New Fool Seeking Foolish Post-Retirement Investing Ideas

[physician]

@Quillnpenn , some were normal type mutual funds like Vanguard, Janus, one i held was ODPIX but one I couldn’t buy in my non pension fund account was MFEKX…doc

[DaddyO406]

Goofyhoofy,
First, let me apologize for maybe being a little too sensitive. No, I have not been very financially savvy over the course of my life, and when someone slaps you in the face with that reality it is easy to get defensive. Nobody likes getting slapped. And I never said I have the expertise to be above average. Just the desire. I realize that I have a lot to learn, and that is why I am here. To learn from people like you who have the experience and the insight and are willing to share it. No slapping required.
To that end, I really do appreciate your advice! Yes, I can tell from the many and varied responses that everyone has their take on investing. But, as I am here to learn, I really do appreciate their input, as well.
So, I have these two IRA’s in several mutual funds, as mentioned. I realize now that I was a bit hasty in my choices, picking a couple that have a high expense ratio, and one that had a $75 broker fee and a $45 early withdrawal fee. I will get out of those and find a couple of low fee ETF’s or un-managed mutual funds.

@Goofyhoofy

Take a small pot of your small pot and try some individual stocks. This is akin to “training wheels”. Since you (admittedly) don’t have experience, you are better off learning with small dollars rather than your entire grub stake. Presumably some of those small bets will do well, some will not. Experience is the best teacher.

Excellent advice, there! I am thinking to start slowly buying stocks using a dollar cost averaging strategy. I want to learn how to evaluate a company on my own, and invest in ones that I determine to be good one to invest in, for long term gain. This would be a separate investment from the two IRA’s. However, as you point out, the market is kind of a scary place at the moment, so I worry about that. I guess if one picks the solid companies and stays with them through any downturns, the gains after the market rebounds will make up for that? At least that is what I am reading. The temptation for me is to wait until a market correction does occur, then buy in. But I do understand that trying to time the market is not a good investment strategy, especially for a noob like me.

@Goofyhoofy

I will just point out that the market right now is trading (overall) at a price-to-forward sales ratio of “2”

So, is this the current price of a company’s outstanding shares divided by their projected future sales?
Again, thank you Goofyhoofy for your insights!

Daddy-O

[syke6]

@physician

At the end of the year I will check the performance of all those TransAm funds again and move my funds to the best performer. I try to tell the young guys that no one cares more about your money than you and the reps are motivated about their profit - not your profit…doc

Isn’t that skating to where the puck is instead of where it is going? I pulled up three TransAmerica large cap funds and compared them to Vanguard in Portfoliovizualizer. They all underperformed the Vanguard 500 index. Even the TransAmerica index fund underperformed Vanguard.

[physician]

@syke6

Isn’t that skating to where the puck is instead of where it is going? I pulled up three TransAmerica large cap funds and compared them to Vanguard in Portfoliovizualizer. They all underperformed the Vanguard 500 index. Even the TransAmerica index fund underperformed Vanguard.

I guess I mispoke since my pension plan is in Transamerica but I don’t invest in Transamerica funds…doc