Index funds don't have anything to do with mpt though.

Bump?

Thanks guys, I was mostly confused about which deposit my withdrawal would correspond with.

For example say I deposited 5k in 2008 and 5k in 2012. The total portfolio is now 11k due to gains between 2008 and 2012. I was wondering if I take out 5k now if that would 'include' the 1k gain from 2008. Apparently it doesn't, your withdrawal corresponds to your most recent deposit as long as the same number of shares are taken out.

I ended up pulling the money out with a nice $20 profit. Pretty sure I'll just have to report that next year at tax time and pay the hefty $2 fine.

I am thinking of investing in some of the HSBC managed funds. I am based in Canada and will probably pick funds that have a lot of Canadian assets.

Does anyone have any experience/advice with HSBC managed funds?

Ty

Does anyone here have experience with business proposals for a bank? I am writing a proposal right now and I have its content nailed down pretty well, but I'd like to know whether there are any conventions I should follow when I'm formatting and organizing so that I don't come off sounding like an idiot.

It appears that most of their funds have management expense ratios well over 2%, which makes them look like a pretty bad deal. You should be able to find an ETF that accomplishes the same thing with less than 0.5% being wasted on management.

http://www.macrospeculations.blogspo...bal-macro.html

Thanks, I will have a hunt around.

On Vangaurd's website it says the yeild is 2.15% for VBTLX (Total Bond Market Fund) and on Morningstar the yeild is listed at 3.11%

Who is right and why is it different? Thx

Almost certainly Vangaurd. You have to check if it's the "current SEC yield" or the "TTM yield." Morningstar was probably showing the trailing 12 month yield, which had lower prices and higher yields. Anyway, TBM yields are right around 2.15% now.

I got a newbie question here, just making sure I'm not missing anything obvious.

I have a student debt of around 50,000$. I have to start paying this back 5 years after I graduate, so in about 5 years and a few months. After that point I have 10 full years to pay it back. It is a government loan so it is also ridiculously low interest. For 2011 it was 1.5%, for 2012 it's 1.4% (compound interest). If I so desire, I may start paying back earlier, even as of right now already to reduce the eventual interest I pay.

However, I have about 25,000$ (so half of the loan) in savings. As of right now, without doing anything special in it, that money in my bank savings account gets me 2.3% interest.

Am I missing something obvious if I think that there would never ever be a reason to pay off my loan as long as the savings interest is higher than the loan interest? (Which it will probably always be, that's the concept of this particular government loan.)

I don't think you're missing anything obvious. Investing rather than paying off a loan with such a small interest rate could very well be +EV.

wouldn't do anything but pay the normal amount on the loan (unless the interest goes way up)

I also wouldn't have the $25k in savings, but that's up to you. Make sure to contribute to tax advantaged retirement accounts if/when you're eligible.

this is probably a super broad question but what would be the best way to invest in natural gas if i have a super long term holding period? (20-30+ yrs)

A natural gas etf.

I have always heard that holding these long term is bad because of contango/futures contracts issues.

Quick question on small business marketing... I've found most publications recommend creating a budget that is 4%-6% (though I've seen as high as 10%) of gross sales. But can anyone tell me how they've arrived at this figure?

There are some that suffer from futures issues but op said 30 year holding. There are no future issues that long. It's only an issue if you are trading not investing.

Is this an easy sell?

I bought a condo ~8 years ago in a great part of town for 112k. Its now worth 125-130k and is vacant and up for lease. I used it to go to college and have since moved out. There is about 60k and 6 years left on the loan.

I pay a $570 maintenance fee each month (which includes basic utilities and cable), $250 per month in property taxes, about $400 in interest and finally $400 towards the principal. These aren't exact but close enough. So about $1600 per month to keep afloat.

Basically, $1200 per month is vanished never to be seen again and this is not including any future repairs(the place is old and already needs a few).

I can rent the place for 1300-1400, so even if I have a permanent tenant I'll still have to pay 200-400 each month to keep it up not including expenses. The beste case scenario after the mortgage is paid off would yield at the most $600 per month.

So should I just sell now and take the 60k?

I was kind of under the same impression as Max regarding the contango problem. Could you elaborate.

Also, another thing to consider when investing in these is tax issues. With most of these types of funds you don't just pay taxes when you sell, you pay (income) taxes every year based on appreciation (of course if it goes down you could claim the loss on your taxes as well).

Any excel users? I'm learning to use the regression tool but i'm having trouble interpreting the data when you use multiple benchmarks. My R^2 goes up, but P-value increases and 95% confidence boundaries include 0. How do I know if the new benchmark is relevant to the stocks movements?

either rent it for more, or sell it.

I agree with the above post.

You really want to have a positive cash flow or sell it, carrying a negative cash flow property is a pretty big and expensive gamble that property prices are going to go 'on a heater'. its speculative.

The NAV is based on the market value of only the futures and swaps (there also may be a small amount of cash in there). When you trades futures, you do not need to put up 100% of the money - only what the future exchange requires as margin (typically in the 10% to 30% range). However, the fund does not want any leverage so they do not reinvest the cash.

I am not 100% why the tbills + cash is greater than NAV, but I would guess it has something to do with the timing of cash transfers between counterparties. UNG is down 18% in the past month.

So this is something that interests me. I live in my condo and originally got a 30 year fixed loan for (I think) 4.25% three years ago, then refinanced to a 15 year fixed for 3.85% a year and a half ago. My payments went from ~1100 per month to just under 1600 a month, plus 200 in condo fees. I have a neighbor that just put his place up for rent (same exact design and size as mine) for 1900 per month, which would mean positive cash flow for the old loan and probably negative for the new one with repairs and stuff, even though the place was brand new when I moved in. My plan was always to rent this place when I move out, say in like five or ten years. Should I refi just for the positive cash flow in that case? Seems kind of silly given that I'll be far closer to paying off the loan if I don't refi but everything I read in these forums stresses not renting for less than your mortgage + expenses. Or maybe I would be better off just selling instead of renting? Just trying to figure out if there is a scenario where negative cash flow for a few years is actually an okay thing