How high is the DOW or the TSX...

[recycled sixtie]

going to go? Rebalance into bonds? Cash is good right now. Your thoughts are always appreciated!

[aigel]

It depends on where you are in life. I am at least 15 years away from having to get at my retirement savings, so I have always just held, never tried to time the market. But you are older, right? You probably will want to take some of the upside out now and de-risk it from a big drop. The older you are, the less volatile investments you should have. Yes, you will miss out on the big upswings, but also on the big downturns.

G

[wdfifteen]

Moving into cash. This is a bubble and it's going to burst one of these days.

[creaturecat]

i just moved into cash. now it earns basically nothing.
any ideas, folks?

[MRM]

Whatever you do, don't go into bonds. Interest rates are finally moving up. As rates go up the price of bonds goes down, so you'll lose value in any bond you buy into now.

As for the direction of the Dow, etc., no one knows. If they did, they'd be richer that Warren Buffett. The market does what it does, often independent of (if not directly contrary to) current events. Who would have thought that the Dow would be up 2,000 points since November 4, 2016? None of us have the resources or ability to predict the market or pick stocks that beat the market. To the extent that anyone here does, it is a function of luck that their intuition turned out to be correct.

Put your stocks in an S&P 500 index fund and diversify with a few percent of your portfolio in commodities and non-equities. Buy and hold. Don't try to time the market. If you do it successfully it is only luck.

[recycled sixtie]

Here is an interesting concept that I heard on BNN or our business news channel.

It is an awareness of performance between ETF's and mutual funds bought at these high market levels. Fund managers would likely have some money sitting in cash. So if a person bought $10,000 of an etf in the dow(assuming it was unhedged) he would be totally exposed whereas at least a mutual fund would have some cash sitting on the sidelines waiting for a correction.

[MRM]

Yes, and the mutual fund will have the same cash sitting on the sidelines the next time the market unexpectedly rises 2,000 points in 30 days. Just buy an index fund and be done with it.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by creaturecat

i just moved into cash. now it earns basically nothing.
any ideas, folks?

Have everyone in your family put $10k (the max annual) into an I bond. They're earning 2.76% and it will go up with interest rates. Find them at Treasurydirect.gov.

[wdfifteen]

IMHO listen to aigel if you are over about 60. Listen to MRM if you are under that age.

[fred cook]

If you have mutual funds, you will have at least some bonds in the mix. One of my investment portfolios that is split up among four different mutual funds made almost 9% last year! Another possibility to consider are stocks with good dividends. In the end, it is all a gamble!

[Gogar]

Today's DJIA intraday high: 19,999.63.



Thank goodness we can have a few more days of absurd news stories!

[MRM]

Originally Posted by fred cook

If you have mutual funds, you will have at least some bonds in the mix. One of my investment portfolios that is split up among four different mutual funds made almost 9% last year! Another possibility to consider are stocks with good dividends. In the end, it is all a gamble!

The Dow was up about 18%. You gave up half of your gains (before expenses) by gambling with an actively traded fund. The only way to not gamble on sticks is to buy and hold index funds. History has proven they outperform actively traded mutual funds and have lower fees, which give you a double whammy of investment returns.

[NoRush993/951]

As January goes, the rest of the year will follow. I'm hearing about wire transfer delays going on. So that intrigues me more than the DOW. Anybody moving funds around this week to chime in?