I agree with Sophie's analysis, but FWIW I follow Browne's advice, direct all contributions to cash, and follow the plain 15/35 rebalance rule. One reason is my desire to stay disciplined about not going down the slippery slope of changing the PP bit by bit until it stops being a PP. Another reason ...

Nice!

Another option: build one complete portfolio in your 401k and another in your taxable space. Taxable can be a by-the-book 4x25 PP with no compromises. For now, 401k can be a conservative Boglehead-style portfolio, something like 30% stock index and 70% total bond index. Most people change employers ...

IMO, in this scenario IAU is the lesser of evils. But physical gold is better.

IMO, we are transitioning between one of the four conditions. Since we are "in neutral" it is difficult to tell which condition prevails, if any. But in the future, with the benefit of hindsight, it will be clear that we were transitioning into one of the four existing conditions.

Quick terminology recap: Maturity is simply the amount of time remaining before a bond matures. Duration is a more complex measure of how sensitive a bond is to interest rate changes. It is a function of maturity and several other factors. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/maturity.asp http://www....

My retirement plan is to both own a home outright, and also to have a PP that is large enough to comfortably cover all remaining living expenses. I view these as separate projects, and am trying to time things so that they are both complete at about the same time. So my mortgage situation and portfo...

It's good to keep perspective!

Mark Leavy is right about the stock PP being pretty tax-efficient, which is good, but doesn't leave much room for improvement. My advice (similar to Mark's) is: - Use the default 15/35 bands and never pre-emptively rebalance. - Use a dollar-stable fund for cash transactions to minimize taxable event...

Due to some SEC mumbo-jumbo, Vanguard is reopening its Federal Money Market Fund (VMFXX) and making it more PP-friendly: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/article/announcement-062015 The fund... will be required to hold 99.5% (up from 80%) of assets in cash, government securities, and/or rep...

My $.02, keep it simple, use a plain-vanilla 4x25 PP, and direct your energies toward things other than optimizing your investments. For typical working- and middle-class households with portfolios below the multi-million mark, spending time and energy improving investment returns is less effective ...

Thanks guys. I think sometimes critics of the PP fail to understand that, unlike most other investment strategies, the PP tries to work on both a mathematical financial engineering level, and also a psychological level. An optimized allocation is one thing, but a regimen that imperfect human beings ...

The primary sources (Browne's books and podcasts) talk about how the gold bullion allocation is an all-else-fails backup in case your local economy stops working for you. Hyperinflation is one failure mode, but there are others. As a thought experiment, put yourself in the position of a Syrian refug...

Yeah that's my analysis too.

Why don't you read what he wrote or are you just being selective? Before saying something, please consider asking yourself: will this add productively to the discussion? If not, it would be a kindness to not say that thing. We have a nice community here. A little common courtesy would go a long way.

MediumTex wrote: Why do that? 

Please stop.

+1

This is covered in the FAQ
https://web.archive.org/web/20160324133 ... ation-faq/
and also the book and the podcast.

It's a good idea but somehow I feel like there must be some kind of catch that makes investing through currency exchange rates different from investing domestically (in a different country). Otherwise I think a young Harry Browne would've bought a conservative stock/bond portfolio in Switzerland and...

I like IAU better than GLD, too.

GLD came first so it has the benefit of greater notoriety and assets under management.

Another +1, if you squint the Desert Portfolio looks a lot like a 4x25 PP with some modest reallocation. If you squint another way, it also looks like Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund (VTINX) which is approximately 30/50/20 stocks/total bond/short term TIPS. The 10% gold and 20% ST TIPS alloca...

Agreed that those are poor options but you seem to be making the best of it. Based on Morningstar, MWTRX looks like the lesser of evils. JSNFX resembles a short term junk bond fund, while MWTRX is more moderate on quality and duration. The expense ratios are a wash. If it were me I'd probably do 40%...

I like to view these drawdown's as the spring coiling tighter.  I think MT said that once, and it's true.  These drawdowns tend to be relatively short-lived and can be followed by large gains.  +1 And, the perennial question: if one were to quit the PP, what will they use instead? We have to actual...

Duration and maturity are different. Yep.  It's definitely a little confusing.  This article helped me. http://www.investopedia.com/university/advancedbond/advancedbond5.asp That's a good resource. IMO, the word choices are terrible (duration and maturity sound like they should be synonyms), but th...

This is similar to the "buy the lagging asset" strategy, which has been discussed previously. I'm not sure I understand the scenario here --- so the investor has a supply of cash that they could invest in the PP to simplify re-balancing, but would prefer not too? I don't know many people w...

Duration and maturity are different.