Rick, what do you teach? Anything to do with Western Australia Economy? Do not wait until you retire to start your retirement. As to craziness, put it on smart phones and social media. Not going to get better anytime soon. Take it as a constant.

Rick, Why did you decide not to become a dual (Aussie + US) citizen? Australia would have happily given you a permanent residency under their point system. It is a nice place to retire if you have access to it.
I know a couple of Aussies who moved to the US and work in Finance. They do not want to work in Australia.
I am told that the police in Australia is so much community friendly than the cops in the US (the Aborigines might disagree with that statement).

I'm not close to 'retirement age' but yes, the the thought has crossed my mind and is on my plate as a possible destination. I know at a holiday party a few years ago the Oz ambassador was joking about how they "could always use people like you" and that having an Aussie degree was a great thing. So ... who knows what the future holds? (They've got their own political crazy happening, of course ... but it's nowhere as bats---t insane as ours is, that's for sure.)
Full disclosure: There was a moment back in mid-Nov 2016 when I was coming back from a consulting trip in Melbourne and was really really reaaaallllly tempted to walk out of the airport, crash with friends for a bit, and do exactly that ... but being a professional, I knew I had too much going on work-wise back home to do that in the middle of a semester --- and it wasn't an existential crisis for me (yet). Darn you, professional ethics! (The uni was actively trying to recruit me for an interesting position, too ... but the job had too many weird 'hooks' from its industry benefactor that didn't sit well with me.)

"Excellent" observations by the quacks.
I didn't beat the SP500 in 2023-4. Not even close, and I don't need it.
It's all at (https://fd1000.freeforums.net/post/446)
I know that none of you can do it; just keep quacking. I already have heard it for at least 15 years.
Remember, I was told that I don't have a clue; I will never retire, I will never make it in retirement and timing + low SD could not be done.
The reality is completely different. I only need about 1% from my portfolio to keep my nice lifestyle for decades without any pension or an inheritance.
Observant1: hindsight?
FD: It's much easier to throw stones. Many of my trades and analysis are on my site. You may learn something.
I also have several trades I made in the past several years where I sold before major meltdowns in 2020 and 2022 and when I bought back.

sorry the format copy paste translated bad, here is the table of funds https://imgur.com/a/celkp9Y , Im 28 this is for long term retirement

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 1/1/25
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
Rates down by 25 bps (posted early!)
Restricted RC 5.25%, RA 5.00%
Flexible RCP 4.50%, SRA 4.25%, IRA-101110+ 4.50%
(TIAA Declaration Year 3/1 - 2/28)
TSP G Fund 4.625% pending (previous 4.250%).
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
#StableValue #401k #403b #TIAA #TSP
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1802/thread

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1545440/000158064224007850/westglobal_497e.htm
497 1 westglobal_497e.htm 497E
December 30, 2024
WESTWOOD GLOBAL REAL ESTATE FUND
Institutional Shares
KIRYX
A Class Shares
KIRAX
C Class Shares
KIRCX
A Series of Ultimus Managers Trust
Supplement to the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, each dated February 28, 2024, as supplemented
Effective immediately, Westwood Global Real Estate Fund (the “Fund”), a series of Ultimus Managers Trust (the “Trust”), has terminated the public offering of its shares and will discontinue its operations effective February 19, 2025. Shares of the Fund are no longer available for purchase and, at the close of business on February 19, 2025, all outstanding shares of the Fund will be redeemed at net asset value (the “Transaction”). Prior to the liquidation date, Shareholders of the Fund may exchange their holdings for another fund in the Trust as outlined in the Fund prospectus.
The Board of Trustees of the Trust (the “Board”), in consultation with the Fund’s investment adviser, Westwood Management Corp. (the “Adviser”), determined and approved at a meeting of the Board held on December 20, 2024 (the “Meeting”) to discontinue the Fund’s operations based on, among other factors, the Adviser’s belief that it would be in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders to discontinue the Fund’s operations. Through the date of the Transaction, the Adviser will continue to waive investment advisory fees and reimburse expenses of the Fund, if necessary, in order to maintain the Fund at its current expense limit, as specified in the Fund’s current Prospectus.
At the Meeting, the Board directed that: (i) all of the Fund’s portfolio securities be liquidated in an orderly manner not later than February 19, 2025; and (ii) all outstanding shareholder accounts on February 19, 2025 be closed and the proceeds of each account, less any required withholding, be sent to the shareholder’s address of record or to such other address as directed by the shareholder, including special instructions that may be needed for Individual Retirement Accounts (“IRAs”) and qualified pension and profit sharing accounts. As a result of the Transaction, the Fund’s portfolio holdings will be reduced to cash or cash equivalents. Accordingly, going forward, shareholders should not expect the Fund to achieve its stated investment objective.
Shareholders may redeem all or a portion of their shares of the Fund on any business day prior to the Transaction as specified in the Fund’s Prospectus.
The Transaction will be considered for tax purposes a sale of Fund shares by shareholders, and shareholders should consult with their own tax advisors to ensure its proper treatment on their income tax returns. In addition, shareholders invested through an IRA or other tax-deferred account should consult the rules regarding the reinvestment of these assets. In order to avoid a potential tax issue, shareholders generally have 60 days from the date that proceeds are received to re-invest or “rollover” the proceeds into another IRA or qualified retirement account; otherwise, the proceeds may be required to be included in the shareholder’s taxable income for the current tax year.
If you have any questions regarding the Fund or the Transaction, please call the Fund toll free at 1-877-FUND-WHG (1-877-386-3944).
Investors Should Retain this Supplement for Future Reference.

