Bogleheads.org

I did a 10-year review of my funds and a surprisingly good performer was the Strategic Equity Fund (https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vseqx) The Strategic Equity Fund (midcap) and Strategic Smallcap Equity Fund are quantitatively managed portfolios. Outperformance is not a slam dunk: https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&timePeriod=2&startYear=1985&firstMonth=1&endYear=2023&lastMonth=12&calendarAligned=true&includeYTD=false&initialAmount=10000&annualOperation=0&annualAdjustment=0&inflationAdjusted=true&annualPercentage=0.0&frequency=4&rebalanceType=1&absoluteDeviation=5.0&relativeDeviation=25.0&leverageType=0&le...

White Coat Investor wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:27 pm

t24b350 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:39 pm 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?

Not in computer science, but they all appear similarly prestigious to me. I'd go to ASU though. Does he have any idea what Minneapolis is like in Winter?

For an undergrad degree, all three are fine, but ASU generally sports a noticeable dropoff from Stony Brook or UMN in research productivity in CS.

t24b350 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:32 pm UC Merced CS admission comes. How is it compared with UMn, SUNY SB and ASU?

Internship opportunities in the area of the university should not be discounted in the decision process for an undergrad.

If you live in a warm Calif. climate, visit UMN in Jan or Feb. as part of the decision process if considering it.

t24b350 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 3:39 pm 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

VictoriaF wrote: ↑Mon Mar 20, 2023 10:39 am
I agree that the best first step is to find a good RE agent. The problem is that I don't know how to select one, and recommendations (online and personal) are unreliable. Even people who are pleased with the outcome don't know what it would have been like if they used another agent. I do have a long list of questions to potential agents, to which I am adding as I am reading this discussion. But in the end, an agent's answers do not guarantee that he will live up to them.

Well, trust is a two way street. If there is no buyer's agency agreement, you also are asking the agent to trust that you won't work directly with a listing agent on a purchase after the agent spends 100+ hours identifying, showing, and valuing property for you.

Apparently he believed there was no increase in returns long term from holding SC? This is clearly wrong even for the time period outside of 73-83. Does he not believe in the basic idea of CAPM? In the quote below, he states that the reuts of SC vs LC have essentially been the same in the last 100 years, outside of 73-83. I take a look at the charts and they tell a completely different story. For example, since 1984, the S&P 400 has nearly doubled the returns of the S&P 500. Little confused on the quote. The S&P400 is a midcap index. The question of whether there is a size (smallcap) premium is still debated by factor experts, so there is not going to be a simple, clearcut answer. The S&P600 has a value tilt and a quality t...

Good luck with the transactions. You also may be able to sell your house with occupancy after closing in the contract and be able to use the cash from the sale to close the purchase of a new house and then move into it.

Not sure if anybody has pointed this out yet, but the term "Realtor" is not equivalent to "Real Estate Agent". All Realtors are real estate agents but not all real estate agents are Realtors. The distinction is that realtors belong to a trade group: "National Association of Realtors" https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/what-is-a-realtor/ So, no. You don't HAVE to use a realtor. And you don't HAVE to use a real estate agent. During previous real estate booms, I know of a number of people who obtained a real estate license (but did not become a Realtor) before selling their own houses in order to have access to MLS and to save on at least half of the commissions. I would not hire an agent that did not belong to N...

I am a first-time home buyer in an early stage of the process. So far, my experience was the opposite. A real estate agent from a respectable agency has shown me a condominium and then sent me a draft agreement between his agency (as Buyer) and me. If I had signed that agreement I would have committed to pay to the agent the difference between 3% and the percentage the seller offers. For this particular condo, the seller offers to the buyer's agent 2.5%, and I would have been responsible for the 0.5% difference, which in this case is over $3,000. The draft agreement would be in force until December 31, 2023, with 3 months after that of protection period. In other words, I'd depend on this agent for over a year regardless of his performance...

Auto parts stores may sell aftermarket brake pads with a range of costs and thicknesses/useful lifespans.

Always specify the part to be installed. I had a rebate offer by a car manufacturer for a brake job from any of their dealers that offered an attractive net price. The manufacturer rejected the rebate submission because (their own) dealer installed the cheapest auto part store house brand aftermarket brake pads instead of genuine parts sold by the manufacturer.

