Gyroscopic Investing

jhogue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:48 pm 11/27/19
drumminj,

I am not picking your poison because I agree with Harry Browne and craigr that all financial risks are not created equal:

From CraigR’s FAQ:

"Q: Why a Treasury Money Market Fund and not something else with better yield?

A: Because you are not looking to take risk with your cash. Treasury Money Market Funds that are properly run are one of the most liquid investments you can own. There are no FDIC limits to worry about, no bank credit worthiness to worry about, and you will always be paid barring some extremely catastrophic event in the country. Chasing yield with your cash means you are taking on more risk and those risks can show up when you least expect (or want) them to."

The FDIC ran short of cash during the 2008-2009 financial crisis and had to be bailed out by Congress to the tune of $100 billion. That is a fact, not an opinion or a theory.

During that same time period, there was no interruption in the secondary market in T-bills.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

drumminj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:08 pm

jhogue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:48 pm 11/27/19
drumminj,

I am not picking your poison because I agree with Harry Browne and craigr that all financial risks are not created equal:

That's fair, and to be clear I'm not trying to convince anyone.

I disagree though that there are no "FDIC limits to worry about". Your MM funds are held by a financial institution (in "street name", possibly even?) which may become insolvent, halt withdrawls, etc. You have insurance issues there, no? Asking sincerely, is this less risky than FDIC?

Treasuries held directly? Sure. Treasuries held on your behalf? Less so. Treasury MM? Also has risks.

Again, not trying to convince anyone to do what I do -- just trying to be clear about the risks here in the margins.

ochotona wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:03 pm I-Bonds cannot break the zero bound. This is big f deal. Retail depositors in Europe are now being charged to keep their money in the bank.

drumminj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 9:08 pm

jhogue wrote: ↑Wed Nov 27, 2019 2:48 pm 11/27/19
drumminj,

I am not picking your poison because I agree with Harry Browne and craigr that all financial risks are not created equal:

That's fair, and to be clear I'm not trying to convince anyone.

I disagree though that there are no "FDIC limits to worry about". Your MM funds are held by a financial institution (in "street name", possibly even?) which may become insolvent, halt withdrawls, etc. You have insurance issues there, no? Asking sincerely, is this less risky than FDIC?

Treasuries held directly? Sure. Treasuries held on your behalf? Less so. Treasury MM? Also has risks.

Again, not trying to convince anyone to do what I do -- just trying to be clear about the risks here in the margins.

jhogue wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 3:27 pm Vinny,

Financial safety is reinforced through diversity and liquidity. T-bills held in a brokerage account at Vanguard are safe enough for “normal” times because Vanguard is a big active player in the enormous world-wide secondary market for Treasurys. Unless there is a terrific disruption in this market your money will always be completely liquid. Nevertheless, you might eventually consider diversifying your holdings of Treasury –issued securities as follows:

1. Federal Reserve notes (ie., greenbacks yielding 0% interest) kept in a safe place in your home.

2. A TreasuryDirect account in your name.

3. Paper I-bonds with registered serial numbers purchased with your annual tax refund.

Any of these will diversify your holdings away from a 100% T-bill position in a brokerage account. But understand that each of these methods poses different risks from T-bills held in a brokerage account. That is the way risk works.

drumminj wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 9:56 pm

jhogue wrote: ↑Fri Dec 06, 2019 3:27 pm T-bills held in a brokerage account at Vanguard are safe enough for “normal” times because Vanguard is a big active player in the enormous world-wide secondary market for Treasurys. Unless there is a terrific disruption in this market your money will always be completely liquid.

I don't mean to keep harping on the same thing, but it seems you're overlooking the aspect of relying on a third party here. Sure, the treasury market is liquid, but that doesn't mean that vanguard will be solvent. Presumably these treasuries are held in "street name", like all other instruments at a brokerage, and thus aren't in your direct possession and are at risk if there's an issue with the institution itself, which is where SIPC comes in. Is this not the case treasuries (vs stocks)?

"In normal times", sure, but if you're talking about FDIC and liquidity with a bank/MM account/CD, it seems you should be considering similar scenarios with your brokerage -- Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab or wherever else. (I'll admit that bank receiverships are far more frequent than brokerage houses).

I agree with you on the tiers of possession and liquidity, and my intent here is just to suggest that bank accounts and CDs fall upon this same continuum, and in normal times where banks remain solvent, don't have drastically different characteristics from treasuries, aside from often paying a better rate. If I need liquidity in "normal" times, I can liquidate a treasury through my broker just as easily as I can break a CD (which I've done a few times, and takes no more than a day or two).

In "abnormal" times like the 2008 "crisis", I agree treasuries are the safer play.

mathjak107 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 3:12 am FEW REALIZE THIS :

if you ever check your vanguard statement or fidelity they read :
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" SIPC insurance provides protection for assets held by you in a Vanguard Brokerage account. Vanguard Brokerage Services is a division of Vanguard Marketing Corporation, which is a member of SIPC...

Vanguard mutual funds, including any Vanguard money market fund linked to your Vanguard Brokerage account, are not covered by SIPC insurance."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If you buy mutual funds through a brokerage account, those funds are protected against theft by SIPC.

However, if you buy mutual funds directly from a mutual fund company, they are not protected by SIPC, "because no protection is necessary : . Each mutual fund is set up as a separate entity, apart from the company that manages the fund. "The employees at a mutual fund don't have direct access to the assets,All mutual fund assets by law must be held in a trust account at a custodian bank.

