re: Various Financial Questions

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The Traditional vs Roth IRA debate in this sense matter with your age

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We briefly discussed it earlier... So if I was going to be taxed and have to put up the money out of pocket for rolling to a Roth, why couldn't I just pull my cash out of my 401k as if I was just using it... Hold back the $$$ I'd pay in taxes and then invest the rest into a new Roth. I wouldn't be taxed on that 401k withdrawal until year end, correct?

Also, feelings on IRAs being with the likes of Scottrade?

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You pay taxes on the funds you withdraw from the 401k PLUS a 10% penalty

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Are those the same fees I would pay if I rolled it over to a Roth IRA or would I just pay the taxes?

If you withdraw the money from the 401k you will pay tax and a 10% penalty on the earnings.

My advice:

1. Roll the 401k into a Rollover IRA at Scott.

2. Fund a Roth IRA there also after you have your emergency fund set up.

3. Invest in broad based mutual funds/etfs.

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Like I said, convenience wise it would be easy to put it where I would play in stocks

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I wouldn't "play" with the stocks in my retirement fund. You need to think long-term and you need diversity. Day trading is best left to the pros.

Did a little bit of research while my internet actually worked last night... This is from Scrottrade about their IRAs. Is this typical in regards to fees and maintenance?

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Investing in a Roth IRA

Looking for a tax-free way to grow your retirement savings? Prefer more control over future account withdrawals? Choose your own investments with no mandatory withdrawal age and no set-up, annual or maintenance fees with a Scottrade Roth Individual Retirement Account (Roth IRA). Scottrade will even refund up to $100 in transfer fees* when you rollover an existing account.
Tax-free Growth & Tax-Free, Qualified Distributions

A Roth IRA differs from a Traditional IRA in that contributions to a Roth IRA are taken after-tax, which means your savings grow tax-free. Because the contributions have already been taxed, you can make qualified, typically tax-free withdrawals, even if your income or changes in the economy move you into a higher tax bracket.

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The no annual or maintenance fee for an IRA is not typical. However, Scottrade gets you two ways.

1.) Charges to you trade stocks (albeit at a low cost)
2.) The Stock and ETF dividends are not automatically reinvested

#2 bolded. That is the real disadvantage. You get the dividends into your account then must spend the $7 to invest them.

I have my Roth IRA with Vanguard. They have an extremely low expense ratio on most of their Target Retirement Date Funds which I use for my IRA. I keep mentioning Vanguard because they are a really exceptional investing group. I'd look into them at the very least.

I have a Target Retirement 2030 Fund for my Roth IRA. It's a mix of 80/20 Stocks to Bonds. I went 80/20 since that is my comfort level even though my actual retirement date is like 2055 (I'm 23). 1 year average performance is 14.24%. The 2035+ Target funds are in the 15-16% average range.

I can only advise you on how to allocate your 401k, and that you should definitely roll it into a Roth. A way to judge IRA vs. Roth is just to ask yourself if you believe taxes are going to be higher or lower when you retire. Higer - Roth, Lower - IRA.

Now in terms of allocating your 401k. You stated this is long-term, and I know I am a broken record when stating this mathematical relationship but no matter how often I repeat it, it never changes.

Security A = Goes up 60% then down 40%
Security B = Goes up 6% then down 4%.

Security B is worth more than your initial investment while Security A is worth less. The key to growing capital over the long-term is to avoid large losses. The longer your time horizon, the higher chances the turtle will always beat the hare.

With that in mind we go to allocation drivers. Developed economies are looking at 0-2% real growth over the next 3-5 years while emerging nations are looking at 4-5% real growth. From a technical perspective, the realm of "safe" assets (treasuries, mortgages, agency debentures) is decreasing, pushing prices up and yields down. Investors are starved for yield which pushes them out the risk spectrum, in this case investment grade credit bonds would be the logical next step.

