I need some advice from a mutual fund/stock retirement planner.?

hello,

1.the russel series of funds are interesting because theyre not made up of individual stocks, theyre a fund composed of funds! check this page: http://www.russell.com/US/Investment_Products/Life...

your fund is class e, the page says class s but that is your page because yours is the equity growth (aggressive) strategy. under a pie chart on that page is the list of your funds components which fall into seven categories such as global equity and special growth.. so to find out the stocks exact stocks which you asked youd then have to look up the components of everyone of those funds!

2. well your fund has a decent return but as a general rule managed mutual funds will always incur more fees than index funds and etfs so itll eat away (though stealthily) at your return potential. you can find index funds or etfs (such as those called ishare--iwn,iwj,iws for example) that have the same strategy (equity growth) as your relex and theyll probably be a better bet in the long run. because even the fine print says relex is subject not only to the direct managerial fees of russel but also indirectly to the underlying funds' fees!! definitely if your gonna do the research pick your own stocks too! any ira should let you do that so youre good in that respect.

3. i can see as far as "asset allocation" you want to be very aggressive! thats fine i am like that too. look into some small cap value index funds or etfs maybe. since youre aggressive instead of balancing equity with fixed income like bonds maybe just have all equities but balance with 50% fund/etf and 50% of your own stock picks.. thats still 100% equity which is "risky" but its "safer" than 100% individual stock and has higher return potential than 100% fund. id say with 4000 in relex a year youll be a millionaire if you retire at 65. youll be better off than many people who dont save but you can do way way better if you think for yourself instead of relying on a fund manager! plus itd be better to be in a situation where you dont have to wait til 65 to retire (you may still want to work but at least youll have the option) maybe try to max out a roth and a regular ira, invest in researched stocks and value/growth funds/etfs and youll be a millionaire in your 50s!

maybe someone will say that you cant be guaranteed to be a millionaire by doin that but i guarantee you wont be a millionaire if you dont take some kind of action or initiative like that! ha and you are so congratulations!

hooray for Y!A!!!

Hey Cerv,

(1) To find out about RELEX, I'd try Morningstar.com, one of the biggest objective rating services for mutual funds out there. You can often get good information from that site.

(2) My quick look at the fund indicates it has a 5-star rating, and has pretty low expenses in comparison to other funds of its type. My thought is, if you've used the fund for a while, and it don't seem "broke", why try to fix it? Maybe down the road, the performance will falter or you may want to diversify more as the money grows. But for now, I wouldn't worry too much. The key is to keep saving and adding to that pool while you're young and don't stop!

(3) Keep an eye on RELEX over time. If you think you need to change later, look at all your options and see what has the best performance at that point (of course, NObody can predict what will be good 10 years from now... we can't even do it for TODAY most of the time! lol)

(4) If you currently have $7500 in your 401(k) and you keep putting in $4000/year in a traditional IRA at your current age, at an average annual return of 9%, when you reach age 65, you'll have ... (brace yourself...) $1,430,541! How do I know? Check out www.finance.cch.com. They have a bunch of financial calculators that will crunch the numbers for you. Sweet, huh?

Happy investing!

It is never too early to start saving, but ‘retirement is one of the greatest cons of all time. What you really want, what everyone really wants is Financial Independence.

Someone has set up a standard game plan for everyone. It basically goes as follows:

Age 0-5: Baby – Grow Up

Age 6-17: Child – Go to School

Age 18-21: Student – Go to College

Age 22-65: Adult – Work

Age 65+: Senior Citizen – Retire and Die

Retirement usually means that we are no longer dependent on work for our income and daily living needs. Our income is independent from our occupation.

So what you really want is ‘Financial Independence’ much earlier than scheduled for us in the standard game plan. In fact maybe the game plan we really want is more like:

Age 0-5: Baby – Grow Up

Age 6-17: Child – Go to School

Age 18-21: Student – Go to College

Age 22-39: Adult – Work towards Financial Independence

Age 40+: Financially Independent – Enjoy Life

So now that you have a goal of Financial Independence, you need to set a timescale to reach that by and a means of reaching that goal.

In this context you are generally talking about a savings and investment plan that will give you a sufficient amount of money to live off for the rest of your life.

You will need to equip yourself with the necessary knowledge and tools to make this work now.

To be successful you will need patience, discipline, and wisdom. But most importantly you need a plan.

It may prove expensive to acquire that much needed wisdom on our own. Learn by other peoples mistakes. Learn from other peoples successes. Read some books. Visit our local book store and find books that we like and feel comfortable with.

Some of the titles I have on my bookshelf include:

One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch

How to make money in Stocks by William J. O’Neil (Founder of Investor’s Business Daily)

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J Stanley and William D Danco

Check out web sites like fool.com and yahoo finance.

Investigate trading strategies with a proven track record over 3, 5, 10, and 15 years.

Diversify. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.

Pick something that you understand, find easy to use and will help you realise your goals. Pick a strategy where you can take responsibility for your investments and be in full control of your capital.

Systems like the Stocks Monthly system (which has generated an average return of 49%p.a. over the past 15 years) are definitely worth investigating once you are up to speed with the nuts and bolts of investing.

I am going to suggest that you move your 401k to another company. One that has lower expenses and does not have a front end load. There are several mutual fund companies that offer funds with very similar investment styles as RELEX that have lower expenses. T. Rowe Price offers PRGSX, a very similar fund, with an annual return of 15.7% over the last 5 years and expense ratio of 1.01%. This compares to 12.53% annual return over the last 5 years and expenses of 1.38% net and 1.81% gross for RELEX.

http://www.troweprice.com/common/indexFundFacts/0,...

Fidelity offers FWWFX with 5 year annual return of 13.6% and annual expenses of 1.02%. Also a very similar fund.

http://personal.fidelity.com/products/funds/mfl_fr...

Vanguard offers VHGEX with 5 year annual return of 16.76% and annual expenses of 0.72%, also a similar fund. They do charge a $20 annual IRA fee.

https://flagship.vanguard.com/VGApp/hnw/funds/snap...

Each of these mutual fund companies offers a very large selection of mutual funds, have low expense ratios, and are no load.

If you stick with $4000 annually at 10% annual return, you should have about $1,575,186, depending on the age at which you choose to retire.

Now about IRA accounts. There are two different types traditional and Roth. The difference is how they are taxed. The tradional is taxed as the funds are distributed at the full tax rate, not at the capital gains tax rate or the dividend tax rate but at the full tax rate. The Roth IRA account funds are taxed on the amount that you input to the account but never on any amounts distributed. Now when you think about it a moment, you will have $1,575,000 earning $157,500 annually in your account. If this amount is in a traditional IRA and you take the minimum distribution rate at the current tax rate your federal taxes will be at the 33% rate. You will have to distribute about $200,000 annually so you will net only $134,000. But if the amount is in a Roth IRA account you net $200,000 for a net gain of $64,000 annually. The flip side of that is that you have to pay taxes on the $4,000 that you put into the Roth IRA.

Penny stocks are loosely categorized companies with share prices of below $5 and with market caps of under $200 million. They are sometimes referred to as "the slot machines of the equity market" because of the money involved. There may be a good place for penny stocks in the portfolio of an experienced, advanced investor, however, if you follow this guide you will learn the most efficient strategies https://tr.im/4ed13

Your expectations of Y!A are WAY too high.....