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Part of my 2009 financial goal met…

October 7th, 2009 Sphere: Related Content

So I’ve set a goal to contribute the maximum amount possible to Roth IRA’s for both my wife and I, totaling $10,000 a year.

Well, I’m happy to say that I’ve completed half of that goal, and my Wife’s Roth IRA is maxed out for 2009, and I only have another $1,500 to go for my own account.

For the most part, the money has been sitting in the account waiting for action, and with this tumultuous market it’s tough to say where it should be put to work.  The first few trading days of October have me a bit miffed, and I’m wondering if the downward slide in the market will continue.

The next few days will be very telling.

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Finance, Investing, Retirement, Saving ,

  1. Winston
    October 7th, 2009 at 11:02 | #1
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    The market will always be tumultuous and people will always be contemplating whether or not to get into the “action”. My advice is to find something that pays a moderate dividend. There are plenty of etf’s that track a sector or index or managers that have their own mix of things that provide an etf as the vehicle. The one I have is Marty Zweig’s Zweig Total Return Fund ZTR ( http://quote.morningstar.com/cef/f.aspx?t=ZTR ). It isn’t technically run by Marty, but I like their approach, it’s fairly conservative for my risk-tolerance. Check it out, lemme know what you think.

  2. Grant
    October 8th, 2009 at 20:04 | #2
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    I’m not real excited about ZTR. Yes, they pay a decent distribution; hovering around 10%. But more than 80% of that distribution is a return of capital.

    Also, it’s extremely thinly traded with only 300,000 shares traded per day, on average. This could make it tough to get out of in a hurry if one had to.

    Also, they’ve got a significant position in bonds, which if interest rates go up won’t look nearly as attractive as they do today. Probably not a good enough reason NOT to by the fund, but something to be looking out for, regardless.

    They’ve formed a pretty solid history of lowering the monthly distribution over the last 10 years, and while the current $0.03 per share payout isn’t the lowest on record, the track record speaks for itself.

    You note correctly that Zweig doesn’t technically run the fund, but it should be noted that he isn’t even on the board of directors for the fund. He may still have some pull over the direction of the fund, but I wouldn’t count on it.

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