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1. What amount are you looking to invest? 2. Are you willing to jump through some hoops? If 1 is less than 15-20k and the answer on 2 is Yes then you can probably get 3.5%-4.5%. Otherwise, no matter what you'd select, you'd end up with less or close to 1%. 4.5%??? How high are the hoops? Yes, it's ...

gerrym51 wrote:whats the timeline for your question. you use different options that require being held to different terms?

There is no specific timeline associated with this. It would be part of the general retirement savings portfolio.

What is currently the best fixed income investment vehicle in a taxable account? The money would be invested for the long-term and the marginal tax bracket should 28% - 33% in the near term but quite uncertain in the long term. I looked up the rates of a few selected instruments that came to mind: I...

Did you realize a taxable gain when selling the stocks?

1. Are international stocks mostly paying its dividends annually? I vote for choice 1. Did you ever wonder why Vanguard's international funds used to pay only once a year? Answer: so as to avoid questions about why the quarterly dividends were so unequal. This doesn't seem to be the full story as t...

The Vanguard Total International ( VTIAX ) Q1/2013 dividend equals 9% of the 2012 dividend. The Vanguard Total Sock Market ( VTSAX ) Q1/2013 dividend equals 23% of the 2012 dividend. 1. Are international stocks mostly paying its dividends annually? 2. Have dividends massively dropped for internation...

stan1 wrote:

ddunca1944 wrote:Seriously, with a combined income of $600K/yr you'd divorce for $19K?

Well, it is $19K per year so over 30 years it would be $570K (plus any interest/appreciation from investing).

It's like with expense ratios, you have to look at absolute amounts.

$19k is a lot of money.

Reading this thread I was reminded of a time I was selling my '86 Honda Accord - before Craigslist era. A couple called to see the car and showed up at my home in the early evening (first mistake) and then wanted to test drive it (second mistake). They looked tame enough, so they climbed into the f...

Yes. I sold the car for $10.5k through craigslist, which was the KBB private party value. Carmax had offered me $7.5k.

I did dog rescue for about 5 years, and the financial aspects of it crashed my credit. My husband and I had also co-signed our sons' student loans, and they were late with some payments, which hurt his credit rating. So we just got turned down for a car loan at a decent credit rate. They wanted us ...

Yes and yes.

How much was it?

dickenjb wrote:The corollary piece of big news is it is going into the TR and LS funds. Replacing 20% of TBM it seems.

You call it corollary; I call it collateral damage. Once again Vanguard is proving the TR and LS funds are active funds.

jsl11 wrote:My preference would be to select something that does not have a fixed schedule, so you can particpate as much or as little as you want, whenever you want.

Excellent advice.

At the beginning of 2012, I told HR that I wanted to max out my contributions to my 403B account. They did the calculation and reduced my monthly salary accordingly. These contributions are broken down into mandatory and voluntary. For the entire year, I contributed a total of $23,800.68 (from my W...

kaneohe & grabiner, thanks! Based on this, I am not eligible. Now what I do have to do? I find the IRS wording a bit confusing...........I think it should have said: You must adjust if your income exceeds either of those limits. n.e. : just to clarify, when you said you are not eligible, did yo...

kaneohe & grabiner, thanks! Based on this, I am not eligible. Now what I do have to do?

What is the purpose of the other numbers? If your income is high enough, or you have more than $20,000 in foreign source qualified dividends, then you need these items to compute your foreign tax credit. The gory details are in the instructions for Form 1116. Thanks! At what income level does this ...

In past years, I've gotten an extra tax form from VG titled: "Foreign Tax Paid Reporting Information". It's not a 1099, but it has boxes for Foreign Income, QDI Eligible Foreign Income, and Foreign Income after QDI adjustment. I assume I'll get a 2012 edition of this form, but haven't yet...

I hold a stable value fund in an old 401k and I have yet to figure out what its expense ratio and/or risk is. All the mutual funds in that 401k are very high ERs and there is not a singles index fund available. I hence conclude that this holding must come with the highest expense - despite it yieldi...

Which isn't to say the nexus isn't a good device - just not good for typing, though the autocomplete works quite well. My husband envies my mini a little, but he uses the device for different purposes and he's content with his nexus and its superior screen. Interesting. At least on Nexus devices yo...

I'm posting this from my (iPad) mini, but would not want to do that from the nexus7. Why not? The virtual keyboard is dreadful - shallow keys with very little finger travel between rows. And the home button is located right where your thumb is most likely to graze it while trying to type - I could ...

Wife's car loan. The interest rate difference is too big.

Will it kill you if you go the Ramsey way? No, you will just lose a few hundred dollars (I guess - I haven't run the numbers.)

epilnk wrote:I'm posting this from my (iPad) mini, but would not want to do that from the nexus7.

Why not?

