Bogleheads.org

rick ferri wrote: I often wonder why Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, and other custodians have not created and launched a similar "robo" program. The automated rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting software that drives Wealthfront may be leading edge today, but how far ahead can you go with this...

rick ferri wrote: Is there something new and revolutionary that Malkiel is suggesting that I'm missing? It all seems so routine to me. If I am missing something, then I must be the one getting old. Passive investing is a routine. Determine your risk level/time frame, build an appropriate asset alloc...

Dave Ramsey's advice helps people clean up debt and get organized. This allows a household to have a clean balance sheet, strong savings rate, and an increasing net worth. This leads to healthy functional financial households. Thus, I understand his following... What I don't understand is that after...

emerg doc wrote: I don't even have much of a problem with his whole business structure to refer to his ELPs. Most people do need investment advice unfortunately. Most people who need it don't have the assets necessary to hire a fee-only adviser. Nobody is going to work for 1% of a $10K portfolio. Ho...

bob's not my name wrote: You don't have to guess, this is well known. For families with children there essentially is no 25% bracket and their total marginal rate, including federal and state income tax and de facto financial aid tax, is often well over 50% and can be over 100%. This is perverse bec...

I do not understand the gold market. I view gold as a wild card. Gold has no earnings, dividends, interest to provide a fair value. I do understand how Financial Advisors and Life-cycle Glide-paths completely missed the gold boat in 2000. It would have been tough to market or justify a portfolio wit...

kevin21 wrote: As a boglehead, I was doing ok with a $40k salary in DC. Are you raising a family on 40k per year? Tough to do around Valley Forge, PA. I had another part-time job when I worked at Vanguard, as did many of my fellow crew members. As a former low level Vanguard Crew Member of decent te...

Good luck getting me to give up the TIAA Traditional in my old employer's GSRA. 3% floor with potential for additional dividends backed by TIAA's General Account. GSRA contracts allow withdrawals and/or transfers - like a money market on steroids... Here is a dated PDF (2010) outlining TIAA Traditio...

Rick Ferri wrote: The difference boils down to service. Are you able to pick up the phone and talk to a real human being whenever you feel the need? You can do that with Rebalance-IRA for 0.50%, not with Wealthfront for 0.25%. We've been able to do it at 0.25% for the past 14 years, but we have a hi...

rick ferri wrote: The problem with all these suggestions for free and low cost services is government regulations. It is difficult to stay even and more difficult to earn a decent by profit charging a low fee and complying with SEC and other governing body regs. No firm can offer advice and then tra...

hoppy08250 wrote: It's interesting to see all these services popping up, along with Betterment and others. Burton Malkiel ("A Random Walk Down Wall Street") and Charles Ellis ("Winning the Loser's Game") are affiliating themselves with Rebalanace IRA, which puts you in a portfoli...

levett wrote: What did Sauter say? (It's irrelevant what I think.) +1 Longer article quote shows Gus Sauter stating a 10 yr expectation 0f 6-9% for stocks and 2-3% for Bonds. Pretty common stock bug outlook. :beer http://bigstory.ap.org/article/vanguard-exec-shares-outlook-fears-bond-bubble Q: We're...

larryswedroe wrote: Brick house 1) My standard prediction is that my crystal ball is always cloudy. I did not make any predictions about commodities as you stated I did 2) There are many with excellent PAST records, Gross among them. Unfortunately that tells us nothing about the future returns. As t...

larryswedroe wrote: Same guy who dumped them when the 10 year was 380 or so and then it fell by more than half. Who cares what he says? He has no more clue than the proverbial monkey (nor does anyone else) Uhhhh... I do. I also like to hear what you say [rude comment removed by admin LadyGeek] . Ple...

umfundi wrote: And so, What is the theory (not the prediction) for the price of gold going forward? :annoyed 2% real interest rates is one theory offered in the second link below by Eddy Elfenbein. If higher than 2%, gold's price falls. If lower than 2%, then gold's price rises. The first link is a ...

