Bogleheads.org

whodidntante wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 8:06 am A treasure room with traps is the most secure solution, so long as your threat model doesn't include Indiana Jones.

Or people who play Dungeons and Dragons a lot.

"You are in a maze of twisty corridors".

They are both 100% insured, so I don’t see the point. People are too panicked these days Who is providing insurance for option B? OP states, Option B - $250,000 in a money fund at Fidelity, which is NOT FDIC insured. But it is insured against almost everything. There is SIPC insurance in case the brokerage explodes and loses your shares, so the 250k would be recovered. Yes, under some very small set of situations the money market could “break the buck” temporarily, but that would be like a temporary <1% price movement, not a total loss It could however trigger a run on the MMF? Everyone races to get out, because they know redemptions will cause the sale of the more liquid/ higher quality securities in the MMF? aka "It's not rational t...

That's of course true. If your burn rate is, say, 1%, then you can live on the dividend yield, which should at least track inflation, of a 100% stock portfolio, and with a good margin of safety. That's the math half of investing. The Shakespeare half of investing, tho, is greatly bolstered by a nice pile of both TIPS and T-bills at any burn rate. At the risk of repeating myself way too many times, there's a reason why Berkshire keeps 20% of its assets in bills and cash equivalents. In the UK 1972-74 stocks dropped 80% in real terms (a bit over). Less in nominal terms. Stocks in the 1930s of course dropped something similar, 1929-1933? More in nominal terms but prices fell? Then staged a recovery, then dropped nearly as much in 1938? In bot...

Nisiprius has reminded me of what I thought of the "Risk parity" portfolios. What happens if: - we have high inflation, and interest rates go up (both), and gold does not act as an inflation hedge? - we have low inflation, low interest rates, and a go nowhere sort of stock market? I can keep inventing macroeconomic scenarios, and we have just been through one, where no part of the portfolio is really going to help you much. Stock market went down. Long bonds went down as much or more. Inflation went up so short term bonds (which also went down) did not do well in real terms. Gold wasn't a great hedge? Also. Never leverage. Charlie Munger (?) is right. If you lose your stake at the casino, that's it, you can never have those savin...

So I am super familiar with how things work in the US. The fund is a separate entity - at least in the US. In theory nothing should happen to the fund if the sponsor blows up. At least in the US the controls are super robust... Hi alex_686, Thanks for sharing your perspective. Were you following ETNs back in 2008, when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy? It's my understanding that holders of Lehman's ETNs did not recover all their investment and were treated as unsecured creditors. How does that situation relate to what you wrote? Here is a link to a news article describing treatment of those ETN investors. In my understanding, ETNs are very different from ETFs? ETN is actually issued by the arranging bank, eg Lehman. It's a bet on Lehma...

And as mentioned up-thread numerous times, but it bears repeating, CS is about a whole lot more than programming. You want a contact tracing algorithm? That's likely going to be mathematicians and computer scientists collaborating with public health professionals. You want to analyze MRI images to find damaged cells or tumors? Again, computer scientists and engineers collaborating with medical professionals and radiologists. You want to use drone and satellite imagery to determine the extent of wildfire damage, storm damage, ecosystem recovery, and so on? Again, you'll be consulting with computer scientists and engineers. So to the OP, your son will have many opportunities with a CS degree beyond programming. However, given his interest in...

Ok I will chime in on the original issue. I have a child who chose a more “prestigious” school for his major despite not truly feeling it. He liked it but he really loved his other choice but his other choice wasn’t “name brand” - it was in the top 100 privates - chosen school was top 10. He originally thought he could grow to love his school and he tried so hard it almost did him in. He was miserable but didn’t show it to anyone until the end of sophomore year when he came home for break and lost it; couldn’t get out of bed and looked terrible. Finally fessed up that he was truly miserable and felt guilty on top of that. His grades were dropping as was his motivation. Long story short - he spent a year at home “regrouping” and taking on l...

Just this last couple of weeks I am picking up very live signals of recession which were not there before (the UK economy is in bad shape for very specific reasons to it, but they have been obvious for a while). Working in London: - financial services. Credit Suisse, of course. But Goldman and other banks are making layoffs - professional services firms (Big 4 etc) which were all guns blazing hiring in January are suddenly screeching to a halt as their orderbook dries up - impact of high inflation really hitting consumer budgets - weekly shopping basked up +50% in a year. Energy crisis has abated however that's not yet being seen in utility bills (which more or less tripled) - I gather Accenture has announced layoffs - housing market is wea...

