retiredjg wrote:So the 3 treasury funds are more like celery soup, bean soup, and tomato soup while the Spartan US Bond Index is like minestrone soup (the other three all mixed together with some other stuff in there too). Obviously, the US Bond Index is the most diversified.
I have often been inspired by the signature lines that many forum members have established. Mine is not meant to be serious or inspiring. I'm just saying that this might be a good place to look for some wisdom to collect.
Jerry
"I was born with nothing and I have most of it left."
nisiprius wrote:As a hybrid product, in between stocks and bonds, just like junk bonds--junk bonds are stockish bonds, preferred stocks are bondish stocks.
John Norstad wrote:I have indeed found a great asset allocation calculator. It uses MPT and all the other modern models like Fama-French. It uses a huge database of expert analyst's estimates of correlations and expected returns and standard deviations and all the other information available on the entire planet. It actually runs on an analog computer (not digital). It uses the latest state-of-the-art neural network and artificial intelligence algorithms. It always produces extremely reasonable asset allocation percentages for any and all possible assets and asset classes. Anyone can easily use the calculator. It's free.
It's called the market.
"Buy-and-hold, long-term, all-market-index strategies, implemented at rock-bottom cost, are the surest of all routes to the accumulation of wealth" - John C. Bogle
Bill Bernstein wrote:You quickly learn that when you disagree with the Sage of Valley Forge, you usually wind up cleaning egg off your face.
"Buy-and-hold, long-term, all-market-index strategies, implemented at rock-bottom cost, are the surest of all routes to the accumulation of wealth" - John C. Bogle
While not directly from a Boglehead poster, I have included this quote from Upton Sinclair in a number of threads. Nothing encapsulates the communication problem between financial advisor/stockbroker and client better than this:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
"We don't see things as they are; we see them as we are." Anais Nin |
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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious." George Orwell
Taylor Larimore wrote:Stocks let us eat well. Bonds let us sleep well.
That was one of my favorites.
+2
Never in the history of market day-traders’ has the obsession with so much massive, sophisticated, & powerful statistical machinery used by the brightest people on earth with such useless results.
I think some [people] get confused in thinking that deferring consumption is useful for its own sake. The only reason to save (defer consumption) is to enable more consumption in the future.
-Dan Kohn, May 7, 2009, "Major purchase that drained you.." thread
We cannot absolutely prove [that they are wrong who say] that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason. |
-T. B. Macaulay (1800-1859)
"Using past performance numbers as a method for choosing mutual funds is such a lousy idea that mutual fund companies are required by law to tell you it is a lousy idea." -- Bill Schultheis
Best wishes.
Taylor
"Simplicity is the master key to financial success." -- Jack Bogle
Successful investing is counter-intuitive
There are two ways to get rich – make more or desire less
"Successful investing is all about common sense." ~ John Bogle.
“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” - John Maynard Keynes
Sir John Templeton - “The most dangerous words in investing are ‘this time it’s different.”
If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, don't invest in it.
If you don't know what you are doing, stop!
Keep calm. Carry on.
“the best kept secret in the investing world: Almost nothing turns out as expected.” -Harry Browne
Don't just do something, stand there - John Bogle
“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest” – attributed to Albert Einstein
If it seems complicated, you’re doing something wrong.
Watch your pennies and your dollars will take care of themselves.
The surest way is to know the future is when it's past.
Balance in all things
Do not overwhelm yourself with financial news.
When you find yourself in a deep hole, STOP DIGGING.
There ain't no free lunch.
There ain't no magic.
Time is your most powerful ally.
Investing; the juice is worth the squeeze.
When the market goes down, you are on your own baby.
Having a good investment plan today is better than hoping for a perfect plan tomorrow
Buy the haystack at the lowest possible cost cause the needles are in there.
Boring is beautiful and simplicity is sublime! (in investing at least)
You can have only so much faith in the power of a rational argument
“Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.”--Will Rogers
Nobody knows where the market -- bond or stocks -- will be in the next fourteen months. SO don't overthink it. And don't sweat it.
Never change your long term investment plan based on short term results.
Never use money to measure your wealth
Where are the customer's yachts?
Compound interest - the 8th wonder of the world!
Why is it "a penny for your thoughts", but someone always wants to "put their two cents in"?
Don't Believe Everything You Believe
Diversification can lower portfolio risk (volatility) in most market conditions.
Buying at the bottom and selling at the top are typically done by liars.
Don't make the same mistake once.
Don't ask a barber if you need a haircut.
The stock doesn't know you own it.