Joe s wrote: I think the main point Hazlitt777 was making is not that there was deflation in 1875, but that deflation meant than gold was rising in price. Similarly, in 1917 there was inflation, which meant gold was dropping in price. Gold did fluctuate in real value during the gold standard. There ...

nisiprius wrote: The fact that gold quadrupled in real value during a period of unprecedentedly mild and stable inflation, just as the fact that it halved in real value from 1910 to 1920, show that it does not really behave the way people say it "tends to" behave. And it's not fair to thro...

umfundi wrote: Deflation in 1875 is absolutely irrelevant in today's context. The Fed's actions since 2009 suggest they do not think deflation is irrelevant. Quote from Ben S. Bernanke 2002 speech titled Deflation: Making Sure "It" Doesn't Happen Here http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddoc...

umfundi wrote: I think then the short term (1 year) outlook for stocks is mildly positive. That is not a prediction, but I think that sentiment has some basis. For bonds, pretty flat. For gold, I have no idea. In your words, it is a wild card. In your words, stocks sound like a wild card as well… :?

umfundi wrote: 2. If global economic growth in 2013 is at 2%, with no change in interest rates, what is the short term outlook for gold? What is the short term outlook for stocks? William Bernstein quote from Efficient Frontier article titled The Returns Fairy…Explained http://www.efficientfrontier....

dnamouv wrote:

If gold is not money, as people so often like to point out, how come the world's central banks to continue to be net BUYERS of gold?

According to the Bernank, it is tradition

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dj9v9s9buk

fnk wrote: You're no longer necessary. Except the engineers, scientists and managers. We're the elite. And we've got to feed everybody else. Please remember to feed the farmers... :beer bobcat 2 - thanks for the articles and the perspective It's odd than when Vanguard economist Davis puts out an art...

nisiprius wrote: I hope this curve isn't being factored into Vanguard's mutual fund management. Of course, the nice thing is, with index funds, I'm not sure how it could be. Managed Payout Funds? Quote from Joe Davis speech: Yes, amid all the talk of doom and gloom, I see flickers of light at the en...

Annuity payments count as its own RMD. The remaining balance would then have to have a separate RMD taken. Simple example. Fair warning -I am not a CPA, just another crank on the internet... 12-31-2011 IRA balance is $200,000. On Jan 3, 2012 -100,000 is annuitized - annuity payments are considered t...

My understanding is that any payment stream over ten years cannot be rolled over or deposited back into the account. Quote from IRS Publication 575 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p575/ar02.html#en_US_2011_publink1000226891 Eligible rollover distribution. An eligible rollover distribution is any dis...

Great thread! Reminds me of an article from Michael Kitces about how typical 401k advice leaves folks needing a doubling of their retirement in the last 10 years of accumulation. http://www.kitces.com/blog/archives/76-Is-Save-For-Decades,-Then-Quickly-Double-Your-Money-And-Retire-Your-Unintentional-...

Dow 36000. James Glassman & Kevin Hassett

http://www.amazon.com/Dow-36-000-Strate ... 0609806998

or listen to Bobby Mcferrin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

Browser wrote:

Gee, I thought I answered that. One of us needs to re-read the previous posts. I'm out of bacon-savers.

My bad. I did not catch the bacon amongst the bull...

Browser wrote: Unfortunately, it may not be possible to save the bacon if stocks and treasurys head down together. During the last quarter of 2008, the correlation of the monthly returns of Gold and TSM spiked up to 0.8 as they both went down together. As we know, it was the "flight to safety&q...

browser wrote Marvelous comments, Dr. B. Now you've gone and made two groups angry with you, I'm afraid: first the Permanent Porfolioers who are counting on gold to save the bacon if interest rates take off and drag down Treasurys and Stocks like the 1970s; and second, those "expert" comme...

browser wrote: Will the returns of the PP be better than the 5-year Treasury over the next decade? Who knows? However, the past decade has been OK for the PP. Vanguard Intermediate Treasury Fund has returned 5.24% over the past decade (9/30) while PRPFX has returned 10.24%. It's all about the gold G...

levett wrote: That's pretty much how it is with those of us who are (or were) in the TIAA-CREF retirement system. +100 - Everything old is new again. This article and the new DFA offering seem to be paying homage to TIAA-CREF. "Old school" TIAA-CREF mixes (25-75% TIAA Traditional , 75-25% ...

Rick, These are two great articles. I really like the flight plan concept/narrative. Most folk's finances are more Airplane than Top Gun and they do not know if they have Clearance, Clarence or the Vector, Victor... A bear market or two exposes risk tolerance in a big way. It also exposes poor finan...

