How are you supposed to sell gold bars and coins like this if you want to get your money back?

If you are looking solely for dividends you could also do "dogs of the DOW" or high dividend etfs.

I beleive you have to call those guys if you want to sell. The last time I was on their site, it said they buy.

I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to investments. I don't want to just leave it where it is, though, if I can make it work for me...
That's Greek to me, user :( this investment shit is so beyond me my head spins trying to piece it together into a coherent thought yet it comes so naturally to some people I just don't understand why I can't wrap my head around it...

More Greek... :(

This is a terrible idea unless your 401K is just shit beyond belief.

You're taking a double whammy by withdrawing the money early: firstly, you have to pay taxes on it and secondly, you have to pay a penalty.

And the only idea you have is to take the money out so you can invest in overpriced utility stocks?

Stocks of dividend-paying stocks are at or near all-time highs due to the central bank interventions. What do you think is going to happen if bond yields rise? What do you think is going to happen to fixed yield financial instruments if the central banks lose control of the yield curve?

As a rule of thumb, utility companies don't have good growth and will get massacred in an inflationary environment. And they behave similar to bonds so if interest rates go up, you get screwed.

Why don't you tell us the choices for investment you have in your 401K? There may be a better investment that someone can help you select. Or, if everything is utter garbage, we can point that out and recommend that you take the hit of early withdrawal.

>What do you think is going to happen if bond yields rise? What do you think is going to happen to fixed yield financial instruments if the central banks lose control of the yield curve?
I don't know, they summon Captain Planet? This is all foreign to me...

>Why don't you tell us the choices for investment you have in your 401K? There may be a better investment that someone can help you select. Or, if everything is utter garbage, we can point that out and recommend that you take the hit of early withdrawal.
Is pic related what you're looking for?

>Is pic related what you're looking for?
Sort of. You've shown what you're currently invested in. Are there any other investment choices you have?

The two funds you have are target date funds. They'll invest in a mix of stock and bonds and adjust the blend--increasing bond assets--as you get older. The general idea is that you buy this fund and forget about it until you are ready to retire in the year 2050 or 2055.

These types of funds aren't bad things to be invested in but you do have to beware of fees. A quick glance at one of them shows fees of 0.67%, which is high IMO.

>DOD
dogsofthedow.com/dogsteps.htm
>In service rollover. Usually age 59.5
youtube.com/watch?v=kBJDFddvh2M
>How to rollover
fidelity.com/retirement-ira/rollover-checklist
>Best option would be to contribute minimum to 401k and put money into traditional IRA

I should quickly add: Your 401K is not utter shit. Considering how little you know about money and investing, you're probably best off leaving the money where it is and *not touching it until you retire*.

>Are there any other investment choices you have?

Thank you user, I will read through these and watch the video.

i assume this is the most correct answer you might be able to sell your gold back to APMEX, however I have no clue. I am definitely intrigued though because i am a gold bug when it comes to gold ETFs

I have some experience with some of those funds listed and I'll offer some comments:

1. Fidelity Contrafund. This is a reasonably well-managed fund and is quite popular (a lot of assets under management). In the past, it has performed better than the S&P 500 index but it doesn't appear to be the case for the past 10 years. It's also underperformed looking at 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year, and 5 year periods.

I pulled all my money out of this fund in 2008 or 2009 when I realized that I outperformed this fund almost all of the time. The fund's inability to avoid the worst of the 2008 crash is really what sealed it for me. The fund was loaded with shit banking stocks, which I personally had diligently avoided, which told me that the analysts didn't know shit about the global macro economy.

If you insist on investing in stocks mutual funds and can't get a low-cost index fund, the Contrafund is OK. The era of Quantitative Easing seems to have really killed its performance, though.

2. Fidelity Balanced Fund. This is a mediocre fund that also has a fair amount of exposure to bonds. Personally, I wouldn't recommend anyone invest in this fund. Its performance over 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years is nothing short of pathetic.

