Looking at my 401k this morning and I have averaged a personal rate of return of about 16% over the last three and a half years ... It's better than I thought I would do - I was figuring 8% (and thought that might be a little high).

These have been extraordinary years- if you were in mostly stocks, 16% per year average is pretty respectable. I'm running about 11% per year during that period but I have a lot of bonds and bond funds because I'm closer to retirement.

In my long-term projections I use 6% but I know I'm being conservative. 8% is probably reasonable if you're mostly invested in stocks and stock funds.

Just try to keep an eye on the averages if the market goes down! I know I'll have a VERY hard time doing that and not panicking, but my financial advisor will keep me from doing anything stupid.

I'm heavy on stocks because I'm still young enough (38) to be aggressive. I will probably stay that way till I'm at least 50. I plan to retire when I have 30 years with the company, which will be when I am 61. Oh boy, only 23 years more! This is why I want to get my house paid off early too - because in retirement I don't want the house payment.

But my estimates have my returns around 8% and shows that I'll have about $750k in my 401k plan. If I have returns around 11% for much of that time, I'd have something like $1.2MM. This is all based on a rather modest investment of 6% of my income. I like to be conservative when I'm planning for the future.

Last year my 401k returned just over 26%. If I could keep that up, I could retire in no time! I think an average of 10% would be amazing, though. 8% is probably a reasonable and conservative basis for making your plans.

Of course, I'm 27 and just getting started for the most part, so I still have a long way to go.

I think 16% is pretty darn good... I'm at about 12%, although I'm in some conservative funds considering I'm not even 30 yet.

Yeah, I had a return for LAST year of about 28% ... I am very aggressive in my investments. Over all the return has averaged 16% ... I made a couple of really bad investments the first year.

16% is good. does this factor in fees?

the best we've ever done was a fund my spouse has in her traditional IRA: >30% in 2006.

On ALL of our invested money we averaged 23%, of course some funds were higher and some were lower.

The fees are very low and yes, it does factor in the fees. Vanguard now offers to have someone "manage" your portfolio for you, but honestly, I just don't feel comfortable letting someone else manage my money. Been burned before, even though it was by someone who had no clue.

Last year I think my 401k performed at like ... 28% was it? Something like that. I wish I could get a couple of years like that!

The trick is not to get caught up in the euphoria of these returns. The historical average is around 10%. This year may be good, but we are due for a downturn in the market. It WILL happen. When? No idea. Ideally, it won't be until after I am retired, but with 30+ years to go, thats a pipedream.

WHEN the market does turn, don't get scared and run for the hills, stay the course and keep investing. That way, when it comes back to favor, you will have MUCH more invested at lower prices to get some amazing returns on AKA dollar cost averaging.

On my small cap fund I'm getting aroud 22% on my balanced fund I'm getting aroud 12% (for the last 12 months)...I'l gladly take 16% any day.

28%!! WOW what are you invested in?

Well, I have about 30% of my investment in CVX stock, which has shown a GREAT return this year. The rest is in high risk, overseas investments.

I play large.

You must work for them if they offer that as a 401k choice.

It's no secret.

Hi all,

I have been getting a respectable double digit return per month, not per year. I have enjoyed working my portfolios up significantly

hahaha

I guess the haha refers to not believing sebulbas claim, but it really isn't tough.

Not all sectors of my investments return double digits per month, but my forex and futures portions are frequently up 15-40 percent per month or more on a good month.

Not tough at all.

My swing term sector is about the only thing that doesn't do doublt digits every month, though it does sometimes as well.

day trading. no thanks. forex? no thanks.

Think we've been around with this before, and I definitely respect your opinion.

So likewise: Wasting your life away working for someone else? No thanks. Boring investments that take 20-30 years or more if ever to make one wealthy, no thanks.

Investing in something over the long haul when you don't even know what will happen tomorrow? NO THANKS. Way too risky for me.

I kinda like to know in advance the maximum I can lose at any one time, not gamble my money in the hands of others who are amateurs.

all I said was no thanks. not for me. who are the amateurs?

I know, didn't mean it badly, just expressing opposite opinions of yours.

The amateurs I am referring to are the brokers who are barely out of high school and work based on sales commission, not performance commission.

I hate scumbag brokers that tout the next high flying stock that loses peoples hard earned money they've saved across the years.

we had one tell us recently that it would cost 1% of our portfolio balance just for them to manage our investments. let's say I burnt rubber out of there LOL.

rachel3511 Today, 12:15 AM Post #21





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Think we've been around with this before, and I definitely respect your opinion.

So likewise: Wasting your life away working for someone else? No thanks. Boring investments that take 20-30 years or more if ever to make one wealthy, no thanks.

Investing in something over the long haul when you don't even know what will happen tomorrow? NO THANKS. Way too risky for me.

I kinda like to know in advance the maximum I can lose at any one time, not gamble my money in the hands of others who are amateurs.






Could I ask what you do for a living that allows you both the luxery of plying your trade and being able to do due diligence on 4 or 5 thousang companies in order to not be stuck with boring investments that take 3o years to grow? How did Enron, WorldComm, Tyco and the resst work out for you. Can we agree that Warren Buffett did okay with his boring little stuff? By the way I am unaaware of any brokerage, financial planning, or wirehouse that hires amatures out of high school to manage money or advise? And if your looking for a good quick way to invest your money with a defined downside sinceyour really not sure if tomorrow will ever come, have you thought about roulette? You can get a thirty six hundred percent return in under a minute>

A good rate of return? I'd say anything that is double figures. It doesn't seem like a lot when you subtract 1/3-1/2 this # to get it in terms of real dollars due to inflation.

