Search found 2030 matches

by cjking
Tue Feb 27, 2024 4:15 am
Forum: Non-US Investing
Topic: Using up wife's ISA allowance
Replies: 17
Views: 3378

Re: Using up wife's ISA allowance

alwaysonit wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2024 3:48 am In an ideal world I could transfer her some of my ETF without realising a profit - is there a way to do this?
I did once transfer shares from my account to my wife's, both at the same broker. I was surprised it was so easy, I just asked, and they did it. Having said that, this was between two taxable dealing accounts, I don't think it will be possible with an ISA. I can't even transfer shares between my own accounts when one is tax-privileged and the other isn't. I think only cash is allowed to cross the boundary between a tax-privileged account and something else, in order to ensure that the limits on transfers in aren't being circumvented.
by cjking
Thu Jan 11, 2024 5:01 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Anyone consider taking investment accounts offline?
Replies: 95
Views: 15445

Re: Anyone consider taking investment accounts offline?

You might try a powerline ethernet adapter if you want to avoid wifi. During the decade when I used powerline I once found myself on the same local network as a neighbour. I guess we had the same type of powerline devices, with the same default password, and the signal somehow travelled from one flat to another, even though that's not supposed to happen. As I monitored the network, it would flip between showing me all the devices on my network and all the devices on his. The problem was solved by resetting the password on my devices to something new. In general I found powerline annoyingly unreliable. Once a month it would freeze up, and I would spend an hour getting it to work again. Just restarting devices did not usually solve problems.
by cjking
Sat Dec 30, 2023 5:24 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Can someone explain to me what's actually driving returns?
Replies: 77
Views: 12241

Re: Can someone explain to me what's actually driving returns?

I used to agree with the idea that the stock-market is more manic than the economy, however I remember once trying to prove it by comparing the volatility of company earnings with stock-market volatility, and found to my surprise there was not much difference, in the data I was looking at. (Stock prices were only slightly more volatile than earnings.)
by cjking
Tue Dec 12, 2023 5:20 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What are the best credit cards to use in Europe?
Replies: 39
Views: 3352

Re: What are the best credit cards to use in Europe?

I live in the UK. My experience has been that any place here that takes cards will take Visa and Mastercard. Do not have American Express as your only card, some places won't take them.

Usually when I go abroad anywhere in the world I use my Visa or Mastercard debit card to get cash from local ATMs. (Only to the extent I need cash, I just pay with cards directly most of the time.)
by cjking
Sun Dec 10, 2023 3:45 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Is ChatGPT treating child tax credit correctly?
Replies: 30
Views: 3605

Re: Is ChatGPT treating child tax credit correctly?

There's an aspect of UK capital gains tax that has been confusing me every time I have to fill in the relevant pages on a return, whether the "unused losses to be carried forward" box means current year losses or whether it's supposed to be cumulative, and include losses from previous years that are still unused. I have to work out the answer every time, but never remember my conclusion the next time. This year I asked ChatGPT, and it told me with absolute certainty that the figure was non-cumulative, and held to that opinion under cross-examination. I went back into the form to correct the figure I had entered, and as I did so noticed that there was a pop-up help window for the relevant box. The pop-up told me the exact opposite ...
by cjking
Mon Nov 27, 2023 11:08 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: My Hondas wont die...they just keep running
Replies: 130
Views: 15780

Re: My Hondas wont die...they just keep running

Now that we are getting older, I do like the driver's assist features in my car: blind spot monitoring, cross traffic warning when backing up, emergency braking (never needed it but nice to know it is there) , adaptive cruise. Our emergency braking likes to fire in slinky traffic on the freeway. The couple of times it fired, I felt kind of insulted. “Hey, I had it under control! I was about to hit the brake!” But yeah, I really like the driver’s assist features. Also, not having to dig the keys out of my pocket for anything. Push button start and door locks. I tell my car the opposite when the emergency braking fires, given that I'm usually using adaptive cruise control: "Hey, why are you yelling at me? You're in charge of the braking...
by cjking
Thu Nov 23, 2023 4:19 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: ChatGPT just wrote me a POA that is better than the attorney's
Replies: 150
Views: 21091

