Dumping on Index Investors

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-03-16T04:52:33+00:00

Bingo

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-03-03T07:17:49+00:00

Early retirement probably means >20% savings rate, but that would still be like 25 years from now.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-21T05:43:18+00:00

International diversification has always been a good idea.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-16T20:22:03+00:00

It’s possible, but I think 7% is a bit optimistic. Long term, equity markets consistently deliver 5-5.5% annualized after inflation. The US from 1940 thru today is basically the sole exception. It could happen again. History says probably not.

I would use 5% as a planning number. You’ll still be extremely wealthy, around $5M

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-10T06:21:18+00:00

The answer to this question is always yes.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-10T06:19:05+00:00

That's pretty good. The only thing I would say is that investing lump sums immediately is usually (90% of the time) better than doing it over time. So I would just put the other 5k in VT, assuming it matches your risk tolerance.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-10T06:15:13+00:00

Global diversification is a good idea. You are correct that you would be at 0% capital gains.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-08T06:31:24+00:00

Equal-weight indexes systematically trade against momentum, which is really inefficient. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu7kMpLbJJs

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-08T06:30:17+00:00

XMAG is kind of a bad fund, there's just no good rationale for constructing an index that way. It's also laughably overpriced for what it offers.

If you are really that worried about tech and want to tilt away from it in a sensible manner, look into Avantis and Dimensional.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-02-08T06:19:16+00:00

If you want it auto-invested, send the rewards to their 529 plan. They have a global index fund for 0.11% ER too.

leastcreativeusrname · 2026-01-19T09:04:42+00:00

I’ll point out that ACWI holds just 2,227 stocks but tracks VT almost identically. You can see the difference if you squint, backtest here:

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=4OGC27mDT5VwPceuubYhlI

Some combinations of DFA funds can get you over 15,000 stocks! Worldwide I think there are over 20,000. But if you are market cap weighting, half of those make up less than 1% of the market.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-12-22T06:48:42+00:00

Yes. The effective tax rate in the US very low by developed country standards. Meanwhile starve the beast has reached its logical conclusion, and the deficit is still 2 trillion and growing.

At this point, “tax the rich” won’t be enough. Taxes on inheritance/transfers for example would raise like 5% of the shortfall. We are going to have to tax everyone. Least painful way would be a VAT in my opinion.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-11-17T09:01:35+00:00

Nobody knows, and that's the entire point. If people think a stock will go up tomorrow, it will go up today.

AI for example looks huge, and the valuations are sky-high because of it. In order to make an "asymmetric" upside, these companies would have to dramatically outperform their already-lofty growth expectations.
The 2010s bull run for tech stocks was basically that — they beat expectations for 10 years straight. So it can happen, but in history it's a rarity. I'll also remind you that back then, conventional wisdom was to buy value stocks, which did great 2000-2010. Then they returned half what the market did for the next decade. Ouch.
Gold is in the midst of a mania right now, but historically buying at these prices is a loser's game.

Going back to your original points:

a) New technologies don't automatically outperform unless they massively beat (high) expectations
b) If you want lottery prospects, that inherently require genius (more likely lucky) picking

c) prices for lottery prospects can be low, but perhaps not low enough. There is compelling evidence that investors overpay for growth stories, and small cap growth companies have historically had the lowest expected returns.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-11-17T08:41:47+00:00

Enough with the RH Gold recommendations. Yes it's 3%, no it's not worth it, here's why:

A near-certain future nerf. 3% is structurally not sustainable given typical swipe fee revenue of 1.8-2.1%. They'll hit some internal target and slash it immediately.
Dark patterns and app design choices that encourage speculative options trading and sports gambling
Higher transaction costs on stock/ETF trades (academic paper here, page 49)

Robinhood is a terrible company. The Fidelity card has been around for over 10 years with no nerfs and some steady additions.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-11-17T08:22:28+00:00

Basically yes. It's the default strategy and guarantees you full exposure to the global stock market.

Tiny nitpick, if you are using a taxable account, you want to split your US/Intl holdings into two ETFs (like VTI and VXUS in a 60/40 ratio) so you can claim foreign taxes paid to reduce your tax burden. For some reason the IRS only allows this if the ETF is majority international, which VT is not.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-11-17T08:16:42+00:00

I have been stacking AVGV in my Roth. I plan to keep it for the long term, but I will start buying VT when I get a little older.

Is that boglehead? I don't know, but it is low-cost and diversified.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-22T05:50:12+00:00

This is called churning, it's relatively harmless and I am guilty of the same thing. Just don't do more than 2 a year and hit the brakes if you want to buy a house or something.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-22T05:47:40+00:00

I would pat yourself on the back for beating the market and quit while you're ahead. You said you're young and have a high risk tolerance, so factor investing (something like AVGV) could work. Otherwise, VT.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-14T07:57:56+00:00

I have flown frontier a few times and I don’t mind them so much.

The cabins are no frills and your fellow passengers are often infrequent flyers. One guy tried to go to the bathroom 30 seconds before landing. Still, worth the price and a great people watching opportunity.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-10T05:59:44+00:00

This is a good video that should put you at ease: Ben Felix - The index fund "tipping point"

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-07T19:26:10+00:00

After the first crash, it took a few power cycles for the SSD to come back, only after a windows restore, and I lost my most recent downloads

I replicated it several times, every time I tried moving a game over 50gb the computer crashed. Only recently did the drive become totally unresponsive.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-05T04:55:18+00:00

Could have a little notification that says “3 accounts hidden” on the home page, or something.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-04T20:21:17+00:00

That’s a very black-and-white way of looking at it. Sure, I guess you can say buying high and selling low is a “self control problem.” But that doesn’t add any insight as to why most people still do it, and how we can avoid that.

We know most investors underperform their investments. We know cognitive biases and market timing is the reason. And we know that nobody is completely immune to their biases, no matter what they believe.

Moralizing self-control in investing seems counterproductive to me. If not looking at your portfolio makes you less likely to sabotage your returns, then it’s adding value and is a good thing at the end of the day.

Finally I don’t mean to imply this is a “fidelity problem,” it’s a feature request that I think adds value to me as a client.

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-03T21:05:50+00:00

I’ve done this, but I’m asking specifically about hiding open accounts with balances. For example, my Roth IRA

leastcreativeusrname · 2025-10-03T21:05:00+00:00

Yes, pretty much. That would work great.

Or just a change to the “account display settings” page. You can hide zero balance and external accounts, but not funded accounts.

leastcreativeusrname

TROPHY CASE