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in general if you had a higher withdrawal rate in the early years would'nt it be less in later years because you have additional ss income.asides from mandatory withdrawals "In general," as you said. ⋅ Then again, it may be lower withdrawal of significantly lower balance - a pot...

If one doesn't have a pension and is forced to withdraw from IRAs and other taxable investments, it seems a higher withdrawal rate is necessary in the early years. Much higher than the often prescribed 4%. Matt, Yes, necessary, but "higher" only IF your final savings goal is less than 25x...

Example: Current folks might contribute $1,000 to retirement plans. That would be 2.5% of a $40,000 portfolio. I would hope growth of portfolio would be more than 2.5% and maybe even 25%. Wouldn't it take close to [say] 30 years x $1K annually to get to $40K (accounting for some growth)? We digress...

Hi, I would appreciate any advice on whether I should use some additional cashflow to pay down the remainder of my mortgage or invest in my brokerage account. I just paid off my auto loan, which frees up about $350 per month that I'd rather invest than spend.... Mortgage: $295k left on it, 2.75% 15...

Example: Current folks might contribute $1,000 to retirement plans. That would be 2.5% of a $40,000 portfolio. I would hope growth of portfolio would be more than 2.5% and maybe even 25%. Wouldn't it take close to [say] 30 years x $1K annually to get to $40K (accounting for some growth)? We digress...

⋅ As we accumulate, the amount we save regularly is typically and exponentially much larger than potential growth. ... This should only be the case for early accumulators. For late accumulators, that is folks who have been contributing 10-15 years or more, annual growth should exceed thei...

2.5% to 4% and the choice is more about your temperment and personality than any numbers or analysis. While I agree with most everything you said, Mitchell, I venture to say the % withdrawn "is more about" the amount saved * and other sources of income. * numbers or analysis notwithstandi...

The article says That percentage was calculated at a time when portfolios were earning about 8 percent. which is irrelevant and misleading. More FUD. Keith Thus, the fact that we don't know what we don't know. 1. NO ONE knows the future (including our longevity, investment returns, inflation, etc.)...

But by the time you reach an older age and your paycheck stops, you need reliable sources of income to pay your bills. This transition from aggressive to conservative investing starts around age 50. How do you navigate this turn in middle age? That's the trickiest question in personal finance. I'd ...

...100/25=4 tells me that if I take 4 x 25 from my cookie jar, I'm good to go. IF 100 is not enough, then put more in -or- take less from the cookie jar. This is a simple equation but of course with inflation "4x25" is not necessarily going to be "good to go",... I have placed y...

Last December, my coworker who is about a year or so from retirement moved ALL of his 401k savings into a Stable Value fund which yields approx 3.5%. He did this because, at the time, he was concerned that the looming "Fiscal Cliff" would wreck havoc in the Stock/Bond markets and cause hi...

To take advantage of compound [ing] interest do you have to reinvest your dividends to buy more shares? I own mutual fund shares by the way. Buying more shares with your dividends gives you potentially larger compounding in both dividends and market price increase. Conversely, for instance, IF you ...

So far no. 1) you can't look at stocks in isolation, you must think about the portfolio as a whole. If stocks stink (high valuation) and other assets are even more over priced (say bonds have negative real yield) should you really be selling stocks to buy bonds? All stock valuation trading studies ...

As 666 was the low back in March 2009, maybe 1,666 will be the high ? Not having invested yet in the 90s, I have to admit this ongoing rally is getting a bit scary. And a bit painful as well, as I'm overweight emerging markets. Since you posted the OP at 3:47PM yesterday, I don't think that you mea...

NO ONE knows the future Thus we have risk. SPIAs are a way of paying someone else to take that risk. SPIAs are not riskless (by far) - and I hope you don't believe they are for your own good. In closing, you took ONE piece of my first post to introduce more of the same "stuff" that often ...

1. If PE 10 goes to 44 (a la 1999), my IPS says to reduce Equity risk. Link: http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/ 2. If 10-year Treasury yields go much below 3%, my IPS says to reduce duration. Link: http://www.multpl.com/interest-rate/ I really don't concern myself, FWIW, what these strategies are ca...