Re: ChatGPT just wrote me a POA that is better than the attorney's

My copy of Windows 11 has just upgraded itself to include copilot. You would think that one thing a Microsoft chatbot would be good at was answering a question about how to do something apparently simple in Excel, but its answers were exactly as useless as what I've got from Google on previous occasions. I wanted to drag a column to a different position in an Excel table. It's not that it's hard once I know how, the problem is neither Google nor Chatgpt/copilot nor my intuition about how to select and drag things tell me how. Every set of instructions I've come across has been wrong. (I never remember how to do it, so I have to relearn how to do it every time I want to move a column.) I've just had a five minute argument with Chatgpt in whi...
by cjking
Mon Nov 13, 2023 2:41 am
Forum: Forum Issues and Administration
Topic: Boglehead Keeps Logging Out
Replies: 81
Views: 15717

Re: Boglehead Keeps Logging Out

I'd been having this problem for a long time, several months at least. This thread made me realise it's gone now. It feels to me that whatever changed to cause OP a problem might have solved the problem for me!

I use Chrome on Windows 11.
by cjking
Sun Nov 12, 2023 9:19 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Am I allergic to 4K TVs? [Looking for replacement]
Replies: 22
Views: 3313

Re: Am I allergic to 4K TVs? [Looking for replacement]

Motion smoothing is only of many picture processing settings that can be disabled. Just looking at my old Oled TV's manual, in addition to "True motion" there is "Real Cinema", "Noise reduction", "Mpeg noise reduction", "Motion eye care", and probably more.
by cjking
Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:34 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Billionaire in 70 years???
Replies: 37
Views: 6901

Re: Billionaire in 70 years???

Is the 10% average return the arithmetic return or geometric return? If the former, then you need to factor in volatility drag. A 20% loss followed by a 20% gain (or vice versa) does not get you back to where you started. It actually results in a 4% loss. Volatility drag is calculated as the standard deviation of return squared divided by 2. Subtract this from your arithmetic returns to get geometric returns. Then you can plug that into your basic exponential growth formula. The problem with a lot of simple (non-stochastic) online calculators is that they use arithmetic returns which overestimate growth. Here's a nice article on this: Volatility Drag And Its Impact On (Arithmetic) Investment Returns In Monte Carlo Analysis (I'm not replyin...
by cjking
Thu Oct 26, 2023 3:00 am
Forum: Non-US Investing
Topic: VWRL for life?
Replies: 20
Views: 4456

Re: VWRL for life?

I roughly calculated your anticipated withdrawal rate as 50/3000 = 1.7%. (In fact I see the yield on VWRL is currently 1.85%.) Dividends are less volatile than share prices, but it doesn't matter if they do drop. If you can live on 50K then withdrawal rate is so low that it won't matter if you have to sell a small number shares. For this not to be true the long-term real return on global equities would have to drop well below 2%, and stay there for many years. To put it another way, after charges the underlying return of VWRL is currently about 3.9%. On average over the long term the return from equities is equal to the return of equities, i.e. the return to investors is equal to the underlying profits of the companies they are invested in....
by cjking
Thu Oct 19, 2023 4:21 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases
Replies: 56
Views: 6857

Re: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases

Actually, on reflection, it's not just psychological. I considered whether it would make sense to make a loan from my savings pot to my investment pot, instead of holding savings in cash. This would allow my investment pot to be slightly geared. As manager of my investment portfolio, the increase in volatility is a non-issue, I invest aggressively anyway, and my withdrawal strategy is already designed to deal with any amount of volatility. However it is an issue that the loan can be recalled with no notice, when I as manager of the savings pot want to spend, potentially forcing me to sell shares when prices are low. I wouldn't accept a loan for gearing on those terms, even if it was offered by a third party. I was right in the first place t...
by cjking
Wed Oct 18, 2023 10:13 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases
Replies: 56
Views: 6857