The equity market is highly volatile and if you believe that we'll only see 0-2% real growth than that is not good reason to own equities over the long term in large amounts. You should still have exposure, but "playing stocks" should be left to your personal brokerage account rather than retirement. With all this in mind this is roughly the personal allocation that I have and what I have allocated for friends and family.

20-25% Emerging Markets Debt
- Preferably corporate bonds, because emerging market corporates are usually a quasi-sovereign entity, meaning that the government is more of a backstop. They will support them given trouble and take profits given success, this is bearish for their stock but bullish for debt. Also you pick up a very attractive amount of yield here.
20-25% Domestic Income
- This can be either investment grade credit, or any sort of income fund that can utilize municipals, high yield, IGC, etc.. The key here is that the Fed will likely stay on hold with rates till 2015-2016, so with no capital appreciation from rate movements maximizing income is your next best bet. If you have an option of "Long Duration" or "Long Corporate Bonds" take it. Even if rates rise you're still paid out at par and the more you extend duration the more yield you pick up.
10-15% Real Assets
- You mentioned precious metals but by real assets this can be either commodities, real estate, REITs, or even some commodity company stock funds. The basic rationale is that population grows faster than resources, the most basic technical relationship for price apprecation. You won't receive income from commodities (which is why they are not defined as securities), but you have enough income already from the other allocations. This is the most volatile of your allocations, so my advice is never look at this that often. Just wait a couple quarters or years before you look at performance. My personal advice is to go for REITs right now, the housing market is coming back and REITS pay out 90% of taxable income in dividends.
10-15% Domestic Value Equties
- Focus on dividends especially, corporations have a huge amount of cash sitting around and still don't really know what to do with it. The fiscal cliff/debt ceiling negotiations will be continuing for a long time with the next chapter at the end of February. In long bull markets growth will outperform value, in bear markets and muddle-through markets value will outperform growth. You already have a volatile allocation with real assets so just let quality pay (Security A vs. Security B relationship).
10-15% International Bonds
- Ever since the ECB announced the OMT program I have had full faith in recommending this. You'll pick up some extra yield compared to treasuries with this allocation while taking advantage of some mis-pricing in Europe with Spain and Italian yields still pretty high outside the 3-year maturity.
10-15% International Equities
- I trust international equities more than emerging market equities simply for the quasi relationship I spoke to eariler. Also this will be a good way to have indirect negative dollar exposure (if you believe the dollar will depreciate in the future) without having to take actual currency risk.
10-15% Inflation Protection
- This can be either in the form of TIPS or any other "Real Return" fund. Commodities are probably a "better" hedge for inflation but they are very volatile. However, you should have inflation protection so if you decide with REITs or commodity companies in the Real Asset allocation, than make this allocation higher. If you decide commodities or real estate you can get away with lowering this allocation.

All these together cut down the beta of your portfolio with correlations that hedge accordingly. Good luck.

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Thanks for the info... Its going to take me a while to process all of it

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No worries, if you have any questions feel free to ask away.

I had a day or two where I ventured over to the Poli board so I am MORE than happy to answer anything over here on markets.

Of course, I have my own take on this particular allocation but will have to follow up later when I'm not at work.

Not that Benny is somehow "wrong", it's more that if you ask ten financial advisers their opinions you will get over a dozen valid answers in addition to the invalid ones.

Regarding "playing with stocks" - I think it's a good idea to do this early in one's investing career. The usual result is that you will do reasonably well initially, then get overconfident and bet way too large and lose the shirt off your back. It is far better to learn this early while the money involved isn't that much instead of after retirement when you're bored and rich.

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Regarding "playing with stocks" - I think it's a good idea to do this early in one's investing career

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fwiw, I am VERY frugal with my money... It is something I would like to learn and I doubt I would ever take BIG risks.

I don't go out and party or hit the casinos, so I figure putting that money that I would spend in a night of doing that and having a little fun with it in the stock market wouldn't be a bad thing