Search found 18 matches

by Kramer
Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:14 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Getting of the hamster wheel
Replies: 16
Views: 22736

Hey Ben, As a fellow single 30-something, I'm going to advise against pulling the trigger too soon. You are earning a great income, and be careful about giving up such a good gig. Yes, working is hard. But you are benefiting greatly -- each additional year you work has a dramatic effect on your fina...
by Kramer
Thu Apr 08, 2004 5:37 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Portfolio advice sought
Replies: 13
Views: 19504

Wanderer, What you should do depends a lot on your tax situation, so here goes a little advice not knowing the specifics of that: I like the choice of VEIEX over EEM due to the lower expense ratio I have chosen to forgo the international small cap due to the high expense ratios, and also lack of tax...
by Kramer
Thu Feb 05, 2004 11:36 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Vanguard VIPER ETF launch
Replies: 10
Views: 22863

Howdy raddr, The yield difference is pretty high: VAnguard MSCI small cap value (visvx): 1.90% S&P 600 Value (ijs): 0.76% Next year the yield difference should be larger, since VISVX was S&P600 value until the spring, so the 1.90% is weighted down by lower dividends earlier in the year. On t...
by Kramer
Wed Feb 04, 2004 10:49 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Vanguard VIPER ETF launch
Replies: 10
Views: 22863

I am pretty sure that the MSCI value small cap index includes REITs, the S&P 600 value does not. This accounts for the huge dividend yield difference. As far as methodology, I believe that the MSCI is superior. Instead of having hard boundaries like S&P 600 value has on value/growth division...
by Kramer
Sun Oct 26, 2003 8:41 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Are you on track to retire rich?
Replies: 34
Views: 29401

Kenm wrote: 30K per year in the U.S. is not that hard to come by for S.S. - My wife and I each had 6 figure incomes and paid the max into S.S. for over 15 years. We should each get over $15K per year in S.S. Retirement Benefits This is indeed the case. You can download the benefit calculator from t...
by Kramer
Fri Oct 10, 2003 6:25 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Nobel prize for fat tail theory
Replies: 9
Views: 9879

Yep, this does not affect my buy and hold strategy during either accumulation or during retirement. But it is central to long term survivability of diversified portfolios, and how much you can withdraw out of them over time, and what assets they should consist of. These economists don't have to worr...
by Kramer
Fri Oct 10, 2003 4:54 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Buying Private Health Insurance
Replies: 16
Views: 19560

caseynshan wrote: I just got my 2004 Kaiser Info, Wanderer - FYI - for a 43 old single male HMO is 220.00 a month (drops to 166.00 if you drop maternity and prescription drug coverage) Thanks for the detail, Caseynshan. Just curious, do you put this under your business, or are you and your family j...
by Kramer
Thu Oct 09, 2003 9:59 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Nobel prize for fat tail theory
Replies: 9
Views: 9879

Nobel prize for fat tail theory

One of the recent discussions was about leptokurtic (yep, it was the correct word) or fat-tail distributions of stock market returns. Combined with the tendency of the stock market to exhibit return to mean behavior over long periods of time. This makes it difficult to use monte carlo techniques for...
by Kramer
Sun Oct 05, 2003 11:28 am
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: New Issue of Efficient Frontier by William J. Bernstein
Replies: 7
Views: 7831

Thanks for posting the quotes, Oliver. Oliver wrote: I have been giving some thought to how TIPS should be evaluated in the portfolio and SWR. How important is the SD if you are okay with the original YTM and intend to hold until maturity a security issued by the US gov't? I think the part that is i...
by Kramer
Sat Oct 04, 2003 10:23 am
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Russell vs S&P SmallCap / BARRA Index?
Replies: 2
Views: 3824

HI Petey, The Russell 2000 index is changed once a year, the stocks with market cap ranking 1000-3000 in the US stock market. The S&P 600 index is chosen by committee and new entries (and drops) are announced each month. It is a well known fact that traders try to arb the Russell 2000, buying st...
by Kramer
Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:27 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Emerging Market Bonds
Replies: 33
Views: 61762

Petey wrote: I am interested to hear more on slice and dice of bond funds. Could you elaborate on that please The idea is to expose your fixed income assets across different fixed income asset classes and risk factors (as opposed to investing in fixed income primarily for portfolio security). This w...
by Kramer
Sun Sep 28, 2003 9:19 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: My new website is up...sorta
Replies: 33
Views: 24266

Raddr, thanks for sharing the info on your web site. I found it very informative. I have been running some of my own Monte Carlo withdrawal scenarios. What I found most interesting about your approach was the following: From raddr web site: What I did was create a random number generator where the s...
by Kramer
Sun Sep 28, 2003 5:50 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Emerging Market Bonds
Replies: 33
Views: 61762

Hi Petey, I won't attempt to completely answer your questions, but just throw in a few thoughts. Emerging market (EM) bonds are denominated in dollars so there is no currency diversification effect like there is with developed market bonds. So I would put EM bonds below developed market bonds in por...
by Kramer
Thu Sep 25, 2003 4:48 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Gold and Energy
Replies: 20
Views: 17314

If Gold shares perform better than Gold, the hard asset, I would like to be able to view data from a selected bunch of return dates to see how it has done. Morningstar only has 5 year history on gold funds and gold mining funds. The William Bernstein info doesn't really provide anything other than ...
by Kramer
Thu Sep 25, 2003 12:47 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Gold and Energy
Replies: 20
Views: 17314

I used to make the case for real estate (in the face of the moronic argument that the CAGR was lower for real estate than for equities) on diversification alone. her second point explains, exactly, why we have been reluctant to invest outside vanguard. waiting on that gold etf. ***** did anyone eve...
by Kramer
Wed Sep 24, 2003 8:22 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Gold and Energy
Replies: 20
Views: 17314

Precious metals, as in the actual hard asset, in the long run return about zero. Precious metals stocks, on the other hand, seem to have a decent real return, albeit probably not as large as broad based stocks. It is difficult to use historical data because past performance has been distorted so muc...
by Kramer
Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:39 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Spread sheets for Personal Financial Planning
Replies: 18
Views: 15134

I recently purchased MATLAB, a modeling tool for engineers and mathematicians that I used in school. I use this for a graduate class in signal processing that I am taking. Anyway, MATLAB is an incredibly useful tool. Think of it as something like Excel on steroids, and with much better performance a...
by Kramer
Mon Sep 22, 2003 7:04 pm
Forum: FIRE Board
Topic: Spread sheets for Personal Financial Planning
Replies: 18
Views: 15134

Hi Chips, Kramer here, I'm a big fan, and am honored to reply to your post. I use some standard type spreadsheets that I find invaluable: Holdings -- (eg, net worth) divided by asset class for my slice and dice portfolio. It compares my current asset allocation against my asset allocation plan. It a...