Gyroscopic Investing

For the bond portion of my PP, I've started purchasing 30-year US Treasury Bonds. From what I understand, one generally sells these bonds about 5 years before they hit maturity, so in valuing them, my primary concern should be their current market value to buyers.

I purchased the bonds through Treasury Direct and would presumably sell them through the same place.

I'm pretty confused about how to determine their current rate since not all 30-year bonds are commodities, in that they have different interest rates based on when they were created. When I supply the CUSIP associated with my bonds to various websites, they tell me how much I paid per $100 for the bonds, but not their current market value. I need a solid $ value so that I can track the percentage that the bonds represent in my portfolio when rebalancing. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

You could use the value of the ETF 'TLT' as a proxy.

Or you could calculate the bond value yourself, described here:
http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/bo ... /#msg20819

Also, you don't want to hold your 30-yr bond until 5 years before maturity; you want to sell it with 20 years before maturity, and replace it with a fresh new 30-year bond.  That's what Harry Browne recommended.

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