My Retirement Plan At 35

[Drizzt]

2. In regard to the thread starters question. I have a very simple but maybe naive question.
It seems from what you say, most of your wealth is in stocks... Isn't that a risk you are worried about? All your money in one asset type? Even though they are in government linked or government owned stocks, there are so many stock related risks in this inter-related world, wouldn't it be better to diversify into different asset types? Not that they don't have risk, but it might help reduce the risk.

Yes, this is one of my key concerns. I did think about allocating some in government bonds, but the 2% yield for a 10 year bond is too low, and is an erosion of real wealth after factoring in a 4% inflation. Corporate bonds in the investment grade space provide around 3-5%, but unlike the stock market which is liquid, the bond market is not accessible to the retail investor. Bonds, I feel, are actually more complicated than stocks because you need to consider the yield curve and interest rate movements, in addition to fundamental company analysis i.e. better not to buy what I do not understand. I will not buy into a bond fund or any mutual trust as it doesn't make sense to pay fund managers a 1-2% management fee when most of them under perform the index.

I considered preference shares as well, until I read an excellent article in this forum on its risks and how the investor is actually shortchanged - it basically revolves around the option for the issuers to redeem the preference shares when interest rate decline.

I don't know what else to invest in

you might want to build a portfolio ladder of corporate bonds so that when they expire u can renew at a possibly higher interest rate to fight rising inflation (possibly)