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You need some sort of plan. What if the market does indeed go down 20% after you buy? Will you sell? If so, then you shouldn't buy stocks at all.

You will drive yourself crazy doing what you are doing.

I disagree with all of your advantages of funds. 1) Many people rebalance once or twice a year. You don't need any time at all. Make your plan on the wekend and execute it at 10am. Should take less than 5 minutes, 1-2 times a year. 2 and 3) Bid/ask spreads affect mutual funds too. How do you think t...

People are confusing two different issues here. 1) Downshifting to slow/stop a car is a terrible idea. That's what brakes are for. Brake pads are cheap and intended wear items unlike an engine. In fact, downshifting should be combined with a throttle blip in order to rev match. Doing this correctly ...

Wife says "none of the smart people I know invest in those things". 529s are very popular among wealthy people for tax avoidance. It's completely tax free growth on investments, so it's pretty much pure upside over taxable investing. Some states offer tax tax breaks which makes them even ...

6.8% on those students loans is really high. If you can't get that rate lower, I wouldn't even bother with stocks or bonds right now and just focus on paying that off. I would gladly replace all of my investments for a guaranteed 6.8% return. After that's done, I think 100% stocks is fine while the ...

Am I crazy to allocate 90% to equities even with a portfolio this large?

Yes.

The point is that if the Euro takes off against the dollar, I don't care anymore than if Bitcoin takes off against the dollar. This is because the only thing I can do with euros is exchange it for dollars or move to Europe. In fact, I really don't even want dollars, because all they are good for is...

Having 70-80% of your assets invested in dollars is not speculating if you intend to retire in the US, the same as having 70-80% of your assets invested in euros is not speculating if you intend to retire in Europe....Gordon Do as you want as it is your money, but that sentence makes NO sense no ma...

incorrect. In the original problem I had decided to buy both VTI and VWO but ended up buying a little less of VTI and a little extra of VWO. IT'S not one or the other...I can still buy both. I think you misunderstood. Buying a little less of VTI is a purchase decision to buy more of VWO. Its the sa...

I think the size of the portfolio matters a lot in these cases. If you are 33 with 50k in investments, 100% stocks is fine. Just remind yourself to pare it back as you move along.

If you're 33 with $1m in investments, I think 100% stocks is insane.

ETF = But RIGHT NOW I KNOW for a fact that it is down 5% compared to 60 days ago.... The goal is not to acquire more shares of stock, the goal is to acquire things that appreciate more in dollars in the future. If I'm assuming that the price of all my ETFs will be "set" at x,y and z (or w...

ETF = But RIGHT NOW I KNOW for a fact that it is down 5% compared to 60 days ago.... This doesn't matter at all. You don't care about the past. You want the best returns in the future (which is unknowable). At both points in time they were correctly priced, so you're not getting any kind of deal. T...

In watching new investors, I have noticed several stages of development. Stage 0: You buy after the market has gone up and sell after the market has gone down. Many people never graduate from here. Stage 1: People who graduated from the above and do exactly the opposite. They buy on dips and sell on...

I would make sure the vehicle has electronic stability control. http://www.iihs.org/ratings/esc/esc.aspx I have a car with electronic stability control and I don't think it works very well. I think it's an expensive and overrated feature. No way. ESC is easily one of the most important safety impro...

dark pools can only trade at prices displayed by the exchanges, so this really doesn't matter for individual investors who are not doing large size. If you need to buy 500,000 shares of VTI tomorrow, it becomes more of an issue.

My daughter has a baby due soon. How do I Bonds stack up against other educational savings options for her family? A 529 in a state which offers a tax break is much better, in my opinion. Also, in terms of i-bonds being a must, they are fantastic investments when compared to TIPS or a bank savings ...

A capitalist might say that this process is very healthy for society. It takes money from people who make poor investments and gives it too people who make good ones, thus helping society make better decisions overall in the long run. If everyone bought beanie babies and no one ever sold them, every...

Your 56k in bonds probably yield significantly less than you pay on your mortgage for negative monthly cash flow. So, you're using leverage to lose money every month. "every month" lose money? Is that every month over the 30 year life of the loan? lose money? compared to what? why only th...

It's 1.5% vs around .05% for vanguard, so $3,000 vs $100 per year.

Your 56k in bonds probably yield significantly less than you pay on your mortgage for negative monthly cash flow. So, you're using leverage to lose money every month.

So many people confuse great companies with great investments. I have long thought that this is because the prices used for trading stocks don't really mean anything by themselves and this violates our natural sense of things. Say you go to the store and are looking for cookies. You can choose the b...

Hi folks. I just found this site today. I am seriously considering the Transamerica 1.6 Retirement Income annuity. https://www.transamericaannuities.com/VariableAnnuities/Content.aspx?ID=Retirement-Income-Choice I'm almost afraid to ask for opinions as everyone is so negative on this topic, but I'm...

Greenblatt preaches a mantra that we at Stockopedia stand by, that you can beat these index funds by creating your own low cost systematic investment strategy and investing directly in the underlying shares. We are building the tools to do this and believe fundamentally that it’s a saner approach t...

This is ridiculous. The market is so incredibly efficient in this country that if we get anywhere close to "too many passive investors", a bunch of active people will swoop in very quickly to squash any missed opportunity. In fact, this is an ongoing continuous process. The reason active m...

