Gyroscopic Investing

Cortopassi wrote: Libertarian666,

On the GLD comment, I have just skimmed Ken Fisher's book "The Only Three Questions that Still Count" and it was a bit of an eye opener and is doing a good job of resetting my attitude.  If you don't know, the questions are:


    What do I believe that’s wrong?
    What can I fathom that others can’t?
    What is my brain doing to mislead me?

There are many consensus answers, like everyone believing "debt is bad" that he does a pretty good job of ripping apart.

I only say this because of the concerns on GLD and I know what you are inferring from the prospectus, but here we are in 2015, 7 years since I started investing in gold, and GLD is still around.  The "paper" gold markets haven't blown up.  Inflation, much less hyperinflation, is nowhere to be seen.  If all the gold is going east, China isn't doing a good job of using that to their advantage, etc, etc.  All the over and over tools used by bloggers to entice buying into gold.

Likewise, the book opened my eyes to P/E ratios, and how their being high signifies nothing.

He definitely has an equities slant and comes right out and says he was burned in 2000 and 2008, but kept the faith, and the market rewarded him.

I have slowly over the years stopped listening to KWN, then Jim Sinclair, then TF Metals, etc and I have opened myself up to opinions on all sides related to gold and equities.  It is a slow process, but it is helping me.  Makes it easier to wake up in the morning and go "oh well" when gold is down again vs. getting pissed at the world for not recognizing its value.  I know it will happen eventually, and if not, well, at least with the PP I have the other assets to make up for it vs. still being all in on gold.

mathjak107 wrote:
no one can predict if  the future is right for what the pp holds anymore than what a conventional portfolio will do  , but we can sure look at the past . .

so that being the case you have to decide whether the pp is worth the trouble and the money it has left on the table over and over  and either commit or  stop complaining about the results and just don't do it.


while the pp cuts the worry over volatility  it adds another level of worry it seems from what i see here  from both the posts and the personal e-mails i get , which is  the missing the boat worry .  the worry that you are throwing money in to assets that just may give you  back little in return  going forward for quite a while , while other conventional portfolio's are still producing  higher returns regardless of world events .


no one yet has discovered a way to basically hide under a rock and bullet proof your investing  should the calamity ever come ,  while providing the returns you see others getting willing to take on more volatility.


so you have to chose your path and either do it or don't .  if you have to 2nd guess your moves than i would say you made the wrong choice for an investment model and modifying it is like trying to be a little pregnant .

it is like those who buy a target fund and they buy all kinds of other funds undoing what the target fund is trying to accomplish.

mathjak107 wrote: it doesn't differ that much  from other allocations but it sure differs from the pp  and that is my point . if you are not following the pp to the letter and undoing the structure of it  why are you complaining about the investment moves you have to make.

you either have to do it as is or else you aren't. there is no middle ground once you break rank. 

even this variable pp thing is a mind game. your money does not know what team it belongs to . once you change allocations you are running a different model , period,

the entire investment is what counts not how you choose to break it down on paper and group things.

it is no different than a bucket system in retirement . no matter what bucket you put investments in the whole portfolio is one .

if you are not doing the pp why are you adding more gold if you are 2nd guessing yourself  and not following the pp model ?

as an investor i am not seeing the logic in this. you are following a model but not following the model .

investors fail because they invest in things they don't believe in . once they start altering the plan  they end up having no plan and just a hodge podge of investments with no structure or shape.

that is why i didn't just cut back the pp when i did it and put some money in other portfolio's.

if i didn't believe the pp was right for me as is than even though i just bought it i was out .

i was not  going to try to force it on myself and then run a 2nd group of investments .

i realized it wasn't something i felt i could still belive in and so i ended it.

sometimes you have to ask yourself if you  are straying because you do not believe this will work  , if the answer is yes then maybe it is time to face that fact and stop trying to do something you 2nd guess. .


i am not lecturing you budd as much trying to just get you to  examine both sides and see if what you are doing makes sense to you . if it does great but if not you have to face the truth , you are trying to be a little bit pregnant . .


after 27 years i just did exactly that , the fidelity insight models no longer met my own retirement  objectives and while i tried running 2 models at the same time i forced myself to realize i am over complicating things and this is not the way i really want to invest.

so after 27 years we divorced and i put my own model together that better fits me and my journey.


this is all i am trying to convey to you .  you are cheating on the pp  by not staying true . you are seeking comfort in other ass-ets  so i am just saying maybe divorce is in the cards as well and don't make anymore moves you do not believe are the right moves..

buddtholomew wrote: Libertarian666, glad to hear you are comfortable with your portfolio. I purchased additional gold on Friday (GLD) to restore asset allocation to just outside my comfort zone  I guess it's known as lowering ones cost basis..

mathjak107 wrote: so i will sk the same question gain . why are you stressing out and 2nd guessing yourself buying gold if you believe in the pp and it meets your goal ?



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buddtholomew wrote: Libertarian666, glad to hear you are comfortable with your portfolio. I purchased additional gold on Friday (GLD) to restore asset allocation to just outside my comfort zone  I guess it's known as lowering ones cost basis..

mathjak107 wrote: isn't low to  no stress investing the basis for the pp ?  seems to me if you have to 2nd guess buying the assets something isn't quite right in it for you  .

Cortopassi wrote: Been a long time since we've seen a day like this.  Sure, it's only $1125, nothing to write home about, but PPers need to be feeling pretty good today about gold and bonds more than making up for the slide in stocks recently.

Fred wrote: I sold $13k of company stock in my ESPP today and now I have to decide on whether to let it sit in cash or buy gold. I'm sitting at about 17% gold in the PP.

So what does your crystal ball say? Should I buy now or wait until re-balance time?