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.

Are there any relatively new (< 5 years old) movies that ARE worth anything? The last one I saw that I liked was The Hobbit, and even that got a bit annoying toward the end. 1917 has been mentioned here. It's definitely worth a watch. Ford v Ferrari was a fun recent one. Oh, Knives Out was super fu...

A really good submarine movie has to impart a sense of claustrophobia, complete with sweaty palms.

If you liked Das Boot, be sure to see these World War II submarine hunt movies: The Enemy Below (1957, Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgen) Run Silent, Run Deep (1958, Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster) As a kid, I was fascinated by submarines after my parents took me to see the captured German U-boat, the ...

I like the idea of a bank with offices in US, India, and Singapore.

Don't bull markets die when earnings fail to prop up P/E's?

We had a similar situation when both of my parents died several years ago. My mother collected everything from cancelled stamps to sets of china. She was a borderline-hoarder due to dimentia and refused all our entreaties to part with her "stuff." My father collected tools and fishing gear...

I think the critics panned Gladiator when it came out because it exalts masculine (and martial) virtues.

My short list is kind of long. I think each of these has redefined a genre and-when I am in the right mood-worth watching again and again: Gone With the Wind Lawrence of Arabia Doctor Strangelove Patton The Godfather Chinatown Terms of Endearment Blade Runner Last of the Mohicans Gladiator Also, Ame...

I was wondering with ST rates at 0 and LT rates at 1.54 if people still had confidence of that performance over the next 20 years. No question, the Fed has intended for its Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) to lower the entire Treasury yield curve, end-to-end, since 2008. Despite 12 years of non-sto...

Investors in online Ally bank CDs ( 5 year CD currently 1.00%) should take note of a thread over on bogleheads: Ally has apparently ended its online early withdrawal option. Holders of CDs who want an early redemption must now call the bank and speak in person to a customer service rep. There are al...

While our political melee and racial issues are concerning and a manifestation of our dysfunction as a species...I'm much more concerned about our ability to cope with climate change. Ironically it's not even a Black swan event. We have known for quite sometime that this is going to present challen...

I remember how Volcker crushed inflation with high interest rates. It was great if you were saving dollars. Not so good if you were trying to take out a long term mortgage on a house. I got my first money market fund from Dreyfus about 1979-1980. At its height, I think I was getting 20-21% on my mon...

1. To give it some context, the 1 November I-bond yield of 1.68% is better than on-line Ally Bank's advertised 5 year CD (1.00%) or a 10 year Treasury (0.77%). The best no-risk short term investment out there today-- and probably the only one without a negative real yield right now. 2. Don't forget ...

Good question, barrett. From an HBPP technical standpoint, I don’t think there is anything wrong with using 1-3 month T-bills for Cash as you have described. The only problem is that doing so is practically guaranteed to earn a negative real rate of interest over the coming year, given the Fed’s ann...

My target Cash position, consisting of equal parts FDLXX/ 1 yr. T-bills/ I-Bonds, is very similar. Over the past year I have stopped buying T-bills and shifted toward FDLXX/ 0 / I-bonds as T-bill yields have fallen to close to 0%. Has Fidelity waived the .42% expense ratio on FDLXX? If so, that fun...

Corto,
Thanks for providing one more reason to confirm 48 year old Judge Barrett.

Diane Feinstein, who is 87 years old and obviously suffering from hardening of the attitudes, accused ACB of letting the dogma live loudly within her. The senator never took back those words.

Sounds like an unconstitutional religious test to me.

1. The older I get, the more I appreciate 30 years of federal tax deferral and 30 years of state and local tax exemption. BTW that federal tax exemption continues even if you have reached the age of Required Minimum Distributions. Why redeem your I-bonds now, if they still fulfill their original int...

Savings bonds and CDs both have purchase limits. In the case of CDs, the purchase limit ($250,000) is a function of FDIC and NCUA insurance policies. Those limits are periodically adjusted (always upward), primarily because of the effect of inflation. In the case of savings bonds, annual purchase li...

I think that I bonds will never get much recognition.

The very fact that they carry a 0.00% expense ratio means that banks and brokerage firms will never have any incentive to advertise them. In fact, they have every reason to instruct their legions of financial advisors NOT to advertise them.

I think your VUSXX/ STTs/ I-bonds formula will work out well for you. My target Cash position, consisting of equal parts FDLXX/ 1 yr. T-bills/ I-Bonds, is very similar. Over the past year I have stopped buying T-bills and shifted toward FDLXX/ 0 / I-bonds as T-bill yields have fallen to close to 0%....

EE Bonds look like a terrific current buy at 3.53% yield, but it requires holding them for 20 years. For that reason, I would only consider them after I had bought my full quota of I Bonds for the year-- and in conjunction with an explicit liability matching strategy. I bonds really are uniquely pos...

I think it is more than a cliché to advise PP investors to take their risk in equities, not Cash. With three out of the four assets in positive territory year to date, it is practically a given that Cash is the worst yielding asset. As a matter of fact, I wonder if there has ever been a period where...

1. If the government offered 50 or 100 year bonds, I would buy them gradually to replace my current T-bonds. Why not? They would have a higher yield and volatility than current 30 year T-bonds, which PP investors should find encouraging. I think that the US issued 100 year bonds to finance the const...