The problem with Marks and many others is in the details.
How do you control risk in real life when markets punch you in the face?
If you know your goals, risk, volatility and are willing to tolerate it, and you are a buy-and-hold investor, you should have less of a problem. That's a lot easier for the accumolator.
In retirement, things get more difficult. When to retire? when to take SS? future taxes, pensions, LTC?. Are you really needing the future risk/SD? If you have enough?
I have been thinking, practicing, tweaking, and testing performance under risk/SD for about 25 years. This is what has worked for me.
1) The best way to avoid losses is to sell to MM. I couldn't find any fund(s) that can minimize the losses for the entire portfolio to under 3%, not even 5%, and still have reasonable performance as 50/50.
2) Investing based on what happened months ago or 1-2 (or more) years is a no-go. The worst years present great opportunities because of item 1 above.
3) There is almost nothing 100% safe. Stocks go down, bonds, even treasuries go down (2022). Not all MM are safe too; some can limit your access when you want to trade, others can break the $1.
4) Diversification doesn't save you either. IMO, investing in just 3-6 funds is all you need to make your life simpler.
5) Valuation and others are another trap.
The solution:
Do almost nothing
or
Know what you are doing, be a good trader, and know the risk/SD, it is different many times; expect the worst and hope for the best. Expect the worst is the key. A 5-10% decline can end in 20-30% and even 50%. If you wait too long, you are too late.
This is the main point: you can't define the risk/SD, it's not predictable.

Regarding annuities, I had a bad experience in the 1980s, when my company retirement program was negatively impacted by bankruptcy of a major annuity provider--the Baldwin Company.
Ah, the piano company. They were making loans to buyers (good pianos are really expensive) and so branched out into insurance. When it comes to insurance, better to stick with "professionals". Not that your employer gave you a choice.

The Baldwin-United Corporation, the Cincinnati piano company that borrowed heavily to move into the insurance business, filed for protection under the bankruptcy laws yesterday [Sept 26, 1983] in one of the largest financial collapses in American history.
The company was a casualty of overexpansion, built on complex financial maneuvers.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/27/business/baldwin-a-casualty-of-fast-expansion-files-for-bankruptcy.html

The problems came ... when companies like Baldwin began using SPDA assets to prop up nonrelated ventures. Partly for this reason, brokers and financial planners are learing to be more skeptical about insurance company ratings provided by A. M Best's ...
In an interview, [Mary Malgoire, a financial planner] and her partner, David Drucker, agreed that the SPDA is basically a good product - provided it is sold by a company with experience in annuities (preferably an insurance company) and provided SPDA assets are totally ''segregated,'' or kept separate from the rest of the company's business. This requires the investor to look into the company occasionally, look at annual reports, and find out how and where SPDA assets are invested.

https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/1010/101040.html
FWIW, Fidelity's SPDA offerings are generally from top tier insurance companies. (The only company not with a AA rating from either Best or S&P is Fidelity's.) Consequently these SPDAs don't pay the highest rates in the industry but provide more peace of mind.

