I am seeking opinions from any of you with any kind of investment savvy, as I have none. My boss has recently set up Morgan Stanley acocunts for us, the management of which is left up to our own discretion. I have no idea what to do with my moderate little nest egg.
My MS advisor says mutual funds would be the best decision for me, and recommends 75% in Van Kampen Comstock B (coincidently owned by Morgan Stanley), and 25% in American Funds EuroPacific Gr B. Does anyone know anything about these two funds?
I have doing some reading on my own but am a little overwhelmed and advisor is pressuring me to make a decision soon.
Not knowing your age I would say the the closer you are to retirement the less risk you should take (Lots of Blue Chips, Bonds and the like). The younger you are the more you can weather the ups and downs of the riskier stocks (Growth and tech Stocks). Another tip is once you invest your money do not watch it everyday and react to little dips and dives in the market. Go to MSN’s webpage and go to the Investment section (MSN) and do a little research. Do not invest your money anywhere if you liquidity.
Sabrina,
i advise clients for state farm b/c we sell mutual funds and such. pm me and i will tell you how to maximize your portfolio. it’s pretty easy actually and a strategy i am using myself.
I would diversify a little more than having your money split between only two securities. Overall leaning towards risk if you’re still young, small cap, mid cap, overseas funds. If you’re closer to retirement be more conservative.
Check out morningstar.com. They have a lot of great info and you can register for free and enter their investing forums. There are a lot of people there who know their stuff. Post some questions there and I’m sure you will get some good responses.
Hmm, although you should look at the historical returns for funds, these numbers can be “manipulated” somewhat. Find some sources of performance reviews and don’t be rushed into anything.
One thing you probably don’t want to do is get into funds that have a large front end load, large management fees, or unreasonable restrictions on changing your portfolio at a later date.
As you probably know, using mutual funds lets you play in the markets in a diversied way without having to worry about those markets yourself. However, if you want to learn more about things and manage your money yourself you can do that too.
So, in the short term, you might want to think about putting your assets into something very low risk but with virtually guaranteed returns while you figure out what you really want to do. It isn’t exciting, but until you are comfortable with things, caution is in order.
I was able to find a info on the Van Kampen fund, which is a “value” fund, meaning it’s fairly coservative in its investment strategy. I’m guessing you are fairly young (at least under 30) and I would think you would want to be a bit more aggressive. 75% seems like a lot to put in this conservative an investment at your age (unless you’re older than I think…I won’t tell). You may want to ask about “growth” funds, which inevest more aggressively (higher risk = higher potential return). They will tend to be more volatile but over the long run should return more, about 12% on average. “Index” funds, which are weighted the same as a stock-exchange index (e.g. S&P 500) in order to mirror its performance, are also good from what I’ve heard. Best thing you can do is educate yourself. As someone said, check sites like morningstar.com. Also, Motley Fool (www.fool.com) is excellent. Good luck and here’s to retiring wealthy!!
I assume this is retirement savings. Keep it simple. If your time horizon is 15 years or greater, just put it into Vanguard S&P 500.
As long as you don’t need the money soon and are dollar cost averaging (making contributions 2x a month or something), it is really tough to beat over the long term.
By the way, don’t let the advisor pressure you into a quick decision!! Ask specific questions and make sure he understands and answers them clearly! You’re talking about your future here and if this guy is more worried about cutting a quick deal, you should replace him. YOU are his priority, not his commission!
Everything depends upon the time horizon of your investment.
If you’re in it for the long term, start with a diversified stock fund from Vanguard. Preferably the SP 500 fund.
If you have a more short-run investment time line, it depends on your risk tolerance. However, the shorter the timeline, the more conservative you should be.
Nothing wrong being diversified. However, you’ll want to get at least 10% of your money into Gold or Gold Equities.
The bull market for the next 10 years will be raw materials like oil, food, and other commodities.
Forget the bond market, forget the stock market or tech stocks. They will not have the return over a 10 year period like the commodities will.
The bull market in Gold, Silver and Commodities began in 2000, which is when the bull market in stocks ended. If this bull market in Gold lasts 20 years like the bull market in stock you are still in the very beginning stages.
Hope that helps. Remember 10-20 years from now when everybody is talking about Bema Gold, Golden Star Resources, Glamis Gold, and Silver Standard Resources, the bull market will be over.
Thanks for all the advice guys! I am going to check out these websites.
I am 31 so this is long term. I would say my risk tolerance is relatively high, but as of right now I don’t have a lot to lose either. But, I do intend to contribute a decent amount monthly so I would like to try to get off of the right foot now and avoid having to do a lot of shuffling (with all the associated fees) later.
I’d say remember one very important rule: you don’t get rich in the stock market. You get rich by saving and investing disposable income over time. Stocks, bonds, etc. are just assets that protect your savings or grow them (hopefully).
The key to building wealth is setting aside money you could otherwise spend, not scoring on a big stock tip.
If you learn this, you’re ahead of 80% of the workforce.
Oh, and you probably know this already - an expensive car is the worst financial asset you can own. Trade status for smarts.
First move is to slowly educate yourself. When I started investing about 12 years ago, I started by subscribing to “Smart Money” and “Money” magazines, and I still do because I continue to find them quite useful.
“The Motley Fool” has a great website for investment novices - http://www.fool.com/ - and Investor Words at http://www.investorwords.com/ provides definitions for accounting, financial, business, and investment terms.
what have you read? inre to you can’t get rich in the stock market, one name, Warren Buffet. One thing I would agree with here, save money. However you can, within limits, save money. Then use a discount broker and buy stock to hold. Forget books about how the chart looks as a picture, forget systems. When you buy a stock, you are buying a business. Find a source of information and read about your prospective business purchase, because you are going to own it for a long time, so don’t hurry the process. Go to B and N and look for a book by Mary Buffet. If you can only buy twice a year with the funds you collect for 1/2 a year, make it a good purchase. Mutual funds, although real good, whom do you suppose pays for those fancy buildings and TV ads and magazine ads?