Vanguard mutual funds are best held at Vanguard.

Taxes vary from canton to canton. So make sure you do your homework. If you currently have a US citizenship, you will have to renounce it for the tax benefit. There may be an exit tax. Moving from the US to Switzerland is not as financially attractive as moving from a central or Northern European co...

Apple iPad = Google Nexus 10
Apple iPad mini = Google Nexus 7
Apple iPhone 5 = Google Nexus 4

^ Please tell them they need to add an "Exchange shares" option to the Mutual fund buy/sell dialog, so that one doesn't have to call them up to go from shares in fund A to shares in fund B in the same transaction. Last time I checked, even over the phone that wasn't possible. "Differ...

Resurrecting this thread since I would like to identify specific lots to sell for a mutual fund that I own at WF. Since this can no longer be done online, I'm wondering if has anyone successfully accomplished this recently using some other approach. Submitting the sell order and then sending them a...

Nominal total returns are irrelevant. You can only buy stuff with REAL dollars.

Yield chasing is usually more worthwhile in high rate environments. But the banks that offer bad rates now will likely offer bad rates in the future.

Imagine two funds, both replicating the S&P500, but with different expense ratios. Can you find such two funds? Can you predict which one outperformed in the past without looking at the return?

You could roll some of the funds over to an IRA with another institution that offer better CDs. Ally comes to mind. I suspect that the Fidelity CD offering are not that great. I believe Fidelity doesn't charge a partial transfer-out fee.

ING does typically beat HSBC, and I don't think that will change with the takeover by CapitalOne. ING hasn't been a rate leader for a long time, but, particularly in this low-rate environment, they are close enough. So, I personally use ING Direct as I have been for 10 years, but I also don't keep t...

No, it means that the return listed is the actual return after all costs (including those included in the expense ration).

In 2012, I was teaching part-time at a local community college. I will not continue this in 2013. Anyway, some of my salary was put into a "TIAA-CREF Social Security Alternative Plan". I have never heard of such a plan, but the balance is quite small and I'd like to consolidate, if possibl...

Ok, let's run the numbers: Imagine on October 1 you have $X to invest. Let's say Fund A and Fund B both have dividend yields of y%. Let's say Fund A distribute annually at the end of the year and Fund B quarterly at the end of each quarter (spread more or less evenly across the year). Let's say your...

Some like separate accounts up through final tax day as it makes recharacterization somewhat simpler. You can always combine Roths later, or split apart as you wish. The IRS only considers you to have one. In what scenarios is being able to re-characterize the backdoor Roth conversion desirable? I ...

In other words, if you do backdoor Roths every year, do you end up with multiple accounts, or can you keep it simple with one? No. Was that no to do you end up with multiple accounts or no to can you keep it simple with one? :) I love is it X or is it Y questions. I always answer yes and no (or no ...

I have a logistical question about the Backdoor Roth. When you do the conversion, are you having to convert the TIRA into a NEW Roth account each time, or can you roll it into an EXISTING account. In other words, if you do backdoor Roths every year, do you end up with multiple accounts, or can you ...

I found this dividends data, but don't really know how to read it, other than it seems to me that FSTVX is better from a tax perspective... FSTVX 12/14/2012 0.6520 @ 40.73 04/13/2012 0.1170 @ 39.55 VTSAX 12/19/2012 0.2650 @ 35.83 09/21/2012 0.1770 @ 36.35 06/22/2012 0.1680 @ 33.18 03/23/2012 0.1510...

No changes to the backdoor Roth IRA as such, but as you say, contribution have gone up.

The more-frequent distributions of the Vanguard version result in a lower tax bill for new contributions.

How many stocks does each of these funds hold? Which indices do they follow?

Since you have until April 15, 2013 to make the non-deductible IRA contribution for 2012. You could make the 2012 and 2013 IRA contribution on the same day and then convert it to a Roth IRA in one transaction. You could then wait two years before making another two Backdoor Roth IRA contributions in...

There are any number of unlikely events that could happen. The question is whether you want to spend any time worrying about these or take measures against them. When driving to work, there is a slight chance that some idiot will throw a rock off an overpass and kill me. I know it can happen becaus...

Have people forgotten the ETF flash crash that was unpredictable?

Have people forgotten ETNs and what happened to them unpredictably?

Have people forgotten what has happened to LTCM unpredictably?

nisiprius wrote:What's the scenario under which an ETF could become so illiquid so quickly that selling it would involve a serious hit to your portfolio?

The scenario does not have to be predictable to be possible.

Spreads on the major Vanguard ETFs are very small now, but I was wondering if an investor with a time horizon of decades might have any reason for concern over whether those spreads might not always be such. Not only can spreads increase, but your ETFs could also start trading at a discount. Whethe...

Android has such functionality built-in.