We live in interesting times. I noticed today that the entire US Treasury yield curve, in real terms, has gone negative. After the FOMC's decision to reduce overnight rates, it was not really surprising that at the short end, the 3 month T-bill fell to just 0.42%. The long end of the yield curve, ho...

When I adopted the HBPP back in 2013, one of the biggest objections I heard was "Don't buy 30 year T-bonds because interest rates have no place to go but up!' So much for following the consensus. I also think that many investors, even some on this forum, do not have a clear grasp of the concept...

Can a machine panic?

It seems to me that the origins of the equity market events of the last ten days are driven by human emotion, however the trades are placed.

I keep both T-bills and a Treasury money market fund in Cash. It does not have to be one or the other, you can have some of each.

Dear ppnewbie, Welcome to the forum. 1. It is always a good idea to make a spreadsheet with a list of your I bonds. 2. I bonds cannot be cashed until they are one year old. After that, you can cash them any time. From one year to five years there is a 3 month interest rate penalty. After that there ...

I think that the equivalent of your veteran firefighter is Dr. Anthony Fauci, of the CDC and the NIH. He appears regularly on the news networks and has testified before Congress on AIDS, Ebola, etc.

Maddy,

I am not "going to cash." I am already in it to the tune of 25% of my portfolio. I hope you are too.

Must be a trend.

I use a spreadsheet track % of each asset. I also track by % Roth/ % tax deferred / % taxable.

This morning, Bloomberg News correspondents declared that this was the "buy everything" market. Almost, but not quite true. Cash is the out of favor asset, thanks to years of pummeling by the Fed. It is difficult to get an inflation-adjusted positive return from anything without taking an ...

This discussion brings up my recent thoughts of just going all Treasury Bills or cash. My grandfather lived a sort of Dave Ramsey existence. He never borrowed money, never had credit cards and paid cash for all of his vehicles. The amount of interest he saved over his lifetime must have been stagge...

Vinny, 1. I bonds are guaranteed by the US Treasury to not go below 0% yield in a deflationary interest rate environment. There is no such guarantee for T-bills or TIPS. Also, if you are particularly worried about long term deflation, you might want to investigate EE bonds, which are guaranteed to d...

1. A central problem with owning real estate is that it is illiquid, whether it is your own house or a rental property. The four HBPP assets are liquid enough you can sell them all to cash in 1-2 days. Anyone who has tried to sell a house in a down market like 2008-2009 understands the distress of t...

Budd’s posts began as contrarion takes on the HBPP performance, but ended up as personal attacks. Our moderator gave him every opportunity to retract, but he refused. Mathjak posted prolifically all over the place. Some people felt he was hijacking conversations. That problem seems to have been reso...

Did you see the charts from bogleheads that sophie referenced earlier in this thread? #Cruncher’s first chart showed that T-bills kept up with inflation (but not inflation and taxes) in rough fashion over the ten year test period of 1970-1981. More to the point, I did not say—or mean to imply-- T-bi...

T-bills will keep up with inflation over the longer term, but it helps to shorten the maturity if the interest rate is starting to climb rapidly-- like right now. Also not helpful to get stuck at the front end of an inverted yield curve-- as in the last year.

You are right that FDLXX cannot be used as a sweep account and SPAXX can. That explains part of the disparity in the size of the funds, but not all of it--in my view.

1. For i bonds, see https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds_ibuy.htm and https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/faq/faq_irstaxfeature.htm 2. I have had both Roth IRAs and Sep IRAs from Fidelity. If you call a rep by phone, they can help you set up these account...

I think I bonds are a great alternative for tax deferral AND tax diversification of Cash for most investors. Creating a ladder of I bonds year after year before you retire (or even in early retirement) can give you a nice guaranteed income stream in retirement that is not subject to the mandatory RM...

dualstow, You are probably correct that few people know what the ER is in their money market mutual fund. However, the big money certainly knows: SPAXX, one of the cash sweep funds, has $152 billion in net assets. FDLXX, the Treasury only money market fund, has only $2.9 billion in net assets. Clear...

Isn't it interesting that Fidelity has kept a relatively high ER for its money market funds at the same time its massive advertising campaign highlights its "low fees"? Lower fees, however, will not fix the problem of systemic risk in the repo market. The FOMC's repeated injections of liqu...

I am concerned that Fidelity managers of FDRXX and SPAXX have been loading up with repos (now 46.60% and 48.98%, respectively) in their never-ending hunt for a minuscule improvement of yield in a super-low yield environment . US government repos are exposed to systemic risk that Treasury-issued secu...

From a historical standpoint, it has proved impossible to repeal the business cycle. Think of it this way: the guys (in this case, central bankers), who are trying to do the controlled burn are just as likely to start a fire so big it gets out of their control and they themselves get roasted alive. ...

What strategies are folks using to decide (that aren't simply trying to predict the future) between normal Ts and I-bonds. : If you are just starting, don’t buy STTs or savings bonds until your TMMF covers 6 months living expenses. After that, add STTs and savings bonds in equal amounts. When Cash ...

I will be buying my annual allotment of I-bonds at the end of January and paper I-bonds with my 2019 tax return shortly after that. The current I-bond yield is 2.22%, easily beating the 1 year T-bill (1.60%) and the 10 year note (1.78%). I see little or no prospect of higher fixed or variable rates ...

I started out 100% in TLT when I switched to the HBPP in 2013. It is the simplest way to begin. After about a year in TLT, I switched to individual 30 year T-bonds, which are easy to purchase on the secondary market through a Fidelity brokerage account. Unlike ETFs and mutual funds, there are no com...