Conference nyoss1::market_investing

    
    Rule #1, never invest your money in the same company you work.
    	     (Unless it is MicroSoft, Bill Gate will tell you so !!)
                                                                
    Rule #2, be diversify and long term
    
    Rule #3, Try to educate yourself by go to bookstore 1st, Money
    	     Magazine ($3.00 nice investment) should be good start.
    
    Rule #4, As to your portfolio spread is depend on your age, and
    	     retirement goals. (Ref to book, magazine, and this conf)
    
    Rule #5, Hang this rule in your yearbook and review your portfolio
    	     once a year at least and adjust your award/risk ratio
             base on your stomack. 	
    
    
    Rule #6, Loop all above steps another 30-40 yrs until your retirement age.
    
    
	
    Michael... (Investing is boring for sure)
    

	This month's Kiplinger's rates all the stock and bond funds.
	Chose a no load (no sales charge) fund of your choice from
	the groups of funds you think would fit your tolerance for risk
	and the amount of time you have until needed the money.

	Fidelity has been sending me a letter a week lately on their 
	Asset Manager Fund. They become your financial planner and 
	shift %s around between cash, stock and bond funds depending
	on the market conditions as they see them. This is a good fund
	for poeple with a lower risk tolerance that thinks 3% in a money
	market is a little too safe.

	Fortune also is rating funds this month I think. The Janus Fund 
	made both top 20 lists. (It's not been a great performer this past
	year but over the long haul should still be a good investment.

	.2 mentioned Fidelity's Asset Manager.  Has anyone else looked at 
	this fund?  What do you think of it?  I'm also in the same boat
	at .0: I'm a beginner invester who'd like to start building a
	balanced portfolio.  Interesting stats:

	I'm 27, husband is 28 (both engineers, he's not with w/DEC)
	Own DEC stock
	Put 7% of my salary into SAVE (Funds C and D)

	The Asset Manager appeals to me because it seems to provide a
	somewhat balanced portfolio in and of itself.  The minimum investment
	is $2500 (I've got the prospectus).  If I tried to diversify
	by investing in several different funds the initial investment
	would likely be too high for me ($2500 is about all I want to spare
	right now). 

	I'd like the money that I invest to be relatively liquid. One 
	financial goal is to save for the downpayment on a house, which we
	might want to buy within the next year.

	BTW: I've gotten a lot of great information from this conference.
	I've read Jane Bryant Quinn's latest book, Making the Most of Your
	Money and that's helped to get me started.

	Sue

re .3

I am going to presume that, since you are looking for liquidity, you are NOT
looking to be a long-term investor.  That is, you might not be comfortable
riding out the low cycles of a mutual fund.  Therefore, you should be looking
for conservative Income investments as opposed to aggressive Growth investments.

Since you are both engineers, it is possible that your combined salary puts you 
into a high tax bracket, worse if you are not saddled with a monstrous mortgage.

These lead me to recommend investing in a Municipal bond fund.  There are many 
that are comprised of high quality (your investment is relatively risk free)
bonds that are free from Federal taxes.  Depending on the state where you reside,
you may even get into a fund that is tax free for that state as well as for 
Federal.

Since you are already looking at Fidelity, their High Yield Tax Free fund is 
paying monthly dividends at an annual TAX FREE rate of 6% (their Aggressive Tax
Free does better, but aggressive:==risky).  The real risk is from daily NAV
fluctuations.  You may buy at $12.00/share, but watch it move +/- a few cents
each day. As for liquidity, they provide you with a book of checks; that's about
as liquid as it gets.  Of course, the paperwork can be a struggle since each
check is considered a "sale of shares" and you need to keep track of them.

IF you have more than 20% of your assets in cash or other close_to_cash buckets, 
now is the time to be looking for long term, growth investments.  If you do not
have a comfortable cash position, start building one. If your temperment is such
that you will lose sleep if the market "tanks" and your $2500 investment drops to 
$2000, do not invest in anything other than US Savings Bonds. Right now, their
rates are reasonable competitive, even if you cash out early. 

Just my opinion, of course.  Good luck.

