401(k) Day today at the office! (Which funds should we invest in?)

[Synnical]

I’m the admin of the plan (by default) and our “Financial” (fake tan, high maintenance ) person suggested we add funds to the plan, such as “Natural Resources” and “Developing Countries”.

When I commented that meant, “Raping Countries of their National Resources.” He only missed one heartbeat.

“Okay, we want to add funds that are Socially Responsible.”

I clapped, and said, YES, that is what we want to do. I'll see if that happens.

Asshole.

-Cindy

[soothsayer]

1. cool!

[skids]

2. My plan is lame.

They only have one "socially responsible" category. What they do in that fund is essentially take one of their other funds and buy exactly the same stocks, except wherever a company is manufacturing weapons or such, instead of finding a different company or something socially progressive like an alt energy basket or whatever they take the money that would normally be spent on that stock and put it aside as cash.

Talk about a limp wristed bunt.

If I want more cash in my portfolio I'll buy more CDs, considering they perform about as good as the money market accounts at this place even on 1 year terms. I would have put more money into the "Social Choice" fund but I had to diversify offshore, for which there is no socially responsible option.

Weak.

[Synnical]

3. International seems the way to go right now?

Since the dollar is tanking more and more every day.

I won't invest in what the fake tan dude called "fringe accounts" - raping developing countries of their natural resources. I will not support the IMF/World Bank neo liberal policies.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[skids]

5. Out is the way to go right now :-)

I wouldn't dare give advice, especially at this point; it's all going to crash. I don't think even commodities will be able to disobey the law of gravity here, since it is likely there will be an actual slowdown of real activity in addition to the already tumbling slowdown of the paper pushing industry.

I'll tell you what to avoid: banks, companies that have a lot of debt (even if they have enough cash to pay it all) as they like to make plans that use the credit card which won't be as available to them and it will cramp their plans and cause them to miss predictions, and companies that hold their cash reserves in iffy assets. ETFs are usually regarded as safer bets since they bundle stocks, but these days you really have to read the prospectus to see where their money really is and make sure they aren't holding a hot CDO potato, and prospectus's for those are so very long you'd need a month to review a decent number of funds.

If you can still find a company the "lives within its means" and has managed not to be shouldered aside by a bunch of competitors running on high octane loans during the last decade, do let me know. Not that I plan to do any investing anytime soon. Just so I can call the endangered species people so they can go put a yellow tag on its leg.

[Snarkoleptic]

4. I'm in cash right now...

We had Dow 13,300 last fall before the earth-shaking liquidity crisis was a big story.
There's still more downside than upside at the moment.