Search found 1570 matches

by ourbrooks
Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:31 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF
Replies: 13
Views: 1691

Re: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF

Even those MLPs which are primarily in the E&P area may not reflect what's happening in natural gas prices because they don't do just natural gas. If you look at the stock prices of Breitburn or Linn, over the past two years, they've shown no major declines, despite the drop in natural gas prices, where Chesapeake has been hit hard. As far as I can see, the only real way to invest in natural gas is to find someone who has mineral rights and lease them. If they've got a underwater mortage (from having borrowed against their house to drill wells), they might be willing to sell it to you at a price that reflects the current natural gas prices. Then, again, you might have to park your car at the end of the line of Cadillacs/Mercedes/BMW/Lex...
by ourbrooks
Tue Feb 28, 2012 4:00 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF
Replies: 13
Views: 1691

Re: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF

My bad. pshonore is correct; it's Master Limited Partnerships that get the K-1s, not royalty trusts, but there are a huge number of oil/gas MLPs, way more than royalty trusts; in addition to production companies, many pipeline companies are structured that way. To put in a bit more detail on what I said in my earlier post, American royalty trusts are invested in specific oil and gas wells; when those wells run dry, the trust becomes worthless. The distributions reflect the total income from selling the oil and gas, but part of that income is, effectively, return of the capital you put in when you bought the trust. As part of their tax reporting, trusts give a depletion factor and that needs to be considered in looking at the distributions. ...
by ourbrooks
Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:22 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF
Replies: 13
Views: 1691

Re: Investing in a Natural Gas ETF

First, do you know the difference between porosity and permiability? Can you read a well log? How good are you at seismic interpretation? Do you know what a proppant is? If your answer to most of these is, huh?, then investing in natural gas futures is probably not a good idea. That kind of investment has two challenges, the properties of the business in question and then the properties of the market and you've got to predict both to make money. It's still a very open questions about how much natural gas there is and at what cost. Not everyone agrees that we're "swimming in the stuff;" here's an alternate point of view http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8914 . Even if the gas is in the ground, there's no guarantee on the cost of getti...
by ourbrooks
Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:30 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: VGENX (Vanguard Energy Inv)
Replies: 21
Views: 6152

Re: VGENX

The answer in one word is Apple. The largest position in both VGENX and the S&P 500 used to be Exxon Mobil. It got knocked to second place in the S&P 500 by Apple and Apple is currently a hot stock. The Efficient Market Hypothesis is that the stock price captures all know information about a financial asset. There's nothing that guarentees that that information is correct and later discoveries can correct earlier errors, with consequent price changes. If you believe that energy prices will continue to rise disproportionately to other prices, that overproduction won't bring these prices down, that high energy prices won't cause damage to the economy so that revenues drop, and that the profits and stock prices of energy companies will...
by ourbrooks
Sun Feb 26, 2012 10:26 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Annuities
Replies: 21
Views: 1799

Re: Annuities

Deleted the original. The thread on the GLWB says it better.
by ourbrooks
Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:59 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard recommends 37% bonds at 60 yo?
Replies: 13
Views: 2438

Re: Vanguard recommends 37% bonds at 60 yo?

I am extremely troubled by the lack of analysis behind "age in bonds" and the Morningstar chart. If I want to know about safe withdrawal rates or whether annuities are a good idea, I can read lots of papers and studies; I can't find anything about age in bonds or glide path strategies that analyzes when or whether they really work. I have the uneasy feeling that they're nothing more than folk wisdom. Morningstar charts and John Bogle suggestions aside, I find the picture presented by the two withdrawal strategy charts as pretty compelling. Until there are some substantial studies to the contrary, I believe that moving to a higher percentage of bonds may reduce the volatility of your portfolio, but it has no effect, or, perhaps, a ...
by ourbrooks
Sat Feb 25, 2012 1:43 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Vanguard recommends 37% bonds at 60 yo?
Replies: 13
Views: 2438

Re: Vanguard recommends 37% bonds at 60 yo?

