Bogleheads.org

Sounds a bit micro managing to me. You hit weird ones. Set Top boxes that are costing $1.00 per day in electricity, etc. It's the "energy vampires"-- electrical devices which use a lot of power in, for example, their "instant on" features. In 2006 President Bush signed into law an Act which really cracked down on these - the US was ahead of Europe, unusually, on this one. But there's still random phone chargers, old devices, old fridges around the house that can burn up a lot of juice (doubly so in summer because the AC then needs to move that heat out of the house). I am now paying the equivalent of something like $0.42 USD for electricity, so these things start to count. A 30 year old fridge might burn 1000 kwhr pa, a...

Spouse and I both received our bonuses recently. No plans to spend it immediately, but we might take a vacation in the summer, renovate the house, buy a new car next year and/or send a kid to college in 2 years. So we have no urgent need for it but will likely use at least some of it in 12-36 months. So what would you do? Option 1 ... 4.7% 18 month CD Option 2 ... VMFXX Option 3 ... iBonds, but this is not a complete option given the 20k limit iBonds I view as a separate bucket. Long term savings, inflation protection. So they should not be in "cash" in your asset allocation. Of the other 2, the CD has no risk to your principal (within FDIC limits). The actual volatility in value (if interest rates go up, say) is invisible to you...

It's a fair question. I'd like to see mutual fund managers issue statements regarding their funds exposure to these so-called systemic financial company failures. And specifically, whether they hold any Credit Suisse AT1 bonds or AT1 bonds of any sort. Seems like a simple enough statement for a fund manager to make. If we are to believe in the simple indexing approach using only 2-4 funds instead of a dozen or so funds, a single fund's exposure to a major default is high impact to an individual investor. It depends how that fund is invested. Total Bond Market is pretty broad (about 17% corporate bonds, from memory). After the Worldcom default hit Vanguard Total Bond Market fund quite hard (about 1-2% of assets?) they changed their risk pol...

It’s important to learn lessons from current events in the financial world. Just wondering where we as Vanguard investors are at risk in the current state of financial affairs of the banks. The bond holders got wiped out in the UBS Credit Suisse deal for example. Are investors in Vanguard high yield/junk bond funds on the hook for a significant loss on the deal? Was Vanguard invested in those bonds? Will Vanguard come clean and tell shareholders? Where else might we be at risk and not know it? These are European bonds, and AFAIK were rated investment grade. So a US bond fund should have no exposure . Bonds issued by financial companies are always a risk because of the way they work (policyholders or depositors rank ahead of any bonds or eq...

My accounts are mutual funds with Vanguard, so I’m not worried. I can review all holdings in the fund if I desire. Don’t feel a need to currently. Vanguard does not issue their own corporate bonds for sale. CS bonds were AT1 contingent convertibles. I have no clue how those work and therefore don’t invest in them. So the CoCo bonds (AT1) are, AFAIK, a European thing -- US regulators didn't like them as bank capital, so they haven't been used. What the Swiss have done has set the bond market on fire and not in a good way. European banking regulators are rushing to reassure investors that this is not what is intended and would not be applied in a Eurozone (or British) bank bailout situation. There's something like $250bn of these things out ...

My son gets admissions from U. Minnesota (Twin Cities), SUNY Stony Brook and Arizona State, all in Computer Science. Cost aside, which one is the best to attend? Has your son every been through a Minnesota winter? Going from memory (30 years ago) one of the features that the University of Minnesota brochures advertised was their extensive tunnel system so that one could avoid the weather during winter. SUNY looks to have easy access to New York City (and thus to Manhattan). For some folks this won't matter. For others this is a huge plus. ASU is, well, warmer than either of the first two. Which one fits your child best? I feel cold is better tolerated than hot weather. Except it won’t really be hot during the school year. It’ll be lovely a...

If he is used to the Upper Midwest climate, then Minnesota might be a good fit. If not, that's a potential issue - winter in that part of the world has to be experienced to be understood. Not that different from the Northeast. Mid 70s in September and May, 60 in October and April, mid 40s in November and March, upper 20s in December and February, low 20s in January, for high temperatures. Not sure what you mean by the northeast, but I’ll use Boston as a proxy Average high in Boston in Jan is 37. Average for Minneapolis is 25. I’d say a 12 degree average temp difference is pretty different. Now a person might not care, but it’s definitely different Boston is brutal in winter because of the very thing which moderates the temperature. The Nor...

