What were your biggest Permanent Portfolio mistakes? I'll go first. I got into this portfolio earlier in my accumulation phase and considered all of my wealth as, "can't afford to lose." This was sub-optimal from a long term returns perspective. If I could do it over, to start with, I woul...

I use Bisq. It is a decentralized, peer-to-peer exchange. There are different payment methods, but I choose to send USPS money orders to strangers in exchange for Bitcoin. They never know my name or address, and neither does the post office since I pay in cash. I've made maybe 20-30 purchases like t...

All of the dumbasses who think the mighty American military can win wars have not been paying attention. They can win wars if the battles are set up like WW2 battlegrounds. Which will never happen again. The last of the WW2 style battles happened in WW2. Personally I think the next war will be a cy...

There are innumerable charities / nonprofit organizations with lofty goals / mission statements. The challenge for someone donating is to discern which ones are effective in reaching those goals and in an efficient manner, i.e., using the highest percentage of those donated $$$$$ towards the actual...

Why is it so important to support SENS Research Foundation? In short, because all over the world, people and societies are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of aging. The amount of time, money, and energy already being poured into attempts to thwart diseases like Alzheimer’s, cardiovascu...

In any event, I'm not sure why anyone would/should expect a portfolio with 25, 30, or 33% equities to perform as well over the very long term as one with 60 or 70 or 100% equities; the only way that even stands a chance of happening IIRC is if the "low equity allocation portfolio" puts al...

In any event, I'm not sure why anyone would/should expect a portfolio with 25, 30, or 33% equities to perform as well over the very long term as one with 60 or 70 or 100% equities; the only way that even stands a chance of happening IIRC is if the "low equity allocation portfolio" puts al...

If the system collapses (especially with the US as the worlds reserve currency) we’re all fucked no matter the portfolio. Exactly. There's no point in worrying about your financial portfolio in these kinds of scenarios because they will all be wrecked. Even financial portfolios that are more physic...

Dualstow / Mark were the winners. Although I did purchase this bond at auction, it was a re-issue so there was accrued interest after all.

Thanks for the help, all.

I want to set up a stock account for my kids where we auto purchase and manually purchase mostly stocks mostly VTI and reinvest dividends. Index funds are so abstract. I would do this w/ low-risk, household name, securities that pay dividends, e.g. UPS. Low-risk: you want them to see their investme...

In addition to what I wrote above, keep an eye on interest payments. This is the answer. When you purchase the bill/bond/note, you pay the "price" plus any unpaid accrued interest - which rightly belongs to the seller. Would this apply to a bond purchased at auction? Also, Dualstow: inter...

Hi all, I recently bought some LTT at auction. Vanguard reports that I purchased: Quantity: 9,000 Price: 99.34 Amount: -8995.81 However, these numbers don't add up for me: 9 x 99.34 = 8940.60 It's as if Vanguard charged fees or commissions of $55.21 for this purchase even though the transaction says...

Version 4 is scarily smart. I don’t have access. I’m just going by the Cinderella example on the front page. wow. 🤯 Yeah I thought the test scores were interesting: 710/800 on SAT reading+ writing 700/800 SAT Math https://openai.com/research/gpt-4 4/5 and 5/5 on the AP exams. I believe there is a w...

Xan wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:59 am So... Is it stupid to have money in any bank that isn't one of these?

I opened an account at JP Morgan yesterday!

While the FDIC was stepping in to make all depositors whole at SVB, the Fed was setting up the lifeline for all depository institutions called the Bank Term Funding Program. Pretty cool, they will make term loans to institutions on assets AT PAR. So if a bank holds a bond or MBS portfolio that has ...

So, does this mean that FDIC is now set at infinity? Some clarity needed. I can't imagine what it was like for hundreds, maybe thousands of entrepreneurs and management who went through maybe the worst 24-48 hours of their careers through no fault of their own. Let's see what this week brings. Alth...

glennds wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 1:09 pm

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 11:48 pm

And then the unimaginable happened. Rising interest rates. Kaboom.

A lot of regional banks are in the same position.

If the Feds raise rates, more banks go under.
If they don't raise rates, inflation stays high.

Jerome Powell not feeling irie this weekend

This violent upward move in Bitcoin over just the past day or two was enough to hit a rebalancing band for me. Dang. Talk about volatile. As Operation Choke Point 2.0 is underway (1.0 was an Obama-era program) w/ the goal of unbanking the crypto sector, you can expect more volatility. I believe thi...

Jack Jones wrote: ↑Tue Jan 31, 2023 12:22 pm Losers:
CIGI (-19%)
FRC (-17%)
AAPL (-16%)
TAC (-15%)
FDX(-14%)

FRC: First Republic Bank of California is taking me for a ride. HODLing because PP and it's not time to rebalance.

That's my question, though, is whether it fits in with the HBPP mentality. He seems to be saying to pick stocks with high risk/reward for better rebalancing opportunities. Would HB say to put all your stock allocation into SCV rather than splitting half and half between SCV and LCG? Or is there som...

Here in the UK we're starting to see 'investigations' down to even relatively small amounts. Banks are obligated to flag 'suspicious' activities where that isn't clearly defined, but where if banks are identified as having partaken of moving 'illegal' money they could land in hot water, so as ever ...

Over 20 years ago I was (good) brainwashed by William Bernstein's books that in the long run one will be better off by using index funds rather than to select individual stocks that are in the index fund's sector of investing. One is far better off accepting the market average than trying to beat t...

I dumped a bunch of VTSAX today and substituted for it about 20 individual stocks picked to roughly mirror what's going on in PRPFX and the Permanent Portfolio Aggressive Growth Fund. It's one of the few moves I've felt really good about lately. And I'm loving having individual companies to root fo...

Here is what HB has to say on the topic. . . For the Permanent Portfolio, a stock-market investment should have these attributes: The Permanent Portfolio's stock-market investments, as a group, should reflect a broad spectrum of American enterprise; they shouldn't be tied to a signle industry or na...

Here is what HB has to say on the topic. All HB quotes from Why The Best Laid Investment Plans...: For the Permanent Portfolio, a stock-market investment should have these attributes: Market relationship: The investment should have a strong tendency to move in the same direction as the general stock...