Interest (I) = Principal (P) x Rate (R) x Time (T)
I think that's a formula that everyone can agree is correct whether it is applied to a 0.01% checking account, a variable rate savings account, a fixed rate CD, an inflation-adjusted Series I savings bond, or any other interest bearing vehicle.
It says that if R increases by 1%, then the interest you get in a year will increase by 1%. No exceptions.
It doesn't matter what the Fed does. If the Fed raises interest rates by 25 basis points but your bank doesn't increase 'R', then you won't be getting any more interest. If you think otherwise, well, you're just looking at the wrong 'R'.
Same with bond prices. Sure, the formula for bond prices is a little more complicated, but it's just as arithmetically sound as I = PRT.

Same with the formula for duration, which is essentially just the first derivative (rate of change, or "speed") of price as market interest rates (YTM) change.
As with I = PRT, if you believe the formula doesn't always "work" because the price of your corporate bond may not change when the Fed changes its overnight rates or when the 10 year Treasury rate drops, well you're just looking at the wrong 'R' (YTM).
Case in point. Between mid 2007 and September 2008, the market rate on 10 year Treasuries dropped from 5+% to around 3¾% while the rate on Aaa 10 year corporates barely moved. The formula worked fine; corporate bond prices didn't move because corporate interest rates didn't move. It's an oversimplification to talk about "rates" as though there's only one set of interest rates.

>> never less than 4.5%, and can be increased if the ratio at the start of retirement is under 20.
I wonder if he still feels this way. I could check. The link is from spring of 2008, a wonderful time to be writing about anything financial, and the p/e he cites has not been <20 since like ~1993 except for that sharp 08-09 dip, and much if not most of the time it's been way >25 if not >30.
So like most (esp those of us out of equities) I am hoping this time, meaning since the 1980s, it's different.
https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe

The correct link:
https://www.financial-planning.com/news/moving-money-from-ira-to-hsa-the-only-time-it-makes-sense
As the article says, unless you're cash strapped and have medical costs exceeding what's in your HSA (plus taxable cash) is this worth considering.

Funding your HSA with your IRA :

A little-known rule buried deep on the IRS website presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for clients with a health savings account — the ability to make a contribution directly from an IRA.
Although this one-time offer isn’t worth the effort for most clients, who’d be better off continuing to fund both accounts and collect dual tax breaks for doing so, there are a handful of situations where cash-strapped clients with high medical costs could really benefit from making the move and tapping tax- and penalty-free funds.

moving-money-from-ira-to-hsa-the-only-time-it-makes-sense

@Baseball_Fan, I haven’t followed many of @FD1000‘s posts as members’ reputed past performance doesn’t interest me. However, I do enjoy learning about new innovative funds, the trends among various markets, changes at the fund houses where I invest, Fed policy, and different ways of constructing portfolios. So those who have studied FD’s performance posts are the ones that may want to respond. I do enjoy reading Barrons. It may well be that some here are better investors than the ones quoted there. But, I don’t feel Barrons is a waste of money either. I think it’s been helpful to me over many years. Have read it since the early 70s (which pre-dates MFO) :)
Here’s the quote I earlier referenced. My recollection as to the specific article may have been incorrect. This is from an article that appeared in April 2020 in Barrons. However, I think there has been more said in Barrons. I just don’t have the wherewithal to go back and reread every copy.
- “Industrial analyst Deane Dray also believes safety is important, but he recommends investors take a so-called barbell approach. He suggests an 80% weighting in safer stocks, while reserving 20% for more-cyclical names.” (Article posted online by Barrons April 1, 2020)
-
Here’s what I was able to dig up on Dray’s experience. Doesn’t mean he knows more than any of us. But he doesn’t sound like a lightweight either.
Experience
RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) Capital Markets Managing Director Since Sep 2014 - (tenure 6 years 2 months) - Sellside equity research analyst covering the Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment sector.
Citi Global Research Director - Jun 2010 - Sep 2014 (4 years 4 months)
New York City Senior equity research analyst covering the Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment sector. Global sector leader of Industrials. Global sector leader of the water sector
FBR Capital Markets Senior Industrials Analyst
FBR Jan 2009 - Jun 2010 (1 year 6 months)
New York Senior equity research analyst covering the Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Sector.
Goldman Sachs Vice President
Goldman Sachs 1997 - 2009 12 years
Greater New York City Area Senior equity research analyst covering
the Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Sector.
Lehman Brothers Vice President
Lehman Brothers 1987 - 1997 10 years
Greater New York City Area
Education
New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business
Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.)Finance
1980 - 1982
Brown University
Bachelor's DegreeDouble major: Political Science and Law & Society
1976 - 1980
Activities and Societies: Cum Laude Deerfield Academy Deerfield Academy
Deerfield Academy 1972 - 1976
Licenses & Certifications Chartered Financial Analyst
Sourced from Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/deane-dray-cfa-1b1b53a2