My son gets admissions from U. Minnesota (Twin Cities), SUNY Stony Brook and Arizona State, all in Computer Science. Cost aside, which one is the best to attend? Purely on academics for CS: 1. Stony Brook 2. Minnesota 3. Arizona State This may not matter much to engineering or CS. The famed Brookhaven National Lab. is near Stony Brook and there may be a special relationship between them. A notable theoretical physicist C.N. Yang, a 1957 Nobel Laureate for his ground shattering work on parity violation (broken parity symmetry) with T.D. Lee was hired from IAS, Princeton University to Stony Brook a while ago. I think it's actually also the math department? Jim Simons, a math professor at SB, founded Renaissance Technologies. Arguably the wor...

If he is used to the Upper Midwest climate, then Minnesota might be a good fit. If not, that's a potential issue - winter in that part of the world has to be experienced to be understood. Not that different from the Northeast. Mid 70s in September and May, 60 in October and April, mid 40s in November and March, upper 20s in December and February, low 20s in January, for high temperatures. Winnipeg in winter? Minneapolis? I look on the weather maps and see minus 20 (it doesn't really matter whether that's Centigrade or Fahrenheit ;-)). My apologies if I am way out of touch - I have never lived there. But I see *cold*? Also of course the latitude is relatively high. You'd get the wind off the Great Lakes, too, in winter. That really is cold-...

Hi all Presume you have savings of many multiples your earnings, and your earnings are tax free below 12000k allowance Presume your Lifetime ISA contributions are maxed out (4k /year), but your ISA are not fully maxed out. Would you - max out SIPP contribution first (only about 3k, but with tax reimbursement, see below), then ISA - max out ISA first, then SIPP - max out ISA, and avoid SIPP - avoid ISA, max out SIPP - avoid both: do nothing at all. Keep saving and invest GIA For reference: 1- without income, the SIPP max contribution is 2880 GBP / year, so it's not much. You still get 720 GBP tax reimbursement, even if your tax was 0. 2- international lifestyle: likelihood is that I will not be a resident of the UK within the next 1-2 years...

Do you or granny have more than the $250k limit in one account? Because that's what T-bills are for. I mean the entire banking system is premised on the belief that for all intents and purposes deposits are money. If the government is faced with the choice between maintaining faith in the financial system or teaching me and granny a hard lesson about the limits of FDIC insurance, I think they should probably aim for supporting the banking system I'm not saying that anyone should be taught a hard lesson. How about if they pass a regulation that banks have to tell depositors with over $250k that they should buy T-bills with the excess, and maybe even provide education and help as to how they can do that? Having an unlimited "limit"...

we are in the middle of a another financial crisis. Or at least the first steps of one. Chasing yield at this point is.. inadvisable. Safety first. I always value your posts and thoughts, so my main question is : If even the US can technically default as mentioned previously, which leads to believe that all countries could (p.e. Germany, UK etc) That's not a correct logical inference. The point is the US has 1). a legal sovereign debt limit 2). in practice, if the legislative and executive are of the same party, the limit is raised 3). if they are not, there is a piece of political hostage-taking which one practises on the other. Brinksmanship or the grand old American game of "Chicken". AFAIK this doesn't happen in other countri...

If money is not an issue, he should attend the one HE wants to attend. Yea, he will be the decision maker. I just want to gather some pionts for him to consider. If ASU is a "party school" then you need to have a grown up discussion with him about his ability to work in such an environment. CS is a hard major. The best jobs are ferociously competitive. I graduated during a recession and wound up with a job (maintaining programs at an insurer) that I hated. It took me a long time to recover from that. You have to be able to be focused, organised and work hard to get a CS degree. And given this downturn is, like 2000-03, likely to last a while, you need to have grades at least in the upper half of your class. CS will have some very...

we are in the middle of a another financial crisis. Or at least the first steps of one.

Chasing yield at this point is.. inadvisable. Safety first.