I was an IC in tech for 25 years, last 10 years as a Solution/Enterprise architect, mostly at very large Fortune 50 companies, although I did work at a startup for a few years and a few small companies also. Towards the end of my career, I took a director level job at a non-profit I loved which I had been volunteering for. My experience was that non-profit was run nothing like any corporation I had worked for — a lot of favoritism, no accountability and poor decision making. I found and trained my replacement ASAP and was back to corporate life in less than a year. So I’d think real hard about option #2. The old "grass is always greener" syndrome. Not-for-profits are often just less professional. Of course "a lot of favoriti...

Stock valuations were low in the early 70s, housing was also low relative to median income. Now both are at record levels. Stocks performed decently at least nominally in the 70s, can we say the same for the next decade? If we have low market returns with a backdrop of high inflation then it's going to be worse than the 70s. Although folks like Kathy Woods are sticking to their forecast that we are going to quickly devolve into deflation. If you look at mortgage rates at the time, yes housing prices were low. But I don't think they did that well (relative to inflation) throughout the 1970s? Mortgage rates were high (i think around 6%), and went higher (over 13% early in the next decade?). Had one known in 1971 that real interest rates woul...

Dear Bogleheads, Every 3-5 years I revisit my role at work, and generally look to see what else I could do/am interested in pursuing. Without getting too specific, I’ve been in Tech first level management roles for the past 10-15 years. Tired of operations type roles, transitioned to something more strategic last 5 years or so. Lead a great team, truly great people and am their humble leader. I’m at the threshold where I’m starting to think, ‘what’s next?’. I’d like some opinions and feedback mostly from people mid 40s or older who may have been in a similar situation. Just want to understand a. How you’ve navigated the decision process b. Your thoughts on my ideas below. Importantly, all my options are bounded by the fact I’d like this to...

Nisiprius has reminded me of what I thought of the "Risk parity" portfolios. What happens if: - we have high inflation, and interest rates go up (both), and gold does not act as an inflation hedge? - we have low inflation, low interest rates, and a go nowhere sort of stock market? I can keep inventing macroeconomic scenarios, and we have just been through one, where no part of the portfolio is really going to help you much. Stock market went down. Long bonds went down as much or more. Inflation went up so short term bonds (which also went down) did not do well in real terms. Gold wasn't a great hedge? Also. Never leverage. Charlie Munger (?) is right. If you lose your stake at the casino, that's it, you can never have those saving...

TomatoTomahto wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:52 am

stoptothink wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:41 am
You're not familiar with "Think and Grown Rich" or "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"?

I have heard of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," but didn't know the author's name. I guess they are better than a stick in the eye.

Kiyosaki is something of a fraud, I believe. Claiming success for his methods, when he really only didn't start to make money until his books & aids business took off.

So no, not better than no books at all.

This crosses Personal Finance and Personal Consumer Issues, but I recommend the recent segment from Last Week Tonight on timeshares and timeshare "exit" scams (warning: some salty language): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd2bbHoVQSM I've seen a number of threads on these issues before, but this is an eye-opening watch. It's worth the 25 minutes, including for the absolute evisceration of Dave Ramsey and his endorsement of a timeshare exit company which later turned out to be a total scam (and then his bizarre doubling down). I had actually seen that endorsement mentioned in a few bogleheads threads. I absolutely loved it. Dave Ramsey is the worst kind of person, like other fake gurus. My list of pariah financial "experts&q...

I am entering semi-retirement. Roughly half my net worth is a military pension, the other half investments of which 25% are in U.S. Government securities (savings bonds, G-fund). I don't plan on withdrawing from my investments for at least 10 years, but have been looking at building a t-bill ladder with some extra cash. I will also slowly convert my G-fund position in the TSP into my Roth IRA over the next few years. The general advice here is for people to not concentrate their investments with their employer. Along the same lines, with my income from a government pension, should I be looking to diversify my investments away from U.S. Government securities? If so, what might that look like? Thanks in advance, o PS: I'm asking as a matter ...

Yes, I think that is a sound idea, and that your line of reasoning is pretty spot on. Holding only government obligations helps minimize credit risk, but it does not eliminate credit risk. Governments are not immune to default by any means. Diversifying your fixed income to other sovereigns further reduces your credit/default risk and also gives you diversifying exposure to multiple yield curves. I personally have all of my fixed income in a single globally diversified bond fund. It’s allocation to US bonds is about 40%, with the rest to other nations like Australia, Japan, France, etc. And I am busily warning people here about holding too much Italian govt debt. Most global bond funds and indices cap exposure to Japan at 20%, to avoid exc...

