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.
I'm still wondering why you ignored a 19.4% drop in the market.
Regarding the "above Portfolio Visualizer success rate analysis thru 2017 assumes ..." It makes no assumptions at all. That's what I was trying to convey in saying that backtesting …
I ran it through Oct 2017. It's this decade that picked up the slack. Without rerunning it, I recall that the max drawdown (roughly from start to somewhere in 2009) was about 1/3 (i.e. 2/3 of original value remaining). So it must have gone up b…
"For an investor in retirement down 57% and continuing to withdraw for income he won't care whether its called a correction or bear market."
For an investor in retirement down 19.4% and continuing to withdraw for income he won't care whether it is …
For all the criticisms of LSBDX as being highly volatile, it's beaten or matched the standard benchmark (Barclays US Aggregate) and nearly done so with its benchmark index (Barclays Government/Credit), falling 0.14% short/year over three years (but …
The last correction (spanning 2015-2016) was 13.3%. Before that were corrections of 12.4% (2014), 19.4% (2011), and 16.0% (2010).
That was using a definition of a 10%+ decline of the S&P 500. If one wants to include "minor" corrections of 5…
As hard rules, they're inconsistent. Most people aren't going to max out their work retirement plans and IRAs with "just" 20% savings.
To max out $18K (401k) + $5500 (IRA) while saving 20% would require an income of at least $117,500. Even mo…
Try looking on the bright side. The swamp just became one billionaire smaller.
(For those not reading the article, after subtracting off Ross' phantom $2B, he's out of the billionaires club.)
Good column (and not pay-walled). The bright spots, such as they are, in his projections are that although he doesn't expect the market to beat inflation in the next several years, he's also not expecting a crash near term. Also, over the longer …
There are parts I agree with, and parts where I see things differently.
I agree that the intent was likely, at least in part, to prevent gaming the system. I make multiple/excess conversions in a year. Then after I see how each investment has do…
Not related to funds, but to the subject - real estate ... sumthin' in the works with tax reform thingy:
The draft says that a reduced ($500K) mortgage deduction cap applies to all mortgages originating after Nov. 2. That means that people curren…
Short summary - I haven't been able to find any Obama Roth IRA taxation proposal that would amount to double taxation. Further, the most obvious way of taxing Roths - making the earnings (but not contributions) taxable - would neither amount to do…
" The medical expense deduction is eliminated, which would also eliminate the current exception to the 10% early distribution penalty for distributions"
Notice that the writer is simply inferring without checking the draft. The inference is wrong…
@catch22, thanks for the heads up.
First, here's that same document in pdf form (I find that much easier to search; link was on the page you gave):
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4172067/Tax-Reform-Bill.pdf
Since you mentioned Roth, I …
Nice balanced post by Sam Lee.
I've a few of thoughts regarding his suggestion to explicitly incorporate costs into star ratings.
Obviously costs are already implicitly incorporated, because costs affect performance, and performance is a key facto…
@MFO Members: Please don't read or comment on this interlopers posts.
Regards,
Ted@Ted, I agree with you. It's just that it struck me so silly that people who do not benefit from a tax break should take as great news the fact that others aren't l…
That news isn't so great for people who actually work for a living ($75K- wages, or as Putnam is quoted in your article, "middle- to lower-income workers"). Less than 4% of them max out their defined contribution plans (if they even have plans). …
I did and I believe that it was an AmEx card.Was that a pure bonus, or did it require some spending? I recall AmEx used to give great bonuses on student cards (free companion coupons on Continental Air, maybe some other stuff).
I am sure that the…
Thanks Ted, though the article goes on to show that this isn't quite what Citibank said.
The next paragraph gives the actual Citibank quote, where it draws a distinction between a receiving a gift for opening a bank account and receiving rewards (…
This is not surprising if you look at the constituencies.
- Estate tax - largest 0.2% of estates are subject to this tax. Money talks.
