Clark Howard
Clark Howard- “Dollar cost averaging is a way to pace your investing so that you’re buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when they’re high. Over time, putting money in this way reduces the possibility of panic in you and keeps you steady as you go.”
If you decide to build your own portfolio, don’t bet the farm on any one sector of investing. The younger you are, the more stock oriented you want to be. The older you are, the more bonds you want to have. You can make it ultra simple with just three to five index funds or go crazy with as many as 15.
Clark Howard
One of the big knocks on using mutual funds to invest is that the tax treatment of them is rotten.
Clark Howard
Dollar cost averaging is a way to pace your investing so that you’re buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when they’re high. Over time, putting money in this way reduces the possibility of panic in you and keeps you steady as you go. And staying in the game makes you more money over the long haul.
Clark Howard
As I built my portfolio, I set it up to work as follows: Total stock market, small cap, international index, emerging market, high-yield tax exempt, long-term tax exempt, intermediate-term tax exempt and short-term tax exempt. Because of my age, I am 50 percent spread among stock choices and 50 percent bond choices. My stock funds are 40 percent domestic and 60 percent international.
Clark Howard
I have been asked how many mutual funds make sense to own if you are actively going to build a portfolio, and the most common answer is 12. That way you can cover major investment categories and draw on the expertise of more than one manager.
Clark Howard
People often ask me why I’m not at 75 percent international if 75 percent of capitalism is overseas? The reason is that larger U.S. companies get a huge share of their sales outside the U.S., so 40 percent domestic ultimately takes me to an effective 25 percent true domestic ownership.
Clark Howard
One bit of advice before you take the leap into a work-at-home opportunity: Take an inventory of your talent, add a dash of creativity to your thinking and come up with a plan that suits you.
Clark Howard
Save more and spend less.
Clark Howard
There is no easier choice than a targeted retirement fund. You select the year closest to when you want to retire and simply put all your money into it.
Clark Howard
Don’t wait for someone else to provide for you…do it yourself.
Clark Howard
An ETF is like an index fund, but you buy and sell it like a stock. Usually it will have even lower management fees than an index fund. However, ETFs can be expensive to own if you buy and sell a lot because you have to pay a commission each time you do a transaction.
Clark Howard
Don’t feel bad about what you’ve spent, feel good about what you won’t spend anymore.
Clark Howard
Where do you put Roth money? Just about anywhere you want: A bank; credit union; full-commission stock broker; financial planner; in no-load mutual funds (a fund sold without commission) or with a discount stock broker.
Clark Howard
Sure, real estate is a deal, but only if you buy and hold. Stay in a traditional single-family home a minium of five years, but more like seven years before you go to move and sell again. That’s at least how long it could take real estate values to recover. If you’re starting out in a townhome, that particular market is even more distressed than the single-family home market. You need to dig in your heels and stay put in a townhome for at least 10 years.
Clark Howard
An index fund should cost as little as .09 percent to .30 percent per year. The average mutual fund costs 1.5 percent per year although you can build a great portfolio at .5 percent to .8 percent. Over time what seems like a tiny difference from fund to fund can make a huge difference in how much money you have to spend in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Clark Howard
New research I saw in The Wall Street Journal suggests that you better have those low fees or you could be robbing yourself of more than a decade of leisure in retirement!
Let’s say you have 2 employees with the same amount of money to invest; the same number of years to let it grow; and the same rate of return down the road. One person picks low-fee investments (like those I recommend on my guide) and the other person picks moderate-fee investments. Well, research shows the money in the low-fee investments will carry you 12 years longer than the money in the moderate-fee investments!
Clark Howard
We should always buy energy efficient appliances such as air conditioners at the beginning of an off season and end of the hot season because stores will be liquidating their items.
Clark Howard
The psychology has completely changed among the American people all I hear about now when it comes to borrowing and debt is how to get out of it.
Clark Howard
After you take care of those basics each month, I want you to drop your credit card debt a few notches down the totem pole and ignore the lenders if you don’t have money to go around.
Clark Howard
The smartest move any American can make is to buy investment real estate. The tide has turned and rental income is rising at the same time that the cost of owning real estate is at ultra-low levels. Cash buyers will be the big winners. Buyers are scarce and the sellers are desperately creating the perfect buying opportunity. I’ve bought five properties and I’m on the hunt for more.
Clark Howard 07/01/2011
