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I also see that Turkey, Brazil, and Russia comprise the top holdings of this fund. I have to tell you, I don't see much difference in risk between this fund and Vanguards's high yield corporate fund. OK, maybe a little better. But consider the risk/reward ratio. Isn't the high yield fund a better ri...

I would definitely NOT sell these bonds. You have the adjustment at 17 years (as noted above) and you have a variable rate with these EE bonds, so you're protected against surprise inflation as long as the 5yr T-bill rates keep up. I would raise cash by looking at other investments until each bond f...

Well, I have to say that this rate is less than inspiring. Still, I-bonds keep ahead of inflation. The EE's are looking good right now if held for 20 years, but I-bonds would win if inflation kicked up over that time. The I-bond fixed rate has been at zero percent for 2 1/2 years now and I don't see...

Why do you claim that you lose nothing if the options end up out of the money? The only way that could happen is if the bond interest fully compensates for the lost option premium. The strategy you describe is a viable strategy. The way I understand it, you buy LEAP options on the market and put the...

Thanks for the posts on retirement. But I am dismayed to see such pessimism in the media about the American retirement. Words like "train wreck" and "retirement gamble" only add to an environment where investors become pessimistic about the future. I guess I have confidence in my...

I've had one order execute after the close but before 4:15 pm. I am not an expert on trading, but this is possible to happen in after hours trading. I think the report time is accurate. The folks at VBS can fully explain it if you give them a call. Some very interesting things can happen in the minu...

Congratulations! And don't fret so much about exactly which funds to use. Given your choices, you'll do fine no matter what you choose. As far as your choices that you are considering, it depends on how much effort you want to put into rebalancing. The Target Retirement fund will rebalance on its ow...

Someone will have to enlighten me. Does the IRS give you a choice as to when to use your carryover? I thought you just filled out the worksheet. Seems to me that if you skip years and then claim the carryover loss later, that's a good reason for an audit. But in the meantime, I'm sure they would app...

I would not let taxes be your only criteria to hold onto the funds. If the Vanguard funds are lower cost, you save right there, and for 8 years, that could be significant. Also, if the Vanguard funds have portfolios that are more in line with what you want and your goals, then I'd make the switch an...

I'd be grateful for the gains. If you've already made the decision to sell, I'd just sell. Then get the cash to work on your new plan. If you have losses in other funds, you can also harvest some of those to offset the gains. If you do that, I'd place the money in a different fund that may be a bett...

I would just buy the I-bonds. They have a variable rate component that you will get no matter when you buy. The fixed rate has been zero for awhile now and nobody expects it to change soon in this low rate environment. If it does, it will be small. You can also redeem the bonds after a year if you w...

You can solve this problem of funding by 1) have the funds at Vanguard before purchasing the ETF, or 2) apply for a margin account at VBS.

I'm not aware of any broker who will take an order for less than 1 share of anything. However, subscription programs for automated investing, such as Sharebuilder, may allow for selling a specific amount of money each week or each month which could result in selling fractional shares. The problem wi...

This is what dollar cost averaging is for.

With that backdrop, I have been considering selling covered calls against some ETF's in my taxable account. If I end up selling, then I have the down payment in cash (the end state anyway). If not, I collect a nice premium and try again True, but you are forgetting that the equity ETF that is assoc...

As long as we're talking about Kindle, I have a question. I also have a Kindle and enjoy using it and find it very helpful. What happens to my content if my Kindle is lost or stolen? Can I re-download the material I already purchased from Amazon? I've been assuming that I could do that, but I don't ...

BBL, I suppose I was thinking once a Call was in the money, the holder would execute the option and purchase the stocks (from me) at the strike price No, this most likely will not happen until there is no time premium left. Once the call goes into the money, it will acquire an "intrinsic value...

I think the key is that you have to pre-schedule the purchase to occur on the last day. I am afraid there are some folks reading this thread who don't realize you can pre-schedule orders and that is where the confusion lies. This is good to know. It seems like as long as TD can plan ahead for the p...

Savings bonds bought at TD are issued the next business day after purchase. I-bonds purchased on Jan 31 will be issued on Feb 1 and have a February date.

You won't get any statement for the I-bonds until your redeem them. No taxes are owed on savings bonds until you redeem or they mature, normally after 30 years. If you own TIPS or other Treasury notes, then you will have a statement for those. The majority of people would hold those in Treasury Dire...

if you hold the fund long enough (specifically, for a period of time longer than the fund’s duration), a rise in rates works out to your advantage because your reinvested dividends will be buying higher-yielding bonds. Thank you so much, Taylor, for posting this article. Hopefully, this will quell ...

With TD, the bonds are not issued until the next business day after purchase, so if you placed an order on TD for savings bonds on January 31st, you will get a February issue bond. You need to place it on January 30 to get a January bond.

My own opinion is to buy now. If the rates go up in 5 months, you will still get that rate, only 5 months later. So it's not like you'd miss it. And simply waiting in cash has a lower yield than buying I-bonds today. There's always the chance that the fixed rate would go up, but that chance is slim ...

Thank you for the information. This is something new for me to learn.

OP never said anything about a trust. The K-1s in question are from a business of a type not specified, but which would be either a partnership or a S-corp. Good point. But my question remains. Is it possible to distribute losses to a K-1? I always thought the losses needed to be carried over in th...

I also suggest consulting a professional. I am not sure that losses can be distributed to a K-1 at all. The way I understand it, the K-1 distributes income and capital gains from the trust. Losses are kept within the trust, aren't they? That way, there's less to distribute. If the trust has a loss, ...

