Search found 19158 matches

by nedsaid
Sun Jan 14, 2024 8:05 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Emergency fund - how many months?
Replies: 42
Views: 5535

Re: Emergency fund - how many months?

Your goals for an emergency fund should be three months if you are young, six months as you approach forty, and probably a year as you approach 50 years of age. It makes a difference how stable your industry and career is. High Tech is a volatile industry so if I worked in that industry, I would want a larger emergency fund. Government tends to be more stable, if you work there you might not need so much. Keep in mind there are lay-offs in Government too, stable careers and industries might not be as stable as you thought. If you believe money is fungible, then my entire portfolio becomes my emergency fund. I don't believe in assigning X months by age or tenure, too many industries and sectors are affected by structural changes over time t...
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 14, 2024 7:56 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor
Replies: 78
Views: 9746

Re: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor

What a good Advisor should do is to educate his or her clients. Of course, the danger is that if you educate too much perhaps some clients won't need your services anymore. When I did income taxes, I suppose I lost tax clients over the years because I educated them but I think that is part of providing a service, it is just a good ethical practice. In my job I often educated customers, or at least tried to, but sometimes to a point of fault. Many customers just want a problem solved - whether that's a tax return completed or whatever the task is - and aren't interested in the details of how it's done, even if it's something they could easily learn and do themselves to save time or money in the future. That was my experience too. Lots of th...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:41 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor
Replies: 78
Views: 9746

Re: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor

Keep the advisor for now. Educate yourself. There is nothing on fire here. Later you can decide if you want to discuss a pivot with the advisor or going DIY. This is the best suggestion. It will be extremely counter-productive for the OP to go in "armed" with a couple of days' information. Instead the OP could use the meeting to simply learn more about the intended role of the different investments in the portfolio now. Yes, I think this is a very sensible approach to keep the Advisor for now and to keep learning on your own. You should meet with the Advisor. It won't do any good to debate him, he isn't going to change his mind on anything. What you should do is ask why he built your portfolio the way he did and the thinking behi...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:36 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Emergency fund - how many months?
Replies: 42
Views: 5535

Re: Emergency fund - how many months?

Your goals for an emergency fund should be three months if you are young, six months as you approach forty, and probably a year as you approach 50 years of age. It makes a difference how stable your industry and career is. High Tech is a volatile industry so if I worked in that industry, I would want a larger emergency fund. Government tends to be more stable, if you work there you might not need so much. Keep in mind there are lay-offs in Government too, stable careers and industries might not be as stable as you thought. If you believe money is fungible, then my entire portfolio becomes my emergency fund. I don't believe in assigning X months by age or tenure, too many industries and sectors are affected by structural changes over time t...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:26 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor
Replies: 78
Views: 9746

Re: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor

You also have to realize that there are different ways to successfully structure a portfolio: schools of thought, philosophies behind successful investing. So it isn't like there is only one good approach to investing. What is great about Bogleheads is that the portfolios here are relatively simple, they perform well, and they are easy for amateur investors to maintain. It's very true that there isn't only one approach, but it's also true that on Bogleheads (and its predecessor forum) there hasn't always been only one approach. There were times when anybody would have felt a little left out if they didn't have a REIT concentration, were overweight in SCV, had some PCRIX (commodities)... and of course there was "equities <= 50%", ...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 9:03 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Bob Brinker's newsletter Market Timer is shutting down
Replies: 191
Views: 53069

Re: Bob Brinker's newsletter Market Timer is shutting down

Bob Brinker was to me in the 1980's and 1990's what Bogleheads are to me today. He was the King of do-it-yourself investors.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 9:00 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Emergency fund - how many months?
Replies: 42
Views: 5535

Re: Emergency fund - how many months?

