alevin's account talk

[alevin]

Nice planning Alevin! " I top out in grade later this year, max high 3 will come 3 years after that, right as I hit 62"

:laugh:. You think I actually planned that back 15 years ago when I got my current grade? or when I got my first permanent job anywhere at the ripe old age of 32 and started working my way up the ladder? whoo boy, what are you smokin?

 

[Scout333]

:laugh:. You think I actually planned that back 15 years ago when I got my current grade? or when I got my first permanent job anywhere at the ripe old age of 32 and started working my way up the ladder? whoo boy, what are you smokin?

Always try to give credit where credit is due!
Its not where you start but where you end up that counts!

 

[jpcavin]

I just found a really really cool site

DejaVu :nuts:

 

[alevin]

DejaVu :nuts:

That a fact? :cheesy: musta missed it somewhere along the line earlier. No matter, repetition helps it sink in. then again, sometimes the lesson only comes when a person is ready-zen something or other. :toung:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBxbPts5tOk

 

[Boghie]

Boghie, the move to F was an experiment. obviously I went the wrong way with the experiment. my timing sucks as per usual. right now the system I'm working with is showing a pattern that hasn't showed up in the past 3 years, which is as far back as the site lets me go. so I can't tell if I should be buying on the latest dip recovery or not. I got antsy, figured not a big loss if going to F was the wrong move. unfortunately the antsyiness prompted me to lose out on substantial gain. the chart is confusing me right now, so I experimented-oh well, I'll keep watching the indicator pattern to see what it does next and when in relation to market moves. It has a 1-day-lag in the pattern change so far as I can tell right now.

But hey, I just found a really really cool site to help me figure out allocations in outside brokerage accounts, split between taxable and non-taxable accounts. way cool. asks all kinds of questions: age, takehome $, current total investment value available (not including tsp), my probable investment behavior on a 10% drop. mulls over all that, and spits out my investment risk profile and appropriate ETF allocations. on a scale of 1-10, I fall firmly in the risk level 4 ranks. they have roughly 6-8 ETF pots to allocate funds between. which makes figuring tsp $ into the mix (based on similarity to certain ETFs) not that simple so I didn't try that out yet. but I think their recommended allocations will get me in the ballpark you're talking about for the outside accounts. especially if I consolidate them in one brokerage. which they aren't right now.

I still haven't concentrated enough on how to do the risk reward system you use, so your discussion above looks to be very helpful for the tsp account and timeframes for retirement. I can't afford a big drop right before retiring, which may come in 2 years with 30 years in (or a handful of years later if I can stand it and they can still afford me-I top out in grade later this year, max high 3 will come 3 years after that, right as I hit 62).

https://www.wealthfront.com/questions

Alevin,

The ETF breakdown is not super smooth between the WealthFront and TSP, but here goes a good guess:

• G: 0%
• F: 47% (LQD, EMB, Real Estate (REITS)). LQD seems rather stable, the EMB seems to be speculative capital gains intensive. 41% F will be more stable
• C, S: 33% (Not a clean split between VTI and VIG. The two funds they recommend have a lot of crossover in the biggest holdings.
• I: 20% (VEA is effectively I, the 8% in VWO could go to S (kinda) or mixed into I (kinda). VWO is a high risk Alpha generator)

I have never seen you at an allocation of 50% Bonds and 50% stocks for any meaningful time frame. A 0/47/25/8/20 allocation mix is probably similar to what WealthFront recommends for Risk Tolerance 4. Personally, I would move some F to G, some I to C, and a little I to S for Alpha. S is your Alpha option because both C and I are large international companies. The 'F Fund' is not currently acting as a stable bond fund, it is now behaving like the C Fund. Thus, I would reduce holdings in the F because your G/F are intended to be stable.

However, as I stated, you seem to sit almost all the time in a good money market fund - namely the 'G Fund'. I don't think you answered the questions honestly, but if you did I would set the allocation as above. Long term, a 0/47/25/8/20 allocation should center at earning 7% including today's inflation with a risk of 7%. Thus, 67% of the time your return should be between 0% and 14% (with 2% inflation). In 2008 you would have lost 18.66% (using the PortfolioVisualizer site presented by JPCavin). Would you have stuck it through to see the 16.48% gain in 2009, eh...

If not, then increasing G at the expense of F and moving some I to C would reduce risk. To see it at the site you mentioned just back up the risk a bit. Personally, a 5/7 reward/risk seems to be a good allocation. It gives you meaningful gains while having a low standard deviation (risk).

 

[alevin]

Hi Boghie, when I went through their questionnaire, I added up ALL my outside non-tsp accounts and ran it through that way first. I have about half invested, half sitting in cash at the moment in the outside accounts and have for awhile now, mainly in the Roth accounts I only started building a few years ago after I paid off the mortgage and was able to start socking those payments away as retirement savings.

the mutual fund IRAs are always invested one way or another, and have generally stayed in an assortment of higher risk US and foreign stock funds, with an admixture of bond funds over the past 25 years and more recently rebalanced some into a real estate fund that is a whole lot newer offering.

the small recent Roth and smaller taxable accounts have small allocations to individual energy stocks, financial and couple other commodity stocks, with more cash to invest that has been waiting for me to do something with. so yes, I was being quite truthful with myself and the questionnaire when I came out as risk level 4 in both taxable and retirement outside accounts-for the funds that are currently invested and have stayed invested.

