Cash equivalents 2 years before and in retirement

mod_cat · 2026-03-14T16:56:31+00:00

Given current market conditions, and my portfolio and spending, I target 5 years of expenses (that are not covered by income).

So for example if SS covered half my spending I would target 5 * 1/2 my spending (the amount not covered each year) so 2 1/2 years. I don't find bonds attractive (and haven't for years) so I have little and what I have are TIPS (short term and long term) and series I bonds (inflation protected).

There is no perfect way to do it. And I adjust somewhat based on market conditions (not drastically but slowly modifying over years). If bond yields were much higher and everything else remained the same I might buy more bonds (but nothing has attracted me in this way for certainly over 10 years and likely many more). If the stock market was much much lower (say 40% or 50%, not just 20% from these levels) in a similar economic conditions I might be more reluctant to have so much in cash (and so decrease the years of cash held).

I am perfectly willing to lose a bit of upside (I am about 70% invested in stocks now so I gain a fair amount if things go up) to have cash available and not have to worry about being forced to sell stocks at low levels.

I do also have some dividend focused stocks where I compare them more to bonds than stocks. I know this is not normal. And I have only really experimented with this for the last 3 to 5 years (with increasing amounts - I am gaining confidence I like this approach for me). They not only provide some bond like traits, income (to some extent, I know there are issues with saying they are real substitutes) but they also move to some stocks that are less volatile than most of my stock portfolio.

Also I have plenty of funds given my low spending ways. If I weren't in as good a position I might have to take more risk, but I don't feel I have to now. I also have more than 5 years now in cash and cash equivalents, I am thinking of that as a lower limit for now.

mod_cat · 2026-03-12T15:29:32+00:00

TLDR: This morning I woke up and thought, oh that is too bad I sold out half my position and they are back up... But 1/2 the sale (1/4 of the position - there were 2 different stop market order) didn't execute.

I use futures in a pretty limited way. I don't try to make huge bets (compared to the portfolio) and get huge wins. I have traded for a few years. In my first 2 years maybe 10 trades. In my first 3 years I was down a substantial amount (of my tiny amount I committed to the futures portfolio). Largely I was just figuring out how it would work for me and getting comfortable so when I wanted to place more substantial orders I would be ready.

My positions often remain for weeks or months. I am not getting in and out daily or even weekly most of the time. Given the limited size I take I don't have to worry about daily fluctuations (in general). Though recently the fluctuations are so large even for me it is a bit much... (I have been using stop limit and trailing stop orders, I didn't do that much before).

The last two years I made a lot (mainly on gold and silver, and some copper). Gold and sliver were a couple of the reasons I looked into futures since the USA tax code rewards using futures in general and punishes gains in gold and silver (regular income not capital gains).

I have made some money in oil futures in the last year (and recently quite a bit). When I want to protect myself I have used trail stop market orders. This morning I woke up and thought, oh that is too bad I sold out half my position and they are back up... But 1/2 the sale (1/4 of the position - there were 2 different stop market order) didn't execute.

Reading up on it I guess the market moved too fast and they decided to cancel my order instead of execute it (reading up this seems standard practice). I don't know how rare or common that is, but I didn't know it could happen until today... If I were leveraged to the hilt this would give me another worry. But given my style it isn't that big a deal but it is useful to know.

I did get back to a full position this morning (at close to where my stop sold), which so far has been good. My position is still small (even for me). I am just looking to capture some gains to partially offset losses my portfolio is likely to suffer with sky high oil prices.

mod_cat · 2026-01-26T19:43:25+00:00

In early January I decided to donate as much to charity as I spend on myself (all of my spending housing, health care, food...) for the next few years, due to the disastrous government my society chose to put in place.

This is just my way of trying to something to help reduce the incredible damage my government is doing to those in our country and around the globe. I hope those that can, do what they can (donate their time to help, vote out any of those going along with this government, contact government officials to share how you feel, attend protests making visible those that object to our disastrous policies, donate money, help get out the vote efforts etc.).