The fact is that there may be some diversification benefit from making investments that are only available to accredited investors (do you really think that the ultra-wealthy and financial institutions just invest in the three fund portfolio, or that they always lose money when they make other investments?). These type of investments would typically be higher risk, potentially higher return, and, for diversification would ideally move in ways not correlated to the stock and bond markets. As pointed out by others, this may be private equity or real estate, or perhaps some other speculative investments. The rationale for the accredited investor threshold is that those investors have the sophistication and resources to allow investment in, an...

Unlike US MMFs, European Cash Funds can "Break the Buck" ie go below a NAV of $1.00 or EUR 1.00 etc. That's always been the case. US MMFs changed the rules post 2008 and some can and some cannot. The possibility of a "rush for the exits" a la 2008 is still there. If Credit Suisse gets into real difficulty, for example, it might freak money market investors. However as long as the exposure of the fund is not too large to private sector credit risk, it's possible to lose some money, but not the lot. I presume there are provisions to "freeze" redemptions to allow orderly liquidation (but I don't actually know). That is true. Nothing is 100% safe. Not even treasury bills are 100% immune to default, a downgrade in ...

As a final check on any investments I intend to make, I look and see how much money is invested in a fund to understand how other hopefully rational investors have decided. Any VG fund that has a significant amount invested ($50B?) passes this final test. Regarding one of the forum’s favorite topics, dividend irrelevance, after reading about every thread I could find here, I thought I would see how investors were voting with their feet. Just by reading the product summaries, there are at least seven (probably more) VG funds that have a dividend focus: High Dividend (VHYAX/VYM), Dividend Appreciation (VDADX/VIG), Dividend Growth (VDIGX), Equity Income (VEIRX), Wellesley Income (VWIAX), International High Dividend (VIHAX/VYMI), and Internati...

If it’s that good, they don’t need to market small chunks at high costs to multiple individuals like me, they’ll get big chunks of low cost institutional money. This. The fact that private equity can be offered to folks like me doesn’t mean I should buy it. I don’t know how to evaluate PE deals any more than I know how to value individual stocks or time factor tilts… so I don’t bother. That and fees. It's better to work in Private Equity as a career, and maybe get seriously rich off the carried interest (performance fees) than to invest in it as a Limited Partner. You invest in funds as an LP, and they have high fees. Most sophisticated institutional investors don't do that well. It's not likely you as an individual will get access to the ...

After a few years working no one cares where you graduated from. There is just no planet that spending all that extra money makes any sense unless is it totally disposable income. This issue has been discussed ad nauseam here and on other forums. For most colleges and most majors, there is little discernable impact on long term outcomes. However, for a certain subset of colleges and/or majors, there is a significant difference in outcomes that can dwarf any tuition savings. This feels about right. There's an elite group that is well, elite-- and that will pay benefits throughout one's career. (Berkeley and UCLA are probably in that elite? despite being public universities). But a good public university will do as long as the student doesn'...

I also spent 15 years at a F100 Silicon Valley company as an Eng exec. If you get into MIT, Harvard, Yale, Standford, Princeton, by all means figure out how to pay for that. What these ones give you is a human network the others can't. If you don't get into one of these, or a very few select others, they are all pretty similar in your long term prospects. What matters most is getting into college, getting in with a good friend set so you don't get dragged down and being dedicated to learn and get decent grades - you must get a >=3.0 GPA overall and in your major. (I am not US based) This accords with my intuition. You pay up for the top universities. Otherwise you go to a good school with a decent rep, and you place well in your class. (4 ...

If money is not an issue, he should attend the one HE wants to attend. Yea, he will be the decision maker. I just want to gather some pionts for him to consider. If ASU is a "party school" then you need to have a grown up discussion with him about his ability to work in such an environment. CS is a hard major. The best jobs are ferociously competitive. I graduated during a recession and wound up with a job (maintaining programs at an insurer) that I hated. It took me a long time to recover from that. You have to be able to be focused, organised and work hard to get a CS degree. And given this downturn is, like 2000-03, likely to last a while, you need to have grades at least in the upper half of your class. CS will have some very...

