Bogleheads.org

A couple of points. First, none of us knows what he believes. Moreover, whether dishonest or merely misinformed, it is wrong to give advice if you're not qualified to do so (bear in mind the quote from Will Rogers to the effect that it's not what we don't know that causes problems, it's what we kno...

You all have to understand something. WE ARE NOT NORMAL PEOPLE! We are people that care about and can understand the concepts and math of investing. WE ARE THE MINORITY! Dave is trying to find a one size fits all system for the masses because on a radio show, you can't get into all the specifics to...

Having an impression of Dave’s character, I give him the benefit of the doubt that he has noble intentions. And if he profits from helpful service, that is capitalism at its best. I could not disagree more. People with "noble intentions" don't direct investors toward investments with fee ...

Dave Ramsey Defends His Investment Advice First, I’m a big fan of Dave Ramsey. He has helped turn me away from financial ignorance and misbehavior. Not only is his overall message sound (live below your means, avoid debt, save & invest, etc.), I believe that he is honest and that his intentions ...

We've come to a verbal agreement at 180 (with 2k closing costs). More and more I've been thinking that there probably is a second bidder, but that ours was preferable because the other had contingencies (maybe pending sale of home or something else). I'll always wonder what the exact circumstances w...

Thanks for the help everyone. It's been very helpful for processing all of this. I'll give an update tomorrow.

I suggest that you buy a good book on negotiation and read it. I guarantee you it will be one of the best investments you can make. I don't want to claim that I am the greatest negotiator. But in this case I don't think we made a mistake, given the information we were told about the circumstances. ...

I know it sucks now that your hand was already played, but if you buy this house for 179K or 181K, will you really be dwelling on this in 5 years? Like Joppy mentioned before, how are other comps in the area priced compared to this house? Maybe, if you haven't already done so, go check out the othe...

I am surprised your realtor did not explain the process to you when asking for your best and final offer, although given his or her incentive to get a deal done, maybe I shouldn't be. Watch Pawn Stars enough and the words "final offer" lose their meaning pretty quickly. But this was a mul...

I suggest that you buy a good book on negotiation and read it. I guarantee you it will be one of the best investments you can make. If you are like me, you should go into negotiations with a team mate (a realtor, in this case) who is better than you at the game. - Porcupine I don't want to claim th...

I'm the OP. I've assumed up to this point that the bank was insinuating the other bidder was higher than me (whether a lie or not).

But now I'm leaning toward the possibility that I was in fact the high bidder, now being lured into a higher price.

JW Nearly Retired wrote:Is this the first one you made an offer on in your house search? Your responses to the bank make it seem like it is.

Why is that?

Here's the thing, you already showed the seller (bank) your cards when you offered $177K. You can not restart the clock and renegotiate from your initial offer of $153K, you made a I think he already knows and regrets that fact. Well, we bid the right number under the circumstances as they were tol...

OP, another question I'd have is how long the house has been on the market. If it's been on the market for months, it's suspicious that there would suddenly be two viable offers on the table. So chances are the bank is bluffing about the other offer, or it's not a credible or viable offer. Is the h...

Or is the intention of "else" in "anyone else" meant to convey the idea that you want to hear of even more similar experiences, so else is relative to the previous responders as opposed to just relative to yourself? I'm interested in any and all opinions, but I re-asked for simi...

One side of the scale: You get the house you really want, pay $4,000 more than you thought you was agreed on, and live with the thought that Bank of America might well have lied to you Agreed. We don't want to lose the house for $4,000. It's just that we have a bad taste in our mouth about the whol...

It's only 4k... if you really want the house, I say just accept. You could probably meet int he middle at 179 and they'd say yes... banks don't want to own houses.... Agreed, except that it smells fishy to us. If it is fishy, we don't like the idea of paying close to asking price when we could have...

We could really use your advice, because we'd really like to purchase this home. We need to decide what to do today . My wife and I made an offer on a bank-owned foreclosure listed at 183k. We started at 153k. Within 24 hours we were told that there was a multiple offer situation and we needed to ge...

I find the defense of Ramsey mystifying. His audience is not sophisticated enough to handle a credit card, but is sophisticated enough to handle the load fund schills to which Ramsey steers them? He is a snake oil salesman. No, literally, actual snake oil in a bottle with all the ludicrously false ...

It's all perception and prospects for more opportunity. I honestly, believe Apple is undervalued right now with their P/E ratio and AMZN is way overpriced. You'd think Apple would have a higher P/E too, maybe because their nearly $100 billion cash would be an asset valued into the companies market ...

This may be a simple question, but why do companies have (sometimes widely) different P/E ratios?

For example, why is Apple valued at 14 P/E and Amazon at 134 P/E? What other factors make investors believe that Google is worth that much more in relation to earnings?

Ah, I had no idea. So, Vanguard Mega Cap + Vanguard Mid Cap = Vanguard Large Cap. Vanguard Large Cap + Vanguard Small Cap + (MSCI US Micro Cap Index) = Vanguard Total Stock Market. Exactly. This is important to know, especially because by owning a combination of these two funds (Vanguard large cap ...

Yes, the Vanguard Large Cap (VV), which follows the MSCI Prime Market 750 Index, holds the largest 750 stocks. http://www.msci.com/products/indices/country_and_regional/domestic_equity_indices/us/definitions.html N.B. Vanguard's Small Cap (VB) holds the next 1750 stocks. So, together VV and VB appro...

