Search found 1470 matches

by Boglegrappler
Mon Mar 18, 2024 11:39 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Realtor has ideas and a buyer
Replies: 24
Views: 2203

Re: Realtor has ideas and a buyer

The "I know a buyer" thing might actually be believable if realtor were willing to significantly reduce commissions (since she doesn't have to prep, photo, list, do showings, get feedback, etc.). But if I'm paying 'full price' then I'm going to want to see what the market says. I agree with this, but it misses what I think is the most important point to grasp. If the listing realtor sells your house to a buyer that they bring, they get paid twice as much as they get if the house sells to a buyer from another real estate firm. Even if the other buyer pays a higher price to the seller. To me this is one of the greatest conflicts of interest in the real estate business. The bottom line is seller beware. The realtor's motivation to h...
by Boglegrappler
Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:08 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Just for fun, what single stock do you think will see huge growth
Replies: 174
Views: 27766

Re: Just for fun, what single stock do you think will see huge growth

This is an interesting topic. I looked at the S&P 500 stocks and sorted by % change over the past three years (from the barchart data base). Here is the list of the top 25 or so. Do you think you could have predicted some of these? Manymost of them are surprises to me. NVDA Nvidia Corp 531.55% BLDR Builders Firstsource 343.84% ANET Arista Networks Inc 298.32% LLY Eli Lilly and Company 269.71% JBL Jabil Circuit 229.11% NUE Nucor Corp 206.93% MPC Marathon Petroleum Corp 198.55% MCK Mckesson Corp 196.37% STLD Steel Dynamics Inc 190.84% PWR Quanta Services 188.22% AVGO Broadcom Ltd 187.96% FICO Fair Isaac and Company 186.92% PANW Palo Alto Networks Inc 182.09% TRGP Targa Resources 180.98% SNPS Synopsys Inc 151.98% IT Gartner Inc 151.29% GWW...
by Boglegrappler
Mon Feb 19, 2024 8:43 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Just did my own taxes for first time - owed $5k
Replies: 57
Views: 8019

Re: Just did my own taxes for first time - owed $5k

When you say you had the employer take the "full withholding", it's clear that the amount withheld from your incremental income this year was not the amount of additional tax that the income triggered. It's pretty simply really. You can play around with different scenarios if you are using tax software, (or even if you are just working by hand on paper), and you can get an idea of how much more in federal and state taxes needs to be withheld (or paid by you making an estimated tax payment) to avoid future surprises. If you are single, the 2023 tax bracket from about 45K to 95K triggers federal tax at a 22% rate, 95k to 182K triggers additional tax at a 24% rate, but from 182k to 231K triggers additional tax at a 32% rate. Once you...
by Boglegrappler
Sat Feb 17, 2024 1:11 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Military Portfolio Check-Up
Replies: 5
Views: 812

Re: Military Portfolio Check-Up

Your 95/5 equity/fixed income allocation probably works on paper but may put you at risk of "losing your nerve" during pronounced downturns. You might want to consider lowering the equity component and adding to the bond component to stay in a comfort range that will allow a "stay the course" during the inevitable downdrafts. That's an individual decision.


Curious about what moonlighting opportunities are out there for physicians that rise to that level.


Looks like you have a good handle on what you're doing, so good luck.
by Boglegrappler
Tue Feb 13, 2024 12:12 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Who In Their Right Mind Files Gift Tax Returns? And Why?
Replies: 114
Views: 16573

Re: Who In Their Right Mind Files Gift Tax Returns? And Why?

hicabob wrote: Tue Feb 13, 2024 11:05 am As someone who has recently passed the estate tax exemption amount I was doing some reading and became aware of the "7 year gift rule" which I have not seen mentioned here yet seems like a good HNW estate planning tool.

"If you die within 7 years of gifting the asset, then the gift will count towards your nil-rate band, as we mentioned above, meaning that it may still be subject to IHT. After 7 years, the gift doesn't count towards the overall value of your estate. This is known as the 7 year gift rule in inheritance tax."

