Has anybody looked at VSGDX as a replacement for SHY? 

ER: 0.10% vs. 0.15%
Yield: 0.7% vs. 0.36%
Avg. duration: 2.2y vs. 1.83y

Seems like VSGDX is only slightly longer duration, but significantly better yield and slightly better ER.  Thoughts?

The URL and cell calculation code is all still correct.  I changed from http:// to https:// and it worked once then stopped working. It looks like some sort of intermittent problem rather than a problem in the code itself. Perhaps give it a week or two (I suspect the folks who maintain the TreasuryD...

Looking at it now, thanks for the heads up.

WIW and WIA both invest up to 40% of their funds in non-US gov't stuff.  WIW even invests in stuff that is below investment grade.  As such, these seem to be more appropriate for the VP than the PP.

As long as we have government funded healthcare (medicare, medicaid), then please please please give us death panels.  Government funded healthcare must be rationed, otherwise it will bankrupt the state.  I am still shocked that so many people don't get the need for rationing of any good (healthcare...

Yes, Sprott could easily stray from his prospectus.  Anyone can. The main argument for choosing Sprott over an ETF is that Sprott has a good reputation and has never been convicted of fraud.  The banks that are the custodians for the gold ETFs, on the other hand, have all recently been convicted of...

That is, in the current environment, one would expect gold prices to be rising, and yet they aren't.  Why not? Negative real interest rates have historically been present when the central banks are trying to use monetary policy to offset an economic dislocation (recession).  Investor psychology at ...

Here is the direct one for PSLV - the same criticisms apply to PHYS: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/facts-the-enemy-of-the-precious-metals-blogger/ Let's start with a some simple items. First, the list of gold bars: GLD has a list of their holdings online. The list comes from HSBC (a third party), is ...

Have you read the GLD prospectus? I have read a bunch of it and it scares the daylights out of me. Assuming that they follow its terms to the letter, they could have a vault filled with marshmallows instead of gold and they would not be liable. Compare the GLD and PHYS (or SLV and PSLV) prospectus....

I would take that article with a grain of salt.  The author of the article is under the assumption that the ETFs operate exactly as they are supposed to. The exact same skepticism should be applied to Sprott's funds.  Either you assume that all trusts and ETFs follow the law & their trust docum...

Before getting too committed to PHYS or any Sprott offering, I suggest reading the following article. If anything, some of the more well known funds like GLD are actually more transparent and reliable than PHYS: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/when-your-precious-metals-blogger-doesnt-understand-how-etf...

I just looked at the price for the 02/15/2039 treasury. Here's what I found: Vanguard: $95.781 WSJ: $95.789 TreasuryWiki: $97.64 PRICE(): $93.804 Fidelity: $95.671 At least for 02/15/3029, I find WSJ/Vanguard/Fidelity are all pretty close to each other, with TreasuryWiki being 2% high and PRICE() be...

Seems as safe as very short term T-Bills (4 week, etc.)

Most likely the yields will be similarly low.  Watch out as they may go negative on auction, in which case it is better to stay in the 0% cash account TreasuryDirect offers.

Here's a great post on gold from Kid Dynamite: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/anyone-calling-cftc-morning-blatant-gold-manipulation/ Want to bet Mr. Organ won't be posting about this?  This is why I tend to think Harvey Organ and friends are poor sources of information - they never present information...

I suggest also reading Kid Dynamite's blog. He points out several fallacies in things Harvey Organ and others have said about gold. I find that if I have an opinion (e.g. of gold) it is much more valuable to read posts by people who take the opposite opinion.

I took Gumby's argument to mean that government can create wealth. Not always, and perhaps not most of the time, but it can. In the case of the Erie Canal, the "net" term was in the context of that canal.  Ie the canal created more wealth than it destroyed - not in the context of all world...

I am a pretty strong supporter of free markets and generally think government screws up much more often than it helps. That being said, assuming the Erie Canal bonds were paid by tolls on the canal itself, it seems to me Gumby has made a pretty strong case for it being an example of government provi...

I find the PRICE() function often doesn't match the actual price of the bonds as reported by Fidelity or the WSJ, so I do the following: Import the table of prices from the WSJ:  =importhtml("http://wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3020-treasury.html", "table",0) Use the VLOOKUP funcito...

You can find them at the WSJ: http://wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3020-treasury.html

You can also look them up at Fidelity: https://fixedincome.fidelity.com/ftgw/f ... chTreasury

I never implemented this, mostly because I found additional ways to buy I-Bonds (in child's name + in a living trust). When my current high yielding (sad when ~3% is high yielding) CDs run out in 2015, which currently are the bottom of my cash component and have a similar role as TIPS were proposed ...

We would risk ceding our special role in world affairs to countries such as Russia and China, who are both vastly expanding their military power I don't want to cede our special role.  Let's spend 2X what China and Russia spend together on our own military, so we can really kick their asses if need...

Has anyone here who holds direct long term treasury bonds ever sold it all to do a tax loss harvest?  If so was it simple? Did you just sell all and re buy new 30 year bonds? Also if you do your own income tax is it as easy as sale of an ETF where you can just sell it all and tax time just list the...

This is nothing like an MF Global situation because hedge funds are an entirely different structure than mutual funds and ETFs. MF Global was not a hedge fund, it was a derivative broker and a primary dealer.  Perhaps you are thinking of Man Group, which was indeed similar to a hedge fund.  MF Glob...

Other people may completely trust BlackRock.  I'm OK with that as long as it's an "eyes wide open" situation.  However, someone with 25% LT bonds in TLT, 25% cash in SHY, and 25% gold in IAU has 75% of their assets with BlackRock.  I'd consider this crazy.  And I think Harry Browne would ...

The USA now essentially gets Iraqi oil for nothing in return but I'm sure that doesn't pay for the cost of the war let alone the human cost. Do you have any sources for this?  Everything I've found shows the Iraqi government signing leases where they get paid for the oil. Stone, afaik you are not a...