Bogleheads.org

Excellent link. I'm a big fan of the author and in particular of the psychologists he references, Daniel Kahenman and Richard Wiseman. I loved his first book which has the same name as his blog, "You Are Not So Smart."

Saw this the other day. Brilliant marketing. I hope the message comes across.

This is a frustration I'm familiar with in many other areas than investing. It's pure human psychology. I believe the reason Bogleheads philosophy appealed to me so completely right off the bat is that it accorded with a world view that I've been cultivating for years, one that is essentially contra...

Excellent interview, it cleared some things up for me. Thank you!

The ones I linked to above on MorningStar for VIPSX Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund. Does the Yahoo tracker include reinvesting dividends? A "Growth of 10k" chart will do that.

Down 8%? How so? $10,000 invested in VIPSX on 01/07/2013 would be worth $9,660.06 today (06/07/2013), which is about -3.4%. Even looking at the NAV price, that has only gone down 3.7% in that time. The 6-month rolling return shows a 0.32% gain from 2012/11-2013/05. I may be completely misunderstandi...

A better chart to get at what you're looking for, I think, is the rolling returns chart. VIPSX 3 months rolling returns Extend the time scale to the duration that you're worried about losing money over. There have been a few periods of 12 months negative returns, and none of 24 months. The largest 1...

A quick scan of the history of VIPSX the biggest dip looked to be in Q3 2008. After some refining of the dates, someone who invested $10,000 on 09/15/2008 would've had $8,606.36 by 11/24/2008.. a drop of almost 14% in just over 2 months. That same investor would've been back up to par by the followi...

By the time that my IRA reaches the point where I can buy in for 20% of my bond allocation, I'll do so. Might be a few years off though...

Her existing funds as they are right now have an average ER of 0.71 ($270/yr). After selling long-term holdings, the remaining short-term holdings are at about 0.74 ($118/yr). With half the portfolio in VG funds as in my post, that becomes 0.41 ($154/yr) . Once fully in VG funds it drops to 0.19 ($7...

Transfer the account to Vanguard; you can then sell the fund shares as needed, minimizing the time you'll be out of the market. I called Vanguard about this and they would want to charge $35 per fund to sell through their FundAccess service -- multiplied by 6 funds, then again by 2 for selling the ...

Added note: I would also like some recommendations on which funds to place in the taxable account, which would have an initial balance of ~$30k assuming a total conversion this year. Otherwise adjust for a balance of perhaps $14k initially with $16k added later on. For this year, look at a taxable a...

I'm looking at moving the assets in a taxable account to a Roth IRA over the next few years. The account is with an actively-managed firm (American Funds) with not unreasonable ERs (details of the holdings can be found here ). The account holder (my fiance) has made no contributions to an IRA yet. W...

Great, my 401(k) admins picked yesterday to buy buy international fund shares.

In "Growth of 10k" terms they are not that different: VFWAX vs VTIAX Growth of 10k The history is not very long. Maybe more helpful to compare investor shares (although not greatly): VFWSX vs VGTSX Growth of 10k The first chart you posted does not make much sense to me. What is it I'm look...

I'm preparing to move my Roth IRA from Schwab to Vanguard and have a couple questions I haven't found answered. My next step is to call either (or both) VG and Schwab but I'm unable to at the moment. In the meantime hopefully someone familiar with the process can help me out. * I know there is a $50...

4) PIMCO Total Return Institutional Class (PTTRX / 0.46 ER) I've been thinking long and hard about this one. I held some of it for a while and eventually transferred out of it because I didn't really understand what it was doing. I've read that the guy who manages it is some kind of superstar in th...

What have you been doing with the rest of your assets if you've been here for 4 years and earning a good income? Do you only have $15,000 in assets? First thing I did was paid off my college debts (~$10k) and credit cards (~$20k *blush*), then I bought a car and paid off the loan early (~$30k), and...

You're so much more decisive than me! I've closed out my TFSAs, own a condo in the US, have a US driver's license and car, but I still have my RRSPs (<$10k), about $2k in a normal savings account in Canada, and a credit card. I'm up in WA, so a bit closer to Canada. Hah, not that decisive. It took ...

pkcrafter wrote:Here's tae us
Wha's like us...and I'm sure you know the rest!

Damn few! And they're all dead..

We would need to know the terms of this loan (balance, amortization) to know if this would be a good idea. Also her income matters - after a certain point you can't deduct student loan interest. Right. I'll be sure to look into those things. Right now all I really have are the interest rates and ba...

I found in another thread that his current tax bracket is 33% federal and ~10% state and he's in his early thirties. I would absolutely max out the Traditional 401(k) and not touch the Roth 401(k). I do address these in my longer reply above, but I want to suggest one correction. I am in the 28% ma...

We then went on our "official" two-week honeymoon in Europe a little over a year later. That gave us more time to plan, save, get good rates/airfare, and so on. I like that idea! It certainly would reduce the stress. Nevertheless, weddings are expensive and it will still probably take 2 y...

