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Reuters has an article - New investment chief says Vanguard to stay lowest cost that gives a little insight of the incoming CIO Tim Buckley. Tim Buckley, who takes over as chief investment officer at The Vanguard Group in January, has never managed money in his 20 years at the firm. He has no plans ...

And presently, there are significant tax benefits for paying for some of college from a checking account and not from a 529 plan, so don't forget that. Can you shed some more light on this? I know for folks in states that offer tax incentives, there is an underused method of getting the tax deducti...

I did a spreadsheet with MONTHLY data about a year ago. It does not noticeably change the results at all. I also computed Max Drawdown, and determined that you can estimate Max Drawdown by multiplying the Standard Deviation by 3. So no, it is not worth your time to go quarterly, it wasn't even wort...

Completely agree, though I was somewhat chagrined to only find it after having done a significant amount of work to build something similar myself. However since yours was far superior to the product I had and so many more people are checking it for errors I was happy to switch. Now everyone can be...

I love the spreadsheet, but I am using OpenOffice and the new versions (both) are not working for me. Nothing but errors. Am I doing something wrong? Please use libreoffice . I noticed openoffice had some issues but I saw none with the libreoffice [I am using the current stable version 3.4.5] [FYI ...

Simba - great spreadsheet - love it :) Query on the 5 year treasury VFITX for 1995 though that shows a 20.44% gain. From http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/data.htm it looks like the 5 year T yields were 1994 6.69 1995 6.38 1996 6.18 So I can't see how a 20.44% gain in 1995 occurred. Yahoo ...

Hi Simba, thanks for all the work you do on these spreadsheets. I was looking at some sample asset allocations the other day and I think I've discovered a slight correction that needs to be made. On both of the "Returns" tabs, I don't think the conditional formatting has been applied to a...

The latest version of the spreadsheet (rev11a) is now available.

You can download the latest version of Excel Spreadsheet [rev11a] or the LibreOffice version [rev11a]

The latest version will always be reflected in post #1 for this Topic - Spreadsheet for backtesting

Best Regards,
Simba

Folks - Sorry but I have been hibernating from the forum

I'll be posting an update with 2011 returns shortly.

Wishing you all a very happy new year.

Best Regards,
Simba

Not related to the question the OP raised but Ars Technia had this excellent investigative report on how the CEO of a security firm tried using Social Media sites to track down "Anonymous" and ended up paying a heavy price. How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price and it's...

dekecarver, The incorrect symbol was a typo and has been fixed in the latest revision (rev10c). You can download the latest version of Excel Spreadsheet [rev10c] or the OpenOffice version [rev10c] The latest version will always be reflected in post #1 for this Topic - Spreadsheet for backtesting Bes...

The latest version of the spreadsheet (rev10c) is now available. You can download the latest version of Excel Spreadsheet [rev10c] or the OpenOffice version [rev10c] The latest version will always be reflected in post #1 for this Topic - Spreadsheet for backtesting Best Regards, Simba

Bongleur wrote:>This has been fixed in the next revision.

Post 1 has rev10b. Is that the fixed version you refer to above?

Adding the date of the current rev to Post 1 would be helpful.

Post 1 will always have the latest version.

Here are a couple of contrarian articles that question the need for EM in a portfolio.

Submerging Markets - Jeff Troutner (TAM Asset / Equius Partners - Aug 2006)

and a follow up
Another Look at Emerging Markets - Eric Nelson (Equius Partners - Sep 2009)

Best Regards,
Simba

Hi Simba, Love the rolling returns. Is it just me or does the column for 1985-2010 for nominal and real return start at 1972 and seem to go only to time point 1988 at most. Are they mislabeled? The time period on the 1972- 2010 seems to be labeled correct. Thanks. STC - You got sharp eyes :) The ch...

Simba, please don't take offense at my comments. I use your spreadsheet often myself and commend your work. I just want to make sure other less experienced investor don't get "carried away". Thanks again. STC - None taken. I appreciate your comments and definitely agree with you about the...

Like many I would like thank simba for tirelessly putting all this together. I feel like this app. Does need a few cautionary notes as a reminder not to data mine: 1. For the same reasons the sec does it: past performance does not predict future returns. 2. Remember that many of the indexs/ funds h...

