Bogleheads.org

Doc wrote:More seriously, dropping the e/r from 1.0 to 0.2 is very significant to the bottom line. Dropping the e/r from 0.2 to 0.1 is cutting out the flesh. Most of the fat is long gone.

I agree.

What is the yield on these funds? What % of total bond, tot int and em bond funds would represent world capitilization? Now have 100% total bond but am thinking of adding at least int bond. Seems like EM bond is more like adding equities but with lower return. SEC yield is not defined for these fun...

In case you're trying to get an insight into the holdings of the funds, and can't find anything on Vanguard's website, Fidelity has detailed information on BNDX and VWOB. BNDX (Total International Bond) Portfolio Composition: https://screener.fidelity.com/ftgw/etf/goto/snapshot/portfolioComposition....

Also, :!: :!: :!: These rules are... interesting , and sound to me like a quaint holdover. "The 1960s called... they want their fixed commissions back." All buy orders must be a minimum of 100 shares... A 1% broker's fee is charged for all transactions. For example, if you buy 100 shares ...

This is why I don't buy Vanguard funds with purchase fees. I don't quite get this argument, since how is a purchase fee different than paying more ER now than a person who, a couple years down the road, pays less ER? (except, of course, for the fact if you jump in/out). Because the "theory&quo...

trasmuss wrote:This is why I don't buy Vanguard funds with purchase fees.

I don't quite get this argument, since how is a purchase fee different than paying more ER now than a person who, a couple years down the road, pays less ER? (except, of course, for the fact if you jump in/out).

coffeehubcap wrote:So, what happens to the people who got in early and paid the fee?

Simply put, the benefit they got was that they were able to get in early (covering their own costs). It's simlar to any fund that decreases its expense ratio.

It will not hold a country below BBB- rating, AFAIK. Ie sub investment grade. Greece is still sub investment grade AFAIK. Note the index is 'capped' -- otherwise Japan would be something like 30% of all bonds-- instead it is around 20%. So countries are not in proportion to their bonds issued, full...

jdb wrote:

leod wrote:does this include Greece bonds or from countries that have talks of defaulting?

Hopefully not much, if any.

I hope the bond fund contains bonds from such countries in exactly the same proportions that the market (and hence all other investors, in aggregate) value them.

nedsaid wrote:So if you own these, don't overdo it because of the currency risk.

Vanguard's international bond fund is hedged. No currency risk.

How did they come up with the 20% recommendation? In the article, it looks like their international percentage recommendations come from reflecting what other US mutual funds and ETFs have. For example, they show how in equities, 27% of mutual fund and ETF assets are in international. Similarly, 13...

InvestorNewb wrote:By investing in only the S&P 500 index you will automatically beat 75% of mutual funds. The returns of VOO vs. VTI are virtually identical.

VOO has only been around for a few years. Check VTSAX vs the S&P 500 for longer timeperiods.
Morningstar

dextermorgan wrote:Therefore, the question does seem to be why not just invest in the S&P and be done.

There is a presumption the S&P is "simpler" than the entire market, which I can get via VTI (for just the US) or VT (for the whole world).

In the end, you do own the underlying international shares. But remember when you're buying an ETF -- whether international or not, you are buying from other stock market participants and the final price is a negotiation between you two. What it is really worth is immaterial. What MossySF is statin...

A lot likely has to do with the value of ADRs (American Depository Receipt) that trade on US stock exchanges. For example, BP trades as an ADR on the NYSE. If a market participant can track a good percentage of these ADR's, along with currency fluctuations, they can derive an approximate value for t...

More good news. I personally mostly use IJS for small cap value but now Vanguard's VBR has cut its fees in half! IJS is about 3 times more expensive. Very compelling. Most likely there is no actual change in fees, simply a change in reported expense ratios. What you're seeing is the elimination of ...

The nice and cheerful rep explained that partial orders sitting open and the end of the day are looked at by VBS for their customers. Apparently they call down to the desk and, if possible, get the order cleaned up at the limit price (which happened in this case) to make things all neat and tidy. I...

Retail customer orders such as yours are almost always DAY orders, which expire at 16:00. If your order was executed after the closing print, you should call Vanguard and ask them to explain the situation. Most likely there was an error.

nisiprius wrote:(Decided not to defend myself here--would just lead to further argufying).

I thought nisi was making up a (useful) word here, but Merriam-Webster has it! "Argufy" is a great word to have on-hand in forums.

If the Institutional Total Stock Market converted, wouldn't that imply the rest of TSM converted too, as it is only a share class of the same fund? That's my assumption. The link I provided was from the institutional side, but I assume it applies to all share classes. From what I can tell, I think ...

I grow more convinced with each thread I read that a lot of people here do not understand why their bonds have been a good investment in the past for reasons that cannot apply to the future. I think people understand their bonds have been a good investment if they achieved their target: being the s...

Look at where your fund's interest rates were 4 years ago: they had a lot more room to drop. Unless you think we will be paying bond issuers to take our money there is no way they can drop the future the way they did until now. Not mathematically possible. I understand, but I'm not looking for inte...

As long as people are trying to guess how many percentage points interest rates will rise, they should really be including a timeframe it occurs over. Just as Nsi was stating regarding the magnitude of "overvaluation" is important, how it plays out is extremely important, since, remember, ...

what's the difference between the fund bogle is advocating in this article and vanguard's vcit etf? https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3146&FundIntExt=INT While it may be a good proxy, you might run into differences with regards to duration and other factors. The duration of...

That is, it bases the SEC yield on the real yield to maturity. In my opinion, this is the best way. I agree it's probably the best way for a TIPS-only fund, but for a fund that has both nominal and TIPS, that approach would throw the numbers off incredibly. Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of ...

mrsscuba wrote:

Also, and this is a key point, once I'm done accumulating assets and buying stocks I'll no longer be paying any management fees at all! This is a discussion point about fees that I see rarely/never brought up.

