We are twins separated at birth. I had the same philosophy when I was hyper-accumulating (TRIPLE TWINS). I think MMM and Jacob Lund Fisker both wrote about how having a high savings rate is much more important than investment returns. the best is do both... a high savings rate is you working for yo...

when you take typical accumulation periods which span decades you would be betting against that house that the winner won't be equities so a long term investor who is mitigating temporary dips would likely have no financial logic to it .. typical periods run 25-40 years ... so mentally , sure it ma...

It seems like stock buybacks should be allowed as long as they’re done with excess capital, i.e., not with borrowed funds. In a sense, stock buybacks are the opposite of issuing new stock. Companies issue new stock to raise capital, so the opposite activity (buying back shares) should be done to dr...

It's also worth noting that stock buybacks were illegal prior to 1982. Yeah, I actually just learned that a few weeks ago. I wasn't aware it was ever banned. But yeah, some politicians are moving to ban it again because they think it's unethical to allow executives to raid their companies balance s...

In other words, my assumption that companies only do share buybacks when they have surplus capital was apparently incorrect. Interesting. Follow-up question: What is the likely thought process of a corporate executive who borrows money to buy back shares? Is the idea that unless the shareholders se...

Jesse Felder released a blog post today that in a lot of ways touches on some of the things we've been discussing here: https://thefelderreport.com/2019/04/24/the-perils-of-pursuing-monetary-policy-that-explicitly-makes-the-economy-reliant-on-bubbles/?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=b6f49e79...

Try Google sheets. I was a C++ programmer too and always thought spreadsheets were complicated, especially one written by a company like Microsoft who "excels" at complicating things. Google sheets is a lot simpler IMHO. Microsoft has gotten a lot better in the last few years. My most pro...

realistically for a long term investor , mitigating temporary short term dips with assets that will permanently lower long term returns has little financial logic to it ...but if it keeps them from bad investor behavior then great . all these other assets are what we use when we have time constrain...

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4250756-buybacks-making-market-look-cheaper ^ wrong? If the only metric someone looks at is P/E, then yes it does make the market look cheaper than it is. I think an argument could be made that over the last 10 years buybacks alone are the main reason for the U.S. o...

It's easy to decide to take capital gains when you get to do it at the 0% rate, but things get trickier if you're subject to the 15% rate. What if in future you expect to have a window where you can take the gains at a 0% rate? You'd be missing out on that not to mention the power of tax deferral. ...

Hint #2: Gross vs. net corporate debt. Credit card analogy #2: My credit card debt is up 10 fold again, darn it! Going from $100 to 1000 and I have 100K in STTs. Do I have a debt problem? Have you examined a chart of corporate profits to GDP? Surprise...also at historical highs. Look away folks, no...

Everyone loves Dalio's video but im not sure yet. How does he come up with "typically 50 years" for a long term cycle. The world changes a lot over 50 year spans. We had a soft landing after the tech bubble. If it was even a "bubble", we didnt know how tech would pan out. Predic...

Sounds good and really super scary...a perfect news story headline to sell news. Dig a little deeper and you will find corporate debt is a big fat meh right now. Hint: If I make $100K a year and my credit card balance goes up by an astounding factor of 10 do I have a problem? Answer: It depends...w...

So sell now, re-buy, and pay the tax? Pretty much, yeah. All my taxable holdings are ETF's so it's basically place a sell order, then 10 seconds later placing a buy order (after setting aside ~15% of the gain). Obviously one would always take any losses they can to balance it out , and years where ...

I don’t need tax advice. I know how to calculate the taxes on each transaction. What I need is an inventory program to keep track of the basis for each lot of each item, e. g. I have 3 lots of 100g bars with 2 bars in the first lot, 4 bars in the second, and 3 bars in the third. The basis is $1800 ...

Yeah, I think like Xan mentioned it's likely to even out in the end. You have a little leverage in the short term in that 15% of your gains are technically uncle Sam's money, but if rates stay the same 15% of your gains periodically should equal to 15% of your gains later. I also think an argument c...

It's an interesting idea. Not only do you avoid cap gains at potentially higher rates in future, but you set yourself up for useful tax loss harvesting by resetting the basis to a high level. If you're in a high tax bracket, that $3000 offset to ordinary income is well worth prepaying some tax. Jus...

Yep, concerned about their banks. I wonder if EWC is a 1st world way to play EM... the yearly returns are 97% correlated with VWO! I am semi-dismayed that EM ETFs carry so much China. Seems like an overconcentration. Yeah, I think if you want some EM ex-china exposure and don't want to be too overl...

I have a rough spreadsheet I use for this, but not something worth sharing. I'm really just tracking all the info for each lot purchased and sold. It's quite easy to do (provided you have all the info on all your past lots). You don't have to do FIFO, you can sell from whatever lot(s) you want. Whic...

My accountant actually recommends his clients take their long term capitol gains whenever they can because the current left wing political landscape is likely to go after the long term capitol gains rate at some point. In his opinion it's better to pay your taxes now at the guaranteed 15% rate than...

In his opinion it's better to pay your taxes now at the guaranteed 15% rate than risk being stuck with too much in gains to sell when/if they jack the rates up. So sell now, re-buy, and pay the tax? Pretty much, yeah. All my taxable holdings are ETF's so it's basically place a sell order, then 10 s...

After years and years of underperformance relative to SPY, you'd think there is a value investing story in the iShares Canada ETF, EWC. EWC hasn't gone anywhere in 11+ years. I'll bet people despise it. Maybe when there is a comeback pending for oil, timber, mining... EWC would be a way to buy a na...

My accountant actually recommends his clients take their long term capitol gains whenever they can because the current left wing political landscape is likely to go after the long term capitol gains rate at some point. In his opinion it's better to pay your taxes now at the guaranteed 15% rate than ...

I’m going to break ranks with this thread, by the vast majority of objective economic indicators the US is doing extremely well right now. Inflation is low (with NO deflation) wages are up, unemployment is down, corporate profits are doing quite well, tax receipts are up. It’s quite easy to receive...

Well, that in a nutshell is why the West is going down the tubes. Everything is polarized left and right, no one is willing to compromise or entertain alternative points of view, and the people in the middle (who are probably closest to reality) are grossly outnumbered and ignored. Haha, truth righ...