Vinny,
The youtube videos can help diagnose the problem too. To be clear, I did not say that I would never call the repairman; just that I now try to make the repair myself before calling in the costly repairman.

The effect of the internet on home repairs is deflationary: I am not very handy at all, but I have fixed the family washing machine twice by watching youtube videos. You can watch a repairman do the job over and over again until you can break down the repair to a series of steps. Each step requires ...

Just to be clear, the managers of FDLXX have done some tinkering around the edges. I noticed on a couple of FDLXX monthly fact sheets in the past year that they have sometimes invested in short maturing TIPS. I am not sure whether that makes them state taxable too.

@ Maddy: The risk of using a Treasury money market fund that employs repos is very small. I use FDLXX, Fidelity's Treasury money market fund specifically because it does not invest in Treasury repos. However, kevin K is correct: FDLXX has a 0.29% net expense ration, or slightly more expensive than y...

I don't think someone who holds 50% of their portfolio in US Treasury securities qualifies as an alt-right extremist.

1. Have you PM'ed blue_ruin17? He is a Canadian investor who frequently posts here and has even written his own book on the HBPP. See: Investing Equanimity: The Logic And Wisdom of the Permanent Portfolio. 2. Harry Browne warned against the use of leverage for "money you cannot afford to lose&q...

I have never invested in Treasury futures so I can’t really advise on their characteristics. Why would you want to hold a synthetic derivative rather than the real thing?

I own both TLT and 30 year T-bonds. When I first established my PP I bought TLT exclusively. I liked the ease of buying and selling an ETF inside of my IRA. After I was comfortable with LTTs, I started shifting into actual T-bonds, which I now have laddered. No annual expense ratio, no counterparty ...

"dodgy" sounds like a financial product no thinking person would want to buy.

I'm not even sure how to pronounce "Dogecoin."

"dog-gy-koyn"?

"doze-koyn"?

Likewise, I sold TLT and bought stocks (ITOT) back in March of 2020.

Reducing stock exposure (30.8% --> 25.0%) in the midst of the mania over GameStop feels good right now, doesn't it?

I rebalanced out of stocks on Monday.

It seemed like the right thing to do, given the frothy activity in the equity markets. There were no tax consequences because it was within my Roth IRA.

1. I remain a perennial buyer of both paper and electronic I bonds as part of a long term strategy to accumulate more "Deep Cash" over time. They currently account for about 10% of my total portfolio. The longer I hold them, the more I realize they are a great hedge against inflation and t...

There is a very large, highly liquid, and globalized secondary market in US Treasury securities that operates 24/7/365 and beyond the reach of the US government. Saudi Arabia demands that Japan pay for oil priced in dollars, not yen. China and Japan each hold more that $1 trillion in Treasurys. Etc....

Thanks Vinny & jhogue. Much appreciated with the Treasury Direct info! 3. Depending on the year you bought them, EE bonds double in value at a date specified at the time of purchase. EE bonds stop paying interest at 30 years, so there is no point in holding them any longer than that. Just one t...

barrett, 1. There used to be a credit card purchase option for savings bonds at TreasuryDirect, but that program expired a number of years ago. 2. Savings bonds can be redeemed in two ways now. The first is by electronic transfer from your Treasury Direct account to your bank account. My local bank ...

Why is my ibond puchased 04-01-2019 at 1.56%. Shouldnt it be the same 1.68% as the bond purchased last week Not sure where you got your information. An I-bond purchased from November 2018 through April 2019 has a current composite rate of 2.18%. See TreasuryDirect's official table located at: https...

In the short term, I bought I bonds for their yield, but worried about their liquidity. The longer I have held them, the more I have realized that I bonds are the Swiss Army Knives of cash equivalents. They can play many roles in almost any investment portfolio. Changes in I-bond rates are announced...

ocho,

Congratulations on your big pile of I-bonds.

One (minor) correction: Any I-bonds that you bought in 2016 became liquid in 2017. In April of 2021 they will become completely penalty free.

I don't see anything particularly sinister about the clunky nature of the TreasuryDirect website. I think it has, roughly speaking, the efficiency of your average state department of motor vehicles. Nobody is enthusiastic about it, but nobody wants to put up the money it would take to make substanti...

Passive income! Get yourself a positive cash flow situation from a business you own, real estate or something else. I currently work about 12 hours per week but still have lots of income from when others are producing at my office. It's awesome. 8) Yep, as in....read up about FIRE and make that hap...

Vinny, Congratulations on your I bond purchase and welcome to the club. There are several different tricks that can be used to increase I bond holdings that have been described in various threads. I have encouraged investors to treat their I-bonds as part of a long term strategy that Medium Tex desc...

Only a few more days to buy I-bonds for 2020 at the current rate of 1.68%.
This current rate easily beats a 10 year Treasury note (0.93%) or a popular 5 year Ally CD (0.85%).

An interesting take on the future of LTTs in the Permanent Portfolio.

Given its prominent mention of portfoliocharts I hope that Tyler will respond to it.

I follow the standard 4 x 25 PP with no VP.


I also track the tax efficiency of my portfolio:

10% taxable (mostly cash) + 52% tax deferred (including savings bonds) + 38% tax exempt (Roth IRAs)

Taxes and inflation are the enemies of personal wealth.