Bogleheads.org

Now im forced to pay off the entire balance, right?...to keep the interest charge from growing? You shouldn't have to pay off the entire balance. I recall having a similar discussion with AMEX after I got my first month's statement. Thanks to new protections passed in 2010 , any payments beyond the...

Hi LC -- I'm planning to go the other way. I have opened 529 plans outside of Maryland for my nephews -- and was planning to transfer them into Maryland when they get closer to college age in order to pick up the MD state tax deduction. My current understanding is that Maryland would count the entir...

it would seem that with today's rock bottom interest rates, bond funds would not be desirable at this time. You can explain this to me as if I were a child; I will not be offended and might even understand it. Hi Lenny. I don't think you're missing anything. It is not necessarily the risk of loss t...

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Russell, have you read the disclosure statements? In other words, are you sure that this thing works exactly like you think that it does? Hi Brody -- The disclosure statements I've seen are not official yet ( link ), but the formulation they give on the first page is clear. The only variable is exa...

You guys got me curious, so I put together my own spreadsheet to check this thing out. Here's a couple things I found: ⋅  In rolling 4-year periods between October 1928 and March 2009, the Dow rose 79% of the time. Nonetheless, an investment stuctured like the GS one would have "paid ...

It looks like Jeremy Grantham has been watching us watching him! That graphic is pretty close to the one Ed Tower put together a little while back to test Grantham's prescience (right down to the log scaling, see exhibit 5 especially): http://econ.duke.edu/Papers/PDF/GMO_Predictions1.pdf I always lo...

I e-mailed Black Rock to ask what it was that IWC held that was kicking out these "acquired fund fees", but didn't get a very useful answer: Can you explain where the acquired fund fees -- which have ticked the ER up to 0.71 from the previous 0.60 -- in the Russell Microcap Index Fund (IWC...

According to the iShares web site, IWC has 1364 holdings. Does anyone know how many of these holdings are actually microcaps, as opposed to members of the Russell 1000? I would like to know whether this ETF actually gives shareholders any meaningful exposure to microcaps. Russell's microcap index i...

Our DIL has cancer and is thinking about using FB as a way to communicate with friends/ family of situation, progress, procedures and so on. It would limit repetitive calls, inquiries to other family, and so on... Would be interested in your opinions on that, anyone! That's certainly a way to do it...

foodnerd wrote:Hey guys, this is the link...

SpringMan wrote:Why not supply a link?

I note that when foodnerd types the word link, it turns blue, but when SpringMan and I type it, it remains black.

Weird

Does anyone know of any self directed 529 plans. Most are tied to high load mutual funds with poor performances or target date kind of set up. There are some plans that have cheap "a la carte" options. For instance, Ohio's 529 plan ( http://www.collegeadvantage.com ) has a good array of o...

spam wrote:Remember that it takes a 150% gain to recover from a 75% loss.

Close, but I don't think this is quite what we need to remember....

Does anyone know? Anyone happen to have a PDF of the semiannual report for FINPX for December, 2007, for example? Here's a link to the Annual Report (through April 30, 2008): http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35315/000003531508000016/fixann.htm#fid208925 During the past 12 months, Inflation-Pr...

mcmd wrote:Is there a link available to the paper? Not sure I couldn't understand it all, but wouldn't mind trying.

This might work: http://www.be.wvu.edu/div/econ/work/pdf_files/04-10.pdf

It's not risk-free, but I still believe T-bills are probably the proper benchmark. Suppose you build the world's silliest long-short fund -- buying the stocks in the S&P 500 and then shorting an S&P 500 ETF. You've taken a risk-free (but complicated) position -- and should earn the risk-free...

Add: And I would side with celia and BradMM in saying that yes, calculus should be understood by the average person. If nothing else, when someone claims, "hey, at least the second derivative of <whatever> is looking up," the typical voter in a functioning democracy should have at least s...

First, LTCM never engaged in risk-free arbitrage or any arbitrage. Their basic strategy was to make bets on convergence--reversion to mean of historical pricing relationships. Like the spread between the on the run and the off the run Treasury. But that is not arbitrage--that is making a bet that c...

Something is not right with your correlation calculation. I just did the same analysis from July 1, 2008 to June 30 2009 using PCRIX versus SPY (SPRD S&P 500) and IVV (iShare S&P 500) and came up with a 12 month correlation of +0.95. My calculation is of the daily returns of the indices (fo...

Here are the most up-to-date correlation measurements between stocks and commodities you can get. Using daily price data: 1) The correlation between the GSCI and the S&P 500 from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 is +0.95 . 2) The correlation between the DJ-UBS (formally AIG) and the S&P 500 fr...

I just noticed that the TSP site now shows your most recent one year investment performance. The one posted right now show that last year ending 5/31/2009. Mine is a great -30.89% !!! I know there are quite a few federal employees on the forum. My question is what website can I use to compare this ...

The two asset classes are negatively correlated. So you can draw your own conclusions about what one knows or doesn't know I imagine this depends strongly on what data set you are looking at. If you're looking at annual numbers over the last thirty-six years you will probably see different things t...

If I'm following Larry (big IF), an asset class can be negatively correlated with another asset class even if they both go up at the same time (ie move in the same direction)--just so long as one is going up less than expected and one is going up more than expected. Same with going down, I guess. I...

How about duration? If the higher G fund yield is due to the fact that it holds intermediate and longterm treasuries, would that make it more susceptible to interest rate changes? If rates go up, will its total return still be better than a short term bond fund? I am not familiar with the G fund an...

