Balance Matters - Constructing a Balanced Portfolio with Mutual Funds - Personal Finance - Financial Education Center for Investors - BlueCollarDollar/TITLE> <meta NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="balanced portfolios, indexing, index, portfolio, performance, style, size. large, mid-cap, small-cap, value, growth, benchmark, mutual funds, investing in mutual funds"> <META name="description" content="Mutual fund companies are out in full force making effort to get you to realize that they are not going to be able to do what they had done in the past. As a matter of fact, they need you to take to heart the warning, now sounding promissory, that past performance is no guarantee of future results."> <META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="0"> <META name="rating" content="general"> <META name="author" content="Paul Petillo, Editor, BlueCollarDollar.com"> <META name="copyright" content="This site and all its contents are copyright 1998-2011 by Paul Petillo/Editor/BlueCollarDollar.com. All Rights Reserved."> <META name="y_key" content="c0c1f690d19c5e6b" > </head>  <BODY TOPMARGIN=0 LEFTMARGIN=0 BGColor="#ffffff" <tr> <center><h><td width="650" height="100"> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="15" width="580"> <TR valign="top"><TD width="120" valign="top" bgcolor="#ffffff"></h></center> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" > <table valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="660"> </TD></TR></TABLE> <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="cccccc"> <tr align="left"> <h1><font color="#2B60DE">bluecollardollar: on balance</font></h1> <h4>a trusted source of investing, retirement and financial information since 1998</h4> <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com">home</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/personalfinance.html">personal finance</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/retirementplanningbooks/retirementplanning.html"> retirement planning</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/mutualfundsinvest/mutual_fund.html"> investing</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/insurance_index.html"> insurance</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/home_mortgages_index.html"> mortgages</a> | <a href="mailto:editor@bluecollardollar.com" title="Editorial manager email"> contact</a> | <a href="http://target2025.com"> blog</a> | <a href="http://paulpetillo.com">about paul petillo</a><br> <script language="JavaScript"> document.write("<font color='#000000' font size=-2 font face=verdana>") var mydate=new Date() var year=mydate.getYear() if (year<2000) year += (year < 1900) ? 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If it turns out that things are not so good, someone will ultimately benefit for this off-chance negativity. <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/retirementplanningbooks/retirementplanning.html">More on retirement planning</a> </font><h3><font color="#2B60DE">on mortgages</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"> <p>American dream or not, the games you may have once played with financing your home are not available for the vast majority of homeowners. <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/home_mortgages_index.html">More on mortgages and homes</a> </font> <h3><font color="#2B60DE">on insurance</font></h3> <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/insurance_index.html">Insurance </a></b>: <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/life_insurance.html">Life</a>, <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/health_insurance.html">Health</a>, <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/car_insurance.html">Auto</a>, <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/home_insurance.html">Home </a> <p>Is the <b><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/insuranceindustrynews_101008.html" target="http://bluecollardollar.com/insuranceindustrynews_101008.html">insurance industry the next victim</a></b> of the financial crisis? <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/channel_health.html" target="http://bluecollardollar.com/channel_health.html">Health Channel</a> </font> <h3><font color="#2B60DE">on investing</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"> <p><b>The mutual fund investor has a great many more options</b> available to them in the post-Great Recession marketplace. The question is: are they right for you as you make a retirement plan using 401(k)s or IRAs? <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/mutualfundsinvest/mutual_fund.html">More on investing</a>  <FORM method=GET action="http://www.google.com/search"> <input type=hidden name=ie value=UTF-8> <input type=hidden name=oe value=UTF-8> <TABLE bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><tr><td> <A HREF="http://www.google.com/"> <IMG SRC="http://www.google.com/logos/Logo_40wht.gif" border="0" ALT="Google"></A> </td> <td> <INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=31 maxlength=255 value=""> <INPUT type=submit name=btnG VALUE="Google Search"> <font size=-1> <input type=hidden name=domains value="http://bluecollardollar.com"><br><input type=radio name=sitesearch value=""> WWW <input type=radio name=sitesearch value="http://bluecollardollar.com" checked> BlueCollarDollar.com <br> </font> </td></tr></TABLE> </FORM>  </font><h3><font color="#2B60DE">on twitter @PaulPetillo</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"> <p><strong> <center><script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script> <script> new TWTR.Widget({ version: 2, type: 'profile', rpp: 4, interval: 6000, width: 250, height: 300, theme: { shell: { background: '#333333', color: '#ffffff' }, tweets: { background: '#000000', color: '#ffffff', links: '#4aed05' } }, features: { scrollbar: false, loop: false, live: false, hashtags: true, timestamp: false, avatars: false, behavior: 'all' } }).render().setUser('PaulPetillo').start(); </script> </center> <h3><font color="#2B60DE">special