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Old 08-19-2013, 02:01 AM   #141
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I didn't.
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Based on this, I could only assume he's done this to deliberately prove that equities are a bad investment
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:07 AM   #142
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Well you may not believe this but all my posts (even if brief sometimes) since the first day I joined a couple of years ago have been truthful.
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.. so I think he just might be telling us the truth
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:16 AM   #143
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When people ask us for advice to an open forum they get answers from only those who care to answer. Some of the regular posters are experts, but many (including myself) are not. Some new posters are conservative also, and many are not. I am only ONE data point in the overall sample of all the posters here, the same as everyone else. No one's view is representative of the overall group's view (which seems to be impossible to achieve here anyway).

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He can do whatever he want with his money. I think advising others to do like him is a bad idea in most cases. But people coming here for advice are getting it for free, they should realize they may be only getting their money's worth!
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:20 AM   #144
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yes. i am willing to pay a lot of money for the predictability part. I was really scared in 2008, even being in CDs only. and i know many other conservative investors were also.

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Which is fine. My brother is the same way. Everything in CDs. This way he knows it is secure; he doesn't have to worry about market fluctuations, when the next big crash is coming, etc. He knows exactly how much he'll have, down the road. Some people are willing to pay for that sense of predictability and control.
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:29 AM   #145
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Exactly. I am only expressing my view about financial independence, but for some reason a couple of posters (and one in particular) seem to believe that my view represents the "consensus" here, thus may be followed by other posters, and therefore should be constantly rejected as being invalid or misleading. Again, my view may be located towards one tail end of the Bell curve, but by definition it is still part of the overall sample, and as such it is as valid as everyone else's views, even if it is far from the mean. Still, the poster in question does not seem to understand even that basic concept of statistical dispersion so ignoring his posts is all I can do..

I also spent quite some time a few weeks ago under the '90/10 AA' thread explaining why I am so conservative, so there is no need for me to repeat.

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Anyone who bases their investment decisions on the posts of a single stranger in an online forum is ... dumb.
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:32 AM   #146
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I am frugal by nature but don't spend like a pauper. My spending is only about average when comparing it to others here.

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... he spends like a pauper. Inflation really not concern for him, I think he'll probably be fine doing what he has been.
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:38 AM   #147
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I bought my bonds in March / April. The graphs on Vanguard show the values clearly went down since then. I don't know how to do a screen capture of those charts and post it, but if anyone can, please free to do it.

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Based on Obgyn's calculation, it looks like he's using the high value of his asset that was hit sometime in march/april, not his cost basis. Heck, if I did that, I'd be bummed out too.

But maybe we're missing something. Either way, it's a short time frame, but it would be good to get clarification on the numbers. If I'm missing something, I'd like to know.
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Old 08-19-2013, 02:51 AM   #148
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+1. I will have a look at it later this week.
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But thanks RunningBum for showing how to find all the Vanguard funds.
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Old 08-19-2013, 07:02 AM   #149
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Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason.
There may be a simpler way to do it, but here's the method I use:

1. Go to "Balances and Holdings"
2. Click the tab that says "Balances over Time"
3. Click the drop-down menu and pick "Select Specific Holdings"
4. And then select the specific fund you want a readout on

That'll give you a nice graph of balance over time, along with a summary of your returns on that specific fun.
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Old 08-19-2013, 07:32 AM   #150
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Originally Posted by obgyn65
Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason.


Quote:
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There may be a simpler way to do it, but here's the method I use:

1. Go to "Balances and Holdings"
2. Click the tab that says "Balances over Time"
3. Click the drop-down menu and pick "Select Specific Holdings"
4. And then select the specific fund you want a readout on

That'll give you a nice graph of balance over time, along with a summary of your returns on that specific fun.
I don't think that will split out the equity portion of Wellesley which seems to be what he is asking for, since a couple of us pointed out that bond performance is what has held Wellesley down recently. And I don't know that there is a way to do that. It just seemed really obvious based on the performance of other bond funds over the same time period that this was the case for Wellesley.

What you did show was the best way to show the personal return of the OP's holding, rather than trying to extrapolate from the general performance graph of the fund.
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Old 08-19-2013, 08:26 AM   #151
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by obgyn65
Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason.



I don't think that will split out the equity portion of Wellesley which seems to be what he is asking for, since a couple of us pointed out that bond performance is what has held Wellesley down recently. And I don't know that there is a way to do that. It just seemed really obvious based on the performance of other bond funds over the same time period that this was the case for Wellesley.

