“Let every man divide his money into three parts, and invest a third in land, a third in business and a third let him keep by him in reserve.”? Really interesting. I wonder how the Bible or Quran portfolio looked like. "Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster ...

I agree it is a mistake for investors to assume history will repeat. However, I think it is another mistake to ignore history -there aren't too many "laws of investing" we can use or trust.  Diversification may be the only one but that, too, is difficult to implement perfectly because stri...

Forget, for the time being what is contained in the optimal portfolio and only remember that it contains risky assets, by which I mean assets that have some volatility. I have used SHY as my cash-like asset for the fourth asset ; however this also has some volatility  albeit a very low amount. I sho...

Reply to the original question: This  has been my approach: 1. Decide what you need for living and to handle emergenicies(let’s say 6-8months worth of living expenses) 2. Only what is remaining is eligible for investing 3. Decide on your criteria for optimality ,e.g. Sharpe ratio, Sortino ratio  or ...

MDY would probably do worse in a down market. I do not believe that is true - at least that did not happen in the 2008 collapse or the 2011 correction. In 2008 MDY recovered much faster while in 2011 SPY recovered faster although MDY caught up and exceeded SPY eventually. So it is hard say that eit...

"General consensus is a 10-15B taper or taper lite as radio talk show hosts and pundits have termed it."... Buddtholmew

Just to be clear, by Mild Taper I meant the buy backs will taper down to 70- 75B from about 80B+ today

My 2 cents

Mild taper - 70-75B

SPY up
GLD down
TLT  very slightly up
SHV/SHY very little change

PP action to take  - ignore

Libertarian666 - you may be right and as MT indicated it may be a trap but they did a forecast in Feb which for the most part has turned out to be true. Of course past prediction are no indication of the future. Let's see what happens end of year "UPDATE 1-Goldman Sachs cuts 2013, 2014 gold pri...

For whatever its worth: GOLDMAN SACHS: Here's Our Outlook For 14 Key Commodities STEVEN PERLBERG JUL. 25, 2013, 7:45 AM 23,012 4 Share    8/15 COMEX Gold REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger 12-month price forecast: $1,175/toz Current price: $1,331/toz After a near term estimate above current estimate, Goldman e...

Greg:

I wonder if you have had experience using your idea  - I am particularly concerned about the execution you get. If the spread is bad the amount you save in commission may not be worthwhile, especially with fewer stocks and fewer transactions.
Do you know who the custodian of the account is?

james_bob:
It is difficult to find only one cockroach

Mark Twain notwithstanding

"faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"

See
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB500 ... rticle%3D0

for a slightly contrary and optimistic view

I believe there are many factors that affect gold price a. US Dollar value and inflation  as pointed out by several others b. General perceived uncertainty - fear of war, financial armageddon etc. d. Jewelry market - especially during marriage season in India and China (impact is Oct onwards till ab...

I am reminding myself that PP lost only about 0.6 % so far

Depending on the date you take the gold price, an approximate CAGR since 1972  till 4/8/13  is 8.8%

I use Google finance. Create your portfolio and track it. You can also compare performance with other securities. Plus you have all the news about the investments on the same page.

Stephan: I have to be very skeptical of a "depression gauge". It is easy to define one looking back and it is easy to put together a portfolio that does well for that period. The challenge for any one is to  define clearly and measurably one that defines that period using only data availab...

Personally I am more concerned about: a. the spread b. the expense ratio of the ETFs c. the kind of execution I can get So the $7.95 for non-free ETFs is not a major concern for me  since I would probably be re-balancing at most once a year. This may not be true, as mentioned before, for those who a...

I have an account with them, but last time I looked they didn't allow you to create your own motif.

MG: How good an execution does MOTIFINVESTING obtain? Are they all market orders, price at the close or can you choose, when you place an order to modify your motif?

Fidelity just added another 35 ETFs with no fees for trading.
Unfortunately Gold (as a metal) is not there ; there are some minor restrictions on short term trades(which should not be a problem for PPers

My observations about  Buffett are as follows: • He is a very good businessman and is able to judge the value of a business • He is able to play the media well with his “folksy wisdom”? • This and the fact that he usually has a lot of cash enables him to make some excellent deals with good companies...

Yes, starting points do make a difference in the actual percentages and time of re-balance. So I decided go further back to the earliest date I could have actually bought  all these ETFs, which  is Nov 2004 when GLD was available.(others were available earlier).. I realize we could use other funds t...

I did a quick study in an attempt to see which component is relatively overvalued. I started 5 years ago with a 25% allocation to SPY, GLD, TLT and SHY. I rebalanced based on a 35/15 band. The CAGR was 7.4% and I had to re-balance only once on Aug 1, 2011.(I am checking data once a month to re-balan...

While this is interesting news, with only 3 ETFs to invest in and with re-balancing taking place about once a year even with a 30/20 band,  it seems we ought to be more concerned about :       Total expenses and the spread each time we trade. It seems the commission cost is a very low percentage com...