Bogleheads.org

For $50k, I'd lump sum. For $5 Million I'd probably DCA. Sure, the math mostly works better for lump sum but I'd be willing trade some upside to avoid "worst possible time" syndrome on a large amount. Appropriate username :D As for me, just don't overthink it, and lump sum half, and DCA t...

Thanks, Rick. I'll also add your two-fund portfolio to our wiki when I get a chance, and add in your recommended % allocation for the 3-fund lazy portfolio to our wiki.

Edit: Done.

This page may be of interest to you:

Wiki - Paying down loans versus investing

I read OP twice and I'm still not clear as to what you are asking. Others have responded (must get it) but I'm OTF (out there flappin) and still not comprehending... What's the maximum expense ratio of a fund, higher than which you won't care how "good", "diversified", or how we...

The reason index funds beat actively managed funds is because of fees. This has nothing to do with past performance or using past performance to try and predict the future. Actively managed funds taken collectively own the entire market, they just charge people a lot more for it than index funds do...

Investing in Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 (VFIFX), which is 90% equities. This is excluding a small cash emergency fund which I am building up.

I think they should call this the Romney Rule (or no, you really can't hold those private equity investments in your IRA). Well, before this non-actionable thread gets likely locked, I'm going to put a link to Self-Directed IRA's which are an interesting vehicle one can consider: ⋅  http:...

Thanks for all the replies and perspectives. At this point, it sounds like I need a bit more clarification on the specifics of my offer before I know how how good or bad it is, and how much of a salary I can negotiate. As for my risk tolerance and resume, I feel like I could excel in a startup envir...

Somebody in this forum (I cannot recall who) once posted the following formula: compounded return = average return - 0.5 * (standard deviation)^2 I admit I don't fully understand the underlying methodology to come up with this formula. I don't believe it is meant to be 100% accurate, rather, I thin...

You haven't provided us enough information, such as salary, equity %, and competing job offers to make an informed decision, but it looks to me like you're getting completely screwed. I'm guessing they're offering to pay you about $50k a year, when you could get $100k/year at a large company as an ...

I spent six years at startups, it was the most fun I've had working! None "made it", and I didn't have much to show for it at the end. I think it's worth the risk though, especially if you believe in it. Worst case, you'll have a good story and might have to work for a boring company if t...

It depends. How much do you want to work? Because you are going to be working a TON compared to other options. That has plusses and minuses: your coworkers will likely become great friends, but you will also be putting your life on hold in a manner of speaking. If the work environment is great, it ...

I hate unquantifiable situations. Some friendly advice: You may want to work on that since humans are inherently unquantifiable. Vulcans and my all time favorite group of aliens, the Binars, only exist on Star Trek. :) thanks, stan. I know, and you sound like my mom (not necessarily an insult).

Also note there is a time factor. How long would it take to know if this is going to succeed ? I left a startup after 5 years on the job, and while it was growing, it grew much faster after I left, and after I took a seemingly more stable, higher cashflow job. Kinda sorry I didn't stay, but I did g...

Remember that you're fresh out of school (work in an academic environment) and have no room for negotiation. The assumption that you'll leave at the first sign of trouble is a good one. OTOH, they may be expecting you to negotiate. If you don't, they got you on the cheap. Thanks. I hate unquantifia...

I personally am not impressed with startup folks. I have numerous times made the same analogy that being in a startup situation is like putting all your money into single penny stock (actually it Is even worse then that). Most wouldn't do that in investing so not sure the same folks would do it in ...

To emphasize, health and retirement benefits are a deal breaker. You absolutely have to have health benefits. Okay thanks I'll look into this. Health will be a probably, retirement a probably not. If that's the case I think that would be acceptable to me. What I don't see here, perhaps you don't wa...

Thanks for all the replies!

I'm actually surprised that I'm not getting more pushback for this from bogleheads, since this goes against being diversified. I actually am inclined to take the offer myself, but just making commentary.

Are you going to finish your Ph.D.? (You said you are a student -- you didn't say if you are graduating soon). Oh, yeah, sorry that wasn't clear. Absolutely. Hoping to graduate this year (Ph.D. advisors as notoriously and annoyingly nebulous about specific dates) but there is no way I would risk no...

That's a good point, RM, and a good way to think about it. Okay I'm going to be an engineer here and make a table: Company Makes it Big: Company Doesn't Make it Big: I go with this company: Huge return Loss of opportunity cost don't go with this company Huge regret Feel more secure in hindsight, hav...

Interesting that you look on this as an investment. As an engineer I try to look at all things in terms of the numbers. This is simply a risk/reward opportunity, and as such I see equivalent to any other investment (e.g. index funds). But you do thoroughly understand the investment and if I underst...

Thanks for the opinions (and links!) ⋅ Can you survive on the lower salary? Absolutely. I am able to actually safe a significant portion of my measly Ph.D. stipend right now, putting my actual cost of living at well below poverty level. Frugality as a necessity won't be difficult to contin...

This thread is now in the Personal Finance (Not Investing) forum (employment issues). Thanks, LadyGeek. I now see "employment" as one of the topics. I had originally put it in personal investments because it had a huge effect on my future investments, but I see the appropriate forum now. ...

I really can't give too much detail, but I'll try as hard as I can, to answer questions and edit this post as I am allowed to. Also note that this may not be a very typical "boglehead" type of situation, since it's inherently non-diversified, which is why I am looking for advice (mods, I a...

