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I will never understand why folks use valuations. Vanguard itself did a paper that looked at a whole bunch of valuations as a forward predictor and the best of the lot was the heralded PE10 which gave a correlation of 0.41. That means using PE10 would have only predicted the direction of the market...

I already maxed both the I bond ($10K + $5K tax return) and the EE ($10k) in April. I think they are two of the "least worst" fixed income options now, as long as you have a 20 year time horizon. Even if inflation starts to pick up in a few years, it is surprising how much return spread yo...

So I went ahead and bought my $10k of EE bonds for the year, since there is no reason to expect the May rates will be anything significantly better and could well be worse. 3.5% semi-tax advantaged seems like one of the "least worst" bond options today, after maxing my Ibonds.

I wrestled with this too and ultimately decided to split my 401k contribution - 30% to Roth 401k - just for some additional tax diversification. The Roth 401k assets are in Total Stock Market.

Thanks, interesting comments. I sort of assumed the 20 year doubling was somehow "sacred" but I guess that is naive.

Since I would be purchasing to achieve the 20 yr, 3.5% return, maybe I should go ahead and lock in now.

For your first $10k, I think Ibonds are a one of the "least worst" bond options today. I put $10k in Ibonds this year, then going to put my next $10k in EE bonds.

When does the Treasury typically announce the new bond rates? With the current 0.20% on EE Bond through April 30, I assume it can't hurt to wait to see the new rates before investing my $10k. Is there anything that correlates to the EE rates? I am aware the fixed rate becomes meaningless if you hold...

Can't see that it makes any sense in a Roth account. You are paying a premium tax free status but not taking advantage of it. If you have filled up your tax-advantaged accounts with tax-inefficient assets (taxable bonds, REITs, commodities, etc), and you still need bonds to meet your desired stock/b...

I am 0% TIPS, but been buying I-bonds at the annual limit the past three years. So they are about 26% of my bonds. For your first $10k (+$5k with tax return) per year, it seems I-bonds at 1.67% yield are the clearly better choice now than negative yield on TIPS for new money. Or am I missing somethi...

Thanks to both. I was just looking for a little affirmation of my choice of this stable value fund, as they don't seem to be talked about very much. With a current net yield at 3.5%, it seems to be a good place for safe money.

Thanks to Boglehead advise that I have been building a fixed income portfolio. I (36 yrs old) have a 30% non-stock allocation for my portfolio, but having trouble finding worthwhile assets in this environment. So my non-stock assets are: 26% I-bonds (already did the 10K + 5K tax refund this year) 14...

I agree. Move your money to a new custodian if you don't like the fees. My employer has Fidelity as custodian so I can access all their funds commission free.... Looks like Vanguard is another option too.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatwe ... lthsavings

I have a new HSA, but was just planning to use it sort of as another IRA. Put my max in each year and pay my current expenses out of pocket. I did not appreciate sort of retroactive reimbursement you proposed, till I just answered my own question by reading the wiki http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/HS...

If you have a Total International fund like VTIAX, you already have some exposure to international REITs at about 3% of that fund. Without belaboring the semantics, the point I have been trying to make is that REIT holdings are already part of the holdings of many funds including Total Market funds ...

1) correlation should not define an asset class 2) Why compare a US REIT index to 23 country developed market index? I could pull out several baskets of US stocks that have low correlation to this index, but that does not mean they are a unique asset class. REIT is not unique from the total equity m...

Remember most real estate investment is not traded on the stock market. Therefore the amount of REITs you see in TSM is much less than the true weight in TM (Total Market). That is the essence of the argument to overweight the REIT sector. Since total equity capitalization of REITs is only fraction...

Thanks for the Swedroe article. Sure, REIT can be a good sector for tactical asset allocation, as could utility stocks, or consumer discretionary. It just does not seem they should be regarded as a separate asset class. I thought I was purchasing something different in VNQ that was not covered by th...

I went through a similar evaluation for myself recently http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108423 I found this site to be very helpful with the case for an against a calculating your needed tax spread for either case to bring benefit http://thefinancebuff.com/case-against-roth-4...

I wanted to kick this old thread back up because I learned a valuable lesson today. I had been under the mistaken impression that holding a REIT index (VNQ) gave me exposure to an asset class that was not captured by the Total market index. However, as I have read several threads here and the wiki a...

The Extended Market fund is the completion fund for the SP 500 to give you mid and small caps and exposure to the total US equity market. http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Extended_Market_Index_Fund 80% SP 500 + 20% Extended Market = US Total Market This is what I have in my 401k since I don't have a t...

The question of roth versus traditional comes down to one thing, and that has to do with what do you believe about the future. If you think you will be in a higher tax bracket later, roth the 401k, otherwise go the traditional route. No, it is more complicated than that. As I noted above, there is ...

I will max out my primary investment choices: 401k, rIRA (backdoor), I-bonds ($10k + $5k tax return) this year, and expect to have another $10k to invest in the bond side of my portfolio. I have 18% of my bonds in Emerging (FNMIX) for a little yield chasing, but don't want to push that any higher. I...

This discussion has got me to really look at my decision about r401k vs t401k. I realize my original idea for maxing r401k contribution that "saving more is good" is not a complete picture. I found this article particularly helpful for my situation, where I am maxing 401k and backdoor roth...

I am putting my 401k contributions into Roth since it was offered by my employer last year. I max out my 401k and Roth (backdoor) contributions each year, so for me, I am saving more by contributing to the Roth. Similar to the OP, I hope to retire early and can use either rIRA or r401k principle con...

Thanks all. Confirms what I was thinking too, that the best adjustment factor would be your estimated average tax rate on your withdrawals. This might be substantially lower then your marginal rate, depending on other income sources and tax deferment strategies (roth conversions, etc). So have troub...

Thanks to a lot of learning here and from the Larry Swedroe books, I made some great improvements during 2012 to my investment strategy, but I somehow missed the concept of tax adjusted assets to look at my asset allocation. I built a nice little spreadsheet I have been using for the year to set and...

I plan to put $10k for 2013 into I Bonds instead of Munis. When interest rates and inflation rise, the interest yield component on the I Bonds will increase, while the munis can lose principle value. I bonds should return 1.7% or better while munis might return 1.5% or less. I bonds seem to be more ...

I own VTIAX in my Taxable for the purpose of capturing the Foreign Tax Credit as mentioned above.

I have taken tried to diversify my fixed income holdings while minimizing interest rate risk. About 25% of my fixed income is in FNMIX to get global exposure and chase some yield, with some understood risk (held in my 401k). Another 25% is in I-bonds, which I think are an unsung option for "ris...

Long time lurker... first time poster. My decision to hold VNQI was was driven by my goal to hold globally diversified positions in each asset class (stock, bond, real estate). My allocation target is 10% total REIT, with 40% of that as international; both REIT positions held in my Roth IRA. Portfol...