It's worth noting that this is referring to United Kingdom tax situations, and not to USA situations.
by Boglegrappler
Sat Jan 20, 2024 12:38 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: New Runner Seeking Advice
Replies: 29
Views: 2937

Re: New Runner Seeking Advice

I did some running years back, although I'm not active now.

One "rule of thumb" regarding distances was to never do a run that is more than 3x your average daily mileage (assuming you have a base of several weeks of training). I found that to be a pretty good rule. It's possible to do a longer run, but then you are risking an overuse injury that will sideline you for weeks. So, if you want to go on longer runs, you need to build your base by doing more frequent runs and slowly lengthening them.

Distance running has the feature that you can injure yourself without knowing it until a day or two later. It shares that characteristic with baseball pitching.
by Boglegrappler
Tue Dec 26, 2023 6:46 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Best book to convince someone investing isn't gambling
Replies: 102
Views: 120128

Re: Best book to convince someone investing isn't gambling

Taken as a group, gamblers forfeit a large portion of their "investment" to the house. The NY State lottery in 2022 took in 10.4 Billion in wagers and paid out 4.9 billion, meaning that collectively lottery players lost more than 50% of their investment (in one year).

If you look at the S&P 500 companies investors, nothing of the sort happens, especially not collectively.


There is obviously "risk" to investing, but it is of a completely different kind.
by Boglegrappler
Fri Dec 15, 2023 8:39 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: PA to FL drive
Replies: 34
Views: 6033

Re: PA to FL drive

I've made a somewhat similar drive multiple times over recent years. I usually stop in Lumberton NC where there are several decent hotels near an Outback Steakhouse where I can treat myself to a decent meal after the first leg. It looks like that would be about halfway for you. When I hit the Baltimore-DC-Richmond stretch I always jump into the express lanes and pay the extra toll with EZ pass. It is usually not expressly necessary except just below DC in the Fredericksburg VA area where there seems to be a regular, perpetual slowdown in the regular lanes. When that is going on you'll be happy you took the express lanes. Your drive will take two legs of over 550 miles each. If you're not comfortable with that length of a drive on consecutiv...
by Boglegrappler
Fri Dec 01, 2023 10:39 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Getting first real "career" opportunity and will be traveling a lot for work. How should I prepare?
Replies: 69
Views: 7765

Re: Getting first real "career" opportunity and will be traveling a lot for work. How should I prepare?

I think there is merit in getting a card (or two) that you use ONLY for your business expenses. Likewise setting up a separate bank account which will be used ONLY for your business-related transactions. When you get your reimbursement check from your employer, deposit into this "work" bank account. And when the credit card bills come due for your work travel and entertainment expenses, pay them from this separate work bank account. As long as you submit your expenses quickly, and your employer reimburses you timely, you will likely have some "float" in this account on a steady basis . The previous comments about staying on top of your expense filings and reimbursements is key (and harder to do than you think--it's a pai...
by Boglegrappler
Tue Nov 28, 2023 7:45 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Okay to "Trade Up" for a Car in This Weird Situation?
Replies: 13
Views: 2023

Re: Okay to "Trade Up" for a Car in This Weird Situation?

It seems like grandma is pretty sharp. :)
by Boglegrappler
Fri Nov 24, 2023 7:52 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: "In general, bonds add little or no value to the portfolio of ordinary long-term investors"
Replies: 262
Views: 48954

Re: "In general, bonds add little or no value to the portfolio of ordinary long-term investors"

This is always relevant to these discussions. Read from mid page 16 through page 19.

https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf

I post this routinely as food for thought on this issue (despite holding more than 25% overall in cash and fixed income).
by Boglegrappler
Tue Oct 31, 2023 12:18 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: underfloor heating for bathroom and shower--are you happy with it?
Replies: 43
Views: 5730

Re: underfloor heating for bathroom and shower--are you happy with it?