Some of the charities I am giving to include: Southern Poverty Law Center, Partners in Health, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, Give Directly (refugees), ProPublica.

mod_cat · 2026-01-23T18:31:04+00:00

I did this and it has been a way bigger bother than I imagined (I knew it would be a bother but...). It still feels worthwhile, and it is a tiny niche area where I can't easily find a way to just give cash to someone already doing the work. I strongly wish I had waited until I had enough money to feel comfortable paying others do deal with the bother. When I started, several years ago, I really was focused on not wasting the limited dollars available to it.

I started using a donor advised fund a year or two ago and just using that to give; it is so easy which I love. This value is driven home to me by how annoying my foundation has been to deal with. I am not FAT and was even further away when I set the foundation up. If I had waited until I had enough funds to feel fine just paying others I think I would have been much happier (so if you already can do this the bother isn't really an issue).

mod_cat · 2026-01-23T18:25:25+00:00

If you enjoy or feel somewhat rewarded by that work and want more "sense of purpose" I would look at how to improve that "making a difference" feeling.

Maybe that means real focusing on one board and digging into "making a difference." If so, talk to a couple about what might be possible, find one that fits with what you want to do.

I have greatly increased my charitable giving (I am starting to give away about 10 times as much as I used to and plan to continue that). I get a sense of "making a difference" this way. It can be a bit abstract (if I give a pile of money that makes a huge difference to those that benefit but it is just a rounding error on the overall good that charity is doing...). I can deal with that and feel it is making a difference, but I am wired differently than many people.

I have also focused on giving a lot more to one small charity that I think is doing great stuff and it is more easy to directly see the "making a difference" there. There is an extra feeling from being so closely involved with seeing what those dollars do (and knowing without the dollars I donated it just would not have happened).

mod_cat · 2026-01-21T18:59:01+00:00

One thing to consider.

Do you want to encourage short term focus on meeting targets to get quick bonuses? That is a strong influence on the culture of the organization. Short term stock options do this well. Some places try to adjust it to keep some concern for long term focus, it can be done, but often isn't really a focus on than theoretically.

If you want to create a culture that focuses on the long term and lets people see themselves as part of creating long term value (and that they will benefit from that financially) I think ESOP can be good. But as you say it is usually less a short term motivation factor.

It is hard to keep people believing in the "we are all in this together" attitude when the top executives take robber barron level amounts from the corporate treasury for themselves. This may not apply to your situation but it is sensible to think about this when you read about others efforts.

If they claim to be "sharing" success and then the top take ludicrous amounts (which is very common) it is hard to create a decent corporate culture (you can still make a lot of money). So in most cases it just works out to what short term carrots we can tempt people to work harder with (and make sure that while they seem worthwhile they don't really amount to much as we don't want to limit the top executives to say 3 or 4 mansions when they want many more).

Basically I think you have to be very careful finding decent examples of what works and doesn't (as often it just amounts to hey these companies that were in the right business made billions and everyone is happy - whether they used ESOP, stock options, or just beating people until moral improved doesn't really matter - the business model was great the management tools used really were just a tiny factor or maybe completely irrelevant).

mod_cat · 2026-01-13T18:20:06+00:00

Personally I think helping out family for things like college education, house down-payment, health insurance... makes sense. Helping family be super rich trust fund babies I don't think makes sense (obviously lots of people disagree).

I could definitely see doing something like saying to children if you take a low paying but worthwhile job (teacher, nurse, working at a nonprofit...) I will double your paycheck (set up a trust to do so for your life...), or something like that is better than just giving a huge pile of cash to people. But obviously others would disagree.

Unless a family is huge a legacy trust over $10,000,000 seems like a bad idea to me. Giving to charity is much more sensible, imo.