My son gets admissions from U. Minnesota (Twin Cities), SUNY Stony Brook and Arizona State, all in Computer Science. Cost aside, which one is the best to attend? Has your son every been through a Minnesota winter? Going from memory (30 years ago) one of the features that the University of Minnesota brochures advertised was their extensive tunnel system so that one could avoid the weather during winter. SUNY looks to have easy access to New York City (and thus to Manhattan). For some folks this won't matter. For others this is a huge plus. ASU is, well, warmer than either of the first two. Which one fits your child best? Stony Brook is well over an hour from NYC. It is a commuter school with an ugly campus and no school spirit. (Got my grad...

Hi all, 2. Which bonds would you recommend for someone who likes to have a 50/50 portfolio with stocks and bonds? Why would someone invest in long duration bonds anyways in this time where you get higher interest in short duration bonds? I understand that when rates drop, that these will rise in value but therefore they do not pay high interest atm. If you could recommend products that would be great. I was thinking to pick these for my sister to hold long term: iShares Global Corporate Bond ETF IE00B9M6SJ31 90% allocation UBS Euro Treasury 1-10 ETF LU0969639128 6% allocation iShares Global High Yield Corporate Bond ETF IE00BJSFR200 2% iShares USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF IE00BYXYYK40 2% Or just keep it simple and buy only the first one. ...

We typically keep our cash holdings in box spreads (I run boxtrades.com for this) but were recently informed by our mortgage broker that they won't accept anything but "cash equivalents" as proof of funds. As a result, I've been researching alternatives and right now it seems like money market funds are the top yielding instrument that provides the flexibility we need. I ended up pulling all money market funds off FINRA and checked each 7-day yield from NASDAQ and minimum initial investment from TDA. Not all of the data is 100%, but from my checks, the yield seems mostly accurate. Minimums change per brokerage (often drastically) and some expenses and AUM are wrong or missing. I may track these long term and build a proper screen...

I keep $9-10k in my Chase account; makes me nervous in light of this week's events ... Genuinely curious why? That’s well below FDIC limits in a too big to fail bank. Apart from my being a Nervous Nellie in the best of times? ... I suppose because I'd be in some difficulty if I couldn't withdraw cash/write cheques in case of the bank failing, and exactly how long it might take the FDIC to make my account whole. If JP Morgan Chase were to fail we have basically called "time" on the international banking system. This would be a more than 1931 event. In 1931 the failure of a bank in Vienna called Credit Anstalt kicked off a daisy chain which led to countries freezing all foreign exchange and isolating themselves from the world finan...

Citi and other Global Systematically Important Banks are subject to a high level of regulatory scrutiny and expanded capital requirements. https://www.fsb.org/wp-content/uploads/P211122.pdf Given their size and importance, they are almost certainly in the "too big to fail category", especially the top tier. The government is not going to let them collapse. Large depositors know this, greatly reducing the chances of bank run. Reportedly they, and the other giants, are experiencing increasing deposits from those worried about smaller banks, even in light of information about the percentage of uninsured deposits. Credit Suisse has issues, but it's looking like it will be saved this weekend. Reportedly, the Swiss National Bank is off...

it's only a concern if banks fail. the fact that people (depositors) have more than the limit insured by FDIC is as the article suggests a function of people either being too busy (too successful) to be aware some of their deposts are above the insured limit, or they simply find cash management unsexy and don't pay attention to that part of their money (savings). If banks don't fail, then people just have their money in the bank as they always have. if the banks on the chart fail, then there's pain for those people who have >$250k in those banks, unless the FDIC is going to protect them as as happened recently. So the question really is, if you're concerned with Citi or the other banks on the list, what can you tell us about their financia...

Sorry, one other thought. I wouldn't insist on a daily text. Sometimes, I hear from my kids 8 times a day, sometimes there's radio silence for a few days. Both are normal--it's just how kids are these days. If you haven't heard from your child in a couple days and are concerned, send them a picture of a family pet doing something silly. It comes across much less helicopter-y than "Are you okay?" Good advice. A WhatsApp or Signal channel with both parents & the child is handy. Then one can ping them, and wait for them to reply (aeons later...). This is the launchpad, and at some point it is "Apollo. This is Houston Ground Control. You are good to go". During their passage through space, there will be times when they ...