We have a heated master bath floor, and also in a first floor tiled entry. Those areas feel nice when you're walking in your bare feet. An issue is the thermostat control. Ours are set up with wall thermostats, which obviously measure the room air temperature---not the floor. With this setup, you wind up having the zone calling for heat all the time since there is no way that warming the floor can raise the air temperature enough to turn off the thermostat----plus you have the regular room heat and thermostat separately keeping the air temperature at your desired level. So to get the floor to call for heat, you need to set that floor thermostat at a significantly higher temperature than what you have the room thermostat set for (otherwise i...
by Boglegrappler
Thu Sep 28, 2023 4:55 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Safe IRMAA Estimate 2023 for 2025
Replies: 32
Views: 6536

Re: Safe IRMAA Estimate 2023 for 2025

You can get an idea of what might lie ahead from the Trustees report for 2023. See page 211 for the projections out to 2032.

https://www.cms.gov/oact/tr/2023
by Boglegrappler
Sun Sep 24, 2023 9:20 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Long real recovery periods for stocks
Replies: 172
Views: 17596

Re: Long real recovery periods for stocks

It's worth noting for those periods that a big part of the reason for the poor returns was the stunning run-up in valuations in the years prior to the starting dates. It's a good thing we don't have that situation today :shock: Indeed. My point with that observation is that if you were to move the starting point a bit, it has an impact on the results since 2000, 1929, and 1966 were peaks in the market. In 2000 the S&P 500 had about tripled in the prior five years. In '29 it was up about double in the prior two years. The relevance of this probably mostly applies to someone with a windfall, or someone making a big change in his allocation. It argues for staging your moves over time as opposed to making one fell swoop actions, particular...
by Boglegrappler
Sun Sep 24, 2023 8:33 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Long real recovery periods for stocks
Replies: 172
Views: 17596

Re: Long real recovery periods for stocks

It's worth noting for those periods that a big part of the reason for the poor returns was the stunning run-up in valuations in the years prior to the starting dates.
by Boglegrappler
Sat Sep 16, 2023 7:59 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Leaving Fidelity Wealth Management
Replies: 24
Views: 5508

Re: Leaving Fidelity Wealth Management

If you look at two years ago to today, equities are flat to somewhat down, and I believe bonds are down materially. Doesn't look to me like that result is super awful, but I get your point that you would like them to beat the market by at least the fees so that you break even against an indexed portfolio.

A good question is what would you have done with the assets if you were self managing? Possibly you are better off to have had them running it.
by Boglegrappler
Fri Sep 15, 2023 1:38 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Berkshire Hathaway and Dividends
Replies: 92
Views: 9047

Re: Berkshire Hathaway and Dividends

I assume you're alluding to high weighting to AAPL shares, that BRK acquired a substantial number of at a very good price/deal. Buffett's never been inclined to shy away from a high weighting ... provided its a good deal.
It's worth noting or clarifying that all of the Apple shares owned by BRK were purchased in the open market at prices available to anyone. That said, the purchases may have been a good deal in terms of the overall decision.
by Boglegrappler
Tue Aug 29, 2023 2:43 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: S&P 500 concentration risk: Should we be worried?
Replies: 245
Views: 24696

Re: 10 stocks are ~25% of total US

There is less to worry about here if anyone bothers to look at more than what reporters write in their stories.

A couple of years ago I took a look at the composition of the S&P 500 and the weightings. Back then the top twenty companies accounted for 35% or so of the total market value.

But those same companies also accounted for 32% of the total income of the group. They were only about 25% of the sales, so you can infer that they are more profitable than most of the index components.

Back then Apple was tops with about 4.7% of the market cap, but they had 4.6% of the net income (with only 2% ish of the sales).

