Hi Cindy
I originally AIMed two mutual funds from 1995 to 2003 when I decided to switch to ETFs. I struggled with the decission of investing by style or industry and eventually bought 10 industry I-Shares funds and later a few individual stocks. I am thinking I want to simplify things now.
A while back I posted my idea for what I call "slow AIM". Basically it is what most indexing proponents propose. Buy a few diversified funds with your age invested in a short term US treasurey bond fund and rebalance once per year at most.
That has you buy stocks low and sell stocks high just like AIM.
So I came up with a portfolio of
IVE (large value)
IWN (small value)
EFA (foreign) could be split into other funds (fxi, eeb)
ICF (REITS)
and IEF (US Treasury)
I would make the first four equal value each year and IEF would be kept to my age %
At the present time the bond fund could be SHY and when rates peak (invert) again could be switched back to IEF.
The above is the most simple investing method I could come up with. It is what I suggest to people who are just starting to get in to investing and / or are investing phobic.
I still struggle with wanting to own individual stocks though for a few reasons. None are valid in terms of investment results for me.
1) With all the money in funds, no one has any control of company governance or executive pay.
2) I would like to cherry pick what I feel are the better stocks in an index. This would make more sense if I was using industry funds. (In reality I am a lousy individual stock picker and timer)
Not always,
Toofuzzy
Take the road less traveled. It will make all the difference.
