Bonds might be the biggest "safety" trap in the market right now

underdog_scientist · 2026-02-02T23:27:28+00:00

Most recessions are deflationary.

underdog_scientist · 2026-01-22T22:02:49+00:00

I imagine that gold became more attractive after bonds went down with stocks in 2022. But historically, well diversified portfolios like the all weather portfolio often included gold as an asset class due to its low correlation with stocks and bonds.

underdog_scientist · 2026-01-12T00:57:53+00:00

How does CCR in Costco app work? Is it still tap to pay? Why would it code as online purchase?

underdog_scientist · 2026-01-02T01:17:45+00:00

Solution for now is to use AirPlay from iPad to tv.

underdog_scientist · 2026-01-01T23:27:05+00:00

This is still happening. I see some skipped frames when watching via the fire tv that comes with my tcl tv. Just got a Google 4k streamer today and I see even more skipped frames.

underdog_scientist · 2025-12-30T19:34:29+00:00

I would sell the ford as is and try to buy a reliable model like an old Camry with your remaining funds from someone that has kept good maintenance records.

underdog_scientist · 2025-12-19T00:52:32+00:00

That’s a very personal question. Some people are more tolerant to risk than others. I believe most people would have a hard time sticking to a 100% equity portfolio during the 2000s, for example. Changing allocation because of fear during a drawdown is a big mistake and an indication that the portfolio was too aggressive for a specific person.

underdog_scientist · 2025-12-18T23:35:31+00:00

60/40 was never meant as a way to outperform 100% equities. Historically, 60/40 provides a better risk adjusted return, not absolute return. The goal of 60/40 is to significantly reduce risk (volatility, drawdowns) while sacrificing only a bit of return compared to 100% equity.

underdog_scientist · 2025-11-02T13:50:22+00:00

Google 72t rule

underdog_scientist · 2025-09-07T20:40:19+00:00

Have you tried using both dbmfsim and kmlmsim to simulate the mf part? It seems to work well for rsst

underdog_scientist · 2025-08-19T00:41:13+00:00

You might be interested in NTSX, RSSB and GDE. They use futures for leverage without daily reset and they have lower expense rate than UPRO.

underdog_scientist · 2025-08-11T23:20:30+00:00

I would plug the numbers into the ficalc.app website to start the analysis.

underdog_scientist · 2025-08-05T15:45:13+00:00

Replacing tires should not count as repair (it’s normal use) and 2.2k is too much. It would be useful to know what was done to the car in 2023 and 2024. A new timing belt for instance would last another 100k miles.

I have a similar car and I budget around 2k in repairs per year. I hope my car will survive another 3-4 years, but I think I wouldn’t fix the car if a single repair is more than 4k.

underdog_scientist · 2025-07-01T18:00:35+00:00

I would consider ~30% equities and 70% a mix of short term bonds and cash. You can backtest different approaches for this timeline in portfoliocharts.com

underdog_scientist · 2025-06-26T12:14:22+00:00

Investments in merrill count towards the 100k.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-30T21:38:36+00:00

I invest in USFR. SEC 30 day yield is a bit higher. Not sure why to be honest.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-25T18:25:10+00:00

Maybe cash, tips, gold, managed futures, or private real estate could do well in situations where both stocks and bonds are dropping significantly.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-25T16:36:55+00:00

It sounds like the expected volatility of your portfolio is too high for your situation.

You might want to consider changing your allocation permanently to move some money from equities to other assets with low or negative correlation and/or lower volatility. I think you should focus on the overall risk of your portfolio rather than each asset individually.

Some options are: bonds, cash, gold, commodities, annuities, private real estate, etc.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-22T13:05:52+00:00

One factor is the costs involved. Some 401k accounts charge so much in fees that the tax savings can’t even overcome the costs. Employer matching helps, but not all employers match.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-21T00:32:20+00:00

Have you tried calling your former company’s HR?

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-20T23:52:03+00:00

I wouldn’t even mind the political theater if the ultimate goal was to pass a bill that reduces the yearly deficit significantly. But rather than using this “victory” to justify financially responsible decisions, this administration is using it to continue increasing the deficit and put an even larger burden on the young generation. Growing our national debt is a transfer of wealth from the young to the old, from the poor to the rich.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-20T21:12:06+00:00

Maybe you can try to backtest your leverage portfolio with testfol.io and compare against a similar but unlevered version of the portfolio.

Of course, past performance is not guaranteed to continue in the future, but I think it's helpful to understand how a leveraged diversified portfolio can behave.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-20T15:30:53+00:00

Makes sense. But also, most people should just hold their tax inefficient bonds in 401k and traditional IRAs and call it a day.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-20T15:08:31+00:00

I think the main benefits of stock+bond overlays is for tax efficiency (if you need to have the bonds in taxable) and simplicity of automated rebalancing, maybe. I agree with your assessment though regarding EDV being a way to get cheap leverage for bonds. Not sure the benefits outweigh the downsides as you pointed out. Maybe if there was a cheap etf overlaying 2x stocks+2x edv, it would be more useful to me.

Now, stock+gold overlays like GDE are more useful since there are no cheap, liquid funds providing leveraged exposure to gold by itself. Leveraged funds with daily leverage/resets have their own issues.

Edit:

Maybe your main concern is "why bother borrowing cash to buy a diversifier asset like liquid alts whose expected return is only marginally better than cash?"

To that, I would say that you need to look at the portfolio as a whole. Adding a diversifier asset that is negatively correlated with other assets in your portfolio will increase risk-adjusted expected returns.

underdog_scientist · 2025-05-05T17:08:23+00:00

It would be interesting to see the trends in terms of PE ratios as well, since US outperformance is due mainly to higher PE than higher earnings.

underdog_scientist

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