Haven't repeated the exercise recently, but you get the idea.
by Boglegrappler
Fri Aug 25, 2023 9:52 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Calling all Boglehead car mechanics
Replies: 37
Views: 3637

Re: Calling all Boglehead car mechanics

I agree with the forum investigation advice. The forums are filled with smart guys and some mechanics and are likely to have solved your problem at some point. I had an Infiniti Q45 that was running rough after about 10 years, and the dealer diagnosed an injector problem on a particular cylinder and quoted me around $1000 for repair. I somehow knew the cylinder # and realized that the specific injector was in the front of the engine and didn't require the plenum to be removed----so I ordered it for about $130 or so and replaced it myself using just pliers and a phillips head screwdriver, iirc. I think the dealer charged me about $100 for the diagnostic readout at the time, so if you were to do it today it might be double that or something. ...
by Boglegrappler
Sat Aug 19, 2023 7:21 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Northwestern Mutual
Replies: 40
Views: 5800

Re: Northwestern Mutual

Decades ago I bought a disability policy from NWM. I had to argue with the sales rep, but they ultimately structured something that made sense to me at the time. The standard disability sale pitch is that they pay you instantly when you are disabled, and payments continue for something like a year. I said that I can self-insure for short interruptions, but wanted protection agains catastrophic disability. Eventually they structured something that started after one year, and went until I was 65. I also bought some term life from them that I let lapse a while back as I got older and the premiums rose, and I no longer needed it. It seemed expensive after I had it for a couple of decades, and I once called the company to inquire about why SBLI ...
by Boglegrappler
Sat Aug 12, 2023 11:27 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Downsides to AFCI Circuit Breaker?
Replies: 15
Views: 2992

Re: Downsides to AFCI Circuit Breaker?

Our arc fault breakers have tripped when there are power surges or spikes or "transients", whatever you want to call them. The GFCI breakers don't trip in these instances and neither do the regular conventional breakers. It is very infrequent---maybe every 6-8 months, and doesn't always trip every one. It is largely random, but often trips all of the AFCI circuits. If you decide to use AFCIs in your house, I would recommend that you ensure that any mission-critical circuits like your internet router and wireless network equipment be on circuits with regular breakers. I've made sure of this so that I don't lose the ability to remotely control my security lighting or cameras if I'm away from the house on a trip. The comments about b...
by Boglegrappler
Mon Aug 07, 2023 8:27 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Best Place to Live in South Carolina?
Replies: 66
Views: 7365

Re: Best Place to Live in South Carolina?

I've contemplated living somewhere different and one resource I've discovered is the climate comparison data and charts from weather spark.

You can have a good time comparing many cities simultaneously on a broad spectrum of data.

https://weatherspark.com/compare

It seems that the best place to live climate wise is either Monterey or San Diego depending on how cool or warm you prefer. :) I won't be moving to either one, though.

Most of South Carolina has issues with mugginess for a large part of the year, although the same factor is present across most of the eastern US. And where it isn't muggy, stuff periodically catches on fire.
by Boglegrappler
Fri Aug 04, 2023 8:02 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: is it accurate to say almost no one beats the market?
Replies: 136
Views: 11968

Re: is it accurate to say almost no one beats the market?

Buy the Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Bogle. It's only $15 or so on Amazon kindle. Work through it--it requires a bit of attention to the math parts. Nothing above basic math, but he shows how management fees have a compound effect on your long run return. He also works through some facts about how many managers beat the index both before and after fees. The takeaway from this is pretty simple: Over short periods of time, about 1/8 of managers beat the market. Over long periods of time, say 10 years plus, fewer than 1/20 beats the market. The problem is the you don't know who they are when you are choosing a manager. Jack has the exact numbers in the book. He also works through some numbers on what typically happens to peopl...
by Boglegrappler
Wed Aug 02, 2023 8:25 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: US credit downgrade
Replies: 130
Views: 15833

Re: US credit downgrade

Rating agencies are generally (almost always) behind the markets on shifts in credit quality. In any case, it's far from surprising, as most ratings changes are.

