Stocks or Funds

[Hal3]

I'm so annoyed

I'm so annoyed

There's your answer. Life is too short to be annoyed.

I suggets low cost ETF's like Vanguard.

How much should be in bonds?

That has been discussed above. The point of bonds at your age is not to have money IN bonds but to have money OUT of stocks. When money is OUT of stocks your neck doesn't snap so much on the rollercoaster. Only you know how strong a neck you have.

Here's a little-known secret:

There is a very simple way to DOUBLE the value of your retirement portfolio. Just SAVE twice as much!

Congrats on being a saver!

 

[popowich]

Hello, Raymond, from Clueless Cuppa. 31 and you've already had time to watch stocks tank! How long do you want to hold them, say, if they don't tank? How long did you hold the tankers?

Some go up, some go down, I sold most for a profit, rather overall I've sold for a profit. Checking my account frequently to see what's up and what's down and cursing the ones that go down 20% 50% or worse on bad news I'm done with. I've been investing in stocks for about 8 years now. I'd rather just be in funds and SPY's for the most part, with a handful of individual companies that I like and have a decent understanding of what they are selling. I'm better at profit taking than I was a few years ago. Watching stocks be up 50% and "letting them ride" only to watch them quickly crumble into 33% losers annoys me. I suppose it's far from too late for me, but I wish I could go back 10 years and tech myself a few lessons.

-Raymond