Hey I'm a little bit confused. I made a hypothetical portfolio that is 100% t-bills/treasury money market and I'm showing a 2.76% percent return for 2010. That's not right, is it? Thanks for your wonderful tool. It has really helped me analyze my portfolio :) rmelv - There was a typo in the returns...

stoub wrote:A minor labeling error for the next revision: the symbol for "VG Int'l Small" should be VFSVX, not VFWIX.

SET - Thanks for pointing the typo. I have fixed this for the next version.

Btw - Welcome to the forum.

Best Regards,
Simba

Mike/Lbill/yolk/wtoner/chrikenn - Thanks for you wonderful comments.

Have fun with the new version.

Best Regards,
Simba

The latest version of the spreadsheet (rev10b) is now available. You can download the Excel Spreadsheet [rev10b] or the OpenOffice version [rev10b] A couple of extra charts have been added for rolling returns for both nominal and real returns. Have fun with the tool :) Best Regards, Simba

BigFoot/Mike (re@51.5)/Jlhod1, I have the updated the spreadsheet with the 2010 returns. As Cb said i am waiting for a couple more funds to announce the returns in addition to the CPI numbers to be announced. Once I have them, I'll post the latest revision. Mike/Don (DP) - the latest version fixes t...

Jonathan Clements quit his WSJ job to become the Director of Financial Education for Citi Personal Wealth Management. Citigroup shutdown the myFi (Financial wellness program) back in 2009. Jonathan was working on his book Little book of main street money . He has also published some articles in WSJ ...

Wow. More than 25 funds. How do you keep up with the re-balancing? Are they mostly static with no additional contributions going in? Is the limitation only if you convert them yourself? I believe VG would do the automatic conversion on 10/24. Is the issue pertinent only if you are trying to convert ...

I pay the $20 per year account maintenance fee because I live in Arizona (non-Nevada resident). I use this account just for the Upromise rewards. Upromise doesn't have an Arizona plan. I contribute any spare savings $ to the Arizona sponsored plan which is with Fidelity. Thanks for the great post e...

Are you sure? I have never seen mention of a $20 fee going through Vanguard 529 plan (Nevada), or a breakdown of the ER as you mention above. Perhaps I missed this.. Upromise / VG 529 plan website Please refer to the Program Description for the 529 plan for the split up of fees. The following repla...

The states sponsor the 529 plans. The plan is managed by either the state or they hire financial service firms to manage/administer their plans and the investment managers are financial firms that manage the investments in the plan. The State of Nevada sponsors The Vanguard 529 Plan, which is offere...

I'm sorry, but I disagree with most folks AGAIN on this. First there is no guarantee that the stock market will give a 7% return on average over the next 20 years. What has the average return been over the past 10 years? We might expect more of the same going foward. Or, maybe not. Don't make decis...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... Why would you make a second account for the second child, except for the sake of keeping things separate? If the first child doesn't use all of their funds, the remaining can be transferred to the second child. Not sure if it works the other way around. And is it sti...

We have two kids (age 4 and age 8 months). We use the NY Vanguard 529 for the older one and we'll be starting another one before the year's over for the younger one. We started in the aggressive age-based option but switched to the "do-it-yourself" version of that after reading in Morning...

Brian/mas - Thanks for the reply. Looks like the commission-free ETFs offer is available for both existing and new investors. letsgobobby - The short term trading fee is $19.99. 8. Any order to Sell within THIRTY (30) Calendar days of last purchase (LIFO – Last In, First Out) will cause Account Owne...

You can also see the announcement @ http://www.tdameritrade.com/trade/etfs.html The fine print states (emphasis mine) To trade commission-free ETFs, you must be enrolled in the program. Eligible ETFs purchased commission-free must be held for at least 30 days. If you sell an ETF within 30 days of be...

I agree some of it may have to do with performance chasing.

I don't invest in CCFs but as Larry always said look at your portfolio as a whole. If we look at it piecemeal then some part of our portfolio might/will resemble the chart Prokofiev posted.

nisiprius - Jerry may have cherry picked the dates to prove his point. But in this case, I agree with Andy that the dates were specifically chosen to coincide with the paper's publication. No cherry picking to prove their point. So why not blog about this is 2009 or 2008? I don't know but time will ...