I can't find any other official Fitch commentary on the decision other than in this link, which does not mention the January 6th protests. It does refer to the well known spending and deficit budget issues. If anyone finds a better or different Fitch press release, please post it. Thanks.

https://www.fitchratings.com/research/s ... 01-08-2023
by Boglegrappler
Fri Jul 14, 2023 10:07 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Whole House Generator Maintenance Contract
Replies: 36
Views: 4830

Re: Whole House Generator Maintenance Contract

I've had two whole house generators, Cummins and Kohler. I don't pay the maintenance contract, but I am relatively handy and tech-savvy. The Cummins Onan had a failure early on where the unit would not go into standby. It just ran continuously, even when street power was available. This happened because of some kind of power surge, and was remedied with a new controller board. Apparently it had happened to other units, and after that it didn't happen again. That was under warranty, and not during a widespread outage. The Kohler had a "low coolant" shutdown issue early on that took a while to correct. It needed a new coolant sensor, which finally cured the problem. Last year the Kohler had to have some coolant added to make it oper...
by Boglegrappler
Mon Jun 26, 2023 8:54 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Pittsburgh in July, what to eat and do?
Replies: 44
Views: 4667

Re: Pittsburgh in July, what to eat and do?

Look up the closest place to get an original Pittsburgh baked Italian hoagie. I haven't found them to be similar anyplace else. There are a number of choices.
by Boglegrappler
Mon Jun 12, 2023 11:06 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Corporate America or entrepreneurship?
Replies: 76
Views: 10346

Re: Corporate America or entrepreneurship?

Going out on your own is a lot more difficult than anyone thinks before they've done it. I'll venture this observation. Your description of your two dinner companions doesn't ring true. The only way that you can have a million dollars of passive, pretax income today is to have investment capital of at least $10+ million, and probably more accurately of about $30+ million. The yield on the S&P 500 is below 2%. And even if you use real estate as your passive investment engine, if you're paying someone else to manage it all, you need a large investment to generate $1 million of pretax income. It's not wrong to think about these issues, especially at your age, as someone else has suggested. But I would essentially disregard the claims of th...
by Boglegrappler
Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:57 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Does Warren Buffett prefer dividend paying stocks? If so, why?
Replies: 9
Views: 1510

Re: Does Warren Buffett prefer dividend paying stocks? If so, why?

Something like eighty or so companies in the S&P 500 do not pay a dividend. That means that about 84% of the companies in the index do pay dividends. Buffett's investment practice has alway been to buy more established companies, especially as opposed to buying "growth" companies in emerging sectors of the economy. This necessarily means that he's likely to favor companies that do pay dividends. For those who wish to hear directly from Buffett about what he thinks about paying dividends, (instead of us telling each other what he thinks), here is a link to his shareholder letter from some years back where he talks about paying or not paying dividends. Read pages 19-21 https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2012ltr.pdf
by Boglegrappler
Fri Jun 02, 2023 6:22 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for kids?
Replies: 51
Views: 4889

Re: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for kids?

Lots of things to unpack from the OP's post. I'll just note that one of the great benefits of the grappling sports is that you go against people your own size. That's especially useful for development in the case of smaller kids. Probably is a good thing for the bigger kids too. If you move forward, just be aware that some kids don't like wrestling-like sports. There is something primal about being held down by someone more skilled and/or stronger than you, and realizing that you're powerless to fix it. It can be disturbing to younger (and older) kids. And there seems be one of two responses. It's either "this activity stinks because I'm not instantly good at it----so that's enough of this".....or, "I'm going to learn how to ...
by Boglegrappler
Thu May 25, 2023 7:43 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Redacted
Replies: 109
Views: 11175

Re: S&P500 has become S&P5? (MSFT, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, NVDA)

We have two pages of discussion of this and no one raises the issue of what portion of the S&P500 earnings or revenues these companies represent. It's somewhat relevant to the discussion. I'll expand on this a bit. Data comes from the free Barcharts.com website on the indices page, which gives a lot of tabular info on the S&P 500 index companies. If you sort the companies by net income, you get Apple at the top, at $99.8 billion of net income. (Not sure whether it's trailing twelve months or last year.) Second is Microsoft at $77.2 billion. Third is Google at $59.9 billion. Nvidia is quite a ways down the list on net income, but is valued proportionately higher because of its projected growth. Amazon had a loss last year, but is hi...
by Boglegrappler
Wed May 24, 2023 7:43 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Redacted
Replies: 109
Views: 11175

Re: S&P500 has become S&P5? (MSFT, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, NVDA)

We have two pages of discussion of this and no one raises the issue of what portion of the S&P500 earnings or revenues these companies represent.

