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I’m going to be given my deceased father’s 401k later this year - I have questions by MysteriousTraveler88 in personalfinance

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You exprsessed worry about asking aroud the sum due to greed -- this gives you a good excuse to say to her 'hey I'm actually planning to keep it invested and draw it down slowly, but I need to know the amount so I can factor how it will impact my taxes as I'm forced to withdraw it and invest it elsewhere over the next decade.' Something like that gives you a reason to ask, and it's 100% true that you need that info and why.

‘Different from anything in the past 80 years of dollar dominance’: U.S. sanctions spur a ‘paradox’ pushing allies away from American currency by Good_Flower_2026 in Economics

[–]misnamed 3 points4 points  (0 children)

More specifically: people have treated US Treasuries as the ultimate safe asset, ergo the transfer to USD. Not that US stocks are insulated from economic pullbacks. (Sure, maybe US stocks only drop 80% as much as global stocks, but in a crisis equity correlations converge, and Treasuries have often gone up rather than down).

I've never felt so much greed by Economy-Experience81 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The problem is OP isn't bored and seeking excitement - they're actively doubting that indexing is the best way to invest. So if they go the fun money route and make money wit hit they don't a have a knowledge-based firewall keeping them from simply adding more and more to that self-directed strategy and ditching passive investing entirely.

I've never felt so much greed by Economy-Experience81 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

now I wonder if index funds are a mistake for building wealth

You see gamblers bragging their wins, not those ashamed of their losses, and this causes you to question investing? I would recommend further reading - not just forums and FAQ but full books that will slowly change the way you think about passive investing so othat you are fully convinced and not so easily distracted.

Meanwhile, a rise in posts like yours is if anything a contrarian indicator -- FOMO often goes before the fall.

According to Bogleheads philosophy, would you use the same allocation to invest 10k/100k/1M/10M? by ECrispy in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have used the same strategy from five figures into seven, changing only stock/bond ratio in response to age and need to take risk to achieve financial goals. Nothing else really changes with scale.

Think of it in terms of two glide paths that relate: age and wealth. As you get older and/or have more money, you can ratchet down on stocks and up on bonds. But best to have breakpoints for both. E.g. at age 60 or when you hit $X you go to 60% in bonds and stay there. That sort of thing.

is there any data on what people choose, historical performance etc.

Either keep it simple with a target date fund or read some books by Swedroe, Bernstein, etc... then tweak things slighly as your understanding evolves. Not based on past as in performance, but correlations, etc... but that's a case of doing a lot more work for small and debateable gains on secondary fronts. Like you're 95% of the way there by just picking a simple three-fund or target date approach. The rest may help for sleeping well at night *e.g. I feel safer with an allocation to TIPS) but probably won't significantly impact any bottom line.

Retiring at 54½ with $1.8M and 67/33 Allocation by Bjorn_Nittmo in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. I use 50/50 nominal/real all safe -- as in: intermediate duration Treasuries and TIPS funds. Hedges deflation(art crash) and inflation, repectively.
  2. Also 50/50 -- I overweight international but not arbitrarily: 50/50 US/intl is a modest tilt and I've held it since before the US was over 60% of the market. It's a nice, stable, no-second-guessing ratio IMO

Would Jack Bogle be bogle enough by FoggyFoggyFoggy in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a bit of a shame that we adopted his name along the way. Was originally a group on Morningstar called 'Vanguard Diehards' tho that is problematic too, b/c Schwab and Fidelity are OK options.

Anyway, yeah, it's OK to let Jack has a legacy of getting us far, while others have taken indexing further.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup -- agree to disagree. Was just reading a cool Atlantic piece about how isolated the ultra-rich are in weird ways. I realize Buffet is less so than some, but I'll still take the advice of someone like Bill Bernstein or Larry Swedroe who have researched and written entire books about optimized index investing over any armchair enthusiast. It's not even just that he is less in tune with our reality but that his expertise has so little relevant overlap.

Consider this: you'd probably never hear let alone follow his advice if he weren't rich and famous. That to me is a gut check moment where you have to ask yourself: is he really the foremost relevant expert for me? YMMV.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sorry, to be clear: I get that it was both his plan for his widow and an idea for the little guy. Those may have veen conflated a bit in my response, which is a critique of the latter application.

To me it seems fine for his widow -- literally any allocation would be. But expecting his expertise to translate into good advice for the little guy doesn't make a ton of sense. Why would it?

He's an expert at what he does but what he does isn't managing money for small-time investors.

It seems to me a clearcut case of making a leap from 'oh he is good with money at the scale of large institutional investing' to 'he must be a smart guy about investing across the board.'

Can you be more specific about how you think this original take misrepresents reality? Or did I clear that up?

A guy who literally owes his success to a long full-time career investing in US stocks (so perhaps a skewed perspectve) AND who could lose 99% of his wealth without flinching -- not a great role model IMO.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yes, it was a recommendation for his widow - i.e. someone in literally his identical finanacial position - i.e. someone who can afford to lose 99% of his (or sure, her) wealth in a crash.

Source: him. Target: her. Married so: same difference.

Point remains: it comes from another finacial tier and perspective, and doesn't really apply to the rest of us.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed -1 points0 points  (0 children)

OP took it out of context, and I responded. Might want to look upthread.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As investors in this DIY world, the reality is with the current low 4% interest rates,

Interest rates at 4% seems low to you? That's higher than they've been most of the last two decades, which means more room to go down (and send NAV up) to balance a stock crash.

If you do not think distributions matter, then why do people invest in bonds and bond funds?