That's because 0.06% is really, really small in the grand scheme of things. :)

Here are the reported SEC yields for a few inflation protect funds: FSIQX -0.15% (Fidelity Spartan Inflation-protected index fund) VIPSX -1.17% (Vanguard Inflation-protected) TIP 3.96% (but an average real YTM of -0.95%, and take into account a 0.20% ER) (iShares TIPS ETF) All of these funds have si...

I have a large position in the Mairs and Power Growth Fund. I think one of the major reasons why it has managed to beat the S&P500 over the 10 and 20 year timeframes despite the ER of 0.72 is the extremely low turnover rate of 1.58%. It's average market cap holding is $15b, compared to $55b for...

Just skimming it to start, I'm glad to see the increased use of target-date funds, since many if not individuals have little interest in learning the details of how to allocate stocks vs bonds. I'll definitely be absorbing this article, as I firmly believe target-date funds will be a big help in hel...

Let's be clear on what dark pools are. They aren't pools of dark magic. They are simply means of trading without the fees of an exchange as a middleman. It's similar to the difference between peer-to-peer transactions and centralized transactions. And sometimes the pools don't even take on positions...

The government, any government, is a price taker in terms of the interest rates it pays on bonds. Capital markets for sovereign bonds are global and the marginal buyer or seller (who thus sets interest rates) is a global investor (exceptions: the domestic bond markets in Japan and Italy are huge an...

Taxes in various inflation scenarios seem to be missing from the discussion, especially since it was the primary focus of your original post.

By regulation, trades in dark pools must be traded at prices between the national bid and ask on public exchanges. They cannot drift away from exchange prices. Would you know specifically what regulation cover this? RegNMS : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_NMS Order Protection (or Trade Th...

SFILX and SFNNX are the best international value options today, IMO, if you want to go after lower-priced (i.e., value) equities abroad. I'll point out that EFV is available for developed international value, ER of 0.40%. It has less turnover than SFNNX. You're right about small developed value, th...

So dark pools could also offer efficiencies in lessening market impact costs by allowing parties to exchange huge chunks of stock off market, and perhaps even dampen market volatility? Yes, those are some of the positive effects of off-exchange trading. Like most things, dark pools have positive an...

By regulation, trades in dark pools must be traded at prices between the national bid and ask on public exchanges. They cannot drift away from exchange prices.

I think it's useful to quantify real losses of IBonds (with today's 0% rates) if you are considering buying more. Then you can compare it to whatever other options you have and decide accordingly. In order to make your point effectively, I recommend expanding on what "other options" means...

Edit: Of course, if your point was to note that people are scared of negative numbers, no matter what they mean, I fully agree with you. I don't allow anyone to put words in my mouth with conjecture and insinuation. I'm not trying to insinuate anything demeaning. I was simply guessing that you may ...

Second, you have ZERO basis to speculate what my "point" is. ⋅ A negative number (as quoted) means that effectively you are paying 2.96% for projected inflation. ⋅ IF one wishes exactness in comparison to match 8.6 duration in VAIPX, use 70/30 VFIUX/VUSUX and go with t...

On your first comment, there are reasons to think TIPS wouldn't be the ideal vehicle on the bond side if the overall goal is producing a given level of real portfolio returns with lowest risk: (1) you would expect TIPS to hurt real returns of overall portfolio because of the "cost" of ins...

Presumably, the goal of the portfolio is real returns of some magnitude commensurate with the level of risk. Put another, way, the portfolio has a real total return objective. Having one component that is wrapped inside the portfolio that will earn +/- the rate of inflation doesn't seem to address ...

Because: Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury Fund Admiral Shares (VFIUX), for instance, has a SEC yield of 0.89% while Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund Admiral Shares (VAIPX) yield -1.08% . It's necessary for me to point out that the VAIPX yield is excluding the inflation adjustment... ...

I'm a little surprised Fidelity is doing this. They make money when you trade. Market makers often end up even paying places like Fidelity for sending them order flow. A simple example can be shown with the rebates ECNs apply: with a person buying 1000 shares of something, posting a non-marketable l...

Thank you for the information, David. I understand the reasons you posted for possibly wanting to front-load your I-bonds. The main reason I was interested in doing it is that I have extra money this year, and would prefer to hold more I-Bonds in taxable and reduce TIPS in sheltered (in exchange for...

Help me in determining if there might be a flaw/possible workaround of the I-Bond purchase limit: ⋅ The annual purchase limit for I-Bonds is $10,000. ⋅ Purchasing a savings bond as a gift does not apply towards your annual limit. ⋅ Gifted savings bonds apply toward the ...

Unfortunately the RAFI indexes provide one of limited fairly-passive value-oriented strategies in the international space, especially emerging markets. I use RAFI International small cap and RAFI Emerging (via Schwab funds) to gain this exposure.

What are the odds that a) Vanguard's servers will get hacked, B) Vanguard doesn't realize it in time to reset accounts, and C) Vanguard doesn't make its investors whole? It seems like a hypothetical risk at this point. I can't speak to Vanguard's security, but it won't be "Vanguard" makin...

tadamsmar wrote:I guess "individual security" would include ETFs?

Yes

(trying to understand)....So FFNOX would be safe but an individual stock, which can be instantly traded, would not....whether or not FFNOX was in a brokerage account? I am not worried much about the cash (MA Tax-free Money Market actually)....I don't keep much cash in the account. Yes. For the sort...

One question I have. What if the hacker (who has my login credentials) tries to set up a brokerage account (that is create a brokerage account for me using my login) to sell stocks and then transfer or use money from a mutual fund account to do this? I have a taxable mutual fund account with a good...