Re: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases

OP, My cash buffer is equal to 2 to 3 years of expenses. It is not part of my portfolio. It is big enough to deal this kind of expenses. KlangFool My answer is similar, I have a cash buffer outside my portfolio that would cover this. My buffer is only for discretionary expenses though, my withdrawal algorithm is expected to fund base spending. In my case the cash buffer exists because I have a deliberately hyper-volatile withdrawal strategy that reacts to investment balance changes, so I withdraw more when it looks like higher withdrawals are sustainable, but cut back severely and quickly when prices are down. "so I withdraw more when it looks like higher withdrawals are sustainable" Your buffer originates with higher sutstainabl...
by cjking
Wed Oct 18, 2023 2:40 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases
Replies: 56
Views: 6857

Re: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases

OP, My cash buffer is equal to 2 to 3 years of expenses. It is not part of my portfolio. It is big enough to deal this kind of expenses. KlangFool My answer is similar, I have a cash buffer outside my portfolio that would cover this. My buffer is only for discretionary expenses though, my withdrawal algorithm is expected to fund base spending. In my case the cash buffer exists because I have a deliberately hyper-volatile withdrawal strategy that reacts to investment balance changes, so I withdraw more when it looks like higher withdrawals are sustainable, but cut back severely and quickly when prices are down. "so I withdraw more when it looks like higher withdrawals are sustainable" Your buffer originates with higher sutstainabl...
by cjking
Tue Oct 17, 2023 5:42 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases
Replies: 56
Views: 6857

Re: Withdrawal Strategies for Purchases

KlangFool wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2023 5:24 pm OP,

My cash buffer is equal to 2 to 3 years of expenses. It is not part of my portfolio. It is big enough to deal this kind of expenses.

KlangFool
My answer is similar, I have a cash buffer outside my portfolio that would cover this. My buffer is only for discretionary expenses though, my withdrawal algorithm is expected to fund base spending. In my case the cash buffer exists because I have a deliberately hyper-volatile withdrawal strategy that reacts to investment balance changes, so I withdraw more when it looks like higher withdrawals are sustainable, but cut back severely and quickly when prices are down.
by cjking
Mon Oct 09, 2023 4:42 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Perpetual Withdrawal Rates & Variable Withdrawal Methods
Replies: 8
Views: 1585

Re: Perpetual Withdrawal Rates & Variable Withdrawal Methods

Here's an overview of what I currently do:- Calculate an expected return for my investments based on average underlying earnings over the last 5 to 10 years. Knock a percentage off that figure, because back-testing showed that historically an indefinitely sustainable income from the S&P 500 would have been close to 80% of 1/CAPE. I actually knock off 25%. This figure is the perpetual income level, however its purpose is only to be an upper limit on the amount I will take. I set a base income sufficiently low that I'm confident it will be sustainable in any scenario. It is a figure I could live on. This figure is a lower limit on the amount I will take. I multiply base income by the number of years I currently expect to live to get a bal...
by cjking
Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:09 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How much cash exists, and where do banks get it?
Replies: 45
Views: 4690

Re: How much cash exists, and where do banks get it?

And if they are swapping a small pot, what is the ratio of real bills that exist, compared to the imaginary money that lives on a digital screen? In the aforementioned Bank of England paper, the following figures are given. (I assume these are for the UK, but I think it's very likely to be similar for most comparable economies.) As explained in ‘Money in the modern economy: an introduction’, broad money is a measure of the total amount of money held by households and companies in the economy. Broad money is made up of bank deposits — which are essentially IOUs from commercial banks to households and companies — and currency — mostly IOUs from the central bank.(4)(5) Of the two types of broad money, bank deposits make up the vast majority —...
by cjking
Tue Sep 12, 2023 3:38 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How much cash exists, and where do banks get it?
Replies: 45
Views: 4690

Re: How much cash exists, and where do banks get it?

