I have some retirement funds that I want to park in a safe trade. Any suggestions? I'd be happy with 3-4% / yr. or so. I haven't been actively trading in the last few years - just need something I can buy quickly (retail acct. can only trade basic stuff) and forget about. thx
You will never find a safe place that earns 3-4% annually for the rest of your life. If such a thing ever appeared the value of your funds would have depreciated substantially prior to it.
Do you own your home? If not, buying your first residence is a way to "earn" single digit returns with extremely low risk. You will not get "paid" a return but you will earn it through saving the money you pay in rent(minus property taxes and maintanence costs, which usually will amount of less than half of the rental yield), that is a form of tax free savings. Owning your home is like a having a REIT with 100% occupancy where the income is tax free, and you don't care about the price fluctuation because you will continue to live there. Its also inflation proof But if you don't own your home, then you are probably better off owning a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, gold and REITs. How to do that is too long an explanation to give it here but search my name and 'portfolio' and you might learn a thing or two
Holding a bond portfolio (50% IEF, 50% SHY) over the last 18 years produced an annual return of about 3.7% (including dividends) and a maximum drawdown of about 6%. Low cost, zero maintenance and regular dividends.
If you've got 10-20 years, farmland is pretty conservative with single digit returns (cash rent) plus potential for increase in valuation. View attachment 244914
Safe 3-4%? Sure, just buy SPY QQQ DIA IWM and make that every month. The market isn’t allowed to go down. Thank the Fed for the free money