One of the problems is that people are often unclear by what they mean by "risk." For financial analysis purposes, risk is the same as variability, the extent to which an asset class moves up and down. "Risk" in common usage means the chance of losing money temporarily or permanently. Bonds clearly reduce risk in the financial sense; a portfolio with mostly bonds moves up and down less than a portfolio with mostly stocks. Whether or not bonds reduce risk in the common usage of the term is an open question, particularly where it concerns the risk of running out of money before you die. Look at the following graph for the "age in bonds" withdrawal strategy: http://www.bogleheads.org/w/images/c/c9/ConstantDollarAg...
by ourbrooks
Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:11 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Pension - Lump sum vs Annuity
Replies: 1
Views: 452

Re: Pension - Lump sum vs Annuity

I'm presuming that what would be done with the payout would be to purchase an income stream; it sounds like your father has lots of other money for emergencies and to give you a large bequest. If you can make it to immediateannuities.com, get a dual life quote there. Alternately, use gw's formula payout percentage = 1 / remaining-life-expectancy + 10 year tbill rate. If both parents are 63, the dual life expectancy, not the same as single life, is 28.1. T bills are paying out about 2% now. A commercial, single payment annuity would pay about 5.6% of the purchase price per year; this is a high side estimate since it doesn't take into account purchase fees, etc. 5.6% of 440k = $24,458 annually, or about $2038 a month so whoever is offering th...
by ourbrooks
Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:21 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Energy investment
Replies: 7
Views: 611

Re: Energy investment

How much petroleum geology do you know? What's the depletion ratio in each of Apache's areas of operation? What, exactly, does "estimated proven reserves" mean? What percentage of their proven reserves involve enhanced recovery techniques? Transcanda and Apache are very different kinds of companies; one is a pipeline company and the other is a production company; pipeline companies make money by charging to transport materials. It could well be the case that oil/gas prices soar but a pipeline company loses money because their lines are in the wrong place. Have you factored this into your choice of companies or are you just relying on general metrics, like debt/equity ratio, etc.? One of the reasons I gave up stock picking was that...
by ourbrooks
Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:07 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: how much pay cut will you take for a pension ?
Replies: 7
Views: 999

Re: how much pay cut will you take for a pension ?

At immediateannuities.com, for a 65 year old man, $100,000 buys about $7017 in annual income.
Assume that you retire with a $100,000 salary, so you get $60,000 a year in pension; at that point, an equvalent annuity will cost $855,066.

To figure out what the pension cost you, you'll have to make some assumptions about how much you will earn each year for the 25 years. You could then pop 5% of each year into the Excel IRR function, together with the current value of the equivalent annuity, to see what effective rate of return you would be earning. You could compare this with other investments to see how well it does. One benchmark is that from 1928 to the present, 10 year Treasuries have averaged 5.4%
by ourbrooks
Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:37 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: How do you value a pension?
Replies: 24
Views: 3775

Re: How do you value a pension?

Okay, here's my entry in the quicker answer category: Pick a retirement age, say, 65. Go the SSA site and get your life expectancy from their table. If you pick 65, the answer is 17.19. Use 5.1% as the discount value (interest rate). That's the long term average for 10 year T bonds and it seems to fit fairly well the payout rate used by commercial single premium annuities. This is much higher than the current rate, but, in theory, your employer is setting aside pension money throughout your career. Use the PV function in Excel to calculate the present value. Remember to put the percent sign after the percentage rate and to do everything in years. The main use I can think of for the result is to impress your relatives with the financial valu...
by ourbrooks
Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:25 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What is the median household income in the US?
Replies: 3
Views: 1357

Re: What is the median household income in the US?

Here's the Census bureau definition:

http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/affordab ... census.cfm

Note that it includes what government giveth - Social Security and other kinds of government assistance.
by ourbrooks
Fri Feb 17, 2012 7:15 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Is this true about a Roth?
Replies: 17
Views: 3993

Re: Is this true about a Roth?

If you go to the web site pshonore cited, you'll note that not all of the partnerships have LP or LLC in their names. There are also mutual funds which own master limited partnerships, but, for tax purposes, are treated as mutual funds. The only way to know for sure is to read the prospectus, always a good idea anyways, even if it's a Vanguard mutual fund. As far as I'm concerned, MLPs are something to stay away from. First, they're they're complex for tax reporting, even if you don't have them in a Roth. Second, most of them are natural resource based, and understanding how they make their money requires considerable understanding of the natural resources in question. If you can't talk knowledgeable about the depletion rate in the Permian ...
by ourbrooks
Fri Feb 17, 2012 5:47 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Is this true about a Roth?
Replies: 17
Views: 3993

Re: Is this true about a Roth?