I find in reading both the board and the financial press a lot of confusion or conflicting opinions as to what the “barbell“ approach is. This article explains / exemplifies how I’ve always viewed it and how the barbell approach differs from conventional portfolio construction - including the traditional 60/40 approach. It seems to me the distinction rests partially on psychology. But that shouldn’t obscure substantial real differences.
Main Article https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/barbell-investing-strategy/
Additional Sources: I feel the original article, while not bad, leaves a lot to be desired. Part of the problem is there are various ideas about how to construct and benefit from a barbell approach. Following, I’m listing additional sources and alternate barbell interpretations:
- “The barbell strategy is an investment concept that suggests that the best way to strike a balance between reward and risk is to invest in the two extremes of high risk and no risk assets while avoiding middle-of-the-road choices.” Investopedia
- “One variation of the barbell strategy involves investing 90% of one's assets in extremely safe instruments, such as treasury bills, with the remaining 10% being used to make diversified, speculative bets that have massive payoff potential. In other words, the strategy caps the maximum loss at 10%, while still providing exposure to huge upside.[6] This strategy works best during periods of high inflation ...” Wikipedia
- “The barbell investing strategy, advocated by Nassim Taleb, can take many forms and may be structured in such a way that some of the holdings take significant (well above average) advantage of market movements, while another part of portfolio is very low risk and isn’t affected by major market moves. Another type of barbell portfolio is to include assets that fall on opposite ends of a chosen spectrum.” Vantage Point Trading
- Unlike a real barbell, the amount invested at each end of the portfolio isn’t necessarily the same. For example, you might have 80% in safer assets and 20% in riskier assets, depending on what will produce the best balance of risk and return ..... The traditional use of the barbell approach is in bond investing .... When applied to equities, a barbell often means investing most of the portfolio in low-risk stocks (typically large blue chips in defensive sectors) and the rest in higher-risk stocks with higher potential returns (eg, small caps or emerging markets) ..... A barbell approach can also apply when investing across asset classes as well as within them. One strategy would be to invest much of the portfolio in very safe assets (cash or very short-term government bonds) and the rest in extremely risky assets that have very high potential returns under certain circumstances, but a high likelihood of large losses or ending up completely worthless.“ Christopher Wood

Maybe this from The Financial Times via Axios?
The Fed is starting to question its own policies

Several officials at the Fed are beginning to worry about asset bubbles and excessive risk-taking as a result of their extraordinary policy interventions, James Politi writes for the Financial Times, citing interviews with multiple Fed presidents and members of the Board of Governors.
Details: Some are now pushing for "tougher financial regulation" as concerns grow that monetary policy is "encouraging behavior detrimental to economic recovery and creating pressure for additional bailouts."
What they're saying: “I don’t know what the best policy solution is, but I know we can’t just keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari told the FT.
“As soon as there’s a risk that hits, everybody flees and the Federal Reserve has to step in and bail out that market, and that’s crazy. And we need to take a hard look at that.”
Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren called for a “rethink” of “financial stability” issues in the U.S., and Fed governor Lael Brainard said in a speech last month that expectations of extended low-interest rates were boosting “imbalances” in the U.S. financial system, Politi reported.
Why it matters: Economists, strategists and fund managers on Wall Street have said for months that the Fed has effectively killed price discovery by "nationalizing" the bond market with its actions and is artificially holding up the price of financial assets.
That has elevated U.S. economic inequality, and while market participants have cheered, the Fed's popularity has sunk among most Americans.
Much of the U.S. economy, including jobs and spending at small businesses and firms not dedicated to e-commerce, continues to be weak.
The big picture: The latest comments from Brainard, Rosengren, Kashkari and others suggest that influential members of the Fed's policy-setting committee may be pushing back against the so-called Fed put — a belief among investors that if stock prices fall enough, the Fed will bail them out by lowering interest rates or by pushing trillions of dollars in liquidity into financial markets through quantitative easing.

