Ocho - You could always measure the daily volatility for the prior month and if it is over some target threshold (maybe 20% annualized) scale your GEM holdings down based on that. That could possibly prevent losing too much during a flash 1987 event. IG Thanks for the suggestion, IG. When ocho ment...

It depends on the specifics of the bear and there is no one answer. Is there a long discernible downward trend to rise or is the market jumping up and down causing whipsaws in and out? Are the US and ex-US markets facing the same stress or is one stronger than the other? I’m sure there are other fac...

The irony is global ex-US markets are outperforming over the referenced time frame.

The “I resign/No you’re fired” bit keeps the comedy rolling (Bannon, Omarosa, surely more to come over the course of the administration). Only to be outdone by the “Resign/I resign/Not accepted” bit. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/politics/trump-sessions-russia-mcgahn.html The president fired...

Same here. It seems to be a glitch on the google servers, because changing the query at all then changing it back is enough to get it to work again.

Surprisingly my Google Finance paper portfolio is still working, despite the shutdown announced for mid November. Here is the pure 4x25 starting January 1, 2016, dividends not reinvested, showing a 10.3% return. The stocks portion is IYY. Ignore the overall return column, as I believe it is price ga...

I think I must be getting too old...these types of questions I just don't understand. (Please tell me the future and do all the analysis for me, no problem right? If someone actually serious about this with their real hard earned money on the line, I'd think they would want to do their own research...

Sign me up for when Kbg's book of eclectic investing strategies comes out. Unlike many resources advising a single way, Kbg has something for everyone.

Do you have any cash you could use to buy gold outside retirement accounts? Holding gold in a retirement account is not ideal anyway because that converts capital gains into ordinary income when you take it out. Wouldn’t that be effectively taxed as ordinary income either way due to the collectible...

I'd have no problem buying a bit more stocks, Jack. Stocks could do well for the next five years (I've been listening to Robert Shiller). It's not like you're betting the farm on stocks. Still, if your stocks are at 26% and gold is at 15%, shouldn't you be buying gold? If it's 401k constraints that...

Stockcharts.com is majorly ratcheting up the ads lately. I wish fidelity’s charts had a perfchart total return option. It looks like the etf comparison page Market 1yr total return would suffice.

I updated my back test with monthly GSPC prices from yahoo (and continued to add Shiller dividends). Much better to use that than Shiller’s daily average for this model. It now matches Anonacci’s returns much more closely back to 1970. I am satisfied that the remaining differences are accounted by c...

The article goes on to recount, move by move, how the investigation itself was a set-up designed to manufacture a crime. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-03/what-media-isnt-telling-you-about-indictment-mike-flynn Thanks for the link, Maddy. If Yates’s motivation was as the article describes an...

Everyone is using total return data sets, yes? I use total return for all of my data. I'm curious what you use for S&P 500 total returns prior to 1988. I used http://www.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/data.htm, which states, "Stock price data are monthly averages of daily closing prices." I a...

Gotta wonder what Antonacci used pre-1988.

I was backtesting what you are proposing and got some strange results as the optimal allocation based on the backtest was to not use the HBPP at all and just to use the GEM allocation strategy for 100% of your money. I thought about it more and convinced myself that the GEM system generated enough ...

The way he's going after cnn in this AT&T deal, I'd say he's restoring vindictiveness and perhaps tyranny. He's certainly doing his best. Fortunately the checks and balances in our government have largely contained him, preventing him from passing anything of note, even with a GOP congress. I d...

Google Finance is under renovation. ... I mentioned this in the Google Docs thread, and there it is. You scared me there for a minute. Actually, I'm still scared. So you mentioned this in the Docs thread, but it's just about Google Finance...right? I mean, will we still be able to use google sheets...

In large part because of the whackiness of November 2016, which created an interesting blip between the S&P 500 and international markets. Unless the S&P goes crazy this month, it’s clearly international next month. I reckon it doesn’t matter what you do when it’s this close as long as you d...

Shawn, glad to hear someone else has tried that Fidelity bullion program. I noticed a while ago they'd lowered their prices, so the fees are comparable to the ETFs if you hold it for a few years. I don't know why I've been hesitant to pull the trigger, I guess because no one else on the board has t...

1/2 mix of IAU and SGOL because they're available and cheap. 1/2 bullion (Buffalo) through Fidelity. I don't like the responsibility of securing and selling coins (or foisting the same on my survivors). Fidelity bullion gives me a chunk that's plainly worth what the metal is worth and theoretically ...

Nice! I love it when brokerages are cutting fees so fast you can't keep up. :D It’s amazing how even that small fee is enough to make me think twice vs. a similar commission-free fund that may have other risks like lower volume or reliance on securities lending. But whenever that happens I just ima...

Agreed at $8 but you will enjoy even more negligible $5 trades next time you rebalance. Nice! I love it when brokerages are cutting fees so fast you can't keep up. :D It’s amazing how even that small fee is enough to make me think twice vs. a similar commission-free fund that may have other risks l...

FWIW, I've been paying $8 per VTI trade at Fidelity for years and the impact of the commission on my bottom line is completely negligible for how little I trade. Agreed at $8 but you will enjoy even more negligible $5 trades next time you rebalance. Nice! I love it when brokerages are cutting fees ...

It was an interesting time to test (aren’t they all?). I bought into a nice 10.8% drawdown July 14 2016 to December 31 to learn the value of the big cash buffer. December 31 to June 1 2016 went up enough to almost make it back before calling it.