Bogleheads.org

I would have posted on a recent thread but felt this would be missed on the 63rd post http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/business/retirementspecial/the-4-rule-for-retirement-withdrawals-may-be-outdated.html?ref=retirementspecial As also discussed in the recent thread on this site there are suggestion...

I have watched the show for years and its certainly not much worse though I miss some of the reporters. For me its an efficient way to learn "news I can use" or at least be aware of. In contrast If I watch CNBC for a half hour there is rarely more than 5 minutes I care about.

I have had some problems with Vanguard and none with fidelity but fortunately problems don't occur very often. Still as I told a vanguard rep during a troubled call dealing with changing the registration an an UGMA account "Sometimes I wish that your er was slightly higher and your web site muc...

your financial rep is correct with regard to your 403b as 4% is great.. With regard to your Vanguard accont I would put 10% into the Vanguard short term bond fund. That way if the stock market goes up you will make money and if drops at some [point (and it will) you have a fund source to make purcha...

I don't believe it is possible to tax nyc but not NY and fed. I think you are confused because the fund description at the vanguard site does not mention NYC. I suggest you call Vanguard and am confident they will tell you its triple tax free.

T.Rowe Price , Fidelity and Vanguard all have decent ny funds. Which will do best over the next few years is not clear. As to ETFs check out INY,NYF and PZT. My providing names does not mean I know all that much about any of them . I think Vanguards fund has a relatively long duration.That might be ...

My understanding is that the best active mangers tend to be a bit idiosyncratic .Index huggers rarely do well according to a recent study. They have a view of how best to pick stocks and will do well if the market goes their way and not well if it doesn't.As noted Oakmark did badly in 99(it didn't i...

under current law the only one of those forms that calls for any action other than checking the number and saving is the one you get the year you become 70.5

While not exactly boglehead I think its ok to make one or two bets (because its fun, helps you pay attention , might work out well) What I mean by a bet others have called tilting(think overweighting small caps, emerging markets etc).My current bet and not necessarily correct is eliminating long dur...

I think you have received sensible answers. My spin would be Roth(very conservative to preserve space like retirement income or even short term bond can always get more aggressive in future years)) + paying off the debt. You are in the rare situation where the 401k seems wrong .

I think you have received sensible answers. My spin would be Roth(very conservative to preserve space like retirement income or even short term bond can always get more aggressive in future years)) + paying off the debt. You are in the rare situation where the 401k seems wrong .

Obviously based on what happened to the housing market we hope he waited till 2011 and got a house he could easily afford with a 4.2 or lowe mortgage (but it would be nice to know )

Great book for your daughter. I am uncertain if you should give her both versions or just the latest but thats your call

I agree with much of what has been said . In particular if you think the market is too high (you may be correct and are not alone) putting contributions into bonds may also be correct but that investment decision is making you much more alone. Instead contribute to your 401k up to the match and use ...

Sorry, I sort of agree with stlutz. What they mean I think , and I agree its not obvious is that a non-stock pickers market occurs when correlations are reduced and almost all stocls are up or down on a given day.From a certain point of view a non stock pickers market mean active investors are more ...

Just another vote for i bonds for 5 yers and then maybe municipals. Worry about tomorow tomorrow worry about later later. Of course Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.

We dump on advisors alot on this web site but whether it was luck or skill the advisor's long term bond purchases worked out pretty well. As stated by many you should investigate the nature of the bonds and redemption conditions closely.

People (Soylent green is people) you should get out of the Russell products and the management fee and if you don't want to get out of Raymond James buy etfs. As to your fund ideas at Fido I think FLBAX is too bold fora bond fund in this climate and suggest a shorter term bond fund or even the Fido ...

think you earn enough to make the traditional (not Roth) 401k more appealing but its a close decision depending on your state taxes.The smaller your state taxes are the more the Roth has some appeal.. You and your wife would have to contribute a much larger contribution to your 401ks (if you both ha...

I'm 32. Should I contribute 100% to VANGUARD TARGET 2045? Thats a good guess but it really depends on how much risk you want to take and thats partly a matter of temprement as it is important to not panic when stocks are going down., For example if you wanted roughly 50% us stocks 20% international...

While the discussion has been interesting and polite we seem to have gotten away from the specific concerns of the op. My solution is different and does not get involved in rebalancing. I would just put new money into the 2010 or 2015 target retirement fund until the op and his spouse are happy with...

As for what is aggressive at your age the T.Rowe Price target funds are generally considered aggressive but sane and their allocation for the 2015 fund is 60%stocks 40% bonds and their 2020 is 68 stocks 32 bond . I agree with you that 80-20 is a bit much but its not unheard of..

To the extent that gold is a plausible investment to hedge against inflation, the etf GLD or even better IAU(lower expenses) is a safer bet though possibly less rewarding. Why safer :because you don't have to worry about labor problems at the companies the vanguard fund invests in or for that matter...

Not much info not from Fidelity. Its one of a series of funds ending in an appropriate namesake year year, The shortest maturity fund ends in 2015. others are 2017, 2019 and 20211The funds have an expense ratio of about .4 The lowest rated bonds in the 2021 fund are triple b. The minimum investments...

My experience may not prove relevant but my investment experience in 2008 in 2009 was such that the existence of a pension provided reassurance and I was able to stay the course and not get out of stocks as my losses mounted.As we now know selling would have been a mistake. While it would certainly ...

you don't hold the paper bonds anywhere...they are no longer available for purchase (except maybe via tax refund overages) Maybe I was reading outdated info but my understanding was that an individual was eligible to purchase $5,000 of electronic I-Bonds through the treasury website and $5,000 of p...

