Originally Posted by
RTM
When I got started Craigs gave me a model portfolio. Contained 20-30% bonds and they were recommending laddering them to even out yields / income over time.
Not sure what they recommend now. I did put some money into bonds, not well laddered, but got lucky with the timing...interest rates in general dropped and they were pretty attractive for years. In these times of increasing interest rates personally I would be pretty cautious about how much I put into bonds with supposedly attractive interest rates. Interest rates could well go higher yet. You are taxed on the interest received. And most worryingly, inflation is eating away at your $20 - 30K that you have parked in there for maybe 5 years.
I may well have this wrong...but I'm thinking I would rather take advantage of lower prices to buy stocks that will (hopefully) eventually do well, even if there is a year or two or three of pain. To me this seems a better strategy.
Now...finding the right stocks...that's another question altogether.