I pulled all of my money out of this fund in 2008 or 2009 also because they fucked me pretty hard by owning a bunch of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shit. Utterly inexcusable investment mistakes for professional investors who charge the fees that they do.

I'll continue in another posting...

3. Pimco Total Return Fund

I would not invest in this fund at all because the 30+ year bond bull market is over. I don't follow their trades closely enough to determine how exactly they make their money but, if I remember correctly, they do use leverage at times. A lot of the return is based on capital gains made through bets on interest rate movements.

This fund was formerly managed by the legendary (?) Bill Gross.

The current investment environment is highly unpleasant and returns are likely to be low for every one. Personally, I would recommend that a young person invest either 60% or 80% in a very diversified, *global* stock index with very low fees. The Vanguard Total World Stock (VT) fund fits that bill.

The remaining 20% - 40% I would recommend that the money be put into a fund that is only invested in U.S. Treasury instruments. [Note: I am assuming you are an American and will continue to live the U.S. and thus need U.S. dollars.] Of the funds you can invest in, the Fidelity Intermediate Government Income Fund (FSTGX) seems to fit that bill.

Yes, the performance looks terrible but you can thank the idiots at the Federal Reserve for that. The reason for holding the U.S. Treasuries is to smooth out what I believe will be a period of high and nasty volatility in the coming years.

To be continued...

During that period of volatility, the price of U.S. Treasuries should rise quite a bit, compressing yields. Depending on what happens (there will likely be very heavy central bank intervention), this is the time to make a trade: sell USTs and buy stocks.

The stocks have to be at a reasonably low price, though, to buy. For the S&P 500, maybe 1,400 or so is an okay time to start buying. Anything above that, continue to hold the Treasuries. Remember to hold U.S. Treasury debt: corporate bonds cannot be trusted in this environment. A lot of companies are borrowing money (issuing bonds) to buy back their stock. If and when those companies go tits up, their bondholders are screwed. You won't have that problem with U.S. Treasuries since the U.S.

You're quite young so you have a lot of time to allow compounding to do its thing for you. However, contrary to what a lot of financial writers say, returns on stocks right now over the next 7 to 10 years are going to be shitty and there is a very high risk of a crash.

You can just buy a blend of stocks and bonds (80 stocks, 20 government bonds) and do nothing until you retire. You'll probably get a pretty good return after 40 or so years through the magic of compounding.

However, if you want to try to make gains above passive index investing, the above idea is probably the way to play it. You don't have to get the timing right, though, and I wouldn't recommend if you don't really understand investing and how the economy really works.

One final thing:

You mentioned that you wanted to take out the money and invest in the equities of utility companies. Even discounting taking out the money, I think investing in utility companies isn't such a hot idea in this environment unless you're a skilled investor/trader.

But if you want to do it, I notice that your 401K offers something called the Fidelity BrokerageLink. I believe this is a self-directed 401K where you can buy individual stocks and have full control over asset allocation. Doing this, you will not have to withdraw the money and pay taxes and penalties. Furthermore, any gains you make will be tax-advantaged.

So if you want full control over your investments, BrokerageLink is the right way to do it.

However, you had better be a God-damned good investor to be able to even match the market much less beat the market in this environment.

My recommendation (note: I am just a face person on the Internet and am not licensed to offer investment advice) is still to go with a portfolio of low-fee, *diversified* stock fund and a U.S. Treasuries in an 80/20 mix or a 60/40 mix if you're more conservative or older.

Good luck.

Thank you for taking the time to review my situation and suggesting those changes, user. How would I go about investing in VT using money from my 401K?

