We're not really going to all of this trouble for a 1-2% gain, are we? You could make a prediction, use a different strategy or say nothing you know.  It's not that much trouble and the market hasn't been great as a whole this year, not just the PP and it's one freaking year.  This thread isn't mea...

Does every thread have to devolve into the same debate by the same people?

Hi, as I remember, a few time ago, our boss MEDIUM TEX said that 3 consecutive losing years would be enough to leave PP strategy. Is it correct? Thank you. Frugal, We are all going to have to get used to losing years happening more often than in the past.  Interest and dividends are an important pa...

re lamenting the lack of returns: Welcome to the world of ZIRP central banking.  Savers are punished.  Retirements postponed. Beatings will continue until morale improves. I think that this is what underlies most of our discomforts regarding returns in the PP and other conventional mixes.  We blame ...

Since we are in the PP folder and not the VP, I'm going to assume you are referring to gold when you say commodities.  I will say that the gold and stocks pertaining to gold or other commodities are not substitutes.  In 2008/9, gold went up and gold stocks went down, because stocks were being sold t...

The only reason I can think of to quit is if I found something that I was convinced would do what I wanted the PP to do, only better. Otherwise what would be the point? I agree with that.  Unfortunately I do go off the reservation now and then, such as lately, trying to come up with a better PP mou...

I cannot understand how we all get sucked into paying attention to and attaching some earnest belief in what is said by political candidates.  It's all blather. 

While everyone else seems to fret about one of the other three pieces of the PP, I hate the cash portion.  In the current world, there is not going to be any such thing as a tight money recession.  And even if there is, so what?  By definition it's a short period. But there won't be one unless and u...

Kevin and Sophie, I feel about the same way about gold.  It's more than insurance.  It's a store of wealth; time tested, private, portable. That said, as an "investment", I don't expect it to do any better than match inflation in the long run.

I think a lot of that bubble was due to gold becoming easily buyable in the form of ETFs.  I bet a lot of mainstream sell-side brokers started pushing gold and stories about gold, and it went crazy.  Now it's just another speculative vehicle available to anyone with a brokerage account.  Prior to th...

Like many of us, I don't blindly accept the PP without healthy skepticism.  I am not worried about not keeping up with a Bogle portfolio, a Mathjak, or any other.  But I do want to understand whether or not the PP would be developed by HB today.  It's quite possible that inflation was a brief anomal...

I had hoped to get through PSville last winter but it didn't happen.  This fall or winter it should be happening.