The federal reserve killed off fractional reserve banking in 2020. This article has a basic summary: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/requiredreserves.asp Um…fractional banking is still very much Nope. Not in the traditional sense anyway: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm The fractional reserve requirement is gone. We're in the ample reserve regime now. There are still reserves, so money creation, but it's not directly tied to a fraction of reserves. If it walks like a duck... Not sure if this is relevant to the discussion, but it may be interesting anyway. According to the paper on how money works in the modern economy, that appeared on the Bank of England web site in 2014, reserve requirements do not regula...
by cjking
Fri Sep 01, 2023 12:35 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Buying a first car (Nissan Leaf?) at 35
Replies: 60
Views: 6003

Re: Buying a first car (Nissan Leaf?) at 35

I don't think it makes sense to focus on fuel usage if you are a very low-mileage driver. It doesn't matter how much fuel a vehicle burns per mile if it covers hardly any miles. I like the Leaf, but I don't think it's the best option for this use-case. The ideal use-case for the Leaf is a daily commute that's within its range. For a very low-mileage driver who maybe only drives one or two days a week, a small gas engine will be cheaper and more versatile. Even hybrids are not the best fit for this scenario. One could go even further, and reason that since engine efficiency does not matter, one could get good value by buying a used luxury car that is relatively cheap because other buyers (who do higher mileages) don't like its fuel consumpti...
by cjking
Tue Aug 22, 2023 5:25 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: question about car accident while getting out of police car's way
Replies: 17
Views: 1782

Re: question about car accident while getting out of police car's way

I remember being at a red light with a cop behind me who was pulling me over for speeding. He was making all kinds of hand gestures but I wasn't about to run a red light and get more tacked onto my ticket. Let me off with a seatbelt violation... I think we have a general rule here that you can break any traffic law if specifically told to do so by a police officer. Which is why I was surprised when I learned that going through a red light to let them past is an offence. Apparently sitting behind you with their siren on is not legally an order for you to get out of the way. (I've also often noticed that sirens get turned off at junctions, if they are not going to go through the red light. I suppose they don't want to cause precisely the typ...
by cjking
Tue Aug 22, 2023 5:19 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: question about car accident while getting out of police car's way
Replies: 17
Views: 1782

Re: question about car accident while getting out of police car's way

I'm in the UK, not the US, but here it is definitely an offence to go past a red light to make way for a vehicle with a siren. Generally the vehicle with the siren will cross over to the wrong side of the road and enter the junction that way. The cross-traffic will hear the siren and stop to let them go through on red. On the general subject of giving way to sirens, other than at lights, I was once told by a colleague whose relative is a police driver that they prefer cars not to stop, as that tends to cause blockages, when less proactive drivers who are confused about what is going on get trapped behind stopped cars, having not pulled to the side to create a gap. Instead try to move somewhat sideways to leave a gap, but keep moving, slowly...
by cjking
Tue Aug 22, 2023 2:28 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Do umbrella rates typically increase MORE, by percentage, than a requested increase in liability coverage?
Replies: 11
Views: 1400

Re: Do umbrella rates typically increase MORE, by percentage, than a requested increase in liability coverage?

I would not expect a linear relationship in insurance. When getting car insurance quotes, I've had the proposed premium go up when I've reduced the amount of cover.
by cjking
Fri Aug 18, 2023 2:52 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Friends' father's money blocked in US bank
Replies: 19
Views: 3267

Re: Friends' father's money blocked in US bank

It's clear you're not being told the full story. Why is everyone so weirdly suspicious? People come on here *routinely* because banking institutions of various kinds have frozen accounts. And the victim is never told why, so it’s difficult to impossible to fix or prevent. And the banking folks on here say that is how it should be! So we shouldn’t be shocked when the very thing happens that is demanded by law and those in the industry endorse. It’s truly double super secret probation and, if I may editorialize, enraging. I mean, the subject at hand could just literally have the same name as a political person in Venezuela. It could be as dumb as that. “Calling the bank” is routinely unhelpful because they won’t tell you what the issue is or...
by cjking
Fri Aug 04, 2023 7:49 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: is it accurate to say almost no one beats the market?
Replies: 136
Views: 11785

Re: is it accurate to say almost no one beats the market?

Is the definition of "zero sum game" really that controversial? I always understood it very clearly. Take every investor in the world, that owns every stock in the world. This is called "every investor in aggregate" Now, for simplicity, say the total market return was 10% For every investor that beat the market by 2%, there has to be an equal amount of investors that lost to the market by 2%. This is how a zero sum game is defined. Reading back in the thread, I see what I have to say has already been said, more than once, but I think it's worth repeating. :happy The meaning of zero-sum is that if you add up the returns of everyone, positive and negative, they will total zero. The stock-market is not zero-sum for stock i...
by cjking
Fri Jul 14, 2023 2:40 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Documents in PC gone - Crash or a hacker?
Replies: 23
Views: 3235

Re: Documents in PC gone - Crash or a hacker?

