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grabiner

Noob question. All else being equal. If you are hoping to make money in an intermediate term bond fund, are you hoping for the price to go up or the yield to go up? The yield. If you gain from the price going up, this implies that you intend to hold the fund for less than its duration, which you sh...

grabiner

OP here. Yes this thread is 1.5 years old. I am still somewhat paralyzed by making a change for some reason. The math seems clear especially from Grabiner's post. The tax situation has changed a bit, but not that much. With the new tax laws, you may now be in a 22% tax bracket, but you no longer de...

grabiner

Interest-rate risk is minimized when the bond duration matches the investment horizon. Long-term investors, therefore, REDUCE their interest rate risk by choosing long-term bonds over short-term bonds. Nominal bonds do potentially leave the investor exposed to inflation risk, but that doesn't mean ...

grabiner

There are so many great options that are best or only available in taxable space such as account signup bonuses, i-bonds, and VWALX/VWAHX that I see no need for the ordinary options here or regret for holding bonds in taxable. A small portion of treasuries in tax sheltered accounts for rebalancing ...

grabiner

What would be the difference with going long on e.g. SSO and going short on SDS? Should they give me the same returns? If not what is the difference? The daily returns will be the same, but your exposure will change, so that the multi-day returns will be different. If you put $1000 into a long 2x l...

grabiner

Realize this is an old thread, but just got my first HSA and I'm in California. I appreciate the advice to invest in relatively higher weight of Treasury bonds in the HSA to avoid state tax (and compensating with other retirement accounts to preserve total asset allocation), however, I am wondering...

grabiner

So. at the end, do we have to compare 15% * stocks return vs marginal-tax% * bonds return to decide where to allocate? No, because the return on the stocks is deferred. If you have $100K in stock with an 8% return, you now have $108K, but your tax cost is not $1200. If the dividend yield is 2%, you...

grabiner

I own both funds (FSKAX in a Fido workplace 403(b) account, VTSAX across several Vanguard accounts). Fidelity customer service has been phenomenal to work with in dealing with all the nuances with 403(b) transfers, and their IT is generally more reliable. I did find there was one evening last week ...

grabiner

See Paying down loans versus investing on the wiki. Putting more money down is a risk-free invetment, earning the mortgage interest rate, with a duration equal to the weighted average of the mortgage payments. For example, a 15-year mortgage with a 4% APR has a 7-year duration, so putting more money...

grabiner

Bonds get all of their return from "dividends," i.e. coupon interest payments, and basically nothing from capital appreciation. I totally get that from the perspective of buying a bond and holding it to maturity. But bonds funds don't seem to do that. They have turnover ratio's of > 50% per year, w...

grabiner

This holding is a small portion of my portfolio and considered to be about 3/4's of my emergency fund This is not a good fund for an emergency fund, as it is too volatile. It didn't exist when the bond markets fell in 2008, but judging from its volatility in other time periods, it would probably ha...

grabiner

Welcome to the forum! Debt: 165K Student Loans @ approx. 6.5% (all federal) Paying these down is a risk-free 6.5% return (or 4.5% if you refinance), which is a much better return than you can get on your investments without taking a lot of risk. I would suggest maxing out the HSA (for the tax benefi...

grabiner

What would be the difference with going long on e.g. SSO and going short on SDS? Should they give me the same returns? If not what is the difference? The daily returns will be the same, but your exposure will change, so that the multi-day returns will be different. If you put $1000 into a long 2x l...

grabiner

I'm trying to help my parents get their finances in line before retirement. My mother is wanting to retire within the next year maybe, and my dad is planning on working another 8-10 years. Right now they each have a 403b with Mass Mutual through Edward Jones and their employer. Fees on this aren't ...

grabiner

It's usually close to break-even to wait for SS past FRA when you will get a widow's benefit if your husband dies first. Therefore, if you can get some other advantage from waiting, such as filling up the lower tax brackets with a conversion to avoid unneeded RMDs, it's probably worth doing.

grabiner

In a taxable account, use the Vanguard fund (or an ETF, not necessarily Vanguard's; there are several total-market ETFs). Fidelity's fund will probably generate some taxable capital gains; Vanguard's fund, with an ETF class, won't. In an IRA, what matters is whether you prefer to hold the IRA with V...

grabiner

Interesting, would you mind showing me how the math would work? My wife and I will indeed be in the 24% tax bracket. For state taxes. it is just math. The OR tax-exempt fund has a 2.65% yield, and 0.56% expenses, so it holds bonds with a 3.21% yield. A Vanguard fund holding bonds of comparable risk...

grabiner

Vanguard has a number of tax managed funds, but in general index funds are already tax effecient. This post compares taxes on index vs tax managed funds, along with the ers. .Total Stock Market is still better than a combination of tax-managed funds, except in the top tax bracket, and even then it ...

grabiner

JediMisty wrote: ↑
Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:02 pm
I'll make sure he signs up for a high deductible plan for 2019. Which stock funds have lower yields? Growth funds?