8% is the number you probably hear most often (think Suze)....and it does seem to be a good baseline to go against. Sort of like calling it average. The good thing being we haven't see 8% inflation, atleast on the big picture.

Last year my money market came in just over 50%, mainly thanks to a big investment in BCSI in October last year, which has continued to push even harder this year My original investment amount is now out of the stock and I'm in it strickly on the house at this point.
401 and roths were well over 20%.

However, lets be realistic, its been very hard to lose money in this market with a strong bull rally the last 8 months.

I wouldn't day trade either. Trying to guess the direction of the market is Passe'. The key is to use a strategy that makes no difference the direction, or even lack of direction of the market. My worst month since starting this method, will probly be this month, with only about 5% increase in portfolio value. Overall, very respectable, wouldn't you say?

Sure, for a living I do exactly that, trade. I also do RE, RE Mgt and construction, own a landscaping company and that's about it lately. It used to be more before some business interests were sold (high end car wholesaling, etc).

As for how I do DD on a few thousand companies? I never need to. I'm the intraday trader, not the investor. I don't care much about anything as far as fundamentals goes. Also, as you can see from my other posts, I focus on futures and forex for almost all of my daytrading, I don't do individual stocks except in a 1-5 day swing porfolio.

So how did Enron, Tyco, WorldComm, KM, etc work out for me? Just fine, I don't do individual stocks, and when I did back then I still only traded intraday, so I was never caught with a dog like those for the long haul. I don't believe in buy and hold, so I never will be. The last stock I ever held for more than a day was TASR when I shorted and caught 75% of its wonderful down move. You can look back to see how long ago that was, and that would be the last time I was in something overnight.

Where's do I ply my trade mainly? GBP/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, etc. Futures I trade ZG, QM, ER2, ES, QG, and YM. Those plus a few others are my entire day usually.

My swing trades for the last week were SMG, KRSL, WHR, and CPB. I was out of everything in the same day this week, but it normally doesn't happen that way.

Finally, yes, I fully agree others including Warren Buffet do awesome with Buy and hold, I simply do not.

Not daytrading, all that is, is Las Vegas without the airfare, that's the way I see it anyway.

Nondirectional hedge, basket and grid trading.

Seb

Nobody is going to take care of my money as well as I will

Seb

I consider anything in the double digits a good rate of return over a 20 year period. I find figuring rates of returns over short periods of time pointless... the market goes up, and it goes down. I am brilliant or an idiot, depending on whether the market is in a rally or a pullback...

I am glad most people are not able to successfully daytrade, and I thank you in advance for taking the other side of my trades.

Sebulba, I SINCERELY hope that the crap I'm reading on your signature link is not your results, if so, then giving sarcastic opinions to someone who makes your quarterly income in a day wouldn't be a wise idea.

And that crappy company you tried touting on the steals and deals forum, if you're with them, then I won't even waste my time laughing. Ok, I will actually. Any company that tries to get a newbie to trade 50 lots of forex is F'ING STUPID.

Trade Freedom Rocks? My God what an endless pyramid scam and a horrible business name with very irresponsible practices. Did you ever watch the video even? "If you just take 50 lots here, and 50 lots here as a hedge, you can exit here with blah blah blah. OH, and what happens when your exit isn't there, because it RARELY ever is. TRASH.

Also, if Turbo charged income is so wonderful, and the money is piling in, why do you spam BB's and every craigslist city in the world trying to sell info? Real traders make money trading, not talking. Those that can trade do, those that can't, teach. Oh, and they give me their money consistently.

I've posted my trading style years ago. If you win over 85% of the time and your SL is half as much as your average TP, there is NO POSSIBILITY of losing across the long term. I've not even seen a down week in years, let alone a down month.

I understand you cannot achieve that, and that's fine, but hedge trading is so mind numbing it isn't funny. To each his own.

Last question. If TFR is so great, why is TCI guy (whether you or someone you are advertising for) trading it with one MICROLOT of forex, then suddenly hopping up to a half lot, then back down?

And you call daytrading passe.

Wow, have I been told off or what?

Nah, just a minor thought about my love for TFR.

They're almost as high on my list as drowning, falling down a flight of stairs, or skydiving with no parachute.

I hope they are making some money for someone, but for the four of the people I work with every day, they failed them miserably.

Its hard to say what I shoot for. I trade both forex and stock options but I'll find myself holding for 3-9 months or 2-3 years. Just depends.

This question is also further multiplied in difficulty because I have both retirement and income providing investment accounts. I struck it rich in 2001, 2005 and again in early 2006 just betting on simple divergence patterns on Euro charts.

And today I'm sitting on CMX options that today alone nearly doubled in value.

Swing trading has its perks if you've nerves of steal and emotions of a rock.

I consider a good rate of return to be anything in the double digits as well.

I opened my Roth IRA 2 years ago. Since then, I've grown my money by 30%, so 15%/yr average. Basically, I invested in REITs, the financial sector and small/mid caps.

Of course, I don't expect these rates to last forever since they are already crazy. I'm moving my Roth to a different company and will put everything into a Vanguard Targeted retirement fund until I figure out exactly what my plan is. So far, I've got a list of ETFs to the get the majority of the market covered, with a few specialized mutual funds as well. I'll also expand foreign investments much more.

I've also been trading stocks but I don't consider myself good enough yet to trade out of my Roth. I'm still learning about Options as well. Tried my hand with a Forex demo account and made about 40% against the dollar falling, but I consider that total luck and likely won't actually get into trading currency for awhile.