I often have the experience of my data folders being empty or near-empty, e.g this happens when I look in "C:\users\UserNAme\documents" instead of "C:\users\UserNAme\Onedrive\documents" which is where my documents are are actually located.

You may have two documents folders, one inside Onedrive and one outside, make sure you have checked both.
by cjking
Tue Jul 04, 2023 5:35 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: once your portfolio generates more than your earned salary
Replies: 34
Views: 6114

Re: once your portfolio generates more than your earned salary

One change you could make in this scenario is to reframe how you think of income. Instead of thinking you live off salary, some of which gets diverted to investments, think of yourself as living off your portfolio, and that all your earned income is being added to investments. When you think like this, there is no relation between earned income and your current spending budget, so you are free to earn less, if you wish. The extra spending enabled by every extra pay-check you earn gets spread evenly across the rest of your life, so you evaluate the value of work in terms of how much you value those small increments in income. When you realise they will make no difference to anything, not even your feeling of security, it might be time to do ...
by cjking
Thu Jun 15, 2023 4:33 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Does your risk tolerance increase overtime?
Replies: 64
Views: 4133

Re: Does your risk tolerance increase overtime?

I once came across a life-insurers investment option that varied safe assets with age, but not just by increasing bonds towards retirement. It actually started off with a high bond exposure at a very young age, then ramped up the equity component gradually over the first decade. The rationale was that very young people with very little money saved would react badly to losses, so they needed to be acclimatised to equity investing.
by cjking
Fri Jun 09, 2023 3:02 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What actually are the risks of sharing your personal financial information?
Replies: 26
Views: 3697

Re: What actually are the risks of sharing your personal financial information?

Below is a link to an amusing story of a TV celebrity who published his information in a newspaper in an attempt to make the point that there was no risk to the information being out there. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/jan/07/personalfinancenews.scamsandfraud (I suppose the moral of this story is that there are always risks you can't see. You shouldn't trust a person or situation merely because it appears not to be risky, you trust because as far as you can tell, the benefits of doing so outweigh any hidden risks there might be. I actually think that, in a way, he was proved right, as under the rules for that type of transfer, he should have been able to get the money back. It was possible for someone to use that mechanism precise...
by cjking
Thu Jun 08, 2023 11:50 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Printers in 2023?
Replies: 60
Views: 4619

Re: Printers in 2023?

Scanners are obsolete technology, as far as I'm concerned. Both Google Drive and Onedrive apps on a smartphone are capable of acting as scanners, using the camera to create multipage pdf documents.
by cjking
Fri Jun 02, 2023 3:53 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Why are no REIT funds attempting to proxy the real estate market?
Replies: 43
Views: 3825

Re: Why are no REIT funds attempting to proxy the real estate market?

REITs have generally avoid residential property because it is not a business that can be done at scale. It requires local specialist knowledge and very hands-on management. This isn't my own theory, it's something I've read in various places, I don't remember where, possibly in "The Economist". (I did read a few years ago about a company with a system that was able to overcome the limitations, so it's not always impossible, but I think this was "an exception that proves the rule." And actually I remember that even that company would only target a tiny proportion of properties that fitted a certain profile.) To use an analogy, there aren't megacorps doing housing provision for the same reasons there aren't megacorps cutti...
by cjking
Wed May 31, 2023 2:27 am
Forum: Non-US Investing
Topic: US citizen: UK pension limits?
Replies: 9
Views: 1402

Re: US citizen: UK pension limits?

I know nothing about the legalities here, but I'd guess the simplest way around any issues would be to make employer contributions?

