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FafnerMorell

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FafnerMorell

Can I ask, did you make a Sept 1 payment and then this as a "payoff" late in the same month? Our mortgage is with PenFed and I project us to be able to pay if off Jan 1 but am hoping to just do it late in December so it's in the current calendar year. (going to call and ask if possible so...

FafnerMorell

Thanks - I guess it became official yesterday or so - got the bank alert that they cashed the check, logged into the mortgage company web site (Wells Fargo) and my account said "PAID IN FULL", so that was a nice feeling. I don't know if they send me back much in the way of official paperwo...

FafnerMorell

Well, given the interest rate was only 3%, it was probably a lousy financial decision in terms of absolute dollars, but it feels good not to have it hanging over me...

FafnerMorell

Good questions Nisi - I suspect there might be some issues with question/assumption #1 (at some point, they need to buy X (or make buy/sell for X cancel out), but from what I recall, even in the good old days of elder respect, there was a lot of profit skimming/risk taking about when/if the actual b...

FafnerMorell

Many thanks - I posted the info to my FB page and hopefully some of my younger friends/family will bite (a few are mentioning funding IRAs and such, and it's good to see folks starting out early). I remember 4 Pillars of Investing being very helpful back when I was getting started. I also picked up ...

FafnerMorell

My family (wife, 3 kids ages 8-6), sailed on the Disney Magic for 3 days in Feb this year and had a blast. We're looking into a 4 day cruise on the Disney Dream for the kid's spring break next year. The kids loved the Oceaneer's Club & Lab and the water slides (especially the AquaDunk - heck, ev...

FafnerMorell

Well, one potential concern is inflation/increases-to-expenses-that-exceed-inflation (college, medical care, etc). But I think the basic idea is great once one has enough money invested (and expenses reasonably controlled) - I think this is kind of what some of the folks mean when they refer to &quo...

FafnerMorell

My Flagship rep has camped out in the mountain behind my home, he knows exactly where I live. "Hey Dad, I think our Vanguard rep is living in the woods behind our house! I found some really worn out Bogle books on top of a sleeping bag near a lean-to made from tree branches" "OK, let...

FafnerMorell

It would be interesting to find out more on why he choose the S&P 500 index vs Total Stock (although really, there's not a lot of difference in historical performance between the two, so he might have just stuck with the tried & true).

FafnerMorell

Was he given the name "Art Cashin" at birth? Because really, that is such a perfect name for a finance guy.

FafnerMorell

bigfoot12 - it does seem like there are some fundamental communication gaps / assumptions in what you're talking about (i.e. the notion that buy-and-hold is only done "once", or that folks only buy either a stock or bond index fund rather than having both and rebalancing, or that dividends...

FafnerMorell

Using the drop from the 2000 peak as an example, most people who were buy-and-hold investors, and who were fully invested in 2000, recovered only in 2013. That's 13 years to recover back to where you were. Do you have that much time for retirement? This soft of statement gets made a lot (whether it...

FafnerMorell

Stay the course (which generally means keep on buying per normal (hold if you're no longer accumulating wealth), and rebalance).

FafnerMorell

I'm shocked no one has mentioned "running away from sabre-tooth tigers" or "commuting to work in their foot-powered car".

FafnerMorell

I switched to BlueG a couple of weeks ago and rather like it - I was able to reproduce the stuff that I liked from the old Yahoo. A few of the widgets are a bit ugly, but it's functional and a lot better than the new Yahoo.

FafnerMorell

From Wikipedia: Homer is traveling by air in first class and says "Look at me, I'm reading The Economist. Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?" and when questioned by his wife, he simply replies "It is!" Four days later, The Economist indeed had an article about Indonesia r...

FafnerMorell

It would seem if banks want to get to know their customers better, we should get to know the banks better. What's CEO's name, address, social security #, mother's maiden name, and birthdate? After all, if they want to know this about me, shouldn't they be willing to tell me the same info? Seems fair...

FafnerMorell

Ironically, the OP's original point is more of a "proof" of Efficient market theory: - The price of NEST did not reflect that Google might acquire a similarly named company. - As soon as the acquisition became knowledge, THEN the price went up by 4900% (new information (even if wrong) caus...

FafnerMorell

Time to make the muppets dance....

FafnerMorell

Must be tough being a financial adviser when you're too busy to be aware of the S&P 500 or Russell 2000. Bet he's heard about the Dow though. I think I'd stick with your Couch Potato-inspired portfolio rather than impose on such a busy person. Luckily Scott Burns isn't too busy to follow the pas...

FafnerMorell

Pay yourself first.

FafnerMorell

If economics is a science, then I would expect proponents of the "bubbles exist and can be predicted in advance" theory would publish a reproducible method by which this could be proven. I haven't seen that (and no, the Hindenburg Omen doesn't count).

FafnerMorell

Sounds like the usual "Buy low, sell high, repeat as necessary".

FafnerMorell

I would think for folks who buy gold for their portfolio, it's been an excellent year to buy low. As Warren Buffett says: "When hamburgers go down in price, we sing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' in the Buffett household. When hamburgers go up in price, we weep. For most people, it's the same with eve...

FafnerMorell

I would think that "blindly" investing would remain pretty easy - I mean, if you were doing it blind before, and you're still doing it blind, what's changed? Has Vanguard made their web site less friendly to seeing-eye dogs? Personally, I prefer "intelligently investing in ETFs and in...

