> What do you think is the best way to get the lowest risk, 5% annual return on a million dollars?
You won't find a zero-risk 5% return; those don't exist. Bank accounts pay approximately zero interest these days.
The lowest-risk return would be to buy an index fund based on the entire stock market, balanced with a fund that buys low-risk bonds; choose a stock-to-bond ratio based on your desired level of risk.
Vanguard has the best index funds in the industry, due to their minimal administrative overhead (0.05% to 0.1% of return). VBIAX is a nice balanced fund that's 60:40 stocks:bonds, which is quite risk-averse. If you want to choose a different ratio, go with a balance of VTSAX for stocks and VBILX or similar for bonds. You could choose anything from 100% stocks (if you don't mind riding out market crashes like 2008's) to 100% bonds (if you're extremely risk-averse and don't mind low returns).
If you're trying to use this as an income, Vanguard has the option to automatically send returns to a bank account rather than reinvesting them.
If you're talking about investing a million dollars all at once, you probably don't need to worry about dollar-cost averaging; if you're saving up a million over time, you should invest a fixed amount every paycheck no matter what the price is. No matter what, don't try to beat the market; you will lose.
> I'm also interested in how you could get 8% or 10%, though I know that would likely include more risk.
Same way, just change the ratio. If you have a high tolerance for risk, such as if you're a long way from retirement or you're otherwise flexible in how much return you get each year, buy 100% stocks (VTSAX); the return was 33% this year, 18% average over the last 5, and 8% average over the last 10 (which includes the 2008 crash).