Bogleheads.org

I'm still very fuzzy with the Affordable Care Act, in particular those that deal with pre-existing conditions. My question is simple: Is there any way (including loopholes) that insurance company can deny you healthcare coverage based on your medical condition? Looking at wiki, it states " Insu...

Since some of the premium details about the state-run "public" health insurance is already up in the air, I think it would be OK to discuss this. What was surprising that some of the estimated premium from CA state plan were in fact cheaper than employer-provided health insurance. A while ...

I read it and liked the idea a lot, but choosing the rate of growth has always been the sticky point for me. It has indeed been proven that if you forecast the rate of return right (i.e. your expected rate is ≈ to the actual market rate) then VA will outperform DCA in terms of ROC. The farthest you...

AQR and DFA is only accessible through advisors and require a hefty minimum of ~$1MIL correct? So for the rest of us, momentum and profitability factors are out of reach?

FYI, ETFs-of-the-day that pop up with momentum and profitability in the title do not count as desirable investment products.

Has the Vanguard Developed Market Bond Fund been launched yet?

two main ways financial economists estimate returns today First is the Gordon Model Take dividends, say 2%, add estimate of real growth (say 2.5%, though some think less is more appropriate) that gets you the estimated real return and then add in inflation, say 2.5% for total of 7. Then there is th...

The problematic aspect of VA is implementation, how to accurately estimate expected returns, how to ensure you have enough cash for the crash but not sit on too much cash during the bull run, etc... And that really is a fatal flaw of value averaging. You need to decide AHEAD OF TIME how much cash t...

VA is not "market timing" in the traditional sense. There is a specific formula for projecting the VA path, and you basically top up or withdraw from your portfolio based on your current portfolio value relative to the VA path. There is a plan, and one sticks to it, just like DCA with reb...

Basically it's a combination of selling off shares when they are high and then buying a lot of shares when they are low. I don't believe this method is trying to "time" the market so to speak, but I'm also not really sure. To the more seasoned investors I ask, what do you think is better?...

Most of the papers I've read (just Google for it) has shown that VA outperforms DCA by 0.5-1.0% p.a. Of course, that's dependent on getting the correct expected return for your portfolio relative to reality... My guess is that the further off your expected return inputs are from reality, the more th...

Don't your beneficaries get something if you die... say 2 years after purchasing a SPIA? The capital minus the amount paid out?

Didn't realize there was such a strong rally... no wonder I'm sitting on a load of cash right now (using VA strategy and 7%/4% assumption for stock/bond returns)...

How can the stock market have risen so quickly? Employment situation still sucks out there, am I missing something?

Does this apply for 403b/401k?

I know there is no free lunch, so why does it seem that the TIAA Traditional fund looks like a free lunch in the current bond market? Right now my company's TIAA Traditional SRA (can take out money at any time, no restrictions) is yielding 3%, compared to total market bond SEC yield of ~2%. That's e...

Paying for more square footage usually translates to higher rent/mortgage, and less money to savings. Definitely not the Boglehead way, unless a large house is your "splurge".

Her article is half correct, but more on the political side (not going to that). Here's my observations of what people spend money on that is unnecessary: Starbucks - $5 x 365 = $1825. Alternative, don't drink coffee or make your own. I'm the former. Instant $1800 savings. Cable/Internet - $100+ x 1...

I've known about p2p lending for some time, and I think there may have been a few posts last year, with largely negative response. I've been thinking about p2p lending, and they may be similar to bonds. Some ways to mitigate risks that I thought about - It seems that you can lend out very small amou...

17% sounds too low. Historically, US stock returns have been stellar (remember than the US was a developing economy for most of the 20th century). Ditto for the EU nations if those were included in the analysis. I personally feel that 33% is the minimum savings rate. It's just an opinion, I have not...

Is the product live yet? I'm trying to find data about the fund's geographical distribution. Is this going to be an EU-centric bond like BWX or a true total international, which includes "developed" economies in Asia like S.Korea, Pacific region countries like Australia and the always negl...

While I will admit that pensions have the flexibility of using money paid in by existing employees to "top up" any shortfall in their investments to pay out to existing retirees, I think the aging demographic dictates that this flexibility has a practical limit, which will probably diminis...

What happens if the public "investable" market keeps shrinking, until private "non-investable" firms dominate? Does existing research based on TOTAL market index funds assumes that the majority of the market is "investable"? How would such a trend affect things 30-40 ye...

Even amongst Bogleheads, I get the feeling that most people favor pensions over DIY investments (IRA, 401k, etc...). Honestly, I don't understand The commonly claimed pros of pensions is basically "ease and convenience", in the sense that the money management is outsourced to the pension, ...

Does this also mean that one should invest Traditional 401k money into stuff like bonds that won't increase much in value over time, and Roth 401k money into stuff like REITs that has a chance for large capital gains? In order to minimize taxes when rolling over to Roth IRA? This is from the perspec...

Essentially this is why we're not all rich: nothing consistently offers returns above inflation. That's because you're looking in terms of absolutes, which is wrong way to analyze investments. It should be about probabilities. The probability of stocks outperforming other asset class (i.e. bonds) i...

You guys are really missing the point of the article, which is save early, i.e. starting from the first day of your job. Sacrificing your "wants" in your early years, makes one's financial health much better due to compounding interest.

To reply to my own question, I called up the other mutual fund manager that my employer uses and here's what they claim: Q1. Still no separation of accounts, but they assure me they are tracking/bookkeeping on the back end. The model they use is Case 2, where the ratio of Traditional to Roth money i...