- Property (and presumably income) tax deduction - Enough Republican members of Congress from higher tax state…
I completely glossed over your mention of VG Flagship before. My apologies. I'm confident of this Flagship information because I recently went through getting Vanguard to clarify it:
As a Flagship customer, you get 25 free trades/year. Free (NT…
You would not have to pay a fee to buy or sell T. Rowe Price funds in a Vanguard brokerage:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/other/bytype?FundFamilyId=6107
Even a partial consolidation has the advantage of dealing with fewer institutions. Y…
Whether there are penalties imposed by the brokerage and/or short term redemption fees imposed by the fund depends on the fund and the brokerage. Generally speaking, Rydex, Profunds, and Direxion funds are designed for rapid trading, and brokerage…
ER's being relatively meaningless if one trades frequently is one of those pieces of "common wisdom" that never seemed quite right to me.
Sure, if you trade monthly and one of those funds (that you own for a month) has a high ER, it won't make much…
Honestly, there are no magic tricks. The following will sound like pablum, but it's tried and true:
- Save early, save often. Don't do it to the extent that you're depriving yourself of things you could easily afford and would enjoy, but don't …
The only item I'd disagree with is the speed of moving money between investments.
If the market goes up more than it goes down, it is preferable on average not to be out of the market longer than necessary. So faster movement is a desirable feat…
https://www.thestreet.com/story/1305526/1/make-a-bundle-on-the-sps-rejects.htmlThe S&P 500 is often mischaracterized as a passively managed index of large stocks, but in 2000, its managers became seriously aggressive -- adding (and subtracting) …
Again to clarify - I meant that you (or anyone using Vanguard funds as opposed to its brokerage) could use automatic exchanges in lieu of directed dividends.
Advantages of VBS over individual funds are limited, but they do exist:
- For Vanguard f…
As I understand it, you're prefunding the Wellesley account to ensure that it has enough to cover the year's RMDs (after also including the expected dividends from other funds in the IRA). You're having Vanguard automatically make your with RMD wit…
Something similar could be said of climate change - we don't need to do anything immediately; we can wait until the last possible moment before forcing everybody to move into caves. (Just don't light any fires.)
The Krugman excerpt (which I also …
To take a medical deduction, you need proof of two different things:
1) That a qualified medical expense was incurred, and
2) That you paid the expense.
Old checks should suffice for #2, but you should also have proof of #1. That check to your d…
You have read the work of Munnell at BC, I imagine:
http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IB_17-13.pdf
Thanks for the link. Nice clean presentation, good data. I hadn't seen that, though I've seen the SS Trust figures - in many places,…
Just curious...while all the chatter has been elsewhere, the medical expense deduction doesn't get much attention. It should, given the antics which are driving up medical costs. Is this something targeted for the chopping block?
That's an interesti…
This is a good example of why I'm not fond of relying on opinion pieces. In the 2015 article cited, Krugman presents macro issues - how high a debt/GDP ratio is sustainable, what fraction of GDP is consumed by healthcare spending (both government …
Rate increases by vendor listed within the linked article.
All information believed to be accurate from indicated sources.
http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/2017/10/25/obamacare-rates-skyrocket-michigan-2018/799909001/
A time line link r…
In a brokerage account, you can't automatically send distributions from one vanguard fund to another vanguard fund as you can with a non-brokerage vanguard account.ibartman wrote about using directed dividends in conjunction with IRAs. Since peopl…
For clarity, and to reiterate what davidrmoran wrote, what you are talking about is a Medicare Advantage plan, aka Medicare Part C. That is a private insurance plan that replaces Medicare Parts A (hospitalization) and B (services, doctors), and us…
Just checked the NY State HC exchange and my silver plan for 2018 looks like it is increasing 13%. I guess that isn't too bad considering all the turmoil that has been generated by you know who.There's a reason why the CSR fiasco didn't significantl…
Disadvantage of a VG Brokerage account:
Can NOT use the 'directed dividends' (d/d) option, which is currently available only to "regular" (i.e., non-brokerage) accounts.
I've read people posting that, and it was probably even true in the past, but …
Using a Vanguard brokerage might present a minor problem when doing Roth conversions. My experience (with another broker/fund family) is that one cannot give a dollar amount to convert; only number of shares can be specified. In contrast, if an I…