The dealer got caught because of the rebate, and I ended up getting an even better deal than originally planned as the dealer wanted the problem to go away. In the investigation, I learned that there are some pretty low quality brake pads available new.

I am a first-time home buyer in an early stage of the process. So far, my experience was the opposite. A real estate agent from a respectable agency has shown me a condominium and then sent me a draft agreement between his agency (as Buyer) and me. If I had signed that agreement I would have committed to pay to the agent the difference between 3% and the percentage the seller offers. For this particular condo, the seller offers to the buyer's agent 2.5%, and I would have been responsible for the 0.5% difference, which in this case is over $3,000. The draft agreement would be in force until December 31, 2023, with 3 months after that of protection period. In other words, I'd depend on this agent for over a year regardless of his performance...

Talk to a mortgage broker to see what you can qualify for. A HELOC on your current property or bridge loan seem like better options. 100% financing or 5%-down financing on the purchase that is paid off and/or refi'd after the sale of your current home also seems like a better option than cashing out the IRA.

DoubleClick wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:17 pm

mnsportsgeek wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:39 pm You should always use an agent as a buyer. They're free for you.

See this quote earlier up in this thread:

It is not quite so simple. The listing agent takes more liability with an unrepresented buyer, and probably will not lower commission by the amount of the buyer's agent commission. The unrepresented buyer might save about 1-1.5% (and possibly zero) all else equal, but will be negotiating directly with the listing agent, who has more detailed info and knowledge to use to value the property. The listing agent has no obligation to lower the commission paid by the seller for an unrepresented buyer, but may choose to do so.

Billyboy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 18, 2023 2:36 pm I'll do what I've always done, stay the course and hope for the best. No plans to change anything

Then you also should know that the recent performance is not an indicator of whether it will rally from here or deteriorate further. They don't ring a bell at the end of a bear market.

retiredjg wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 8:47 am

Allan Roth wrote: The 1099 tax form on my little $5,000 direct indexing experiment is 86 pages!

Wow

Direct indexing is obviously not a good choice for someone who values simplicity.

Not to mention the increase in tax preparation cost.

Spindrift wrote: ↑Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:12 am YTD the Mid-Cap Fund is up only .4% vs. the S&P 500 Index being up 3.5%, and the Extended Market fund up 2.7%. I have never seen this type of variance in the Mid-Cap fund from the other broader market indexes. I understand that the Small Cap Value sector is weighing down the Extended Market but I have no idea what is depressing the Mid-Cap fund. Anyone have any insight into why this decoupling has occurred?

Look at the financial sector weight of the fund. Midcap banks got hammered.

Yep, pretty much confirms my initial take - none of that is on the realtor who worked with you on the purchase of the current home. Not saying you should use or not use a realtor for the upcoming transactions, but you need to understand what a realtor does. Matching the number of children you'd have in the (then) future to the number of bedrooms is not within their scope of work. 100% agree - realtors get paid for completing sales, not for matching you with a house that meets your needs. While real estate agents run the gamut, many are no more than used house salespeople just looking to close any deal. The best of course do have your long term interests at heart, but I've found it harder to find these types of professionals than to DIY a s...

livesoft wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 12:28 pm Give your adult child space to be an adult. Make them completely responsible for their own life.

+1000. Unless the student has specific issues requiring parental assistance (such as a disability) adopt a no-news-is-good-news attitude.

whaleknives wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 10:20 pm Everything takes 2 business days for a transaction to complete, whether you're selling, buying, or even just exchanging within Vanguard accounts. One business day to post the withdrawal, and one business day to post the deposit. A Vanguard fund sale to your checking account would post at Vanguard the next business day after the sale, and at your checking the 2nd business day.

A mutual fund transaction posted before market close occurs at market close-- typically the same day.

joechristmas wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:09 pm Hello.

My wife and I are looking to accomplish the following:

1. Move out of our home into a rental home (SFH--we have 6 in our family);
2. Sale of our current home (SFH in an area that is no longer desirable to us); and,
3. Following the close of sale on our current home, purchase and close on a new SFH.

Yes. The agent may be able to help you manage it without the rental in the middle. You may be able to negotiate a somewhat reduced commission if the agent is getting two transactions (your listing and the purchase).

I'm not a fan of dual agency on a single transaction.

