Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Hi TSP Transfer,
Thank you for the alert. I'll try to see the event. And it is an event; these guys are terrific.
Your heads-up deserves to be posted as the primary topic. I recommend that you repost to attract a wider audience. All MFOers wou…
Hi Guys,
Our venerable and highly prized Linkster seems to be on a thematic roll. Over the last few days he has uncovered and referenced a series of articles by distinguished financial writers who are highlighting the difficulties and dangers of m…
Hi Guys,
Howdy AKAFlack. It’s good to hear from you once again. I hope your marketplace charting methods are still generating superior returns and/or superior Sharpe Ratios for you.
Somehow I am not shocked, nor even mildly surprised by the Kosm…
Hi Guys,
Charles, thank you for the atta-boy. Although I don’t always agree with the positions that Junkster advocates, I always respect his analysis and his clear communications of those positions. Indeed, good, actionable stuff.
I overstated …
Hi Guys,
This is a tricky task for me. To paraphrase, I come to bury Ron Muhlenkamp, not to praise him, yet I admire the man.
Both my wife and I have separately talked with Ron on a number of occasions. We both like the man as a person and as a …
Hi Guys,
In my last post I mentioned the yeoman work that Allan Roth performed about a decade ago. I failed to provide a specific reference to his work or his interpretation of it. I just located a very brief commentary that Roth made to the AARP…
Hi Guys,
Allow me one final thought on this topic.
Diversification is good under most circumstances, over-diversification can ruin that goodness, but on the other hand, concentration might offer benefits depending on the proclivities of an invest…
Hi davidrmoran,
Aha! Thanks to your more detailed description of your original question, I believe I have finally had a Eureka Moment. I suspect that I can now provide a better reply to the thrust of your original post.
In a sense, you are askin…
Hi davidrmoran,
Sorry that I did not answer your diversification benefit question to your satisfaction. Sometimes it’s difficult to gauge exactly what an MFOer knows and what he needs to fill the gaps in his understanding. My second attempt will …
Hi davidrmorman,
Sorry for my brief and incomplete reply to your question. Today is a happy day for our family. We will celebrate my beautiful and intelligent wife and my 55th Wedding Anniversary with a seafood lunch at the Redondo Beach pier. B…
Hi Davidrmoran,
You might want to visit and exercise the tools accessible on the PortfolioVisualizer website to secure evidence of diversification benefits. Here is the Link to the site:
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com
That website offers se…
Hi Mozart325,
Thank you for referencing another Life Expectancy calculator. I have used others and am always interested in yet another option.
Unfortunately however, I do not fit the profile demanded by your reference on two counts; I am not und…
Hi Ted,
Great fun. A more modern version is from Seinfeld's parking spot episode. Here is a brief segment from it:
Since I have been there and done that, the episode is a little painful to watch for me.
Best Wishes.
Hi Joe, Hi Derf,
Joe, your decision to return to part-time work is not that unusual. It is a very common happening for a variety of reasons. Part-time work after retirement is like a 50% number.
Derf, statistics, based on countless surveys, are …
Hi Guys,
Thank you all, and please enjoy yourself on this Day. Have a Happy Easter.
I played a little tennis earlier this morning. The courts were mostly empty on this bright sunny day. We had a grand time and are anticipating a fine family mea…
Hi msf,
Thanks for your contribution. I sure do agree with your observation that baseball, and almost any other meaningful, complex human endeavor, demands a refined team organization and dedicated effort. “No man is an island unto himself”. We’…
Hi Guys,
I have a very simple one-word answer to the needs for fund manager benchmarks: Yes.
For retail customers, a fund selection is often based on the quality of its manager. One important ingredient in the recipe for manager qualifications is…
Hi Guys,
The writer makes a case for portfolio diversification during retirement. I don’t object to that conclusion, but I do think that the method used to justify that conclusion was heavy-handed and a little deceitful. He also did not report on…
Hi Junkster,
I am more than surprised; I am astounded.
Wow! You really are taking an extreme position at one end of the spectrum. There is no doubt what you really think on this matter. And I have every confidence that you say what you mean and…
Hi Hank,
Great question and insightful comments! Thank you for your contribution.
I don’t know how well the average financial advisor does in his construction of a client’s portfolio. I can’t reference a specific credible study in that arena. P…
Hi Guys,
I believe the author of this NY Times piece is spot on-target. Many investors need help in preserving and amplifying their retirement resources.