It's somewhat relevant to the discussion.
by Boglegrappler
Wed May 10, 2023 8:45 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Tender Offer and Potential Windfall
Replies: 12
Views: 1483

Re: Tender Offer and Potential Windfall

It's hard to give advice without knowing more about the company and its recent history. Presumably the "tender offer" you are receiving is coming from the company itself.

So, the offers you are receiving are coming from people with more information than you have, and that should tell you something. Of course, they could be misguided in their own assessments of the value and what the future holds.

If you were my relative, I think I would counsel you to sell as little as possible.
by Boglegrappler
Sat May 06, 2023 10:25 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: S&P 500 P/E ratio
Replies: 311
Views: 18542

Re: S&P 500 P/E ratio

The simple formula model for P/E comes from Price=Earnings x (1+growth rate) / required rate of return (k) - the growth rate. This is for an oversimplified equity that grows at some constant rate forever.

or P= E(1+g)/ (k-g)

from which you get P/E = (1+g)/(k-g)

All changes in overall P/E ratios come from shifts in projected growth rates of earnings, or required rates of return. As interest rates fell (which commenced in August 1982), P/E multiples rose, since the required rate of return fell. Some of the rise may come from higher expected growth rates.

That's the theoretical framework. It gets whipsawed around by basic demand for stocks as happened in the late 90s, or fear of them as in 2009, 2001ish, and 1987, among others.
by Boglegrappler
Wed May 03, 2023 4:16 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Dual agency [real estate office]
Replies: 24
Views: 2039

Re: Dual agency [real estate office]

I bought a house using the listing agent. It worked in my favor considerably. The agent was so hungry to collect both sides that they steered the seller to my offer (which definitely wasn’t the highest).
This is important to understand. The agent isn't always motivated to get the highest price for the seller, and has a financial incentive to push offers from buyers who have seen the house using the listing broker or listing broker's firm, at least.

If there were a practical way to do it, the best way to look for a home is to tell any broker that you work with that you only want to see their own firm's listings. Regrettably, it's not really practical
by Boglegrappler
Sun Apr 30, 2023 11:00 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: LTCi offer - Buy it or not?
Replies: 39
Views: 2697

Re: LTCi offer - Buy it or not?

It's always seemed to me that, because of the safety net existence (medicaid), long term care insurance is more accurately insurance for a portion of your assets to pass on to your heirs. Depending on your asset level, and what happens with your care, you might also view it as insurance benefiting federal taxpayers, who can defer picking you up on medicaid until your LTC policy runs out.
by Boglegrappler
Sat Apr 15, 2023 9:09 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: How is Berkshire Hathaway stock NOT a better investment than the index?
Replies: 136
Views: 29377

Re: How is Berkshire Hathaway stock NOT a better investment than the index?

I don't think comparing BKR to the S&P Index is all that bad an idea. It sharpens your thinking about what you're doing when you own the index. BRK is far different than owning a single stock, though. You can look at their reports and easily see that you actually own many businesses in that company---not just one. You can also look at the index and note that an enormous percentage of your index value is in a rather small number of the stocks. Its been a while since I ran the numbers, but in 2020 the top 10 companies in the S&P500 represented 25% of the value, and the top 50 companies were 50% of the value. That's a lot more diversification that owning one conglomerate stock like BRK, but the economic risks are not spread evenly over...
by Boglegrappler
Tue Apr 11, 2023 9:28 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Do anti-tailgating bumper stickers help?
Replies: 144
Views: 9989

Re: Do anti-tailgating bumper stickers help?

