Assistance

[dalekeener]

I have a relative that wanted some advice on how to position her IRA. she is 54 years old and will be maxing out her account each year until she retires. She is a conservative investor by nature. Her account as is now:

25k in cash (money market
1k in a cd (2018 maturity)
1k in a cd (2016 maturity)
1k in PG stock
2k in PONDX (Mixed Bond fund)
1k in FIGTX (short term bond fund)
1.5k in NOIEX (G&I fund)

She has realized that she needs to invest more of her money and not have it in cash or cd's and she has a miss mash of investments at this time.  But she is nervous about the market and losing a big portion of funds.  This is her primary nest egg, being a relative late starter. I told her about this forum and I would go to the smart members here for some advice that I can pass along to her. Her IRA is held at Schwab. Any ideas would be helpful.

Thanks,

Dale


 

[dandarc]

She should asses her risk tolerance and pick an asset allocation accordingly.  Assuming 80%+ cash is really not where she wants to be:

If she wants to stay at Schwab, a near-dated target retirement fund might fit the bill.  2015 target-retirement is currently 50% bonds / 50% stocks and would slide further towards bonds over time, for example.

If she is willing to roll-over, Vanguard has target date funds, and life-strategy funds.  She could go 20-80 or 40-60 in the life-strategy funds for a conservative allocation.

These are easy funds to own - rebalanced / reallocated automatically.

[Retired To Win]

Even though I have one of my IRA accounts at Schwab, I'm still going to point out that Schwab is not the most reasonably priced brokerage when it comes to trading commissions and mutual fund purchase fees.  You (or your friend) may want to do some comparison shopping on IRAs at other brokerages.  And/or take a good look at what either Vanguard or Fidelity has to offer.

Good luck.