    Last spring my husband and I took a money management seminar which was 
    offered at Quinsigamond Community College called "Successful Money
    Management". The course ran 3 consecutive Tuesdays and cost only $85
    for BOTH of us. Also included in the price was a session with one of
    the financial planners that conducted the seminar in which you
    discussed your personal needs and goals and got recommendations from
    them as to how to proceed (which of course you were not obligated to
    accept if you chose not to). The course discussed and compared many
    aspects of investing including the risks and rewards of each. The
    topics covered included bank offerings (ie savings accounts, CD etc),
    insurance, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, gold. At the 2nd session
    everyone was given a "personal financial analysis" type form to fill out 
    (which took about 3 or 4 hours to do but was a real eye-opener).
    Completing the form really helped you to see where your money is going
    now, where your money will probably be going in 5 or 10 years from now,
    how much you will probably need at retirement (in today's dollars) and 
    how much you will need to start saving today in order to meet your
    future and retirement goals. In my opinion, this type of analysis is a 
    GREAT place to start as it is difficult to be able to meet your goals 
    unless you have first identified them and then set up a strategy to help 
    you realize them. As the saying goes "most people don't plan to fail, they 
    fail to plan"
    Anyway, after the course was completed we went to see the financial
    planner who recommended a reasonably priced universal life policy on my
    husband (I did not need further life insurance as what I have here at
    DEC more than met our needs). Then he got us started in a "AAA" rated 
    mutual fund which we contribute to on a monthly basis and were able to 
    start with as little as $25.00 per month (although we could put in more
    if we chose to) which we have set up as a variable annuity so we will
    be able to get at the money if we need to use it without waiting until
    age 59 1/2 like we would have to do with an IRA. 
    I could go on and on here but the point is that the best investments
    for me might be totally wrong for you. The best way to invest is to get as
    much information as you can then determine what your financial goals are, 
    how much you money you will need and how soon you will need it, and how 
    much risk you are willing to take. Usually once you have done this, your 
    investment choices will be obvious.  

RE: .5

>    be able to get at the money if we need to use it without waiting until
>    age 59 1/2 like we would have to do with an IRA. 
      
      This type of statement always bothers me, so let me correct it.

      You  can withdraw money in an IRA *ANYTHIME* for *ANY REASON*.  If
      you choose to take your money out of an IRA before age 59-1/2  you
      must pay 10% of the amount withdrawn as a penalty, in addition any
      income tax due.

      At  some  point  between  roughly  5  and  10 years the benefit of
      tax-free compounding becomes greater than the 10% penalty.

      I  find this a plus over DECs SAVE and other 401K plans which have
      strict limits on when/why you withdraw plus, I believe,  the  same
      penalties.
      
      I  also find that the ability to withdraw may be preferable to the
      ability to "borrow your own money", as some plans allow.

      An  IRA  may  or  may  not be part of YOUR financial planning, but
      don't discount it because your money is "locked up".  Money in  an
      IRA  may  be  more available to you than money in other retirement
      savings vehicles.

    I should have been a little clearer. In our particular case, we already
    had an IRA type investment, as we were already participating in the DEC
    SAVE plan. We chose the variable annuity route as a means of saving to
    meet our 7- 10 yr or so goals. We have the annuity in ADDITION to the
    IRA. I agree that an IRA can be a valuable asset at any time and I was
    in no way intending to put them down. The real point I was trying to
    make was that in order for someone to determine the best investments
    for them, they must first get a clear picture of where they stand
    today and where they would like to be in the future. Once they have set 
    some definite goals it will be easier to decide which investment
    vehicles will best meet their needs. In OUR particular case and with
    OUR personal goals in mind, we chose the annuity. This in no way means
    that chosing an IRA would be wrong for someone else. 
                                                        

<<< Anyway, after the course was completed we went to see the financial
<<< planner who recommended a reasonably priced universal life policy on my
<<< husband (I did not need further life insurance as what I have here at
<<< DEC more than met our needs).

Why does someone who already has investments set up buy whole life insurance?
This is one of the worst financial mistakes you can ever make.

    We are just beginning to invest and don't have any significant
    amounts of money set aside yet. If something were to happen to my husband,
    we would not only lose our main source of income but I would need to use 
    all(and more) of what is currently invested just to meet day to day
    expenses. At this stage, we need to carry some insurance in order to be
    sure that I would be able to maintain the house and raise my children
    until they were old enough to be on their own. Right now, we need the
    insurance in order to protect what little investments we have and provide 
    a means of maintaining our current lifestyle in the event that the
    worst should occur. Yes, buying insurance you don't need is a financial
    mistake but protecting yourself from a devasting loss which could wipe
    you out is a necessity. 
      

I was referring to the type of insurance you got talked into buying,
that is universal life!  Why pay 3-5 times more for life insurance than
you need to?  I'm sure you could have gotten a term policy for 30-70%
less then you are paying for the cash value.  You must understand that
you are paying extra to have a cash value account that is not yours.
If you die, you lose the cash value, if you want the cash value you
must borrow it.  Borrow your own money?  Lose the cash value if you
die?  You probably won't even have any cash value for 2-3 years.

Why would you want this type of insurance?  Sounds like this financial
planner is a high commision insurance agent too.