Bogleheads.org

"So yes even the great Jack Bogle was just lucky in his home country bias. He would have a different outcome using the same strategy if born in some of these other countries." You are assuming that Mr. Bogle would have the same "home country bias" if he lived in a different coun...

My heart felt emotion goes out to you and your family. I am in a field of medicine that does see the end with cancer patients and it is never easy. You seem to have done everything needed (hopefully folks with first hand knowledge) will have more info. to share. The most important thing for me would...

Congrats on the windfall. The more about investing I learn the more I realize Mr. Bogle had it spot on when he said "you get what you don't pay for" when it comes to investing. Just like anything else in life knowledge is power. In this age we live in there is no execuses. Some books I wou...

Key issues: Disposable or cloth. Breast or bottle. Sleep in parents room or another room. Buy all kinds of junk for baby or let others buy everything for baby when they see that you don't Whose mom gets to come first Congrats. Babies are easy and inexpensive for the most part. And lots of fun, too....

I don'tmean this to be insulting, but "outcome" is fact, while "strategy" is theory. I'm looking for actual facts, and I'm not tying to tie things to a discrete period of time. I'm looking for long-term data, which shows that the strategy actually produces a favorable outcome ov...

You are correct and more importantly it passes the smell test of common sense. In the globalized world we live in and money can flow ANYWHERE in the world why would one expect better returns in U.S. vs. Europe or Europe vs. U.S.?? I expect the same expected return with basically the same risk. The r...

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I'm a doc too and from a long line of docs and will say everything ERdoc said is technically correct, BUT it doesn't matter. Since we live in a consumer driven world where regular folks make the decisions (i.e. is this an emergency or not) then you will get all sorts of elective stuff in an ER. Just...

staythecourse wrote:So if one invests in SP500 index fund it is NOT meant to be safer.staythecourse: while the substance of your post is great, I have to disagree on this point. The point of investing in the index is precisely to diversify away the risks of individual stocks, cheaply. Without risk ...

"Investing in bonds is a hedge against bad investment decisions." Interesting as that seems to be the ?best reason to hold bonds even in an article hailing the still need of bonds in a portfolio. So is bonds mostly useful as a shock absorber (as loose analogy)?? Is that how most people use...

So, what's the conclusion? 30% International from now on, or 50? ;-) The answer is anything less then the world market cap is TILT away from the market cap. Just like tilting to small and value. Funny, but tilting away from market cap in world equities actually make NO sense as their is no U.S. pre...

OP, I did just read through your whole post and must say it doesn't make much sense. I think there is a deficit in knowledge from you part. Index fund investing is NOT meant to be safer. The idea of an index fund is to get the return as close as possible (minus costs) of that benchmark it is followi...

Having just retired a few years back I now taken a more active involvement in all my investment/equity/IRA accounts. I should have been more involved when I was actively employed and I won't make any excuses which is why my 401k and traditional/Roth IRA's have not performed as spectacularly when co...

Noob, I think many folks like to tilt to U.S., but not for recency bias. Likely, from home country bias. As I mentioned in another thread some folks get the difference between strategy and outcome. Since U.S. has done so well from WWII many American investors assume their strategy is doing well just...

Is there a US High Quality stock index? If you do a search on discussions of GMO and Jeremy Grantham's forecasts, lots of discussion how to proxy it. Has GMO ever not recommended US high quality stocks? I am assuming they run a GMO fund that proxies it and are trying to publicize it. It doesn't pas...

There are basically two types of investors one's who invest in PROBABILITIES and those who invest in POSSIBILITIES. The two type of investors differentiate based on logic vs. emotion. Those who invest in PROBABILITIES do it based on logical approach. Since much research has shown stocks in every cou...

Just like in investing many think they can predict the future, but in reality no one can. Control what you can: Where to do you want to live? Which practice seems to be the better fit personality wise? Where can you see yourself growing as a young physician with your skills for the next 5 years or s...

