Cash Reserves, a money market fund, paying 0.01% is the number 3 fund on my list. I am sure the only reason it is yielding anything is that Fidelity is forgoing management fees to subsidize the yield to prevent it from going negative.
This weekend’s Wealthtrack show which Consuelo Mack presents on PBS features Mary Beth Franklin. You can hear it on itunes or wealthtrack.com. Ms. Franklin is a retirement expert and the expert on Social Security. She presents many lesser known ways to take Social Security which could increase your monthly benefit significantly. So many people I meet have failed to maximize their Social Security based on her ideas and only take it as soon as they can. She also discusses Medicare part B premium which costs about $105/month per person but could cost as much as $335/month per person based on income. The formula for Medicare premiums is changing and will cost more starting in the next two years.
An interesting ETF is CROC. It is not a time to buy stocks, but this ETF is a double short on the Australian Dollar. Australia seems to be in a deep recession since it has a minerals based economy and the use of minerals – iron, coal, copper, etc. – is decreasing because the world’s economic growth, if there is any growth at all, is slowing. The same can be said for Brazil – BZQ. http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?CROC,BZQ,$COMPQ – double left click on the “200 days” at the bottom of the chart and change it to 90 for a shorter term view. These ETFs are not a buy and hold investment and there are other similar ETFs, these are just two I happened to notice. Both have been making new highs over the last couple of months.
IBD TBP’s Market Pulse is “Market in Correction”. Not a time to buy.
My only investments are a very small number of shares in Block’s and Disney’s employee stock purchase plan – not easy to sell quickly.
The week before the plunge on 24Aug, Gary Kaltbaum was on a Fox Business Network show where he said he was in all cash and one of the other participants suggested he was Chicken Little. One thing to remember about the big brokerage firms – they get a lot of money from companies to push new stock, push additional stock, and write favorable analyst reports. They will never tell you to sell – it hurts their income. They will not even say we are in a bear market. For them, we are in a bull market or have increased volatility.
My current investments:
IRA#1
None
IRA#2
None
My portfolio changes this weekend:
IRA #1 – None
IRA #2 – None
My portfolio market exposure after this weekend’s changes:
IRA #1 – 00% invested
IRA #2 – 00% invested