I guess reductio ad absurdum only works with people who care whether their statements are absurd . Never mind. Wow...my apologies.  I was trying to be sincere.  I don't proclaim to be an expert.  These are just my opinions/observations based on my little humble understanding of how things work.  I ...

I guess reductio ad absurdum only works with people who care whether their statements are absurd . Never mind. Wow...my apologies.  I was trying to be sincere.  I don't proclaim to be an expert.  These are just my opinions/observations based on my little humble understanding of how things work.  I ...

This is just me, but if I was going to lock most of my portfolio into long-duration fixed income, I'd want the rate of return to be a hell of a lot higher than nominal 6%. I had a savings account that yielded that much a few years ago! Amen!  The only reason it is still on the table for me is I am ...

Ad Orientem wrote: Has the poll closed? I see a question and various answer options. But no voting mechanism.

Closed it last night (approximately 11 pm eastern).

Another thought I have is that if long term rates get high enough (say 5.5% to 6%) I may just lock in most of my net worth in LTT and keep, say, 20% in gold as an insurance policy against the potential evils (high inflation, currency debasement, government default, etc).  But this is nothing more t...

I am about 5-8 years away from retirement and have put a lot of thought and analysis into this.  The following is where my thinking is currently at (and is still subject to change). Others have probably already done this but I independently did some computations on 3/5/10 year CAGR HBPP trailing ret...

Polls are closing shortly....get your final votes in !

Happy and Prosperous New Year to all ! 

MDF

Polls are closing shortly....get your final votes in !

Happy and Prosperous New Year to all ! 

MDF

I hope a lot more folks cast their vote.  Get 'em in soon.  I will close the voting January 1st.

Happy New Year to all !!

I hope a lot more folks cast their vote.  Get 'em in soon.  I will close the voting January 1st.

Happy New Year to all !!

There is no consensus regarding a rebalancing bonus.  It's a lot more complex than it sounds at first glance.  It depends on momentum versus reversion-to-the-mean (RTM), return differences between asset classes, correlations, rebalancing frequency, and luck.  The "bonus" can be positive o...

Thought this poll might be fun.

There's also another one out there that asks which individual PP component will have the best 2014 which can be found here:

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/pe ... for-fun%29

Trying to quantify PP expected return is difficult.  IMHO, future returns for quite some time will be lower than their historical-to-date CAGR.  A few years ago I did some simple analysis looking at sliding windows of trailing 3, 5, and 10 year returns and the trends/regression lines were all clearl...

This is just for fun and food for thought...I know prediction is folly...please don't label me a gyroscopicinvesting.com heretic  :o Looks pretty likely the PP will have a negative return for 2013.  The PP has never had 2 negative years in a row and the year following a negative year has always been...

Greetings,

Anyone aware of any techniques (e.g., fund, etf, other) for investing larger sums in I-bond based investments beyond the 10k/yr limit?

Continued thanks to all those who contribute to this forum.

MDF

When having these discussions I think it's important to focus on the big picture, which is an average return of around 9% over 40 years, with a maximum drawdown of 2 or 3%.  To me, whether these returns were achieved through dividends, capital gains, or both is not that important. It is MT's simple...

Ha! But isn't it kind of sad to see one of our hallmark assets sold off to foreigners (that's what I heard Peter Schiff say the other day). You betcha it's sad!  I am even more sad at how casual so many of my fellow Americans are about what is transpiring in this country.  But, that discussion is b...

More food for discussion.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/247027- ... rse-part-i

When I adopted the PP, I put 80% of my net worth in it, leaving 20% for a VP.  I accepted that 20% as money I "could afford to lose" (not really but I don't believe that I will ever lose the entire 20%, but if I do then so be it).  Per HB's advice, I have not nor will I ever add new money ...

...SL7...Have you posted any detailed back test (and/or real) results for CAGR, volatility, and max draw down, etc? Hi MDF.  I've used SL7 for over a decade, prior to that I'd extensively backtested it against hundreds of years of stock prices and many other asset classes (cotton etc.) with suffici...

Clive, Over time, I have seen you talk about SL7 in a number of different threads.  Have you posted any detailed back test (and/or real) results for CAGR, volatility, and max draw down, etc? If you haven't, would you be willing to share? If you have, could you perhaps point me to the post(s)? Thanks...

I cannot state strongly enough that this was NOT how our personal experience went.  Just for kicks I went to http://www.finaid.org/calculators/scripts/quickefc.cgi and put in our info.  When I removed my assets (leaving all other parameters the same), my EFC dropped from over 31k to 9k.  So don't t...

Any thoughts regarding what a child is entitled to? I think that taking a "matching funds" approach to things can work well. When I was a kid my Dad would tell me any time I wanted something that if I came up with "x" he would come up with "y". Sometimes it was 50/50, ...

Q. Not a question but a comment: the fact that the Fafsa clearly rewards bad behavior is very maddening. Earning a decent wage, and saving penalizes you as opposed to spending and not saving for college. This is America after all and the government will always help the needy and disenfranchised. I ...

I have used them and for a PP they should be ok. One (long) bad experience I had with them had to do with the 2008 meltdown.  They actively marketed 'The Reserve Fund' and 'The Reserve Interest Plus Fund (RYPQX, which was created/used exclusively by/for TD Ameritrade clients)'.  Both of those funds ...