In the spirit of explaining acronyms, MLP stands for Master Limited Partnership. Although these are publically traded, their tax treatment is much more like a partnership, e.g., you can deduct losses without selling the shares, no corporate income tax, etc. That's why they get special treatment in Roths and it's also why you probably don't want to hold them in a tax advantaged account. There are all kinds of rules as to what kinds of businesses can be run this way so that, practically speaking, they're limited to things like oil, gas and coal and the occasional real estate package. If you ever should be so unfortunate as to hold one of these in a taxable account, you receive the dreaded K-1 form. After I got rid of the one I had, I quit usi...
by ourbrooks
Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:46 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: New American Dream is renting to get rich - Reuters
Replies: 162
Views: 13471

Re: New American Dream is renting to get rich - Reuters

Actually, from a purely financial viewpoint, being homeless beats both buying and renting. You can invest 100% of your capital in high yield investments and you never have to worry about increases in rent or taxes.

Humor aside, the fundamental issue is that owner occupied housing should be treated as a consumption item, not as an investment. The question then becomes how much housing can an individual reasonably afford to consume and what's the best way of paying for it. The first part of the question is the really important part and that's where most people need guidance.
by ourbrooks
Fri Feb 17, 2012 2:44 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: New American Dream is renting to get rich - Reuters
Replies: 162
Views: 13471

Re: New American Dream is renting to get rich - Reuters

When people move from a rental into a house, they typically move up as well; it's easy to imagine someone moving from a 900 sq. ft. apartment to a 1,200 sq. ft. house but harder to conceive of them moving to smaller space. Unless this factor is explicitly controlled, it tends to make buyinglook more expensive.
by ourbrooks
Wed Feb 15, 2012 2:22 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What is the S&P's price to earning ratio
Replies: 24
Views: 2310

Re: What is the S&P's price to earning ratio

The kind of month to month variation we see between September and January is why Robert Shiller invented his CAPE measure, often called PE10.
http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data/ie_data.xls It uses a long term average of earnings; unlike a monthly PE, PE10 actually does have some long term predictive power; see http://www.bobsfinancialwebsite.com, particularly the article on lost decades and PE/10.

As of Feb 1, it was at 21.94, well above its historical average of around 16, suggesting that stocks are still fairly pricey in historical terms. Compared to the return on bonds, though, stocks are currently very cheap by historical standards.
by ourbrooks
Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:33 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A boglehead cannot escape reminders he is aging
Replies: 83
Views: 10418

Re: A boglehead cannot escape reminders he is aging

Bernd wrote:I feel old when much younger woman smile at me, and I wonder why. Perhaps they know I am a Boglehead? nah!
In my case, it's probably because I remind them of their grandfather.
by ourbrooks
Wed Feb 08, 2012 3:47 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: timing of immediate annuity purchase
Replies: 24
Views: 2410

Re: timing of immediate annuity purchase

That's partially correct. It is true that I might live a very long life at 65, making the SPIA a good value. However, at least in my case, I'll be able to gauge that a lot better (relative to the longevity tables) at 80 than 65 (if I make it to 80). Even if you knew the exact minute of the end of your life at age 80, it wouldn't help you with the annuity decision. Insurance companies use expected remaining life as the basis for their payouts, not expected life at age 65, and adjust the payments downward accordingly. Even if it seems that you get a much higher payout at age 80, if you figure dollars per year of expected remaining life, the payout is actually less. Earlier in the thread, I posted an example using actual annuity quotes. The b...
by ourbrooks
Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:50 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Man in the Browser Malware defeats 2-step bank authent
Replies: 27
Views: 3416

Re: Man in the Browser Malware defeats 2-step bank authent

Chrome OS, which is the operating system for Chrome notebooks is a Linux distribution and so is Android and they're as malware proof as Linux is. How malware proof is Linux? An OS is really only as safe as the applications that run on it; I absolute guarantee that I can write a Linux word processor or spreadsheet or browser or cute desktop accessory which will allow any and all malware to run. For Linux to be safe, every single application which runs on it has to be safe, and there are lots and lots of applications besides the browser. How malware proof is Open Office or Amahi or Flock or Jcow? Any one of them could be the entry point for malware. Right now, Linux only accounts for around 7% of the desktop market. If were interested in writ...
by ourbrooks
Wed Feb 08, 2012 12:36 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Man in the Browser Malware defeats 2-step bank authent
Replies: 27
Views: 3416

Re: Man in the Browser Malware defeats 2-step bank authent

A possible route for infection is a "drive-by" infection in which you visit an infected web page which then installs a bunch of software, including an add-in in your browser. The web site's owners may not even know that it's infected since this can be done by someone else through a security hole in the site.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GdqoQJa6r4 for more information.