Oh, and what's odd about the OP is, he/she says nothing about the split of that $200K between equities and non equities. I'd have no problem replicating my AA with an additional $200K, but this poster may be talking all stocks. I'm not sure if we should laugh or cry when these folks start coming ou...

Got $200k to invest. I told myself I'd put it all in Wednesday (tomorrow). But the market has gone up dramatically over the past few days, and now I'm spooked. Should I still do it? Perhaps pick a plan, like put 1/10 in tomorrow, 1/10 in next week, etc., for the next 10 weeks, regardless of the mar...

I do still have one remaining question: I have been assuming that $3,000 you can take off your AGI per year is free. But is the cost basis lowered an additional $3,000 every year that you deduct it from your income? Again, I have been assuming "no" but could be incorrect. I will be lookin...

I do still have one remaining question: I have been assuming that $3,000 you can take off your AGI per year is free. But is the cost basis lowered an additional $3,000 every year that you deduct it from your income? Again, I have been assuming "no" but could be incorrect. I will be looking...

This thread and its associated images / content will be of interest: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111633

So many people consider TLH to be like an interest free loan from the government. It is true that if you TLH your cost basis becomes lower. But when you enter decumulation phase, the gains in the first shares one sells will be offset by accumulated losses. So the investor will pay no taxes. He does...

I had never realized before that BRK.B makes up .5% of VTSMX. For some reason I didn't think it counted... not sure why, LOL. So that means that the companies the Berkshire owns are "double" counted in VTSMX for example? As in, shares of Coca Cola are owned by VTSMX outright, and even mor...

Without trying to veer off topic into to the merits or lack thereof for paying off mortgages early, your personal allocation can also depend on whether you are putting extra money towards your mortgage interest (or pretty much any fixed debt) which can be similar to investing in fixed income vehicle...

I believe with TLH, you can offset 3000 current income every year on your taxes. But this is not the huge benefit as I see it. If one does TLH throughout the accumulation years he will accumulate losses to offset gains when he sells during the decumulation retirement years. I think this is a potent...

I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing. On that $3000 loss which I will eventually pay capital gains taxes on later, I am paying (for example) 15% in the future but getting a 25% tax rebate now. That is 10% positive. On $3000 every year for someone in the 33% tax bracket vs 18.8% capital gains...

Even though luminaries such as Larry say that daily rebalancing is optimal, for most of us, it hardly matters. Are there charts online comparing different rebalancing frequencies? A quick google search turned up Figure 6 in this paper: https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/icrpr.pdf which is the best I...

That's trading a 15% tax rate for, say, a 25% tax rate. Or an 18.8% tax rate for a 35% tax rate. Isn't that a true gain? You still pay that 15% tax rate if you sell the stocks later, so you're not "trading" anything. Let's say you have a $1mm cost basis (you bought some stocks for that pr...

The wiki has good information: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax_loss_harvesting Notice the section on "Investing in a single sum". All of the advantage (assuming you are going to eventually sell, not donate to charity or pass to heirs, for which there are added advantages), comes from th...

How do you determine the value in daily rebalancing? I am asking about the vanguard target retirement funds, specifically. They rebalance daily, yet have higher expense ratios than underlying admiral shares. So if you are not going to rebalance daily, but rather weekly or monthly, if you were to hol...

There's also the $3000 deduction on your income tax from tlh which rolls over year after year.

TO39 wrote:foreign and precious metals exposure

What's your reasoning for having those?

1 - A target retirement fund.

Also I tried "Ohio" as an example in my previous link, and if you live there, you only get a maximum of $80 per year off your total taxes, even with a high salary. When "benefits" as low as this in some states, it might not even be worth trying to get the state tax refund, correct?

This is also a good resource to calculate your tax deduction:

http://www.archimedes.com/vanguard/stdc.phtml

VTI apparently did not even exist at the start date of the most recently linked chart (at least according to the chart). I guess some playing around with the charts will be enlightening. Oh, I guess morningstar's "Share Link" button doesn't include the date you type in. My previous post w...

Starting with VTI was in my previous post. Starting with VTSAX is shown here (with the same start date of 2001-05-25). Starting with VTI shows the percentage, while starting with VTSAX presumably shows the dollar amount of $10k. So $17,310 versus $17,311 with I start with VTSAX shows almost identica...

Out of curiosity, what is google finance showing incorrectly?

I made the chart in morningstar here and it seems the final datapoint is 42.2% growth for VTI versus 39.3% for VTSAX. Much closer than google finance's. Still a small spread though.

I guess a complementary question is how important is the daily rebalancing that the target retirement funds do, versus if you do it once a year, once a month, etc.? So how important is granular rebalancing? Is the daily rebalancing worth the expense ratio?

I didn't realize that the ETF and mutual fund could vary so significantly (presumably due to trading) if they track the same underlying securities. For example, Vanguard Total Stock Market VTI and VTSAX are shown here (both have the same expense ratios). Any thoughts on this? I have only had mutual ...

A standard computation of a safe withdrawal rate is a percentage of the original portfolio with the number of dollars taken increased by inflation each year. One can consider more complicated alternative schemes that work out a bit differently. Keep in mind that this kind of computation is helpful ...

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. What are you talking about? That's just a platitude. If you get a quote for something, you can choose to purchase it or not. As in my hypothetical scenario, given the assumptions, what are the pros and cons of each. You're going to have to be specific as to ...