This is an old thread. I just decided to open it and have a look at a little econ history TOTV-style. We are mostly of an age here and so we have seen the ins and outs and maybe the back-ins again (I very, very cautiously hope) of the economy.
I sure wish I had bought a lot more of that Kraft buy that was my first online trade ever. Mac and cheese is still in I guess. Percentage-wise my little buy is doing well. I based my decision on basically nothing other than the stock made sense to me. Just wish I had had enough sense to buy a whole lot more of KFT.
I remain quite conservative. And I remain a DIYer. A while back, I started viewing even mutual funds as too much management under somebody else -- sort of. And even no-loads have their share of associated fees, though not like load funds. I had bailed on Fidelity Contrafund at the time. And then I watched Contra go really sky high and I beat myself up a little for having gotten out. But then it just turned into, et tu, Will Danoff. Geez. Shouldn't one of the hottest fund managers in the universe at the time have had a clue? Yes. His numbers are better now, of course. But it is the percentage of what that counts. Maybe it is that those successful funds get so big that they just cannot move far without moving the markets they are moving from. Who knows? I sure don't. I have enough to worry about just trying to manage the tiny little Boomerfund. (I do sincerely promise all of you that I will never, ever move the market. That you can count on.)
My latest project is to try to learn more about ETF's. I like the fact that they are more nimble for the investor than regular mutual funds. But I really do not know a whole lot about them. And my risk tolerance is pretty low, now that I am in my dotage -- or whatever this boomer thing is now. I am still out here with the rest of 'em, slouching toward Medicare. (Sometimes I think about buying Stryker, but I have not looked at it lately.)
I found this article in the recent AARP magazine. (Yeah. I still read it. When it comes in the mail I always read it in the hottub. The articles are so short that I usually can finish any of them I want to read by the time the magazine is too splashed up.)
This little article I am linking here is about people who took awful financial hits at the hands of those they trusted and who purposely deceived them. It's not just the Madoffs. It's the mini-Madoffs, too.
Here's the link:
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/ba...the_brink.html
Boomer