Your goals for an emergency fund should be three months if you are young, six months as you approach forty, and probably a year as you approach 50 years of age. It makes a difference how stable your industry and career is. High Tech is a volatile industry so if I worked in that industry, I would want a larger emergency fund. Government tends to be more stable, if you work there you might not need so much. Keep in mind there are lay-offs in Government too, stable careers and industries might not be as stable as you thought.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 8:54 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor
Replies: 78
Views: 9746

Re: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor

Keep the advisor for now. Educate yourself. There is nothing on fire here. Later you can decide if you want to discuss a pivot with the advisor or going DIY. This is the best suggestion. It will be extremely counter-productive for the OP to go in "armed" with a couple of days' information. Instead the OP could use the meeting to simply learn more about the intended role of the different investments in the portfolio now. Yes, I think this is a very sensible approach to keep the Advisor for now and to keep learning on your own. You should meet with the Advisor. It won't do any good to debate him, he isn't going to change his mind on anything. What you should do is ask why he built your portfolio the way he did and the thinking behi...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 8:45 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A Sales Team's Ultimatum
Replies: 76
Views: 15194

Re: A Sales Team's Ultimatum

So I am glad that in your industry that there is old school thinking, not sure if this is the norm in other industries. nedsaid, "It depends" on the financial industry too. My family member worked in the Wall Street. He has a few billionaire clients that trust him. Those clients go where ever he goes. KlangFool P.S.: We might be talking pass each other too. The kind of sales that I am talking about is in the millions to billions level. At that level, relationship matters. Yes, I think you are right. There is a big difference between the folks that serve at a local bank branch or in a local insurance office selling to middle class Americans and folks who sell to the wealthy. The sales people who sell to the middle class are treate...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 4:14 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A Sales Team's Ultimatum
Replies: 76
Views: 15194

Re: A Sales Team's Ultimatum

Sadly, your situation is not unique. I have believed for a long time that the sales culture in a lot of organizations is dysfunctional. There was a time that if you could produce that firms would treat you like a king. Now it seems the focus is very short term and the decisions are made for the benefit of top management. It is a win at all costs strategy and some organizations are like a Roman galley. I wondered if many "sales managers" really knew much about sales at all. Sad to hear your story but it is all too common. But, there's no problem here. Great salesperson with good relationships with their clients always doing well and makes good money. They just move from one employer to another and selling different stuff. KlangFoo...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 3:54 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor
Replies: 78
Views: 9746

Re: Preparing for a talk with my financial advisor

With $1 million under management, what you are paying is extremely reasonable, especially considering you could pay a lot of that for just the personal and business taxes. It causes me to wonder if advisor is making money some other way...like front end loads or something. The reason I picked this guy is because he doesn't sell any products or make any commissions. Even when we got insurance setup, he gave me parameters, but I'd shop it and he'd review the quotes. So he wasn't even getting referral kickbacks. Why don't you show us what your portfolio looks like? Not only is the high ER a possible concern, but asset placement may also be a concern. I read that link on how to post, so I hope this is a useful format. Also Nationwide is offlin...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 11:49 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A Sales Team's Ultimatum
Replies: 76
Views: 15194

Re: A Sales Team's Ultimatum

Sadly, your situation is not unique. I have believed for a long time that the sales culture in a lot of organizations is dysfunctional. There was a time that if you could produce that firms would treat you like a king. Now it seems the focus is very short term and the decisions are made for the benefit of top management. It is a win at all costs strategy and some organizations are like a Roman galley. I wondered if many "sales managers" really knew much about sales at all. Sad to hear your story but it is all too common. But, there's no problem here. Great salesperson with good relationships with their clients always doing well and makes good money. They just move from one employer to another and selling different stuff. KlangFoo...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 11:22 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: JNJ spin off KVUE [Johnson and Johnson spinoff - Kenvue]
Replies: 91
Views: 18374

Re: JNJ spin off KVUE [Johnson and Johnson spinoff - Kenvue]

I bought another lot of Kenvue stock recently and now have what I wanted. Don't intend to buy anymore except through dividend reinvestment.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:49 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]
Replies: 178
Views: 23398

Re: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]