EnjoyIt wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:53 am I remember reading how back in the days of high inflation (in the early 80s) people were able to buy individual long term treasuries with a yield of >10% which peaked at about 14%. Eventually 10+ years later became the deal of the century. Imagine getting a guaranteed 10% when inflation is 3%.

We are not so lucky...or unlucky....today. The world believe inflation will be under control soon and long term treasuries are yielding accordingly.

From memory these bonds were also callable.

And, indeed, when interest rates came down, the US Treasury called them.

That's my vague memory.

Russia is really not a very big economy. Mostly a supplier of raw materials and an importer of consumer goods. So Russia-China agreeing to de-dollarise is not, in itself, a huge threat to the dollar. A lot of the news said that Russia is not a big economy and it's the size of Italy when the war started, they also said that the sanctions would cripple their economy but all I've seen since the invasion is the complete opposite. The West is dealing with inflation and rising costs, banks failing, layoffs etc. And what about China? Their GDP has surpassed the US when viewing it by PPP. The point being is that if the Italian economy stopped using USD we would not worry too much about it. Would we even notice? The Euro has been a bigger "thr...

Thanks valuethinker as always brill input. The strategy of one global equity fund and a UK bond fund. After the recent bond volatility it got me thinking I need a global bond fund hedged pound as a UK bond fund is riskier although as you've said hopefully things will change and bonds will perform there usual role in diversifying and providing some income and stability. You make a great to point about having a bunch of funds that might not all perform there functions which got me questioning is a 2 fund enough or do you really need multi asset portfolio? The UK govt bond index (gilt index) has a very long duration compared to other govts (over 13 years v 7-8 for US and Germany I think?). So it is much more sensitive to interest rates. Thus ...

We have been going back and forth between full electric, regular gas, and PHEV. It seems that PHEV strikes the perfect balance. Most of our driving is under 20 miles round trip which would keep us well within the range of the newer PHEV electric motors, and I wouldn’t need to spend the money to install a new outlet in the garage. I am specifically interested in a slightly pre-owned BMW 330e. It charges fully overnight from a standard wall outlet, and the 3-series is highly rated. It’s also available (unlike the prime, or some of the other PHEVs). Any bogleheads have experience with this particular model? Any other PHEVs we should look at? (Volvo is compelling, but at prices around 70k I’m not interested; would love a RAV-4 prime, but impos...

Our graduating senior son is accepted to Pitt and Purdue for CS. He likes both, but would like some input on the pros and cons of either school within the CS community. Financial costs are essentially the same and not factoring in to the decision. We live in the VA/DC/MD area. 1. if the City v Small town thing is an issue you need to bottom that. I went to a big City university, majored in CS & Business. I found it quite lonely. Students commuted. Weekends the campus was totally dead. There wasn't much social life. A more campus experience might have suited me. OTOH your child might be seriously unhappy in a small town. The winter in both these places might be quite tough compared to what your son is used to? 2. Purdue is a fantastic b...

Hacksawdave writes: This reminds me more of 1973-1974 more than anything else I have been through. I think of the whole era 1967-81 as similar to today. Major similarities include inflation (LBJ choosing both guns and butter then), change in international monetary arrangements (death of Bretton Woods then, China and Russia working to end dollar payments today), economic decline for environmental reasons (Clean Air Act then), and military defeat. I don't think there is widespread evidence the Clean Air Act caused "economic decline". The high US dollar (in the 1980s) did far more for de-industrialisation. Also, if you cannot run an economy for the health and well-being of its citizens, then why run one at all? Rich countries are ab...

Hello all. I've been debating on what my next car will be for years. In December the IIHS released a report that deemed the back seats (where my daughter sits) to be an unsafe place to be in the moderate overlap crash. (Poor rating) In January I learned that a small amount of coolant was mixing with my engine oil (ugh). In March, IIHS released a similar report for mid-size SUVs and 4 cars passed the new tougher test. The next day I ordered a 2023 Tesla Model Y as a replacement for my 2016 CX-5 (By far the cheapest and safest car that passed). Fast forward 1 week and my company announced layoffs that amount to about 20% of the workforce. I survived this round but now I'm re-thinking my Tesla purchase. Financially it makes sense to wait but ...

