I tend to agree with everything that MT just said. I really don't know of a better way to protect your money than the HBPP and still grow it.

FSBIX seems to have more volatility relative to SHY, but it's in the same ballpark.  You could put half or 2/3's of your cash allotment into FSBIX and keep the other half/third in the MM, which will smooth your volatility a little.

There are a number of them, but in my research a couple of years ago, most were load funds, which I am not a big fan of.  Here is a list, many of which I'm guessing you'll find, are "Precious Metal Funds" that hold gold in addition to silver, and other metals. http://www.preciousmetalinves...

We don't export manufactured goods like we used to, but we sure do export inflation well!!!

Between my wife and I (I manage all the investing for both of our assets), we have accounts at TDameritrade, Scottrade (x2), and another firm too small to mention.  My wife will soon be opening a Roth IRA account at Vanguard. It is sort of a pain having your assets spread out between multiple accoun...

I do a bit of both for my portion of investable money that is allocated to the PP.  I do see that PRPFX is slightly more risky.  I agree that the past decade has been great for PRPFX due to having higher allocations to hard assets and less LT bonds, which of course is great timing.  That of course d...

Clive, I appreciate your posts.  I tend to agree with much of what you just said.  I personally am using about 1/3rd of my assets in the HBPP and/or PRPFX. I actually look at that as similar to cash (stable).  Of course I understand that this portion could have a DD, but so can cash as purchasing po...

I'm fully convinced that for every bullish case, an equally compelling bearish case could be made by someone else.  That stands for any asset class, at virtually any time.  Think about it.  If these "writers" knew when to invest and in which asset class, why would they be writing for a sma...

Just2trade and optionshouse are two brokers that charge $2.50 and $3.95 respectively to trade.  Interactive Brokers is another low cost equity broker.  Obviously when DCA'ing into any security, it is important to keep your trading costs as low as possible. Wellstrade offers 100 free equity trade per...

MediumTex, Have you ever looked at Harry Dent?  I just received his book, but haven't had time to read it.  He is a very demographic-driven economist.  He seems to be very bearish about the next decade or more and he's pessimistic overall about the future of the US (again I haven't read much of his ...

I have been running with 1/3rd of my investable assets in the HBPP for less than two months now.  I recently found out about HB/PP reference while perusing the Morningstar board.  That led me to the bogleheads threads and then to this.  I was looking for a mean reversion strategy at the time, to com...

Clive's devil's advocacy reminds me of the investment equivalent of two of the three little pigs showing the third little pig some homebuilder's research demonstrating that stick and straw houses represent better home values than brick construction according to all conventional metrics. The third l...

Clive, I appreciate your point of view and probably tend to agree with you quite a little.  I hold about 1/3 of my investable assets in the PP.  That is the portion of my assets that I feel is the most stable (but you can never be 100% sure about that obviously).  I also use some other strategies si...

Wait... did I miss it?  How did your father become a multi-millionaire in 10 years? You can't leave us hanging like that! Nothing too sexy.  After spending the previous 18 years in the restaurant business, much of that working for a corporate chain, he was finally able to open his own high-volume f...

First, realize that this is a horrible time to try to get a better job.  There are 100 resumes for every open spot.  I'm not trying to depress you, but I say this because it's important for you to not let your struggles cause you to lose confidence in yourself.  It's just a tough time right now. Sec...

I tried to bottom pick Natty (UNG) a while back and quickly got out.  I wish that I would have known about FCG as a much better alternative to UNG at that point.

I certainly don't think it will stand the test of time.  I would be shocked if the Euro can survive another significant default situation.  It seems like it would be very hard to convince your voters (in Germany, France, etc) that it is in their best interest to keep bailing out lazy, financially re...

Some years ago, can't recall exactly when, the US decided a taxation policy that favoured retention of earnings over paying out dividends. The UK in contrast continued with higher dividend payout rates. My guess is those extra retained amounts just get wasted (big bonuses, failed expansions etc.). ...

If I could continually pick undervalued companies and make 30%+ PA like Buffett, I would probably avoid long-term bonds too.  However I can't do that, so I keep a big chunk of my money in the PP now.

MediumTex wrote: These cyclical bull markets within secular bears always end in tears.

Until they don't. I guess that's the purpose of the PP.  We don't really know what's going to happen in the future, despite our hunches.

Re: German Bonds I'm actually surprised that there isn't a German Bund ETF at this point.  I would be shocked of a product serving this sector doesn't come on line in the next couple of years. With the proliferation of ETF's, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be demand for this product. There are ...

He lost all credibility when he said that it may not keep up with inflation for retirees.  If the PP doesn't the only thing that might would be 50%+ commodities.  Most retirees will tend to be bond heavy in their later years and surely the PP will do much better then their portfolios. I could respec...

Thanks guys.  I appreciate the helpful posts.

Hi everyone, I have been reading this forum for the past few days and appreciate the venue as well as the wealth of info from others that have found the PP to be valuable. Here are a couple of questions that I've been thinking through recently and haven't found answered yet.  A little about me.... I...