Bogleheads.org

Couple of months ago I discovered the Boglehead concept of investing. I put a good deal of money into the total stock market index fund and into the total bond market index fund. Since then, I have been reading Dr. William Bernstein's books and posts online. I am extremely nervous about the total b...

This thread is an instant classic.

LOL

any suggestions on what you would do with the money? It depends on the purpose. If it is an emergency fund, possible short term use, then it needs to be kept safe. If it is retirement or other long term savings (> 9 years), then it should be invested according to your plan. For short term money, i ...

You should read The Bogleheads Guide To Investing . There is a lot of noise on this board about optimization, but the 3 or 4 fund portfolio and asset allocation strategy recommended by it (in plain language), is really all you need to understand. Instead of paying 1% you'll be paying .01%. That cost...

The thing that makes me think that I am crazy is that I haven't really worried about it that much at all. That's exactly right. Selling feels good until it doesn't. I've never sold everything, but i know the feel good feeling of cash, followed by the feel bad feeling of lost opportunity cost. I kno...

Being out of the market feels good until it doesn't. I should know. I'm an expert. It's likely that you will underperform the rest of us. timing strategies attempt to reduce risk by selectively reducing equity exposure. Unfortunately, you pay for the reduced risk in reduced return, on average. It's ...

PE10 is about the same as it was in march 2011. That wasn't a great time to tactically shift, or maybe it was. I guess that depends on the future. It's probably splitting hairs: Permanently changing your AA with the expectation of lower returns and lower risk seems reasonable. After all, we are all ...

In fairness to Nalebuff and Ayres, their preferred strategy is the purchase of deep in the money LEAPS, which merely become essentially worthless with a >50% market fall, but don't trigger margin calls. I can't understand why anyone sees any value in long dated options. Maybe I'm looking at the wro...

A big crash that closes way down will bankrupt you. That's how debt works. It's somewhat unlikely, but not impossible. A more likely scenario is a 6 week super bear. A 40% loss x2 is 80% loss. You'll be margin called somewhat before that position, but you shouldn't wait that long to act: You must he...

Fees (even small ones) will eat you up if are accumulating shares in small amounts. Say you are saving 1000 a month, or whatever. At 14 bucks a trade that's a 1.5% hit. If vanguard is your choice, you should relocate assets because you'll save a lot of money. If you are not accumulating, it might be...

If a market distorting amount of money is flowing into dividend stocks, might they outperform anyway? Supply meets demand?

They did get snarky, but they are trying to help. If you implement a equity portfolio, you can anticipate 150,0000-200,000 equity swings per day. Sometimes the hits keep coming, and you'll watch your money bleed away. I don't think many people here, or many people at all are prepared for the heart-t...

10% bonds for a 58 year old with a new career? No. 50/50 at most. She's 58. She probably needs some of the money now.Frontier Markets investment of 600K? Don't do that. Throw out this plan and start by thinking about how much money she needs to live and keep that amount in CDs/short term bonds/bonds...

Just for clarify the outcome of the OP, I was convinced that the high level of "financials" described on the Vanguard site is explainable. If you compare the sector percentages with sector percentages from morningstar, you'll see a big difference. It appears that vanguard lumps real estate...

MSCI Emerging Markets Index is up 300% over the last 10 years. Not too shabby. If you believe in reversion to the mean, this 10 year performance might provide a clue.

1. 25%

2. yes

3. `30%

the dividend of TISM is almost 50% higher than the dividend of TSM.

I'm in the same boat. Practically everyone i talk to gives me "phone bill envy", yet i suspect (and have some proof) that they are simply not paying attention. It runs 60+ per phone and it doesn't seem possible to get away from it. Worse for me. My iPhone has a dead zone (AT&T + equipm...

But the rest of us could buy BRK on the stock exchange. How do you respond to that? In his letter, he said that he was disappointed that the stock is under performing the S&P 500 over the last several years. It's a failure because he's not offering any advantage of low cost indexing. He then go...

I would say the information on the ground on Apple has changed quite dramatically over the last few months. Why wouldn't the price be expected to drop? It never had an outlandish P/E to begin with so I don't think you can say it was obviously over-valued before. It's grown quickly and there's some ...

He's an eternal optimist.

He also advocated, more than ever before, low cost indexing. He advocated it in his letter. He advocated it on TV today.

I don't like it when he steers people to stock picking. It's not doing anyone any favors.

I like her show and always like to hear from Jack. However, most of the managers she interviews are stock pickers, and I typically find my head oscillating back and forth in azimuth during the show. +1 I listened recently to some guy claim he built his portfolio to achieve equity returns with no ri...

leverage is fun on the way up, but it can be a fast ride down. Call options are implied leverage. Look at option prices on down days. The volatility is downright scary. A major downtrend is more than scary, it's ruinous. The problem with leverage, and implied leverage, is that there is a TIMING ELEM...

Sorry. I know better than post tickers. TLT is an ETF - iShares Barclays 20+ Yr Treas.Bond (ETF)

shorting ticker TLT is a straightforward, low cost, way to bet against interest rates.

Personally, i use stocks to short treasuries and bonds to short stocks. This works pretty good most of the time.

