Things are coming back down to reality.  My portfolio was up about 4.5% in January - down to 2.06% YTD today.

The HBPP is now back above the S&P 500.  Not too shabby.

Everything was down today except stocks, so let's not get a head of ourselves.  Nothing major, but today was a loss.

Seconding Tyler.  It means a nice return for the day.  Bonds appear to be up for the day as well, related to the Franc decoupling or not.

My complete guesses: Stocks - Will dip a bit, then come back up.  They'll be the winner. Bonds - Will do well most of the year, then the Fed will start talking rate hike, people freak out and they bomb.  Fed retracts rate hike talk and they recover a bit but down for the year. Gold - Just going to h...

Thanks Gosso!  I should clarify - I have two PPs.  One for my regular savings and one for retirement.  In my retirement I hold long term bonds directly and physical gold. I hold funds for my regular savings b/c it's just easier and more liquid (particularly the gold portion) that way if I ever neede...

Gosso - I must just be really really bad at math?  I'm calculating by subtracting my overall portfolio's ending value from teh starting value - dividing the difference by the starting value and multiplying by 100.  I'm getting 8.53% for my return.  I know there's differences between FSTVX vs SPY and...

Ad Orientum - turns out I'm dumb and had an error in my spreadsheet for calculating the percentage.  The truth is that my margin of error isn't nearly as bad as I thought.  From open Jan 2, 2014 to close Dec 31, 2014 is a gain of 8.53% - much more believable difference in performance. So PHYS doesn'...

Also, when calculating the YTD, are people here using the prices from the close of Dec 31 2013 to close Dec 31 2014 or the open Jan 2nd 2013 to close Dec 31 2014?

Ok, I back tested my funds on Yahoo Finance - my original numbers were not starting at the beginning of the year so I did a little better than I thought - 7.98% return.  Still curious where the discrepancy is coming from though.  Did my individual funds really under perform by that much?  My funds a...

I'm perplexed.  My tracking of my portfolio says 6.7% - huge difference.  I don't know if I went wrong somewhere in the tracking, if it's the funds I'm holding or if I missed a rebalance.  Etf replay doesn't track all my funds bc I'm not all ETFs.  Does anyone know where I could backtest the followi...

Thanks everyone.  My expenses have been high lately b/c I just bought a house last year and I've been doing a lot of renovating.  Even without that though my expenses are probably fairly high compared to most b/c I live just outside of NYC in Fairfield County CT, which is a really expensive part of ...

Hi All, I have two HBPPs.  One is for retirement and it holds actual bonds and physical gold.  The other I set up as a way to earn some interest with my short to mid-term money using FSTVX, PHYS, TLT and SHY. I sold a decent amount of the short to midterm portfolio when I bought my house last year a...

Thanks Tyler!  That's the best answer yet.  I did not consider that the fund will be purchasing bonds at the higher rates - that is very reassuring.  I'll stick with what I have and just add cash to the portfolio and my regular bank account for now.  Appreciate it!

Also, it may take a while for one of the other asset classes to offset loses in bonds.  They may be a year or two of significant draw down and I may or may not need the money in that time.  That's the concern - it doesn't always work like clockwork where one asset takes a huge hit and the other imme...

I'm not misunderstanding anything.  I get it.  Again, I have two HBPPs.  I'm only questioning whether it's a good idea to use the strategy for the short/midterm when it's fairly obvious rates will go up at some point in the short to mid term. I would hate to have it take a big hit with money I may n...

Murphy - don't need to read up on it.  I know that part of the strategy - which is only recommended if the interest goes up to justify it.  I was just pointing out how there is less risk of losing money in owning the actual security vs the fund bc you always have the option of holding till maturity ...

Hi All, Looking for some thoughts/opinions.  I have two HBPP.  One is my long term retirement portfolio which is as strict as it gets - holding 30 year US Treasuries and physical gold.  I'm leaving that as is. The second is a short to medium term fund.  For convenience and liquidity purposes, I hold...

Like I said, "I would stray away from putting a stock fund in your roth IRA.  [b ]Unless it earns you heavy dividends,[ /b] you're not going to get taxed on stocks until you sell.  You can avoid this by just contributing to the losing asset classes each month and avoid having to sell to rebalan...

I would stray away from putting a stock fund in your roth IRA.  Unless it earns you heavy dividends, you're not going to get taxed on stocks until you sell.  You can avoid this by just contributing to the losing asset classes each month and avoid having to sell to rebalance. You'd be better off for ...

Some may recall me debating endlessly what to do with my medium term savings - PERM, PRPFX or 4x25 PP.  I went with a 4x25 PP.  I put the money in just a few weeks ago.  So far I'm up and can't complain! I feel good about the decision overall and would recommend it.  I need to stop checking it so of...

Thanks Rick - that's super helpful.  So that 20% highest draw down was just on one particular day?  And the highest year end drawdown was 4.1%?  That's a risk I can handle as I'm not going to wait until the day I need the cash for a downpayment.  Once I decide I'm definitely buying a house and my po...

Tom, be aware that over the last forty years there have been periods of significant draw down in the permanent portfolio, and that one could occur when you are ready to cash out for the down payment.  It may not be likely, but it is possible. What is your time horizon for buying a home? When I look...

I'm really uncertain.  I'm getting married in April and I'd really like to do it sooner than later, but my gut tells me to not rush and save up a little more.  I live in the NYC area and housing prices and the taxes are astronomically high.  Even with a 200k downpayment and earning six figures, putt...

I've read that despite being able to redeem shares for actual physical gold, that due to being a closed-ended fund that it doesn't track the price of gold nearly as closely as GLD.  Not sure which way to go. There's always buying physical coins.  Since this is for shorter term investment, could it b...