You may want to look at results since ~1976, since the PP wasn't available to investors until Gold was legalized in 1975.  The return data from the early 70's has a significant effect on backtesting, but gold wasn't tradable in those years so I think its most realistic to exclude those early years ...

It's even more striking if you look at the performance of the PP, as a whole, since January 1, 1972.  According to http://www.peaktotrough.com/hbpp.cgi which calculates historical PP performance, if it was never rebalanced, the CAGR would have been only 7.10%.  With 15/35 rebalancing, the CAGR was ...

It's even more striking if you look at the performance of the PP, as a whole, since January 1, 1972.  According to http://www.peaktotrough.com/hbpp.cgi which calculates historical PP performance, if it was never rebalanced, the CAGR would have been only 7.10%.  With 15/35 rebalancing, the CAGR was 9...

This may sound like sort of a dumb question, but when we are talking about 4% annual withdrawal rate, we are talking about pre-tax money, right?  For example, let's say someone is retiring on $1 million, and they want live on a 4% withdrawal rate.  If they take out 4% from the PP, depending on how m...

plus, historically, real estate has averaged an increase of about 4% per year in value, so I would get the appreciation as well.  And even if there is an economic crash and real estate drops a lot in value, I will still have my tenants paying rent.  Yes, if there is high unemployment, I could have ...

jason, I love the PP, but I wouldn't use 9.5% for a portfolio containing the following: 1) A stock market with 4.5% and 5% earnings yield for the last 10 years and 1 year, respectively. 2) A bond portfolio yielding <4% for 20-30 years. 3) A bond portfolio yielding <.2% for 1 year. 4) A yellow metal...

I am intrigued by the concept of owning rental properties, using mortgages as leverage.  One can expect to make about 9.5% per year with the PP, so a $1 million portfolio would yield around $95,000 per year, historically.  But if you take $1 million and use it as 20% down payments to buy rental prop...

I would take out 4% of the value of my entire portfolio from the cash position each year, and then rebalance when cash goes below 15%, right? Yep.  The good thing about withdrawing from cash is that the taxes in most years will be very low.  At current interest rates much of the bond interest is of...

I think most of the people in this forum agree that the 4% withdrawal rule in retirement will work with the PP.  I would take out 4% of the value of my entire portfolio from the cash position each year, and then rebalance when cash goes below 15%, right?  For example, if I have a $1 million PP, I wo...

Hi, Newbie to PP here.  Since 2008, I have been mainly in cash and physical gold, and while I feel generally more secure, obviously it has been a bumpy road without having the other elements in place as I have found out. I have two questions for more experienced PPers.  1) Most all my gold holding ...

Interesting discussion. I also read that gold isn't the best thing to invest in under inflation conditions. Here is another chart which demonstrates it - you might be better off investing in real estate: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272745/secure-forms-of-investment-in-an-inflation/ That's a ...

I don't have much info on the tax issue or size of it, but note that there have been some large redemptions out of PHYS recently due to the fact it was trading at a discount, aroun 14% has been withdrawn, so not sure if that will create a large tax bill for the fund. Considering that PHYS is tradin...

I already have most of my gold in GTU, and the next time I buy gold, I would like to diversify a bit.  I was thinking that PHYS is a good option because it's outside the US and hopefully does not use fractional reserves.  From what I have seen, the main disadvantage of PHYS as compared to GTU is tha...

How to Invest like a Cockroach: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-invest-like-a-cockroach-2014-02-10 The article covers the "all weather" portfolio which has many elements of the PP, but has a slightly broader range of assets and the allocation percentages have been tweaked off of t...

Well according to Fidelity, PRPFX has a 10-year average return of 7.95% before taxes, 7.41% after taxes on distributions, and 6.40% after taxes on distributions and sale of fund shares.  That assumes the maximum marginal tax rate.  The big distribution in December may skew that up for 2013.  So tha...

What is the heart of the question? If you're trying to compare the PP to another portfolio then what you really want to know is if the PP is more or less tax efficient than another strategy. In some ways, it's probably slightly less efficient. Gold would be at 28% (if not a PFIC) and cash and bond ...

My understanding is that most of the charts and spread sheets showing the historic returns of the PP (such as the ones Craig has put up) do not include dividends or yield from bonds. In other words they reflect the gains, and occasional losses based on the volatility of the four assets. The volatil...

There have been posts on this before, but I don't think there have been any clear answers.  98% of my PP is in a taxable account, and I'm trying to figure out what I can expect my after-tax yield to be.  For the past 40 years, the yield of the PP has averaged over 9%.  But some of those years includ...

Nothing out of the ordinary.  Things could get worse or stay flat for a little longer, but it generally appears to be a good time to buy into (or remain in) the PP. http://i59.tinypic.com/11rwuaw.jpg The above chart may contain errors. Gosso, do you happen to have a 3 year or 4 year rolling CAGR ch...

Nothing out of the ordinary.  Things could get worse or stay flat for a little longer, but it generally appears to be a good time to buy into (or remain in) the PP. http://i59.tinypic.com/11rwuaw.jpg The above chart may contain errors. Phew!  That's a relief, thanks!  I had no idea this is "no...

Is anyone worried that the PP is only up about 1%, total, in the past 24 months (since February 3rd, 2012)?  Is this the worst 24 month stretch the PP has ever had?

Sounds pretty close to a violation of HB's Rule#7 to me. Personally, if I had a house that was paid for I would leave it paid for and if I had (I have) a house that was not paid for I would not take any extraordinary measures to pay off the mortgage unless it had a high interest rate (and maybe not...

If you take $1M equity out of your house by refinancing you have to add a mortgage payment to your expenses - and it sounds like you're not considering this.  At 3% (which I suspect is not possible), a 30 year loan is a little more than $50k/yr (PI) while a 15 year is nearly $83k/yr so presumably y...

Hello all, I have a PP with about $5.2 million in it (98% of which is in taxable accounts), and I have about $1 million in equity in my home.  That represents everything I have - I do not have a VP.  Should I refinance and pull the equity out of my house and put it in my PP?  Based on historical per...

GTU has been selling at a discount ever since the big gold drop in April.  The discount doesn't seem to be getting any less even with the price increase over the last two months. I've been waiting for the discount to decrease, or go back to a premium, so I can sell and buy some physical gold. Does ...