Buy a truck, and get an 82nd airborne theme license plate frame.

Works much better than a bumper sticker, although it is still ignored by some.
by Boglegrappler
Mon Mar 27, 2023 11:00 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: What to pay neighbor kid for cat care?
Replies: 55
Views: 4246

Re: What to pay neighbor kid for cat care?

We used a service run by a woman who did house pet and plant care, and charged a daily fee. I can't remember the exact number now, but I think it was $25.00 per day. Later she raised the cost to account for the avoided cost of boarding the two cats. We discontinued using her when, after getting an alarm system that recorded comings and goings, we realized that she billed us for every day care, but only bothered to come every other day.

After that we went with neighborhood kids, but we did note whether the house had been entered daily.

Suggested prices by others seem inline, to me. Neighborhood youngsters can be less expensive that adults running businesses.
by Boglegrappler
Sat Mar 25, 2023 3:04 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: S&P 500 concentration risk: Should we be worried?
Replies: 245
Views: 24696

Re: S&P 500 concentration risk: Should we be worried?

Obviously one can be concerned about "concentration" risk. A couple of years ago, I looked at the S&P 500 companies and did some number crunching. What you'll find is that the most valuable companies also, speaking generally, have the most earnings, and the most revenues. Some are valued more highly because of their most recent growth rates, but when you look at it, it makes sense that they are the most valuable companies. Look at Barcharts.com for the data on the index companies, and you can sort it various ways on income and revenue. Edit to add my old post from 2021: The fear of concentration in the S&P 500 may be justified to a small degree, but if you look at some facts, it makes sense. Microsoft and Apple have the la...
by Boglegrappler
Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:58 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Understanding Convertible Bonds
Replies: 5
Views: 712

Re: Understanding Convertible Bonds

The Credit Suisse bonds in question are completely (not just a little bit) different than the convertible bonds that are normally discussed using that nomenclature.
by Boglegrappler
Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:29 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Cars - [What have you previously owned?]
Replies: 59
Views: 5738

Re: Cars - random #s and thoughts

This is very interesting information and would be even more useful with some additional detail.

1. What was the year and model of each car. Mileage would be interesting too.

2. Did you have any surprise repairs that were immediately necessary.

3. How did you find/acquire the cars, and how did you sell them. Dealers or craigslist or what.

The only used car that I ever bought came with a series of headaches, although we got through them. Since then, for the last four decades, we've bought new from dealers, and have generally paid cash. I don't think my way of doing it maximizes my economic benefit. :)
by Boglegrappler
Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:44 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Buffett's 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter
Replies: 76
Views: 12196

Re: Buffett's 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

bgf wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:35 am it is a fine letter, but not sure how much longer he'll keep this up... this one continues the nearly decade long trend of decreasing length. i remember reading ones 20-30 pages in length not that long ago.

I just read it and have to say that I think it is a bit different than prior letters. It's shorter, and I had some difficulty following the point he was making in one or two spots. I say that as an enthusiastic (small position) holder of the B shares.
by Boglegrappler
Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:22 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: $2.5 million windfall at age 22... seeking advice
Replies: 140
Views: 23246

Re: $2.5 million windfall at age 22... seeking advice

My view is to treat this as a one-time gift granted by a guardian angel who is not coming back. You have to act as your own fiduciary here, and the biggest temptation is to chew into your gift to buy nice things, as someone else noted above. The way to avoid that, in my opinion, is to pick an asset allocation between equities and fixed income, and then only consume, at most , the after-tax income that this generates. That means your interest on the fixed income, and dividends on the stocks. The current dividend yield on the S&P 500 is somewhere around 1.75 or so, so if you went 100% S&P 500 index fund, you would generate about $42,500 currently in dividend income, pre-tax. That income could be expected to grow at about the same rate...
by Boglegrappler
Tue Feb 21, 2023 10:07 am
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Is [car's] blind spot monitor worth while?
Replies: 180
Views: 12339

Re: Is [car's] blind spot monitor worth while?