The college selection process has come to the end and my son has made his selection (fortunately at an instate school that even offered him a scholarship). His school is about 6 hours away from us in a pretty rural setting. I would appreciate any practical advice from those who have made this transition. Make sure they know it's OK to try things, and to fail. It's often the case that we don't have the right major (I certainly did not, for my first degree, and it landed me in what, for me, was definitely the wrong career). Academic failure (which they may never have experienced before) is part of the process and is not a judgement against their worth as a human being, nor even their future income (If they are Pre Med, it might be, but one d...

Also treasury bills are not completely risk-free (and neither are MMF: I should know as I was holding some cash in The Reserve Fund in 2008): Sorry, but I have to correct you on this. The safety profile of an MMF with commercial paper is not the same as treasury bills' risk profile. The Reserve Fund broke the buck because of commercial paper issued by Lehman. "The fund had a $785 million allocation to short-term loans issued by Lehman Brothers." The majority of MMFs hold 'commercial paper', not treasuries. This particular Invesco fund has 25% in commercial paper issued by various banks around the world. If one wants higher safety they need to find a 'USD treasuries only' MMF. Not sure there are any available to EU residents. Henc...

Can you help me understand the 'discount rate' in your chart? The "Alive" sheet of my my Longevity Estimator Excel workbook calculates the survival-weighted benefit every year. The discount rate is then applied to each of these yearly values to get a present value. For example, the PV of $100 in one year at 5% is $95.24 = 100 / 1.05; the PV of $100 in two years is $90.70 = 100 / 1.05 ^ 2; etc. The discount rate can also be considered as the rate money would grow if invested instead of being spent. I can't seem to figure out if the increased monthly payment of the 50% option, if saved not spent each month, over 20 years until the term life insurance is over and say I pass away at year 21 (just after the term ends so no payout) is ...

Due to 'restructuring' at my workplace I'm having to retire earlier than planned. I must decide quickly which pension choice to go with - lump sum was not enough to consider. Married, both about the same age @ 60 years old. Will only have this pension (No COLA) and both our SS for steady income. Have IRAs 401Ks etc. Spouse's SS is calculated at slightly more than half of mine. Planning Spouse start SS at 62 and me at 70. Any pension choice will not totally cover our living expenses. Pension with SS will almost cover it. We have funds to backfill the necessary income until we both are collecting SS. I'm having trouble deciding pension choices. Correct me if I'm wrong but the 75% Joint and Survivor seems like the wrong choice as the monthly ...

Hi, thanks for those insights. According to IBKR faq's cash deposits at IBKR have limited protection under SIPC up to $500,000 for assets and up to $250,000 for cash ($'s) as a "sublimit" according to the IBKR UK notes. (Non US dollar cash deposits are covered only if they are for the purposes of purchasing securities). There is a further insurance in place for a substantial sum ($30m) with Lloyds of London. On the surface this is superior to your local UK high street bank. DJN SIPC is not the UK government bank deposit insurance scheme? Lloyds of London (the insurance market). I imagine Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the Lloyds of London reinsurance scandal ("Names" ie individual investors with unlimited liabil...

We are shopping for a term life and disability insurance. The whole process is very interesting but very interesting but this is for another thread. We now need to determine the amount of life and disability insurance we need. Please help us determine that. We believe our number is $5m. We currently have $1.5m financial assets, $500k debt (mortgage, student loan, etc.), and save anywhere between 150k to 200k per year. For planning purposes, let’s be conservative and use 150k. (We work in a fairly stable industry, so we can assume continuous employment unless we are sick/disable.) At 4% real return, we will be FI in 16 years. That means we should buy a $4m term life insurance now and wind it down to zero in 20 years. Perhaps we can do this ...

This scary looking chart was the subject of some angst at a different forum. I'd be interested what the more advanced users think: Assets: Liquidity and Credit Facilities: Loans: Primary Credit: Wednesday Level - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WLCFLPCL Some were saying the available credit creates an easy arbitrage opportunity for even banks that are not threatened and will be abused. Part of me was wondering if that is why the other big banks are now so willing to "help" First Republic. The CEOs of the big banks lived through 2008: the moment when the entire financial system could have failed (and wound up nationalised). They don't want to live through that again. Nor do they want more heavy handed government prudential regu...