Please clarify your IRA holdings . I have no problem if you decide in your situation to have only 20% in stocks but having 80% in something earning 0% (is it vanguard prime ) seems wrong/ What are you doing with the mandatory withdrawal from your IRA (i,e the RMD required by the IRS)? Are you spendi...

Have you informed the heirs that you would be doing this and that the funds would be available in a reasonable amount of time.? The idea would be to stop a suit before it began

might check out fidelity's national target income muni funds fmlcx,fmifx,fmcfx,focfx, maturing in 2015, 2017,2019,2021

One possibility is to underinsure. I.e get say a $100 per day policy with or without inflation.That way if you need it you won't chew up all yourassets as the policy will help and if it turns out you won't need it you will have saved some money to have fun with, donate to charity, give gifts etc. Yo...

There are areas where research shows active managers as a group outperform and at this time emerging market bonds come to mind. As always it is so very hard to outperform a high er that you should probably limit your research to 1.1 ers or even lower for domestic funds. A major problem with actively...

I had the amount of foreign tax credit this year such that i needed to fill out the 1116 form.(all associated with mutual funds) I used the H&R block at home Deluxe. The software made me go to the form but I only had to enter three items and the software did the rest .I had to indicate that the ...

Given that you don't list available funds its pretty hard for you to get good advice other than invest in the S+P 500 which is probably the best advice.I have found that a way to pick active funds that doesn't work out too badly is to read a quarterly report in a couple of different years. If the ma...

I don't know and not sure I have the skills to research the probability of being whipsawed but the following approach which is associated with Martin Zweig does prevent one kind of catastrophe although it may certainly have been worse over time then "staying the course". It is basically th...

The index has about 11% of the total market capitalization in health care. Like you I believe that having more in health care is a good idea but as noted by others having 100% in healthcare is extremely imprudent . I have 16% and that may also be imprudent but is certainly less risky than your alloc...

The stable value fund may be worth considering for a portion of your fixed income investment if it is paying 3% or more, The er is not usually the critical info for stable value funds unless it is so high that they are obviously buying very risky investments to meet their interest rate goals. I will...

The New York State wording on tax benefits of its 529 plan is not perfectly clear but here is what it says Contributions by an Account Owner are deductible in computing the Account Owner’s New York taxable income for New York personal income tax purposes in an amount not to exceed $5,000 ($10,000 fo...

I confess I don't invest in this space but many do

http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2 ... tab/print/

I am pretty much agreeing with previous comments Based on the original info about taxes saved it appears that your daughter has most of her earnings taxed at 15% with perhapsa small amount taxed at 25. ThIs suggests that if she is single she is probably earning a little bit more or less than 50K. If...

think your allocation is fine for now but as several have pointed out things change.Keep with 115-age for at least the next few years and the situation may be clearer with regard to family obligations job security etc.For example you may have children and your wife may decide to take off a few years...

I don't know anything about the Guarenteed interest fund but if the rate is high and safe 3% or better) I would certainly keep. I was going to suggest smaller changes (ditch the JPmorgan and sector funds) but ieee488 s suggestions are certainly fine though since you will be keeping the Axa you may b...

Your ages and the ages of the children may be useful info but the fact that the money should not be needed for 10 years may mean that info is less critical. I would suggest 20k each year in i bonds(10k in your wife's name 10k in yours. The inflation protected bond funds are not a very suitable inves...

I think you should have a mixture of stocks and bonds in both your 401k and Roth. One reason is that your purchases in your 401k are periodic and thus you are dollar cost averaging which will reduce your chances of a big loss (and also big gain). In your Roth you ought to take advantage of gaps in y...

Livesoft is much more knowledgable than I am(you learn who is good over a period of time) but I think his answer was too glib. In my view It really depends on the source of funds to buy a house in a few years.If none of the $100k is used for such a purpose I think he is correct. If however you will ...

Webslinger makes some good points and suggestions . As suggested by all US stamps after 1930 and almost certainly after 1935 of low denominations . i.e not $1, $2 $5 are unlikely to be of value. The general rule on stamp collecting as an investment is that you have to spend money to make money. In o...

Congratulations on your baby and good luck. Its not clear how good your helth insurance is especially for things associated with birth , etc. If your insurance is great you may not need more in the emergency fund for awhile but if its only good your emergency fund could be increased. You might consi...

A common reason you may owe money on the State but not the feds is that you do not own a home and hence don't have a mortgage or property tax deduction but you have a large deduction for your NY state withholding and combined with a charity and or medical deduction you can itemize on the federal ret...

^^^ which brings up another thing to read: LifeStrategy Funds vs Target Retirement Funds :) Another great article to read, and with this information I have decided to stay with the Life Strategy funds......which now has me deciding between Growth and Moderate Growth. The Growth Fund (on vanguard) i...

Read the second and third aticles on this link.You can read others of course. I think Mr. DeLegge makes a better case but agree with Mr. Bogle that ETFs can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.Of course that would be almost no one familiar with this forum as I am sure most of us are right/corre...

In this forum the basic strategy is rebalancing which is in some sense an attempt to buy low sell high. If you start with an asset allocation of say 70% stocks-30% bonds and at some point you have say 80% stocks 20% bonds you sell stocks and buy bonds to restore the desired 70-30 percentages.It is p...