1. 40%
2. Yes
3. 45%

Even worse than only having 30 stocks is that the Dow is price-weighted, which in my opinion, is not as good as market-weighted. Each has its flaws and biases. Why do you prefer the flaws and biases of a cap-weighted index to those of a price-weighted index? Because, for example, if a company like ...

I max it out each year and then pay all medical expenses out of cash flow. This gives me more tax free/deferred space. If you can afford this, it makes a lot of sense to do it this way.

Also, I believe the max for a family is 6450 this year.

People seem obsessed with these fees. Which is better? A fund that returns 8.5 percent with a fee of 1.25% vs. A fund that returns 7.5 percent with a fee of .75%. It seems people on this board would choose the latter. This is the argument active managers use. The only problem is the funds with the ...

Anyone else find it interesting that gold prices are very strong yet inflation expectations remain very low? Cosmo I don't own any gold, but I think the point is that its to protect against unexpected inflation. Similar in a way to TIPs. Why do people buy tips with inflation expectations so low? Go...

I checked with my gold. It does not remember whether I bought it with Dollars or Yen. Keith You have misunderstood. (Or were just being sarcastic) Let me try another way. I think of all trades as an entry and exit plan. So, you bought gold with dollars as the entry plan. My guess is that you're imp...

It says nothing about some sort of absolute performance of gold. How would you define this, since gold is denominated/traded in different currencies around the world. If the dollar tanks against the euro, does gold go up or down, or is it not related? Almost all commodities are traded in different ...

When you get into currency trades, you have to stop thinking goes up/down in some sort of absolute sense. In fact, when people say something goes up/down in the US, they really are just taking a shortcut to mean against dollars. With currencies everything becomes a spread. This means you are long on...

I was referring to the fact that cash gets credited/debited from your account each day. This surprises some people and the main reason that it happens this way is because the only thing you own is a contract between you and the cme. Profit And Loss - Cash Settlement The profits and losses of a futur...

- You never actually own anything, they are cash settled every day based on movements in the index. It's simply a contract. -don't) Well it is equivalent to holding 500 shares of SPY. They are not cash settled every day. They are marked to market every day and cash settled at quarterly expiration. ...

Maybe read about futures, in general since they are a futures contract which tracks the SP500. This is very similar to a futures contract which tracks gold, agricultural products, and oil. Some differences between owning spy: - You get better tax treatment for short term trading of futures - There i...

Definition of 'Overfitting' A modeling error which occurs when a function is too closely fit to a limited set of data points. Overfitting the model generally takes the form of making an overly complex model to explain idiosyncrasies in the data under study. In reality, the data being studied often ...

I have been self employed for years, but this year I have a normal w2 job. I haven't done a W4 form in 10 years. When I use Turbo Tax taxcaster, I get a total tax number that I think is close. However, the W4 worksheet comes out with me getting a big refund. The issue is that the W4 groups dividends...

Take it to 2 or three different stores. Get some ballpark ideas of what you have.

Research things a bit yourself on ebay if you want. Believe it or not, ebay is a very efficient market for coins.

I think this topic is a bit silly because I think people have different definitions of income and savings. Are the following income, savings, or both? 401k company match Pension accumulation unrealized capital gains realized capital gains reinvested dividends/interest IRA, HSA, 401k contributions co...

Larry, Thank you for your time answering. I respect your professional knowledge you share with us (ditto a lot or you folks :D ) 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 (releasing my capita...

These stats are silly. People roll over their balances. My 401k balance at fidelity is 18k. My net worth is seven figures.

Also, some companies have "poison pill" provisions. (Not sure if dell does or not) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_rights_plan A shareholder rights plan, colloquially known as a "poison pill", is a type of defensive tactic used by a corporation's board of directors again...

I came across this very detailed article which makes this seem contentious still. http://www.kitces.com/blog/archives/360-Splitting-After-Tax-401k-Distributions-For-Roth-Conversion.html As more and more baby boomers retire, an increasingly popular strategy is to split pre- and after-tax funds in a 4...

I decided to have a CPA do my taxes this year as I have an incredibly complex K1 from a partnership. (It has 11 pages of hand typed addendums.) This CPA does taxes for Corporations. He had never even heard of an after tax 401k contribution, let alone this strategy. Is it possible that CPAs are just ...

Alan, Thank you for your response. When I search Bogleheads and the internet for this, there seems to be all sorts of disagreement on your first paragraph. Is this because people are mistaken or is there some complexity that confuses people? Is the "update here wrong?" http://www.kiplinger...

Fantastic. Thank you.

Both my wife and I have Roth and Traditional Iras. I max my traditional 401k each year. My new employer also offers after-tax 401k contributions with in-service rollovers. My understanding is that the pro-rata rule would apply to after-tax 401k to roth rollovers and since I have a TIRA, this would b...

Thank you.

I max everything I can and am high net worth. My question was only specifically regarding where I can read in more detail about what I need to do for the next 20 years. Like, I wanted to read the IRS publication which would state that this is a valid strategy. (I must not be searching in the right p...

My employer is newly offering an HSA with high deductible plan and it's a great deal. The very informative Bogleheads Wiki talks about paying the expenses out of pocket to let the HSA grow each year. I want to do this. The idea is that I am going to keep 20+ years of receipts to draw later tax free,...