Thanks, nedsaid. I've been on a parallel road in some ways. I've decided that for the time being I enjoy both trading and managing my own portfolio. After four years, I've identified the research groups and a small number of experts that I trust to be better than random forecasters. Those change when I see people getting dug in and holding on to positions for reasons either of ego or institutionally-determined perspective. Along with this is a healthy skepticism of what we think we know, as the paper referenced in the podcast suggested by 101 points out brilliantly. I had a group of people that I followed because I respected their opinions. It was a different matter though trying to apply whatever they said to the management of my portfoli...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:42 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A Sales Team's Ultimatum
Replies: 76
Views: 15194

Re: A Sales Team's Ultimatum

Sadly, your situation is not unique. I have believed for a long time that the sales culture in a lot of organizations is dysfunctional. There was a time that if you could produce that firms would treat you like a king. Now it seems the focus is very short term and the decisions are made for the benefit of top management. It is a win at all costs strategy and some organizations are like a Roman galley. I wondered if many "sales managers" really knew much about sales at all. Sad to hear your story but it is all too common. But, there's no problem here. Great salesperson with good relationships with their clients always doing well and makes good money. They just move from one employer to another and selling different stuff. KlangFoo...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 10:25 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: A Sales Team's Ultimatum
Replies: 76
Views: 15194

Re: A Sales Team's Ultimatum

Sadly, your situation is not unique. I have believed for a long time that the sales culture in a lot of organizations is dysfunctional. There was a time that if you could produce that firms would treat you like a king. Now it seems the focus is very short term and the decisions are made for the benefit of top management. It is a win at all costs strategy and some organizations are like a Roman galley. I wondered if many "sales managers" really knew much about sales at all. Sad to hear your story but it is all too common.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 13, 2024 9:58 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]
Replies: 178
Views: 23398

Re: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]

So I have used a hybrid approach and altogether my annual costs for my entire retirement portfolio is a bit less than 0.40% a year. Not bad, and I have a couple of people to talk to. Not saying this is what others should do, this is what I have done. One of the reasons I have done this is that I have one shot at planning a good retirement and I didn't want to screw it up. Fortunately, I have done well enough. Mostly I wanted someone to bounce ideas off of and I wanted Financial Planning, which I think is the most important piece. If you are paying an Assets Under Management fee, I would want ongoing planning and monitoring along with that. The ideal is to have someone who is a Certified Financial Planner. We also have a hybrid portfolio ma...
by nedsaid
Thu Jan 11, 2024 10:28 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Windows 10 Patch Tuesday problems
Replies: 30
Views: 5297

Re: Windows 10 Patch Tuesday problems

Weird. The Security Patch installed flawlessly on my 7 1/2 year old laptop with only 4 GB of RAM but failed to install on my newer machine with 8 GB of RAM. I retried a few times on my newer and more powerful machine and the Security Patch failed each time.
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 7:04 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?
Replies: 11037
Views: 2066261

Re: What Movie Have You Recently Watched?

Recently watched Boys In The Boat, an unlikely but true story about the University of Washington crew team winning a Gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I really enjoyed the movie.
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 6:54 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Is the Magnificant 7 stocks too heavily weighted within vanguards S&P 500 funds
Replies: 47
Views: 9195

Re: Is the Magnificant 7 stocks too heavily weighted within vanguards S&P 500 funds

One option - not likely popular here - is to mix S&P500 with the large cap value index to take the weight of the tech sector down some (at the expense of over-weighting value type stocks). How far you mix depends where you want to be. rob, If you believe that why LargeCapValue? You should mix Total Stock Market with SmallCapValue. When the stock market goes crazy, usually the LargeCapGrowth leads the way. You may want to tilt totally away from that. KlangFool I plead guilty. I have made a very similar recommendation to rob. Why Large Cap Value? It is the least volatile part of the Morningstar Stylebox and you get a higher dividend yield than the market itself. The Vanguard Value Index and Vanguard High Dividend Index contain the type o...
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 6:46 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Is the Magnificant 7 stocks too heavily weighted within vanguards S&P 500 funds
Replies: 47
Views: 9195

