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I understand now, I looked online and my capital gains and dividends are being reinvested. This happens on a quarterly or yearly rate? It depends on the fund. For my portfolio, my bond funds distribute monthly and my equity funds distribute quarterly (one or two distribute yearly). Yours may differ...

Yes you are missing something. What about when the share price goes DOWN an average of 5% a year over the next five years? What is the compound growth number then? It would be impossible to know unless you had more information. I am not missing that. It could very well be positive. I am merely tryi...

Can there be considered two parts to compound growth? Share price and number of shares. -If the share price goes up, say, 5% a year, that would be a form of compound growth, even if the number of shares remains constant (i.e. not reinvesting dividends). -If dividends are reinvested then the number o...

Thank you, Alan S.

Everything seems to be exactly as you say (the 1099's, the 1040, the 5498). I very greatly appreciate your thorough information that you have provided to me.

okay, I did some serious (for my standards) IRS and 5498 research. Here is what I came up with: This is really hard to wrap my mind around, but here goes: --------------------------------------------------Box 2 of 5498------------------------------------------------------------------------------ &qu...

Thank you, everyone. Perhaps both companies are correct in what they are reporting / claiming.

If it was a Roth 401k, by definition, wouldn't all the funds (employee and company match) be after tax? Also, if it went from Roth 401k to Roth IRA, what has been " converted?" The funds have been rolled over to the new vehicle but not converted from traditional to Roth. The company match...

I'll try to make this quick and clear, I rolled over my Roth 401k and my pretax company match earnings to a Vanguard Roth IRA last year. The 401k company sent ONE check to Vanguard and Vanguard put the entire amount of this one check into my Roth IRA. Just this last April I paid taxes on the pretax ...

VTI's slight outperformance could always go the other way too, perhaps ITOT would outperform in an environment where the large caps are outperforming the small caps ? Who knows.

Just my 2 cents, It appears they track different indexes, both of which are meant to be all encompassing of the US market. ITOT tracks the S&P Total US Stock Market. Anyways, according to a M* growth chart, VTI gained 7.4% per year for the last 9 years while ITOT gained 6.9% per year for the las...

I'm with Victoria, Gordon and Blues.

Yes, that's the title of a new book by Charles Wheelan reviewed in today's NY Times. Even with the catchy title, it sounds like a book that might quickly drown me in concepts I can't grasp. Has anyone read it? If so, how would non-statisticians fare with it? I'm in the middle of it now. It's a grea...

What is your cost basis? How much $ did you receive in the sell transaction?

Somebody in this forum (I cannot recall who) once posted the following formula: compounded return = average return - 0.5 * (standard deviation)^2 I admit I don't fully understand the underlying methodology to come up with this formula. I don't believe it is meant to be 100% accurate, rather, I thin...

Is this true? See below. I always thought that as long as you stay invested, it doesn't matter what the volatility is. Somebody in this forum (I cannot recall who) once posted the following formula: compounded return = average return - 0.5 * (standard deviation)^2 I admit I don't fully understand t...

gkaplan wrote:Why do I need to go to Morningstar to get my average mutual fund expense ratio when I can figure it out myself?

Really?

0.10%

Cut-Throat wrote:
I am not a cheapskate by any means as Next Month we are taking my wife's 'dream trip' to Africa on a Photographic Safari, that will cost $35 Grand.

Nice. What is the point if you aren't going to realise your dreams.

8. I did not include duplicate investments (same fund but in different accounts) or different classes of same fund (etf and MF version of same fund).

Maybe this is what you were thinking of, Red: Yes, I do believe that is what I was getting at, #Cruncher. Rows 1 through 7 would give you the annualized fund return and also each yearly return for that fund, just so long as you keep inserting the end of year balance (which is also the beginning of ...

I'm looking for ideas on what to do with my TSP account. I currently have a tsp account with around 10,000 in it. Recently after reading Bogleheads investing book i have opened a Vanguard Roth IRA and have began to invest into their 2055 mutual fund. My goal is to max out my IRA contributions every...

How should I calculate returns (not sure what kind (advice is appreciated :happy ) but that I could compare to the returns VG funds probably) when I have more than 10 years of data of various funds and some stocks? Should I calculate XIRR's of each fund/stock for each year and then maybe there is a...

First, Any comments on.... AAII article in April 2013 on rebalancing and that author of the article rebalances either in November or May, since historically the highest rises in the market have been from November to May. Gotta rebalance some time I guess. Are you certain that will be true going for...

Wow, a lot of strong opinions are being discussed here, perhaps some are a bit overboard. Anyhow, it is simple. The bank has their right to assess a $5.00 fee for accounts less than $300.00. It is not criminal and I certainly understand your point how they make money off of your few hundred you keep...

What you mean is they called you because of the unique nature of the ETF transaction? You didn't mean they saw this boglehead post, right? The latter, not the former. Apparently they really pay attention to what happens on these boards...(given the details I posted it probably wasn't hard for someo...

Update: Vanguard just called me. Apparently, they pay attention to what goes on around here and decided to clear up any confusion over what happened (excellent proactive customer service and a little creepy all at the same time). What you mean is they called you because of the unique nature of the ...