Using a VMware or VirtualBox image running Linux can help, because most viruses are targeted at more popular platforms. Starting with a clean image each time means that any malware installed last time won't be there when you start again.
by ourbrooks
Wed Feb 08, 2012 9:29 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: timing of immediate annuity purchase
Replies: 24
Views: 2410

Re: timing of immediate annuity purchase

From a purely financial perspective, starting an annuity at age 65 is likely to be the better deal, especially if you are likely to live longer than average. Consider the following scenario. An annuity is purchased at age 65 for $100,000. A quote from immediateannuities.com gives a $7020 annual payment. If you live until age 88, you'll get a total of $161460. If you wait until age 80, you get $11904 per year, which sounds like a lot more, but if you live until age 88, you'll get only $95232 total. What if you have a median life expectancy and only live to 82.2? The annuity bought at age 65 pays $120744. The one bought at age 80 pays a miserable $23808. The explanation for this difference is that, per the SSA tables, at age 65, life expectan...
by ourbrooks
Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:47 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: My Annual Hedge Fund update
Replies: 24
Views: 2753

Re: My Annual Hedge Fund update

The people who manage public school money in Texas found out the hard way.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-2 ... house.html
by ourbrooks
Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:59 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How to take advantage of Natural Gas Collapse
Replies: 31
Views: 3141

Re: How to take advantage of Natural Gas Collapse

I continue to be very sceptical about the estimates of the amount of natural gas available from tight formations by use of horizontal drilling and fracturing. Most of those estimates seem to be based on well lifetimes from unstimulated (no fracing) wells or wells in different geology such as carbonates. Evidence is accumulating that the wells drilled in tight shales don't produce for as long; my speculation is that the induced fractures don't extend as far out from the well bore as does natural porosity. Rather than 10-25 years, these wells may only last 5 years. That means that more wells will have to be drilled more often to maintain production. Let me repeat again that the boom in drilling in tight shales is not due to new technology, co...
by ourbrooks
Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:33 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Pension buyout: Is there a rule of thumb?
Replies: 3
Views: 1070

Re: Pension buyout: Is there a rule of thumb?

You need to consider mortality affects; not everyone who gets a $40,000 pension will live 35 years so GM doesn't have to set aside enough to cover 35 years.

One way to get an approximate value is to go to one of the annuity web sites, like immediateannuities.com, and figure out what an equivalent annuity would cost. My guess is that what GM offers will be somewhat lower than this if, for no other reason, than that GM doesn't have to be as conservative in calculating payouts because of things like PBGC guarantees. Also, to actually save any money, buying you out would have to cost less than simple buying you an annuity that paid your pension.
by ourbrooks
Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:18 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How to take advantage of Natural Gas Collapse
Replies: 31
Views: 3141

Re: How to take advantage of Natural Gas Collapse

Keep in mind that when natural gas prices drop, people quit drilling for natural gas as a primary objective and they delay producing gas zones in wells they've already drilled. If you look at the rig counts on the Baker Hughes site, since September, the percentage of wells being drilled for gas have dropped from 45% to 38%.

An oil or gas well typically produces for somewhere between 10 and 25 years, less for gas wells drilled in tight shales. In other words, without new drilling or workovers, production would decline by something like 4% - 10% a year.

Conclusion: the natural gas price collapse might not last all that long.
by ourbrooks
Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:47 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: New Schedule D and 1099-B/Form 8949
Replies: 29
Views: 4589

Re: New Schedule D and 1099-B/Form 8949

Something that may make life easier is that TurboTax, and I presume, other tax software, now claims to be able to import 1099-B, 1099-DIV and 100-R forms directly from Vanguard, starting January 13th.
by ourbrooks
Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:42 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Recent widow has no cash, lots of real estate
Replies: 19
Views: 2765

Re: Recent widow has no cash, lots of upside down real estat

It might pay for someone to give those oil and gas royalties a closer look. Typically, as oil and gas are produced from a well, the production drops off over time and the royalties drop as well. A well usually lasts 10-25 years. A 20% drop in the stream of royalties over the next five years are probably not in her financial plans. An alternative might be to sell the rights to the royalties now and invest the money in a lifetime annuity with level or COLA adjusted payments.
by ourbrooks
Tue Dec 13, 2011 2:22 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Sequence of INFLATION Risk
Replies: 42
Views: 5241