Beware of the prophet seeking profits -- Dennis Miller
"The stock market is a distraction to investing." -- John Bogle
"Truth must be repeated again and again, because error is constantly being preached around it." -- Von Goethe
"Investing is not a race horse, it’s a plow horse."
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
Do you really want to invest in a system where you put up 100 percent of the capital, you, the mutual fund shareholder, you take 100 percent of the risk, and you get 30 percent of the return?”
I thought John's math was bad, but I checked it........and he is correct regarding only getting 30 percent of the return with high expense 401K choices.
Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. – Warren Buffett
Aptenodytes wrote:You can go to a 7-11 for a gallon of milk, or you can go to a big grocery store. Both will charge you the same fee to walk in the door -- $0. However, the gallon of milk will cost more at 7-11 because its costs per square foot are higher, and it passes those costs on to you through the price.
The expense ratios of mutual funds are analogous. That's why you need to pay attention not only to the literal "fees" but also to the expense ratios.
2. “If one isn't ready to lose capital, then one isn't ready to invest. They go hand-in-hand: Losses and investing. One cannot avoid losses if they invest.” – Livesoft (I added this one to my IPS). Link
I have both of these written on a Post-It note on my desk so that I will never overlook the obvious.
Part-Owner of Texas |
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“The CMH-the Cost Matters Hypothesis -is all that is needed to explain why indexing must and will work… Yes, it is that simple.” John C. Bogle
longinvest wrote:I think that this thread is about great (favorite) quotes created by forum members, not about all favorite quotes.
Isn't Jack a forum member?
Part-Owner of Texas |
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“The CMH-the Cost Matters Hypothesis -is all that is needed to explain why indexing must and will work… Yes, it is that simple.” John C. Bogle
longinvest wrote:I think that this thread is about great (favorite) quotes created by forum members, not about all favorite quotes.
Isn't Jack a forum member?
Yes, he is, and I really love his quotes, but he wrote that in his books. I really thought that the initial intent of this thread was to collect original quotes generated during forum discussions. Anyway, I'm not the OP, so you all do as you wish!
In all the reading I have done over the past few years to educate myself in my ongoing efforts to simplify my portfolio after firing my adviser, the following is hands down the most helpful thing I've read.
nisiprius wrote:
My answer to all such questions is: do it slowly and gradually. If you never make a start, you just remain confronted with the same problem and the same anxiety forever.
The problem is: it's an important decision, and it's human to keep changing your mind.
The answer is: decide what your best thinking is now, and do a little of it. Plan to get to your target allocation, not immediately, but over a period of several years.
* It discharges the anxiety you feel about doing nothing.
* It minimizes the anxiety you feel from making a big commitment, by turning it into a small commitment.
* It minimizes the impact of any decisions you are making due to recency, or faddishness, or panic.
* It forces you to slow down and not do things in a hurry.
It's a long-term decision. You should never feel that there is a rush to do long-term investing.
If you are making the right decision, six months from now it will still look like the right decision. Well, if you make the same decision with 10% of your money every six months, in five years you'll be 100% invested according to plan. But it gives you plenty of time to think about it, to read new headlines.
We talk about dollar cost averaging. It's also important to average out our impulses, our emotions, our mood swings.
"At either end of the economic spectrum there lies a leisure class." -- Eric Beck, rock climber
The financial world is so huge that we can only learn a small portion of what there is to know. Retaining even this "small portion" is almost impossible. Accordingly, many years ago I began collecting quotes from investing experts to help me on the road to investment success. Our wiki editors honor me with its inclusion here:
From Is BND really safe?, on the fundamental difference between stocks and bonds:
nisprius wrote:Think about what stocks are and what bonds are. Stocks are a company saying "You're our business partner, we'll pay you what we think we can afford, you share in ups, downs, general growth or possible failure." Bonds are a company saying "We promise to pay you certain numbers of dollars on certain dates, to us it's just like the light bill, as long as we can pay our bills at all we have to pay yours."
"When experts disagree, often it is because it doesn't matter much."
--Taylor Larimore
The longer I've invested, the more I've come around to the view that most portfolio decisions just don't matter. Find some way to own a reasonably large number of stocks from a reasonably large number of industries. Have some bonds or cash or something that will help you get through the lean years. That's good enough. Stay the course and you'll get satisfactory returns. Spitball the rest.
-backpacker
"Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis." |
-Seneca
For the retirees (or the almost there folks):
"I am not so much concerned with the return on capital as I am with the return of capital." -Will Rodgers.