I am rather confused as to how rollovers are done if my 401k have both Traditional and Roth contributions. This issue is compounded by the fact that my employer's selected fund manager does not open separate accounts for Traditional and Roth contributions. So for e.g., if I have $5k of Traditional 4...

petrico wrote:Is there such a thing as tax policy pornography?

--Pete

The numbers make sense. For some reason at the highest tax bracket, it's MUCH cheaper to file as single vs separately but married.

Q1: So am I correct that if you convert from Traditional 401k to Roth 401k, when the valuation at conversion is greater than your total contributions, it's an unwise decision, cause you would pay more tax than if you did contribute to Roth 401k from Day 1? No. You should consider whether the tax co...

So back to the original question: Q1: So am I correct that if you convert from Traditional 401k to Roth 401k, when the valuation at conversion is greater than your total contributions, it's an unwise decision, cause you would pay more tax than if you did contribute to Roth 401k from Day 1? Q2: If th...

1. Use TurboTax to calculate the tax. Your reasoning appears to ignore some laws of arithmetic which I really don't want to explain, but I will link an explanation: http://www.mathsisfun.com/associative-commutative-distributive.html 2. As ordinary income. How so? Using the example above... If my em...

I just realized that my employer started offering a Roth 403b option this year! First, I'm assuming that the legislation for Traditional 401k to Roth 401k conversion also applies to 403b. Please correct me if I am wrong. Question 1: How do we calculate the tax for the conversion. For example, I have...

Ok, I found an article on the time limit, this wasn't what I've read before, but the information is similar: http://www.ehow.com/info_8188839_far-dispute-credit-card-charge.html For disputes under the billing errors category, the cardholder must file a dispute with the card issuer within 60 days of ...

What's the maximum time that one has to file dispute on credit card transactions? I know that card issuers have their own policy (60-90 days I guess?) as to the time limit of filing dispute, but I swore I read an article (now can't find it online) that one can file dispute for fraudulent transaction...

Not surprising at all. The 4% rule study was extremely US-centric and specific to a time where the US economy was booming (post WW2). An updated study published a few years back on 10+ countries indicated that the 4% rule only worked in the minority of countries based on historical performance. The ...

Buckeye wrote:I have a friend with a 5 figure 401k but who has a 7 figure IRA.

How is that possible? With a $5k limit of IRA, even 40 years gives you $200k of contributions...

EDIT: Stupid me, I forgot about rollovers...

At this rate they will never release it, cause it's going to take a decade for the EU to be economically strong again....

Do you answer emails that just says that they are interested and then ask you to call them? I am not sure what there is to talk about except that they want to give me a sob story so I would lower the price. You'll have to call/text the buyer eventually... so why not? Besides, still need to figure o...

And I cannot abandon Quicken. I like to monitor my personal finances and spending. I like looking at the monthly reports and observe spending trends across time, and I like having a historical record for all my financial transactions. So... I need Quicken. Doing in Excel would be even worse... Both...

I had a laptop on ebay for a month, with two non-payers, and sold it without haggling on CL in a few days. That has not been my experience. On Craigslist I get alot of emails lowballing my price. I get questions about wanting Microsoft Office on the laptop even though the description clearly does n...

A guy from Ukraine allegedly bought my old iPhone 4 for about $245. But after 24 hours I haven't heard from him and he has not paid. Best case scenario is that he pays soon. What happens if he doesn't pay and I don't hear any more? I'll owe Ebay money for a sale that didn't actually conclude. And w...

tjstogner wrote:daily interest accrued (instead of monthly..)

Doesn't the fact that interest is reported as APY, negates any differences in the interest compounding method (i.e. daily vs monthly)?

prudent wrote:What are sub-accounts?

Separate savings account for specific purposes. Alliant, Ally, ING can do that.

I have about 25 bank/credit union/investment/credit card accounts that I download into Quicken, and only a couple give me issues. Penfed credit card and one bank account I have to download from their respective sites after logging in, instead of doing it directly from within Quicken. I do have an F...

Thanks for the suggestion guys, but not every suggestion is feasible for me. Simplifying my accounts is not an option because I play the CC game, so I need Quicken to pull my data as I have >10 CC at any time. As for banking accounts, I use sub-accounts and I have redundancy in my banking system tha...

This is really starting to piss me off, and I was wondering if other Quicken users have the same problem. I use Quicken because I have dozens of bank account and credit cards, and I need to pull timely updates from all sources so that I can have real-time tracking of my expenses. However, everything...

I've just started out my journey to saving for retirement, but already I am feeling the pressure to get a standalone PC to access retirement accounts. I was wondering if it is a common practice amongst the older Bogleheads (more net worth, so greater risks involved). Ideally, I was thinking of setti...

Amazon and Telecheck are to blame here. The OP did not comment on whether or not the check bounced... even if it did, Amazon should have tried to contact the customer. And Amazon should have waited for the check to clear, before shipping it out. If they don't have the brains to wait for payment befo...

Doesn't total international intentionally underweight emerging markets in the first place? China is the world's 2nd largest economy but it's only 3.5% of the index compared to UK's 15%... Ditto for the other large populous countries with sizable economies like India, Brazil, etc...

So can we have a summary on the impact of index changes? Please correct me if I am wrong: Domestic Index Funds From MSCI to CRSP indexes. Supposedly CRSP indexes are more efficient, etc etc... No change in style (value/growth), composition or size (large/med/small) for all index funds Vanguard Inter...