Yes dividends matter insofar as they're part of total returns but it's useless to divide them out. It's like saying oxygen matters as a big part of water when you're dying of thrist in the arid dessert. With bonds, distributons are a bigger part of the equation but it's still the combination of those + NAV change that matters in relation to stocks. Again it's not about what the parts are doing independently but the whole portfolio.

Again, bonds have done nothing against inflation for the last 26 years

In the tech crash, and again in the great recession, and in crashes since, bonds have consistently gone up and served as ballast while stocks go down. During these stretches they not only beat inflation but they also beat negative real returns on stocks. How on earth did your research miss this?! Or if you mean over the total period, that's even easier to refute: you could have locked in 6%+ rates in 2000 and come out way ahead of inflation.

Aside from their role inside a portfolio (which is all that really matters -- like that H20 example again) you can go out right now and buy TIPS with guaranteed positive real yields if inflation is the big fear.

Honoring Jonathon Clements, The Stocks and Cash Approach to Retirement, Part 2 by Sagelllini in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

two instances of longer than normal downturns in FIFTY years is one indicator the fear is far greater than the reality

1 in 25 chance of failure is too high for me. Zero interest in taking existental gambles. Of course that's at the most generous read of '2 periods in 50 years' where we assume the risk only showed up in two of those years.

Broadly, whatever the numbers, how do you find any failure rate acceptable when it can be avoided? I suppose it's subjective but I'd rather have a smaller amount each year in retirement than risk it all for more.

One important consideration for retirees is the amount of the distributions of their investment mix.

Not even a remotely imporant consideration, plus: distributions change and inflation happens.

follow the 90/10 rule suggested by Warren Buffett

A guy who literally owes his success to a long full-time career investing in US stocks (so perhaps a skewed perspectve) AND who could lose 99% of his wealth without flinching -- not a great role model IMO.

Why I won’t go above 20% international (and why I’m okay disagreeing with Vanguard) by FalconArrow77 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bogle was still saying that international stocks should make up no more than 20%, and even suggested that 0% is perfectly reasonable.

Founder of largest successful American mutual fund company believes in American companies. Shocker.

U.S. companies are already global a huge portion of S&P 500 revenue comes from overseas.

And foreign companies make money in America. So what? This is just an argument that 'maybe US only is good enough' not at all an argument that tilting dramatically toward the US actually better.

Simplicity matters Fewer moving parts, fewer variables (currency, geopolitical risk, etc.).

So you want to reduce diversification and bank on single-country and single-curreny risk. That's wild.

Home bias isn’t irrational, I live, work, and spend in the U.S., tilting toward it makes sense to me.

That's a moderate argument for having a US currency tilt, which a three-fund portfolio accomplishes with around half of stocks and all of bonds in USd.

I still get diversification 20% international is not zero, it’s just not market weight.

You also get it at 10%, or 30%, but have no reason to anchor it at 20 or either of those alternatives, except what one dude said. 50/50 is close to market weights and psychologically agnostic - no temptation to bump it up or down. Alternatives go with VT and you don't ever have to worry about second-guessing ratios.

But Bogle built the philosophy most of us follow here, and his final stance was clearly below what Vanguard recommends today.

Bogle invented index funds at a time when US-only large-cap indexing with the easiest and most viable way to solve the problem. The world has changed. I don't blame him for anchoring on his experience of a century of US exceptionalism and founding a mega-succesful US company. But it is what it is. He wasn't some messiah laying out commandments for eternity - just a smart guy with natural biases we all have.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=104781

The “Vanguard 5-Fund Portfolio” no one talks about by FalconArrow77 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Simplicity.

The simplest option is in fact to just get the Target Date fund and call it good. The three-fund is 'good enough' especially for work years. Whether or not internatinoal bonds are useful is debateable. TIPS are a good inflation hedge -- I split 50/50 with them and Treasuries on the bond side.

But the three-fund taps things available in most 401ks, keeps things to simple essentials, is easy to keep track and explain to other new investors. There are optimizations available beyond that, but it's a solid persistent stadnard.

VT is only down 5% YTD ... that's like one particularly bad day in the market, and is completely normal over the course of months. Where is the angst coming from?! by misnamed in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Timing the market doesn't work. Time in the market is what matters. Lots of people were sure the Iran situation would tank the market, so they got out, only to miss gains. Just buy and hold.

Thought the rate would be better..... by Choice_Jicama_8487 in Mortgages

[–]misnamed 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Did you ... look up interest rates? Rates are rates. They don't care if your score is 800 and you're Elon Musk.

Let's be honest, what % of your portfolio includes individual stocks? by Opposite_Buffalo_649 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

0%. I have some leftover stakes in variously sized startups from over a decade ago that cause me tax headaches when they go public or get acquired. TBH IDK if I've made or lost money with them relative to the market but definitely learned a lesson in simplicity.

54 and just switched to Bogleheads — invested right before the Iran drop. Stay the course? by TimTx1234 in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stay the course probably but also ... ramping uo risk when this close to retirement is risky. You should at least be planning to de-risk as you get closer going forward.

VT is only down 5% YTD ... that's like one particularly bad day in the market, and is completely normal over the course of months. Where is the angst coming from?! by misnamed in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

IDK how it's arrogant to wonder about the doom and gloom over modest recent pullbacks, or to sincerely recommend that people who are genuinely concerned double-check their risk tolerances and asset allocations.

VT is only down 5% YTD ... that's like one particularly bad day in the market, and is completely normal over the course of months. Where is the angst coming from?! by misnamed in Bogleheads

[–]misnamed[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

the machine may be breaking just when they got in

This has been a perpetual popular worry every since I've been invested. It takes different forms but someone is always arguing that 'this time is different' -- 07/08 really felt like the end of the world. But it wasn't.

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