smashweights

First task is to ensure that a Roth IRA will be the best choice for you. Do some research on Traditional vs. Roth IRA. For most folks who aren't in top tax brackets right now, Roth IRA will be the better choice. Next, figure out what mutual funds/ETFs you want to own in your Roth IRA (Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, etc). THEN open an account with the investment broker that has the most of those funds with NO transaction fees. IE: if you plan on owning a lot of Vanguard funds, open your Roth with Vanguard unless Chase happens to offer many Vanguard funds with no transaction fees. This will save you losing out on fixed amounts of your investment through transaction fees because many investment brokers charge a fee to purchase funds not within their family. As for how, I know Vanguard and Fidelity have very simple online setup and easily link with your bank account. And yes, you can have Roth IRAs at multiple brokers if it will benefit you, but your yearly contribution limit is the same. IMO, if you have no idea what you're doing, open your account with Vanguard directly and invest in the Target Retirement fund that matches up with your expected retirement date. Regularly invest while you figure out your strategy then change up your strategy once you feel confident.

Sounds like market timing ;-) FWIW, higher past performing index funds you could consider if you wanted more aggressive funds: VISGX, VISVX, NAESX. All indexed (no manager risk), have lower fees, lower holdings turnover (lower taxes), and all outperformed FBSOX. Interestingly, some of the same top 10 holdings are comparable.

No doubt, but I hope I'm getting across that even in the 5-10 year range index funds still give you good odds of coming out better. That graph was a 5-year study and as time goes on even less than 18% beat the index funds. But I think your choice of words betrays you "betting on a run up" sounds more like you want to gamble than invest ;-) The risk/reward concept in index investing is shifting your asset allocation. The gains and diversity make my fund seem "conservative" but in reality it belies more risk mitigation. 15% bonds is actually a pretty aggressive portfolio. If you want more risk/reward potential, you can skew yourself toward one category, but stay within index fund investing. There are low-cost small-cap, REIT, value, growth funds from Vanguard. FWIW: since 5/08/12 with regular contributions I've made a combined 25.16% gain using just this one fund.

The simple response is past returns have no bearing on future returns. The question is not "how has this fund performed in the past?" but "how will this fund perform going forward?" Could you have known that this fund would perform better in 1999? Can you know this will repeat over the next 14 years? Are you investing at the peak value of this fund? The other problem with past performance graphs as well is that if you pick the right time point to invest, you can make any fund look better than another. Here's an example that will hopefully clarify this concept: if you look at a comparison of performance on Google Finance and limit your data from 2000-2007 performance (ie: you're looking to invest the end of 2007), you would see that FBSOX is down 4.32% while FFNOX is up 7.96% over that time span. Top this off with cheaper fees over that time and clearly FFNOX has outperformed and is the better choice, so based on past performance you would argue you should put your money in FFNOX if we were having this debate in 2007, just a little more than a year before FBSOX posted big gains. If you KNEW that FBSOX was about to take off, sure you'd make a lot more money with it, but you couldn't. Interestingly, around the time FBSOX starts pulling away from FFNOX is when Kyle Weaver takes over asset management of the fund (Feb 2009). What will happen when he moves to another fund (as most asset managers only stay on an average of 5 years)? Could you have known Kyle Weaver was going to post great gains? See the difficulty in picking a winner? You are correct: index funds, by definition, chase average market returns. Key here being average MARKET returns, not average mutual fund returns. 80% of actively managed funds do not beat index funds. So "average" market returns of an index fund are actually well above the average mutual fund return. From the article I posted above, the Vanguard benchmark is an All-Index fund: So my strategy is to play the odds and the best data, and the best odds of successful investing are in low-cost index funds. I'm fine with knowing I'll never be the next guy who invests in Apple and makes hundreds of thousands in the stock market. But there's virtually no chance I'll be one of those guys who loses his retirement savings. There's just too much good evidence that this strategy works.

Good basic article on whole life: http://whitecoatinvestor.com/8-reasons-to-avoid-whole-life-insurance-and-4-reasons-to-consider-it I'm very much a proponent of term-life when needed only.