Re: Is the Magnificant 7 stocks too heavily weighted within vanguards S&P 500 funds

toddthebod wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2024 5:01 pm
nisiprius wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2024 4:15 pm (If unequal weights bothers you, try baking bread using 1 cup water, 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup salt, 1 cup oil, 1 cup butter, and 1 cup yeast, and tell us how it turns out).
Traditional pound cake recipe
1 lb flour
1 lb sugar
1 lb eggs
1 lb butter
nisiprius wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2024 5:21 pm You got me.
I love it. We have equal weighted indexes and equal weighted pound cake. Aren't we fun?
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 3:57 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How do you get out of value investing
Replies: 30
Views: 5125

Re: How do you get out of value investing

Oh wow! My fondest wishes are coming true. First, Rick Ferri and his thread on arguments against Value investing. Next, this thread explores how one might get out of Value investing. Can we say C - A - P - I - T - U - L - A - T - I - O - N ? I had been teasing and all but begging fellow Small/Value tilters to sell their Small Value investments and capitulate so that my Small Value investments can go up! Someone has to make a sacrifice to the trading gods and I determined it wasn't going to be me. It was done all in fun, partly because I was using a bit of reverse psychology. The goal was to encourage people to not abandon their strategy and their factor investments. The valuation gaps between Growth and Value are still at all-time highs and...
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 10:14 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Berkshire Hathoway (BRK.B) stock
Replies: 16
Views: 2982

Re: Berkshire Hathoway (BRK.B) stock

I do own shares of the Berkshire Hathaway Class B stock, it is a very small part of my investment portfolio. It is a good
stock and it should do well in the future but hard to say if it will beat the S&P 500. One reason that I bought it is my conviction that the conglomerate will be broken up in the future, unlocking value for its shareholders. One sign of this was a quote from Buffett's named successor that he wants to be more involved in the management of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiary companies. (Oh, oh.) In contrast, Buffett was and is a hands-off manager. Executives have egos and rarely have the restraint to leave well enough alone.
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 9:50 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: ID.me - I surrendered
Replies: 29
Views: 6521

Re: ID.me - I surrendered

I had to use ID.me in order to get unemployment. Couldn't get the process finished so I made an appointment with a representative and got everything finished with a video call. There was lots of unemployment fraud with Covid and you can see why governments are using services like these to verify identity.
by nedsaid
Sun Jan 07, 2024 9:45 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]
Replies: 178
Views: 23398

Re: Thinking of Departing the Formation [Moving to a financial advisor]

I have been mostly a do-it-yourself investor but I have sought advice throughout my investing career. What got me motivated to invest more heavily in stocks was a friend who went into the brokerage business and I took my FDIC Insured Bank IRA that was invested in Certificates of Deposit over to him. In those days, you could get really good interest from CDs. The friend lasted a year, went on to Broker #2 and then to Broker #3, and finally to Broker #4. Pretty much got fired as a client by #2 and #3. I have been with Broker #4 for more than 25 years and have followed him to two firms. I don't recommend working with a Stock Broker but that is what I did and fortunately had good people. That particular office had two influential brokers who we...
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 06, 2024 11:07 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Sector Level Investing - Has the last 4 years being extremely unusual?
Replies: 27
Views: 3199

Re: Sector Level Investing - Has the last 4 years being extremely unusual?

Sector investing was once quite popular. Fidelity had and still has a stable of Sector funds. There is something to it in that the stocks in the industry groups behave differently than the stocks in other industry groups. For example, Technology is associated with Growth and the Consumer Staples stocks are considered to be defensive stocks with lower volatility than the market itself. Today, the popular trend is factor investing which has similar reasoning behind it. What you seem to be suggesting is Sector timing, there are also folks who try to time factors, not aware that there is much if any success in doing that.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 06, 2024 9:30 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Appointment with local Fidelity Rep: should I bother?
Replies: 74
Views: 17592

Re: Appointment with local Fidelity Rep: should I bother?

