Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Staying the Course II

Investing. I discussed this in October here.

Because our stock market portfolio is more widely diversified than the S&P, it recovered earlier. The S&P is widely considered in the media as a proxy for the US stock market or even for the world of stocks.

It's not that I "play the market." It's simply that I don't know where else to save our money. I don't have time to study alternate investments - or even the stock and bond markets themselves. The way law firms are capitalized, there is not a serious opportunity to reinvest in the business so that, at the end of the day, there is good will, etc., to sell to a third party.

So, as I mentioned before, we have an investment management service that allocates our savings among index funds, about 60% stock funds and 40% bond funds, with bonds that have an average maturity of not more seven years (now, I think, around 5 years). The investment service "rebalances" among the sectors from time to time and does some tax-loss "harvesting" at the end of the year. I trust them.

One alternative is for Carol and me to sell all we have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus. I do think about that sometimes, but doubt that we are being called to precisely that right now.

Another alternative would be to sell all we have, blow the proceeds on riotous living while we still have our health, and then move to Austin to be supported by Macon and Walter.

2 comments:

Carol said...

We never have been too big on riotous living, however. :)

Paul Stokes said...

I had in mind maybe an extra dessert now and then, and a trip to Fairchild Gardens.