It's a single fund that owns a fixed percentage of 4 extremely low-cost underlying funds: - 48% Spartan 500 Index (tracks the S&P 500) - 12% Spartan Extended Market Index (tracks a Dow Jones small/mid cap index) - 25% Spartan International Index (tracks international index) - 15% Spartan US Bond Fund (tracks the obvious) So yes, it's only one fund, but I technically own thousands of stocks across all company sizes. When I can afford the individual underlying funds, I'll own them individually to reduce costs by more than 50%. The advantage of index funds, as part of their long-term out-performance of high-cost actively managed funds, is FEES. Think about that FBSOX: expense ratio is 0.86%. These Spartan funds are 0.10%. Seems menial, but in a $1,000,000 portfolio (which is not an unreasonable retirement savings, especially given inflation over our lifetimes but as an example here for ease of math), that's a difference of $7,600 per year. Even consider that when if your portfolio was half that value while you're still working($500,000) that difference is $3,800. That's $3,800+ each year you've not only lost, but won't be compounding yearly as your fund's value grows. It adds up over time. Also, say I bought FBSOX so I had more funds. Odds are many of the companies in that fund I already own via FFNOX, all I'm doing is weighting those companies more heavily in my portfolio. I made this mistake early on thinking that owning a dozen or so funds was a better idea, but when you really think about fund compositions and what you actually own, it just doesn't make sense and does nothing for diversification other than overcomplicate your portfolio. Taken with the fact that most fund managers fail to beat their index (http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2012/10/11/indexes-beat-active-funds-again-in-sp-study/ ) in combination with lost money to higher fees and the always real potential that when the active manager of the fund changes (on average every 5 years) the funds performance could suffer, no way I'd invest another way for the long-term.

Sectors are still risky and over long term (in general) too many investors and funds fail to do better than total market funds. I should also add that index funds are what I would look at, as with your initial fund, FBSOX, you're not necessarily betting just on the IT sector, you're betting on Kyle Weaver's (the fund manager) ability to predict the IT market and buy/sell appropriately. Overall, research has shown that MOST fund managers fail to beat their index fund before and especially even after fees. IMO, if you want to be more "active" in your funds, then get a blend of Total Stock Market, Total Bond Market, and Total International Market index funds and manipulate your ratios as you mature.

Saw it today around 2pm in Dayton...

Broad, highly diversified, LOW cost, total-market funds. Stay the course with regular contributions or dollar-cost averaging and hold til retirement. It's not sexy, hip, and won't get you rich quick, but it's the only way to go for retirement investment. I own one fund: FFNOX.

I saw this the other day and cringed at the sensationalization this story got. They were 100 ft in elevation away but 3 miles from each other. CNN is becoming a tabloid. Nearly half their front-page headlines are tabloid-esque. It's sad really that in a nation where we cherish freedom of the press this is what major news networks are turning into... But hey, we can only blame ourselves. The only reason it's heading this way is the average citizen doesn't value real discussion on real issues anymore.

Yikes, well sounds like the bar is set pretty low. You'll probably just like having 4 of the same tires with the same treadwear on the car.

Local news in Dayton reported he was using his in-cabin computer, aka super texting.

Glad it was helpful. Now I just hope you like them. We were coming from the OEM Goodyear Integrity, which were gawd awful even in dry conditions.

Who roots for snow on a motorcycle forum

Might try layering up Saturday and heading to Hocking Hills. Fall colors should be peaked and mid-50's is about as good as it's gonna get. If anyone is interested in one last ditch adventure.

Was there a point to this video? Was he explaining something? All I saw were boobs with hands groping them... not complaining, just confused.

Coincidentally, I went through this debate with my '09 Legacy and my wife's '07 Impala about this time last year and spent a LOT of time checking out tire reviews. My bias was more toward an all-season with good snow performance as we both work at a hospital and have to head out regardless of conditions. We ended up putting the Goodyear Assurance TripleTred All-Seasons on my wife's 2007 Impala. Have had pretty good reviews and we've been very happy with them. Good traction, confident steering. I was torn between those and the Nokian WRG2. They were pretty close in price normally, but Discount Tire ran a deal I couldn't pass up on the Goodyears and the decision was made. My dad runs the WRG2 on his car and likes them a lot. If prices are similar, I would go with the WRG2, however. http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Assurance+TripleTred+All-Season&partnum=26HR6ATTAS&vehicleSearch=true&fromCompare1=yes&autoMake=Chevrolet&autoYear=2007&autoModel=Impala%20LS%20Sedan&autoModClar=With%20Metal%20Valve%20Stems The '09 Legacy I went with the Continental ExtremeContact DWS. They may not be available in the right size for your Impala as I couldn't find them for the 2007, but if they are they're fantastic tires equivalent in performance to the Nokians but less expensive with a better warranty.

No joke. Got my 2012 Monster 1100 with 1k miles for $8300 on private sale. That was in 2012.

I think he should have walked to the mound, shook his hand, then gone to the dugout.

With all the debate around ACA, particularly the opposition, i would think security would be #1 priority given the number of people who would just LOVE to see ACA flop in any way possible. Not to mention HIPAA concerns...

Only if we can brake check SUVs and beat the shit out of people ;-)

Do you fill the front tire with lead to keep it on the ground O.o

There's just something hilarious about Asians calling a polygon "Porygon"

I probably would too if a series of bikers were brake checking me on the highway. He's an idiot if he thinks everyone is safer if all the cars on the highway slow down while they speed up. He's just making shit up to CYA.