I’m perfectly happy to accept the fact that most retirees are smart and possess an ample sup…
Hi Bee,
You asked: "Do you know if RMD is part of a Monte Carlo Simulator?"
I can give an unconfirmed "yes" to your question. It is available on my earlier referenced PortfolioVisualizer Monte Carlo code. I say unconfirmed because I've never use…
Hi msf,
You are absolutely correct mathematically that "Never" is too strong when events are random. The odds of an exact replication of past returns is not precisely zero, but the odds approach zero, especially as the timeframe expands. I should…
Hi Davidrmoran,
Using a set of rolling market returns is a step in the right direction over the original Trinity study approach, but it is a very small step. It still only reflects the exact sequence of returns that were historically registered by…
Hi MikeM,
Thank you for your assessment of the causes that promoted Rome’s fall as transposed to the current USA situation. You suggest some serious parallels. Thankfully you conclude that you don’t project that same calamity for the USA in your …
Hi Guys,
Whenever a MFO discussion on retirement planning and drawdown schedule is initiated, my contributions are predictable and fairly consistent. Sorry about that, but I’m a firm believer that Monte Carlo methods are especially appropriate too…
Hi Old Joe, Hi Hank,
Hank, my post was designed for the general MFO audience. I assure you, it was not directed at anyone. It astounded (surprised) me that with over 250 folks accessing this discussion, the Presidential Cycle data set was not men…
Hi Guys,
Forecasting is a torturous trap. Losers dominate over winners. I was somewhat surprised that so many MFOers accepted Puddnhead’s gauntlet. I’m further surprised that no responder deployed the Presidential Cycle market data to inform or s…
Hi Ted,
Thanks for the update. I'm often a dollar short and especially a day late. Such was the case in this instance. That rarely happens on your consistently timely posts. Thanks also for those countless fine posts. Good, solid work indeed!
…
Hi Guys,
When things aren't perfect and need some work, my first course of action is to,examine my own shortfalls in that area. I typically do not point fingers at others since I recognize the most likely contributor; that's myself.
I believe the…
Hi Professor David,
I was ready to whip out my checkbook to purchase a few shares of a GMO fund when I realized I was a tad short of the membership entry fee this month. Too, too bad. I suppose a few other MFOers also find themselves in that situ…
Hi Shostokovich,
As President James A. Garfield noted: “Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter”.
Similarly, an investor cannot survive on a simple one-dimensional model to capture stock market movements like CAPM is, but a ful…
Hi Ted,
It's great to have a dedicated historian committed to the site. Thank you.
I had forgotten that I recommended the PortfolioVisualizer site about 2 years ago. Your memory saved me time responding to the question once again in a positive w…
Hi Professor David,
Indeed Jeremy Grantham is famous for his long-term market segment predictions.
Initially, he formulated his judgments for the upcoming decade; more recently he has shortened the timeframe to seven years. Initially, his project…
Hi Ted,
Thank you for reminding MFOers of the CXO Advisory Group Guru Grades study. It is one of the few easily accessible research works that carefully scores specifically named market forecaster accuracy. It is a treasure.
The Guru Grades demo…
Hi Dex, Hi BobC
Thanks for your commentary. Perhaps from this dialectic exchange a useful synergy will emerge. That often happens.
I take no issue with the general rules that you both advocate. I too use them. But they are motherhood and apple…
Hi Dex,
MikeM is exactly on-target.
You provide a fine list of glittering generalities. These are such motherhood concepts and values that they are typically acknowledged without careful scrutiny. They appeal to the emotions, but are they action…
Hi Guys,
Simple heuristics (rules-of-thumb) are fine when making common everyday decisions like buying a hamburger or not, but are totally inadequate when making complex, significant decisions like those about retirement.
The retirement when, wher…
Hi Guys,
I like Max Gunter’s investment insights and his writings. I own and have read both his Zurich Axioms and his Luck Factor books. They are excellent. Unfortunately I read them over a decade ago, and probably don’t recall too much of the a…
Hi Hank,
Amen to that. I am certainly not recognizable today as the investor (speculator) I was 6 decades ago. Hell, I'm not the investor I was 6 months ago. Change happens as surely as aging does.
EDIT: And you are dead in the water if you s…
