[img width=500]http://i.imgur.com/ZJxPo4g.jpg[/img] In case anyone's interested, I updated my earlier chart of the last 10 years of monthly PPs, incorporating the May CPI-U number.  Nothing major to see.  I started my PP in May 2013; the yellow bar after two years invested agrees with the 2.00% real...

According to the charts on kitco , the gold spot price rose about 1.3% from 4 pm on June 17 ($1187) to 4 pm on June 18 ($1202).  That's when the NYSE closes and that's when you should be comparing the price of any gold-tracking ETF or CEF.  There was an increase of about 2.4% if you look at the Lond...

One thing I wasn't quite certain of in the offer is whether the trade is for the current value (including the discount), or at a zero discount.  Does anyone know for certain what "nav to nav basis" means? At the current discount of -6.3%, I'd lose out since I got some shares at -4%.  It m...

While I was still in the mood for playing with Excel, I thought I'd try changing the starting month in my earlier appendix wedge chart for a bit more granularity.  Not everyone starts their PP on January 1st, nor rebalances on January 1st, so I crunched some numbers for different starting dates (the...

Apologies to Tyler, but I've made this appendix for his chart to take into consideration the last 10 years.  I've stuck to his format, but the colors are slightly different.  Again, these are real returns and the same conclusions can be drawn: no negative three-year returns. [img width=300]http://i....

Hi Flagator, welcome to the board. I began my PP just over two years ago, after about 15 years with no firm investing philosophy.  I had doubled my money as a newbie during the dotcom era, then lost about 80% of that using a combination of stupidity, ignorance, inexperience, and blind trust.  Eventu...

@PetHog: Think of each data point as a snapshot on Jan 1st of each year.  So invested Jan 1st 1972 and withdrawn Jan 1st 1973.  This way, the first column reflects the real return for the initial investment year.  I understand it's a little confusing on the surface, but the "years held" i...

Beautiful new charts, Tyler.  Would it be too much work to add a new column for the PP performance in 2014?  Craig wrote about that here :  +9.1 or +8.9% return depending on how cash was invested. Now you've got me wondering, does "invested in 1972, withdrawn in 2013" mean invested on 12/3...

So... here's what I have in my spreadsheet.  From March 26, 2004 to June 5 2015: The black line is nominal returns (9.58% CAGR over this period) The blue/purple line, just below it is the inflation adjusted return.  (7.32% over this period) The vertical lines are rebalance points (15/35) Mark, I tr...

So... here's what I have in my spreadsheet.  From March 26, 2004 to June 5 2015: The black line is nominal returns (9.58% CAGR over this period) The blue/purple line, just below it is the inflation adjusted return.  (7.32% over this period) The vertical lines are rebalance points (15/35) Mark, I tr...

Some movement on the Sprott/Goldtrust front... Sprott Formally Launches Offers to Central GoldTrust and Silver Bullion Trust Unitholders The number of Sprott Physical Gold Trust units to be distributed to each Central GoldTrust unitholder will be determined on a NAV to NAV basis. For example, based ...

Your brain is 25% cholesterol by weight And of course cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone. That number didn't seem right to me.  According to wikipedia, the total amount of cholesterol in a 150-lb man is 35 g.  If it was all located in his grey matter, 25% cholesterol would imply a brain wei...

I agree, Benko.  But I don't think any researchers of, say, string theory would claim to know it to be true (that's what piqued me about your earlier statement).  They might personally convince themselves that, by golly, it just has to be true, but if it were to be proven wrong then they would have ...

When I have my self driving car, I am all for traffic lights going away... Self-driving cars was also my first thought when the traffic lights argument was raised.  If we don't have a government controlling traffic, we might devise alternative methods for road safety that don't involve lights at al...

And much of what we think we know in all areas of science are wrong. I think two distinctions should be made.  Between settled science and conjecture, and between hard science and soft science.  I would say that most of what we think we know in all areas of science is true.  Because, you know, we k...

Bean wrote: Fixed Rate = 0.00%
Inflation Rate = -0.80%
Composite rate = 0.00%

In case anyone is unaware of how I-Bond rates are calculated, this inflation rate is for the six months from September to March.  Annualized, it's –1.60%.  Even better real return at 0% nominal!

I just posted these numbers on the Bonds>"TLT Negative YTD" thread, but thought they might be of interest here, too.  The real yields over the last one, five, and ten years have all been greater than 5%.  This year has been slightly positive.  No cause for concern, yet, in my mind. YTD ret...

For a longer-term view... Five-year returns (dividends reinvested; Apr 30, 2010 to Apr 30, 2015) TLT: +60.28% VTI: +95.60% IAU: –0.87% SHY: +4.31% PP Total: +39.83% (+6.94% annualized) Inflation: +8.31% (end Apr 2010 to end Mar 2015; +1.61% annualized) PP real: +5.33% annualized Ten-year returns (di...

Here you go, dragoncar.  No fun today.  Now we're on track for a below-average, yet positive, year.  But YOY, we are still slightly above average (I consider +5.2% real as my benchmark).  If I remember, I'll update the real yields and inflation numbers when the CPI-U is announced for April on May 22...

Inspired by ochotona's hope for a 7% return this year, I ran some numbers for the first third of PP 2015.  Not great performance, but not terrible, at +1.55% nominal (0.99% real).  Annualized, that would be about 4.7% nominal.  With almost no inflation, we're on track for quite an average real PP re...

You may be right, since they say "NAV to NAV basis" but I don't really know what that means.  Maybe it means they will offer to exchange PHYS for GTU on a 90% NAV to 100% NAV basis.  They haven't made a legal offer either way so it's talk and speculation at this point. My understanding co...

Basically, PHYS intends to buy GTU, in which case you'll just end up shares of PHYS.  This is a good deal for PHYS since GTU trades at a discount. Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like PHYS is going to buy GTU at its NAV, so there should be no discount for PHYS.  They'll be buying all of GTU'...

Beautiful post, MWKXJ.  You seem to know your stuff when it comes to CEFs.  So can I ask why do you (or anyone else if they care to chime in) think the discount on the NAV for GTU is so large (>8% today)? Compared to stock and bond CEFs, GTU is dead simple.  A vault it Canada holds X ounces of gold,...

PS, a machine that takes individual atoms and assembles them into anything you want is, in effect, performing chemical synthesis.  That's currently really hard to do on anything other than the nanoscale (more like the angstrom-scale), but such a technology is feasible.  But mixing protons, neutrons,...

I have tried modeling this portfolio using numbers from peaktotrough.com.  The numbers don't match the Simba numbers exactly, but it's good to get a second opinion. Year Stock Bond Gold Top 2 Add 10% 1972 18.2 5.6 39.7 1973 -15.6 -8.0 75.6 30.0 26.2 1974 -27.5 2.1 66.1 34.1 28.0 1975 36.1 7.1 -24.8 ...