features</font></h3> Zack's Investment Tools: <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/zacks_stock_screener.html"> Stock Screener</a> or <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/zacks_mutual_fund_screener.html"> Mutual Fund Screener</a> <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/calculator_index.html" title="Calculators">Calculators <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/privacy_policy.html" title="Privacy Policy">Privacy Policy</a> <br><a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/ad_policy.html" title="Ad Policy">Ad Policy</a> <p>Our recent <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/personalfinance-recent.html">financial discussions</a> </td> <td width="60" rowspan="2" valign="top"> <img height="100" hspace="5" src="BlackLineV.gif" width="1" name="blackline"> </td> <td width="600" align="left" valign="top"> </font><h3><font color="#2B60DE">on balance</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"> Mutual fund companies are out in full force making effort to get you to realize that they are not going to be able to do what they had done in the past. As a matter of fact, they need you to take to heart the warning, now sounding promissory, that past performance is no guarantee of future results. They would like you utter that mantra before you send them money. <p>In other words, the days of double digit expectations are over. Now the word is balance. This downplay of expectations is not part of full disclosure but merely after party pledges to not drink to excess in a market whose hangover lasted more than two years. There is little likelihood that returns on either stock or bond funds will break out of this single digit range, most notably when inflation is adjusted into the return. <p>Pay no attention to any recent runs in the market. Disregard anyone who tells you that the recovery will spill over into the stock or the bond market. There is no group of economist, analysts, or market mavens that has a firm handle on what will happen next. Growth defeated by earnings ruffled by world unrest and tripped by less than encouraging numbers are going to keep this market side stepping any real returns. <p>If you had invested $1,000 in a portfolio that was split 60/40 between stocks from the S&P 500 and long term U.S. government bonds in 1990, the value of that portfolio would be over $3,700. But this period was not the historic average by any means. Historic averages of the years preceding 1990 would have valued the same investment at $2,500. </font><h3><font color="#2B60DE">bluecollardollar: from the blog</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"><a href="http://target2025.com/retirement-planning-so-you-say-you-want-a-revolution-well/">Retirement Planning: So You Say You Want a Revolution, Well</a> <p><center><ul id="socialbar"><li id="facebook"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.facebook.com/paulpetillo"><IMG src="http://www.topproducerwebsite.com/images/site_defaults/generic/facebook.png"></a></li><li id="twitter"><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/paulpetillo"><IMG src="http://www.topproducerwebsite.com/images/site_defaults/generic/twitter.png"></a></li><li id="linkedin"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulpetillo"><IMG src="http://www.topproducerwebsite.com/images/site_defaults/generic/linkedin.png"></a></li></ul><style>#socialbar img {border:0px;}#socialbar li img {width:48px; height:48px;}#socialbar li a:hover {position:relative;top:2px;}#socialbar{padding:0px;list-style: none outside none; margin:0px; position: static;}#socialbar li {display:inline;padding-right:2px;}#socialbar{width:180px;text-align:center;}</style></center> </font><h3><font color="#2B60DE">bluecollardollar: resources</font></h3><font face="Trebuchet MS, Helvetica, Arial,geneva" size="2" color="#000000"> <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/personalfinance.html">Personal Finance</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/mutualfundsinvest/mutual_fund.html"> Investing</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/insurance_index.html"> Insurance</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/home_mortgages_index.html">Mortgages </a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/calculator_index.html" title="Calculators">Calculators</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/privacy_policy.html" title="Privacy Policy">Privacy Policy</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/ad_policy.html" title="Ad Policy">Ad Policy</a> | <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071423761/bluecollardol-20"> Our Publications </a> | <a href="http://fifradio.com"> Radio </a> | <A HREF="http://target2025.com">Commentary</a> |<a href="mailto:editor@bluecollardollar.com" title="Editorial manager email"> Contact</a> | <a href="http://bluecollardollar.com/site_map.html"> Site Map</a> </td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="This table contains copyright information for the websites BlueCollarDollar.com and The BlueMoney Report"> <center><p> <hr><center> <a href="http://www.lender411.com/mortgage-rates/?afid=bluecollar"><img src="http://bluecollardollar.com/Lender411_728x90_a.gif" width="728" height="90" scrolling="no" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></a> <p> <br> <p> <small><font face="arial,helvetica,univers,sansserif"><font color="#000080"><strong><br> </strong></font>All content is copyright (1998-2011) BonPaulProductions (all rights reserved) <br> <b>The BlueCollarDollar (SM) </b> copyright 1998-2011 <BR><b>The Blue Money Report(SM)</b> - copyright (2002-2011) All Rights Reserved </font></small></p> </td> </tr> </table> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </font> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=bluecollardol-20"></script> <noscript><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/noscript?tag=bluecollardol-20" /></noscript> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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