Wong and Otto, thanks for your insights, very thoughtful. I guess if negative emotions and time spent on mourning the investment losses were easily quantifiable I'd sell it all long time ago.  8) Right now I'm almost certain I will sell one portion soon and then it'll be easier to get rid of the sec...

SmallPotatoes wrote: What price can you put on piece of mind?

Sell it all and invest it in your PP. You'll eventually recoup your losses. You'll sleep better too.

Vote update:
Sell half - 2
Sell all - 1

Ideally, you should have a system that automatically indicates when it's time to get out. Think of the PP's rebalancing bands for instance. Once you decide on the bands you should act on them without second guessing. Same thing goes for buying, this way emotions will be out of the way. Right you ar...

MediumTex wrote: If your best friend asked you the same question, what would you tell him/her?

I would say "hold on to it", although mentally I really would like to get rid of it.

I agree with Clive, sell half if you are undecided.  Don't limit yourself to binary choices if you don't need to. OK, looks like we have 2 votes for partial sell. I seem to like this idea - in fact I have this ETF in 2 separate accounts so it's a no-brainer to sell the smaller of the two portions. ...

In case my use of the CR abbreviation is unclear... CR = Crawling Road.
I hope CraigR will approve.

I own a country-specific ETF that accounts for around 10% of my VP. I bought it in April 2008 - at that time I knew nothing about PP and was peacefully blinded by buy-and-hold paradigm. Yes, it was performance chasing as this ETF had been doing great for a few years when I bought it. I saw my positi...

Although i do realize that it's better to keep this forum PP-related. Yes, but remember the VP can be discussed too!!  ;D I have to admit I have a similar reaction as you to threads on the Bogleheads forum. Even though I still peruse it daily. And even though I have only one toe (well, actually 3+ ...

Just sharing my thoughts about CR forum. During the last several months I was mostly reading BH threads, including "the great HB PP thread" and then jumped into this forum as soon as Craig started it. It just dawned on me that nowadays I spend very little time on BH and put much more atten...

I'll try to be alittle more clearer  ;D. The asset starts with a weight of 25% then when it goes up to 35% you rebalance. If it goes down to 15% then also rebalance. My personal choice is up band of 30% or down band of 20%, but there is not a very meaningful difference between the two though. OK, s...

That is right, I was testing for extreme cases. I personally settled in rebalancing every time an asset increases/looses it weight by at least 5% of total PP. These translates to 30% and 15% bands. The 10% are less work and they work just as well. Interesting - so it means asymmetric bands: fluctua...

LNGTERMER wrote: Thanks foglifter, so in this case I am assuming you would still rebalance if the bands go off sync. How about a ticker for and I bond?

I'm not sure if I bonds have tickers... maybe you could just treat it as a MM fund - with a share price of $1.

:D I view the PRPFX/EDV 90/10 strategy and the ibonds in the PP cash portion to be the two best ideas I have come up with in the whole PP discussion. MediumTex, that is very interesting, are you saying instead of SHY for the cash portion we hold PRPFX/EDV 90/10? No, I believe PRPFX/EDV 90/10 was hi...

I second that, but just to make sure we are talking about the same thing, when I say 5- 35% I am talking about an asset gaining that percentage.  If I'm reading your numbers correctly it means the asset share in the portfolio can rise to anywhere from 30% to 60%! Nothing wrong with that - you might...

Thanks for a good input, MediumTex. Do you know if the interest payments from I bonds are taxable at the state level?

I'd like to continue this thread and ask our rebalancing experts what they would recommend to those who tend to be more comfortable with a simpler rebalancing strategy (if one is possible at all). 1. Are there any grounds behind HB's recommended 15/35 rebalancing bands or are they purely theoretical...

I've never dealt with I Bonds and since many of you recommend them I got intrigued. Looks like current yield is 1.74%, which is not that bad.

Can someone outline the best way to buy them - TreasuryDirect, my brokerage account etc.? Is it easy to sell them if I need cash?

Thanks Clive, this is a good writeup. I didn't face a dilemma of lump sum vs. gradual entrance into PP as I sort of "morphed" my old over-sliced BH-style allocation into PP.

AIM approach looks interesting, I think it's a flavor of value averaging, isn't it?

Maybe market-cap weighting isn’t as much of an issue because the stock allocation of the PP is relatively low at 25%-35%? I guess you got it right  :D. Consider slice-n-dicing of equity part as the icing on the cake. I use US TSM as a core with some dividend-tilted small cap emerging markets exposu...

Just sharing a bit of joy - after many months of slicing-and-dicing, reading, asking questions, fighting doubts and BIG help of this forum (and BH PP thread) I've nailed down my PP! Input from many of you on different nuances of PP helped immensely. Special thanks to Craigr and MediumTex for ideas o...

Thanks for the reminder. I do see that TIPS are a less-than-ideal method of holding cash. I'll probably just keep my MM at ING for now… maybe look at more I Bonds. I know some people prefer MM funds to bank accounts, but given miserable yields I prefer to keep cash in high-yield accounts in bank or...

Title says it. Why (or why not) use TIPS  as the cash component? TIPS are supposed to protect against inflation. In PP this is taken care of by gold. Cash should to some extent save your portfolio when everything else goes down, so TIPS won't be a good choice in this case. Remember 2008? TIPS poste...

I have been considering a PP + IVY +Bogle mix for my VP.  Essentially, it's a 5x20 mix composed of VTWSX, Gold, LT Treas, ST Tres/TIPS, and REIT.  I'm hoping it would act much like a PP, but with Bogle-Swenson twist.  More Global stock covering developed and emerging markets as well as exposure to ...

I've just posted a link to a good analysis of all available paper gold instruments in the GTU, GLD, SGOL, etc thread, thought it might be interesting for some folks. The article was published before the recent IAU ER cut. There is some controversy about GLD, but interestingly IAU was not mentioned i...

I found an interesting analysis of various gold investment options available today, it compares fund structure, tax treatment etc. The recommendation is basically to choose SGOL, which stores gold in Switzerland. Nothing bad said about IAU though, and given the recent expense ratio cut I wonder if I...