How can an individual "make" employer contributions?
1. Salary sacrifice. Some employers will let you specify how much they should contribute, reducing your salary to offset any contributions they make above the standard level.
2. Be your own employer: work as a contractor via your own one-man company.
by cjking
Sun May 28, 2023 7:54 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: HD TV & "looks fake"
Replies: 45
Views: 4172

Re: HD TV & "looks fake"

Although old TV shows make look bad due to the resolution they were filmed with, there's no reason movies should look particularly bad. Footage on film can be rescanned at modern resolutions.

On Youtube you can see some scenes from a recently digitalised version of "Zulu" where the picture quality is, in some senses, awesome. In addition to a high resolution and frame rate, from memory I think they've digitally removed all the blemishes to make it an improvement on the film source. But some people do complain they've overdone the processing. The immaculate redness of the soldiers uniforms does sometimes look a bit unrealistic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPegFguqR8o
by cjking
Sun May 28, 2023 7:41 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: HD TV & "looks fake"
Replies: 45
Views: 4172

Re: HD TV & "looks fake"

I don't think it's you, I agree with those saying it was the TV settings.

I have an OLED TV. and the picture quality is awesome. However when taking delivery of a new TV, I know to turn off all video processing designed to "improve" the picture, and to set the brightness/contrast/etc profile to the correct profile. On most TV's "cinema" is a good profile.

I have in the past received a brand new, very expensive TV, and found the quality out of the box to be horrible. Corrected in seconds by making the aforementioned changes. (Can't remember if it was my current one or the previous that made such a bad first impression.)
by cjking
Sat May 27, 2023 2:52 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Do you track your returns, and if so, why?
Replies: 103
Views: 8593

Re: Do you track your returns, and if so, why?

I keep track of all my financial transactions in Moneydance. Data goes back to 1 January 1995. One if its standard reports will tell me my IRR over any period I care to specify. Knowing my IRR is more interesting and useful than knowing (for example) what I spent on fuel for my car nearly three decades ago, but I wouldn't say that I tracked it, more that the information is available, with zero marginal effort, if I want to look at it.
by cjking
Wed May 24, 2023 1:29 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Does anyone recalculate their SWR withdrawal annually?
Replies: 270
Views: 14946

Re: Does anyone recalculate their SWR withdrawal annually?

To answer the original question, my withdrawal calculation is repeated quarterly to generate quarterly withdrawals. No number that goes into the calculation pertains to any date other than the one on which I'm selling shares to generate income. In fact "balance" and "expected return" parameters are as of a few minutes before share sales take place.

I believe that what my balance or income were on any previous date should have no bearing on the income I take today.
by cjking
Wed May 24, 2023 3:01 am
Forum: Non-US Investing
Topic: UK estate questions: trust, will etc
Replies: 9
Views: 1154

Re: UK estate questions: trust, will etc

Unless you are talking millions in my view attempting to avoid estate tax is not worth the hassle. This is my conclusion as well. I have a spreadsheet that calculates what will be due if I die now, and it's a multiple of the sum total of tax I've paid in my whole life so far, i.e. up to early retirement age. I have plenty of incentive to mitigate it, but have no plans to do anything. If there were a good way to reduce it I would have found it. Being sanguine is helped by the fact that the tax only works out at about 10% of everything my daughter will inherit. The contents of my pension and the first 500K of my home equity can be passed on without being subject to this tax. This might raise the question whether it makes sense to try and red...
by cjking
Mon May 22, 2023 8:53 am
Forum: Forum Issues and Administration
Topic: Bogleheads and ChatGPT
Replies: 325
Views: 44204

Re: ChatGPT [Investment opportunities in the Artificial Intelligence field]

It will replace all the jobs that are now performed by 10th-graders paraphrasing Wikipedia articles? You are writing as if what it could do is a fixed thing, rather than something that is increasing by 10-fold every few months. I was watching a video today that said that whereas ChatGPT scored at the 10th percentile of human performance on passing the Bar exam, GPT-4 scored in the 90th percentile. Apparently ChatGPT is the free version, base on GPT 3.5, that we are all playing with and basing our assessments on, and GPT-4 is what you get to play with if you hand over a small amount of money. (Not sure if that's right, take everything I say with a pinch of salt.) I'm not sure exactly how an AI takes the Bar exam, but if I take the hype seri...
by cjking
Mon May 22, 2023 5:39 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: ChatGPT [Investment opportunities in the Artificial Intelligence field]
Replies: 110
Views: 9752