I'm a bit perplexed by both of your responses, since you (1) basically explained the relationship between interest rates and bonds, which I already knew and stated as much in the original post, and (2) questioned my motives with market timing, even though I stated it was only a theoretical question....

I think this is a simple question on the effect of interest rates and bund funds. I am new to this and would like some help. As I understand it, when the federal interest rate goes up, bond fund prices go down (more so with funds of longer duration). Obviously current interest rates are virtually at...

Based on a longer period of history, it seems that SV beats SG. Indeed, SG apparently has been the worst performing equity class. Just wondering if anyone has thoughts on the performance over the last 5 year or so, when SG beat SV by a long shot. (In the graph below, VBR is Small Value and VBK is Sm...

I'm surprised that the Bogleheads haven't come down harder on your plan. You're basically attempting a do-it-yourself mutual fund. The bottom line is that 75% of mutual funds run by professional managers do not beat the market in a given year. The percentage that can beat the market over a longer pe...

If you're implying that the market produced a total return of 0% over the past 10 years, you're mistaken. Stories about "the lost decade" are written by misinformed folks. In reality, Vanguard's web site shows that $10,000 invested in Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index 10 years ago is no...

Not that the original poster is saying this, but it seems like sometimes these increases are cited with the implication that the stock market is doing well. Yet, monthly increases of 15% or yearly increases of 40% are hardly comforting when preceded by a drop of 15% or 40%. Up, down, up, down. When ...

Your second question does not make sense. To know why that is you would have to understand basic market mechanics. A simple answer is that 90% of the money in the market is institutional. Do you think they are all avoiding losses by somehow selling before prices fall? Perhaps I am misunderstanding ...

I guess what I had in mind was:

Does anyone (hedge funds, institutions, etc) sell early enough to sell high (and therefore escape the loss), or by selling are they virtually guaranteeing their loss?

Just a question I've been pondering lately, one of many concerning how the market works: When the stock market falls quickly based on news during the trading day (e.g., a Fed announcement), it is well known that if the average investor were to sell, s/he would sell at the fallen price and basically ...

Me too. On the same day, I think, my Vanguard ETF prices on Google Finance Portfolio were incorrect. Now, they're displaying correctly, but most have an asterisk denoting a 20 minute delay, which they never had before. (Oddly VXUS is the only one without the asterisk.) Anyone know if they will be go...

Does anyone else split TSM with Vanguard Large Cap (VLACX) and Small Cap (NAESX) -- or other funds based on the same MSCI indices?

Would there be any reason not to do this that I am missing? (I'm just being cautious before I make this big of a decision for asset allocation.)

Thanks livesoft. I've just learned that Vanguard Large Cap 750 (VLACX) and Vanguard Small Cap 1750 (NAESX) together cover 98% of TSM; everything but micro cap. Plus there's no overlap. So equal parts of these two funds might be a solution to what I'm looking for. (Vanguard Large Cap is the MSCI Prim...

Thanks Noobvestor. I'll consider this.

Does anyone else split S&P 500 and Extended Market equally to cover the entire stock market, or know of anything else I should consider?

I think I would change my preference of no overlap in my funds to embrace simple overlaps in my fund. I am not sure why you insist on no overlap. Thanks for your honest feedback. I prefer no overlap (1) for simplicity, since it gives me round numbers rather than 21.5% to Large and 6% to Mid-cap, (2...

(Slightly adjusted subject title) Hi All, I’m trying to solidify my asset allocation with something simple that I can stick with for the long haul. I want to tilt toward small and/or mid cap. It seems common for people to add small cap to TSM to achieve this. However, I would prefer not to have any ...

The problem is that you're trying to guess what's going to happen in the near term, when you're investing for the long term. . . . The best bet is to develop a portfolio consistent with your risk tolerance and goals, then implement it and stay with it . Don't try to adjust things by what you (an un...

I'm just getting started with investing, and would like some feedback on my asset allocation. I am 28 and currently have all invested money in a single Vanguard Roth IRA account. Stocks/Bonds: 85/15 30% Total Stock Market (VTI) 25% Total International (VXUS) 10% Small-Cap (VB) 10% Individual Shares ...

So you want the NAV of an international fund to be calculated using the last closing prices on overseas exchanges that may be half a day old? Perhaps a better way: no international ETFs. Instead, only international mutual funds that track the underlying stocks at their closing price (in the foreign...

Nope Vanguard never brings it back to the NAV; Supply and demand of the market roughly brings it back to NAV. Moreover, even the NAV of the mutual fund isn't set by the underlying values of the stocks , but guessed by the manager of of the fund. It appears that Vanguard owns the actual foreign stoc...

So Vanguard basically brings it back to NAV at the end of every day by manipulating the number of shares? Letting the ETF price move based on supply and demand (not the supply and demand of the underlying stocks) seems unusual, but perhaps necessary given the nature of international ETFs. I would ra...

I'm having trouble understanding how an international ETF (for example, VXUS) trades in a U.S. stock exchange. How are its intra-day values calculated, especially in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time when foreign markets are closed? Foreign stock prices are not changing (the ETFs NAV), yet VXUS mo...