Re: Sequence of INFLATION Risk

I have been very concerned with the same issue because I would like to COLA compensate some fixed pension income with high stability investments, such as TIPS, Treasuries, or, even, another annuity whose proceeds are initially invested and later withdrawn. With any of these approaches, later income depends on returns during the earlier years, so sequence of inflation effects need to be worried about. I couldn't find anything either; Dick Purcell, of Portfolio Pathfinder fame, wrote me that he and Wade Pfau had done some work which indicated that sequence of inflation returns didn't matter. Unfortunately, he was unable to recall exactly what he had done. I put together a simulator of my own that suggests that it does matter and you need appr...
by ourbrooks
Mon Sep 26, 2011 8:36 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Hydraulic fracturing and natural gas prices
Replies: 24
Views: 2996

Oil and natural gas almost always occur together. As I think I made clear in my original post, areas such as the Bakken or Barnett or Marcelus formation contain hydrocarbons, both oil and gas, and there has been production in these areas of both oil and gas for a long period of time. Although I focused my original post on natural gas because it has been the focus of media hype, much the same argument applies to oil. Drilling for oil in the Bakken formation, which often requires fracturing to produce the oil, increased substantially in 2008. Why? What miraculus new technology came along then to suddenly make it profitable to drill there? How about what happened to price of crude oil that year? The point about long term planning by major Expl...
by ourbrooks
Sun Sep 25, 2011 8:28 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Hydraulic fracturing and natural gas prices
Replies: 24
Views: 2996

Hydraulic fracturing and natural gas prices

Recently, both in other threads and in the news, there’s been a lot of discussion about large quantities of natural gas which have recently become available in the U.S. I thought people might be interested in some background. No new geological discoveries have been involved. It has been known for at least a century that formations such as the Bakken and Barnett shales contained large quantity of hydrocarbons – oil and gas. There’s always been some degree of production in these areas, but, until recently, the quantities were small. The problem is that in those formations, the hydrocarbons were sealed into the rock by clay deposits and wouldn’t flow into a well. There are two techniques for dealing with this kind of problem. The first is hydr...
by ourbrooks
Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:27 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Why Stocks Are Doing So Poorly
Replies: 95
Views: 12134

To elaborate a bit more on the hydraulic fracturing comment, it's been known for a very long time that there were geological formations, such as the Bakken shale, which held a lot of natural gas. The problem was that the pores in the rock were blocked by clay so that the natural gas wouldn't flow very well. You could drill wells but you wouldn't get enough natural gas out to be viable. It's also been known for a very long time that if you drilled horizontal wells, to increase the area of the well bore in contact with the formation, and if you did hydraulic fracturing to break apart the rock, you'd get a lot more natural gas out. Why wasn't this done earlier? Because it was too costly. Both horizontal drilling and fracturing are expensive. I...
by ourbrooks
Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:32 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Why Stocks Are Doing So Poorly
Replies: 95
Views: 12134

Alas, there's nothing new about hydraulic fracturing. It's been done commercially for at least 60 years. http://www.spe.org/jpt/print/archives/2 ... raulic.pdf

The only thing that's changed is that price of oil and gas have gotten high enough for long enough so that the extra cost is justified.
by ourbrooks
Tue Sep 20, 2011 5:16 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: home networking
Replies: 23
Views: 2145

In answer to the earlier query, yup, I've got a Roku box, Aluratek Internet radios, a Brother and a Lexmark printer, and three PCs all connected via powerline. My tablet doesn't have a hard wired Ethernet connector so it's still using the wireless. The powerline connection crosses two service panels so I'm getting a fraction of the claimed bandwidth but it still beats wireless.

You could also consider hanging additional wireless repeaters off of the powerline network. I've got that as well for another Aluratek box.

If you can run additional Cat5 or 6 even part way, by all means do so, but if it means bringing in an electrician at $80 an hour, powerline gets cheap very fast and it's easy to change your mind about where things go.
by ourbrooks
Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:41 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: home networking
Replies: 23
Views: 2145

Powerline networking will work to some extent as long as there's just one service into the house. It works less well if there are multiple service panels - the things with circuit breakers or fuses in them - but it still works. Figure on getting 5% of the claimed speed as a worst case, so 200 Mbit is really 10 Mbit.