Edit: I meant to say 'hedging'. all the cool kids are saying that

It's only 3.2% of the total portfolio anyway. If you are willing to buy more if it were to collapse, then, it probably makes sense to stay the course with it. If you would not buy more if it collapses, i would go ahead and sell it and exchange for your favorite, safer, bond fund. It won't make much...

The bond bubble has been getting a lot more news time lately. I guess the uptick in yield has sparked some interest.

Warning people about the dangers of long term bonds is probably a good thing. Pretending to be able to predict interest rates, not so much.

Most of your portfolio is taxable. Municipal bonds probably make sense, the calculation is pretty easy and depends entirely on your tax bracket. You have a substantial portfolio, generating a 120K from 4 million is 3% per year. That seems very workable, but you *really* need to get an investment ove...

Ok. I just wanted to sound the alarm bell... i mean nothing personal. That's just a giant risk. It's worked lately. They are volatile like equities and at some point are going inflict painful losses. I like Taylor's 3/4 fund portfolio, but a single balanced fund has appeal. Since you have both taxab...

Without addressing your original question, I'd like to point out that 3 million allocation to JUNK bonds, out of a 4 million dollar balance sheet IS CRAZY! Why on earth do you think this is a good idea? Do you think this money is SAFE? Edit: Apologies for the snarky comment. I hate being the recipie...

More important than whether or not to use tax advantaged - which is certainly fiddling on the margins - is a disciplined plan whose risk and volatility you can live with. Agree. We all make money mistakes, but it's important to learn from them. What happens if this rally turns out to be transient? ...

To get kickbacks from the American Funds (12b-1 fees are there for a reason) for pushing them to people who love him. This hurts. I don't like his political rants, but i do think his heart has always been in the right place. His personal finance advise is downright bogleheaded and he helped a lot o...

I would just say that you aren't going to pay it, explain why, and let him decide if he wishes to take court action. Yes, it would be better to let other people know, but No. *his* legal expenses are a lot lower than *yours*. Making a scene is guaranteed to stir the hive. He's bluffing. My two cents.

I prefer bond funds because I like NAV pricing.I especially dislike thinly traded ETFs. Given the similarity of funds, i'd pick the one with higher daily volume to complete your allocation.

Slightly more term risk with VCSH, but slightly more liquidity risk with CSJ. Pick your poison.

Sure enough! Thanks

I thought it was 13K for 2013?

Did this change?

[EDIT] I'm talking about the exclusion amount only.

Those "retirement calculators" are copping out. The problem is that by asking you to make a prediction, they reinforce the idea that you can make predictions, that you are supposed to make predictions, and that investing is about making predictions. Wow. yes. Fresh perspective too. I hadn...

Hi Rick, Is there any historical analysis of the risk premium between International versus Domestic. I don't know whether this is market timing, or just lack of specificity in my IPS, but when international crashed in 2011, and in June 2012, i was accumulating 100% to international stock. (TISM main...

cherijoh wrote:Zotty must live in one of those states where you can shelter your home (no matter what the value) from creditors.

It's true. I do. But.... my home value is nowhere near "no matter what the value".

I'd probably be safe anywhere. my house isn't worth that much.

If it's important, there is a boglehead wiki for it:

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Asset_protection

It doesn't get mentioned much, but outright home ownership of your family home is one of the best asset protection moves you can make with taxable money.

In a word, yes. I agree. The underlying business model scares me. Everything is debt. If you'd like to raise your blood pressure, just pick a company at random and look at their leverage. That said, i will look again if we have a deleveraging fire sale. It may never happen, and i'm perfectly conten...

Grt2bOutdoors wrote:Have you noticed they seem to only proclaim the issuer dead long after it has become apparent to everyone but them?

Yes. It reminds me of stock analysts who downgrade stocks after they tank. Perhaps it's the same thing.

Might not be a great idea if you are in the 33% tax bracket and 1 years from retirement. Although I am a ways away from retirement, I do expect our tax bracket to decline from where it is today. Roth conversion doesn't make sense today but may make sense in future years. I had not made any connecti...

It appears that i am allowed to contribute after tax money into my traditional ira too? ? Anyone with income who is less than 70.5 years (or thereabouts) can make a non-deductible contribution to traditional IRA. The question is whether you want to do that or if you want to put the money into a tax...

Now I wonder about my own IRA. I have a 401K at my day job, and a SEP-IRA for self employment income (should have done a solo 401K, but oh well). I was unable to max out may day job because we didn't have enough people saving like they should. They send me a check for 2011 and the CFO figured i'd be...

On the Roth, usually not. I think this year will be the same. Next year we'll have some more business expenses, so perhaps.

Thank you! <again!>

Hi Bogleheads (the Siri of Finance, indeed!) My wife wants her IRA bigger. Her IRA is 100% bonds (good tax placement, etc) and she didn't like her annual statement. For marital bliss, I'm perfectly willing to oblige this with a new contribution. The problem, and the reason it hasn't grown, we don't ...

At 500-600, there is absolutely no room for error. People will get burned badly if we hit a recession. Or they will continue to hold it, buying more shares at a drastically lower NAV. That is how buy and hold investing works, and how one gets 8% return in HY. +1 yes. I agree too. In the meantime, y...