Thank you! I didn’t think they “ETFified” AKREX haha.
And thanks to you for bringing up the Vanguard Russel 1K ETFs....I hadn’t known of their existence before.
I own ARKK and ARKF (the latter bc I think disruption in financial industry is well underway, but in early innings) in small pieces.....but I try to add to it on drops in the NASDAQ.
Sorry for the “far afield”! :)

I wonder why Mondrian (financial parent of Rothko) started a second EM fund when it had been running MPEMX for several years. MPEMX is hardly a great fund, but it still managed to outperform the soon to be liquidated Rothko. Over RKEMX's lifetime (12/18/2018 to present, i.e. 10/15/2020), it returned a cumulative 2% (!), vs MPEMX's cumulative return of 19.46%. That in turn was a tad (2/3%) under the category average.
I never really "got" Rothko. Mondrian is more to my liking. Though in art as in investing, what one prefers can be a matter of personal taste.

He posts known lies and then wonders why people have a problem believing his incredibly great financial performance- absolutely the best since Abraham Lincoln. Oh, wait... that's the other guy...

@FD1000: David's link that you are referring to is PRIMARILY about investing issues, and incidentally about financial sleaze at the White House. Your link is simply more right-wing garbage with NO relation to investing, yet you have no problem making a totally false equivalency. No wonder you generate such antipathy from and lack of credibility with other posters.

Could you clarify? You suggest that Schwab is treating one class of customers (not potential customers) different from others. That sounds like you're saying that once TD Ameritrade clients became Schwab customers (via acquisition) they were no longer eligible for bonuses.
Something like that seems perfectly reasonable. Rarely does a broker offer incentives to existing clients to retain them. In this sense, Schwab is treating its customers the same - regardless of how it acquired their business, once acquired, customers are not paid bonuses.
Financial institutions will often offer bonuses to add "new money". That's something different. You're not bringing new money to Schwab from outside. For example, here's some fine print on Merrill Edge's offer: "Assets transferred from other accounts at Bank of America, MLPF&S, U.S. Trust, or 401(k) accounts administered by MLPF&S do not count towards qualifying net new assets."
Where is the outrage here? Merrill is not giving bonuses for money already in the BofA empire. It doesn't matter that the cash is new to the brokerage business if it is coming from a BofA bank account as opposed to a Chase account. It doesn't matter if assets are coming from a US Trust account that BofA acquired in 2007, as opposed to assets coming from Schwab. (Which in itself is interesting, because BofA used to own Schwab.)
Back in the 90s, the same customer acquisition games were being played by the long distance phone companies. Cash a check and switch your service. Should companies have sent "cash and switch" checks out to customers they'd already acquired via mergers? Or would that be "treat[ing] one customer differently than another"?

The markets were open (and way up) yesterday. But the banks were closed, which is why Fidelity wouldn't count yesterday as a business day for paying bills.

Equity markets were open but bond markets were closed. That’s weird as there’d seem to be a fine line between some types of bonds (ie: C-rated corporates & convertibles ) and equities. T. Rowe showed modest changes in at least some of their bond funds nonetheless. Makes one wonder ,,, although foreign holdings might account for some change. (Possibly FVP as well).
Here’s the story -
“The United States bond market never officially shuts down, but it observes the holiday trading schedule recommended by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).
Bond market holidays are not enforced, but merely recommended. However, the U.S. Treasury market has been closed for trading on Columbus Day dating back to the depression-era, so SIFMA again recommended it remained closed.
The reason for this is more practical than historical. Columbus Day is a bank holiday. Most banks and banking institutions are closed, as is the Federal Reserve Banks in New York and Washington. Columbus Day is also a partial federal holiday with many department and services suspending operations, including the U.S. Postal Service.
“The closing of the Fed also shuts down the Federal Reserve Wire Transfer system (Fedwire). Fedwire is the national electronic payment system to transfer funds through Federal Reserve Banks. With the Federal Reserve, the Fedwire and large money center banks all closed, the U.S. government bond market is basically forced to shut down as well. There are no bond auctions because the issuer of Federal Debt, the U.S. Treasury, is also closed.” LINK
Re @Crash’s issue - It can be frustrating to have the “lights go out” on a portfolio if contemplating a buy / sell and not being able to fit all the pieces together in terms of maintaining the proper allocation. I use M* as a “backup” to a better tracker from Apple’s app-store that I pay a small fee for. Unfortunately, the paid tracker is much less reliable than the free M* tracker (but great when it works). So, I guess Morningstar’s entitled to a bad day once in a while.