Ask your company (HR) about the BrokerageLink option, which I believe is a self-directed 401K:

mysavingsatwork.com/taxexempt/assets/370190_FidelityBrokerageLink.pdf

The above domain is actually owned by Fidelity. If you go to www.mysavingsatwork.com, you'll get redirected to fidelity.com

Be sure to ask your company if they charge a yearly fee for having a self-directed account. They might charge $100 or $200 per year. For your $20,000 account, that's 0.5% to 1%. Something to consider.

Once you get the self-directed account, put $16,000 into VT and $4,000 into a U.S. Treasuries bond fund. For the Treasury bonds, Vanguard offers a bunch of them (investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/list#/mutual-funds/asset-class/month-end-returns). There are also TLH and TLT, which probably have higher fees than the Vanguard funds.

Be careful of bond duration. The longer the bond duration, the greater the volatility. I am personally invested in TLT, which has a 20 year duration. However, I am a somewhat active investor and believe I know what is going to happen in the markets to make a trade when the time comes.

Depending on what you're trying to do, you might be better off going with a 10 year duration.

>put $16,000 into VT and $4,000 into a U.S. Treasuries bond fund.

For an 80/20 blend. The actual amount you allocate is entirely up to you, of course. You're young so, based on finance theory, you ought to more heavily allocate toward stocks since you'll have more time to allow the market to recover if there's a drop.

>You don't have to get the timing right,
Argh.

That should be, "You *DO* have to get the timing right."

>Walk in pawnshop and say; Sup my Nigga, iz you wanna be buy some gol from me ait?

this is like a book, wow

yo' lemme see dat coin, oh i can offer 50% of the current gold usd rate price hows dat

basically, it's all the same scam. schiff, maloney, all the motherfuckin idiots. yaaa buyy gold bars will come very handy when the apocalypse hits :D

You have to have at least $1,000 worth of gold for APMEX to buy from you

>[Note: I am assuming you are an American and will continue to live the U.S. and thus need U.S. dollars.]

What would you recommend for a European living in the Eurozone and who needs Euros?

>You have to have at least $1,000 worth of gold for APMEX to buy from you
ooh thanks

Have high-quality sovereign bonds denominated in Euros or hold cash. By high-quality, I mean things like German government bonds. Avoid trash like Spanish or Italian bonds. I don't really know what's going to happen to the Euro so holding German bonds is probably the safest thing. However, since high-quality Euro bonds are likely to have negative interest rates, it's probably better to hold cash.

If you're really clever, you can of course get better yields in the corporate bond markets or buying the bonds of crappy countries. You'll have to know whether to hold or ditch the bonds, though, in the event of an EU split-up or something crazy like that. However, what I've been writing about is a reasonably low-risk, simple investment strategy for the long-term. This means sticking to something simple: German bunds or Euros in a savings account.

With a savings account, make sure that you do not exceed any deposit insurance limits and make sure that you do not put your money into a shaky bank. You do not want to be a victim of a bail-in like the unfortunate citizens of Cyprus.

One thing I did not mention above is that, truth be told, you really ought to have a portion of your assets in gold, maybe 10%, to hedge a currency event. This holds for a U.S. dollar as well as Euro denominated portfolio. It seems very unlikely that the central banks are going to ever be able to go back to somewhat normal policies such as in 2006. The longer they hold interest rates at zero and use unconventional tools such as quantitative easing, the greater the risk of the currency getting wiped out.

Gold will hedge against serious policy error or a general panic. The equities will also hedge against a currency wipeout but the gold will smooth out the volatility of the cash (bonds) like the cash/bonds are supposed to smooth out the volatility of the equities.

Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't need the gold but we live in highly unusual times.

Thanks. As there is nothing completely satisfying, I do simply hold cash (much more than the insured €100,000) and I'm waiting for something more interesting than ugly negative rates or dubious corporate bonds.

I thought about investing in U. S. Treasuries since they offer a decent 1.5% yield; but with future rate hikes to come, I'm not pleased either.

So I'm still doing nothing and just keep cash in various state-owned banks and systemic banks (for the part of my portfolio that's reserved for bonds).