[Orly]

Iam 54 yrs old, have $200,000, an investment bank will give me 5% on a checking account, according to Mr. Buffett the return in the stock market will not be more than 8% in the next few years... is it worth the risk for another 3%?. what do you think? Tks.

[Fr_Chuck]

First I would say shop around banks, with 200,000 to invest, they should give you a better rate if you ask for it. ( don't ever accept their published rate if you have over 100,000 to invest. You can almost always get an extra .2 or .3 percent by threatening to move your money to another bank, or sometimes get it by moving your money to another bank.

But let me say if this Mr Buffett knows what stock is going down, there are ways to make money on a bad market and some stocks always do better, Right now I have been doing 16 percent on my money over the past few years, and my worst, investment is making 8 with my current 3 month total at about 12 percent.

Also remember if the stock market goes down to 8 percent, banks will be back down most likely to 3 percent.

And many people divide up their money into various investments,
Different mutal funds, some investment in different mutual funds accounts. And let them be very spread out, and follow them, I only look at mine once a month but normally move some investments each time, as markets change. For example when the war started, it would be a good bet to move into those companies that made weapons, uniforms and government contracting. And oil companies are normally slow but good investments, but try and move into them after a oil spill, or some event that moves their value down temp.

But then your 5 percent is not bad and if you are happy, the money is safe. With most investments you can lose some or all of your money fast if things all fail