Not to beat a dead horse, but basically you got a surgery done by on out of network physician not knowing what the charges would be, but yet at the end when you got a bill that you were expecting to be a number you knew you would have no clue about you are surprised?? Sounds like the blame is not on...

I must say I have never listened to daily noise not because I don't think the folks talking are not smart, but one fundamental truth that NO ONE can deny that comes up NO MATTER what anyone predicts and that I NO ONE can predict the future. I always give folks a little experiment to prove my point. ...

The folks who should do the best adding EM bonds are those with the highest amount of bonds in the first place in their asset allocation. Diversification of one bonds holding, high volatility and low correlation with U.S. bonds, should maximize diversification return. The catch however is the folks ...

Hope the professionals will correct me, but you need a trust to transfer property to your children if both of you pass away. You can name personal guardians to take care of kids via will and even a backup property manager, but children cannot not one "stuff" beyond a very low limit outrigh...

I am a passive, bogleheads style investor, but must say there are definite uses of a FA, but the industry does not seem to be willing to change and provide the services people actually need. Advisors would be useful for: helping one develop an asset allocation in accordance to their risks, TLH, tax ...

But my point above is not completely made up... Hussman's fund is a very good example of a very common fund phenonomen. He did very well in the first couple of years... Since then he has done absolutely terrible, worse even than a savings account. This is very common in the fund universe. Funds tha...

Mine is <7% of take home pay of my wife and I and must say it feels good not to be tied to a big mortgage if something terrible was too happen to my wife or I. That peace of mind there is no substitute. Not sure if this helps, but I try to remind folks when buying their house NOT to look at the poss...

I will never understand why folks use valuations. Vanguard itself did a paper that looked at a whole bunch of valuations as a forward predictor and the best of the lot was the heralded PE10 which gave a correlation of 0.41. That means using PE10 would have only predicted the direction of the market...

ALthough you do have to consider that it's highly unlikely that a disability policy for a doctor will pay out for that ankle injury long-term. Most MDs can get by just fine with a complete ankle replacement to do their job amply, which is the main criteria at which point disability pays in. You'd h...

I will never understand why folks use valuations. Vanguard itself did a paper that looked at a whole bunch of valuations as a forward predictor and the best of the lot was the heralded PE10 which gave a correlation of 0.41. That means using PE10 would have only predicted the direction of the market ...

he isnt the one giving misinformation. first he never said that anyone would force surgery on someone. He was just rightly pointing out that such an injury isnt as likely to result in a long term situation where a doctor cant perform their job and the insurance will pay out. Its possible but not as...

So we get advertisments all the time in the mail about DI. How to know how to choose a good one? What are the most important factors? Wow the best question asked thus far. Here is what you want as a physician: Own occupation (meaning if you can't do the work you are doing at the time of disability ...

ALthough you do have to consider that it's highly unlikely that a disability policy for a doctor will pay out for that ankle injury long-term. Most MDs can get by just fine with a complete ankle replacement to do their job amply, which is the main criteria at which point disability pays in. You'd h...

I'm a physician so I will speak like one for a second. Smoking and obesity are the two LEADING causes of PREVENTABLE causes of morbidity and mortality in America. In layman's terms that means the are the 2 leading causes that can be prevented that causes sickness and death. As mentioned check to see...

Hmmm... Not sure who is missing the point here, but the OP said this was a "planned charitable contribution." There are several charitable organizations to which I make annual ("planned"?) contributions. I've donated appreciated shares because it happens to be a very efficient w...

I must say I have NEVER understood these "i'll donate to charity for tax reasons"?? If you want to donate to charity do it for philanthropy, BUT not for tax reasons. If you have $1000 dollars and sell at your taxation of 20% of LTCG then you lose $200 and keep $800. If you donate that $10...

You guys speak another language. Makes it tough for the average guy to really get into the forums. Translating the original post into laymens terms, I think he's saying "When considering selling off bonds because of a low expected return, don't forget, one of the reasons you hold bonds is to p...