3. My suggestion is to accept that everything else is pretty uncontrollable (face it!) - so go fishing and stop thinking that a model, Excel spreadsheet, what-have-you, is going to make you feel better. The attraction of SPIAs is that they DO provide a way to control returns. Yes, they cost money, ...

100% agree, LH. Market timing is market timing. I have no problem with "short bonds always," if that's what's appropriate for an investor. But I do have a problem with "short bonds now." "Market timing" is nothing but words. Often it feels like we use them in this Foru...

My suggestion is to accept that everything else is pretty uncontrollable (face it!) - so go fishing and stop thinking that a model, Excel spreadsheet, what-have-you, is going to make you feel better. The more I chase numbers around a spreadsheet, the more sense that suggestion makes. Looks like a g...

I would have posted on a recent thread but felt this would be missed on the 63rd post http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/retirementspecial/the-4-rule-for-retirement-withdrawals-may-be-outdated.html?ref=retirementspecial As also discussed in the recent thread on this site there are suggestio...

Regarding stat’s, it doesn’t say anything different than what I wrote before. Most of his under-performance when compared to M* long-short index came in his last year, which dragged down 1,5,10 year numbers. No, Ranger, I suggest evaluating "under-performance" as compared to a broad Index...

I'm retired. Married. Low tax bracket. Have retirement accounts with Vanguard divided between 2010 Target Retirement Fund, Wellesley, Wellington, Life Strategy Growth Fund and can sleep at night with this. I've inherited ~$70,000 in individual stocks, mostly in IBM and Medtronic. I want to move all...

A common question is: If I have some money to invest, what is better: to invest it as a lump sum (LS) or to do Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)? - The response is usually "LS is better on the long run, but DCA helps with psychological quirks." When the goal is inverse of the above, is the logi...

If to you this 10-year run happens to be "not bad," good for you! Absolutely, ... There you are! You have accepted that active management, in this instance, is "not bad" by providing larger returns 2000-2003 (3.5 yrs) then near ZERO return annually 2004-2013 (10 yrs). Morningsta...

I am a young investor (23) and I started when I was 22 so I learned by doing but now I am learning much more and I am much more knowledgeable than I was when I made some investments. SS, MOST important is the amount you save , early in accumulation, which is many times more valuable that anything e...

Vanguard's CapOp fund seems to be blowing the roof off right now. I just looked at the holdings, and over 65% is divided between healthcare and tech. I guess there's something to be said for active management, even if just for now. That happens when ~30% invested in 7 healthcare companies outperfor...

2. Just wanted to show you: a. what happened during 77% (10/13) of HSGFX's short life, b. no one has a magic wand to effectively and consistently pick the best performers in the future, c. proceed at your own peril. Alas, even bogleheads not immune from comparing to wrong index. His is long/short f...

John...Yes of course I own bonds. I own a lot more bonds than stocks. The fact that they return less than stocks is irrelevant to why I own them. I own them to balance the risk of owning stocks. I believe that you are mixing investment basics, and then arrive at faulty conclusions: 1. One buys Inde...

YDNAL You can change the chart to see what you want but fact is, 10K growth since inception: HSGFX...17430 SP500...13926 1. People don't buy a fund "at inception" and only at inception - rather, they accumulate over time. 2. Just wanted to show you: a. what happened during 77% (10/13) of ...

Hussman's flagship fund since inception: http://i44.tinypic.com/6em1on.jpg Unless I need glasses, ⋅ Invest about $19.5K in 2004 in Hussman Strat. Growth and find yourself with about $17.5K in 2013. :( ⋅ Invest $8.5K in S&P 500 and have about $14.5K. :happy ⋅ Damn i...

I..... when I see charts like this one for a fund I had invested in long time ago..............and then I gave up on it thinking expense ratio was too high. I picked it randomly as an example, but I am sure there are other active funds like this out there. https://www.oakmark.com/Oakmark/web/me.get...

What is everyone's favorite stock and bond indexes for a long term investment. I just turned all my rothIRA brokerage (my emphasis) mutual funds to cash and I'm thinking of going vanguard total stock market, vanguard total international and vanguard total bond market. Did you see this link ? Link: ...