That is a special account, not part of the bank's assets. The bank can fail, but the trust accounts are not involved in any way shape or form in that failure ...

https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/SIPC_pr ... tual_funds

Kbg wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 4:34 pm Don’t forget, the govt can print money. So getting your money back is not really the issue. Far more likely problems are legal delays and in the ZA (new acronym for Zombie Apocalypse) inflationary devaluation.

To me for the first and most likely problem, treasury direct is a no brainer. Just you and your government, no middlemen of any kind.

mathjak107 wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2019 2:26 am old school thinking used to say that bonds should go in retirement accounts . the fact is taking up valuable space in tax advantaged accounts at these low yields is a waste . michael kitces found that as little as a 2% dividend over the long term wipes out any tax advantage in a taxable account. fund turnover makes it worse .

as kitces points out

"Executive Summary
In an environment where generating portfolio alpha is difficult, strategies like managing assets on a household basis to take advantage of asset location opportunities to generate “tax alpha” are becoming more and more popular. The caveat, however, is that making effective asset location decisions is not easy, either.
For instance, while the traditional asset location strategy “rule of thumb” is that tax-inefficient bonds go into an IRA, while equities eligible for preferential tax rates go into a brokerage account, the reality is that for investors with long time horizons the optimal solution may be the opposite. Once stock dividends and portfolio turnover are considered, the ongoing “tax drag” of the portfolio can be so damaging to long-term returns that placing equities into an IRA may be more efficient, even though they are ultimately taxed at higher rates!
In fact, it turns out that almost any level of portfolio turnover will eventually tilt equities towards being held in IRAs given a long enough time horizon (and especially while today’s low interest rates result in almost no benefit for bonds to gain tax-deferred growth inside of retirement accounts). Which means in the end, good asset location decisions depend not only on returns and tax efficiency, but an investor’s time horizon as well!

https://www.kitces.com/blog/asset-locat ... e-horizon/

Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 8:45 pm What are they doing that they can give you 1.25% interest

sophie wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 7:51 am WSJ had a piece a few days ago about how the mortgage market is about to run into serious problems. Watch out for municipal bonds, mortgage backed securities, repurchase agreements, junk bonds etc. Which is what Ally is probably using to give you that interest rate.

T bills and Treasury money markets for me, at least until all this settles out. We could see another 2008 frozen-credit event - not saying it will happen just that it might.

sophie wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 7:51 am WSJ had a piece a few days ago about how the mortgage market is about to run into serious problems. Watch out for municipal bonds, mortgage backed securities, repurchase agreements, junk bonds etc. Which is what Ally is probably using to give you that interest rate.

T bills and Treasury money markets for me, at least until all this settles out. We could see another 2008 frozen-credit event - not saying it will happen just that it might.

Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 6:48 pm

sophie wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 7:51 am WSJ had a piece a few days ago about how the mortgage market is about to run into serious problems. Watch out for municipal bonds, mortgage backed securities, repurchase agreements, junk bonds etc. Which is what Ally is probably using to give you that interest rate.

T bills and Treasury money markets for me, at least until all this settles out. We could see another 2008 frozen-credit event - not saying it will happen just that it might.

I've been reading similar stuff.

But I can see why ocho is so blasé about it. Collect your higher interest rate, then if the bank goes under, you'll get your money anyways through the FDIC. It's almost like you only win if you DO go with the highest interest rate savings accounts. Unless FDIC fails, like because tons of people are unemployed because of a government lockdown, and they're drawing down their bank accounts... but I really don't know enough about it to do anything but speculate.

ochotona wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 7:03 pm
I-Bonds cannot break the zero bound. This is big f deal. Retail depositors in Europe are now being charged to keep their money in the bank.

tomfoolery wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 3:43 pm

vnatale wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:07 pm
As I just stated, if my belief that an income producing investment such as cash belongs in a retirement account then that eliminates any I bonds as Treasury Direct does not work with retirement accounts.

Since you are with both Vanguard and Fidelity and use do autoroll at Fidelity can you verify that Vanguard does not seem to offer the autoroll feature. When I talked to them a short while ago about the mechanics of buying bills and bonds they did not seem to bring up the autoroll feature. It seemed like it was all up to the investor to do it manually.

And, again, if I'm going by the pure prescription of owning cash from Tex's and Craig's book, which I believe to be 100% Treasury / one year then it seems the best options are Vanguard's US Treasury money market fund or buying various T-Bills which have maturities no longer than a year. In this area I am definitely prizing ultimate safety over any form of yield improvement. Therefore, that would seem to basically eliminate your first and third third, leaving only your middle third.

T-bills are definitely the way to go! The Treasury MMF has non-treasury obligations in it!

tomfoolery wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 3:43 pm

vnatale wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2019 8:07 pm As I just stated, if my belief that an income producing investment such as cash belongs in a retirement account then that eliminates any I bonds as Treasury Direct does not work with retirement accounts.

Since you are with both Vanguard and Fidelity and use do autoroll at Fidelity can you verify that Vanguard does not seem to offer the autoroll feature. When I talked to them a short while ago about the mechanics of buying bills and bonds they did not seem to bring up the autoroll feature. It seemed like it was all up to the investor to do it manually.

And, again, if I'm going by the pure prescription of owning cash from Tex's and Craig's book, which I believe to be 100% Treasury / one year then it seems the best options are Vanguard's US Treasury money market fund or buying various T-Bills which have maturities no longer than a year. In this area I am definitely prizing ultimate safety over any form of yield improvement. Therefore, that would seem to basically eliminate your first and third third, leaving only your middle third.

T-bills are definitely the way to go! The Treasury MMF has non-treasury obligations in it!