What can be done?

Personally:
-Practice institutional diversification. It is still hard to believe that some people invested ALL of their money with Bernie Madoff.

Collectively:
-Support lawmakers who promise to turn Jon Corzine into Bernie Madoff's bunkmate-- for life.

Back when Corzine was an ex-officio member of the board of trustees at Princeton, all the kids wanted to be hot-shot investment bankers or hedge fund managers.

Xan, It only gets wilder: Mr. Corzine is a former co-chair and long associate of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street's most storied investment bank. It simply is not credible to argue that the man did not know what he was doing. Consider also that, given his net worth has been estimated at $300 million, the ...

Budd, If you need some facts (enough to paint some stunning statistical pictures), check out Tyler’s latest graphs comparing SWRs for 100% stock and standard HBPP portfolios over in the current thread at: https://www.gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&p=167863#p167863 I find Tyler’s...

Budd,

That is baloney.

Anyone who invests in the HBPP ought to understand that it is bound to under-perform in an equity bull market.

That is how you get "conservative growth."

Yeah, it was a great one-liner... But not the only one!

“Jon Corzine’s New Hedge Fund Eyes Event Wagers Triggered by Trump” See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/jon-corzine-s-new-hedge-fund-eyes-event-wagers-spurred-by-trump Somehow, the return of Jon Corzine to Wall Street escaped my attention. Not only did Corzine not got to jail for...

Do you think that bitcoin is affecting the gold market? If so, how??

Pugchief, The total interest rate on an I bond consists of a fixed rate plus a variable rate. I bonds mature thirty years from the month of purchase. The fixed rate is established at the time of purchase and remains in effect throughout those 30 years. The variable rate is re-set every six months, o...

barrett, After reading your post several times, I don’t think that you are describing a portfolio allocation dilemma. I think you are describing a tax efficiency dilemma. Optimizing tax efficiency on maturing savings bonds depends on your retirement goals and your marginal tax rate. Some suggested u...

Doesn't this belong in the Variable Portfolio Discussion section?

Bud,

Don’t just do something, stand there!

I don’t see anything wrong with keeping a 38% cash position until the equity markets simmer down. It will dampen the volatility of your overall portfolio.

But, then again, maybe that is just me. I signed up for the PP because I wanted less drama, not more.

Ochotona, I think that your concerns are real, but I also think they apply to our entire investment portfolios, not just paper U.S. Treasury bonds. My father-in-law invested in EE bonds, mostly intended for his children and grandchildren, for almost half a century. He kept them all in his local bank...

If Buddtholomew did not exist, this forum would have to invent him.

Keeping a perpetual worrier around lets the rest of us see just how ridiculous it is to try to micro-manage the Permanent Portfolio

Thanks, Bud.

I keep electronic I bonds in a Treasury Direct account as well as paper I bonds in a safe deposit box at my local bank. I like both forms for different reasons: I bonds held at Treasury Direct can be redeemed and the cash transferred to my bank account as a computer transaction 24/7/365, just like s...

This just in. The bond market really is crazy. See the article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Easy-Money Decade Upends Bond Market." The accompanying graph shows that the yield on 10 year Portuguese government bonds is now higher than 10 year U.S. Treasurys. Think about it: Which would ...

Consider this alternative:

1. Sell 50% of your VP.
2. Move those gains to your PP and distribute 1/3 each to gold/cash/ LTTs. (I am assuming your stocks in your PP have moved up as well.)

-You can still play your VP bet on stocks, just not as aggressively.

-You will sleep better with a larger PP.

This just in. The bond market really is crazy. See the article in today's Wall Street Journal, "Easy-Money Decade Upends Bond Market." The accompanying graph shows that the yield on 10 year Portuguese government bonds is now higher than 10 year U.S. Treasurys. Think about it: Which would y...

When you put it like that, I guess I am not missing anything!

Thanks for correcting my mis-perception of your views on gold.

You may be correct that gold is under-valued at the moment, but how can you tell?

ochotona wrote:I see tax loss harvesting in my future...

Are you saying you look forward to tax loss harvesting LTTs in a taxable account?

All my LTTs are in tax deferred (76%) or Roth accounts (24%). I have no LTTs in taxable and have been wondering if I should re-think that asset location strategy.

Investors in the PP will want to read Burton Malkiel's editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, "How to Invest in an Overpriced World." Malkiel, a Princeton economics professor whose book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," has become an investment classic that foresaw and suppor...

Investors in the PP will want to read Burton Malkiel's editorial in today's Wall Street Journal, "How to Invest in an Overpriced World." Malkiel, a Princeton economics professor whose book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street," has become an investment classic that foresaw and support...

I used Sophie’s “tax trickery” with high coupon short term Treasurys a couple of years ago. We sold our old house and had to park the proceeds in something cash-like for a short time while we finished building a new house. An additional consideration was that the amount of cash we parked exceeded th...

Yup. There have been rumors for years that the Treasury Department is going to drop paper I bonds through IRS tax returns. I think political pressure from Congress has prevented abandoning a popular program. For details, see: GAO Report on the Future of Paper US savings bonds: http://www.gao.gov/pro...