Jeff Troutner has this post in their company blog titled - The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same Eric Nelson, one of our principals at Equius, who examined the “risk premiums” of stocks for two distinct periods going back to 1928. The first period ends in 1990--the ending year for the ...

Felix Salmon blogs Why wine isn’t an investment Swiss researchers Philippe Masset and Jean-Philippe Weisskopf have a new paper out claiming to demonstrate that if you add wine to a portfolio of financial assets, that decreases your risk, increases your returns, and helps you out (if you care about s...

Morningstar has an article titled - Lessons From Warren Buffett’s Personal Portfolio Interesting article on where Warren Buffett invests the 5% of his personal portfolio. http://im.morningstar.com/im/newhomepage/lfwb2.gif So one of the big questions is how does he live on 100K per year? Well he does...

Obviously this calls for an alternative weighting scheme--maybe weighting by GDP/debt ratio? PIMCO Tries to Get Ahead of the Next Credit Crisis If you're concerned about potential storm clouds on the global debt horizon, then PIMCO Global Advantage Strategy Bond (PSAIX) may be worth a look. This wo...

Greg@TaxAct - Thanks for taking the time to respond to other queries. I had a question - Is TaxAct 2009 supposed to alert us if the sum total of all the 401K deferrals [Box 12 - Code D-Elective deferrals to section 401(K)] is greater than the IRS limit of 16,500 for a person [younger than 50]? -Simba

Link for T Rowe Price Global Real Estate Fund Note about the fund's expense ratio: To limit the fund's expenses during its initial period of operations, T. Rowe Price will waive its fees and bear any expenses that would cause the fund's net expense ratio to exceed 1.05%. As of its fiscal year ended ...

Some previous discussions about S&D on Fixed Income side of the portfolio: http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=467658 http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37178 In this post, Rodc discusses the Historical effect of bond length on portfolio returns RobertT discusses the Div...

Greg@TaxAct - Thanks for taking the time to respond to other queries. I had a question - Is the TaxAct 2009 supposed to alert us if the sum total of all the 401K deferrals [Box 12 - Code D-Elective deferrals to section 401(K)] is greater than the IRS limit of 16,500 for a person [younger than 50]? -...

Being a boglehead, you can't beat the price of Free Conference Call . For the cost [which is free] they offer a fantastic services Free conference calls are simple and easy to use, requiring only a name and an e-mail address to receive an instant account. Once you enter your name and e-mail address,...

Vanguard only puts up 18 months of history for dividends. Is there an area of their site that I am missing with long term historical data? Here are the yearly capital/income returns split for VG LT Investment Grade Fund [VWESX] Capital Income Total Barclays Idx Return Return Return Return 2009 2.29...

3 guesses from me: 1. You should subscribe to this newsletter. This guy is a genius. He knows exactly when to move into/out of the market. He has made tons of money. [for himself selling the newsletter ;) ] 2. You should check out the market trading/investing software from xyz. They have this foolpr...

The fiduciary blog (Fi360 blog) of Investment News has an article titled - What's in an expense ratio? A very informative article about the different kinds of expense ratios. Audited Net Expense Ratio - The percentage of fund assets paid for operating expenses and management fees, including 12b-1 fe...

Wow, thanks. When will you be sending my IJS? :D Tarnation - Expect a personal email such as the following from the Nigerian chamber of Commerce :lol: LAGOS, NIGERIA. ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/CEO DEAR SIR, CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATI...

IndexUniverse has this article - Fidelity’s Free ETF Trading: Bad For Investors So what is the deal here? Well, it's fairly certain that money's changing hands, and that money is coming directly out of the BlackRock coffers and into the hands of Fidelity. But on what terms? While the price war is go...

I wish they'd increase how much is deductible. I think it's only like the first $1800 that you can deduct off your state taxes. Did you mean per individual? From their website For Utah Individuals: The 2010 individual Utah state tax credit amount is up to $1,710 in contributions per beneficiary mul...

Thanks for the heads up. Wow, 56 pages...looks like I have a reading project. Anytime fees are reduced and options are increased is a good thing. Not sure i will make any changes, but I now have some home work to do. DUG Dug, 56 pages? The press release is 2 pages. Jason - Thanks for the heads up. ...