Agree about hedge funds. To the OP, listen: The markets, all of them, are damn close to being efficient, and that means that nobody can really predict the futu

Agree about hedge funds. To the OP, listen: The markets, all of them, are damn close to being efficient, and that means that nobody can really predict the future, unless they have the inside on some market defect. Think of financial advisers as psychics, who can be refuted with one question: "So, why aren't you rich from betting on the market?" Why do they work 9-to-5 for other people? Because they really don't know. Also, people are being a bit too negative about targeting an interest rate. Right here, I think this is the largest bond fund in the world, http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PTTAX&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c= http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=PTTAX&t=2y&l=on&... ...a little over 5 percent (yahoo is out of date), and notice that even during the financial crisis it was in pretty good shape. Keep in mind that such funds already have better advisers than you could ever afford, and they know how to vet. Just divide your money into 10 or so such funds, put a few 100K of physical gold in a swiss vault if you're paranoid. Ta da. If you want to be more active, research actually buying bonds yourself, as you won't lose that 1 percent to the managers. Most brokerages have this.