Somewhat depends on the implementation details. My Infiniti has an amber light on the inside of the door, where the mirror attaches, that lights up when the blind spot is occupied. It is easier to see than my other vehicle that has a small light at the outside edge of the outside side mirror. Also, on my Infiniti, if I use my turn signal when changing lanes, and if the blind spot monitor has been triggered, I get an audible warning that the spot is occupied. My other vehicle does not do that---just has the light on the outside of the mirror and is silent if you signal to change lanes. The audible warning is very useful, imo. I think these things are evolving, so you might check the particular car model you're considering. Overall, I think i...
by Boglegrappler
Wed Jan 25, 2023 2:53 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Toyota Extended Warranty
Replies: 62
Views: 7402

Re: Toyota Extended Warranty

You have three years after you buy (length of the ordinary warranty) to make a decision on buying the extended coverage. I did that recently for a vehicle. My reasoning was that if I decide to sell it in the next two-three years, I will be able to transfer the coverage to the new buyer and they will have close to a new car warranty, which I think will at least break me even on the cost. I don't expect the use of the warranty will pay for itself though. Toyotas don't break. If you wait until the three year mark, you will have a better idea of which term of warranty makes the most sense for you. My mileage is so low that I was able to get a relatively cheap coverage for the 8 year period, which gives five years incrementally from the time I b...
by Boglegrappler
Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:33 am
Forum: US Chapters
Topic: your favorite quotes & one-liners
Replies: 272
Views: 48947

Re: your favorite quotes & one-liners

From a Wall Street Journal article in the aftermath of the 1987 market crash (based on my memory).

A reporter asked a CEO why the company wasn't purchasing their own stock at such low levels.

His response:

"I've heard of lots of companies that have gone out of business because they ran out of cash. I've not heard of one going out of business because their stock price was too low."
by Boglegrappler
Tue Jan 03, 2023 8:24 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Bond maths - Is this accurate?
Replies: 11
Views: 1248

Re: Bond maths - Is this accurate?

The relationship between bond price and interest rates involves marking price to net present value of cash flows discounted by yield so the simple math of increasing everything by 4/3 is not quite that simple. This is the key, and your (OP) market value guesstimate is not very accurate. Use a bond price calculator you can find online, put in the numbers for a 4% 10 year bond, and then calculate the price with a 3% yield to maturity. You'll find that its about $108,584.00. To make it easy, just assume that interest rates changed the next day, not three months down the road. The other comments in the original post are roughly correct. You just have to get comfortable with how yield to maturity affects price. It's a bit tricky and not suscept...
by Boglegrappler
Sat Dec 17, 2022 3:05 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Another 1970’s era for stocks?
Replies: 43
Views: 3582

Re: Another 1970’s era for stocks?

Interest rates on the 10 year treasury rose from about 4% just prior to the 70s and hit the mid teens just after the 70s.

This is a very difficult headwind to move against.

If something like that occurs again, it will be hard for stock valuations to rise much. Earnings may increase dramatically, but the P/E of the market would decline.

The Dow average hit 1000 for the first time in the late 60s, touched it again in the early 70s, and then didn't see it again until late 1982. It's not that hard to have a long period of value stagnation if interest rates climb substantially.
by Boglegrappler
Sat Dec 17, 2022 10:57 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Fidelity free Turbotax 2022
Replies: 473
Views: 58547

Re: Fidelity free Turbotax 2022

I clicked on the Fidelity link and when it took me to the TT site the Premier was $54 so I clicked on the offer and now it's locked me into TT Online. Anyone know how to switch from TT Online to disc or is the offer only for the online product?
I think the key is that-----once you are migrated to the TT site from the fidelity offer on your Fidelity page, scroll all the way down on the TT page you've landed on, till you see the list of topics with ABOUT, ONLINE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, CD?DOWNLOAD PRODUCTS, TAXTIPS etc.

In the CD/DOWNLOAD section go to "all CD/download products" and that should get you to the page where you see the $5 offer.

Good luck.