What I don't understand is this: let's say you followed a DCA strategy and reach the point where you've finally scaled in the the full amount you have to invest. Since you are now "all in," isn't that the same thing as if you were to invest the money as a lump sum at that point? The simpl...

I think it will get back to the 700 level. This stock has resilience and a lot of interest. But it's not for the faint hearted, as evidenced by its volatility in the past few months. A good way to hold apple is in a fund. In fact, if you own the S&P fund, you own a good chunk of apple anyway. If...

I'd go with the more diversified fund given the similarity in duration. I wonder if the Total Bond fund's diversity helps explain its better return in the year of the inflation spike.

First of all, you're watching the fund over a few days, which is too short a time frame to make meaning out of these fluctuations. A bond fund will fluctuate and that is different from a money market fund. The time frame to look at is a few years, not a few days. Your angst may mean that you've exce...

For instance, if the stock rallies to 600-700+ where it was not too long ago, there is nothing stopping one from taking a pretty decent profit. This is a strategy that has the best chance of winning for you. You need to look at option terminology for the greeks , or statistics on how an option pric...

IMHO, I would not give up the tax deferral of savings bonds. That's one of their prime appeals. Savings bonds earn interest for 30 years. You can wait for a good time to redeem them. If you were making a lot of money that puts you in a higher tax bracket, you would have no need to redeem them early....

At what price do you think this option is a really good deal? IMHO, I don't think this particular option is a good buy at any price. The problem for me is the strike price. It's not realistic for a one year time frame. Even a sharp move up on the stock will not have enough effect on this option bec...

Thus a gamble. But curious, how was the 99% chance calculated? The same way you calculate a chance of winning on buying AAPL at 1050. Pure gamble. Seriously, I've been following AAPL and a strike of 1050 seems pretty high for a one year time frame. My opinion is that the stock will test the 705 hig...

AAPL at a strike price of 1050? That means that AAPL would need to double in price this year for you to have any chance at all. Personally, I think Vegas is a better bet. BTW, anything with AAPL is not illiquid. APPL has a very active market. Illiquid means you can't trade it easily. Anything with A...

Wow, high drama on Capitol Hill tonight. One thing Congress is good at is unnecessary drama.

Well, I guess no need to worry........... for a few weeks anyway.

Enjoy the ride. All this fiscal uncertainty is another reason to ignore the noise. I sure can't predict the markets.

Well, looks like January 2 will be a dicey market. This is a good example of having a proper Asset Allocation to deal with uncertainty and volatility. Do you have enough tolerance to ride this one through? If not, check your Asset Allocation and adjust accordingly. The time to put on shocks is at th...

There's a big difference in the experience you'll have holding a long term bond ETF and I-bonds. While you may get more return from a LT bond ETF, the price you'll pay is volatility. The ETF price will fluctuate, and a LT fund will have much more fluctuation than a ST bond index, but also more incom...

The "Fiscal Cliff" is a term that the media uses that helps scare you. It's great marketing for ratings and creating news. Even if no agreement is reached by Jan 1, the tax hikes will be a political football that will be immediately addressed. For example, there will be a great public grou...

Savings bonds are no longer sold by banks. They are only available from the Treasury Direct website in electronic form and in paper only by the "backdoor" method on your income tax return. Wow, you are absolutely right. This year flew by! I have to keep up with the times! OK, so the last ...

At Treasury Direct, it takes 2 business days for the bonds to be assigned. Since 12/31 is a Monday, you need to place the order by Thursday 12/27. I believe that you can also walk into a bank that has an agent that sells savings bonds and be able to get the bonds dated December on the last day, 12/3...

Sounds like good reasoning. The money is there for a purpose.

I would first cash in the bonds issued after May 1995 that have reached original maturity. Then you can decide which bonds to cash in after that based on your need.

I have seen this question addressed but I can't remember the source right now. It is my understanding that The Total Stock Market index and the S&P500 index are not considered substantially similar. The Total index has a substantial number of small cap stocks that make it dissimilar enough as to...

Rob, I'm not sure what you're saying here: Years ago I did covered calls with PCL (Plum Creek Lumber). The stock paid almost a 5% dividend. I issued covered calls 3-6 months out. This went well for quite awhile. However, in 2008, it briefly shot up close to it's all time high. This wiped out most of...

Investopedia.com or optionsxpress.com are websites that you can start with. Also, be sure to check our own Bogleheads Wiki on this subject. There's whole sections of financial books related to this subject, but I've found a couple books very helpful. They're not cheap books, but it's better to spend...

To MPT, Well, of course we're on a Bogleheads board, so the basic answer is that the strategy does not beat the market overall and entails more risk generally. But I'll be a bit unorthodox here. A covered call strategy does not necessarily need to beat the market. What matters is does it meet your n...

I have held Wellesley in my IRA for years and I am very comfortable with it. However, I don't need current income from it. But if I were in your situation, I think holding Wellesley for income would be a great idea if you can tolerate fluctuations in price. If you can live only off the income genera...

Excellent post by nisiprius that echoes my sentiments exactly, so I'll repeat them here: Flat statement coming up. 1) The very riskiest bond funds could be as risky as some equity funds. 2) If the bond fund is a) investment-grade, and b) intermediate-term or shorter, then it is much less risky than ...

EE bonds offer a nice return when held for 20 years. It's nice to see EE's getting some attention, but it also is an indication of how difficult it is to find decent yields in today's interest rate environment. A lot can happen in 20 years, so it's nice to know you can simply get out if rates rise s...

I just read the Boglehead Wiki on lump sum vs DCA, and I have to commend the people who wrote it. Bravo! What an excellent summary of the techniques and how they each can be beneficial to certain types of investors. The article side-steps the emotional arguing of pro-con for each method and simply t...