Even retirees should leave market trading to the pros

YOU have a significant retirement portfolio, it's yours to manage and you have time on your hands. You're a smart person and you're sure you can beat the market - or at least do better than a boring basket of mutual funds and income investments.

That's what Elmer Naples, 75, a former utility company engineer in Trenton, New Jersey, said he was thinking when he retired 20 years ago. Then the stock market started doing its trapeze act and he thought better of his plan and switched to a fee-only financial planner 10 years ago.

"I tried everything," Mr Naples recalled. "I owned stocks, mutual funds, CDs, bonds, diamonds and silver. I was handling all of our finances at first, then I got a little tired of the stock market. I wanted to put things on automatic."