Bloomberg covers the topic here:

Home buying isn’t for everyone. While there are financial benefits to owning property — the value could increase, and mortgage interest can be tax-deductible — you lose the flexibility that comes with renting. And property taxes, maintenance, insurance and unplanned expenses mean there is much more to consider than just whether or not a mortgage payment is cheaper than rent.
Bloomberg spoke with people across the world about what went into their decision to buy — or wait.

real-estate-market-rent-or-buy-a-house-during-covid-home-hunters-explain-moves?

"During election season, a big portion of financial media news coverage shifts to presidential election outcomes.
These election seasons tend to be good for media ratings and clicks, but to what extent do they matter for investors? Does accurately predicting the result of a presidential election generate outperformance? Can we say a lot about the direction of the economy depending on which political party is in charge? This article takes a look at those questions."
Lyn Alden Schwartzer at SA

I am in the final stages of selling a home that I have lived in for almost 35 years. Purchase price was $67K. Hoping to close at $277K, but those numbers are not the whole story.
Home improvements (landscaping, additions, remodels, and replacement of original components have cost close to $100K plus interest over those years. Recent costs (getting the home ready for sale) were close to $25K. Property taxes collected by my town over 35 years were close to $150K. Insurance costs close to $30K. Mortgage interest (financed and refinance the property) costs totaled $100K.
Had I rented instead of owned, my housing costs (average $1.2K / month over 35 years) would have been about $500K. So maybe...just maybe... "owning" (the bank owed the home most of the 35 years) my property was a break even proposition financially.
Had I put $10K into VFINX 35 years ago (a portion of the 20% down payment on the $67K sale price I had to come up with) that investment would be worth $436K. If I had invested in the entire 20% ($14,400) it would have grown to $628K.
https://portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisResults
Interesting.
Here's a conversation on the topic (at the 5 minute mark):

For most people, your house is your biggest asset and also your biggest liability. So it’s understandable to think about the financial implications of the most significant purchase you’re ever going to make. But a home is about more than what you buy it for and what you think it will be worth in ten years.

Almost 50 years ago, two upstart companies pioneered a new model in the financial services industry—one entirely devoted to individual investors. Following this week's close of the acquisition, TD Ameritrade and Schwab are now part of one company with the same shared goal: helping people realize their dreams through the power of investing.

mail.tdameritrade.com/H/2/v600000175091d3956a25213f4bbe5cfc0/b21ddfaa-76df-4f58-b1b4-0239b10f8915/HTML

One Excerpt:

Accept that you are flawed, he says, and you will have a chance of doing the right thing. “Do not aim to be coldly rational when making financial decisions,” he says. “Aim to be pretty reasonable. Reasonable is more realistic and you have a better chance of sticking with it for the long run.”
Mr. Housel offers two examples of reasonableness: Try to defer gratification, recognizing that wealth is created by not spending today so that you have more options in the future. And try to maintain a long horizon.
“Time is the most powerful force in investing,” he says. “It makes little things grow big and big mistakes fade away.”

mutfund/money-hacks-psychology-of-money

Things to chew on from Brian Gilmartin at SA:
Summary
° There seem to be too many different types of risks developing around the Presidential election.
FD: the usual --> do nothing
° Personally, I still think Financials in general and bank stocks in particular are more "value" than "value trap" but more patience will be required.
° It's another dry week for S&P 500 earnings releases, but the fireworks really start once again in the week of October 12th, 2020 when the big banks and many financial companies kick off 3rd quarter earnings.
FD: I don't see why anybody would look at Financials or invest in one category when most just need /want SPY/QQQ. Financials don't move markets anymore because the category is much smaller than before without much growth.
Article Here