Everything is an investment. If u r satisfied with a meager return then buy it. I am just pointing out that you can accomplish the same thing which is income and have either more income or principal left over. You are being blinded by the guarantee. The 16 years I used assumed you put your money und...

First of all life insurance paid from an annuity is taxed as ordinary income. And I still don't see how you do not understand your annuity is paying u 1%.  If you live 30 years it is paying 2.6%. I think simply putting it in an index fund would accomplish that and still leave money to your heirs. If...

You keep missing you are giving up the $1 million. Take the dividend and use $20k of your principal and your money will last forever and you will have money left over. It's a no brainier

Any investment is about return.  If they are giving you 6% I assume you r 70 years old. Do the math about what you would need to earn to take 6% for life. It's is less then 2 %. Buy some dividend stocks.

I need to correct my post. $20k over 20 years is $1k a year or 1%.

You are failing to take into account your are receiving your principal back. So your return is not 6%. To determine your real return take the amount of money u expect to receive from the annuity then back out what you put in. That's the profit which you then divide by what y put in to determine retu...

Any annuity other than an immediate annuity is a scam. Immediate annuities pay you a set income for an agreed upon term with no strings. The problem is that with today's low interest rates you are earning around 2%. The annuities that offer lifetime income are scamming you. The life time income numb...

Your 1981 numbers seem off

If anyone has the inclination, a chart like this for the PP would be very interesting. The original source for this chart is this article, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/02/business/20110102-metrics-graphic.html?_r=0 , the overall point of which is that the return you see with a 100% st...

Harry's portfolio assumes you are investing 100% of your money in pp with no cash elsewhere. It is a brilliant strategy and cash in king. Don't obsess about 0% interest rates. Focus on ttl return. Last year cash surely helped people stay calm

Where did u find monthly data

If its one bond simply call fidelity and get the bid not the ask and plug into a calculator or excel.

Thanks to all of you that listen to my show. I hope I am clear that the 8% return is an average not an annual return.

FYI, the people answering phones at TD Ameritrade are not financial advisors.  They are merely placing trades and have extremely limited knowledge about anything they are trading. 

I think the broad market is not the world because that is bringing in lots of non-home country currency risk into the stocks. But with that said, my stocks are about 20% Total Stock Market and 5% Total International. That's about as high as I feel like taking it. Many US countries have significant ...

Clive,

Do you have  a ss that u can post with these returns

The worst drawdown I saw was 10% in 2008.  Where r u guys seeing 25%?

FYI, TD Ameritrade does not charge when you purchase VTI, TLT, SHY, or SHV so that would be the least expensive route not Vanguard. One advantage of ETF's is when you buy you want to buy them all at the same time. If you buy IAU & TLT during the day & the mutual fund version of VTI at the cl...

I agree with Craig. Whenever I waited I regretted it. Lump is the way to go. If a few percentage points either way mkes a difference, we are all in trouble.

what dates r u using VWINX should not be compared to the PP.  Would you have wanted to be sending your daughter off to college in 2008? http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4722/vwinx.png Uploaded with ImageShack.us Max draw-down during last crisis: VWINX: 19% PRPFX: 19% HB PP: 17% Using Morningstar for...

Is it worth more if they were never circulated

Would you know how you go about selling them?

Anyone know what a 1964 silver half dollar is worth?

Would have thought it would do worse than it did because of SLV