I sold everything that made me money in a market that seems insanely valued. I have a bunch of money to buy back in. How can I not think of a little market timing at a time like this? I have about 20 years of active investing left in me. For now, I'm willing to have 100% in VTSAX. I just haven't de...

PK thanks for distracting them....I snuck out the back... :happy What I do not understand is how one can have the historical knowledge and be 100 pct immune from it's influence when you choose the index method. You are a little all over the map, so going out the back door may help. I thought my inp...

To be honest, I cheered when the last stock market crash happened. I knew I was getting a bargain every time I purchased another monthly installment. Now things are different.... Last Thursday I pulled the trigger and liquidated all of my mutual funds in both the 457 and the Roth. I'm up about 40-5...

I know it is a big deal to ever own something based on past performance but isn't the entire Boglehead philosophy based on past performance? Own the total market because (my emphasis) it has outperformed 80 whatever pct of managed funds with its low fees and no stock picking. You start with a fault...

I'm 27 and I have learned that the only prudent outlook to 'the future' (in terms of returns, etc...) is to control what you can: save as best you can and diversify your investments at low cost. If you do this then it doesn't matter if your portfolio is returning 2% or 15% because you are controlli...

[EDIT] Reposted on Monday.

I think it is plausible that many people would choose such a fund exactly due to the simplicity of feeling that everything is taken care of. I still doubt that choice is an explicit election of a portfolio strategy. To answer that we would have to gather a representative sample from all those who h...

$2 million? I'm thinking if you own your own house outright with no mortgage and have modest annual income requirements of $75,000 or less a year, it's quite do-able. Welcome to the Forum, Saundra! All 40you are not created equal; but it would not be unreasonable to think 50 years in retirement, an...

I cannot figure out why people are putting money in both funds. To me, they seem very similar, except that Wellesley is a bit more aggressive and less diversified. Steve, They seem "very similar" ONLY IF you ignore the differences, largely as you did. I'm not going to get into these diffe...

Wow! LG please remove me from this forum permanently so that I am never tempted to post here again. Thanks. Bruce, This is "mostly" an informational Forum where people exchange ideas, new posters ask for some direction & help; and sure, some discussions get distasteful and even requir...

According to the spreadsheet, a $2 million portfolio with starting expenses of $120,000 per year will run out in about 17 years. (This excludes everything else including social security, pension etc.) Questions: 1. Is this about right? 2. What is a better way to do this? What do you mean by "e...

In other words, I don't understand how the currently stated yield is possible or why it would have moved so significantly upward. Anybody have an idea what's going on here? Am I missing some obvious explanation? I looked at VIPSX and the yield fluctuates from -1.04% to -1.21% from the beginning of ...

Interesting comment Wizard because that is almost the opposite of the question I was posing. My retirement planning model, and all of the other popular legit models do not pretend to predict the future and all fully recognize the degree of market uncertainty. Anyone who selects a planning model bec...

. Many recent topics go off-topic and all over the place. ⋅ The subject of this thread... less volatility = more wealth is counterintuitive. ⋅ I will use Vanguard and use 15 years because this is what is readily available, and since I don't wish to waste any more time. Here is a ...

Lowering volatility CAN help wealth ... The Lottery CAN help wealth. :P Seriously, boggler (OP) posted an image (see below) showing: ⋅ 3 different portfolios ALL with 10-year 10% annual return. ⋅ Volatility of 5%, 10%, 20%, respectively. Volatility = higher expected return. All ...

WooHoo! Also, I sold active funds to put into index. Simultaneously, I simplified my portfolio by moving some pre-boglehead investments into index funds. Congratulations! :beer My question now is simple: Assuming that I will have capital gains on those sales (I will), and assuming that I forgot to ...

I couldn't decide when to make my 2013 IRA contribution in the beginning of this year. It seemed like the market was "too high" and I thought that I should wait for a "dip". Can you tell me, ProfessorX, how were you able to make this (quote above) determination ? Link: http://ww...

I couldn't decide when to make my 2013 IRA contribution in the beginning of this year. It seemed like the market was "too high" and I thought that I should wait for a "dip". Can you tell me, ProfessorX, how were you able to make this (quote above) determination ? Link: http://ww...