Simple Boring Plan to Fund Your Retirement

[billyjoe]

Step 1 : Scrape together $4,000 and buy a share of BRKB or $120,000 and buy a share of BRKA and stash it away.

Step 2 : Repeat step #1 as often as possible.


Best case scenario your money will double every 3-5 years

Worst case scenario your money will double every 7-9 years

It's not like putting all your eggs in one basket since BRKA & B control or have substantial holdings in over 40 businesses , billions in small amounts of other companies, and billions in cash .

--------------billyjoe

[Peter Hansen]

Billie another Idea

Just buy CGMFX a mutual fund led by Genius Ken Heebner . The fund has the ability to hold stocks both Long and Short when conditions merit and was actually UP during the 2000 bear Market. Also buy LUK a company which invests into many "distressed" companies and always manages to turn a huge profit. Each $1 placed into LUK in 1978 is worth $900 today!
Well how do these 2 compare to your BRK-B ? Just click on the link below and you will see a yahoo comparison chart since 1996 ....after that I think you may wish to consider CGMFX and LUK over BRK-B!

http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart14:symbol=brk-b;range=my;compare=cgmfx+luk;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined

[billyjoe]

Pete,
Very good ! Any other simple plans out there ?

------------billyjoe

[Peter Hansen]

Billie One more for the Gipper HOC

Billie oh yeah.......forgot one of my favorites .....HOC took a hit lately .......but NEVER has been known to disappoint over the long haul! Check it out! Now may be the time to buy some Holly Corp HOC .....check out a comparison of HOC, BRK-B, LUK and CGMFX! I have these in my daughter's Roth , and I am sure she will be able to retire early! With a huge TAX FREE stock portfolio down the road! Last minute I also threw GROW in the mix !

http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart3:symbol=brk-b;range=my;compare=cgmfx+luk+hoc+grow;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined

[gerihearne]

luk

Just buy CGMFX a mutual fund led by Genius Ken Heebner . The fund has the ability to hold stocks both Long and Short when conditions merit and was actually UP during the 2000 bear Market. Also buy LUK a company which invests into many "distressed" companies and always manages to turn a huge profit. Each $1 placed into LUK in 1978 is worth $900 today!
Well how do these 2 compare to your BRK-B ? Just click on the link below and you will see a yahoo comparison chart since 1996 ....after that I think you may wish to consider CGMFX and LUK over BRK-B!

http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#char...urce=undefined

luk is luk-ing good! Thanks for the tips Peter and Billie. What great parents u'all are!
Graciously,
Geri

[stenzrob]

I compared CGMFX to some funds that have served me well over the years (95% of my retirement money is in a fairly aggressive asset allocation of 4 and 5 Mstar-rated funds, it's the other 5% that I play with).

I noticed that the cumulative 10 year return of CGMFX as shown on the Yahoo chart is a bit less than the cum 10 yr as shown at Schwab. My guess is that Yahoo only tracks NAV, and does not account for dividend reinvestment. As further evidence that this is probably the case, I charted a very good multisector bond fund I'm in (LSBRX) at Yahoo and found that over 10 years it is up less than 10%. Meanwhile, over the last 10 years, it has actually gained over 110% as it's contribution to my IRA. Another example is LLPFX, which has actually gained over 200% for me over the last 10 years, but the Yahoo chart shows to be up only 30%. So, if you're comparing things for a simple boring retirement plan, beware of comparing using only Yahoo charts.

That said, CGMFX is a monster. Using the comparison tool at Schwab, a position there would be up about 450% over the last 10 years. It also carries Mstars highest risk rating along with highest performance rating. It had not shown up on the fund screener I use at Schwab because there's a transaction fee, so I ran a screen for 5 year performance allowing a transaction fee. CGMFX is #17. I was more interested in 10 year performance (for reasons that should be obvious), but despite showing inception date of 9/3/97, there is no 10 year performance data available at Schwab. Then I ran a 10 year screen anyway, Mstar rated 4 or 5. The top ten funds from that screen are: WWWFX, CGMRX, EUROX, PRMTX, BMCFX, VGENX, FMIOX, EGLRX, FBRVX (I'm in this one, it has the lowest Mstar risk rating of this top ten), and UMESX.

That list of ten covers reit, mid-cap, small cap, international, and specialities in natural resources and communications.

My approach may not be as simple as buying and holding BRKA or BRKB, but it is more boring than holding HOC or LUK which were down 30 to 50% in the late 1990's. It's pretty traditional, really.

I set target allocations for asset classes and find 4 or 5-star rated funds with a history of outperforming their peers over the long term in each asset class, and have at least two such funds in each class. I track the positions regularly, about once a week, but do not trade on news or any of my hunches about the market. When one of the asset classes gets more than a couple of percent above or below the target, I start thinking about how to adjust. It's getting to be that time again, due to my international exposure having climbed higher than my allocation target due to outperformance of JAOSX and SSEMX over the last few years.