I think only 16 states opt out of payment into SS. Do you think the states currently paying into it will quit and go to a retirement system without SS?

Regarding annuities, I had a bad experience in the 1980s, when my company retirement program was negatively impacted by bankruptcy of a major annuity provider--the Baldwin Company. The company retirement was frozen for a few months until the Baldwin bankruptcy eventually got resolved, and my company retirement plan was made whole again. My company changed its retirement plan away from Annuities, toward a different set of holdings tied to mutual fund holdings managed by Merrill Lynch.

I have followed this thread, but had only 2 short posts on T-Note quotes & FRN USFR.
IMO, good CD alternatives are T-Bills/Notes (noncallable). All these can be held to maturity without incurring losses. The CD & Treasuries investors are quite different from fund investors because funds have duration and they never mature, so there may be gains or losses at sale.
As for annuities, there are basic fixed-term and lifetime SPIA that have low-costs and may be fine for many. Any guarantees are from the insurance company, so stick with highly rated companies.
TIAA offers many low-cost annuities - for retirement or taxable accounts.
A big issue with annuities is that one is stuck with annuity rules - while tax-deferral is good, withdrawal penalties apply before 59.5. Taxes also apply on withdrawals.
Insurers know that & can offer attractive rates to captive clients. They also publicize those offers aggressively along with luring initial incentives.
One can do 1035 exchanges between annuities, but it isn’t a simple online process.
IMO, first exhaust all other tax-deferral options - IRAs, 401k/403b, 529, etc. When these options weren’t available, annuities were very popular.

Great stuff by @msf on annuities. I agree they are a viable option at this time. Guessing they were even more so about 6-12 months ago when rates were at/near their peaks.
That said, annuities have always been a 4-letter word to us. Too high fees, loss of control over your money, difficult if not impossible to understand terms, etc.
Not saying all of the drawbacks can't be overcome, but any prospective buyer MUST identify and understand all of the many mistakes they can (and others often do) make when buying them. Or things may not go as planned/expected.
Here's some primer links in the event anyone here is so inclined. If it's our money, I wouldn't stop with reading just these:
https://annuityguys.org/five-annuity-mistakes-you-should-avoid/
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022316/5-mistakes-avoid-when-shopping-annuities.asp
https://www.neamb.com/retirement-planning/7-common-annuity-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them
EDIT: Barron's does an annual review and report by annuity type that I consider the best on the planet and would absolutely use as our primary guide if ever seriously considering an annuity.
(Note: A few years ago we did consider one and passed.)
https://www.barrons.com/topics/best-annuities

raq,
That's correct if someone has risky stuff, DT doesn't. I respect DT decisions and his choices.
When I used to own both stocks and bonds, my bond funds were never the "safe" ones. My first bond fund that I bought in 2010 was PIMIX. Then, I prepared for my retirement in 2018. By the end of 2017, PIMIX was over 50% of my portfolio.
All my funds must be top performers ALL the time in their category based on risk-adjusted performance.
RPHIX vs MM. I'm with msf. As I said before, when rates fall, and they will eventually, RPHIX would do better.
But, why stop with RPHIX? Let's look at DHEAX+CLOI. For one year...VMFXX(MM) made 5.3%...DHEAX made 9.1%...CLOI 8.2%. Both volatility max loss was -0.5%. See chart (https://schrts.co/zbSQiQxp).
BTW, I've not been in the TR camp for years now. My portfolio volatility is very low, but performance is still good. I'm not arguing about CDs or not; just offering another option. I understand that this thread started as a CD one, but why not discuss the next step, especially when there is not much to talk about CDs?

Here is the active link above.
https://irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-23500-for-2025-ira-limit-remains-7000
Another way to get additional saving is through their employer’s matching contributions, often at 4% or more of their salary. There are exceptions that not all employers provide matching and the $ amount varies. If you are the fortunate ones that matching is available, so much the better with this “free money” for your retirement funds. Compounded growth of retirement do wonder when you start early in your career.

Looks like the Trump honeymoon is over for the markets. I’m not surprised

Me neither. Add in y/e selling, cashing in on the post-election euphoria, and perhaps a realization that the CRAZYTIMES are back in a little over a month, AND a looming GQP government shutdown, a noticeable pullback was expected (by me).
Equitywise, in my income portfolio I'm getting more defensive, staying inside the US (other than TRP, though I may keep SOBO too) and 'overweighting' on utilities, pipelines, infrastructure, and preferreds as I position this account for pre-retirement purposes in the coming years. My growth+income ports I don't expect to do much with anytime soon -- just letting good stuff ride for the long term.

