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GenXer



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703

PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 7:40 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know what I keep telling my clients? If inflation hits 20% again as it did in the early 80s, it will be a brief window of opportunity to become very rich. All you have to do is buy a 30-year treasury bond yielding 15%. But you need at least several $100k for that. You do that, and you have yourself a nice pension. Treasuries are also call protected. The only thing is you will really need to catch the top (not very easy to do), but once you are in the 10% ballpark, it does help to start buying up a ladder. Unless we are really screwed, inflation will be lower eventually, but your yield will remain the same regardless.

This is called opportunity cost. And many people who complain about not having $100k in the bank are doing what? Putting that $100k that can be their winning lottery ticket into a 529 plan for a guaranteed loss on an inflated college education that is in most cases. We all know interest rates are going up, and maybe up quite a lot. It is a small risk to keep a large cash reserve instead of wasting the money on houses/529 plans, but the upside can be huge (with no downside at all, since all you have to do is keep the cash in an easily redeemable CDs).
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BK
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 11:51 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

Genxer,

Are you advising any of your clients to short Treasuries with TBT (etf)-
it seems that the Federal Reserve will try to keep interest rates lower for as long as possible - too long.
The challenge will be to Not be greedy and exit TBT or similar Treasury shorting mechanism - before the Fed is forced to raise interest rate substantially to attract foreign investors-

What are your thoughts ??
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Boston ITer



Joined: 11 Jan 2010
Posts: 269

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 5:36 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

BK wrote:
Many cannot imagine what it was like in 1993 - with the demise of the Soviet Union - defense spending vanished - or at least it felt that way.


I knew of engineers at TRW and Lockheed, in SoCal, back in the 90s and it was a real rough patch for defense contractors.

All and all, the early 90s MA recession pales in comparison to what we've been experiencing today, since the IT/telecom bust of '02-'04. Back then, the up and coming tech paradigms were client-server applications & network based solutions. And those market segments were growing and hiring in the US. Local companies hiring back then included the financial ones (Fidelity, Putnam, Thompson) as well as IT shops like Lotus, Novell, Powerbuilder, and CTP. Biotech was also experiencing near exponential growth, as Biogen, Wyeth/Genetics Institute, & Genzyme were growing by leaps and bounds along with support firms like Millipore & Alpha Beta. And all of this was in motion before the tech bubble of '98-'00. I think that final biopark build out in Kendall Sq, post-2002, was a type of blow off top as the return on investment shrank dramatically, after the mid-to-late 90s. And I believe that that one brand new Adobe building on Rte 128, doesn't make up for a near decade of stagnation. Adobe added 600 employees to a region which used to add jobs in the 1000s.
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GenXer



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703

PostPosted: Sun Apr 24, 2011 6:27 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

BK wrote:
Genxer,

Are you advising any of your clients to short Treasuries with TBT (etf)-
it seems that the Federal Reserve will try to keep interest rates lower for as long as possible - too long.
The challenge will be to Not be greedy and exit TBT or similar Treasury shorting mechanism - before the Fed is forced to raise interest rate substantially to attract foreign investors-

What are your thoughts ??


I totally agree with you about interest rates. Inflation, however, is something that the government can not control, but you are right that nobody has any idea when and how much the rates will rise.

I don't play with risky instruments unless clients specifically instruct that they want to participate. Most are very conservative and don't mind holding cash (I use 5-year CDs with low withdrawal penalties for short-medium term cash). If my shorts explode, what will I tell my clients?

Treasuries in fact possess fat tails - I did the analysis myself. As far as I can tell, they can experience moves of 6 sigma - something that should be a warning sign not to mess with instruments that cut both ways. And if you decide to do some type of straddle, now you are getting into tail risk calculations, and I prefer to avoid this altogether. I sleep well at night knowing that if treasuries fall, their yield will rise, compensating the long term investor. Besides, I keep my maturities under 10 years, and if they fall by 10%, yields will rise to compensate (though losses are still possible in mutual funds). Same thing happened in the crisis of 2008 - many corporate bonds lost a lot, and some supposedly safe short term ones lost as much as 10%. They gained it all back when the crisis ended, if you held on. But this is nothing compared to what can happen to stocks.
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balor123



Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 1204

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:33 am GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

GenXer wrote:

There are only two plans in the country which have low fees. Vanguard's have lowest. There is a DFA plan in West Virginia, I believe, but I'm not sure that the fees are lower (but it is DFA).


I got really excited when you mentioned DFA in West Virginia! Sadly, it is not the case, at least not for the nationally available plan. That is managed by a group of companies including Wellington and Invesco. Some reputable names though (Vanguard funds are managed by Wellington for instance).


GenXer wrote:
]
most managed funds lose in the long term

Yes but they don't necessarily lose by the difference in their fees.
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GenXer



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 703

PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:17 pm GMT    Post subject: Reply with quote

balor123 wrote:
GenXer wrote:

There are only two plans in the country which have low fees. Vanguard's have lowest. There is a DFA plan in West Virginia, I believe, but I'm not sure that the fees are lower (but it is DFA).


I got really excited when you mentioned DFA in West Virginia! Sadly, it is not the case, at least not for the nationally available plan. That is managed by a group of companies including Wellington and Invesco. Some reputable names though (Vanguard funds are managed by Wellington for instance).


GenXer wrote:
]
most managed funds lose in the long term

Yes but they don't necessarily lose by the difference in their fees.


You are right, but the point is that fees are a guaranteed loss. Yes, they can lose quite a lot more than just fees, unfortunately for most people.

DFA or Vanguard, I think the biggest problem is taking too much risk and underestimating risk in the first place. Stocks should have no place in 529 plans, yet most people are invested in those, and they use 'life cycle fund' strategies which are flawed to the core.
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