james22

With expected returns at or near historic lows, I've no trouble parking cash.

“Hey guys: It's a dud!” ~Lt. Red Winkle en route to becoming pink mist in Pearl Harbor http://s3.amazonaws.com/cm-us-standard/documents/2014-Year-in-Review-Collum.pdf

Yeah, Depression-era investors learned something very different. I've learned to regret recency bias.

Consider military service. It's not something you can easily do later in life.

Intelligent or not, I'm limping into Vanguard's Energy Fund (VGELX).

Damn K-1.

Dent: This is a bubble. It looks like a bubble, quacks like a bubble and tracks every bubble in history. ... This market is not going to crash 10% or 20%. It's going to crash worse than it did in 2008 and 2001 and 1930 and 1973. This is going to be the biggest crash ever. http://www.theaureport.com/pub/na/16382

Corrected?

You're probably right.

I understand it means the previous high water mark, rkbabang, I don't understand the thinking that anything below that represents a bargain.

Yeah, Austin too. Where I'm looking...

Because home values remain so far below their peak levels in so many areas, it is still possible for buyers to find bargains. http://zillow.mediaroom.com/2014-07-21-Home-Values-in-Dozens-of-U-S-Housing-Markets-will-not-Fully-Recover-Until-2017-or-Later I don't understand this. What meaning does peak level have? Fair value is the only meaningful measure. Measures: http://fortune.com/2014/07/18/housing-recovery-us/

Wut? My home bought in 2002 fell 45% in appraised value during the crisis. It has started the slow climb since...still -25% from price paid. My guesstimate is it will take another 10 years to return to par. Perhaps longer. Why I would like to take a 50 year mortgage (ok, 30) @ historically low rates to free up investment capital & let the real estate market pay my home equity. Pay down the house as late as they will let me. My investment in the home has been an unmitigated disaster. A 20+ year sunk cost. But not my investment portfolio. Hope that helps My impression is that housing prices have largely recovered. Not to the overvaluation of pre-crisis, no, but to fair value. Sorry to hear of your experience.

Wut?

Thanks for the feedback. James - what do you mean with 'Tilt your index funds/ETFs?' What Packer16 said (plus momentum and quality, if can). See: http://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/18883-swedroe-look-at-value-quality-a-momentum.html Search http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/ for tilting, DFA, the Larry/Swedroe portfolio, etc..

Tilt your index funds/ETFs. Consider GLRE, TPRE, Y.

$120k from some retirement floated into his account yesterday – didn't know what to do with it – had no "no-brainer" to buy in today's market – hard in the big securities now Interesting.

Thanks for this. I'm a Hussman fan, believing (still) this time isn't different, but a good reminder: ...the history that took place is only one version of what it could have been. If you accept this, then the relevance of history to the future is much more limited than may appear to be the case.

"Events, dear boy, events."

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/robin-williams-why-funny-people-kill-themselves/

Against this troubling backdrop, it’s no wonder investors are worried that the bull market might end in 2008. But Wall Street’s top equity strategists are quick to dismiss such fears. http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/heres-what-wall-street-bulls-were-saying-in-december-2007-read-and-take-cover/

I am not defensive because I believe markets predictable, but because I believe markets are too incredibly complex and unstable for central banks to manage.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/05/05/elites-talk-inequality-public-talks-growth/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/andrewlilico/100027182/inequality-isnt-a-problem-its-a-driver-of-progress/

If you believe that value matters but valuations do not necessarily mean revert, you should move your portfolio of risky assets around pretty aggressively as valuations shift among the various risky assets. But you should keep a fairly constant allocation to risky assets over time except in the rare instances where valuations are so extreme that risky assets are actually priced to lose out to lower-risk assets. That strategy will outperform a naïve strategy over time, but if valuations do mean revert, it is substantially sub-optimal. If valuations mean revert, you can improve the risk/reward trade-offs of your portfolio substantially by adjusting how much risk you take through time, taking more risk when the return to risk is high, and less when it is low. - GMO