Bogleheads.org

Kevin8696

I completely understand your confusion... here's my understanding of the quandary. The Vanguard site shows the Distribution yield for VBTLX based on the 8/31 distribution to be 2.78%, while the SEC yield is 3.13%. As cited above, the SEC yield uses yield-to-maturity based on the trailing 30-day per...

Kevin8696

One thing I know about Bogleheads in general is that they can be VERY against individual bonds. It makes sense -- if you hold 5-8 different bonds, that's a lot of risk. OTOH, my advisor at Fidelity recommends holding some bonds individually, as long as they're investment grade. So I don't know whic...

Kevin8696

I agree with the corporate bonds, that is why I do like the global bond fund (it is about 46% treasuries), though I do have a couple of questions about that fund; which is for another thread. I do believe rates are going up (high how, who knows), but I am just thinking with the other mixed funds th...

Kevin8696

I believe it was Henny Youngman that said, "My investments put 2 kids through college... my broker's kids !! "

Kevin8696

Instead of buying puts, have you looked at selling a call spread ?

Kevin8696

Thanks for posting. I suppose a 48-page document meets the needs of the Feds and confuses customers thoroughly. I think attorneys are required to take a special course in Obfuscation in law school

Kevin8696

I completely understand your confusion... here's my understanding of the quandary. The Vanguard site shows the Distribution yield for VBTLX based on the 8/31 distribution to be 2.78%, while the SEC yield is 3.13%. As cited above, the SEC yield uses yield-to-maturity based on the trailing 30-day peri...

Kevin8696

Mr. BB... I'd suggest using Morningstar.com to help sort out your intermediate-term bond exposure. The goal would be to see how many dollars you have invested across those funds in intermediate-term bonds (i.e. duration of about 5-7 years), take a look at the mix of issuers, and how it all fits with...

Kevin8696

Tommy... the Vanguard site can help you in determining which funds in taxable account, and which in tax-deferred. Here's how: When looking at a particular fund, scroll down, click on Compare, and add a second fund to the table. Scroll through that table and it will show you the following for the two...

Kevin8696

I think any of the risks in the link @Kevein8698 provided can be mitigated by only buying I Bonds from Treasury Direct and Treasury marketable securities at auction. No individual corporate or municipal bonds for me. Even Vanguard agrees From the article: Mutual funds have little or no advantage ov...

Kevin8696

So good advice from a financial advisor is often worth it. I see this argument a lot. I just want to point out "worth" and what you should pay are only very loosely related. If you don't eat for a month you will die or suffer very badly. What you should pay for a month of food is probably...

Kevin8696

Here's a Vanguard whitepaper from a year ago on the topic of Bonds vs Bond Funds. https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/ICRIBI.pdf A few things to consider: 1. Diversification: Bond funds are much more diversified than individual bonds. Ask the old GM bondholders... 2. Liquidity: Can be tough to sell sm...

Kevin8696

The problem with most of the people (or should I say, the most vociferous people) on this site is that they think that most people can DIY with just a little help. I've been doing it a while, and I can assure you that they cannot. Even with a Boglehead's help, the sheer volume of information that a...

Kevin8696

Glad that things are coming together for you. And nice to hear that I (we) could be of assistance.

Best of Luck in your retirement !!

Kevin8696

miket29, Vanguard's site can shed some light on the tax differences for you, since they show average annual total return after tax on distributions, and also after taxes on distributions and sale of fund shares. Tax rate assumptions are provided on their site. Here's what the 10-yr returns look like...

Kevin8696

Tommy85.... Did you say you pay $5k a year for a $200k portfolio that is mostly invested in index funds ? OMG!!! Doctor... Stop the Bleeding !! Wouldn't you rather have that $5k going into your portfolio and not your advisor's ? Since you found your way here, you are likely a good candidate for DIY ...

Kevin8696

If you tilt value in your portfolio I don’t see how you can ignore international at these valuations. They call it Home Country Bias for a reason. However, even Vanguard acknowledges that: our framework suggests that U.S. investors may have some quantitative justification for a home bias Would you ...

Kevin8696

Here's the advice on this problem that is offered on page 70 of the book, "The Coffeehouse Investor" by Bill Shultheis. (Amazon $15.00) Plan A for solving this problem is to go to your employer and encourage them to include index funds in their choice of funds. If they balk, politely ask w...