It's kind of amusing that we always get these "don't go cheap on tires" posts. Bogleheads certainly are discriminating on tire safety for their '83 Corollas with 450k miles. Yeah, I guess I've been rolling the dice with my life using generic brand tires (no experience with Douglas) for most of my life. I'm no expert, but I would be very surprised if there is any material performance difference between a name brand and a similarly rated generic brand tire. (Note that I'm not talking used or too-good-to-be-true priced tires.) That is my philosophy with most products I buy, however. Some examples: I bought a used car with General tires. The tires had fairly good remaining tread life. I was not all that happy with them so I replaced ...

I have some observations. Changes in tax laws that lead to LTCG's being taxed less favorably could go either way. Direct indexing will create more embedded gains and reduce TLH opportunities, but direct indexing also may overall enable more tax-efficient withdrawals to deal with a hypothetical less favorable tax rate on LTCG. During accumulation, new contributions and reinvestment of dividends will re-seed TLH opportunities. But in decumulation, that will no longer be in play. Direct indexing may offer the opportunity for withdrawals that are not just a slice of the portfolio, but this may be unproven. Direct indexing is a form of indexing by sampling. With sampling, an optimizer is used to find a portfolio other than a full replica that mi...

My synopsis of Allan Roth's very good article on direct indexing follows. 1. Direct indexing has a higher expense ratio than a low cost equity index ETF or mutual fund (.03% vs .4% in his comparison with an S&P500 ETF). 2. The value of tax-loss harvesting opportunities is purported to more than offset the higher ER. 3. Eventually, gains in the stock market should lead the stocks held having embedded gains. The embedded gains would be amplified by past tax loss harvests. 4. The tax loss opportunities will dry up, and the investor will pay the higher ER for many years to come. 5. There may be some investor-specific benefits like reducing the correlated risk of holding the stock of one's employer by not holding it in the direct indexing po...

This is a question for those somewhat familiar with TIAA Real Estate Account (QREARX). The purpose of this question is to help me (and perhaps others) understand the investment. Let's say I were to get together with a group of associates and we decide to invest directly in both commercial and residential real estate and hire a company to manage the properties. We decide to use no more than 30% leverage. We also hire a consultant to periodically appraise the properties so we can estimate the value of our holdings. How does this model differ in principle from the TIAA Real Estate Account? One difference is that your associates and you would be making decisions on what properties to hold, when to buy and sell them, and what price to pay for t...

Asking for family member..I encouraged him last year to invest with Vanguard. Here is what he wants to know: ............. Where on my Vanguard brokerage account can I find the following information: Average monthly dividend percentages (Example: VWOB) that Vanguard uses to distribute a company’s profits to its shareholders since these percentages, supra, fluctuate periodically? Interesting questions: Why does Vanguard, on their investment prices & returns page, list monthly dividend payouts if they only pay these dividends out quarterly? Why does Vanguard ambiguously list the same expense ratio differently on different pages? For example, on the prices & returns page they list VWOB has having a 0.2% expense ratio, but if one was t...

Not saying this is the situation with the OP's relative, but I've also seen people claim to be 100% stocks because that is what is in their 401k or IRA, while an equal amount of cash and CDs held in taxable accounts is not viewed as a retirement asset.

tibbitts wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 3:06 pm It's kind of amusing that we always get these "don't go cheap on tires" posts. Bogleheads certainly are discriminating on tire safety for their '83 Corollas with 450k miles.

At what mileage level should a car be traded? I've never hit 120K as it turns out due to a low amount of driving, but may get there with our current car. With low mileage driving, things other than the engine or transmission always start falling apart before the mechanicals are close to being worn out, or the car is so depreciated that a would be fender bender totals it.

Avoid house brand tires. They are not commodities. If you have a blowout on a road trip, there may be a delay of a few days to get a matching replacement. A subtlety is that a few tire dealers sell models of tires of name brands that are models made specifically for them. My belief is that this also is to avoid comparison shopping. It has the same issue on a road trip. I think Michelin and BF Goodrich (now a Michelin brand) have the best tires generally (I'm not saying that you cannot get a high quality tire from another name brand). For a cheaper tire with a shorter life, but good, safe performance, I think Riken in general is good, though I have not owned one in many years). Their model was to buy moulds from top tire companies and make c...

Another view about SVB:

Sonnenfeld and Tian said not only was the announcement of an unsubscribed $2.25 billion capital raise Wednesday night “unnecessary” because Silicon Valley Bank had sufficient capital far in excess of regulatory requirements, but there was no need to simultaneously reveal the $1.8 billion loss.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/13/business ... index.html

elderwise wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 3:46 pm
They filed lawsuit against SVB which is no more, their executive management etc.