Re: ChatGPT [Investment opportunities in the Artificial Intelligence field]

My current investment strategy has resulted in me having a slightly higher exposure to renewable energy than I'm comfortable with. I have no explicit policy in that direction, it's simply where seeking a good medium-term history of profits has taken me. According to a random Youtube video I watched yesterday, one consequence of AI might be nuclear fusion gets solved, and virtually unlimited cheap energy becomes available. I don't take such prognosticating seriously enough to change my strategy, but I think the lesson is that the world may be disrupted in all sorts of ways we can't really anticipate, and the best investment response might simply to be to diversify. In the unlikely event I do anything in response to the AI hype, it will be to...
by cjking
Mon May 22, 2023 3:41 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Dividends and Withdrawal Rate
Replies: 46
Views: 7025

Re: Dividends and Withdrawal Rate

Had a similar question so reviving this thread - assume one has turned DRIP off and spending accumulated dividends. Assume also that one has established a base withdrawal rate with an upper guardrail, say 4% WR and then an upper limit of 5% that should not be exceeded. Questions: - Since it's not possible for me to know how much I will get in dividends when I am starting out the current year it isn't possible for me to establish the additional amount I need to adhere to the 4% base WR or determine the upper limit. What is the best strategy for this? The strategy I use with dividends is to categorise them as interim withdrawals whose value will be deducted dollar-for-dollar from the final withdrawal for a period. To illustrate with a simple...
by cjking
Mon May 15, 2023 5:46 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Weird slow down in Windows
Replies: 26
Views: 1905

Re: Weird slow down in Windows

(This is likely not the same problem, just seizing the opportunity to have a rant about Windows.) For me it's been normal, for several years, with both windows 10 and 11, to have to wait about 10 seconds to open a directory. Not just in explorer, but in any application's file open/save dialog. I'm convinced it's something to do with all my folders being within Onedrive, I have a theory that it's going off to the internet to verify the cloud version of my files is the same as the local drive. It's quick the second time I open the same directory, and as far as I know it's never slow outside of Onedrive folders, though I wouldn't know for sure, as I don't keep any data there. I've tried reinstalling Windows, but that didn't fix it. I tried mov...
by cjking
Mon May 15, 2023 3:50 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling
Replies: 72
Views: 6904

Re: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling

Someone mentioned up-thread the idea of having a portable monitor. I noticed when I googled LG Gram that there is such a thing as a 16" LG Gram portable monitor. So if you were sold on the idea of a 16" LG Gram laptop, note that you can get what I assume is the exact same screen separately, and presumably use it with any laptop.

https://www.lg.com/uk/laptops/lg-16mq70

If I've understood the technology correctly, a laptop with the right type of USB connection can support two external portable monitors of that resolution, daisy-chained together, so no need for a hub.
by cjking
Fri May 12, 2023 8:34 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling
Replies: 72
Views: 6904

Re: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling

That looks like the one. Weight is not a major concern for me, but my use case is carrying it in my luggage to a boat and using it there, so for me that's a non-issue.
by cjking
Fri May 12, 2023 2:49 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling
Replies: 72
Views: 6904

Re: 16-17 inch laptop and traveling

I use a desktop with a large monitor at home. For use away from home, for weeks/months at a time, where a separate monitor isn't an option, I've been considering getting a Lenovo Yoga 7i with 16" display. I haven't looked at specs side-by-side, but that appears to be a hugely cheaper option than the LG Gram that I've just checked out, as a result of this thread.

Screen size is my number one priority, in a machine that will be my main machine for extended periods.
by cjking
Fri May 12, 2023 2:14 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Preparing for power outages - solar generator?
Replies: 7
Views: 1047

Re: Preparing for power outages - solar generator?

