[What are you buying today?]

If the inflation/reflation story is to be believed, my elementary understanding is that the short end of the yield curve needs to be moving up in tandem with the long end, but as it is right now the short end is heading lower while long end is heading higher. TLT is not a bad idea at all.

 

FWIW - I'm a tourist so I have no idea what I'm talking about.

[I have given up value investing]

Not an endorsement either :P. Just another example of what works for some doesn’t work for others.

[I have given up value investing]

Muscleman, kudos for the honesty/independence.  As long as you iterate/brutally evaluate yourself like you have done, I have no doubt that you'll succeed.  Exploring different methods will only help you to detach from the process I think and there are many tools one can pick to survive in an ecosystem.  See BNF/Takashi Kotegawa although supposedly his methods don't work anymore, but I doubt people could say with 100% what his methods truly were.

 

Although, I kind of feel that for ordinary mortals, the drive to hit it rich impedes investment results because it makes us emotional.  If you want to make serious money, I would look into starting a side business instead as the odds of starting a successful one > odds of beating the market consecutively by huge margins :P and having drive only helps you there.

 

If you want to impress people here though, you have to do it in the "value investing" way.  Of course people here are going to say value investing is the best way lol.  Do you go a tesla forum to ask if if there's a better car company than tesla?  Their cars do look pretty cool though.

[PG&E - Potential Bankruptcy]

If the insurer is willing to sell the claims at 35c on the dollar, how could the equity be worth anything > 0?  My very rudimentary understanding is that equity is always the last in line, so even if the time frame for the claims were stretched out in years, the claims would be more likely to be paid before the equity.  I can't imagine insurers being unskilled players in the bankruptcy process.  Could we say that the current share price only relies on the odds of political intervention + odds that unsecured creditors would be skipped and a bone would be thrown to shareholders?

[who is Treasureinvesting.blogspot.com ?]

I believe it's yadayada, though he hasn't been active here for awhile

[The Big Vitamin D Mistake (not enough)]

Typically, when I get a cold, I end up coughing all night.  My lungs just feel incredibly itchy even if I take nyquil, benadryl, inhaler, nebulizer, montelukast, etc.  I just end up coughing in a drugged stupor, and my wife won't get any sleep for about 2 weeks either.  So part of my excitement is part of hers too as she's a lot less cranky than previously when I got sick.

 

Clarifying that when D3 != D2.  D2 is what doctors prescribe.  Also D2 is what's in soylent type meals.  D2 decreases D/D3 increases D

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24001747

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22552031

 

Long Term Upper Limit Daily ~= 10000 IU

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17209171

 

Take it with a meal

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20200983

 

My basic routine is to take 5000 IU D3/K2 + 100 mg magnesium citrate/100 mg magnesium glycinate + fish oil at the same time with a meal that includes fat once daily.  It's not as much as it seems since my D3/k2 are combined with each other and the magnesium supplement contains the two forms.

 

When I am sick, I double it (take it again at another meal).  And when I wake up in the middle of the night I toast a bread with butter on it and take the above without the fish oil and it's enough to help me sleep again.  This is without using any meds.

 

I'm not a doctor though!  There are many factors that will boost/reduce your need for vit D or amplify the vit D, weight/obesity, soda, genes (some people are missing receptors), k2, boron, drugs, etc. the list is endless, and they're all varying amounts (10%-?200%)  You can google these on the nih database.  Many of these factors can also be thin/broad and steep/shallow U/J shaped curves to add to the complexity.  So I suspect that my needs will probably be different from yours.

 

But the most exciting thing is this reduction in mortality!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4196486/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4196486/figure/fig2/

[The Big Vitamin D Mistake (not enough)]

I've been telling all my friends and family all about this topic!!  Just make sure to take magnesium with D3.

 

I'm pretty passionate about this because I no longer have to use my nebulizer/inhalers/montelukast for my asthma.  They also didn't even work that well for me, so every cold I got became an asthmatic nightmare.  But I am also an N=1 so take it with a grain of salt.

 

Magnesium as asthma treatment:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2743582/

 

Low levels of Vit D + mag in asthma

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27818797

 

Vit D3 supplementation requires magnesium

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28471760

 

Mineral supplements depend on their forms, i.e. magnesium oxide is poorly absorbed.

[Fairfax 2017]

Welcome back!!  I also second the ALS input, but only if it's possible.

[Register as RIA]

Were there any particular sources (books/websites) you found helpful to the process?

[The big entrpreneur 'kill my idea' thread]

Given that this is a value investing forum and there's even "how frugal are you" thread, input from this board may not be as relevant as many people here may not be your target demographic.  I.e. I think this is the wrong demographic to try.  I myself would like the idea, but I wouldn't want to pay for the service because I am also frugal, and your idea does indeed take a lot of work.

 

For killing/validating your entrepreneur ideas, I would suggest finding your target demographics through reddit/facebook, but at the same time - i believe many people will say that it's interesting to avoid offense, and the only way to truly test if your idea is viable is to charge money in advance.  Noah Kagan/Tim Ferris does this and has volumes of posts dedicated to validating ideas, it's kind of the "new age" of entrepreneurship.

 

The best way to validate ideas IMHO, cheaply if not free is to kickstarter it.  If you think your idea is great, kickstarter it, market the hell out of that, and see if it resonates with people.