I agree with mathjak that it's the same. TLT holds 38 different bonds in a ladder. See the Portfolio/Holdings section here . Buying that ETF is akin to you holding the same ladder. It shouldn't make a difference if you rebalance your PP by buying treasuries directly or buying them through TLT. Ther...

1. The only bond with 30-year maturity is https://www.boerse-berlin.com/index.php/Bonds?isin=DE0001102481. It has a 0% coupon and trades at a discount. Does all that matter? I think in theory it doesn't matter what the coupon is -- positive, zero, or negative. All that matters is the volatility. Th...

Guy dismantles the first chapter of Why We Sleep , via Tyler Cowen . Thanks, Kriegsspiel. That's a well articulated critique. This smackdown is exactly how peer review should work, but I think (from personal experience -- when I was a chemistry postdoc I must have reviewed hundreds of manuscripts) ...

That's what I intend to do (although I'm targeting a 25-to-30-year range). Longer-maturity bonds have greater volatility, and that's what we are trying to take advantage of with the PP strategy. I guess there might be tax considerations that would favor selling longer-maturity holdings, so you shoul...

I agree with mathjak that it's the same. TLT holds 38 different bonds in a ladder. See the Portfolio/Holdings section here . Buying that ETF is akin to you holding the same ladder. It shouldn't make a difference if you rebalance your PP by buying treasuries directly or buying them through TLT. There...

Imagine how long George Burns could have lived if he wasn't a smoker!

Hi mdwilson1991 In my opinion, an important part of investing in the PP or GB is considering the performance of the total portfolio, as a whole, and not that of its individual components -- one or more of which will inevitably be sucking at any one time. Perhaps it will be LTTs that will suck in the...

Yahoo has TLT data back to 2002. Both "closing prices" and "dividend-adjusted closing prices," as well as all dividends and their payment dates. That Nasdaq link has only one set of prices -- and it's not obvious if they are dividend-adjusted or not.

I think Vinny was just having fun with Newspeak. No. It's a phrase it seems I've recently frequently heard. Vinny Perhaps Vinny meant to write, "Not all crimes are impeachable offenses and not all impeachable offenses are crimes"? "All crimes are not impeachable" sounds like a p...

Pet Hog, I disagree with your assumption that “someone in the accumulation phase has greater risk-tolerance” and therefore can be (ought to be?) more aggressive with their investments. Consider a couple of real-world examples: Example #1. 52 year old female (divorced, with 3 kids) came down with br...

I was responding to I have no problem with cash being defined as up to five-year treasuries/CDs And the rest of that sentence is, "but I'm in the accumulation phase." I think someone in the accumulation phase has greater risk-tolerance toward any changes in interest rates and/or emergenci...

MangoMan wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 4:52 pm

Pet Hog wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2019 4:45 pm
##Or maybe going to a loan shark would be smarter than selling my five-year treasuries! Again, many options for the PP investor.

Ah yes, PP investors' personality profiles certainly would be the type to use loan sharks.

I'll admit, there I was being facetious!

... imagine you suddenly need to use cash at the same time that five-year treasuries sharply decrease in value. How mature is that ladder? How many of those treasuries can you really sell in a pinch without much of a loss? Can you give an example of such a situation? Because as a PP investor in the...

Harry Dent is now selling a -70 to -90% stock market decline narrative. -90% would bring us back to July August 1987. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4302114?source=ansh I think the PP would do well -- or at least it would do no worse than (most) any other strategy and, therefore, do well in relat...

A general question, not addressed to anyone in particular: Isn't a treasury money market fund just a treasury ladder held by someone else on your behalf? If so, there's not magic to it. You can set up your own and cut out the middleman. And set the duration/maturity however you like. Personally, I h...

...just be aware that your portfolio averaged over time will be cash-heavy. So to compensate, you can rebalance cash to 15% and the other three assets to 28%. This is such a wise comment, Tortoise. I hope everyone takes it to heart. Having said that, personally I'm not a fan of adding to cash until...

I'm not sure I understand your question, boglerdude. I would suggest a limit order, priced at or a few cents above the current market price. Certainly I wouldn't sell with a market order and risk being taken advantage of. To see the premium/discount curve, check out this link . The low this year was...

I think that's exactly how the stock market works. Whatever the last sale was, that sets the market cap. Even if it was just one share. And, as you say, the next morning the mistake gets fixed with the first trade, so there's no way for us to take advantage of it.

I'm in the same boat -- waiting for the PHYS premium to turn positive. The expense ratio is something like 0.48%. A bit too high, but I was hoping to take advantage of swings in the premium (buy negative, sell positive). I'm still clueless as to why anyone would sell when the premium is negative. Ho...

This might be easier: gold. Same lady, same strategy and history. She invests $100,000 in gold in taxable account, Scenario (1). She never sells for 40 years. There are no dividends. The gold goes up in value to $2,000,000. I think that, long term, gold has done almost as well as stocks, so it might...

For some light relief, on to Scenario (2): Trad IRA. Same history. $100,000 invested, and a tax break. Her bank balance is $0. She earns 2% in dividends and invests it all -- no taxes along the way. The portfolio grows to $2,000,000. After 40 years, she retires. Withdraws $100,000 from her Trad IRA....

OK, I'll do one more, for long-term treasuries. Same situation and history for the lady investor. But now she is investing $100,000 only in LTTs. For a coupon yield, I'm going to pick 2%, close to what it is today. The investor buys the LTTs in a taxable account, Scenario (1). Again, she reinvests a...

Now, in retirement, she wants to live off $100,000. At 2%, the dividends earned this year total $20,000. That means our investor has to sell $80,000 worth of stock. That amount has a tax basis of $20,000 (25%). So the capital gain of that $80,000 is $60,000. OK, I spotted one mistake already, but i...

Scenario (3) : Roth IRA. Same background as before. Our investor puts $100,000 into a Roth IRA. She gets no tax benefit for doing so. She pays 24% on that money earned before investment. We can consider her to have a bank balance of -$24,000. Over 40 years she reinvests the dividends, averaging $10,...

Scenario (2): Stock investing in a Traditional IRA. Same background as before. Our investor places $100,000 over 40 years into a Trad IRA. She gets a tax break on that money. She's in the 24% tax bracket, so there is a saving of $24,000 relative to the previous example. We can consider her to have a...