T-Bill Yields Turn Negative

Post by **dualstow** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:25 am

A scramble for safe, short-term debt left some investors on Tuesday paying for the privilege of lending to the U.S. government.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/treasury ... 1411516748

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 12:37 am

Wouldn't it be nice to hear what MediumTex or CraigR had to say about this? Does it bother anyone besides me that they have virtually gone away?

Mark Leavy · Post by **Mark Leavy** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 12:56 am

Reub wrote: Wouldn't it be nice to hear what MediumTex or CraigR had to say about this? Does it bother anyone besides me that they have virtually gone away?

I find it sort of comforting.
The PP is a fantastic intellectual exercise that can consume a person for a year or two.

If Craigr or MediumTex were still in the throws of it after five years, then I would start to wonder about them. They are both clearly very bright folks. They should have moved on with their lives... just about the time that they moved on.

[Added...]

I don't mean to imply that the PP is not a really great strategy. My point is that deep thinkers tend to optimize some portion of their life, and then... when it appears that they have reached a pretty good spot, they move on to something else, and let the system that they ended up with do it's thing.

Once I figured out that walking 5 miles a day is a good thing, I stopped thinking about it. I just do it.
After searching for the optimum multi-purpose vitamin, I landed on a half a dozen raw egg-yolks per day. But I don't go on and on about it.
Nothing helps boost testosterone like weight lifting. Okay. Check. I don't need to spend all day in weight lifting forums.
The Permanent Portfolio is about as safe as it get for generating market returns on money you can't afford to lose. Okay. Got it. Not a life project...

Wouldn't it make you doubt the PP if Craig and MT were spending all of their time here instead of putting the PP on autopilot and figuring out the next best thing for their lives?

That seems about right to me.

Post by **dualstow** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:11 am

Makes perfect sense.

I don't need Tex to give comforting words. I just miss his jokes and analogies.

The t-bill turning negative is like...is like...
I got nothin'.

Pointedstick · Post by **Pointedstick** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 8:56 am

So true, Mark. The only reason I hang around here is for the Other Discussions section, due to the extremely high quality of the posters generating a lot of cool discussions. But the PP is boring! Mine works just fine, and I have it tuned to the point where it does what I expect all the time without me ever looking at it.

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 1:18 pm

Call me selfish but this place is not the same without their occasional insight. And why would you start a forums site and then abandon it?

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:00 pm

So then read just a few of the posts and write something once a week on your day off. But at least show some kind of a commitment to something that you started and have convinced/enticed others to join as well. It's not that hard.

Post by **Xan** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:06 pm

I'm reminded of what happened when Vince Young decided to go pro. (Of course this was before he was more-or-less an NFL bust.) He had previously said that he was going to stay at Texas for one more year, and it was very likely that they were going to win a second consecutive national championship.

Mack Brown could have been upset at the broken promise, which surely affected him personally more than anyone. But his attitude was "Vince has done so much for us; he doesn't owe us a thing."

Craig and Tex don't owe us anything. And their absence doesn't mean they don't believe in the strategy. I'm sure they both still use it themselves. Sure, I wish they were around more, but they have lives, you know? Commenting here shouldn't be, and isn't, an obligation for them. What they ARE still doing is keeping the lights on. Thanks guys!

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 2:45 pm

How do you know what strategy they are using if they aren't posting? Why would you so vigorously start a site like this and then abandon it? And please, it doesn't require much time to throw in a few words every now and then. It's like visiting someone's house only to find out that the people who live there are out doing something else.

barrett · Post by **barrett** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 4:48 pm

This really should be another thread, but...

Reub, MT and Craig have written a TON about the PP. Before they wrote the book, they answered a gazillion questions on that epic Boglehead thread, and they both gave a lot of input here as well. Craig has already gone on record as saying that he is just talking about the same stuff over and over at this point (I am paraphrasing). I miss MT too but he has written prolifically about the minutiae of the PP.

Post by **dualstow** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:21 pm

+1 We don't need handholding.

buddtholomew · Post by **buddtholomew** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:50 pm

Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures. I am comforted that they left when the portfolio regained its composure after 2013's decline.

How many posters follow the 4x25 HBPP as outlined? More and more posters appear to have modified the allocations to meet their specific objectives. I suspect MediumTex and/or Craig have as well. Does it matter?

