PP is WAY DOWN...:(

[rocketdog]

Honestly, the time spent fretting over your investments is a tremendous waste of energy. If you index, pay low expense, and have wide diversification, that is 99% of the game. If you have a wife/husband, take them out to dinner or go for walk. If you like whiskey, enjoy a (small) glass. Drink some nice pu-erh tea if you don't drink alcohol. Whatever it is just enjoy your life. Wouldn't it suck to spend your life worrying about investments and then dropping dead when you least expect it?

+1.  I'm reminded more of this mindset every day as I hear about people I work with or live near or am related to contract serious illnesses and perhaps even die.  A woman in her 50s who worked across the hall from me died earlier this year of cancer.  I have a cousin in his 50s who's in hospice right now with terminal cancer.  A woman in her 30s who works with my wife just found out last week she has non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  Lately it seems like every month brings with it a new tragedy for me to contemplate.

We're all lucky enough to be alive and living relatively peaceful lives, free of chronic pain and suffering and the constant overarching fear of starving to death or being eaten by a predator or consumed from within by a parasite. 

Keep things in perspective: worry about the things you can control, and leave the rest to fate.  You can't control the fluctuations of the markets, so let your PP find its center and it will see you through.  In the meantime, enjoy your life while you can. 

[UPDATE:  I just learned my cousin died yesterday right around the time I was writing this post.]

[dualstow]

Honestly, the time spent fretting over your investments is a tremendous waste of energy. If you index, pay low expense, and have wide diversification, that is 99% of the game. If you have a wife/husband, take them out to dinner or go for walk. If you like whiskey, enjoy a (small) glass. Drink some nice pu-erh tea if you don't drink alcohol. Whatever it is just enjoy your life. Wouldn't it suck to spend your life worrying about investments and then dropping dead when you least expect it?

I agree with everything except for the choice of tea. I find pu-erh cha to be have an unwanted laxative effect, although that first syllable is just a happy coincidence. I prefer to drink some "Four seasons (of) spring" from Taiwan. Not only is it delicious and stimulating, but think about what a pleasant name that is.

[happyspec]

All these depressing threads.

This is not exactly a Cassandra complex, but I can't shake the feeling that someone with nerves of steel could put a bunch of money into the pp, forget about it for a few years, and make out like a bandit. I realize that this is not a popular sentiment, with everyone waiting for gold to hit 300USD an oz, but that's how I feel.

I liquidated a lot of individual stocks in my vp to help fund home renovation. Any cash leftover is going into the pp for the long game.

Very wise decision IMHO, dualstow

[Roy]

When a portfolio has as many diverse, volatile components as the HBPP, large moves can happen fast when correlations converge, even as this fund demonstrates a placid smoothing effect over longer periods.  (And the design of this fund is long-haul preservation.)  All these things were known years ago or could be surmised.  And nobody worries when the diversification produces fast gains.

So within the shortsighted context of a calendar year, it is way early in the game for worry, though it may feel bad to the newly acquired who scrutinize things with heightened interest as they live through moments—and the living-through thing is true with any portfolio composition that contains volatile components in generous portions.  Hey, some who just bought into a conventional "balanced fund" of stocks and intermediate bonds are also having short-term confusion as to why their bonds are going down with equities.  The major difference in this design is a comparatively large dollop of Gold, which has contributed mightily to the smoothing effect over time.

I would not be surprised later to read posts that talk about what a good buying opportunity this was for HBPP.  Will be interesting what will be said of these months 3-5 years from today.  Or maybe even this year.

[MediumTex]

When a portfolio has as many diverse, volatile components as the HBPP, large moves can happen fast when correlations converge, even as this fund demonstrates a placid smoothing effect over longer periods.  (And the design of this fund is long-haul preservation.)  All these things were known years ago or could be surmised.  And nobody worries when the diversification produces fast gains.

So within the shortsighted context of a calendar year, it is way early in the game for worry, though it may feel bad to the newly acquired who scrutinize things with heightened interest as they live through moments—and the living-through thing is true with any portfolio composition that contains volatile components in generous portions.  Hey, some who just bought into a conventional "balanced fund" of stocks and intermediate bonds are also having short-term confusion as to why their bonds are going down with equities.  The major difference in this design is a comparatively large dollop of Gold, which has contributed mightily to the smoothing effect over time.

I would not be surprised later to read posts that talk about what a good buying opportunity this was for HBPP.  Will be interesting what will be said of these months 3-5 years from today.  Or maybe even this year.

Good post Roy.

Nice to see you stop by.

[williswine]

[UPDATE:  I just learned my cousin died yesterday right around the time I was writing this post.]

Sorry to hear this, rocketdog!