I read an interesting assertion that you should sell all Amazon today. Cathie Wood bought a bunch of it.

:-) Cathie Wood taking (deserved) strays.
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She’s an inverse for sure.

I just loaded some Amazon shares at 160 last week. Dammit Cathie!
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I'm 53, and had all my retirement in Schwab's "retirement 2035" account. My son is a business major and went over the individual investments that make up the retirement 2025 account. Turns out that 18% of my retirement investment was in bonds.

At my son's recommendation, I changed my allocation to 100% in Vanguard Institutional Index I ("VINIX"), which tracks the S&P 500.

It's a few days later, and I'm a bit nervous. I've read this string for years, but don't post on it as I don't have the disposable income to make trades for singular stocks. Any advice from the group here? Do you think it was the correct choice? You guys have such a deeper knowledge base than I do. My goal is to have my current account double twice in the next 15 years (which would be boosted by my yearly contribution). That should hopefully be enough for my and my wife's retirement. Based on family history, I'm likely to die before I hit 75 but my wife will live to be 100.

Thanks in advance!
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I’m no expert and you will get much better info from the other long timers in here soon but I’m pretty sure they’ll manage your portfolio based on when you’re likely to retire. Since you’re set to retire in just 12 years, the likelihood of the percentage of the portfolio being invested into safe investments like bonds goes up.

The S&P has historically returned something amazing like 10% on average in its lifetime so it is tempting. The issue is, it is volatile. You don’t want to be set to retire and have a year like 2008 hit your portfolio.
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Is this a 401k?

If so then Schwab should let you adjust for your risk tolerance within your 2035 account. I've got a similar 401k through Vanguard and can adjust the risk levers, which is % going into stocks vs bonds. Thus shifting more towards safer investments as you get closer
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That seems odd to me. The whole purpose of a target date fund is to have a specific amount of risk for a specific time frame. I'm surprised you can adjust that.
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I spit in the general direction of Cathie Wood. She somehow managed me to a 50% loss in a freaking mutual fund. How do you lose 50% in a mutual fund?
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I don't consider those mutual funds.

True mutual funds don't aggressively trade your portfolio. They make quarterly rebalancing.

She had one shining moment with Tesla and they treat her like the female version pf Warren Buffet.

Her record sucks.
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The risk is set to my age off the fund recommendation but I'm allowed to customize it
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I'm probably not a good person to ask because I have a very high risk tolerance. For my entire working career, I never owned a bond and was 99.99% stocks. It paid off really well, because I think stocks have consistently outperformed bonds for that entire three or four decade run. (Someone might want to check my math on that, but I'm sure overall it's been better.) I always had the philosophy that I had a long enough time Horizon that I could ride out any downturns and would just take the Investments with the better average long-term returns.

2021 was kind of painful, because I was really close to retirement and still in 100% stocks and they tanked. I realized at that point that I probably should become more conservative. I got lucky at that point because CD rates went through the roof, so I just put a bunch of money from stocks into cds. I just don't quite understand bonds enough to figure out why I should have them.

I may start figuring it out and going with more bonds going forward since I'm actually retiring now. But a lot depends on life expectancy. If you're 65 years old and you're planning up to age 90, that's still at 25-year time Horizon for investments. Just have enough in conservative stuff to last you for 2 years of living expenses in a downturn, and keep the rest in stocks. At least that's my philosophy.

So my bottom line is that I would go 100% stocks in your situation, but recognizing that I have a really high risk tolerance for these sorts of things.
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There’s a lot of unknowns here and it’s not like you’re 20.

Here’s my position based on what you have posted here.

Like RainMan said, what hurts is if it draws down close to retirement. And if you want to really hit returns, you need to be in stocks and you need to let them run. In order to do that, IMO you have to have pretty sizeable cash savings to keep the heartburn down when the S&P drops 1%. Here’s what I’d recommend in your case

1. Make sure all consumer debt is eliminated. I’d listen to a car, but if you’re really trying to increase equity, car payments are a lot.

2. Put aside 6 months living expenses in a safe account. (Not stocks). Most brokerages have a money market that pays well. That’s where mine is. If you have something that comes up, you can swing it easy. And it’s also hard enough to get to that you won’t just blow it. It’ll get a return and if you don’t use it you can take the money that earns and put in stocks, but I think it’s important to have a chunk of available cash if you’re going to eat risk.

3. Put cash in the market. If you have a 401K at the job, put it there first. The tax shelter matters. The limit at your age is 30,500 if I’m reading that right. Your wife if she’s working will have a similar limit. If you’re eligible for an IRA, put it in there next. Then open a taxable brokerage, and there are no limits on those.

If you want to follow S&P, I’d do VOO. It follows it directly and the expenses are lower. If you’re only going to own one thing my vote is VOO. Here’s where my stuff is (not an advisor):

Of every dollar I contribute:
37.5% VOO
37.5% VUG (more volatile than VOO but has a higher historic return)
25% SCHD (won’t return like the other 2 but is a more stable set and has a good dividend that is a different batch of stocks than the S&P somewhat.

No rebalancing. I have a small amount in some stocks I like but almost all goes into the above.

I’d stay out of small and mid caps at your age.

There are a million other components to make a real world recommendation but that’s probably close to what I’d do if I were you.

A big part of investing is being OK with it in your dime. If you’re going to put it in and get heartburn about it, take it back out and put it in the target date fund. If it’s going to cause discomfort, it probably won’t work over the long term. My solution to that is cash holdings for “in case shit” money. Sometimes shit happens. If I’m prepared for that, it’s helped me worry less about my stock holdings.


I think what he has is a target dated fund which doesn’t adjust individually.
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I find some of the Target Date funds too conservative due to what Rainman mentioned. Most people are going to live way past retirement date if they're 55+ and relatively healthy.

2 things with your plan:

1. You're swtiching from a portfolio of All World stocks to only the US stock market. The US stock market has done very well the last 15 years. It's less diversification though so just fyi.

2. If you were 43 this plan would make a lot more sense than 53. As Rainman points out, you start to run into Sequence of Risk Returns where if you're concentranted in any one thing, particularly US stocks, there could be a long downturn right as you need to retire. You didn't really mention when you switch back out of 100% VINIX or what the plan was.. The Target Date fund kind of handles that for you.
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This is all very helpful. Thank you.
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Thats why I asked

I literally have the Vanguard Target 2035 fund and can adjust the % so figured Schwab might offer a similar product
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I'm not following the point of a target date plan if the allocation can be adjusted. If you're doing that, just buy index funds and decide what you actually want.
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