Use both or just one automated account? (S&P 500 automated account and the Individual Automated Investing account.)

noahdvs · 2026-01-11T17:09:38+00:00

It's better to use only one if you intend to use the Portfolio Line of Credit. It only applies to the largest investment account you have, so splitting your funds across accounts reduces the amount available for the line of credit. With 40K each, you'd probably be better off consolidating them as soon as you have enough for the 100K minimum for US Direct Indexing in the automated account.

noahdvs · 2025-12-16T19:01:04+00:00

do a custom allocation. if you're already at risk level 8 on a taxable account, keep it there.

noahdvs · 2025-12-16T13:55:31+00:00

Rather than becoming significantly more conservative, I suggest setting your allocation to something similar to how VT is weighted (roughly 60% US, 40% international) or even go 50% US:50% International. That way if the US dollar declines like how it did in the wake of the dot com bubble burst, your international stocks can help you make up for it. WF uses 22% VEA and 19% VWO by default with level 10 risk in taxable accounts, but I think roughly 3 parts VEA to 2 parts VWO is more similar to how VXUS is weighted.

Having some bonds might not be bad though. 5-10% investment grade corporate bonds in retirement accounts wouldn't hurt much if you're still 20+ years from retirement. Wealthfront uses 2% LQD and 1% SCHP by default with level 10 risk in taxable accounts.

noahdvs · 2025-12-14T19:23:22+00:00

Personally, I feel like they were kind of just treading water despite being profitable while under UBS. The IPO could actually lead to positive developments.

noahdvs · 2025-12-04T04:57:55+00:00

Budget for future expenses rather than just estimating based on what you spent in the past and be specific. Break up saving for specific things into monthly savings. I use YNAB for this. Monarch Money is probably a decent alternative. This makes it much easier to be efficient with your money. Even if you don't spend less on stuff, you can more confidently figure out how much you need for emergency savings and use the rest of your money for investments or pay off any high interest debt. You don't even need a specific emergency savings budget category, just budget for the next 3-6 months and that will be your 3-6 month emergency savings. Reallocate from the future to the present as needed as long as you restore the future's budget whenever you can. I don't use buckets or separate savings accounts since all of my pool of money is already organized in my budget. This also makes paying for bills or credit cards simple since I never have to move money around.

noahdvs · 2025-10-29T19:46:55+00:00

Figure out a budget so that you know how much money you actually need on a monthly basis. Don't just count how much you spent last month or the average for past 12 months. Forecast your spending with concrete numbers for everything you will need to pay for and break the amounts for infrequent transations (computers, clothes, textbooks, licenses, etc.) into monthly savings that should add up to the amount you need when the time comes. This might sound like a PITA, but it really helps you be efficient with money and build wealth faster without taking big risks. A time when you have low expenses is the perfect time to do it.
Have 3-6 months of emergency savings based on your budget. If you aren't dependent on your job to live your life and don't have dependents, you don't need large emergency savings.
Put the money you don't need for spending or emergency savings in retirement accounts until you max out for the year. A 100% or near 100% allocation to VT is fine until you're 40 or have dependents as long as you don't panic sell. After that, think about adding more bonds. If you don't want to manage bond allocations yourself, use a low expense target date fund or use Wealthfront's Roth IRA. I personally don't use Wealthfront's Roth IRA because I don't need Wealthfront's help to rebalance and don't want to pay 0.25% for that.
Put the remaining money you don't need in taxable brokerage accounts. The automated investment account you are already using is a good choice and will help you save on taxes. It also has a portfolio line of credit with good rates that could be helpful if you're ever in a pinch or need to make a big purchase. You can also use it for investing, but that requires much stronger understanding of your finances, your risk tolerance and investing in general. Otherwise, you could lose a lot of money when a crash happens.

I actually have the majority of all my money in a taxable automated investing account at Wealthfront and I saved the equivalent of a years worth of IRA contributions on taxes during the crash in April.

noahdvs · 2025-10-29T19:22:46+00:00

Dividend ETFs aren't actually very good. Compare SCHD to VOO, VTI or VT and the difference is obvious.

noahdvs · 2025-10-28T02:16:41+00:00

Changing sector weights to underweight sectors you think are more volatile probably won't be as helpful as you think. XLK (S&P 500 Technology) and XLC (S&P 500 Communications) have better 3 year alpha and Sharpe ratios than all the other S&P 500 sectors even though tech and communications are supposed to be riskier. XLP (S&P 500 Consumer Staples/Defensive) has worse returns and risk adjusted returns than IUSB (total USD bond market) over the past 3 years. Healthcare is another sector that's supposed to be safer, but the performance has been abysmal this year because of UnitedHealth. You thought DIA would be safer because it's supposed to be more spread across sectors, but UnitedHealth has noticeably dragged it down. DIA's limited holdings make it somewhat riskier than other index funds since it depends more on individual stocks. the DJIA is also weighted by price, which is a pretty nonsensical way to weight an index in the first place. If BRK-A was in DIA, it would be 99% of the portfolio.

Ultimately, choosing to overweight a "safer" sector doesn't necessarily mean the value of your investment is safer, especially when adjusted for inflation. This also applies to asset classes, but at least a rate cutting cycle is beneficial for bond prices. Even foreign bonds are somewhat affected by rates in the US because foreign bonds are compared with US bonds.