I received a call yesterday from a gentleman at Gulf Coast Western offering an opportunity to invest in an oil well. They specialize in exploration and development of domestic oil and gas reserves. Currently partnership opportunity is for 4 wells in Colorado. Minimum $50k. My interest is strictly academic at this point but has anyone ever heard of this entity? Has anyone on here ever ventured into a partnership opportunity like this? If so, how was your experience? I am surprised that cold calling about this sort of private investment is even legal -- perhaps it is simply "unregulated" so the normal SEC etc protections for investors just do not apply? If you have $50k that you can just burn without feeling it, you might pursue th...

for LISA and SIPP there are penalties for early withdrawal. I am almost 40 so still 15 years for SIPP and 20 for LISA My plan would be: 1) for SIPP, hope and pray that wherever I will be it is considered a pension given its name has the word pension in it 2) for LISA/ISA. If it is US, sell everything (= invest in cash), and then - buy a basket of single stocks (goodbye simplicity, welcome mess) - or if single stocks are another tax authority headache, attempt transfer to Cash LISA/ISA - or keep it cash (and be sad) 3) if SIPP is not considered a pension wherever I will be, then sell everything, keep it cash (and be sad) until I come back to EU or UK My guess (hope?) is that the big problems would be with the US. I presume most EU countries...

We snorkel a lot on vacation and so far our best snorkeling experience has been in Captain Cook bay on the big island of Hawaii. It’s only accessible via boat or a difficult hike in. Rent kayaks off the beach and get there before the tour boats arrive. Spinner dolphins will sometimes join you on your kayak ride to the other side. I also avoid using sunscreen at all costs when snorkeling to keep from further damaging the reefs. Wear a long sleeved rash guard. The point about sun screen is an excellent one (and what I said implied the opposite)-- a rash guard is the right approach. I believe there may be sun screen formulations which are less toxic to marine life? Two places mentioned in this thread, Hawaii and the US VI, allow only "re...

Hi, Big fan of the bogleheads forum community. Learn so much from everyone. I just wanted to get the view on creating a risk parity portfolio when in retirement of say for example a mix of global small cap equities, large cap equities, gold, property and long term bonds Vs a simple 2 ETF portfolio of Global large caps and either a UK gov bond fund or international hedged to pound bond fund. Is risk parity to much hassle effort and expensive maybe? Is it really needed? Many thanks in advance. I have never well understood the Risk Parity portfolio approach. It seemed to me to rely upon past statistics to project future volatility and correlations? The one thing we know about financial markets is that this never likely to be true (for any giv...

If a CFo can't understand that uninsured deposits aren't insured I don't know why they are a CFO. If it's not the CFO's job then it's the treasurer's. Or the accountant or bookkeeper or whoever is putting the money into the account but understanding that money that is uninsured is not insured is not a difficult concept. Maybe some companies need to have more than $250k cash on hand? I think the fact that so many companies were caught offsides by the current situation suggests that cash management, even for more established companies, isn't as straightforward as you make it seems. That or the corporate world is just full of incompetent CFOs and treasurers It’s not taught in school, so folks are learning this on the job. If you’re a start up...

the latest: Janet Yellen says the U.S. is ready to protect depositors at small banks if required First Republic. Credit Suisse. You can smell the fear in the Central Banking room. Everyone will be having PTSD over 2008-09. Decisions made in the middle of the night after exhausting days of calls & negotiations. Presentations to the most senior government people there are**: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYTQB6lrQQ Big firewalls were put in place post 2008. Now we get to find out if they work. Equity buffers. Liquidity buffers. So far the AT1 bonds have ... misfired. Badly. That's not a good place to be. ** Famous line from the crash. Young Goldman Sachs banker in the taxi to the Principal. "I am not sure how much more of this I ...

I know several CFOs of mid sized companies. What you are preaching is unrealistic and absurd. Maybe at large companies it is somewhat realistic. But CFOs at small and mid-size companies are never going to properly analyze the risk of their deposits. That's the job of the shareholders, managers, and bondholders of the bank. CFOs have companies to run and don't have the knowledge, resources or information to properly analyze the solvency of their bank. A CFO at a company with 20-200 employees is really not that sophisticated and has a lot going on. There is no moral hazard because shareholders managers and bondholders are still responsible and matter far more. I would just like to endorse this opinion. I have a relation who works for a highl...