Kevin8696

Impact of Currency Exchange on International stocks. After reading several posts that pointed to the years 2010 and beyond as the primary reason that US stocks outperformed Ex-US stocks over the past 20-year period, I took a look at the results of two 10-yr periods (1998 thru 2007, and 2008 thru 201...

Kevin8696

Zonto... I read your attached articles, and I guess I still don't get it. I'm looking to build a 60/40 portfolio using the 3 Fund approach. So, I used Portfolio Visualizer to create an efficient frontier using those three asset classes, US stocks, Ex-US stocks, and US bonds. I built it to begin as ...

Kevin8696

Recently I was doing some calculations looking at the effect of Roth conversions on taxation of RMD's and SS. My situation is that I have other income in retirement that puts me in the 12% tax bracket. With my current portfolio size (and associated RMD's) and expected SS, I expect to be in the 12% ...

Kevin8696

gvsucavie03..... So, I guess you are still not buying that the correlation of returns between US and Ex-US changed dramatically from just under 0.50 in the early years of those Nationwide and Wiki charts, to now being 0.90 for the period 1998-2017 ? Or do you not accept the concept that correlation...

Kevin8696

Data updated through July 2017 here: https://nationwidefinancial.com/media/pdf/MFM-2224AO.pdf So, I guess you are still not buying that the correlation of returns between US and Ex-US changed dramatically from just under 0.50 in the early years of those Nationwide and Wiki charts, to now being 0.90...

Kevin8696

Data updated through July 2017 here: https://nationwidefinancial.com/media/pdf/MFM-2224AO.pdf So, I guess you are still not buying that the correlation of returns between US and Ex-US changed dramatically from just under 0.50 in the early years of those Nationwide and Wiki charts, to now being 0.90...

Kevin8696

Cyclesafe wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 4:36 pm 2001 BMW 330i w/ 54k miles sold in 2015.

Dealer trade-in offer: $1200.
CarMax offer: $4000.
Sold to private party through Auto Trader in two days: $8000.

Wow, you did well. Btw, did you buy your replacement car from that dealer ?

Kevin8696

Beensabu... thanks for the tip. PV link attached for Efficient Frontier described above... US stock market, Global ex-US stock market, and Total US bond market. 1987-2017 https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/efficient-frontier?s=y&type=1&mode=1&startYear=1987&endYear=2017&groupCon...

Kevin8696

From the BH wiki: https://www.bogleheads.org/w/images/1/11/US-International.png Perhaps that should be updated? Either way, there wasn’t a marked difference in risk/return for holding anywhere from 20 to 50% international. It’s reasonable to assume that holding anywhere in that range for the future...

Kevin8696

sambb wrote: ↑Tue Aug 14, 2018 4:24 am this thread has reminded me to buy international this week
buy low sell high is nice

Could you do just as well by shorting the USD ?

Kevin8696

KISS... keep it simple is right !! Ally Online Savings is at 1.85%. Access is very easy via ACH transfer. The Ally 12-month CD is 2.50%. Also have a "no penalty" 11-month CD that you can bail-out of anytime. It's at 2.00%.... but you can bail-out and step-up anytime. I looked at ALL the on...

Kevin8696

I've been using Zelle, and the predecessor product Wells Fargo SurePay, on a monthly basis for about 5 years.

No problems whatsoever !!

Kevin8696

As previously mentioned... The correlation of returns between US and Ex-US stocks was substantially lower during the period 1970-1998 (just under 0.50) compared to a correlation of 0.90 for the period 1998-2017. The lower correlation of returns in those earlier years would support the concept of red...

Kevin8696

Great article, Taylor. Thanks for posting. I particularly enjoyed 7. Not all index funds are cheap. Here's an interesting example of that Wells Fargo offers a low-turnover, large cap index fund that tracks the S&P 500 index. Three classes of fund shares as follows: WFILX - "A" shares. ...

Kevin8696

Lastly, past performance is no indicator of future. Maybe the US will reign forever. There is a chance it will not and no one knows for certain. The other countries whose markets collapsed weren't some dinky 3rd world countries. They were major players on the world stage. If past performance is not...

Kevin8696

Any comments on these two funds. I chose VBIAX over VWELX because of a lower expense ratio and relatively similar performance over 10 years as well as 1,3, and 5 year performance. I would appreciate feedback. Yousha, VBIAX is a very good choice. It's basically a 60/40 allocation of Vanguard Total S...

