6-8% return if you're bearish

I came into $30K from a house sale in the booming 90's. I invested
it in the S&P 500 at the very peak of the bubble. After all these
years I'm still down but have recouped a good bit of it.

Now I've gotten another little chunk of cash in my hands and am interested
in investing in something OTHER than the S&P 500. Ideally a fund that
is blended government and corporate bonds or a good mix of bonds & stocks.

Is there a bond mutual fund someone can recommend that generally does
about or better than 6% in bearish times?

I'm bearish on the S&P for a few more years. I could be wrong but
I want to diversify. I figure if we have a boom, my S&P fund will
eventually take off and if we are more bearish, the new fund I'm
going to buy will help balance things.

What would you folks recommend?

-Loraine

Re: 6-8% return if you're bearish

Oh, one more thing. I've been reading up about Bill Gross and
see somethign I just can't make sense of. Apparently he generates
a good 7% annually on his bond fund but when you look at the
chart it appears to be going nowhere for the last 8yrs:




Loraine T <> wrote:
> I came into $30K from a house sale in the booming 90's. I invested
> it in the S&P 500 at the very peak of the bubble. After all these
> years I'm still down but have recouped a good bit of it.
>
> Now I've gotten another little chunk of cash in my hands and am interested
> in investing in something OTHER than the S&P 500. Ideally a fund that
> is blended government and corporate bonds or a good mix of bonds & stocks.
>
> Is there a bond mutual fund someone can recommend that generally does
> about or better than 6% in bearish times?
>
> I'm bearish on the S&P for a few more years. I could be wrong but
> I want to diversify. I figure if we have a boom, my S&P fund will
> eventually take off and if we are more bearish, the new fund I'm
> going to buy will help balance things.
>
> What would you folks recommend?
>
> -Loraine

Re: 6-8% return if you're bearish

Look at the following funds:
Vanguard Wellesley Income
Vanguard Wellington
Vanguard STAR
Oakmark Equity & Income
T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation
Dodge & Cox Balanced
FPA Crescent

These are all solid moderate/conservative type funds that should hold up
pretty well going forward. The 30 year bond is yielding 4.4% so I think it's
safe to say that you should forget about the 6%-8% you want from a bond
fund. You may be able to find it with emerging markets bond funds but these
can be more risky that the S&P500.


"Loraine T" <> wrote in message
news:ixSCe.20531$
>I came into $30K from a house sale in the booming 90's. I invested
> it in the S&P 500 at the very peak of the bubble. After all these
> years I'm still down but have recouped a good bit of it.
>
> Now I've gotten another little chunk of cash in my hands and am interested
> in investing in something OTHER than the S&P 500. Ideally a fund that
> is blended government and corporate bonds or a good mix of bonds & stocks.
>
> Is there a bond mutual fund someone can recommend that generally does
> about or better than 6% in bearish times?
>
> I'm bearish on the S&P for a few more years. I could be wrong but
> I want to diversify. I figure if we have a boom, my S&P fund will
> eventually take off and if we are more bearish, the new fund I'm
> going to buy will help balance things.
>
> What would you folks recommend?
>
> -Loraine

Re: 6-8% return if you're bearish

"Loraine T" <> wrote

> Oh, one more thing. I've been reading up about Bill Gross and
> see somethign I just can't make sense of. Apparently he generates
> a good 7% annually on his bond fund but when you look at the
> chart it appears to be going nowhere for the last 8yrs:

This is because the chart only shows price and not reinvested distributions
(total return).
Also, it does not in any way suggest an annual return of 7%.

If you look at the annual total returns you will see that the returns have
been getting smaller each year.