I have a First Republic LOC that I had not drawn from yet, intending to use it to finance a renovation later this year. Out of the blue yesterday I got an email from the rep assigned to my account “checking in”. Today I drew the full $100k not wanting to lose access to the rate. It’s sitting in my First Republic checking account now but I can only transfer out $25k a day so we’ll see what happens. I imagine once it’s in my checking account there it should be covered by FDIC if something should happen to First Republic. Yes it will be covered. Almost 100% certain. FDIC would have to fail for this not to be the case (assuming the account is FDIC insured). Your entirely rational and prudent behaviour is what causes a bank run. If there's a fi...

CletusCaddy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:38 pm This might be only time I am happy what I owe the bank is significantly more than what the bank owes me.

If they go under, you will still owe the bank what you owe them. The loan will be sold on to another party or held to maturity in the run-out vehicle which will be established (aka "the bad bank"). You will still be paying interest & principal amortisation.

OTOH your deposit is probably safe (if less than $250k), pretty safe (more than that). But not for certain 100% safe.

They got bailed out by the big banks. The stock price is currently around $27 after hours. "To Our Valued Clients, Today, First Republic announced we will receive uninsured deposits totaling $30 billion on March 16, 2023, from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York Mellon, PNC Bank, State Street, Truist and U.S. Bank. This support from America’s largest banks reflects confidence in First Republic and our ability to continue to provide unwavering service to you — our clients and communities. You can read more by viewing our press release available on our website. We continue to stay focused on the core tenets of First Republic: Operating a simple, straightforward busines...

They can cut the line of credit at ANY time unless you are getting a committed agreement. Are you? Don’t be like those people who got a rude awakening when their lines of credit both personal and HELOCs went the way of the dodo bird back in 2008 and more recently last year when the banks gave a repeat performance. Your idea of an emergency fund is not the same as the banks risk managers. In an emergency they will either freeze it or get rid of it outright. Cash is king for a reason. 12 days later... we know why. I would not want a LOC with a bank that was in financial distress. I have a relative who was a corporate Treasurer. After Lehman, any prudent corporate was trying to draw down its full lines - to increase the cash in the bank. Bank...

simplesimon wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:50 am

technovelist wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:33 am This last statement is not necessarily true. I was once a customer of a bank that had over 100% liquidity so if everyone who had a demand deposit presented it at the same time, the bank would just sell liquid assets and give them their money. For obvious reasons, they didn't ever have a run.

Were they not in the business of lending? How did they make money?

You would drive short term interest rates down to zero. There would be massive (see my post above about Hoare & Co) demand for short term securities from banks that held that much ST collateral against deposits.

This last statement is not necessarily true. I was once a customer of a bank that had over 100% liquidity so if everyone who had a demand deposit presented it at the same time, the bank would just sell liquid assets and give them their money. For obvious reasons, they didn't ever have a run. Hoare & Co in London is (or was) still a partnership, owned by the family that founded it in the 1600s. Unlimited liability. One bad decision could wipe out the wealth of a family accumulated over 300 years. So yes they kept an incredibly high quality loan book (typically they lent to wealthy & aristocratic clients, with fixed and floating charges over family-owned businesses and especially farms, etc). And huge amounts of short term govt secur...

It can be, based on when you claim but is not actuarially neutral throughout all claiming years. Actuarial neutrality requires that the present value of accrued pension benefits for working an additional year is the same as in the year before (benefits increase only by the additional entitlement earned in that year). FERS gains 10% for working to age 62, and loses the social security supplement at age 62, so it is not actuarially neutral exactly. Those two can balance each other, and the timing of the claim changes the present value of the pension and dictates which comes out ahead. Comparing age 57 to 62, the age 57 comes out ahead. Comparing age 61 to 62, the age 62 comes out ahead. As to actionable recommendations, you will (almost) alw...

Would you mind explaining this more for someone that really doesn't understand? I didn't see where they explicitly said that SVB has sufficient assets to cover depositors. I saw this https://www.fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2023/pr23019.html which just said "Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law." But forgive my ignorance but I didn't see where they explicitly said the assets of SVB are sufficient to cover depositors. They probably don't know yet. It's probably a close thing. All of the following is cribbed from what I've read recently, mostly Matt Levine's column. The issue is whether SVB is insolvent (more liabilities than ...

blueoak7 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:45 am A few of you have understood my difficulty, as I am accustomed to sufficient information in the USA.