Thank you, icefr. Responses about personal situation in blue. Comments on 401(k) below. 1) Don't pay a cent down on her student loans prior to getting married. Of course. :-) 2) Will Her Taxable investments cover the 6.7% loan? Yes 3) You can't put any money in a Roth IRA on her behalf until you're ...

Q: Are there advantages to owning a Target Fund like VFORX other than autopilot rebalancing? Disadvantges? I am starting to think I'd like to own the 3-fund portfolio outside VFORX, and weigh it together with my other funds and balance them together. The VFORX seems to complicated the re-balancing....

Another question comes to mind about account transfer. I understand Schwab charges $50 for a full account transfer. However, right now, my account is fully in cash. But, it's a Roth IRA, so maybe an account transfer is necessary anyway. Has anyone had success getting Vanguard to soak up the transfer...

OP, you will give her the best possible gift if you help her get educated so she can do it herself. You don't need to tell her that the engagement might fall through (probably 50%) or that you get divorced (50% if married) if you don't want to. Rather that something might happen to you or whatever ...

Congratulations with your engagement! That said, you there is a significant difference between being married or not, as well as cohabitation, and that varies between the states depending and countries. You really should verify the laws of inheritance, etc, in case one of you die, especially if chil...

I write too many words so I'll try and just keep this simple. I got engaged. She has asked me to manage her investments. Our timeline for marriage is 2 years from now, probably summer 2015. In the interim we'll be living together and laying the foundation for our future. The reason for the timeline ...

Wild Willie wrote:fired up my truck, hooked up the boat and went fishing.

+1

I was in a similar situation, except that the options I had were expiring within the next year, and the total value was nowhere near yours. ;-) Nevertheless, it was enough for me to consider the tax consequences. Also, holding so much of my total investments in a single stock made me very nervous, o...

Keep an eye on your income. If it comes to it, recharacterize your Roth contribution as a traditional IRA contribution, then convert that traditional IRA to a Roth IRA (the backdoor Roth). This is ideal if you only have TIRA and RIRA. If you have other types of IRAs (excl. 401(k)), that can make the...

I've considered this myself in the past. My company's 401(k) plan is through Schwab so when I wanted to open a personal investment account, I opened it there just so I could have it all in one place. Since then I've been constantly tempted by Vanguard, but in the end I think Schwab is just fine and ...

I don't have access to the X-Ray......they want $$ from me. :( No they don't: http://portfolio.morningstar.com/Rtport/Free/InstantXRayDEntry.aspx Or http://www.troweprice.com/, you can create a free online account without actually opening a TRP banking/investment account, and it gives you full acce...

It might be worth mentioning that although the number beside the S&P's index is larger than the numbers that came before it, when adjusted for inflation, it's not even close to its all-time high. In March 2000, it hit around 1525, and yes it's in the area of 1560 now which is a bigger number. Bu...

Thank you, good points. :-) After looking deep and hard at my options, it seems that for the time being I can just split my 401(k) contributions evenly between VINIX and VFWSX. The rest of the options were either actively managed, which I want to avoid (even PTTRX, which was one), or not in a class ...

Checked it out. I'm about to turn 34 and have just begun saving for retirement. After doing the questionnaire, it recommended the Aggressive profile, which is fair, but to them that means a 93/7 stock/bond split. :shock: I thought I was already being overly aggressive with my current 75/25. I am not...

I have two investment accounts: a 401(k) sponsored by the company I work for, and a personal Roth IRA. I've only just started building these, but at this point, my Roth IRA has 3x as much in it as my 401(k) because I just dropped in the maximum lump sum for this year and last year into the RIRA, whi...

Outstanding response and great news, thank you. That makes things so much easier.

First, apologies if this belongs in the other forum. It is somewhat related to tax, but I think it is essentially about policies on IRAs. I'll try to make this as simple as I can, but I have created something of a mess and I want to try and clean it. At the start of this year I had one investment: a...

Look into recharacterization. You can recharacterize your Roth contribution into a Traditional IRA. I'm not 100% on all the details you need to know, but I did exactly this earlier in the year. I'm still trying to figure out whether I can later recharacterize back and have it work as a back door. Do...

Please read through this thread as well. http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111670 Hah, yep. I'm excited about investing right now but I know that will fade. It is somewhat coincidental with the activity in the market, but it would be foolish to suggest I am not at least parti...

I think it would be wise to consider using Schwab ETFs in your taxable account. Much cheaper. Just as an example, the TIPS ETF at Schwab is only ER = 0.07% compared to ER = 0.29% for the fund you are using. Just a thought. Check it out. Thank you. Yeah, that is primarily why I am looking at ETFs, n...

Welcome! How long have you been investing? What did you do during the 2000-02 tech crash and the 2007-09 financial crisis? How do you know you have a high risk tolerance? During the 2000-02 tech crash I was eating macaroni and under a mountain of debt; what was happening in the markets wasn't on my...

Hi everyone. :-) I've been lurking but now would like some opinions on what my best options might be with the resources I have to set up my investments proper. So, first off, here's my general outline as per the "Asking Portfolio Questions" topic. ETA : I've edited the percentages below so...