Quote:
Originally Posted by Blueblaze
I sure wish I was as smart at 70 as I was at 46 when I got out of the market in time to miss the last dotcom crash. At 54, I became an idiot who lost half my savings with "buy-and-hold", believing in lying balance sheets and my market "genius", during the mortgage banking crash. The market instantly turned around the day I realized I couldn't even pay off my own mortgage with what was left, and cashed out. Afterwards I could never find a point to get back into the market without risking it all again, and I missed the recovery -- along with the ridiculous swings in the corrupt casino the "market" has become. I found better investments -- a home business and real estate (plus a 20% savings rate) that salvaged my retirement.
I would absolutely love to turn it all over to an expert, in the form of annuity that takes the same market risks along with me, knowing that a 100-year-old insurance company can outlive a downturn that I can't. But every time I look into it, I find the same thing. The crooks want you to give you their money and feed it back to you with a real return rate barely equal to the inflation rate -- plus enormous fees.
So I'm stuck in the money market, where at least I don't have to beg someone for my money if I need it, while getting the same rate I'd get from an annuity.
I sure wish I was still a 46-year-old market genius (with 46-year-old knees). But 70-year-old me can't afford to play casino games anymore.
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I understand your history. I bought a few shares of Colt Industries while still in high school in 1959 or so. At that time my father was trading the nifty fifty. I remember him calling his broker in the morning before he went to work. However I never was much of a stock market guy but invested in rental real estate, first residential and then commercial, starting in 1967/1968. Along the way I held a few stocks and started an IRA when they became available. I bought a few shares now and then of stocks like IBM, MSFT, WMT, JNJ and BRK and never paid them much attention, just let it all sit. I needed to maintain liquidity so held mostly money market funds. I do remember all the hysteria during the 1999 dot-com bubble crash, day traders going broke, and I knew a few. I also remember the 2007-2008 financial crisis. I did not pay much attention to either as they did not affect me. My rents just kept coming in. Today I remain focused on RE but needed to sell sizable multi-partner properties in 2022 and 2023. Thus I was faced with what do I do with the money. That is how I ended up spending time on the market. I am about 50% in cash (T-bills and money market) as the market seems very pricey to me. I did get lucky on some NVDA, lol. At this point in time I am slowly going Boglehead with low cost indexed ETFs, Vanguard and Schwab. I have just put my toe in the water, though, and am not about to dive in. After a lot of soul searching I decided to continue to hold onto my remaining commercial real estate as I am not really a stock market guy.