Growth has lower yield than value, US lower than foreign, and small-cap slightly lower than large-cap.

grabiner

Trying to keep taxable yields down on my BF VG taxable account to insure he will get subsidies for ACA insurance. Looking for low yield suggestions for the next couple of years until he qualifies for Medicare. There's a mix of bond funds and stock funds now. Most likely will need to sell some bond ...

grabiner

ORTYX Aquila Tax-Free Trust of Oregon 0.56% At Schwab I found two other Oregon intermediate muni funds without transaction fees, but with higher expense ratios: COEAX Columbia AMT-Free Oregon Intermediate Muni Bond Fund 0.83% FOTAX Nuveen Oregon Intermediate Municipal Bond Fund 0.82% And none of th...

grabiner

Financially, it's fairly easy to work out. If you buy a new car, your cost over 8 years is the difference between the price you pay for the new car and the trade-in value of an 8-year-old car (use the good condition blue-book value) If you buy a 3-year-old car, your cost over 5 years is the differen...

grabiner

A backdoor Roth is always better than a taxable account for retirement savings. You get no tax deduction, but you can withdraw contributions tax-free, and gains tax-free if you are at least 59-1/2 and have had the Roth for five years. This is better than a taxable account, on which you either pay ta...

grabiner

The most comparable investment is Vanguard Long-Term Tax-Exempt. This fund has a duration of 7 years, which is the same as the duration of your mortgage (a combination of payments made in 0-15 years). Therefore, the two investments have comparable interest-rate risk; if rates rise, the value of the ...

grabiner

I believe that early withdraws are prorated for the Roth 401k, so you may not be able to withdraw only the contributions, like you do with a Roth IRA. But you can roll it to a Roth IRA, and then there is no proration issue; the already-taxed portion in the Roth IRA can be withdrawn tax-free and pen...

grabiner

ORTYX Aquila Tax-Free Trust of Oregon 0.56% At Schwab I found two other Oregon intermediate muni funds without transaction fees, but with higher expense ratios: COEAX Columbia AMT-Free Oregon Intermediate Muni Bond Fund 0.83% FOTAX Nuveen Oregon Intermediate Municipal Bond Fund 0.82% And none of th...

grabiner

In high tax brackets, I do prefer holding muni bonds in taxable accounts rather than stocks (with taxable bonds in an IRA). This is particularly important if you can use munis for your high-tax state. Most taxpayers pay 15% tax on qualified dividends and capital gains, and 0% on munis. At current yi...

grabiner

Could you please share what percentage of your portfolio do small cap stocks represent? What should a younger aggressive investor aim for? Half of my US stock is small-cap (which I define as the bottom 20% of the market), and 3/8 of my foreign stock. (It would be half the foreign stock as well, but...

grabiner

Debt: $3K Student Loans @ 3.4% (in deferment as I cash flow my MBA which will be done in December), $23K Car @ 1.9% , $226K Mortgage @ 4.125% w/ PMI (92.5% LTV) I would pay down the mortgage to get rid of PMI in preference to any unmatched contributions to a 401(k). You can look at what rates are t...

grabiner

This is what I have and seeking to hold for the next 20 years. VTSAX - total stock market VFINX- vanguard 500 VTMFX - tax managed VHDYX - dividend fund The only benefit of Tax-Managed Balanced over a combination of Tax-Managed Capital Appreciation and Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt is that the balanc...

grabiner

Let me ask this. I understand individual bonds go up & down in value with interest rates. Now bond funds do not have a fixed end date. The bond fund owns lots of bonds I look at my Vanguard Total Bond Fund and see it has gone down approx 10% in value. Balanced by the increase in dividends. Is the 1...

grabiner

Just so I understand, say everyone who owns total stock got together and sold on one day except 1 small investor. Would the 1 investor be stuck with the entire tax bill at the end of the year? Yes, although this is not realistic, and even a similar phenomenon is unlikely. Usually, when a large numb...

grabiner

To understand this relation, look for the "duration" of your bond fund. This is a measure of how much rates will change. If a bond fund has a 5-year duration, and the yields on bonds in that fund rise by 1%, the fund will lose 5% of its value. (The reason that duration is measured in years is that t...

