basically just that, what percentage of bonds to stocks (if there is a perfect number) should i have? Also should i start out with penny stocks?
Thats a stupid question! Welcome! If you are a conservative investor, my rule of thumb, take your age, subtract from 100, thats the % of stocks in your portfolio. This may vary depending on your personal financial situation and risk tolerance.* Penny stocks are a great way to learn valuable lessons in trading, specifically on how to take a loss! Seriously! lol There are a few traders here that know how to trade them well, but most people simply use them as a casino and pray for a good result. Penny stocks are more volatile than larger stocks, so you would need to be able to take on more risk than the average trader/investor if you want to dabble in that. * I will also have to add that in recent history, due to Fed action, rates are completely in the crapper, so people are forced more into equities than ever before.
Personally I am not a big fan of bonds and I think the allocation advice given by "experts" is done because it is a long term expected answer. Not sure if you are willing to do homework or not, but take a look at historical performance of the 50 plus dividend aristocrats (especially the well known) and see if you agree that the return on buy and hold with dividend reinvestment outperforms bonds by a long shot and is fairly safe in bear markets. I know I elected to take a portion of my IRA and built a CD ladder to last me 18 years of drawing down on them for income and put the rest of my IRA into stocks. I still consider myself well diversified because I put 50 percent in dividend stocks and split the other 50% into growth and value stocks. With my growth and value I try to follow the industries that are strong at the time. I don't play penny stocks though. Good luck to you and hope to see you in the forums. You'll pick up a lot here.
BTW Knax I have to ask. Is that you in the picture on your avatar, or are you just a fan of CSI Cyber?
If you have to invest in bonds, stay away from government. Much better to stick with blue chip corporate debt as govt. debt is about to tank, imo... And 80% stocks, 20% bonds is pretty average. I'll make my retirement portfolio 100% long stocks in the near future.
Actually no. Some guys from the state police gaming office ( I work for a video poker distributor) thought it would be hilarious to make me an employee of the month plaque and used that guys face and my name lol
I personnaly like Gov Bonds. In 2012 I got Portuguese Rep Bonds with a HUGE discount; we were becoming insolvent and asked some months before an assistance program to IMF/EU/etc, so they were basicaly cheap, and to me low risk bets. I got them with more than 30% discount from their nominal price; 30% was the level I assumed that (they) would become interesting - I assumed that a eventual "trim" wouldnt be higher than that value. The anual coupon was interesting (4.10%) and real coupon (4.10/70%) even better. Maturity is 2037, so steady and regular income til then.