Thank you so very much, kaneohe and red5, for offering such a thorough explanation of this matter. I believe that I now finally understand how EIC is calculated. Am I correct to conclude, then, since our only investment income is the interest on our checking account, that we can maximize our EIC by...

Thank you very much for your response, red5. I must admit that I am confused. If I am reading your message correctly, you are saying that the amount of EIC is determined by the higher of earned income and adjusted gross income. It seems to me from reading the instructions for form 1040 (http://www....

It seems, then, that, if my "earned income" should rise above the upper limit for EITC, I should prioritize contributing to my 403b over an IRA until I bring my "earned income" below the upper limit for EITC, at which point I could direct contributions to an IRA with lower expen...

aida2003 wrote:though I think I'd benefit much more if I completed my annual AA evaluation of our whole portfolio instead

Great idea! I to think that would be quite beneficial. Good luck with everything.

Default User BR wrote:Which spread?


Brian

I am mistaken. I looked before the market opened.

Despite what others said it should not matter what starting date you use, as long as you use zero for the contribution for that date. The XIRR formula "weighs" days by the amount invested, and if there is no investment on a day it gets zero weight. If you try changing the initial date to ...

I apologize in advance, but it looks like I'm totally clueless about this function. I tried to follow this thread http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=107964, but I cannot proceed unless I get basics right. After googling and reading here, I'm missing something. I appreciate in ...

Just a couple comments as I was quickly looking over the fund at m* The spread is quite large. It is 34% cash, which is expected I would say since the bonds mature next year. One would expect the cash to grow more and more as the bonds expire. Would this cause the yield of the ETF to go lower and lo...

Apology not required but most-certainly accepted. As far as having multiple funds. I guess I stray a little from rigid boglehead philosophy a little bit on the always "keep it as simple as possible" thing. Im a fairly smart guy. I'm aloud to cut people open and put em back together. I can...

Take this for what it's worth, but I wouldn't. I probably wouldn't even get the fund in the first place, especially if you are not going to regularly contribute to it. The top 5 holdings make up 25% of the fund. How volatile is this fund going to be? Is it going to make up a significant proportion o...

Sorry to hijack, but why the heck am I investing in a target retirement fund, when I can get the same AA with the ETF's at the admiral level expense ratios (less than half the ER of investors shares and target retirement fudns)? Because you didn't take the time to fully research your options? But y...

red5.. unlucky... perhaps not the best way to describe it. I have run the numbers considering smaller initial investment, and yearly contributions, increased by 3% annually in the past, and as you pointed out - it works out even better for the all stock portfolio if that is the case. Trev H Thank y...

I invest $10,000 in Total Stock Market on January 1. By December 31, it has thankfully appreciated to $20,000. The fund typically yields an annual dividend of 2%. Should I be expecting 2% of $10K, $20K, or something in between depending on the fund's value throughout the year? If you want to look a...

If you happened to be so unlucky to start investing in 1929 and you retired in 1974... that is a span of 46 years. You were 20 years old in 1929 and retired at 66 years old in 1974. You'd only be "unlucky" if your sole retirement contribution were in 1929, right? If you were saving regula...

I'm fairly new here. I've not researched or even took the time to specifically read about RBD's. So I could be way off here when I say that using RBD's to buy equities is not necessarily an attempt for Livesoft to time the market, rather, it is an opportunity for Livesoft to do some rebalancing of F...

Thank you for the link. I currently have my entire FI position in the G Fund. I found the comment that many view it as "savings account" rather than a "retirement account" interesting. For curiosity sake I attempted to do a quick comparison between the G Fund returns and CD retur...

I checked the docs TurboTax produced for me for 2011 (when I last made a direct Roth contribution) and my contribution appears on "IRA Information Worksheet" and "IRA Contributions Worksheet" but I don't see it anywhere else. Apologies to the OP for partially hijacking this thre...

If you reported your Roth contribution to TurboTax and it generated a Form 8086, then I think you're good to go. I thought the OP was good to go until this last comment. I've been contributing to Roth IRA's for 9 years or so, and have never created a tIRA. I've never used Form 8086 (I can't even fi...

Zestimate is within $200.00 of the appraisal and purchase price last November (appraisal and purchase price the same in my case).

When I transferred ETFs from TDA to WF, they did indeed liquidate the fractionals. There was no commission charged. Brian Same here. USAA liquidated fractional shares of ETFs and stocks before my IRA was transferred in-kind to Vanguard. No commission was charged. The cash from the sales of the frac...

51% if I include student loan debt. 67% if I don't. Note that I used the Medicare income from My Social Security. This does not include a fairly large chunk of money such as low income refundable tax credits and various military and VA "pay". If I included that then my %'s would obviously ...

I use old cardboard egg shell containers, fill them with a good potting soil and plant as instructed. Keep the soil moist as it will dry out quickly. I place the seeds in a south window in order to maximize sunlight. I don't use a grow light or anything like that. Make sure to slowly introduce them ...

I'm fairly certain you cannot simply convert ETFs into admiral shares (even though I believe you can do the opposite). Additionally, if you want to sell your ETF with the intention of purchasing the admiral shares you must wait for the ETF sale to settle. So I don't think there's any quick and easy ...

principle and interest - 20.4%
principle, interest, taxes, insurance - 25.4%