Ianal but if fdic dissolved sivb. Are lawsuits invalidates too or are they upheld

I have no idea what went on internally in this bank, but if lawsuits are indeed filed, my best guess is that they would be naming the board, audit committee, CEO, and anyone else with fiduciary and risk management responsibilities.

Re-directing new contributions to bonds will start to dial back from 100% stocks, albeit at a slow rate given the current balance.

Someone should be willing to accept a 50-55% drawdown if 100% stock.

Might have your relatives look at this:

https://www.retailinvestor.org/pdf/Bengen1.pdf

And if interested, there also is a similar study referred to as the Trinity Study, and an update to that by Wade Pfau.

so perhaps folks can stop screaming about the "government bailout of elite well-connected woke investors" and focus on the facts on the ground. that would be nice I must not hang out in the right places -- I haven't hard any screaming about "well-connected woke investors". Agreed but are banks too concerned with ESG, DEI, climate change, etc. ahead of oversight, regulation and compliance? That's I think where more of the chatter is. Obviously the banks weren't concerned enough about risk management, but that's an understatement at this point. Banks that want weaker regulation are focused on taking more risk to goose their profits. They lobbied hard to get the rules changed legislatively in 2018. That was not advocacy fo...

I think it is per beneficiary of the implied Totten trust, and the account owner(s) are beneficiaries of that, which is why 1 owner and 4 POD beneficiaries is 5 beneficiaries of the account asset.

Consider a joint account held by 2 people who declare 1 POD beneficiary. That does not reduce their FDIC limit from 500K to 250K. It increases it to 750K.

But again, I recommend due diligence and getting your info from the FDIC (or NCUA if a credit union account).

Today's Matt Levine newsletter mentions SVB bonds: The senior unsecured bonds were changing hands at around 47 to 50 cents on the dollar Monday morning, higher than the roughly 37 to 42 cents at the end of Friday, according to data from the US trade reporting system known as Trace. SVB bonds were among the most actively traded obligations over the Monday session, per Trace. This means that whoever is buying the bonds believes SVB has more than enough asset value to pay depositors in full, since the bonds don't get paid until after the depositors. If those buying the bonds are correct, there will not by any FDIC special assessment to cover the cost of SVB. so perhaps folks can stop screaming about the "government bailout of elite well-...

What if a lot of banks go under at the same time? Can the FDIC run out of money? Then what happens? Would the US Govt fund them by selling more bonds? What if no one buys those bonds because there is a flood of them on the market and interest rates spike to say 15% back in the 1980s. It sure would be hard to pay for the federal budget deficit's and existing 31T debt at 15% interest rates...seems US Govt would go under too? If you want to worry about worst case scenarios, we may get hit with an asteroid in 2046. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/newfound-asteroid-may-strike-earth-in-2046-nasa-says/ Only 1/600= 0.16666666666% chance I think we can all sleep well Agree. Likewise for the govt going under. But if you collect a large en...

nisiprius wrote: ↑Mon Mar 13, 2023 7:34 am Well, the people that created the five-factor model said themselves that only four are needed.

Fama and French, "A Five-Factor Asset Pricing Model" (2014)

With the addition of profitability and investment factors, the value factor of the FF three-factor model becomes redundant for describing average returns in the sample we examine.

Which sample will we get moving forward?

It is a regression of BRK.A, not of the portfolio held by Berkshire (which is not a de facto mutual fund).

... they had no Chief Risk Officer for a good reason. CEO knew about the problem and potentially why this position never got filled. But they should have rectified, the senior leadership knew this long before. This is negligence, and not a small slight when you are a 200BN AUM bank. It appears that the Chief Risk Officer was a positioned hired/appointed by the Board Risk Committee, not the CEO: Chief Risk Officer: The Committee shall be responsible for the appointment, performance evaluation (including goal setting), compensation, and termination of the Chief Risk Officer (the “CRO”), in coordination with the Compensation and Human Capital Committee, as appropriate. The Committee shall also be responsible for validating the CRO has the sta...

State of California, not FDIC shut SVB down:

https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resoluti ... y-faq.html

csr wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 7:54 pm

Faisal wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 7:42 pm

runner540 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:38 pm

Yesterdaysnews wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:14 pm Government to the rescue again... this is the new normal.