Apparently the Reddit crowd got it right, but Bogleheads refused to believe it. Has CS collapsed? I thought I just read of a $1B offer to buy CS, which is being rejected because it is 10% or so of market value. Credit Suisse collapsed. It was taken over by UBS in a shotgun wedding that included a $9 billion bailout from the Swiss and wiping out $17 billion in convertable bonds. I read that they were purchased for $2B. That is not a collapse. Investors lost 80% of market value. Why would their assets, like bonds, be wiped out? From what I just read, those bonds were paying an extremely high yield with the risk of being wiped out if the bank collapsed. The article used the wording “high yield hand grenade”. They were a special type of bonds ...

jg12345 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:58 am Thanks for the reply

Yes as a non resident I will not be able to contribute to either ISA or SIPP

And yes, my equity part is Vanguard FTSE global all cap acc.

Happy to hear others' thoughts, if any

The tradeoff is difficult:

- "fire and forget" which is a great way to build wealth long term, is to put it in a pension and let it ride. See you in 30-40 years.

BUT if you land in a tax jurisdiction that doesn't accept UK pensions you have a taxable account from which you cannot liberate any capital before age 57.

Otherwise

- put it in an ISA and be prepared to take it out again if it is taxable (it probably will be). LISA I gather there are withdrawal penalties?

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 North Atlantic. It gives you a "damp cold" and it gives you ice storms, blizzards etc. I have heard Upper Midwest described as a "nice dry cold". Well. Maybe. But 25 + win...

Thank you for the correction. Maybe Winnipeg is just a lot colder and I was reasoning by false analogy (Winnipeg is also the mosquito capital of Canada - on a river delta - so you get the best of all seasons :oops: ). Thunder Bay is ... extreme (my father worked there for a time). Winnipeg is at least 10-15 degrees colder in the fall/winter than Minneapolis. The distance from Winnipeg to Minneapolis is approximately the same distance as Raleigh, NC to New York City. Big difference in climate between Raleigh and NYC, right? Easterner here ;-). I think of Winnipeg & Minneapolis as "practically next door". :? :? (It's also true that latitude is not the only determinant of climate, or even the main one.* London England is about t...

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--in your bones. Wind off the Great Lakes? You looked at a map lately? The nearest Great Lake to Minneapolis is 160 miles to the northeast of the city. I can assure you the wind from Lake Superior doesn't impact Minneapolis. Mid-40s today. Minus 20 might happen one day per year. Cold temperatures don't matter if you wear a warm jacket, hat, and mittens. Thank you for the correction. Maybe W...

I can’t stand non-iron fabrics and am terrible at ironing, so I send most of my cotton business / business casual shirts off to the cleaner to launder and press. I’ve noticed that prices have gotten absurdly high, around $4 a shirt with an added $2 fee for pickup and delivery. I’ve tried shopping around, but price is pretty standard. I’m sure I could drive way out of the way and save $0.50 but that defeats the purpose. The added $80/ mo bill certainly doesn’t break the bank, but it’s frustrating when it used to cost $1.99 a shirt. For others in a business/professional environment where you have to wear nice shirts each day, are you paying to launder your shirts, and if so, how much? I am guessing you are a lawyer? It's a bit like being a c...

FlamePoint wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:41 am We snorkel a lot on vacation and so far our best snorkeling experience has been in Captain Cook bay on the big island of Hawaii. It’s only accessible via boat or a difficult hike in. Rent kayaks off the beach and get there before the tour boats arrive. Spinner dolphins will sometimes join you on your kayak ride to the other side.

I also avoid using sunscreen at all costs when snorkeling to keep from further damaging the reefs. Wear a long sleeved rash guard.

The point about sun screen is an excellent one (and what I said implied the opposite)-- a rash guard is the right approach.

I believe there may be sun screen formulations which are less toxic to marine life?

I put some of hard earned money in FDIC insured bank accounts for safety first and a reasonable return as secondary reason. There is such a thing as the stock market to take risk. Therefore, I choose never to hold more than applicable FDIC insurance amounts in any single financial institution. However, YMMV. This is very sound advice. Many of us remember the failure of Penn Square bank. Then of Continental Illinois (am I right in thinking that was the US's 8th biggest bank at the time? It was certainly the largest bank failure between 1933 and the 1980s). Then there was the Savings & Loan debacle, part of what brought down the first Bush (the recession associated with it). There were, as I recall, more than one S&L failing *every d...

