Your elementary-primer recommends for the not inspired or unknowing, into the world of investing I'm making a list of books and web sites to promote towards the "why in hell would I want to be an investor" folks I know.
The target age range is mostly 25-50 years old, BUT needs to include the young ones, too. Some of the folks who will receive information from me are retired, but may pass along the information to their adult children and hopefully to the grand children. The could be named, "Investing for the unaware or the afraid"
The criteria, somewhat; by areas:
As an example, I can't be taking these folks into a 3rd year session of learning French; as they have not yet had the basics from beginning French, at day one. I need to keep this on the simple side in the beginning to maintain their interest. Yes, investing is a learning curve and an ongoing study; but I don't want them to feel overwhelmed and quit the journey. I anticipate not much better than a 10% survival rate, sadly.............
--- A budget and spending habits
--- Very basic overview of how the economy functions
--- Overview of investment types/descriptions, although the direction would tend towards mutual funds; as this would be the most common form available for most
--- The reasons for investing in a 401k/403b/Traditional or Roth IRA's
NOTE: Two items that I already have in place, is Ray Dalio, "How the economic machine works" (free, 31 minutes, Youtube); and "The millionaire next door" (spending habits, budgeting)......book.
I have not yet reviewed Youtube again; but there are indeed very useful pieces there; as well as Khan Academy.
I'm leaning towards online writes and video how-to to obtain the best results and temptation to read/watch and become involved by the folks I'll be contacting.
Thank you in advance, for more guidance towards meaningful sites/books at the elementary level.
Take care,
Catch
MFO Ratings Updated Through September 2018
FPA Flexible Fixed Income Fund in registration
The Sears Bankruptcy Is A Cautionary Tale For Hedge Fund Managers FYI: Sears Holdings Corp . filed for bankruptcy early on Monday morning, the culmination of a years-long decline of the American retail institution, providing another example as to why hedge fund managers should steer clear of retail.
Sears (ticker: SHLD) sought Chapter 11 protection and announced a deal with its lenders that will let it keep many stores open and continue paying vendors and employees. Its $1.8 billion debtor-in-possession asset-based credit facility gave it some $300 million more than it had before filing.
Bankruptcy enabled it to “reject leases” on about 220 store locations, almost all of which are “dark stores” not open to shopper traffic where Sears has already shut operations. Sears will start “going out of business sales” at another 142 unprofitable stores, which will close by year-end. It had already announced intention to close 46 stores by November. The 12
5-year-old company operates about 700 Sears and Kmart stores, and employs about 70,000 people.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/sears-bankruptcya-cautionary-talefor-hedge-fund-managers-1539619499?mod=hp_DAY_2
Your Financial Adviser’s ‘Sleep Easy’ Portfolio May Be Riskier Than You Think: The 60/40 Portfolio Your Financial Adviser’s ‘Sleep Easy’ Portfolio May Be Riskier Than You Think
Don’t you love these “may be“ statements? Hell - I “may be” the King of England. :)
I’ve never viewed 60/40 as a sleep-well combination. It might, however, be described as “sleep better”. The 60/40 has a couple strikes against it today. First, the equity portion is priced at near multi-year highs. Secondly, the interest rate on the bond portion is still low by historical standards. I don’t have an answer to that dilemma. It’s fodder for further discussion - but that’s about all.
I happen to like Dodge and Cox, But their very fine balanced fund, DODBX, did not stand up well during the ‘07-‘09 market rout. A couple of their equity funds lost more than 50% from peak to trough. Just guessing here - but DODBX did somewhat better, dropping perhaps 30-35% during that period. Like I said, Sleep a little better - but not well.
Maybe some creative minds would like to offer up alternatives to a 60/40 fund for jittery investors who need some long term growth but are frightened by today’s high equity valuations and still low interest rates. Despite the currently running thread on how well cash is doing these days, I just can’t get excited about 2.5% - especially if it means locking-up your money for more than a year.
Why The Stock Market Went Loco FYI: That was the question on investors’ minds after a 1,300-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday and Thursday. “It,” of course, is a correction, or worse, in what had been a steady, nearly unstoppable ascent in the U.S. stock market.
While the decline was arrested for the moment Friday, the major averages ended the week with their steepest losses since the week ended March 23. The Dow ended down 4.2%, the S&P
500 fell 4.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 3.7%. That was a far sight better than the 7.6% plunge in the Shanghai Composite but in line with declines in other bourses, from the Stoxx Europe 600 to Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 to Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s Kospi.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/why-the-stock-market-went-loco-1539361320?mod=hp_LEAD_3
Consuelo Mack's WealthTrack: Guests: Jason Zweig & James Grant
MFO Ratings Updated Through September 2018 Always appreciate these refinements. In this case, under Risk in the Miraculous Multi-Search tool, it would be helpful to know, e.g., how the following may be calculated by curious minds:
Choosing POGRX, for example, or any other fund of your choice:
This fund’s Standard Deviation (STDEV or Std Dev) is 16.7, which measures the annualized volatility of its returns. Read STDEV in conjunction with your fund’s APR of 15.4. A fund with an APR of 15.4 and STDEV of 16.7 is telling you “we’ve averaged 15.4, but you’d have to endure returns that range from -1.3 to 32.1 in order to get there.”
Thoughts?