FafnerMorell

The quote from Francis Bacon about "Money makes a good servant but a bad master" applies even more so for debt. If the money borrowed enables you to earn greater sums than is spent paying it back (with interest), keeping in mind that "risk" means that things may not go as one ini...

FafnerMorell

If anything, the more surprising aspect is that stocks are currently going up, given the shutdown - maybe everyone sold off their gold to get money to buy on the upcoming stock plunge? I'd expect any true gold bugs to be happily stocking up (pardon the pun) on their favorite shiny, and coming up wit...

FafnerMorell

At least "Evil indexing" sounds more exciting than "passive investing". Just think, now when folks are talking about their investments, I can toss in "For decades I've been buying up portions of almost every company (that's stock is for sale) across the entire free world as ...

FafnerMorell

I'd be real curious how many people have become multi-billionaires by thinking/investing like Warren Buffet. Offhand, there's 1 (WB himself), so out of 6+ billion folks, the odds of getting really rich by following that advice seem pretty poor. However, there seem to be a couple of hundred authors o...

FafnerMorell

Purely in theory, if you've got $100 million and only spend $100k a year then you can live for 1,000 years and not worry about this whole stock vs bond vs anything. It wouldn't work for Mel Brook's 2000 year old man, but for anyone else - no worries!

FafnerMorell

What happens to the Powerball lottery if absolutely no one buys a ticket ever? Would all the prize money just sit there forever, as they hold drawing after drawing? This scenario is probably a lot more likely than the index one. The truly awesome thing about taxing stupidity/greed is there's always...

FafnerMorell

What happens to the Powerball lottery if absolutely no one buys a ticket ever? Would all the prize money just sit there forever, as they hold drawing after drawing? This scenario is probably a lot more likely than the index one. The truly awesome thing about taxing stupidity/greed is there's always ...

FafnerMorell

I've found a good rule of thumb is to never trust financial journalism that uses Warren Buffet as the primary (and generally only) example - if folks could achieve the same results as WB did by reading a "How to Invest like Warren Buffet" book/article, we'd have about five million multi-bi...

FafnerMorell

Markets may be efficient, but taxes certainly aren't (and selling often has tax implications)

FafnerMorell

I'll wait for the book on "How to Buy a Dollar Like Warren Buffett" to come out before I get into that market.

FafnerMorell

It's all my fault - I bought in May rather than selling like I should have.

FafnerMorell

When buying books, if the Kindle price is significantly less (say, > $5), I'll go Kindle. Or if I'm in a rush and don't want to wait the 2 days for delivery. On the other hand, if I'm looking for a long-term reference (a book I can refer to while reading yet another book), then I'll go physical copy...

FafnerMorell

Browser wrote:The theory behind the Permanent Portfolio is that you should divide your portfolio equally between stocks, long duration bonds, and gold

I think you left out cash. (If I recall, PP is a 25% in each - it's not my portfolio so I don't know the details, but I seem to recall that from the discussions).

FafnerMorell

I would think that this would be a great buying opportunity for someone with PP - they can rebalance their cash to stock up on gold, bonds, stocks.

FafnerMorell

It's news articles like this that prove the retail investor, buying S&P500-style index funds, has no hope of ever beating the advantages of elite hedge funds, paying for ultra-fast access to the latest info before it's available to the masses. m Of course, other news, like "Hedge funds gain...

FafnerMorell

The news would seem to indicate that markets are extremely efficient for any period of time longer than 2 seconds, and perhaps even 500 milliseconds.

FafnerMorell

So do they update the average when someone takes the test, or is the average score from when they tried out the test on FINRA advisors first?

FafnerMorell

Oddly enough, it was precisely 68 million years ago today that the Denver Dino Journal ran an article about how tough it was for an Ornithomimus named Wally to find eggs to eat, with the craze of small mammals infringing on it's territory.

FafnerMorell

I'd say it all depends on the definition of "rich". That, and the amount invested and the time period, etc. I suspect many Bogleheads feel that they've gotten rich because, by saving a moderate percentage of their income over a long period time (say, 30-40 years), they've seen their invest...

FafnerMorell

Saint Paul de Vence near Nice is a must see. It's probably only 2-3 hours to walk through all the art shops, etc and admire the view - but a wonderful spot. I've been to Nice many times, and Saint Paul is my one "must do". Also, in Nice itself, on the section called "Old Nice", t...

FafnerMorell

Back when I was in high school in the early 80s, there was a mandatory semester-long class called "Consumer Education" which basically covered it. One part that was pretty effective was the famous Cosby Show bit where we had to figure out a basic monthly budget (we actually predated that e...

FafnerMorell

I wonder if active fund managers get depressed about the futility of their jobs, or if the money is good enough they don't care, or if it's something like what generals felt during WW1 were they'd send off 20,000 soldiers to die each day to no real effect, and they'd do it again day after day becaus...

FafnerMorell

If you think you can dare a contrarian into doing something, you don't understand contrarians very well. They're probably pretty immune to reverse psychology as well - just from experience of folks tryng that angle on them. And you'd probably be horribly outmatched trying to prove yourself smarter t...

FafnerMorell

The NPR Planet Money podcast has some info on bitcoins, as does the Economist magazine. Wikipedia also covers it. As you point out, if you don't understand it, don't invest in it. Also, just because you understand something, doesn't mean you should necessarily invest in it. And it's probably very ar...

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