Thanks thus far for the discussion and help.

The ORB retail bonds on the London Stock Exchange should have full documentation if you check LSEG website?

It is not many bonds, though.

What I don't know is what individual brokers offer - whether they offer the Prospectuses (to check things like Call features) or even just a summary of Bloomberg data (Yield to Call etc). Duration and convexity, etc.

Credit Rating is usually published but the actual credit rating agency reports are proprietary-- although the company may put them on its website.

I would try working backwards by figuring out what your brokers offer and then seeing if those are attractive enough to buy. My experience trying to put 6-7 figures at work with corporate bonds is that private banks and investment banks have a list of bonds they want to get rid of so careful with that. Secondary market for bond trading is a bit of a 'black box'. IBKR has a good platform but the spreads are nasty (not IB's fault). Be aware most if not all corporate bonds are callable so if interest rates drop, newer issues that were sold at higher rates might be called back. You're probably 'better off' in a corporate bond fund, short term if you are worried about interest rates continuing to rise. It's certainly not the same thing as bonds...

Thanks you all for your replies so far. The PFICs I hold are in ISAs (which makes selling them to buy similar funds while losing the tax-free status painful).Who knows if we are ever moving back to the UK. I have started to sell up (not great timing given what's happening in the market!). I am going to follow baron's advise and build my own HMRC compliant lifestrategy fund with a cocktail of VT and BND (prob 70-30). Any suggestions on the brokerage company here in US? Most/all seem to have 0% cost for transactions. I don't expect to trade stocks, just start (and hopefully regularly over time add to) my self styled lifestrategy fund as above. Looking at the alternatives all seem to fit the bill for my basic requirements. I have an etrade ac...

Hi! I'd like to invest more in the stock market (esp during times like this) but I am also saving for a down payment. What % of my net pay should I use for investments vs house down payment? Would it be silly to delay purchasing a house so I can invest more of my money in the stock market? Here are the pros/cons I see. Pros Flexibility. Who knows where my career might take me? I can always sell my stocks if I want to purchase a house (stock market could tank when I want to buy a house though) I can take more risks with my career Cons I live in a VHCOL area. House prices may continue to go up. I like having a home of my own FOMO. Friends are buying homes. If you live in an area where employment is heavily dependent on the tech industry, the...

fetch5482 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 10:20 pm I am curious - Fidelity and Schwab sell T-bills at price, i.e. they do not take any commission or gain anything from that transaction. Given these are "for profit" companies, what incentives do Schwab/Fidelity etc have to sell treasury bills?

Do they not take a Bid-Ask spread?

This is secondary market trading.

AFAIK the only time you can buy a T Bill at its actual single price is at issue, by participating in US Treasury auction?

I think what this show taught me is that I don't trust the American banking system. If I had a choice I'd have my money elsewhere maybe Singapore or Germany. That would be unwise. Singapore has this huge property bubble. Some of the most expensive real estate relative to income in the world (most of the population lives in state-provided housing). The country is totally crony-ist around the ruling family and a small coterie. Yes they have 2 huge sovereign wealth funds, yes they have a GDP per capita above most of western Europe. They are also a small island in a geopolitically volatile corner of the world. You are really dependent on the banking regulators knowing their stuff, and having the power to enforce it. Germany. Deutsch Bank? A ba...

Credit Suisse borrows $53.7 Billion from Swiss National Bank https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/15/investing/credit-suisse-shares-saudi-national-bank/index.html Credit Suisse has a Lehman-like potential. The systemic effects of SVB failing are small (but it became clear it had triggered a run on deposits in other banks, hence the authorities having to act: see New York Times coverage). Credit Suisse? Uggh. It's probably more systemically important than Lehman was. Trading with literally everyone in the financial world. Every bank in the world will be trying to limit their exposure right now. Hence the soaring prices of Credit Default Swaps. Welcome to Too Big To Fail. Or more Too Important To Fail. I doubt 50bn CHF will be enough. UK banks have a...