Stock Markets do not like Tradewars - Is your Retire Fund in Jeopardy?

Is your Retire.Fund in jeopardy of a severe downturn in Stocks

You recently retired, or will retire in the next few years, but you are still heavily invested in the stock markets because that is where the growth has come from for the past 10 or so years.

  Did you take a beating in 2008? Do you even remember what happened that year? Maybe you didn't start saving/investing until late in your career, and you feel you need a bit more!

 Maybe it's time you considered "solidifying" the investments you still have.

Paper profits are great, until they are not! A sudden reversal in stock prices can wipe out 50% of your portfolio.  It can happen really fast these days as the Algos take over the selling, and markets drop like a rock! If that happens this year,(and this writer believes it will), then you may be left trying to decide to "stay in" to try and recoup your losses, or cash out with 20-50% less profit. If such an event occurs, it maybe a decade before you recoup those losses.

To this date the Nasdaq has returned, year to date, over 19%  "THAT" my friends is a great return on investment! The SP500 has returned almost as much YTD!

If your Index Funds are up over 15%, then congratulations, because, I believe, it won't happen again for years to come.  I sincerely do not believe that retirees or those nearing retirement, "will ever see" returns like this again!!!

If you are over 50 or need the money in your portfolio for retirement, if you don't have another 10-15 years to make up losses and cannot afford a downturn in stock prices (or bond prices for that matter see: Bonds) then maybe you should consider the wise advice of the foremost investor in modern history, Mr. Warren Buffett, who famously said:

Remember, "Cash" is also a Position and, at this juncture, it may be the best position!At this writing, we are mostly in cash, with a few exceptions.

Good luck, and be careful!  

Your Retire.Fund depends on it!

Avoiding Index Funds this year may be a good strategy for your Retire Funds

Individual Stocks VS Index Funds in 2019

2019 does not bode well for Stock Indexes and therefore, Index funds.  Buying Index funds has been the go-to investment of individual investors (and some institutional investors) for years now.  Since 2009, many have done very well with this simple strategy which has outdone many money managers over that time.

2019 may be different for a number of reasons! This bull market we have enjoyed since 2009, is getting very long in the tooth and 2019 is beginning to look like the end is in sight.

The macro picture is a mishmash of poor decisions and poor leadership from Central Banks and world leaders alike. The news is dominated by trade war talks, Walls, Brexit, German (read Euro) downturn, and Debt, beyond anything we have witnessed in the past. Real war cannot be dismissed either as the USA and North Korea are at a stalemate, and (nuclear armed) India and Pakistan are shooting down each others fighter jets, to the cheers of their domestic audiences.

With Britain on the verge of a "no deal" Brexit, Italy may be becoming a financial basket case, German output is inching into negative territory, and in France, the Macron government has done nothing to right that ship.

Some believe that, Deutsche Bank may well be the "Lehman Brothers" of the Euro zone this year as creditors close in and a bailout partner is not in sight. The two largest economies on the planet, USA and China are at serious odds over trade AND both are in serious DEBT!

As the USA begins to withdraw from the world under this administration, it owes $22 Trillion dollars and that debt is now growing at 1.5 Trillion per year under Trump.

There are two ways to handle such a debt burden, 1: Default
2: reduce the dollar to a nickel.  There is no other way to pay down such a massive debt! (my bet is that, if it were entirely up to Mr. Trump, he would pick door number 1)

There are now more refugees on the move across the world than WW2 and most countries are putting up barriers to entry. Euro zone countries from Spain to Greece are doing whatever they can to keep out refugees, instead of welcoming them. Climate change, inept governments and wars are the reasons for such a migration.

Witness the debacle in the USA on the southern border as this president continues to threaten to shut down government if he does not get his wall. This argument is a hideous sidelight to what is truly going on in the world. This same administration seems to admire despots while scorning democracy, whether it is in it's own constitution or that of valuable allies.

The USA has now walked away from trade agreements, peace treaties and most recently, a nuclear arms agreement with Russia. None of these things bode well for markets, or indeed, humanity, going forward, but the pied Pipers of Wall Street keep on playing!

On a lesser, and personal financial note, while most index funds have very low fees, they are paid annually, and therefore, add up over time, eating into profits.  As the value of your investments go up, so do your fees. This is a built in strategy that will eventually eat away at your gains. If these investments go down, the fund still gets paid, every year!

Conversely, Buying individual stocks is now usually done online for less than $10 per trade! (One time). When an index tumbles, not all stocks are included. Some stocks actually go up at such times.

 The drawback:

Now you have to do homework!  Stocks are not index funds! They require you to do some investigating of your own, unless, of course, you want to keep all your money in cash, gold and silver, and buried in your back yard!