don't have winners blindness.


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[UpAnchor]

We are in the same situation after selling a home. Not sure where to put the cash. Market seems high right now.

Same here. Will be receiving an ESOP distro any day now which will represent about 40% of total retirement port. I haven't been a market-timer historically so I'm surprised that I find myself tempted to keep about half of it on the sidelines for awhile given where the market is currently. (The other half will go into existing VTINX/Wellesley which constitutes the majority of the existing port.)

No intention of riding it out looking for any sort of bottom - just hate to put it all in at the current top. Had I had it in hand a few months ago I'd have happily invested it all. So keeping half out (probably in short-term bonds) would drop my overall AA to around 30/70 - a bit lower than my originally planned 50/50. But perhaps that's not so bad going right into retirement at 64. On the other hand I should probably just yank out the old IPS and follow it as nature intended.

 

[COcheesehead]

Same here. Will be receiving an ESOP distro any day now which will represent about 40% of total retirement port. I haven't been a market-timer historically so I'm surprised that I find myself tempted to keep about half of it on the sidelines for awhile given where the market is currently. (The other half will go into existing VTINX/Wellesley which constitutes the majority of the existing port.)

No intention of riding it out looking for any sort of bottom - just hate to put it all in at the current top. Had I had it in hand a few months ago I'd have happily invested it all. So keeping half out (probably in short-term bonds) would drop my overall AA to around 30/70 - a bit lower than my originally planned 50/50. But perhaps that's not so bad going right into retirement at 64. On the other hand I should probably just yank out the old IPS and follow it as nature intended.

I got a chunk of change in January of this year. I was nervous about how high the market was so 75% went to cash, 25% into an S&P index fund. The cash is up about .01% and the fund is up 14%. Your results may vary.