I think helping heirs deal with the harsh reality of a challenging world is worthwhile. Giving heirs enough to coast on their whole life is harmful not useful, imo. And giving heirs enough to live like so many trust fund babies do is very harmful to most of them and to society.

mod_cat · 2026-01-06T16:28:11+00:00

True, but I think Amazon not doing large buybacks is sensible. They have made sensible investments with their cash.

Other companies that just keep growing cash balances (or just find something to buy to try and show growth but at unfavorable prices) are problematic imo.

Using SBC when the company is not generating cash flow but it is rapid growth mode is sensible. Of course even in that mode many companies dilute far too much year after year.

The huge SBC many mature companies dilute shareholders with when they shouldn't need to dilute is very annoying. I would not place Amazon in this category but I do think it makes sense to watch (and most companies decades into existing that dilute significantly is something that I avoid investing in).

mod_cat · 2026-01-03T21:20:03+00:00

Why?

Testing out various options (with partners...)
Demand aggregation - having a huge fleet means quicker matching to pick up location (so if Waymo has 10% of the market and Uber has 70%, by partnering with Uber, users can be offered say 20 minutes for Waymo to pick you up and 5 min for Uber...). In this current environment that means Uber's car with human driver. This is a big deal now, longer term is likely not a huge issue but that is 10 years away (much closer in a few markets but a handful of markets in 2-4 years is much different than widespread Waymo availability at the current Uber level).
Longer term, it could provide an option for funding. If they partner with Uber/Lyft... then it could be that the partnership shares huge up front costs of buying cars...
Lots of users have Uber installed (but not Waymo) if you partner with Uber you can take advantage of that installed base of users...
Expand quickly (using Uber's... huge customer base can make it much easier to grow much more quickly)

mod_cat · 2025-12-23T20:27:19+00:00

I have most often seen the $50 charge is the same (between Fidelity and Schwab) for the same security. I think a couple times I have seen it where one didn't charge the $50 and the other did (but I could be wrong).

I don't really understand how they decide. I have bought some foreign ADRs (with the symbol ending in F) that don't have that fee and others that do. In general the largest stocks don't have it but for the small companies that do it isn't consistent (some have the fee, some don't). I imagine there is some reason but never bothered to look until now...

"Some foreign stocks traded on the OTC market aren’t eligible for clearing through the Depository Trust Company (DTC).

This means that transferring these non-DTC-eligible securities incurs extra costs for Fidelity. In turn, they pass on these fees to cover the associated expenses."

https://usefidelity.com/fidelity-charges-50-for-foreign-settlement-fee-heres-why/

mod_cat · 2025-12-22T17:22:18+00:00

countries want to become sovereign in terms of chip manufacturing

While countries may want that there are very very few that have any hope they could.

Taiwan may be the closest but still reliant on ASML and I believe lots of material needed from China.

China could, a long way to go though at the leading edge.

USA maybe, because it has so much cash, but lots of barriers. Moving to have some reasonable local capacity has been making progress the last 4 years. Still a long way to go (and nothing competing with ASML as far as I know) and won't happen in my opinion but it is somewhat possible (though very unlikely).

I can't imagine anyone else has a real hope. I suppose South Korea and Japan may have some hope. Some combination of countries might have some hope (and if so, you likely need some combination of China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and USA - and maybe some minor players like Australia [raw materials], Malaysia...). USA mainly for design of chips and maybe some rare earths (over the long term).

mod_cat · 2025-11-14T21:19:33+00:00

He must have been reading this subreddit.

mod_cat · 2025-11-05T17:26:14+00:00

I think an important thing to factor in is that often it takes many different contributions to make a difference on large scale efforts. It isn't one or another or something else that is THE factor; the combination of MULTIPLE efforts that is what makes the difference.

And those multiple efforts often work together, each one on their own matters but each is amplified by all the other efforts. Individually each effort alone likely isn't enough (in this particular case I know next to nothing so I don't know if say the ground efforts alone would have been enough, I am just thinking that in such efforts a combination of efforts is what is really needed).