If that sounds bad, even 54 Mbit wireless may often have a throughput of only 2-3 Mbit so the power line connection will feel amazingly fast.

In my experience, powerline is also much less flaky than wireless. We no longer have the problems of someone walking past the router and disrupting connections.
by ourbrooks
Tue Sep 20, 2011 9:37 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: home networking
Replies: 23
Views: 2145

Consider replacing the wireless with wired connections of various kinds. If you could somehow get a CAT6e cable run from the point at which the external connection comes in to a remote point in the house, you could add another wireless access point.

Also, look into powerline networking, which runs a network signal through the electrical wires. Under perfect conditions, they'll support up to 500 Mz bandwidth. Suppose that you only got 1% of that; it'd still beat most actual wireless connections. Cost is roughly $60 per connection point.
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:20 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Hard Drive
Replies: 19
Views: 2027

The way WinDirStat figures out what is "unknown" is to substract the files it can figure out from the total size of the disk. Sounds like there's a whole lot which it can't access.

First thing to try might be to delete all but the last restore points.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555367

You also might try running the CHKDSK utility to see if pointers in the file system have been damaged.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... d385dcbb12
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:12 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: 20-year expectation for S&P 500
Replies: 15
Views: 3172

However, this doesn't mean that the P/E10 predicts anything, only that removing a very bad first year and adding a different year to replace it will usually raise the average. This effect will happen using any ratio of price to something that moves much more slowly than price, regardless of whether the ratio used has any predictive power. Exactly my point and it's a problem. It produces very strange results. If the market crashes this year so that PE10 goes to 10, then, using the chart at the beginning of the post, the prediction is for the 20 years starting next year to give average returns of 8%. Using the chart starting this year, it gives returns of 3.5% The only way both predictions can be right is if 2031 has 1000% or so returns, whi...
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:03 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Hard Drive
Replies: 19
Views: 2027

There are two WinDirStat options, Show Free Space and Show Unknown.
What does it show if you have both of them on?
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:48 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: 20-year expectation for S&P 500
Replies: 15
Views: 3172

What I'm doing is not regresssing overlapping periods. The regression was done once and is shown graphically as a line on the chart. I'm just using the resulting equation twice, at two different points in time. As far as I know, there's nothing wrong with using the same regression equation many, many times.

Okay, so PE100 is 22.4 today. I can use it to make a prediction for the twenty years starting today. Suppose that a year from now, it's down to 10. I can use it to make a prediction for the twenty years starting a year from now. Nineteen of the twenty years in those two twenty year periods are the same. Any difference in the average return prediction for the two periods must be due to what happens in the one year that's different.
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:59 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Hard Drive
Replies: 19
Views: 2027

There's a tool called WinDirStat which creates a graphical map of your disk usage. Look for the largest files and try and figure out what they are.
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:55 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: 20-year expectation for S&P 500
Replies: 15
Views: 3172

What we're doing here is making predictions about a 20 year average from a single point in time, December 2010. Doing this leads to some strange consequences. Suppose there's a sell off during 2011 and PE10 drops to 10. That results in a 20 year predicted return of around 8%. The first prediction for about 3% was for the 20 years starting in 2011. The second prediction is for 20 years starting in 2012. Nineteen of the two twenty year periods are the same. Only 2031 is not part of both periods. The only way for the second period to have an average return of 8% is for the year 2031 to have a return of over 1000% I can see the CNN headlines now, "Shiller predicts record market returns in 2031." The fundamental problem is the PE10 is ...
by ourbrooks
Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:44 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: A question about "the Dogs of the Dow"
Replies: 23
Views: 2868

In many states, insurance companies settled suits against them by the state by agreeing to reimburse the state for tobacco caused health care costs. These reimbursements were in the form of a payments over many years. In order to spend this money right away, some states issued municipal bonds with payments from the tobacco companies used to payoff the bonds. The tobacco companies didn't liquidate so these payments are, effectively, from current profits.