Super Catchup for 401k/403b from 2025
Another Secure 2.0 provision for catchups for 401k, 403b, government 457 and federal TSP kicks in 2025.
For 55+ $7,500
For 60-63 $11,250 (higher of $10,000 and 150% of regular catchup)
SIMPLE retirement plan catchups are also adjusted: 55+ $3,500, 60-63 $5,250.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/401k-limit-increases-to-23500-for-2025-ira-limit-remains-7000

I’m taking “early” retirement next week at 57, so been thinking about risk/reward. Have coworkers who couldn’t tell you what WSJ means, but had retirement 100% in SPY for 30 plus years. Compared to 70/30 ratio, could mean 8% AR vs 11%. Over 33 years
, could mean at least one million more. Coulda had the brokers yacht and Ferris Bueler’s Ferrari…gonna drink my big Black Cow…
One of the Ferraris From Ferris Bueller's Day Off Just Sold for $396,000 in 2020. Replica 250 GT.

I informed Seeking Alpha that I would no longer be writing articles on their website because I am spending free time volunteering at Neighbor To Neighbor and Habitat For Humanity. They told me that one option is to have payments donated to nonprofits and MFO, N2N and H4H are options. I'll give it a try. I just published, "Refining A Bucket Approach Strategy In Retirement".
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4744149-refining-a-bucket-approach-strategy-in-retirement

Assume that the market will go up during the year (that happens more years than not). Then if one doesn't need the cash flow from RMDs, one wants to take RMDs late when it's a smaller percentage of an IRA. Conversely, one wants to make Roth conversions early when a given conversion is a bigger percentage of an IRA. These are in conflict because one must take RMDs before doing any conversions.
For those with small (or no) RMDs and making large Roth conversions, doing everything early in the year can make sense. If one makes QCDs as part of the RMD (i.e. earlier than conversions), then the QCDs count toward the RMD quota.
The bottom line is that for some, QCDs, RMDs, and conversions are better done as beginning of year moves than as end of year moves.
"Consider whether it’s advantageous to convert some traditional retirement account funds into a Roth retirement account."
A conversion can make sense even if you expect to be in the same or lower tax bracket in the future. If one has "space" in the 12% tax bracket (e.g. pre-SS, pre-pension, pre-RMD, post-retirement), then one can fill up that space with conversions. This is especially advantageous if one can pay the taxes on the conversion out of a taxable account.
Given the uncertainty in investment distributions, this is a move that may best be done near the end of the year when estimated distributions are available and you know how much "space" you have available.

Two excerpts from this week’s Barron’s that may relate …
(Excerpt #1) Randall Forsyth comments on scheduled Dec. 18/19 FOMC Meeting …
”Given the largely as-expected jobs report, the federal-funds futures market put an overwhelming 85.1% probability the Federal Open Market Committee would lower its key policy rate by 25 basis points from the current target range of 4.5% to 4.75% at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting on Dec. 18, according to the CME FedWatch site … That pretty much assumes that the next key data release, November’s consumer price index, doesn’t surprise to the upside.”
”Jobs Data Should Cement a Rate Cut. What’s Uncertain Is Everything Else.”
Author: Randall Forsyth
(Excerpt #2) Provocative reader comment on article ”Inflation Isn’t Dead Yet. How to Protect Your Retirement Income”. I’ve quoted the comment in full, but have omitted name. I’m not expert enough on bonds to have an opinion, but thought this might prompt some informed discussion.
”After inflation bonds at current prices pay almost nothing, and junk bonds aren't much better. Bonds have zero protection against inflation. If you want TIPS (or any bonds) buy them on your own, not in a fund. That way you get paid in full at maturity and don't have to worry about price changes (drops from interest rate increases) before maturity. And don't pay off your mortgage; the Fed and Congress will continue to pay off 3 % of your balance every year, and will probably do a lot better for you. And with inflation supposedly nearing 2 % that is after drops in oil prices. Between Middle East problems, the topping of the Permian, green policy fantasies, and lots else, oil will almost certainly be going up and inflation with it.”
Both excerpts from Barron’s / December 9, 2024