Everything is relative. Yes, $500k is a lot of cash. But $2mm+ is a lot of money. Nice work! How large are your annual expenses as a percentage of your total investments?  That might change the advice you get. we will retire where we live in queens in nyc so cost of living is high.  i managed to ge...

i have been using the fidelity insight newsletter since 1987  with great success. most of that time was spent in the growth model. I checked it out and its interesting as far as what it does not do, which is provide relative strength picks as other Fidelity newsletters seem to do.  What exactly is ...

first off just want to introduce myself as i am new here . i have been reading harry's books since the 1980's and even used the pp decades ago  but wanted more growth. i am retiring in 5 weeks  and have been preparing for this for decades. i have been using the fidelity insight newsletter since 1987...

larry's comment about gold not tracking inflation is because gold is a competitor to the dollar.

as long as the dollar stays healthy which it did , even in the face of inflation gold has little reason to run with the ball from an inflation stand point .

actually 90% of the time following a 4% swr you hit 30 years with more money than you started with  and 67%  had at least 2x what you started with.. the 4% swr was based on the 4 worst 30 year time frames 1907 1929 1937 and 1966. when you do your spread sheets keep in mind the common denominator to ...

a lot better Well that makes sense. 1987-2007 was awesome for stock-heavy portfolios. Really great timing. 1987 to 2003 was an incredible run . 17 years averaging almost 14% cagr. only 1 problem.  the years leading up  had years of stagnant markets and high inflation . it was sooooo hard to save a ...

a lot better

just this week i changed my strategy as we retire in 5 weeks. for decades i followed the fidelity insight newsletter . i used the growth model .  100k in 1987 is 2.1 million today. about 7 years ago i moved from the growth model to a 50/50 split between the income model and the growth and income mod...

mathjak, Are you talking about low returns going forward for the PP as a whole or just for stocks? With inflation near zero, I would take a 6% return on stocks any day. both .  low rates and these higher valuations point to below average returns from portfolios counting on at least one of them as t...

MediumTex wrote: It's weird to hear people talk about stocks being overvalued when the major indices are just now breaking through levels first reached 15 years ago.

they are more fully valued than over valued in my opinion.  the s&p 500 is up 1.88% real return as a 15 year average.

low rates will effect things . historically dividends represented 1/3 of the s&p's gains .  dividends and rates are joined at the hip.  with bonds in the 2% range that puts equities in the 6% total return  area , those are  below average returns, also if stocks fell 15% the historical average fo...

a side from having a spread in bid and ask there are futures contracts involved with these etf's. they are partially priced based not on todays price but the outlook in the future.

keep in mind there is no historical point i am aware of where such low rates and high valuations co-existed.  that can be a nasty combo to deal with going forward.

you have to keep in mind the permanent portfolio never fell as much as conventional portfolio's in 2008-2009  so they didn't need the gains to get even again.

keep in mind the real return on the s&p 500 the last 15 years is about 1.88%

think of cash as owning call options on assets at lower prices.