WHAT? When the hell did Spain's yields recover... weren't they like a Greece Jr. a couple years ago? I think even when Spanish yields were "high" they were only at about 6%, no? Damn! I knew I should have gone long on Spain! I am guessing that the fact these countries are part of the EU h...

Been reading through the parts of this book I find interesting and skipping a lot of it which is just pretty basic investing and personal finance stuff (with lots of exclamation points!!!!). He's really big on a having a Fixed Index Annuity as part of a retirement plan. Any opinions on those? Moda, ...

Bond yields going this low has certainly been an education for me. I sold a few when the yield first dipped below 3% and thought I was some kind of market timing genius. So I was a shade underweighted in LTTs the last couple months only to see them recently pull even with my stock and gold holdings.

Well Bulgaria has some specific issues that are not exactly like Detroit or the rest of Europe, according to the article. One problem: the government focused funding on certain regions while abandoning others. Yeah, when I was there in 2002 I only had about ten days. I was probably in areas that we...

PS, Do you have the start and end dates of that max drawdown on the PP? Also, how long was it from peak to peak? Thanks!

I was in Bulgaria in 2002 and it wasn't all doom and gloom. I'd be curious to hear from folks who have been there more recently.

did HB name central banks in his work? he was a gold bug....usually gold bugs are suspicious of central banks? He was a gold bug up until it made its big move in the 1970s, which he correctly predicted. After that he became something different completely and gold was really just a tool for him... a...

Lazy, Do you have any investing track record prior to starting the PP? My Fidelity account has a performance tab that let's me see my one, three, five, and ten-year returns. What is clear to me is that over a long period (ten years) I significantly underperformed the PP. Others on here have had simi...

Well put, Dualstow. Lazy, Though I understand the idea to tinker, it sounds like you've already put yourself on a great path. Over 25 years at a 6% nominal annual gain, you'll quadruple your money (rule of 72... you actually get there in 24 and then increase it again by another 50% - or up 600% in a...

Stocks + 15%
Gold +10%
Bonds +5%
Cash 0%

Total return 7.5%. Sorry I didn't get these figures to you folks earlier. I know how much you all count on me!

I shared that epic post with my Chinese wife and she concurred right across the board. One thing she added was that from a woman's point of view, if you want to move up in any kind of organization, it's almost obligatory to have sex with the boss. Clearly that goes on in many cultures including here...

MT2B, What a terrific and thorough post. My Chinese wife and I often discuss cultural differences and you have covered some of the reasons that she made her way to the US in the first place. But I also think you have hit on some things that my wife just expects that I surely already know, which is a...

MT2B, I didn't catch your signature line the first time around but it shows that you understand the value of money in terms of how much time goes into earning it. That is a good thing! It just sounds like you are super loss-averse. Many of us who have invested in the PP are similar in that way which...

Thanks for posting that, MG. There is a great sequence from about 4:40 to about 7:40 where they are all talking about what a great buying opportunity 2008-2009 was. Then, when asked to evaluate whether or not now is a good time to "invest in the market", they all kind of just look at each ...

dualstow wrote: If I had a 30% share in long bonds, I would jump at the chance to prune them down to 25%.

Ditto for me. I am a bit shy of 25% and don't have much interest in buying more long bonds.

Singapore is quite diverse, but from what I have seen and think I know, it is really dominated by the Chinese. They are about 3/4 of the population and I am guessing their economic clout is relatively higher still.

MomTo2Boys, Sounds like you have been invested in the PP for about 30 months. I am curious what your total return is during that time. Holding three really volatile assets takes some getting used to for sure. I just started PPs for me and my wife about a year ago and have done way too much daily che...

According to http://peaktotrough.com ,  maximum draw-down for a 35/15 rebalanced portfolio was 18.36%. The PP was up approximately 12% in the month of January alone that year, so the losses are not as extreme when considered in context. Max Drawdown 18.36% (1980-01-21 - 1980-03-27) That seems about...

Chappy Chanukah, Dualstow!

Mon Dieu! Ils ont trouvé mon or! I knew I shouldn't have left it in the damn wall.

One of the advantages of being less well-read than you guys is that I almost always remember where I got my information from! For PP real returns check out the table on page 25 of Craig & MT's book. It shows real three, five and ten-year returns for the PP and also for a 60/40 stock/bond mix. Th...

The number that I think is given in the PP book (and elsewhere) is real returns of 3%-6%. I expect we are in for a few years of lower-than-average real returns, but I think that using your numbers for the individual assets one would actually get an overall return that is higher than 2% due to price ...

Thought this article was not half bad:

http://finance.yahoo.com/tumblr/blog-ar ... 19606.html

Confession: I'm thinking about chopping long term bonds down to maybe 20% after New Year's. No less than 15%, anyway. Then, when five straight years of deflation follow -- if I do it -- you can all laugh at me.  ;) Bond prices will go down just enough in the next couple of weeks so that you don't h...

I am not really keen on purchasing one asset a time, it feels like a big gamble to try to time the market. Yeah, as PS says, the picture came out really small. With a smaller PP, buying only one asset might tilt you a bit out of balance so that you are not exactly at 4X25 but that's OK. Just buy wh...