My take has been for a small investor to take advantage of free consultations, reviews and education, even if you are a do-it-yourself investor. Fidelity posts a lot of videos on YouTube, you don't need to visit an office or meet anyone in person. I notice a lot of their videos show to such things as how to place trades, navigate the website, etc. You can also take advantage of whatever webinars are offered. Going in to see a rep is good experience to understand how the process, particularly financial planning and portfolio review works. I do like meeting in person, though for me it has been a while.
by nedsaid
Sat Jan 06, 2024 7:01 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: McQ quoted in Marketwatch
Replies: 2
Views: 1375

Re: McQ quoted in Marketwatch

The good Professor gets quoted by Mark Hulbert. Doesn't get much better than that. Congratulations.
by nedsaid
Wed Jan 03, 2024 8:34 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Betterment removes value from Core Portfolio
Replies: 7
Views: 1853

Re: Betterment removes value from Core Portfolio

Living Free wrote: Tue Jan 02, 2024 8:39 pm Growth has also beat value for the past decade or whatever, so that probably plays a role too - they don’t want to look like they’re doing worse than the market.
Events like this make me think now might be a good time to buy value stocks…..
You beat me to it. Yes, we are seeing more signs of capitulation. From what I understand, the valuation gap between Growth and Value is as wide as ever. When everyone says that Value is trash that is when it will start working again.
by nedsaid
Wed Jan 03, 2024 7:11 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?
Replies: 25
Views: 3256

Re: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?

VPAS ought to be able to calculate whether or not ROTH conversions would be worthwhile for you. Good financial planning software ought to be able to do this. As you said, doing alternate tax returns is a way of modeling various tax scenarios. I'm not sure about that. We have countless threads about conversions and it would surprise me if PAS would do anywhere near as comprehensive an analysis as what Bogleheads take for granted. I'm going to guess that at most they'd say something like "you might want to consider conversions" and then punt to a tax adviser outside of PAS. But I'm not even sure they'd proactively suggest conversions at all. I'd be interesting if anyone knows of experiences to the contrary. This is a part of the co...
by nedsaid
Mon Jan 01, 2024 6:02 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?
Replies: 25
Views: 3256

Re: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?

... Most Advisory firms don't do tax returns for their clients but there are a few that do, Vanguard isn't one of them. Do some looking around for a qualified person to do your taxes. Is your tax return relatively simple or is it more complex? I was just commenting the PAS has no value to us since they don't do tax calculations. Our tax returns are very simple. Calculating alternate scenarios isn't so simple, but certainly possible. I mean a crude way is to create alternate tax returns in TurboTax, no Excel required. VPAS ought to be able to calculate whether or not ROTH conversions would be worthwhile for you. Good financial planning software ought to be able to do this. As you said, doing alternate tax returns is a way of modeling variou...
by nedsaid
Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:39 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?
Replies: 25
Views: 3256

Re: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?

The question that I always ask when people ask if they should fire their Financial Advisor is why did you seek the advice in the first place? Secondly, I ask if those reasons are still valid. A third question is if you believe you are getting value for the fees you are paying. Sounds to me like your spouse says that if something happens to you then she could just go back to Vanguard Personal Advisory Service if needed. The portfolio is relatively simple and you ought to be able to manage it yourself. Don't see why you couldn't do this. Another reason for employing an Advisory service is for ongoing financial planning and for monitoring your progress towards your financial goals. To me, this is the big reason for hiring an Advisory service,...
by nedsaid
Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:35 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Fidelity Advisor
Replies: 14
Views: 2387

Re: Fidelity Advisor

Fidelity called and scheduled a session for me with one of their advisors. Most of my retirement ( Roth, IRA and 401k) and taxable accounts are in index funds ( total market, global ex. Us and total bond). Some of my 491k is in stable fund instead of bond. I figure that i can listen to them just in case i am missing something and will not buy or move my $$ from index. Will it be worthwhile or it will be a waste of time? Any advice here is appreciated. I think I would go ahead with the appointment and see what the Advisor has to say. Quite often, they will bring something to your attention that you hadn't thought of. This kind of meetings are successful if you get one or two good ideas from them. You will probably get gentle encouragement t...
by nedsaid
Mon Jan 01, 2024 5:05 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?
Replies: 25
Views: 3256

Re: Already Retired -- Should I fire PAS?