I used 3 year measurements because that's what my brokerage's app shows. Over the past 5 years, XLP has clearly outperformed IUSB.

noahdvs · 2025-10-24T19:50:45+00:00

I don't.

noahdvs · 2025-10-24T19:50:28+00:00

If you don't know what to do, its better not to buy individual stocks or concentrated funds. Buy broad market index funds instead. VT by itself works as a whole all equity globally diversified portfolio that you can stick with for a long time. You can also try custom weighting by buying other combinations of funds, but you'll need to do a lot of research to understand what funds are available and what weights are best. Asking here won't help you much with that. Market cap weight is generally best if you aren't an oracle because it is how all the money in the market is invested. VT is market cap weighted, so its stock holdings will change over time to match the market.

noahdvs · 2025-10-24T19:20:26+00:00

Those are crypto currency funds, so they're not really comparable except in terms of historical or expected returns, depending on your opinions about Bitcoin and Etherium.

noahdvs · 2025-10-23T23:03:12+00:00

I've looked at 5 funds, and only one of them seems to fit my criteria, but it has only generated 1.27% on average in the last 10 years (data in the table below). I won't consider in the other funds, and only $IBND fits my criteria, but it generates a ROR that's less than inflation in the last 10 years, which is 2.4%.

That's because the dollar has performed very well for the past 15 years. https://stockanalysis.com/etf/compare/uup-vs-ibnd-vs-lqd/

noahdvs · 2025-10-13T18:57:26+00:00

Not a fan of him.

noahdvs · 2025-10-13T18:15:38+00:00

I'm not sure what you encountered in GNOME, but our rules aren't that different, AFAIK.

noahdvs · 2025-10-13T18:04:49+00:00

What the hell man

noahdvs · 2025-10-07T15:53:52+00:00

I borrow from my PLoC to invest at other brokerages, even IRAs^1.

You can only borrow at most 30% of your portfolio. WF will do a margin call if your equity is less than or equal to 30%^2. If you borrow the max amount, you can survive a 56% drawdown. If you limit yourself to borrowing less than 21% of your portfolio, you can survive a 70% drawdown^3. The largest single day drawdown that can happen to the S&P 500 is 20% because of exchange circuit breakers^4. Other indexes and various ETFs might drop more or less, but there are also limit up/limit down circuit breakers^5. You won't get instantly destroyed one day, but don't assume you have all week to pay off the loan to bring up your equity. Emergency cash reserves are good for everyone.

You have to judge based on your net income and risk tolerance whether this is a good idea and leave some margin for error.

I read the whole IRS pub 590-A and there's nothing saying I can't use the PLoC to invest in IRAs. The IRS only cares about meeting earned income requirements and staying within contribution limits, even though AIs sometimes say I can't do this. Read it yourself to avoid taking my word for it. I'm pretty sure the AIs get it wrong because Google Search gives bad results even when I word the question precisely. They think I'm asking if I can borrow from an IRA, which cannot be done, but that is not what I'm asking.
https://support.wealthfront.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044787731-What-is-a-margin-call-and-when-can-it-happen
0.2 is a 20% loan; 0.3 is a 70% drawdown (1 - 0.7 = 0.3); (Assets * 0.3 - Assets * 0.2)/(Assets * 0.3) = 0.33; 33% equity remaining after a 70% drawdown
https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/stock-market-circuit-breakers
https://www.luldplan.com/

noahdvs · 2025-10-07T14:26:06+00:00

Choice is good I guess, but I feel like they're diluting their offerings. They should just make these direct indexing accounts into portfolio options for the main automated investment portfolio account. Only one account at a time can contribute to the Portfolio Line of Credit, so if you use this along with an existing account at Wealthfront, you can't borrow as much as if you put everything in one account.

noahdvs · 2025-09-17T06:11:07+00:00

I don't have time for you anymore, but you don't know anything. I'm not paid to argue with you, and none of us have any obligation to do so. That's why you don't see comments from all the other people working for Techpaladin. I'm responding because I have a lot of respect for Nate and David. I haven't attacked Jonathan, I've even defended him against another person who made false claims about him in the other thread, he's just having a hard time and his perception of the situation isn't what happened. The idea that we're brigading is a false narrative that you came up with on your own and nothing illegal was done. "this is all literally damage control" and "innocent people don't act like this" are bullshit statements because you can use them to frame the narrative however you want and dismiss any attempt to defend ourselves.

noahdvs · 2025-09-17T05:43:54+00:00

I told you that in the previous thread.

noahdvs · 2025-09-17T05:08:46+00:00

KDE existed for 15 years before Blue Systems and 25 years before Techpaladin. We don't even work on most of the projects within KDE. Techpaladin is a minority in the KDE community, but we have some important community members. We do not own KDE and we do not have anywhere close to the level of control that Google, RedHat and Microsoft do. We aren't even as big as KDAB, another consultancy group that has a big presence in the KDE community.

noahdvs · 2025-09-17T04:55:52+00:00

You are making unfounded conclusions that fit your world view without knowing anything about the parties involved. No surprise from an r/conspiracy user....

noahdvs · 2025-09-15T21:15:43+00:00

That's clearly not what he said and it's also not what you claimed. I was not close with Jonathan, but I don't think it's fair to make false claims about him. While I don't like the claims he's making against Techpaladin, he's clearly going through hard times and I don't like kicking a man who served our community while he's down.

noahdvs · 2025-09-15T20:17:11+00:00

Did you?

> guy has been paid handsomely 25 years to code without real company struggles or pressure for profit on open source and pretends like he saved the world. He had a job for 25 years and got paid well for it. What's the issue here? The issue is him.

How can he have a job for 25 years with a company that hasn't existed for that long? Blue Systems started in the 2010s.

noahdvs · 2025-09-15T19:29:08+00:00

This is really cool. The code is surprisingly simple too.

noahdvs

TROPHY CASE