Investments Can Grow

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Investing, Education, Business, How To

4.5 • 810 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom and Don break down why gold, silver, and individual stocks remain speculative distractions rather than reliable investments, using recent volatility in precious metals and Microsoft as cautionary examples. They explain how globally diversified portfolios helped investors stay steady while fear-driven assets whipsawed. The show tackles retirement allocation risks, high-cost target date funds, and how much risk retirees may actually need to take. Listener questions cover 401(a) rollovers, withdrawal strategies, rebalancing after a decade, tax treatment of tips, collective investment trusts, teacher retirement plans, and high-yield savings accounts—reinforcing the case for low costs, broad diversification, and disciplined investing. 0:04 Why gold and silver are speculation, not investments 1:19 Precious metals crash and volatility reality check 3:11 Microsoft drop and risks of single-stock investing 4:40 Fear, home bias, and global diversification 7:12 Birthday story and listener banter 8:31 Elaine’s 401(a) and risky target-date fund allocation 11:24 High expense ratios vs. low-cost index options 12:47 Retirement income needs and withdrawal risk 14:04 Monte Carlo results for 60/40 portfolios 15:56 Tips income, taxes, and rebalancing questions 18:03 Standard deduction and real tax impact 23:39 Capital Group CIT vs. Vanguard index funds 25:21 Downsides of collective investment trusts 28:08 403(b)WISE and school district plan ratings 29:55 Teacher retirement plan advocacy 32:32 High-yield savings account recommendations 34:18 Rebalancing after 10 years 35:17 Asset location and tax efficiency Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future.
0:08.0	We're talking real money.
0:10.0	Hey there.
0:10.4	Welcome to the program.
0:11.6	I'm Don McDonald, and that is Tom Cock, and you are our lovely listeners, and we are so glad you are there listening lovelily Lee. Lee as a lovely
0:24.4	person. I have no idea what I'm saying. Hi, good to hear from you. Well, we'll hear from you
0:30.0	if you call us at 855-935-5-35-8-25-8-25-5. And it's all money. We'll talk about anything that has anything to do with money.
0:40.2	We'll even talk about, well, something we hate to talk about. Gold, silver, precious metals.
0:49.7	Guess they didn't have a very good week?
0:52.0	No, it's not just that they had a bad week. It's in a more general sense, things that have no cash flow, right? I mean, bonds have cash, right? They're paying out interest, blah, blah, blah. Stocks, dividends, growth, that kind of thing. So you're saying gold, silver? Not really. It's just sort of a thing.
1:11.1	If I put it in the closet, it's self-stays there, it doesn't issue anything. If I scrape a little off, isn't that? Well, that's true. You could scrape it off. But it's just, it's complete, to me, that makes it completely speculative. You can't base it on anything. Well, it's certainly done well lately. It's been huge. until
1:27.6	Friday
1:29.2	Gold lost
1:31.2	10, It's certainly done well lately. It's been huge until Friday.
1:30.3	Gold lost 10%.
1:32.2	Silver, 30%.
1:35.1	I mean, the worst day is going back to 1980.
1:39.1	1980, that's like a year I can remember.
1:41.9	I won't tell you what I was doing, but it was a long time.
1:44.1	1980 was when gold previously, I peaked.
1:47.9	It was the high for a couple of decades.
1:51.5	It didn't get back to that number for a very long period of time until, of course, its recent surge.
	...

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