I recently visited a place where there were scheduled outages for 2-4 hours every day. In that situation you don't need solar, you just use batteries that are charged when there is power. People have plug-in rechargeable LED light units that can automatically switch on when the power goes off. Fridge can survive for a few hours with power off as long as you don't open the door too much. TV and satellite were powered by a battery-inverter box of the type you mention. Not sure if internet generally worked during the outages, where we stayed turned out to have no internet or phone signal even when there was power. In that scenario, having a whole-house inverter attached to a large battery bank instead of one or two portable units would seem li...
by cjking
Tue May 09, 2023 2:34 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: New google AI called Bard
Replies: 60
Views: 6177

Re: New google AI called Bard

Hinton has an answer for that too: bullshitting is a feature, not a bug. “People always confabulate,” he says. Half-truths and misremembered details are hallmarks of human conversation: “Confabulation is a signature of human memory. These models are doing something just like people.” The difference is that humans usually confabulate more or less correctly, says Hinton. To Hinton, making stuff up isn’t the problem. Computers just need a bit more practice. This is great for chatting with humans, reminiscing about old times which usually includes misremembered events to the benefit of all in the conversation. People are not going to these AI chat bots to share a human connection. They don’t want “just like people” we have people for that. The...
by cjking
Tue May 02, 2023 6:04 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Retirement porfolio: What's better - withdrawing annually or monthly?
Replies: 26
Views: 3954

Re: Retirement porfolio: What's better - withdrawing annually or monthly?

With the theory that smaller more frequent withdrawals would be better, I settled on quarterly. Better than yearly, but less trading cost and admin than monthly. I have significant dividends I can take within every month, so my latest idea is to take those as interim income, not an official withdrawal, and deduct the total from the next quarterly withdrawal. So I have the admin and trading costs of quarterly withdrawals, but more than half my income is monthly.

For me the main reason smaller more frequent withdrawals are better is because they reduce the quantity of shares that might need to be sold on the worst dates for selling.
by cjking
Sun Apr 30, 2023 4:03 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Retirement porfolio: What's better - withdrawing annually or monthly?
Replies: 26
Views: 3954

Re: Retirement porfolio: What's better - withdrawing annually or monthly?

I think this is the way to simulating withdrawals at the start of periods...

For the annual link about, take 60K off the starting value then add it to the final balance you get.

For the monthly link, take 5K off the starting value then add it to the final value.

Monthly then beats annually.
by cjking
Wed Apr 26, 2023 5:56 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: A couple of questions on how people are using VPW
Replies: 23
Views: 2643

Re: A couple of questions on how people are using VPW

I start by taking exactly what the algorithm says I should take, regardless of spending. I keep the excess in cash-like savings, on the assumption I will find a use for it sooner or later. I have thought about the "problem" of large piles of unspent cash accumulating, and built in a rule that will restrict me taking income if my cash balance is too high. "Too high" has been defined at various points to be between two years and four years projected income. (For a while I was contemplating spending four years income on a boat.) I dislike the idea of ad hoc withdrawals. What if when I actually need/want to spend money, the market is down, making it painful to sell shares, even if my algorithm tells me it's OK? I'd rather ma...
by cjking
Fri Apr 07, 2023 10:51 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Joint CC post-divorce
Replies: 39
Views: 4427

Re: Joint CC post-divorce

This random blog article says that "generally" you don't need both parties to agree to close an account.
Generally, either party can unilaterally close the account by contacting the card issuer over the phone or in writing. Once closed, the cards of both joint account holders and any authorized cardholders will be deactivated, and any future attempt to make purchases will be decline
https://www.credit.com/blog/how-to-kick ... 20declined.
by cjking
Fri Apr 07, 2023 9:18 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Pre-paying as an inflation hedge
Replies: 53
Views: 4287

Re: Pre-paying as an inflation hedge

A dollar today worth more than a dollar in the future. So I would want to hold on a dollar today and use a dollar in the future to pay for expenses. x2. If you know that the dollar is less valuable in the future, wouldn't pre-paying ANYTHING be the opposite of an inflation hedge? It's an inflation hedge to buy something in advance, because then the price of the thing in the future won't matter, as you'll already have it. The person you are responding to is assuming that the prices of things will stay the same while the value of dollars falls, which doesn't really make sense. The definition of inflation is that it takes more dollars to buy things. Saying the a future dollar is worth less is exactly the same as saying in future things will c...