If you already allocated her with equity, then I'd probably just do her entire bond allocation into either a Short-Term or Intermediate-Term Investment Grade fund. Probably no need to do Intl/EM bonds.

Agree, though I may literally be the one signing on to Vanguard and taking care of it anyway, so it's not necessarily an issue.

What's the rationale for that?

Fund choice = ST/Intermed avoids some of the obvious near term downside from rate increases, especially based on her time horizon. Investment Grade gives a little better return, but isn't as risky/potentially correlated to stocks as something riskier.

US only = why not? The additional credit risk inherent in Intl (and especially EM) bonds doesn't seem to be providing the expected additional return as opposed to US only. I'm a huge fan of allocating to Intl/EM equities, but not so much bonds at this point.


Disclosure = I'm pretty much 100% equity right now. I have a small allocation to High Yield Corp bonds. I also have other assets outside of my portfolio.

I don't fully understand this, but from what I gather a lot of the international bond funds hedge the currency risk which essentially makes it the same as investing in US bonds but with greater (non currency based) risk.

Basically more risk for same reward. Maybe somebody else can explain better, but I read enough to decide to stick with domestic bond funds.

Lots of posts about this on the bogleheads forum.

Yea I had looked there a bit but only on the first page, didn't search. I tend to disagree with how many of them don't care about international equities with the "many U.S. companies do business overseas" logic. It seems pretty dumb.

This is potentially a different line of reasoning though.

That line of reasoning is actually very sound. Nearly 50% of S&P 500 firms' revenues are generated outside of the United States, almost 40 outside of Americas.

0% interest rates for almost a decade all the QE monetary heroin is going to lead to an economic meltdown.

Everyone should be putting their money into gold and silver bullion before all the government backed paper financial instruments explode like confetti.

Buy back into the stock market when the gold to dow ratio is 1:1

Why does that make it okay to ignore int'l companies who only do non-US business and int'l companies who do US business? What if regulatory or economic factors in the US make it more difficult for US companies to do overseas business?

Lower transaction costs and US companies are far bigger and less risky.


US companies do a lot of overseas business that are not really American at all. Most of Apple's products sold overseas never spent a second inside US. Same with Coke, McDonald's, and so on.

You can conceptualize major modern corporations as a globally diversified portfolio of subsidiaries.

When i am ready to make the step and start what is the best platform?

Would be small amounts to begin with and added to each month.

Can anyone recommend a good lower risk investment that's liquid that I can basically just park my money in while waiting for better opportunities? I'm in all cash right now in my brokerage account, but I just can't bring myself to invest it in anything with most valuations at all time highs. The alternative is that I've been in all cash just waiting for over a month.

What's the better option for having "nearly liquid" cash? I don't mind assuming some risk, I just don't have any particular equities in mind, and cash isn't giving me any return at all.

mango money, 6% apr on up to 5k

ThinkorSwim from TDA. You can open a live account, not fund it, yet still have access to ToS. They may even offer free commissions for the first few trades, though I've never traded with them. I trade with IB, but it may not be for someone who will put in light volume.

Thanks for your reply i'll check that out. I have closer to 30k just sitting around in Interactive Brokers, i'm looking for something where I could place the majority of the cash as well not just 5k.

I typically swing trade but really I have no idea wtf i'm doing strategy wise and too much of the time the money ends up just sitting there. even if i'm generating 2-3%, if it's liquid, that's better than nothing. I have access to most instruments and markets through IB, so exotic ideas are welcome

A few questions to ask yourself:

What assets will you invest in at the point you feel comfortable?

What do you expect to happen that will convince you it is time to invest in those investments?

How long have you been sitting in cash and how much do you think you have lost doing it?

Thank you i shall take a look.

So when Malkiel (or anyone) gives advice to allocate X% in REIT stock funds and X% in commodity stocks, isn't that just gambling on the overweighting? If you're already going with a total market index, you already have the "correct" % of real estate related stocks, commodity related stocks, etc., no? It would be a different story if there were separate ways to invest in real estate, which there are of course, but not what the simple recommendations say.

If you are going to overweight a sector in your portfolio you should have a good reason because of your own personal goals/risk tolerance/circumstances. There are some solid reasons you might want to do it (lower currency risk via home bias, overweight riskier sectors for chances of higher long term gains, diversification, lowering risk etc) but also really like you say market cap weighting is the market cap for a reason and you should be sure if you think you can do better. I certainly would not listen to anyone who said "You should have x% of x" - they do not know anything about your own personal situation which is what is key. If you are going to DIY then read a lot (of unbiased info, which is hard to find) and construct your own weightings, all is good.

I have a pretty significant tax arb situation and need to find a Canadian stock either paying a large special dividend before the end of the year or something super liquid paying a reasonably large dividend.

Any good searchable dividend resources for Canada?

Maybe a broad question here, but figured it couldn't hurt to crowd source.

I'm going to be moving from USA#1 to Australia in early 2017. I've been trying to do my due diligence on financial implications, but its a little overwhelming... The most important thing I've learned is I still need to do taxes every year, and up to 101k of my overseas income (my entire salary) will be exempt.

Does anyone have any experience moving overseas and any recommendations/tips that I might be overlooking? Should I be talking to a professional about this process?

Couple variables... I currently have about 50k in my 401k and Roth IRA (if I'm interpreting things right, I can just leave these alone and keep contributing to my Roth from a US bank account).

I also have student loans (approx 45-50k) where I'm currently in the income based repayment plan. From what I've read, since I would be showing $0 of US income, I believe I can request to pay $0... I'm not sure if this is a good plan because my interest will accumulate at 7%. But if student loan forgiveness is coming sooner rather than later, perhaps stalling payments is a good plan?

Are you planning to get public service loan forgiveness, 25 year forgiveness (counts as taxable income), or just hope politicians cancel all student loans?

7% is pretty bad debt. I would look at a private refi before you leave if #3 is what you meant.

I've been advised that private refinancing is probably my worst choice since it would totally eliminate my future options of government programs such as income based repayment, or any future forgiveness plans that might emerge.

I'm currently in the public loan forgiveness program (have about seven years left), but obviously suspend that eligibility once I move overseas.

From what I've read, as you get closer to retirement age, a higher and higher percentage of your investments should be shifted to fixed income investments. I'm way behind on this and am looking for some help. I'd like to start investing in fixed income with new money and start to shift equity money over to it.

My biggest question is if there's a fixed income fund or ETF that I can just start buying to get the exposure. Basically I'm wondering if there's something like SPY for fixed income? Historically, whenever I've had money to invest in equities and I didn't have a specific stock to buy I'd just buy SPY. I don't know much more than the basics of how bonds work so I couldn't even begin to gauge what types of fixed income categories I should invest in (e.g. short vs. long term, bond grades, etc.).

I'd estimate that my retirement time frame is 10-15 years, if that matters.

Thanks.

You can do something as simple as just buying the Vanguard Total Bond market fund. The only drawback with that right now is how terrible rates are. But that is intended to be a single bond fund for people who want to just buy one thing and have exposure to all types of bonds.

You might consider something like a short-term or intermediate term fund, whether treasury based or investment-grade. Maybe even a mix of those (treasury/investment-grade). The shorter term would help you avoid some of the interest rate risk.

BND or AGG for the us bond market and BWX if you want foreign bond exposure. You can try to tweak it with more or less short or High Yield(junk bonds) but that would probably fall under the heading of FPS. How old are you and what percent equity/bonds are you looking for? I mean, you could make it even easier and go for one of Vanguards lifestyle or target date funds.