I'm too lazy to put pen to paper, so my IPS is "Match Asset allocation to VFORX (Target Retirement 2040)" I think that the need for an IPS is less about the "what" and more about the "why". The purpose is to remember the reason why I chose to do what I'm doing so that,...

I will and have hit milestones quickly and must say all it has done is make me more aggressive. I think you've made my point precisely. As your need for risk goes down, why is your appetite for risk going up? As I stated my ability to take risk went up (won't use all my money in my lifetime) and my...

I must say I have NEVER understood these "i'll donate to charity for tax reasons"?? If you want to donate to charity do it for philanthropy, BUT not for tax reasons. If you have $1000 dollars and sell at your taxation of 20% of LTCG then you lose $200 and keep $800. If you donate that $100...

Since I'm only 36 and have a life span of about another 40 some years (20+ before even considering drawing out from the investments) I don't care if they are up, down, or sideways. In the end equities always end up so that is all I care about. I will and have hit milestones quickly and must say all ...

I personally am not impressed with startup folks. I have numerous times made the same analogy that being in a startup situation is like putting all your money into single penny stock (actually it Is even worse then that). Most wouldn't do that in investing so not sure the same folks would do it in t...

I have mentioned numerous times on this site that folks need to read articles and research CAREFULLY and DISSECT them to make sure they even make sense or are representative to an actual investor. This article is a poorly written article. Here is my dissection of the article: 1. The writer makes an ...

Whenever one is talking about mulitple asset class investing the idea is to take adv. of diversification return. The process of adding multiple asset classes together where the risk return profile is better then the calculated weighted averages of the individual assets. David Booth of DFA and others...

This is not true. 100% stocks have had a higher return than mixing in any portion of bonds. Much of the time, but not always. Depends one time period and market performance. http://www.investorsfriend.com/Asset%20Allocation%20Real%20Growth%20Scenarios.htm I've seen studies showing 5% or 10% bond al...

This argument of 100% stocks is argued often on this board so reading some of the other threads may be useful. In my opinion, nothing wrong with 100% stocks. It has the highest expected return. So if your goal is the best chance of producing the most amount of money then this approach is quite reaso...

If you want the safest approach to investing in retirement it is pretty easy. Just divide your portfoio in 2 buckets. Bucket 1 should be the amount you need for 10 yrs. of living expenses. That should be in cash, MM, rolling CD's, annuities, SS, and pension income. Bucket 2 should be an asset alloca...

No relation to bonds, but an interesting quote from the article and view on "how much equity should I hold" which many on here discuss: "The right allocation is having as much equity as possible but never so much that you aren't willing to stay committed to the allocation, including t...

And while it wasn't my intended point, you can also see how a small leak sinks a big ship. The orange line is the Morningstar category average of all intermediate-term corporate bond funds, and over nearly 20 years, it has fallen 19% behind the low-expense Vanguard fund by losing an average of 1% p...

Even though this is a DIY forum I agree there are MANY, MANY DIY investors who would be better off with professionals running the portfolio. Mike Tyson has the BEST line in investing history when he once said something to the effect of, "everyone thinks they have the perfect plan until they get...

Not sure what grabiner does for a living, but must say he is the point person when it comes to accounting/ taxation laws for investments. I must say I don't understand everything he writes (above my head), but must say I for one appreciate all his useful insight!!

Good luck.

Sorry find it funny that the OP wanted to take it out on physicians for isolating themselves from everyone else by the post titles and in the end it had nothing to do with the posters, but the administrators. This is a classic example of confirmation bias at work. The OP noted what he thought the ph...

Have to agree "AAAA" is probably the best single book I have read about investing. That and Mr. Gibson's "Asset Allocation" are all you really need at the intermediate level to understand asset allocation. I love Mr. Ferri's book because he has probably the most original graphs a...