"Ask Paul" - Your Questions, His Answers

Paul Merriman answers questions from FundAdvice visitors and listeners to the SoundInvesting radio show. Feel free to search our archive of questions, or submit a question to Paul!



"Ask Paul": Socially Responsible Investing: Do Good, and Do Well
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Following the holidays, it seems like a fitting time to think of generosity and compassion, and in the world of mutual funds, that means "socially responsible" funds

Ask Paul: Invest all at once or gradually?
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QUESTION: Paul, I have some money I want to invest in a buy-and-hold account. I don’t know if I should invest it all at once or dollar-cost-average over a year or six months. Which is best?

"Ask Paul" Military retirement
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In three years I will conclude a 30 year career in the military as an enlistad man. I own a house, paid off this month, have an 11-year old son, two cars (paid off), excellent credit and no debts. The house is a rental property as I am currently living overseas. I will have to buy another house in three years, start saving for college for my son and will start a second career.


I have not started saving yet because I wanted to pay off the house. What are your recommendations for buying a house, saving for college expenses, retirement after my second career and tax shelters for the next three years?

"Ask Paul" Buying load funds
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Regarding mutual funds, why isn't it a good idea to invest in C shares for a time period of one to five years, then convert to A shares in the fifth year. I have looked at American and Franklin Templeton and cannot understand, given the scheduled loads and expenses, why this would not be a good strategy. I am 53 years old. Thank you so much.

"Ask Paul" IRA rollover
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I currently have a Vanguard rollover IRA that's worth about $120,000. I expect that I will not need this money for eight years or more. I have taken $ 100,000 of this and allocated it according to your suggested Vanguard buy and hold strategy based upon a 60/40 equity/fixed ratio. I split the remaining $ 20,000 evenly between the Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund and the Vanguard Windsor II fund. I have always like these two managed funds.


Do you think this little investment wrinkle of adding these two funds to your buy and hold suggestions is safe? Or are there any pitfalls to this strategy?


Portfolio self-help
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How do I choose the right investments in my portfolio?

"Ask Paul" Question #477
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I am studying investments and I'm using the Fidelity Magellan fund as a case study. How well has this fund performed in recent years, and what benchmark do you use to evaluate it? What does "good performance" mean to you? Does it include anything other than just return? Would you have recommended Magellan in 1995, or any other growth fund?

"Ask Paul" Question #476
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I have been reading your column for years, and learned a great deal, thanks. My husband and I are both working at universities, and have invested money in the TIAA-CREF stock fund. I am still not clear how to place this fund in a portfolio, how to evaluate its performance and which benchmark I should use. It is not easy to follow this fund since there's not much information available about it other than what's on TIAA-CREF web site.

"Ask Paul" Question #475
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I am a senior citizen and I invested $5,000 divided equally between in Janus' Global Life Science and Olympus funds. Now my $5,000 is down to only $2,800. Should I my dump these funds? Should I switch to another Janus fund? Or should I just sweat it out? I have other investments besides these two funds.

"Ask Paul" Question #474
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If I buy mutual funds at the end of a year, are there expenses that will be assigned to my shares even if I have owned them only a short while?

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