The question that I always ask when people ask if they should fire their Financial Advisor is why did you seek the advice in the first place? Secondly, I ask if those reasons are still valid. A third question is if you believe you are getting value for the fees you are paying. Sounds to me like your spouse says that if something happens to you then she could just go back to Vanguard Personal Advisory Service if needed. The portfolio is relatively simple and you ought to be able to manage it yourself. Don't see why you couldn't do this. Another reason for employing an Advisory service is for ongoing financial planning and for monitoring your progress towards your financial goals. To me, this is the big reason for hiring an Advisory service, ...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 7:38 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Should IPS contain a definition of success?
Replies: 37
Views: 4076

Re: Should IPS contain a definition of success?

TheTimeLord wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 9:18 am Should one's IPS have a clear well defined definition of success and a plan of how to invest once that is achieved?
I used the Morningstar worksheet as a template for my Investment Policy Statement. One of the questions, and I am going from memory here, asks how you benchmark your investments.
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 3:43 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Now that long TIPS yields are 60 bp off their highs I will…
Replies: 2937
Views: 611323

Re: Now that long TIPS yields are 60 bp off their highs I will…

per LadyGeek, please let's keep the focus on investments, in this thread, investments that adjust for inflation and alternatives to same. I believe that if your assessment of inflation/sources/prognosis can be linked back to an investment thesis--whether to buy TIPS now or not--you may (briefly) explain your reasoning about inflation, interest rates, etc. Else, it's a macroeconomic/policy discussion that just makes more policing work for moderators. Please don't go there. I repeat my question: are you investing on the assumption that the bear market in bonds is over? Or how do you interpret the price action in TLT and LTPZ as shown in today's charts? Dude... You asked people to speculate on the bond market, if it has topped out or not. Tha...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 3:25 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: 5% Speculation Artificial Intelligence Play - Most effective way to Add AI to Portfolio
Replies: 23
Views: 2515

Re: 5% Speculation Artificial Intelligence Play - Most effective way to Add AI to Portfolio

I was joking with Nisiprius of course but he did have an excellent post on the topic. Probably the best way to try to benefit from AI would be to invest in something like a Technology Index or the QQQ ETF. Not sure that I would try to pick stocks individually.
A flyer in one of Cathy Wood's ARK ETFs might scratch the itch. The thing is, investing in emerging technologies is really tricky.
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 10:09 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Risky Business: Evaluating Risk in our portfolio
Replies: 78
Views: 12409

Re: Risky Business: Evaluating Risk in our portfolio

I read through your original post in the thread and it is interesting and thought provoking. My takeaways are this: investors in retirement reduce sustainable withdrawals from the portfolio and increase risk of failure (exhausting the portfolio before death) by investing too conservatively. Increasing the withdrawal rate beyond a certain point also increases the risk of failure. Size of the portfolio is a factor in both portfolio construction and withdrawal rates, this puts retirees with not quite large enough portfolios in a terrible bind, perhaps folks in this situation need to invest a bit more aggressively while understanding the increased risk. There is a trade-off between the risks of increased volatility from investing more aggressiv...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 9:17 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: 5% Speculation Artificial Intelligence Play - Most effective way to Add AI to Portfolio
Replies: 23
Views: 2515

Re: 5% Speculation Artificial Intelligence Play - Most effective way to Add AI to Portfolio

Just don't do it. There is no good way. In the stock market, "what everybody knows is not worth knowing." It is perfectly possible for everyone to think some newly-opened business opportunity--AI, or cannabis a couple of years ago, or telecom over long-distance fiber optics in 2000--has a bright opportunity, and for everyone to be right , and yet have the stocks be a lousy investment. Cannabis is a case in point. The businesses have boomed, yet the stocks and thematic cannabis ETFs have tanked: https://imgur.com/nSrcGsR.png The part that everybody forgets is that when a business category is obviously destined for explosive growth, entrepreneurs flock to it and start new businesses. The stock you bought might start out representin...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 9:05 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Am I the only investor allocating more towards Bonds in 2024?
Replies: 149
Views: 30546

Re: Am I the only investor allocating more towards Bonds in 2024?

