abyan wrote:As a relatively new member of this forum, but not a new member to online forums in other areas, which I've actually managed, it's a bit scary jumping in and asking questions when so many others seem to be experts on these various issues. And when you ask a question, and are told that you clearly don't understand what's going on, and that you should "buy my book," it's not a terribly helpful response, and feels like a bit of a brush off, like you've just said something stupid.
I know that I don't fully understand what Larry is proposing, that's why I asked a question in the first place, to better understand all of this. (And, not wanting to ask a dumb question, I even googled a number of Larry's articles, and things written about Larry's proposal, in order to better understand where he was coming from, before asking my question.) I think that I have a basic understanding of the theory behind Larry's proposal. And I get that one shouldn't adopt a strategy that one doesn't fully understand. That was drilled into my head by a number of comments on this site the first day I read through it. I just feel that sometimes, in this forum, it's a bit scary for a new person to weigh in, we worry that we're going to ask something stupid, and I felt that the response I got above was a bit of a brush off. If my question was stupid, I'm sorry. But I asked it sincerely, and the response I got didn't particularly motivate me to ask more questions as time goes on.
I've run big online forums before, and I've been the guy who everyone is looking to for advice. It's not always easy, I get that. I just ask that folks keep in mind that some of us are new here, and even newer people are coming here (hopefully) every day. And some of our questions are going to lack a full understanding of the underlying principles, and some of them might even come across as dumb (and they might even be dumb). But asking questions, and joining in the discussion, is the only way we're going to learn.
Perhaps I misread the tone of Larry's response to me above. But I just wanted to point out that many of us are new here, and it's not easy for us to feel comfortable asking questions or weighing in, when so many of you are so far ahead of us in terms of your understanding of all of this. Just keep that in mind when suggesting that we go read a book before asking any more questions.
Hi abyan,
welcome to the forum!
Your background provides a great perspective to add to our community, please hang in there. I too would encourage you to give Larry some slack. Both of your posts in this thread have been relatively long reads, and it's something to expect the average reader, let alone Larry, to carefully read and digest this much in this context. From the second to last paragraph of your first post:
abyan wrote:If someone is at Vanguard, do you have any suggestions for replicating your tilt portfolio, and is it worth tilting even partially, or would a partial tilt (say, buying TSM and emerging markets, and/or small cap value and/or international small cap and/or intl value) risk not actually lowering beta exposure because we'd be injecting one volatile asset and not compensating with an equal and uncorrelated one?
this is a broad question deserving an in-depth response, and it is something that has been asked many times before in the forum and Larry has addressed, and surely will continue to do so. Try not to take offense at the apparent shortness of some responses. You're experiencing first hand the perspective from the other side of the fence now, where I too started (and largely still remain), but you'll find your way to the information you need if you hang in there! I suggest you spend more time searching for past threads where Larry has addressed this before in greater depth. Maybe get the book at the library too. Either way, good luck and please stay with us.