Sally Vix wrote:
Financial Advisor wrote:
agip wrote:
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
Some people are perfectly fine with their country or personally being fiscally irresponsible. To believe it continues without severe payback is neither rational or supported by market history. The mentality that it continues infinitely is necessary to create the greatest asset bubble ever. Everyone here is free to bet their investment dollars anyway they like. It is interesting that on the same day the TLT is up 1% while the SPY 1,18%.
yeah.
the problem I have these days is separating my age from the investment analysis.
I'm in my 50s now and I'm more concerned with preserving my wealth than building it up. So I get more worried about things, and more conservative. So my returns have been worse than they should have been the last few years.
I wonder if I were 30 and in this same economic environment I'd feel differently, less worried. Would I be more optimistic? I don't know.
Just seems that as we get older we get more worried, more pessimistic, and that makes us worse investors.
Talking about me specifically here.
There’s nothing wrong with being more conservative as you age. But the problem is too many investors get too conservative. The old adage of getting out of stocks in retirement is now considered folly. If you’re going to live to 85, or beyond, you’d be silly not to be at least 50%, and probably more, in the stock market in your 60s and early 70s. Buckets.
agip - the other day when you said you were close to retiring, I was thinking you are in your 60s. But you are in your 50s?!!! You are still young. Peter Lynch might have been one of the most well-regarded investors of all time and he said something like equities was the only way to go up until you are really getting close to retiring. agip - you are still young at 50-ish! I am 58 and have some target retirement funds with Vanguard but for the most part I am all in with equity mutual funds and ETFs. I really won't dial back until my late 60s or early70s.
Look, I'm still 63% in stocks. I haven't gone completely conservative yet. And I have enough money. I won. I don't want to have to work to pay the bills. I want to work if I want to work. So I can post on LRC without too much guilt of wasting time.
But here's the better reason for me to be more conservative...I just know that if the market falls 30% or 40% I won't wait it out. I'll sell some at 20% and then a whole lot more at 30% down. I'll not want to risk losing my nest egg. So better not to be in the situation where a bear market in stocks can do that kind of damage to me. I'll take the lower return if it keeps me from 30% and 40% drawdowns.