buddtholomew wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 7:56 am
Nohing magical...
UCLA, AEC, Biotech, eCommerce industries as a Director of Business Intelligence/Big Data
Married a Dr.
Inheritance
Save 20-25% annually.
Invested in 2008/2009 and biotech was bought out in 2011.
Lucky and hard work!
Very interesting! I've always been curious, too.
I’ve always followed the book career wise and saved as much as possible at the expense of spending frivolously.
Continue to battle emotional demons (fear of loss is the major one) as I had it all, then lost it when we immigrated and now have built a future for my family once more. They would be fine without me as both my wife and I come from a good background with both sides (father and father in law) Fortune 500 CFO’s.
Like I said nothing really magical, just well rounded, a good saver and most importantly lucky to be employed since 1996 without any disruptions.
Hey Stuper1, emigrated from South Africa at the age of 12 and landed in the San Fernando valley (Southern California). There’s really no secret to my success other than fear of failure and loss. These traits are very powerful but carry a lot of baggage.
Anyway, thanks for your interest and I hope I haven’t been too much of a bother. There’s no one else for me to vent to other than on this board but I do need to take a deep breath and count my blessings. Thanks for making me realize that.
Budd, congratulations. $14M is an amazing achievement.
If I were you, I'd look at things like this: consider that you have $7M, an amount that just about anyone could live off of forever without worrying about. I'm quite confident that a $14M PP would never dip down to $7M (not in real terms, anyway). Then look at the amount above $7M as a bonus.
dualstow wrote: ↑Sat Jun 16, 2018 9:00 pm
Wow, I was way off. I was thinking Greece, because all the Greeks I know can write native-like English, + you know, the Greek physique.
Do you have more of a British accent or Afrikaans like the guy in District 9? (I need to hear the proper accent in my head when I read future posts).
I can still fake a South African accent but when a child comes to a new country the last thing they want to do is look like a foreigner. I assimilated very quickly and now you would never tell the difference linguistically between me and my children (although I say tomato sauce for ketchup) haha.
I don't want to hear it Budd, how gold is not carrying its weight today. We all are hating gold right now. Even the gold bug sites I peruse are hating gold and sick of it, and rarely talking about backing up the truck, gold is on sale BS like normally. Traffic, by number of responses to posts, is also way down.
Hey, come on, look on the bright side it’s down less than equities across the board. I was going to post and then decided not to as I’m sick of hearing it in my own head as well. Portfolio is doing fine today so far.
I ditched the SGOL in my IRA yesterday. Leave it to me to wait until it sinks down to breakeven. ($50 profit).
It was not NOT part of my pp gold. That gold I have left alone.
I wonder if $1150 is a possibility? It would hurt, but also help. I think the gold play is a very long-term thing, years long. Gold will shine when we run into really severe budget problems and can't honor our debts, and the can can't be kicked forward any longer.
Blah blah blah...everyone looking for excuses why it is going down. Bottom line, PP (gold) investors are losing significantly to equities year after year after year and especially small-cap now. My IJS purchase is up 25+% while gold falls like a lump of shit. Same amount of $ yet that investment will send my kids through private school. I know the “supposed” reasons for holding gold in a diversified portfolio but it sure hasn’t worked out that way for me at all. The PP assets, the essence of the portfolio that distinguishes itself from other portfolios - ie gold and LTT’s have hurt me more than they have helped me going on 9 years now.
Xan wrote: ↑Wed Jun 20, 2018 3:19 pm
Budd, why not go 100% into T-bills? Serious question.
I’m not looking to retire from investing, but rather looking for a portfolio suitable for the rest of my life. Where’s the benefit to holding this portfolio (PP). All I see is everything else going up and 50% of the PP going down with cash earning 2% now. Lost opportunity is substantial.
PP is like a child to me, giving them everything possible to flourish and somehow the last step eludes them. They’re one step away from being magical with all the gifts any athlete strives to possess, but they keep coming in 4th.
stuper1 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 20, 2018 5:45 pm
You got $14M in the bank, and you don't feel like you can retire?
At my spending level, I could retire on $14M right now in my early 50s, even if the future portfolio return was negative every year until my death.
Comment was in response to Xan on converting to T-Bills.
I’m not complaining just rooting “sooo bad” for the PP to “win” but maybe it only “loses” less. Serious.
The pp has been a smooth ride and it will continue to be, but I have always expected limited upside compared to just stocks, by definition.
I think it’s a fine portfolio for x>$10 million. (Wouldn’t be surprised if Craig has at least that from his sale to Cisco). Easy to hold gold, because you can live off interest and dividends from the other 75% of holdings. I think?
I don’t know about you, Budd, but if I sell everything and go all stocks, that’s when this bull market crumbles faster than Egypt in the World Cup yesterday.
dualstow wrote: ↑Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:09 pm
The pp has been a smooth ride and it will continue to be, but I have always expected limited upside compared to just stocks, by definition.
I think it’s a fine portfolio for x>$10 million. (Wouldn’t be surprised if Craig has at least that from his sale to Cisco). Easy to hold gold, because you can live off interest and dividends from the other 75% of holdings. I think?
I don’t know about you, Budd, but if I sell everything and go all stocks, that’s when this bull market crumbles faster than Egypt in the World Cup yesterday.
I can’t think of an alternative other than adjusting asset weighting’s to suit your needs. It just feels like a crapshoot when a high allocation to gold is added to a portfolio.
That's exactly what it is, a crapshoot, because gold is uncorrelated to stocks/bonds, at least that's what the data say. The theory is that when stocks/bonds go out of favor, that money will shift to cash or gold. But that shift may have a lag time of weeks or months, based on past results. The lag time could be even longer when things are just going sideways for a while.
What time frame, budd? IJS, Dow, S&P, vs. PP? YTD, here are the comparisons for my allocation. PP better than bonds, on par with Dow, better than foreign, only S&P significantly better. Drop that to 30 days and PP looks even better.
Isn't this all somewhat just noise on a slow steady, not spectacular, CAGR?
Cortopassi wrote: ↑Wed Jun 20, 2018 7:39 pm
What time frame, budd? IJS, Dow, S&P, vs. PP? YTD, here are the comparisons for my allocation. PP better than bonds, on par with Dow, better than foreign, only S&P significantly better. Drop that to 30 days and PP looks even better.
Isn't this all somewhat just noise on a slow steady, not spectacular, CAGR?
Agree, timeframe matters. My foreign holdings are + 6-7% YTD with mid-cap and SCV up around +8 and +10% respectively. REITs are flat and IT bonds around -2%.
Gold is already dropping below my target allocation and I’m concerned with allocating more capital somewhere down the line. Getting in at a lower price doesn’t ease my distress as it can stay lower than cost basis for decades.
I've seriously enjoyed your commentary. Angst is what makes us all think.
How much gold would you hold if you thought it was nothing more than a currency hedge?
I.e. Most of your assets are valued in US dollars. Imagine that gold represents a basket of all of the other world currencies. Nothing more, nothing less. Gold goes down if the dollar goes up. Gold goes up if the dollar goes down.
What percentage of your portfolio should be allocated to a dollar hedge?
