I just spoke with bond desk at fidelity and they stated no markup.  To verify I looked at current market yield on Bloomberg and it actually showed the yield at about 5 basis points lower than Fidelity, which would indicate a lower per bond price.  Real time quotes may be a factor here since we are o...

It's in my VP which is a 30/70 allocation.  Equities are all index funds.  The backtesting I've done shows a 5-7 year FI maturity gives me the risk profile and volatility I'm looking for.  Shorter maturity decreases my CAGR and longer maturity increases risk.  To be candid I'm probably way over thin...

I'll see if I can search out a thread over there.  Don't recall seeing it.  I've talked with the guys at the fixed income dept at Fidelity and they kinda sound like they think I'm crazy.  BUT, they can't give a good answer as to why not. I doubt they encounter folks that are this concerned with main...

There may be a disadvantage, but I'm unaware of it myself. I'd probably be reluctant to sell at a loss at the end of the year if rates have risen, and would probably just prefer to buy ticker IEI and ignore it. But, I see that you explicitly said you want to increase individual bond holdings. (What...

I was once told by a forum member named Joe that commissions aren't the only type of charge. Brokerages can also apply a markup on treasury transactions. I am also with Fidelity and am not exactly sure if they apply markups to treasuries on the secondary market. For that reason, it may be slightly ...

I'm trying to keep my fixed income allocation based around 5-7 year maturity.  I'm holding IT Treasury funds, ETF's, and also some individual bonds. I'd like to increase my individual bond holdings and since I buy/sell through Fidelity there are no transaction costs.  My questions is: if for example...

Two days ago I was in the process of posting a similar question about fees at Fidelity when I noticed this part in their commissions pdf: https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/Brokerage_Commissions_Fee_Schedule.pdf [img width=500]http://i.imgur.com/wKCYuIj.jpg[/img] I c...

It is completely baffling to me and I cannot see how she will win unless she radically alters her message. Sadly, because democrats will vote for her regardless. This brings up something I've wondered about for years.  It really does seem Democrats will stand behind their leader regardless, i.e Bil...

The psychological drive to go scorched earth on the thing one liked enough to try but found wasn't for them is always fascinating.  Isn't it the subject matter of countless country songs? Here is the MediumTex adaptation of He Stopped Loving Her Today prepared just for my friend buddtholomew: Budd ...

Very neat! My name is Luke Hamilton. I’m a 16 year old student in Bali, and I created the Fibonacci Blocks as my grade 10 personal project. After I created my prototype set, many people wanted to buy a set, so I would love your support so that I can go into production. These blocks are designed usi...

Please tell us what camera and len(s) you are using for those shots.  they look great!

And one more thing................here in Texas we have a lot of hard working, good family oriented, law abiding illegals from Mexico.  I sincerely wish there were reasonable legal channels that would allow them a path to citizenship.  If they are truly coming here to escape the poverty and violence...

Yeah, the Mexican border is too vast to effectively police without dramatically increasing law enforcement manpower and building a huge guarded wall or something, all of which would be extremely expensive and highly problematic for the small government and Libertarian wings of the Republican party....

If we ever adopt a Citizen's Dividend, we damn well better actually tighten up the border and enforce it and allow it to only legal citizens and probably drop the birth clause in the Constitution.  I really don't know what the hell the Border Patrol does now that allows so many illegal-undocumented...

When I was 14 I worked in the parking lot of a giant flea market, and then I moved up to a car wash when I was 15.  I worked with a lot of Mexicans at both places, but it never felt like we were competing against each other.  Both were crappy jobs and they were always hiring at both places because ...

How could any state/region split off from the federal government and satisfy all the welfare needs of the people?

MediumTex wrote:
Those Chinese men are not going to want to snort some kind of industrial plastic.

They will be standing in line for it after Pfizer and Lilly give the drug an interesting name, and then come up with some more of their pseudo-erotic TV advertisements.

I appreciate the opportunity for anyone who enjoys tipping to tip.  A also appreciate the traditions of tipping in NYC, even thought it's difficult for me to relate to as I live in a relatively small Texas town. My concern is why is tipping necessary to insure an employee doing his/her job?  Outside...

What is to keep these insurance companies from waking up one day and greatly increasing policy premiums or reducing benefits?  What is to keep them from deciding they no longer want to participate in these types of policies and just cancelling the outstanding policies? I've also heard horror stories...

I am not a pharmacologist but I spent 38 years in the marketing department of the company that made Valium.  I spent many of my years marketing this product to the medical community,  Unlike other benzodiazepines, I have never heard of any success with diazepam other than oral and injectable applica...

Mark,

Thanks.  I use Excel and apparently it provides the same functions.  I can use these values for individual bonds, and then get fund/etf durations from morningstar.com.

I guess then just applying the durations on a dollar weighted basis would give overall duration for a bond portfolio.

Anyone know of a website where one can enter specific bond allocations (funds, etf"s, individual treasuries) and arrive at the average duration for the portfolio.

Pointedstick,

What did you use to create the charts in your OP??

I understand and agree with everything that has been said above.  However, my PP only accounts for about one quarter of my total portfolio.  It may be more some day. Being retired, an extremely large part is in fixed income, consisting of short to intermediate term instruments.  I also hold a fair a...

I was really interested in a recent thread that showed increasing the equity portion and decreasing the gold portion of the PP made little if no difference in long term returns.  Since I am currently at that ratio (35/50/15) I'm considering adopting that as a permanent allocation. My question is in ...