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I was thinking it terms of Buffett's famous quote, invest in equities only if you are prepared withstand a 50% decline. Of course, with a diversified portfolio the decline should be substantially less. This retire, portfolio drops 20%, panic, go back to work, is crazy. If one cannot handle that...

No disrespect, but there's recently been a thread about the ability to handle market girations. This is no different. A diversified asset allocation would help reduce the portfolio declines we're all experiencing. Your portfolio will shift up and down by expenses covering one year or more...

Hi, If you had diversified into US Small cap, int'l small cap, REITs, commodity futures and so forth, the returns would have been quite different and positive. US TSM or Int'l TSM only doesn't diversify like it use to. :coolsmiley: Bogle's "TSM is sufficient diversification" is dated advice...

That's cool, Joe. I've managed to implement both posts. Simple sort when I highlight the rows to sort. I think this is how I did this several years ago, vaguelly recall something like that! ^-^ I would also like to convert the 'percentage completed' into a visual bar chart. Do I have to add a...

Hey Avg.Joe Thanks for your reply. I believe your info lays out a spreadsheet where one would resort the priotities, but then the categories would shuffle around. What I wanted to do was keep the budget items with the most vital first, moving down to the trivial at the bottom. However, whether...

Hey everyone! Here's what I want to do... Lets imagine there are three buckets to full with water. One needs 50 litres, one needs 20 litres and one needs 10 litres to fill. I have a number for how much water I have available. What I want to have is a category from my budget on a single...

Hey lazy I agree about National Geographic. That's just a nicely written article and some pretty pictures. This isn't even 1% of what you experience when you're on the ground. I talked to people for a couple of years, and then decided to go out to Thailand to see for myself. I had a great...

Hey Lazy Thing to bare in mind is that costs are rising everywhere; not just in Thailand! So it's all relative. The base cost is lower to live there, so even if costs are rising, it's still cheaper than in a more developed country. It does depend on what you want. It's really not for everyone...

Lightfoot, For Thailand, a lot of people seem to get by on around B40,000 per month (US$ 1,200), with another B10,000-12,000 for expat expenses incl. air-fare, worldwide health insurance, etc. For two people, you might need to multiply that by 1.5x. This is up from what was costing around...

Nords, I was just wondering why you have over 90% equity exposure? Still in accumulation phase? The recent correlation data suggests that style/size diversification and even int'l. diversification isn't delivering good disparity of returns these days. If you want to PM me on this, no problem...

Ah wonderful! Thanks for thinking of me. :laugh: Petey

Hi Spanky, If you look at the data from French/Fama, they have provided info that shows that smaller size companies (mid-cap instead of large-cap, small instead of mid-cap) and value stocks provide higher returns. Therefore, a portfolio that splits evenly between large, mid and small cap, or...

Hey Rich, It is fun to play with such ideas. You're really talking about having 20% in cash equivalent investments, then splitting the other 80% between stocks and bonds. The problem with cash is the linkage to inflation, after taxes. You're lucky if it keeps up. It also drags the performance...

Kev., Interesting way to look at these kind of plays. Not sure it is easy to know when a good time to buy is, if one buys at NAV. Perhaps just a matter of whether oil or gas are high vs historical average or your own perspective on peak oil and the substainable price level going forward. I'd...

Do you have a link to the intro thread being mentioned? Sounds interesting. Thanks, Petey

This is only partly true. U.S. trust cannot replenish their reserves, so they are a dying asset. Canadian trusts can buy new wells to ensure their reserves keep up. However, Canada only has so much oil and gas ultimately and there is some talk that companies like Encana are already having to go...

Hi Kramer, Forgive me, but from what you've said (maxing out the cover on the car, etc.), it seems that you want to have the umbrella coverage as the cover you have now isn't enough for your own peace of mind. Just my take. Petey

Hi getout, I'll try to answer the first question as the responses so far have dealt with the latter one. The total market index is mostly large cap, and large cap growth dominates because those tend to be the most highly-priced companies and so they get the largest weighting in a total market...

Hey Ak., I find with regard to presents that it is good to remember that people rarely recall what you bought them last year, let alone the year before. Ask them and see! They have to really think about it! Also, I think going large on the cost of the present doesn't make a different to the...

Hi there, The only thing I have heard about this was from Gillette Edmunds book, "How to retire on less than a million dollars." In it, he pointed out that he had never met anyone who had successfully retired and then cut back. He said it let to both unhappiness and eventually going back to...

I am not counting SS (or state pension here in the UK) for anything. The gov't. think tank is already suggesting either taxing us further to fund a 20% negligible boost to payout ($175 pw) or putting the start date back to age 67. I figured this kind of thing would begin to happen and here it...

I am not counting SS (or state pension here in the UK) for anything. The gov't. think tank is already suggesting either taxing us further to fund a 20% negligible boost to payout ($175 pw) or putting the start date back to age 67. I figured this kind of thing would begin to happen and here it...

I was just thinking along these lines, Eagle! I think one of the keys for healthy ERs is to keep busy, have projects, etc. I think people often confuse retirement with lack of activity (mental, physical, etc.). I think this comes from the idea of grey retirement at 65++ which may be much more...

Excellent post, Lancelot! Enjoyable and informative. Petey

Excellent post, Lancelot! Enjoyable and informative. Petey