Biden to Announce $36 Billion for Ailing Teamsters' Pension Fund

MSN.com ^ | 08 December 2022 | Akayla Gardner

[Sam Gamgee]

Biden Inc.

[Tell It Right]

Well, let's see. By "some stock heavy portfolios are down 40 or 50%", I imagine we're talking about since Nov 16, 2021 (when I lot of mutual funds topped). So looking at the portfolio I posted about earlier...

To your point, 7 of those funds are down 40% or more. But...wait for it... that's out of 44 funds. The PRNEX fund (energy) is up 4% since November.

Let's say someone had the misfortune of retiring the day Brandon entered the WH. Running my C# app from Jan 19 to yesterday (I haven't made it pull today's closing prices yet because these are mutual funds)...PRNEX (energy) is up 25%, TQMVX (U.S. value QM) is up 16%, PRDGX (dividend growth, way ta go, NWFRee!) is up 11%, PRAFX (real estate) is up 9%.

So a diversified portfolio gives better places to draw money from (the mutual funds that are up higher than the dividends fund) even during the current market environment that's, as you described it: "some stock heavy portfolios are down 40 or 50 % now".

Don't conflate total balance with dependable income stream. Yes, the overall portfolio amount can be down at times, but that doesn't interfere with the dependable income stream. As long as the portfolio has some winners (in my case I also have two money market mutual funds that never go down, just in case) there's an income stream to pull from.

And it's a simple algorithm to go by in retirement. Just log in at the patterned interval (i.e. once per year, once per quarter, or once per month) figure out the amount to withdraw (i.e 4% annual, 1/3rd of 1% monthly), then pull that amount whichever funds have the highest balance. No worrying if any of the blue bloods are slacking up on dividends this year (not all of your eggs are in that one basket).

[NWFree]

The time to sell oil related was when oil topped $120
Now it’s below $72 and I it could be years and years and years before it ever gets that high again - just like last time.

Commodities are another high risk lousy choice unless for the greedy but they better be *very* patient and prepared to tie up money for a long time else take a hit

[Tell It Right]

"The time to sell oil related was when oil topped $120 Now it’s below $72 and I it could be years and years and years before it ever gets that high again - just like last time."

Well, that gets into timing the market. I thought we were talking about dependable income streams in retirement. When it comes to retirement income, the "time to sell" is always at the regular interval (i.e. once per year in January). All that's left to figure is the what to sell. The answer: whichever fund(s) has the highest balance (when withdrawing annually it'll probably be 2 or 3 funds). If the energy fund's balance is still one of the ones that's high, that's one of the ones to sell (withdraw from). It's that simple.

And to your point, once commodities go down in price enough the energy fund will no longer have a high balance in be one of the ones to withdraw from. And also to your point, commodities and other asset classes do have times of long downturn. My response to that is, so? Diversification means something's going to be up. That's all that matters for a dependable income stream in retirement.

Look at the graph again I posted at https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4114743/posts?page=51#51. Even if you retired at one of the worst possible times, in this case I started the graph in January 2000 because that was right before the first of 2 major stock downturns (the S&P 500 lost 49% from March 2000 to fall 2002, then it lost 56% from Oct 2007 to March 2009). There's always something that had gained since you retired. Therefore, there's always something to withdraw your retirement income.

Therefore, if diversification gives you dependable income even during major market downturns, why not have a high equity portion in your portfolio so you can have the big gains to fight inflation? A very diversified portfolio of 70% equities / 30% bonds (be sure to have the bonds diversified too) gives you both dependable income and an overall growth to try to beat inflation. You don't have to settle for just dependable income, or just growth to beat inflation. You can have both.

[NWFree]

I needed a lot of cash this year to buy the cars I wanted before they stop building them forever.

Good thing I wasn’t tied up in Biden’s disaster of a stock market.

[NWFree]

I didn’t take a hit on anything I sold. Over 110K in my garage.

I’m sticking with my plan

[Tell It Right]

I just realized my major flaw in these postings. And it's a spiritual one, not a math or investment strategy one. I paid too much attention to my pride being stung by your statement "I think you’re out of your mind...". I spent too much bandwidth trying to prove myself. Without pride I might have posted just one or two responses with something like "here's the methods of my madness in case you or anyone else is interested..." and left it at that.

Truly Proverb 16:18 is right: pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

[oldtech]

“The WhiteHouse said” is the key to the whole mess. No taxpayer money should ever be used to fund a failing union.

[deport]

Agree.... Same for failing businesses that can’t make it any
longer.

[Deadeye Division]

Reps Turner and Tenney lead House Republicans in urging immediate passage of bipartisan Susan Muffley Act

https://turner.house.gov/press-releases?ID=C01BA6F2-0268-43B0-B42A-D24F5DA569E2