Pointedstick · Post by **Pointedstick** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:56 pm

buddtholomew wrote: Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures. I am comforted that they left when the portfolio regained its composure after 2013's decline.

How many posters follow the 4x25 HBPP as outlined?

I do, for what it's worth. But I'm not real dogmatic about it. I've been known to rebalance when something hits 33%.

barrett · Post by **barrett** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 7:40 pm

buddtholomew wrote: Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures. I am comforted that they left when the portfolio regained its composure after 2013's decline.

How many posters follow the 4x25 HBPP as outlined? More and more posters appear to have modified the allocations to meet their specific objectives. I suspect MediumTex and/or Craig have as well. Does it matter?

This thread has a split personality.

1) I follow the PP more or less "as outlined" but I am new to the portfolio this year. I have used new money to keep the bands close to 4X25 but I would also consider really narrow rebalancing bands as I don't think that practice hurts returns much (and could be healthy for me personally).

I sincerely doubt that Craig and Medium Tex are living high on all the profits from the PP book. It is just not on the radar of 99.9% of investors, never mind the public as a whole. Again, if you go back to 2008-2009 and read that Bogleheads thread, it can be extrapolated that the book was 3-4 years in the making. Plus they both posted on here a ton. I don't think it really matters, but if I had to venture a guess, I would say that they both have a standard PP as a substantial part of their investments.

2) As far as T-Bill yields turning negative, that could put us back in a situation where both LTTs and gold do well... LTTs because the yield curve might stay really flat and gold because real interest rates could be in negative territory. Stocks could do well too as people buy them just for the 1.8% yield on the S&P (remember the "everything bubble").

Just my thoughts.

Post by **dualstow** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 8:08 pm

buddtholomew wrote: Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures.

Have you been drinking Clive's kool-aid or something?

buddtholomew · Post by **buddtholomew** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 8:11 pm

dualstow wrote:
buddtholomew wrote: Their decision to leave the board was obviously a coordinated effort as both stopped posting around the same time. The cynic in me sees a relationship between the book release and decision to move on to other ventures.
Have you been drinking Clive's kool-aid or something?

No, but I don't believe in fairy tales and unicorns. Sorry.

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 9:59 pm

To me it is a loyalty issue, not a handholding one.

Pointedstick · Post by **Pointedstick** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:13 pm

Reub wrote: To me it is a loyalty issue, not a handholding one.

To whom or what do you feel MT and/or Craig are being disloyal to? Starting an online forum isn't a lifetime sentence.

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:26 pm

Was that all this was to them? Just starting a generic online forum with no skin in the game? No comraderie or concern with the readers and posters? No sense of belonging to a great concept? No sense of loyalty? Isn't this a little like taking friends out to dinner and then sneaking out halfway through the meal?

Post by **Xan** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:49 pm

Halfway through? Were they only allowed to leave upon their death?

Pointedstick · Post by **Pointedstick** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:50 pm

Reub wrote: Was that all this was to them? Just starting a generic online forum with no skin in the game? No comraderie or concern with the readers and posters? No sense of belonging to a great concept? No sense of loyalty? Isn't this a little like taking friends out to dinner and then sneaking out halfway through the meal?

I don't think it is. This is just an online forum about an investment portfolio. An awesome one, to be sure. But it's just an online forum about an investment portfolio.

Let's not denigrate MT and Craig. They did a wonderful thing by setting up this forum. They helped it grow to what it is today. And they're gracious enough to keep it running. They don't owe us anything. In fact, they're probably happy that it seems to be running smoothly without them, like good parents who are gratified to see their children go out into the world and thrive without the need for constant handholding or reassuring.

Reub · Post by **Reub** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:59 pm

I didn't denigrate them. I simply question why someone would have such a passion for a concept and a forum and then simply abandon it.

Post by **dualstow** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:25 am

So, ahem, how'bout that negative T-Bill? Which is, uh, the title of this thread.

barrett · Post by **barrett** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:25 am

barrett wrote: As far as T-Bill yields turning negative, that could put us back in a situation where both LTTs and gold do well... LTTs because the yield curve might stay really flat and gold because real interest rates could be in negative territory. Stocks could do well too as people buy them just for the 1.8% yield on the S&P (remember the "everything bubble").

Just quoting myself here in case this got lost about ten posts back. Am I thinking correctly here? (Trying to bring it back to your original post, Dualstow)

Post by **dualstow** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 10:20 am

I don't have an answer, but I appreciate the post

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