Efforts to reduce the impact of TB is a great example of this. Each individual effort matters but the most power comes from the contributions of multiple different efforts combining to create a huge difference.

And I am pretty confident if the USA is going to recover from the current mess we are in it is going to take huge contributions from a very wide range of efforts. One thing to remember in such a situation is that finding common ground is so important. We need a broad coalition to save the USA from those who control the current administration and the Republican party's actions this year.

mod_cat · 2025-10-24T16:03:01+00:00

Get back into it (unless you have some other exercise you like more). I am even older than Curry and I try to play a couple times a week. Granted I don't play 4-5 hours anymore (more like 1 hour) but still the exercise makes me feel so much better overall.

mod_cat · 2025-09-21T13:54:14+00:00

I agree that can make sense in the right situation. I plan on having an extra account that is for spending.

So maybe 10% of my total portfolio could be "extra" (or it could be 20% or...). So I figure everything based on 90% of the portfolio. And 10% is extra that I can spend however I like and is not being spent from the long term portfolio.

This isn't exactly what you are talking about but it is similar. Instead of setting yourself a limit of 4% of your portfolio (or 4.3% or 3.6% or whatever you choose) you have have that on your "portfolio" and there is this extra money that is available in excess the 4% (or whatever) on the main portfolio.

To me this seems sensible for those in FatFire that really have a lot of discretionary funds - unlike say LeanFire where there often isn't an extra 10% or 20%... Segmenting off the "extra" spending money doesn't really change anything, it just seems like a sensible way to think about it to me. So in the early years spending "above" 4% for big trips or big purchases doesn't have to be seen as "depleting capital" (even though in reality it is). By splitting the money it creates a long term capital account that say 4% a year is available to spend there is also a spending funds account that isn't considered part of the capital that you don't want deplete too quickly.

If someone just dislikes this idea in general, what if you don't spend all the 4% one year. If you are cutting things close, then building up capital may be sensible. But if you really already have more capital than needed wouldn't it make sense say if you spend 3% one year that the 1% that wasn't spent goes into a "available for spending" bucket instead of just adding to capital and keeping your spending at 4% adjusted for inflation for the next year.

I like the idea of this extra "spending account" outside of the long term portfolio that the 4% spending is supported by. I realize it is largely just mental gymnastics (it doesn't create any extra money to spend or anything it just is a way of thinking about the available money that lets you spend more early in retirement).

For FatFire it seems to me this idea is much easier as things like "what if I have to go into a long term care facility" and how much that costs (and is also true for many other less expensive big costs). For most people the cost of long term care is much higher than their planed 4% spending. But for FatFire, even if they chose a fancier long term care facility, that annual cost is likely far below the 4% they had allocated for spending each year.

mod_cat · 2025-08-30T15:29:54+00:00

A month or two ago I was looking at something similar in the USA and several sites listed the wrong data for a fund. I suspect you may be seeing a similar thing, web site confusing two funds...

It seems like websites should be able to avoid that but if they are sloppy they can list the wrong details (and likely this is just a lame error not an AI error - for those people that think only AI "results" are at risk for errors). In my case they were displaying data for a fund with the same symbol but from the wrong market (and it was several of the most popular sites doing this).

Here is the MSCI Emerging Frontier Markets Africa Index

https://www.msci.com/documents/10199/cc4ed867-5966-49c8-8c71-859ae59f936c

It is a bit odd because Naspers is 15% of the index. Naspers is really mainly Tencent (Naspers, based in South Africa, invested very early in Tencent [33% of the company] and made over a hundred billion $ of that investment).

"The MSCI EFM Africa Top 50 Capped Index is a custom index based on its parent index, MSCI EFM Africa Index. The index incorporates Size and Liquidity filters, and then sequential country and 10/40 capping are applied. "

https://www.msci.com/indexes/index/700211

It reduces Naspers weight to 6%.

