What a fascinating post, Foglifter! If my post knocks the thread to a new page, I'll copy your post in its entirety so it's that the top. Some of the things you mentioned have been covered, like the Oliver Stone Ukraine on Fire film and some of the NATO stuff, but it's great to hear about your pers...

I wanted to write this post for a long time. The first couple weeks after the war started had been hard as I tried to consume tons of information from all kinds of sources and figure out for myself what was going on. It came to the point that my wife insisted that I stop and take a break from the ne...

I did buy some edv today that's the one! The ER is lower than TLT. But I don't keep a full 25% of EDV, only 18ish% because its like a leveraged TLT I'm using FBNGX (ER = 0.03%). I know, it's not exactly TLT as the portfolio has a tad of ITTs, however performance and risk are almost identical.

I’ve only stayed away because the real world won’t leave me alone. With all of the goofy stuff happening in the last few years, I could easily spend all my time here getting it sorted out. It sounds like you guys have gotten along okay without me. I'm sure some folks here would love to hear more wo...

That was awesome, thanks for stopping by MT!

I Need to understand more about the Coup that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian government that I believe had good relations with Russia. Was there a coup? I don’t remember one except the one in Russia- well, the Soviet Union. The Soviets did poison a Ukrainian leader. Looking at wikip...

dualstow wrote: ↑Sat Feb 05, 2022 9:19 am Another thing to think about, conversely: Is it possible to have too much money in tax deferred? There is a thread with a title like that either here or in bogleheads.

It's extremely rare, but possible - Peter Thiel's IRA is a good example.

It's a self employed 401k, so I can buy anything you normally could with a Fidelity account. I also have an inherited IRA that I must withdraw within 10 years. That's awesome! You can also consider gold ETFs, I personally use SGOL as it has probably the lowest ER and the gold is based in Switzerlan...

Tax-deferred space is limited and precious, I agree that it doesn't make sense to use it for cash. Since this is a 401k I bet your choices are limited, so stocks would be a natural (if not the only) option.

I use Freedom Flex for 5% categories. This quarter is grocery so I buy Arco gift cards. $200 sign up bonus beats years worth of 2% cash back (my ref link) https://www.referyourchasecard.com/18a/6RUGQA9JVN And Citi Custom Cash. 5% on top spend category each month. eg can use one card for grocery and...

+1 for Alliant card. In the past I used Fidelity Rewards and Citi Double Cash cards, but now switched completely to the Alliant card. It was an easy move for me as Alliant is my primary banking institution. It really seems as if Alliant has done some good research and listened to their customers. Th...

Wow, so many replies in just a couple of days, thanks everyone! Let's keep the thread alive, I'm sure there's much to talk about. I really appreciate everybody's input. I'm 90% in GB PP and 10% in VP, which helps me not to tinker with my GB too much as I have that VP playground. Mathjak, your attitu...

I want to stay the course, but I'm confused and alarmed after reading all the numerous posts on the topic. I don't want to make any changes to my bond bucket, but at the same time I don't want to be oblivious to the risks. I hate that staying the course can now be seen as failing to adapt while the...

Over the last couple of years this forum has seen lots of discussions about the current environment of historically low rates, unprecedented money printing and growing inflation and how it affects their attitude towards long-term Treasury bonds as part of PP. Some people stay the course and keep buy...

On the subject of geographic diversification, if you don't have a passport you should get one. It's an easy thing to do and just involves some forms, a fee and some waiting.  As an extreme provincial I've never had a passport. I'm assuming, though, many reading this do have one. How easy is it to d...

REITS index is pretty much a sector mid cap fund. Meb Faber uses REITS in his Ivy Portfolio as well. The way I see it, replacing REITS with SC or SCV provides better diversification and allows to capture value and size factors. I just compared this portfolio with GB, not surprisingly GB has higher r...

Welcome Vincent! This forum is a great place to hang around. Lots of interesting discussions.

Had to share with the only group that might consider this a milestone for father and son. The boy started working at Walgreens and has been averaging 20-25 hrs/wk for the last few months. Friday I transferred his funds to a custodian account at eTrade and bought VTI/IAU 80/20. He’ll be adding ~1K/m...

What did you like about 1password compared to Lastpass, Mountaineer? Curious. Lastpass works fine for me. The only peeve I had is that it doesn't always fill login screens so you end up having to do it manually. (Of course now there's a second peeve: incompatibility with Safari.) WiseOne, it is pro...

Wow, this is impressive. Looks like M*, Yahoo and Google provide simply the price charts as you said. Good point. Stockcharts.com uses total return as Madmoney points out. Morningstar also uses total returns as well as price charts. If you want to build a tracking portfolio I recommend using Mornin...

I just saw this notice on Fidelity's fixed income web page: icon-exclamation-yellowtriangle-1x Recent extreme market conditions have resulted in a lack of liquidity, wide spreads (the difference between the price a customer can buy and sell a bond), large swings in prices, and substantial increases...

But there is still tax on the appreciated assets that you use to refund the 401k. Gotcha, right. I think there was some confusion before about whether 401k loans were taxed. Even so, I'd like to run some comparisons assuming a possible low return on interest inside my 401k. Double taxation does hap...

Despite the doomsday scenarios outlined by people like Munisteri, the Texas G.O.P. is far ahead of the national Party in dealing with the future. Two strategies are being tested. One is the kind of Republican identity politics exemplified by Cruz: the Party can continue its ideological shift to the...

Hey all, I just wanted to resurrect this thread because it seems the Golden Butterfly has been gaining traction as a topic of conversation as of late. This thread has a ton of useful information and perspective on the allocation. I'm still not the biggest fan of the name (;D), but the allocation is...

Everything is now commission-free at Fidelity. But why not use FUMBX which at 0.03% is cheaper than any ETF and you don't have to worry about spreads?