People are really conflating a bailout of the banks investors (stock, bonds of SVB), which is NOT happening, with FIDC intervention to protect customer deposits, which is happening, and I support.

Do you want no FDIC, no SIPC? That’s how the Great Depression happened.

That is literally the government bailing out the banks. No FDIC means no government intervention at all.

FDIC has no money. It's tax payers bailing them out. Once again.

Insuring deposits is not bailing out the bank. It is liquidating the bank.

Try the FDIC Online Insurance Limit Calculator.

viewtopic.php?t=399865

The FDIC has an online calculator to determine the insurance limits for an account.

https://edie.fdic.gov/

No guarantee of that beyond SVB.

trirunner wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:40 pm

runner540 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:38 pm

Yesterdaysnews wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:14 pm Government to the rescue again... this is the new normal.

People are really conflating a bailout of the banks investors (stock, bonds of SVB), which is NOT happening, with FIDC intervention to protect customer deposits, which is happening, and I support.

Do you want no FDIC, no SIPC? That’s how the Great Depression happened.

I want FDIC to do what their law state, insurance up to 250k per account. If they want to insurance up to infinity, they should change the law first.

The law states that special exceptions may be granted to do this. No law change is needed to conform to the law as written.

I think 1 owner and 4 POD beneficiaries is 5x FDIC limit. My suggestion is that the OP call the bank and ask them, then confirm the answer on the FDIC web site or by calling the FDIC. Why is this coming up now instead of when the account was set up? I did look into this years ago at the time, and my conclusion then was the same as now: I think FDIC should cover $1,000,000. However now with the recent banking news I am worried that it could actually be critical imminently, so I would like to get 100% confirmation. I have tried calling the FDIC number, but no one answered. My belief is that 1 owner and 4 PODs is covered up to $1.25M. If the account is still open when the owner is deceased, it would drop to $1M for the remaining 4 until liqui...

The notion that folks don't think depositors and business payroll should be protected is mind boggling. If you don't, it puts every regional bank in danger. Then what are we left with ? Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, and Citibank. Why say the insurance limit is 250K when you really mean infinity. The epitome of moral hazard, they just lost more credibility. It's because $250K is what they will commit to. The limit doesn't mean that any deposit over the limit is gone. There are assets backing the liabilities, just maybe not enough. We don't how where that stands. If the govt covers this without spending the minimum required to meet the guarantee, then we have a scenario of taxpayers covering uninsured deposits. Without a deep dive...

Looks like no bailout, as it should be. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/12/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-says-us-government-wont-bail-out-silicon-valley-bank.html The "no bailout" bailout is here. Nothing to worry about, depositors will be made while (or almost) https://t.co/ceeqWmgdxF Take away - don't dilute regulations. Financial industry needs continued regulations. Yes it does. FDIC regulators worked over the weekend to assess. I assume the conclusion was there were assets sufficient to cover enough of the liability that this could happen. If equity was at about 10% of assets, and assets cover 90 cents on the dollar for deposits, SVB stockholders and bondholders (including stock and bond index funds) are unlikely to get much,...

I make significant use of alts if you consider a stable value fund with competitive yield to be an alternative investment.

tcrez wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 5:24 pm What if a lot of banks go under at the same time? Can the FDIC run out of money? Then what happens? Would the US Govt fund them by selling more bonds? What if no one buys those bonds because there is a flood of them on the market and interest rates spike to say 15% back in the 1980s.

It sure would be hard to pay for the federal budget deficit's and existing 31T debt at 15% interest rates...seems US Govt would go under too?

If you want to worry about worst case scenarios, we may get hit with an asteroid in 2046.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nasa-says/

The article fails to mention that SVB left their CRO (chief risk officer) position unfilled from April 2022 to January 2023. Here’s an article on their lack of risk management leadership, and what the risk leadership they did have were focusing on - not duration risk, clearly! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11848705/Woke-head-risk-assessment-Silicon-Valley-Bank-accused-prioritizing-diversity-issues.html More details on the last CRO and history of how they failed to fill the position, while very likely knowing they had real trouble for the last year. https://nongaap.substack.com/p/sivb-held-to-mortem-governance Yes, I'm sure the customers who lost all their money can at least take solace understanding that their bank got an A on t...