patrick.net

I had one of those funds when my employer's retirement plan was through Vanguard. All it did was allocate stocks vs. bonds vs. short term cash based on planned retirement date. Many people already know to be in stocks when young and become more conservative as retirement nears. I don't think there will be a big effect on the markets. Not from this.

wthrfrk80 says

Many people already know to be in stocks when young and become more conservative as retirement nears.

Many people know this but it seems like not that many actually do it. Every time the stock market tanks millions of retirees or near retirees seem to be wiped out.

It's the ultimate in lazy investing. I know a number of people who do not have any diversity, they put everything in a target-date fund and forget about it. We'd be better off going back to PENSION funds in my opinion, it would achieve about the same ends and without 99% of the money being hoovered up by the duopoly of Fidelity and Vanguard.

Hey, what happend to the FLAG option? I see a spam message from user safwefgwe in this thread.

Vicente says

We'd be better off going back to PENSION funds in my opinion

But then where would Wall Street get a steady supply of suckers for their casino? Come on, this is America!

I have a couple of these myself and to me they're about like any other investment: There are choices of different funds with different "ingredients" and levels of risk. The big difference is that they adjust themselves as time marches on. I don't really see these affecting the market because at the end of the day they're still just investments in stocks.

I like to pick my own funds, thank you very much. And it seems that I get a better rate of return that all of the "target-date" funds. If you look at the fine print all of these funds tend to have "management fees." The "managment fees" tend to be higher for the "target-date" funds than for the funds you can pick yourself. That affects your rate of return.

I've adjusted according to what I believe my needs are and how strongly I feel about the market's over-all direction. I rebalance every year usually making only slight changes unless my 401k eliminates funds while adding others that might perform better, like last year.

We use ING where I work.

Vicente says

I know a number of people who do not have any diversity,

Diversity is a tired old buzz word over-parroted by retail investors. IF we're talking diversity as in stocks/cash/rental incomes/Tutti Fruitti Franchises/dent repair shops/chrome plating shop - okay - but within the equities market, p-shaw. It is amazing to me how addicted most American remain to paper wealth and how credulous they are when it comes to high financial concept (let's talk about money momentum!) despite the last several sucker punches the investing public has suffered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=xsRMWsRr8YU