What you did show was the best way to show the personal return of the OP's holding, rather than trying to extrapolate from the general performance graph of the fund.
I agree that there probably isn't any way to split out Wellesley's performance into separate equity and bond components, at least not based on information available on Vanguard's web site. But even without a precise breakdown it's certainly possible to make a reasonable estimate of the performance of Wellesley's bond holdings. They have a current yield of 2.7% with a duration of 6.0. That's in the same ballpark as VBIMX, so the bond component of Vanguard Wellesley almost certainly performed very similarly to VBIMX since Obgyn65 purchased his shares. Perhaps Wellesley's bonds lost a little less because of its shorter duration (6.0 vs. 6.5), but it probably wasn't a big difference.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/fun...tExt=INT#tab=2
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Old 08-19-2013, 08:35 AM   #152
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I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?
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Old 08-19-2013, 09:28 AM   #153
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I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?
Obgyn65 can give you the exact numbers, if he so desires, but it's possible to make an educated guess as to his likely holdings. He started a thread after market close on March 5 entitled "Just bought $50,000 worth of Wellesley". He didn't explicitly say so, but the timing of the thread suggests that the purchase was made on 3/5 at that day's NAV of 60.29. If so, then he purchased 829.325 shares with his initial investment. In addition he has received additional shares from the March and June dividend. Assuming that he is reinvesting his dividends, I calculate that he got 5.895 shares from the March distribution and 6.929 shares in June. That's a total of 842.149 shares, which were worth $50,343.67 as of Friday's close. If I'm not making any significant errors in my calculations, he is just barely in the black on his purchase.

I find REWahoo's comment from the March 5 thread highly illuminating. He accurately foresaw that we would be having this followup discussion, as soon as Wellesley experienced even the smallest dip in NAV:

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Interesting that you bought on the day the fund hit an all-time high.

You will do fine as long as you don't get nervous in a downturn and sell.
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Old 08-19-2013, 09:43 AM   #154
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Obgyn, please don't take offence, but you are such a nervous Nellie about minor fluctuations in your investments that I have a hard time imagining you managing a complex delivery! Obstetric emergencies are much more scary IMHO.
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Old 08-19-2013, 09:48 AM   #155
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I am frugal by nature but don't spend like a pauper. My spending is only about average when comparing it to others here.
I only meant in regards to what you could be spending based on assets and income. Maybe I recalled wrong but I thought somewhere you had posted your assets and income, they were fairly substantial.

Now compared to me, you are probably a spendthift
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Old 08-19-2013, 10:08 AM   #156
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Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason. ...
You are over-complicating this. Especially for someone who claims they have little time. Keep It Simple Stanley.

Wellesley is a balanced fund, they will not break out individual performance of the components. If you want to know how equities have performed in general, look at a full equity index fund like VTSMX, or an ETF like SPY.

But if you want to track your personal performance of your funds, don't look at charts, look at your Vanguard account on-line. You know what you paid, and it shows the current value. Couldn't be simpler. I assume you are having divs re-invested? If not, you need to add those back in to see total return. If you look at charts, most do not include divs, just NAV. And you likely cannot get the dates lined up exactly.

But for a general look, and this will be very, very close - here's a chart that includes divs. It shows that Wellesley is UP, bonds are DOWN, and a pure equity investment is WAY UP since March 01, 2013 (as close as I could get to March 05).

The lesson here is that equities did very well during this time. So what is your point?

PerfCharts - StockCharts.com - Free Charts

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Quote:
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Based on this, I could only assume he's done this to deliberately prove that equities are a bad investment
I didn't.
Well, it does seem questionable. As far as I can tell, Wellesley is UP, but you claim it is down. And why didn't you post to celebrate when Wellesley was up even higher (May 21)? It might appear to someone that you waited until you thought you could complain about the performance.

And have you priced your other products on the open market? You might see a paper loss in those, esp after transaction and bid/ask costs. Does that worry you? Should you sell?

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Old 08-19-2013, 11:50 AM   #157
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I don't think that will split out the equity portion of Wellesley which seems to be what he is asking for[....]
Ah, you're right. I didn't track his question carefully enough.
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Old 08-19-2013, 05:07 PM   #158
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In my opening post, I gave the figures I read directly from the Vanguard chart. I understand these funds fluctuate on a daily basis, although I do not check every day. My 401k includes money market, Retirement Savings Trust, Intermediate term bond index institutional shares, Wellesley income Fund Admiral Shares, and Target Retirement 2030 Trust I.

When entering "Plan summary", then "Personal Performance", and then "Custom range" from 4/13 to 8/13, my investment return is down by $2,700. The Wellesley today is down about 0.43% for the last 3 months, from the same website. When I click on "Month by Month" analysis since April, the loss in my 401k plan is $3,700 since April only. I do not feel comfortable giving more precise numbers in public here.

I do not plan to sell, but I am bit disappointed because it was the first time I got out of my comfort zone and bought bonds from Vanguard. No big deal, but just wanted to share my own successes and failures on the path to becoming more of a risk taker.

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I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?
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Old 08-19-2013, 05:14 PM   #159
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There are things I am good at, and others (such risk taking in personal finance) where I feel hopeless compared to you, Meadbh. I am happy to report also that the clinical settings where I work or volunteer don't manage emergency deliveries, ectopic pregnancies etc. : good ! However, I am finding out that it is much easier for me to do 10 paps in a row than checking the NAV of one single bond fund only.

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Obgyn, please don't take offence, but you are such a nervous Nellie about minor fluctuations in your investments that I have a hard time imagining you managing a complex delivery! Obstetric emergencies are much more scary IMHO.
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Old 08-19-2013, 06:35 PM   #160
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I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?
I don't understand why the OP won't simply answer this question.

What was the date and NAV paid for Wellesley? It's not complicated.


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