From the point of view of someone who advocates tactical asset allocation based upon relative valuation of asset classes, what you are doing makes a lot of sense. ... Indeed, Professor McQ has a whole thread where he admits to market timing his purchases of a Long Term TIPS ETF. ... Okay, I can hear what you are thinking. Am I practicing market timing? You bet your sweet bippy I am market timing but only in its mildest forms. ... When I was doing my mild rebalancing and de-risking from July 2013 through January 2020, my rebalancing bands were very tight, as low as 0.50% to 1%. So I did a lot of relatively smaller trades to rebalance from stocks to bonds. Doubtlessly, this did put a damper on my returns but I was pretty aggressive about reb...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 12:36 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: What % of my stocks funds should be directed to growth stocks?
Replies: 19
Views: 1930

Re: What % of my stocks funds should be directed to growth stocks?

Hello everyone I hope you are having a fantastic holiday season! I have a fairly simple question: I am currently 38 years old, and my portfolio of index funds consists of 90% stocks and 10% bonds. It’s a fairly standard three(or so)-fund portfolio. I currently have a little over 50% of those stocks index funds in “growth” and a little under 50% in value. Is it recommended to have a greater percentage of that in growth funds? VTSAX is my biggest holding. I am thinking about increasing the overall aggressiveness in growth funds - is this a good idea? Thank you for your help, and have a holly jolly New Year. A Total Stock Market Index should be good enough if you want a Growth orientation. If you look at the Morningstar styleboxes for Total M...
by nedsaid
Sun Dec 31, 2023 12:29 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
Replies: 5249
Views: 899785

Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

My returns for my retirement investments were 13.03%, it is an Internal Rate of Return calculation done by Quicken. IRR takes into account cashflows into or out of investment accounts.
by nedsaid
Sat Dec 30, 2023 1:38 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How Do You Like My New 'Doo
Replies: 445
Views: 106014

Re: How Do You Like My New 'Doo

I will read the articles you have linked to. Might like these as well. https://www.kitces.com/blog/research-reveals-cash-reserve-strategies-dont-work-unless-youre-a-good-market-timer/ https://www.kitces.com/blog/should-equity-exposure-decrease-in-retirement-or-is-a-rising-equity-glidepath-actually-better/ I did read the articles on the Michael Kitces blog. By the way, I am a big fan of his work. He is sort of the God of Financial Planners. I also watched the Rational Reminder podcast on this subject that someone had linked to above. It was very interesting. Pretty much, holding so much cash was a drag on returns and it actually increased the risk of failure (running out of money) in retirement. Another point that was made is that in a down...
by nedsaid
Sat Dec 30, 2023 12:25 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How Do You Like My New 'Doo
Replies: 445
Views: 106014

Re: How Do You Like My New 'Doo

Nedsaid Retirement US Stocks 31.8% US Stocks Individually Held 14.4% (22 stocks) Foreign Stocks 17.5% US Bonds 16.1% TIPS 13.4% Foreign Bonds 3% Cash 2.7% Other 1.1% Stock Stylebox 22 19 19 09 09 04 07 08 03 You can see that I have 60% Large Caps and 40% Mid/Small Caps. This is my largest tilt. 38% is Value 36% is Core and 26% is Growth. I have been tilted away from Growth during a time it did so well. We will see if my tilts will pay off in the future. Bond Stylebox 08 59 11 02 18 00 01 00 00 11% Long Term, 77% Intermediate Term and 11% Short Term. Only 1% is in junk. I did a lot of portfolio analysis last month and went into a lot of detail regarding my holdings. My thread is now more focused on the issues of retirement planning and my ad...
by nedsaid
Sat Dec 30, 2023 11:12 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How Do You Like My New 'Doo
Replies: 445
Views: 106014

