macropundit

Comments:

• The top 5 account for around 30% of the overall index, but this isn't as unusual as we've been told. If you look beyond the 30 year time horizon of those trying to scare us, you'll find the market was even more concentrated in the past. At one time AT&T alone was 13% of the market. See "200 years of market concentration" by Bryan Taylor. https://globalfinancialdata.com/200-years-of-market-concentration

  Post: One Is Not Enough

  Link to comment from July 24, 2024

• He said that expertise can help tilt the odds in one's favor, not that it necessarily would. There are no guarantees. As with everything else in life, you can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons. And then there is just poor judgment, which expertise helps not at all. Still it is true that expertise can under the right conditions tilt the odds in one's favor. Saying "any expertise-based advantage that may have existed in the past no longer does" sounds like a belief in "efficient markets", is it not?

  Post: Off the Beaten Path

  Link to comment from July 14, 2024

• I had everything with TD-Ameritrade, and it all rolled over to Schwab last year because of the acquisition. Having a single pane to view all financial assets is great. I roll my employer 401k to IRA quarterly.

  Post: All in One Place

  Link to comment from July 3, 2024

• > "took most of his 401(k) $200,000 as I recall and bought a bus type RV only to find a couple of years later for several reasons it wasn’t a great move." Spent most of his 401k for an RV. Wow

  Post: Playing Their Part

  Link to comment from May 22, 2024

• Interesting. I was planning on doing a larger Roth conversion the year I retire because I'll only work 5 months of it, which is just long enough to get my 401-Roth maxed out. Could I use that excuse even if it turns out my AGI doesn't drop after retirement because I take more cap gains? Is it just a life even regardless of the consequences? I don't get it.

  Post: Paying to Avoid Pain

  Link to comment from May 15, 2024

• – "a considerable amount of money on a tax deferred basis" It all depends on what you value. I only value money that I'll actually be able to use or pass on one day so the total of a tax deferred account is a chimera.

  Post: Paying to Avoid Pain

  Link to comment from May 15, 2024

• - "Biden is saying if he is reelected he will not increase taxes" Are you talking about Joe Biden? If he said that, he's going against party orthodoxy and no one believes him. I'm amazed he ever said it. Are you sure he didn't say he won't increase taxes except for the rich? If so that's a denial of the reality of taxation.

  Post: Paying to Avoid Pain

  Link to comment from May 15, 2024

• – "been putting 100% of my 401k contributions into Roth for several years now in spite of the pain of paying taxes upfront." Same here. My tax guy thinks I'm a fool (going to "lose money"), but I've got money to pay the taxes and tax minimization as an absolute doesn't always make sense except for those at the margins.

  Post: Paying to Avoid Pain

  Link to comment from May 15, 2024

• – "an excellent, inexpensive LTCi policy" Huh. I didn't know that was possible.

  Post: Long Odds

  Link to comment from May 9, 2024

• What was most astonishing was that shutting down the economy was proposed as a way to stop a virus, and just selective parts of the economy at that.

  Post: Not Scared of Bears

  Link to comment from April 28, 2024