grabiner

Another benefit of the HSA is that it reduces your adjusted gross income. Besides the direct savings in taxes, this might increase your ACA subsidy, or make you eligible for the Saver's Credit (if you also contribute to an IRA or 401(k)).

grabiner

Are you "parking" the money (leaving it for a short time before you do something else with it) or "investing" the money (saving it for a long-term purpose? If you are parking the money, Prime Money Market is the best place; in your tax bracket, it has a higher yield than CA Money Market. If you are ...

grabiner

I have about $60K in a money market account, with $15-20K of that being allotted for emergency fund and the rest for a down payment. I hate leaving this much in a money market account however I may need it within the next few years. Is this a suitable place to store this much money given my goals o...

grabiner

Does anyone know whether money market fund distributions function like mutual fund dividend distributions (i.e. all-or-nothing interest distribution depending on whether you hold the fund on the recording date), or is the interest accumulated daily/paid out regardless as with an interest-bearing ba...

grabiner

From a tax standpoint, it doesn't make much difference; see Tax-adjusted asset allocation on the wiki. If you will retire in a 25% tax bracket, $4000 in a traditional IRA and $3000 in a Roth IRA have exactly the same after-tax value if invested the same way, so there is little reason to invest in on...

grabiner

Only Roth Conversions can’t be recharacterized. Contributions can. That’s all the facts right there. Why would anyone want to open a tIRA, recharacterize it to a Roth and then recharacterize it to an tIRA. If you are looking for an IRS audit maybe. This is clearly a hypothetical with no real world ...

grabiner

I always get this mixed up. Is the rule of thumb, the percentage of stocks in your portfolio should equal your age? Or something like that. The rule of thumb used to be age in bonds, but that is now considered conservative; the Bogleheads average about age-13 in bonds. But this is a rule of thumb f...

grabiner

I am all for better understanding of how mutual funds work and welcome you giving it a try, but my premise to your above question is that the mutual fund manager only sells the shares needed to distribute cash and thus capital gains to investor. Like I said the mutual fund is owned by the sharehold...

grabiner

‘Best practices’ for ETF trading: Seven rules of the road "...avoid trading at either the market open or close;" I think it is pretty clear that if trading at the market open or close rips one party off, then the other party makes out like a bandit. You want to be the bandit, so you should figure o...

grabiner

1. Where on the Vanguard site can you see that VTSAX has 40% unrealized gain and if this is gain "owned" by the fund company rather than the investors then you would have to disagree with the WSJ article that says any capital gains owned by the fund "must" be paid out on an annual basis. Do you agr...

grabiner

The only thing I need to confirm is the max amount my wife can contribute to her HSA and can we 3 pay for our medical expenses from that HSA funds. The above two responses are conflicting (3450 vs 6900) Whether she can contribute $3450 or $6900 depends on whether her insurance is an individual or f...

grabiner

The game was reasonably fun, though the scores seemed unnecessarily inflated. To be honest, for a passive investor, is there ever any good reason to buy ETFs? I can't think of a single reason off the top of my head. It makes sense to buy an ETF when there is no mutual-fund equivalent, or when the m...

grabiner

I'm showing my age, but it's like deja vu all over again. Back in the late 90s the supposed danger of embedded capital gains popped up as one of the many criticisms of index funds from active managers and their financial press toadies as index funds started to really take market share from active. ...

grabiner

Also, are there any tax efficent index funds out there? I dont know of any. Total-market and large-cap index funds, and other index funds with an ETF class, are inherently tax-efficient. Total-market funds rarely sell anything; large-cap funds sell only stocks which are small and have declined in v...

grabiner

I was planning to put $3000 in VWELX in a Roth to hey started with my Vanguard account. Now I am wondering if it might be better to go with VTSMX. The two funds are not comparable. Wellington is 65% stock; Total Stock Market is 100% stock. Which one is better depends on whether 65% or 100% stock is...

grabiner

My employer also provides Health care FSA but I read that I cannot have FSA when a spouse has a HSA. This is not quite true. Your spouse cannot contribute to an HSA if you have an FSA that provides coverage that would not be allowed under the high-deductible plan. However, some employers, such as t...

grabiner

Hi everyone. Thanks for all of the responses! I left some stuff out not realizing that it might be important: -I am maxing out each my 401k, Roth IRA and HSA at the moment. Retirement savings is the largest single expense I have right now, and it took no small amount of courage to build up to maxin...

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