Rick Ferri wrote: If you can find a reference, please post it. I've been aound for a long time and have never read an article or study suggesting that young people have anything other than a high equity allocation. Great article. As I read the article, especially the graph on the "flight path&q...

azanon wrote: Jeremy Siegel, for instance, suggests that during the storms, you read chapter 1 and 2 again of his book "Stocks for the Long Run" to remind you that not only do stocks produce superior returns to bonds over long-term periods, but they're also less risky, again, when viewed f...

nisiprius wrote: When it really hits the fan, it is not Harry Browne who will offer you his garage to live in. Harry Browne won't offer his garage, neither will Ben Franklin, Peter Bernstein, or Ben Graham. However, Harry Browne's 16 Golden Rules of Financial Safety will keep you in your house and i...

umfundi wrote:

Why not just report the correlation coefficient?

For annual returns from 1964 -2009 per William Bernstein's article Wild About Harry:

Gold had a -0.16 correlation with stocks

http://www.efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/harry.htm

Larry Swedroe wrote: I agree that if something does well 5/6 of time it should be considered a pretty good hedge, just as something that has worked about 2/3 of the time has been a somewhat effective hedge (CCF relative to stocks while its 100% with bonds). So that point is valid. article quote: Gol...

Jerry Lee wrote: I'm not so sure people retiring in 2008 consider themselves lucky They should because in March 2009 many 2008 retirees were praying for a "do-over." The quickness and strength of the stock market recovery provided that do-over and kept many 2008 retirees from bailing on th...

jerry lee wrote: Brick-house, good example, as I think we can agree this is one of the most extreme cases of bad luck imaginable (other than retiring in 1929). So I looked at an investor who retires on Jan 1 2008 with $1M needing $40k per year at the end of each year adjusted for that year's CPI--in...

jerry lee wrote: But the most useful way to use this info isn't to vary your allocation from 80/20 to 40/60 (let's say) based on your future forecasts, it's to know: (a) regardless of expected returns, at your given allocation, you should expect X% decline at any point in time (say 25% for a 60/40) ...

Bobk wrote: Here's one by Jason Zweig. Veritat charges a $250 upfront planning fee, plus $40 a month (for a family, $25 for an individual). That includes three initial consultations plus quarterly and annual reviews, all conducted via online video chat. Link to Zweig's column in WSJ. http://online.w...

Bpdb wrote: I'll have to admit I'm not as impressed with Rick's answer as everyone else. If the service provider can't help the client with number one and can't stop them from number two, then what are they getting paid for? It sounds like the OP may have a grasp on their tax situation. OP, It soun...

linuxizer wrote

Yes, but NO mention of local "earned" income tax of which I am paying a flat 1% working in Horsham Twp.
Not chump change.

Definitely, not chump change. However, that is a small price to pay to work in beautiful Horsham, PA (Go Hatters!)....

linuxizer wrote: The breakeven point is about $80,000 for a married couple. Since in NJ, the rate is 3.5% for married couple $70K - $80K In PA, it is a flat 3.07% but the local municipalities have a local income tax which in Newtown Township appears to be 0.5%. Does this married couple own a house? ...

jerry_lee wrote I don't care what the advisor makes per hour. That question reveals a blatant misunderstanding of the role of an adviser in a persons financial situation. Without an advisor, the average investor runs a very real risk of running out of money, or seeing a serious erosion of their purc...

Jerry_Lee wrote: The advisor is charging 0.35%. That is peanuts. This is not an active management charge. This is a cost for an asset allocation, ongoing discipline, and coordinating tax/estate/legacy goals as one ages. Active management increases risks and costs (turnover/market impact) with no exp...

chaz wrote:

there was no bride on the river Kwai.

Father of the Bridge is another favorite....

Thanks for the catch.

joha31 They Live is a guilty pleasure of mine with a classic line: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick a**...and I'm all out of bubblegum ." I can't help but think of the subliminal messages that Rowdy Roddy "sees" whenever I encounter the "noise" in the differ...

alex frakt wrote: I admit that I do like their overall allocations. But not enough to recommend it given the ER (including 12b-1 fee) of 1.37% for the A shares. Institutional share class (PTNIX) runs at .77% (expense reimbursement of .58%). Checked my Vanguard Brokerage IRA account and PTNIX was ava...