Re: How Do You Like My New 'Doo

Here are my investment results going back to December 31, 1995. Growth of 10,000.00 1996 14.82% 1.1482. . .$11,482.00 1997 19.55% 1.1955. . .$13,726.73 1998 08.95% 1.0895. . .$14,955.27 1999 31.68% 1.3168. . .$19,693.10 (94% stocks/6% Bonds & Cash) 2000 (6.88)% 0.9312. . .$18,338.22 (80% stocks/20% Bonds & Cash) 2001 (8.59)% 0.9141. . .$16,762.97 2002 (13.69)% 0.8631. . $14,468.12 2003 21.64% 1.2164. . .$17,599.02 2004 11.07% 1.1107. . .$19,547.23 2005 05.91% 1.0591. . .$20,702.47 2006 11.89% 1.1189. . .$23,163.99 2007 08.35% 1.0835. . .$25,098.18 (72% Stocks/28% Bonds and Cash) 2008 (25.10)% 0.7490. . $18,798.54 (63% Stocks/37% Bonds and Cash) 2009 19.11% 1.1911. . .$22,390.94 2010 11.11% 1.1111. . .$24,878.57 2011 (1.16)% 0.9884. ...
by nedsaid
Thu Dec 28, 2023 8:33 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How Do You Like My New 'Doo
Replies: 445
Views: 106014

Re: How Do You Like My New 'Doo

watchnerd wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 11:34 pm
nedsaid wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 8:56 pm For guaranteed income, all I have is Social Security and a small pension. I don't want to sell stocks in a really bad market.
That's more than a lot of us have.

A lot of us don't have any pension at all.

When I want guaranteed income, I add TIPS in addition to Social Security.
Odd but Mom and Dad didn't have any pension and I wound up with two. There is the one for my first career from college and I chose to rollover a Cash Balance Pension from a large Healthcare non-profit with the option to roll it back out to buy
a Single Premium Immediate Annuity later on. Approximately 40% of my fixed income in retirement accounts are TIPS. I also have some iBonds at Treasury Direct as well. So doing what I can.
by nedsaid
Thu Dec 28, 2023 8:30 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How Do You Like My New 'Doo
Replies: 445
Views: 106014

Re: How Do You Like My New 'Doo

I am thinking all of this over, I haven't settled on a final withdrawal strategy. nedsaid, I’m sure you will figure this out. While retired I have mulled over this for 5 years, but basically it comes down to following a retirement policy statement (RPS) and an investment policy statement (IPS). My retirement plan is flexible enough that I don’t need to spend attention my withdrawals any more than the other details of my retirement. The key thing in my mind is finding a plan that works well for YOU. I track my spending and investments and do an updated annual plan for the new year and review for the previous year. It can be interesting to read previous reports. I tend to think things through in more detail if I am documenting them. Thank yo...
by nedsaid
Wed Dec 27, 2023 9:26 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: The Myth of "Owning the Market"
Replies: 84
Views: 12297

Re: The Myth of "Owning the Market"

Sort of the way the markets work. It's the way many natural phenomena work. The solar system has four giant planets and four small planets. Half of the planets account for 99.5% of the mass. One planet, Jupiter, accounts for 71% of the mass all by itself. 30% of named animal species are species of beetles. The traditional printer's typecase has a giant box for the "e's" because the letter e occurs so much more frequently than any other letter. The earth's mantle, by element, is 44.3% oxygen, 22.3% magnesium, 21.3% silicon, and 6.32% iron; those four elements account for 94.22%, leaving less than 6% for the other 114. That is very interesting but come to think of it, what you say is exactly right. Concentration is something that o...
by nedsaid
Wed Dec 27, 2023 9:17 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Toilet /Bidet
Replies: 29
Views: 3728

Re: Toilet /Bidet

After a recent trip to Japan, and our first ever experience with bidets, we had to have one, so we installed 2. We got this: https://www.costco.com/toto-washlet-elongated-bidet-seat.product.100973005.html $650 for two. Also had to have an outlet installed in each bathroom, with GFCI, and each with dedicated 15 amp breaker. $900 for parts and labor. I installed the seat. I'm not that handy, but it was ridiculously easy. Heated toilet seat, that oh-so-fresh feeling, and many other benefits that probably shouldn't be discussed in polite company - PRICELESS. I was in Japan back in 2002 and I will say that their toilets with the built in bidets were quite the experience. The warm water really did the trick. Hadn't thought about installing one t...