Overall, the best investments for Roth IRAs are those that generate highly taxable income, be it dividends or interest, or short-term capital gains. Investments that offer significant long-term appreciation, like growth stocks, are also ideal for Roth IRAs.
Exhaustive research by William Bengen, a financial planner in El Cajon, Cal., suggests that retirees should have between 50% and 75% of their retirement money in a diversified portfolio of large-company stocks or mutual funds. Based on market behavior over the past 70 years, that mix produced the best overall returns.
Diversify to Win
If the S&P were to decline, so would the value of your shares. Consider balancing out your portfolio by investing in other options like bonds, international companies, small-cap (another name for smaller and aggressively growing companies), and real estate (through REITs).
In the same way, if you invest all of your Roth IRA money in a single stock, and that company goes bankrupt, it is possible you could lose all of your money. Even a properly diversified stock portfolio can lose a significant portion of its value in a short period of time during adverse economic conditions.
Answer: Given the tax characteristics of the two types of IRAs, it's generally better to hold investments with the greatest growth potential, typically stocks, in a Roth, while assets with more moderate returns, usually bonds, in a traditional IRA.
The IRS, as of 2021, caps the maximum amount you can contribute to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA (or combination of both) at $6,000. Viewed another way, that's $500 a month you can contribute throughout the year. If you're age 50 or over, the IRS allows you to contribute up to $7,000 annually (about $584 a month).
It states that individuals should hold a percentage of stocks equal to 100 minus their age. So, for a typical 60-year-old, 40% of the portfolio should be equities. The rest would comprise of high-grade bonds, government debt, and other relatively safe assets.
Here's a final rule of thumb you can consider: at least 20% of your income should go towards savings. More is fine; less may mean saving longer. At least 20% of your income should go towards savings.
The moderately conservative allocation is 25% large-cap stocks, 5% small-cap stocks, 10% international stocks, 50% bonds and 10% cash investments. The moderate allocation is 35% large-cap stocks, 10% small-cap stocks, 15% international stocks, 35% bonds and 5% cash investments.
The first five-year rule states that you must wait five years after your first contribution to a Roth IRA to withdraw your earnings tax free. The five-year period starts on the first day of the tax year for which you made a contribution to any Roth IRA, not necessarily the one you're withdrawing from.
The Roth IRA annual contribution limit is $6,000 in 2020 and 2021 ($7,000 if age 50 or older). If you open a Roth IRA and fund it with $6,000 each year for 10 years, and your investments earn 6% annually, you'll end up with about $79,000 by the end of the decade.
There is no limit on the number of IRAs you can have. You can even own multiples of the same kind of IRA, meaning you can have multiple Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs and traditional IRAs. That said, increasing your number of IRAs doesn't necessarily increase the amount you can contribute annually.
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