If you're going to prune the 30 stocks of the Dow based on social criteria, you may not be able to follow the Dogs of the Dow strategy anyway. What if the stocks with the highest dividend yields are also the companies you've ruled out for social reasons?
by ourbrooks
Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:59 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: A question about "the Dogs of the Dow"
Replies: 23
Views: 2868

Are you sure that the Dow 30 industrials don't contain some companies you don't want to be profiting from? Are you perfectly comfortable with holding oil company stocks or military equipment stocks? Most of the companies in the industrial average are large companies and large companies tend to have a much larger variety of businesses than most people recognize. Are you sure that even innocent sounding companies don't have a division or two somewhere whose businesses give you heartburn? Alas, the same warning applies to bonds. For example, if you hold a municipal bond fund, you might well be holding tobacco settlement bonds, bonds sold on the basis of settlement of suits against tobacco companies for the long term health damage that they've ...
by ourbrooks
Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:00 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Safe Withdrawal Rate 2.52%
Replies: 48
Views: 7193

I keep looking for a good reason not to buy a large SPIA so I can continue to rebalance, slice-and-dice and play other interesting games. Alas, one of my few remaining arguments has been dashed. An argument in favor of stock/bond investments as versus SPIAs used to be that, except in the worst case, withdrawing at a safe rate from a stock/bond portfolio would leave a legacy, amount unknown but possibly quite large, whereas, with an SPIA, there'll always be zero left. Right now, inflation indexed SPIAs are have payouts in the 4% range (age 65, dual life). If I buy the SPIA and spend just 2.52% of my original amount each year, the safe amount for withdrawals from a stock/bond portfolio, I can put away an inflation adjusted 1.48% of my income ...
by ourbrooks
Sun Jul 03, 2011 11:57 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Social Security Delay: the Rallying Cry
Replies: 101
Views: 12981

What the OP may not be aware of is that the amount of your Social Security payments increases by about 8% for each year you delay. If your FRA is 66 and you wait until age 70, you get about 33% more. The amounts are also inflation adjusted, so if we assume 3% inflation, you might get close to 45% more. If you can find an investment which pays more than 8% a year in real terms and has zero variability, then taking SS early and leaving your investments to grow makes sense. (If you know of one, please tell the rest of us; we want to put our money there too.) The reasons I can think of for taking Social Security at age 62 are (1) you think you have a shorter than average life expectency (2) you believe that there will be legislative changes whi...
by ourbrooks
Fri Jul 01, 2011 7:23 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Security of 3G, WiFi with iPad
Replies: 20
Views: 4096

As an earlier poster pointed out, SSL encryption occurs in the browser so it doesn't matter much about the transmission path.

What I'd worry more about is losing your iPad. You may have "remembered" a lot of passwords on it or selected a "stay logged in" option. I don't know what capabilities iPads have for passwords or screen locks, but I'd use them all and I'd be wary of storing passwords or any other private information on it.
by ourbrooks
Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:28 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Should you invest in high-growth emerging markets or not?
Replies: 22
Views: 2418

It's too bad we can't invest in emerging economies. Yes, I know there are lots and lots of stock funds which claim to represent emerging markets. What they actually invest in are companies based in the emerging market countries. That doesn't mean that the companies themselves do all or most of their business in emerging markets. In fact, most of the largest "emerging market" companies do substantial business in developed countries. For example, numbers 2 and 4 on the lists of holding of the Vanguard Emerging Market Fund are Samsung and Gazprom. Samsung is already a familiar name for household appliances in the U.S. and Gazprom's business is selling natural gas to western Europe. Many of the other companies in the fund are natural ...
by ourbrooks
Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:13 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Baby Boomers...
Replies: 17
Views: 2404

Of course, we should add to the "why we hate boomers" list the whole Internet. Most people aren't aware of this, but the early development of the Internet was entirely funded by government spending. Too bad that that money wasn't used for tax cuts!
by ourbrooks
Tue Jun 14, 2011 4:02 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Hybrid - is it worth it?
Replies: 86
Views: 9610

One issue that doesn't seem to be discussed much is drivability. We have a short, steep driveway into our garage. We have two cars, one hybrid, one not. You have to be very careful with the non-hybrid car on getting into the garage; if you don't give it enough gas, you stall. If you give it too much gas..... With the hybrid, I can creep into the driveway at what ever speed I like. I can get into tight parking spaces without worrying about accidentally lurching forward, etc. The hybrid is a Toyota Highlander. It has the same acceleration as the BMW X5 with the standard engine. I try not to ever need all of that acceleration, but it is confidence building to know it's there and when I don't use, it doesn't cost me mileage. Overall, it's a smo...