I recently listened to the latest Wealthtrack. (https://wealthtrack.com/wheres-the-recession-leading-economist-nancy-lazar-on-the-legacy-liquidity-still-fueling-the-economy/) The economist there seems pretty savvy, and says these bank failures are something of a canary in the coal mine in terms of indicating a recession is coming. Another indicator of the pending recession (and accompanying drop in share prices) is the layoffs in big tech, which will soon move over to retail when the retail companies can't continue to increase their profits. She says a recession has been staved off due to all the liquidity in the economy. This thinking seems to make sense, but does it, really? And is it actionable (to some of us; for example, those of us w...

I noticed that too and I think this is a brilliant idea. Most people don't know what is 4% rule, how much money they would get from annuity, etc. TSP projecting annuity income is a simple way of checking whether you are on track or not. By law the plan administrator is supposed to show an illustration of what amount of annuity income the plan participant can generate from their accumulated savings. It’s just an illustration. Showing what the 4% rule could generate has no good purpose. Annuity income is guaranteed, the 4% rule guarantees “nothing”. You can earn more, less or somewhere in-between. This times x1000. There's a podcast, Rational Reminder I think, a Canadian financial planner. Their work says 2.7% is much closer to the very low ...

What percentage short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term bonds should a bank hold, or do you propose they put them all in short-term? Would 33/33/33 or some other ratio have made a difference? Or let's say they put 100% of it in short-term. If they do that, how do banks make money? Banking is a business. They don't just hold your money in a vault and pay you interest to hold it for you. I guess I would ask the banks that are... you know... still in business and still making money that question. Cause, you know, they are and they are? Edit: As an aside, I spent about a decade working for one of the largest banks in the world so, I'm not totally making this up. Well I agree with you that the risk undertaken was unnecessary but disagree o...

One thing to know about Stony Brook: New York State had for many years an egalitarian education system. New York had 64 campuses, many of them community colleges, how on similar funding models. The goal was to have affordable education within range of all citizens. Last year they designated two campuses as flagships. Stony Brook was one of them. This means greater resources and attention to Stony Brook students. https://news.stonybrook.edu/university/governor-hochul-names-stony-brook-a-flagship-university-in-state-of-the-state-address/ It has to be said that that looks good, and a SB student might benefit from improving prestige of the university. Also perhaps get in on the ground floor at the AI lab etc. It's just a commuter school. I rea...

Just curious: Do proponents of gold tend to favor gold stocks/ETFs, owning the physical metal in a bank safety deposit box or other 3rd party location, or owning the physical metal at home? I know there will different preferences but, as a general rule, what does “including gold” tend to mean? I'm not really a "proponent" but I think many who own gold tend to hold the physical metal as part of their taxable account and use ETFs in tax-deferred & Roth accounts. I personally like it as a diversifier but also like stocks, I-Bonds, TIPS and nominal Treasuries. Also not a proponent. Philosophies aside, what I've found, though, is that its diversification benefits really depend on what else is in your portfolio. For my particular c...

gotoparks wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 10:38 pm Option 2, since you might use the money pretty soon.

The actual timing of liquidity needs is really important in this.

The more uncertain, the more money in the Money Market Fund.

The more predictable, the more money in laddered CDs.

As people switch to CFL and LED lights, and energy star appliances... typical home electrical loads are decreasing. For example, My house draws < 2800 watts in the evening, with led lights on, TV on, the microwave on, and gas water heater/radiant heat pumps system running, in other words... not too much really. Even at double that - it would be only 40 amps. If you have a 60 amp panel now, a 100 amp panel should be more than adequate for future needs, unless you are going to start a grow operation in your basement. :twisted: Although domestic electrical consumption has been falling, per household, in developed countries, this may be changing going forward. The "switch to LEDs" is more or less done (given they last 4x longer than ...

Hi all, It seems like a big question - but I'm looking for resources. We started snorkeling a few years ago and would like to do more. We took a trip to Belize in December and were surprised to learn that there is a little more to picking a snorkeling trip than I realized. In Belize, I did not realize there would not be any beach snorkeling, and we would have to plan for boat trips. Boat trips are great - I need to be able to budget for them. I've done some internet searches but haven't found a solid resource that describes locations, the best time of year, accessibility of beach snorkeling, boat trip required, etc. Can anyone recommend resources for snorkeling information? I will research places in detail. But a higher level view would be...

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...