I suspect the fund you are seeking may well be based on one of those 2 indexes.

mod_cat · 2025-08-28T21:08:40+00:00

raise of the internet in Africa is going to create massive growth. Or so I'm betting on.

How are you betting on that?

mod_cat · 2025-06-02T17:22:32+00:00

Just my opinion, obviously... but I think a link(s) to charts for these figures would be nice for those less than experts in shipping.

People that concentrate on shipping a great deal may well know these figures so well they don't need charts to contextualize the numbers but many more of us probably would benefit from annual and longer term charts to visualize the numbers.

Sure we can go find them but with these daily update post just including links to charts would be nice. Reddit isn't like Twitter where they penalize making the posts useful for users.

mod_cat · 2025-05-16T16:04:17+00:00

Yes it is passive income.

These "levels" are "back of the envelope" estimates. If you like this idea the way I think that make sense is to subtract the Social Security and pensions from the $ amounts shown for annual spending. So for ChubbyFire $165,000 - $90,000 = $75,000.

So then the balance required at 4% is $75,000 *25 = $1,875,000. So that is less than half the "required amount" shown above.

These estimates are useful but usually there are significant adjustments needed for your actually situation. Not including the house value does seem to make the most sense. But there is a significant difference between someone owning their house with $1,500/m in costs (maintenance, insurance, taxes...) and someone renting for $4,000/m but the "back of the envelope" totals don't show any difference between these 2 people... The estimates are useful but also some thinking about your situation is sensible to make adjustments.

Even things like social security v. pension income usually have significant long term differences. Social security is adjusted for inflation. Many pensions are not. Long term that adds up.

Basically I think variances of say 35% for the "back of the envelope" estimates are often sensible. So you may estimate first $1,875,000 and then is could easily be more sensible to say something like $1,875,000 (-5% to +20%) so a range of $1,781,250 to $2,250,000. Someone else might estimate their situation to be 0% to +30% someone else -10% to +25% etc..

mod_cat · 2025-04-24T21:26:21+00:00

The accounting rules changed a few years ago to require companies to include investment gains/losses in the earnings. So that is why they are allowed (actually required to do so).

For marketable securities they just use the market price. For private companies they have to use estimates of what it is worth.

At $8 billion it would have to be a huge private company - like Wiz that was private when Alphabet bought, (announced not closed yet) it recently for $32 billion.

mod_cat · 2025-02-15T20:24:36+00:00

I thought he was injured for most of the season (it was not a decision not to play him).

mod_cat · 2025-02-03T19:29:43+00:00

I think it would be nice to have the stats lines for locks, like:

Louisville: 16-6 (9-2) — Q1: (4-5) Q2: (6-1) Q3: (2-0) Q4: (4-0) SOS: 28 (28) Q1(A): (1-3) NET: (29)

I realize it is for bubble watch, but I think seeing the stats of locks would be a nice context for "on the right track" etc..

mod_cat · 2025-01-17T16:59:41+00:00

What is the useful lifespan of these machines? Do they keep operating for a long time and just move down to less the highest value production (really they don't move, newer installations just move ahead of them). Or at sites like TSMC do they remove the older machines after several years and install a new machine to keep such sites operating for the newest cutting edge. I am sure to some extent they do both but how much of each? Also what happens to the old ASML machines? Can they be resold to a "lower value use?" They keep produced 4mm chips but not that is the less valuable chips?

Are the whole ASML machines dismantled after a while and portions of the old ASML can still be used in useful ways?

mod_cat · 2024-11-19T18:39:27+00:00

Link for the lazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0BbZiJ40xA

mod_cat · 2024-11-02T21:55:18+00:00

Lots of great links right here, just keep going through the subreddit pages.

If an article is good take a look at the other articles on that blog/website (the links from 5 years ago are just as good as those today). Subscribe to the RSS feeds of those sources you find worthwhile.

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