My question is this: How would you translate your asset allocation guidelines so that they could be used for portfolios intended for purposes other than retirement? For example, if you expected a cash outlay X years in the future, what would your glide path look like? For example: Stock allocation ...

is leading to the question: does the duration tell us anything about the value of the market, especially when compared to the duration of bonds? Well, Bill's definition of duration is explicitly linked to valuation (through the dividend yield). I think considering the duration of equities this way ...

Good morning -- Bill's definition of duration is based on the break even time between two different scenarios. In case 1, the price and dividend yield stay the same for ever and in the second, the price permanently drops but the absolute dividend stays the same. If r is the current dividend yield (a...

My wife is due this fall with our 2nd daughter. I currently have a KS 529 set up for my 3 1/2yr old. I have started putting a little extra into the current 529 for #2 until she is born. Should I bother opening a 529 for #2 as well or just keep all funds in one 529 and change the beneficiary once my...

I'll personally be surprised if, twenty years from now, the orthodoxy about small and value qua small and value (as opposed to illiquidity, skewness, and perhaps even behavior) hasn't been modified. :D Gotta agree with you there. Actually, after I wrote that applet, I e-mailed Chensheng Lu to see i...

Good morning! I'm kind of at a loss for how to analyze their returns. I ran the monthly returns since July 1988 through a regression analysis against the FF 3-factor model, and the model was a terrible fit (R-squared of less than 0.2). I just updated my online FF tool with the annual data from 1989 ...

Good morning!!

I've finally updated the applet with all of the (dismal ) calander year 2008 data. It now includes the six Fama and French Model Portfolios and several of the TSP funds.

Enjoy! Russell

I understand that TIPS are taxed only on the Federal level, not the state and local level, so does it really make sense to hold them in a tax advantaged account? If they're in a taxable account, Im only paying Federal Tax. If there in an IRA, it will eventually be taxed as ordinary income, paying F...

x = 0 or x = 50 depending, whichever ends up all circle and no triangle. Of course, the problem does clearly state that the wire is cut into two pieces. So, though surely the textbook answer is "all circle, no triangle", it must be an infinitesmally small triangle (or as small as the widt...

If you did not have an account, would you still open one now, knowing they are being merged with TD Ameritrade? How do you compare them to someone like say Scottrade? No, I wouldn't. I moved from Scottrade to ThinkorSwim several years ago (when Scottrade changed their mutual fund fee structure) and...

Hi! I really like ThinkorSwim, but as Kenster mentions, they are going to be eaten by TD Ameritrade "sometime in the next six months". So it's hard to know what any of the fees are going to be at that point -- and if it no longer looks good, there may still be a tranfer out fee (currently ...

Hi Nispirius -- I like this offering of GMO's Jeremy Grantham: In a rational world, low profit margins would be multiplied by a high P/E and vice versa to normalize for the economic cycle. In a Bernanke/French and Fama world, the correlations would be -1. High margins would always be exactly offset ...

Here's my question: how do we know they really have it? Well, they do have a list specifying each individual gold bar they hold, they tell you where they hold it and they have a picture on their website of a vault full of beautiful shiny gold. That's GOT to be good for something.... Also, there's t...

I'd like to eventually invest 10% of my portfolio to take advantage of the low oil prices, but I'm not sure how. Thoughts? DBO (PowerShares DB Oil Fund) is an exchange-traded fund intended to "reflect the performance of crude oil" (I believe it invests entirely in futures contracts on Lig...

Trying to time the market is the triumph of hope over wisdom and experience, at least IMO. Larry -- I don't believe this thread is about market timing. It's simply about determining an appropriate allocation to stocks -- and, in particular, tying the timeframe inherent in your investments to the ti...

Then I started looking for some arbitrage opportunities. Best I can come up with is this: Long TLT January 2010 Call @ $130 (pay $4.00 premium) Short TLT January 2010 Call @ $125 (receive $4.50 premium) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Cash Outlay at Purc...

as time passes, don't you need to change the equation as to when you need the money - similarly to what the calendar is doing to your age? Sure. So it might be a useful thing to consider once a year when rebalancing time rolls around. For instance, this year I'm one year closer to my horizon; but w...

I think it's yet another attempt to sell or pitch or rationalize a high allocation to equities. Actually, when I first saw this suggested three years ago -- it was as a warning against high allocations to equities. Nevertheless, your point is well taken -- we are more inclined to agree with argumen...

John Hussman has an interesting commentary today that speaks to passive investors -- suggesting a replacement to the old rule of thumb that a good starting point for your stock allocation is "100 minus your age". http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc090105.htm At its root, his idea is simply...

It is a pretty cool toy Mas put together. If you're interested, I put together my own :oops: Fama-French applet, with a few different funds preloaded: http://www.usna.edu/Users/math/rkjackso/Java/FamaFrench.html I don't have VISVX built in, but the Fama-French Small Value benchmark portfolio is in t...

Hi -- This might not be exactly what you're looking for but boglehead mas has a great tool that allows you to find the FF factors for the fund of your choice. Just go to: http://mas.xtreemhost.com/ Click on the top line that says Three Factor Rolling Regression Viewer , type VISVX in the box and VOI...

Well, the gold miners etf GDX closed at 16.37 on October 27. Today it closed at 32.34 -- that's just a few ticks away from a double!!

As always, please ignore the man behind the curtain whispering that the 52 week high for GDX was up in the 50's somewhere....

Just for reference and a little visual aid, here's a few of those poor doomed stock exchange guys.

Also, for those who prefer a hands-off (but more diversified ) approach to microlending, there's Calvert's Community Investment Notes.

. I am having a frustrating time processing some of the return data from French's site. I did a fresh download of the '6 Portfolios' monthly data and am getting the following for average monthly returns, 7/1926 - 12/2007, inclusive: Mkt: .95% (7/1926 = 2.84 ---> 12/2007 = -0.43) LV: .85% ( 1.26 ---...