But the other exchange-traded funds tend to be pretty costly, so I would steer clear of them, unless you have a high degree of conviction about the sector you're buying into. Sorry, no idea again. I'm not an expert in individual stocks. But I wouldn't go swapping back and forth between stock funds and bond funds, in an effort to make some sort of big market bet. And, if I was buying bonds, I wouldn't rule out individual securities, especially Treasurys, which can be bought directly from the government without commission.
Nothing is guaranteed in the stock market.
Go back and look at the returns on technology stocks from mid-1983 onward. Check out the returns on Fidelity Select Technology, one of the original Fidelity sector funds, during the 1980s. In essence, the piece advocated buying a mix of zero-coupon bonds and index funds in the run up to retirement and then owning a combination of cash investments and index funds once retired. Any thoughts would be helpful. There are two types of state programs.