Kevin8696

Lastly, past performance is no indicator of future. Maybe the US will reign forever. There is a chance it will not and no one knows for certain. The other countries whose markets collapsed weren't some dinky 3rd world countries. They were major players on the world stage. If past performance is not...

Kevin8696

Emerging theme in this thread (and a sentiment, which wasn’t particularly noticeable on BH even a year ago): US only investors don’t care what others do. Global cap investors argue that everyone *should* invest as they do. I can think of a number of seemingly unnecessary investment choices (crypto ...

Kevin8696

she said she doesn't feel comfortable managing her money herself. Too complicated. If she asks for reading suggestions, how about Allan Roth's How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street ? If a child can grasp the basics, so can your friend, if she really wants to. I like that book because it's entertain...

Kevin8696

fourdogs111 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 02, 2018 8:18 pm I'm going to order The Coffeehouse Investor" by Bill Schultheis after responding to this. Thanks again!

Good luck on your journey !! We'll be here for you.

Kevin8696

Check-out the following from the IRS: https://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/head_of_household_qualifying_person_4012.pdf Looks like "companion" is a Qualifying Relative, but is not a Qualifying Person. You are correct that the Standard Deduction under the new tax law is $18,000...

Kevin8696

Regarding your allocation to International Stocks, consider the following 5 facts: 1. Diversification: Over 40% of the revenues of the S&P 500 come from international operations. So, the S&P 500 already has international covered. 2. Performance: International stocks have underperformed the U...

Kevin8696

We have $10,000 sitting in an online savings account , earning 1.85%. This is our starter emergency fund. Citi has an offer where if you open a new checking account and keep $5000 of new money in for 60 days, they will give you $200. I was thinking of doing that for both my wife and I. That would g...

Kevin8696

Great, simple, straightforward advice, for which thanks. The longer I’m in the game the more I’m convinced that a Target Date Fund is the way to go. Set and ignore (to the best of your ability). I’m sure there are better strategies but I’ve decided that this is the best strategy for me too. . . You...

Kevin8696

Checking Yahoo Finance, it looks like VUSTX really was up 30% in 1995. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VUSTX/performance?p=VUSTX Those years were quite a roller coaster ride in bonds !! Is there a basic explanation on how bond funds correlate with the underlying bond holdings or the stated SEC yiel...

Kevin8696

Not to derail the subject at hand, but I noticed there was a 30% return for long-term in 1995 - what the heck happened? A quick Google search shows FFR 5-6%, 30-yr Treasury ~8%, inflation 2-3%, mortgage rates 8-9%. I noticed that too. Portfolio Visualizer often uses Vanguard funds as proxies for as...

Kevin8696

Andy, You make a good point on diversification being a tool to reduce portfolio volatility. I've taken a look at that idea with respect to the two funds I used in my analysis, Total US Stock Market (VTSAX) and Total Int'l Stock Market (VTIAX). Here's what I've found. Over the past 20 years, VTIAX p...

Kevin8696

Given the current flatness of the yield curve and tight credit spreads, perhaps you could provide an argument as to why investors should take significant unrewarded duration risk and some credit risk for investing in an intermediate bond fund such as BND. I don’t mind taking risks, but I’d like to ...

Kevin8696

Always remember that a bit of well-timed humor can go a long way.

I believe it was Henny Youngman who said: "My portfolio put 2 kids through college... my broker's kids !!"

Good Luck !!

Kevin8696

If investors in intermediate bond funds aren't being adequately compensated for the duration risk, doesn't that make you wonder WHY so many investors are staying with intermediate bonds, and not moving to short-term? No, it doesn't make me wonder why. I think that most investors don't have the slig...

Kevin8696

I wonder whether it is less problematical to understand how investing in both types of equities mpacts individual portfolio volatility. Is understanding this as hopeless as specilatong about each asset class’s total return? After all, diversification isn’t valuable because it maximizes total return...

Kevin8696

I'm a long time member here. I was a boglehead back when bogleheads were diehards, back in the M* days. I was pretty active my first 10 years or so but got kind of tired of certain things, and more or less quit about 5 years ago. I check back in now and then to see if things have changed, maybe to ...

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