The energy stocks-refinery one is coming back up after taking a couple big dives past 2 years. couple others (E&P and oil service) are taking swan dives the past several months, a financial is not doing too well at the moment either, think it got hit with energy bond holdings. I'm holding that too.

I take risks in the outside accounts, which offsets my aversion to risk in tsp. smaller accounts, lower relative risk if I lose big percentagewise in them. Last night I did run the questionnaire again adding tsp to all the other accounts, and it came out risk level 6.5 for both taxable and retirement allocations. Apparently can afford to take more risk in tsp when add in the much bigger tsp account to the total picture. something I must consider much more closely with that information in hand.

Can I get perfect retirement or taxable allocations risk-level 4 or 6.5 either one per Wealthfront, considering the whole picture including tsp? no, because I don't have enough in the outside accounts to put the right amounts into djp, vnq, emb, or vwo or vnq to make the percentage allocations work across all accounts. darn it. now I have a purposeful objective to increase both taxable and Roth holdings so that I can continue to build the outside portfolio components that I can't work with in tsp (real estate, emerging markets, commods). high risk portions of the market. I've ventured into the real estate side and energy/commod side so far, haven't ventured into emerging markets aspects at all yet. :worried:

 

[alevin]

woohoo! little chicken dance. Been a verry long time since I've been in the top 100, even momentarily. now I just have to do about 30x better to even think of catching up with number 1. (measured against full-year standing people only).

 

[alevin]

Checking the $akg chart this morning. 2 major sell signals back to back, candlestick style. hanging (wo)man followed by shooting star (as in flameout if I stay in F). I get the message. question remains-go to fullcover burka, or burka that shows a little leg. going with number 2. got to give burro a different image for a bit. He gets pretty excited when boobs are in sight, even covered ones. calm down b. Your model may need some adjusting, will just make it better in the long run.

My new moving average model is still not showing signal change from "neutral" since the gigantic sell signal in November, so I'm not going to go big long, and not going to bail completely either. Honing in on major candlestick signals for F right now-important sell signals-don't want to lose my place in the top 100-yet.

mixed signals from different systems about whether to bail into C vs S for short rally or not. EUO (short Euro ETF) is showing a spinning top doji-topping out. $usd is way extended above moving avg. suggests dollar will drop for a little bit, C fund (exports) would benefit, S fund would not.

conclusion. 65%G, 35%C. COB.

 

[burrocrat]

wow. bold.

 

[alevin]

Glad I got out of F yesterday. good move there. size of move to C maybe not so much. downsizing C allocation to 15% today, everything else to G (of course, no other move available for remainder of the month). sure didn't see the Swissies making that move-neither did a lot of "smarter" money people for that matter.

 

[Boghie]

You ate well on the 'C Fund' today. Yummy... Better than the Alpo Meal Deal...

 

[burrocrat]

nice timing alevin, got yourself a score there.

 

[alevin]

Not bad for this chicken little. must be the confidence-builder hypno tape I've been listening to at night lately. not bad at all. Instead of being behind the leader by 1:30, I'm now only behind the leader at about 1:5. not bad for a week/months work. not completely in the safety zone, but that's ok too. for now.

 

[Boghie]

Not bad at all...

But don't chicken little out on the very modest 'C Fund' holdings you currently have. If the market 'crashes' 5% or 6% you will zero out for the year. It is the only thing left in your allocation that can give you alpha for the month. You have to gain more in early in the year to balance out the usually lousy summer months. If you bail out of the C you will not be able to get back in for two more weeks.

Think of it this way... If you hold your 15% allocation in C than if the S&P500 gains a point over the remainder of the month you will be at about a +1% return for the month. If the market 'crashes' a point you will be at about +0.65% for the month.

Don't go Total Amoeba on me. Never go Total Amoeba!!!

 

[Boghie]

By the way, don't worry about matching the top leaders. How many of them were there last year and the year previous. Maybe 10% of them were double digits last year. Haven't looked at 2013. There are a couple targets in the group worth watching though:cheesy:.

Try to make the Top Quintile or two. That is, the Top 20% to 40%. The newbies that appear at the very top are taking very risky moves. They are the short term winners than they varnish...

 

[alevin]

By the way, don't worry about matching the top leaders. How many of them were there last year and the year previous. Maybe 10% of them were double digits last year. Haven't looked at 2013. There are a couple targets in the group worth watching though:cheesy:.

Try to make the Top Quintile or two. That is, the Top 20% to 40%. The newbies that appear at the very top are taking very risky moves. They are the short term winners than they varnish...

g'morning, Boghie my friend! The guy I'm watching is BigJohn. Walks softly and carries a big big stick, . He has done so more often than not over past number of years. Hiya, BigJohn! . I haven't followed him, been too focused on trying to find my own path. maybe now I'm finally finding it. Game I'm playing is mainly against myself. nice to see I'm doing pretty good tho, comparatively speaking in the bigger general sense. I keep my performance in perspective by looking at the leader. When I celebrate, it's pretty small gains compared to how some people do, keeps me humble.

 

[PessOptimist]

Hi alevin (11)

Reading the stuff over on clester's thread. Good luck with the plans. What moved me to write was how blessed you are to have living parents at your (our) age. There are several stories I wish I could ask mine to tell.

PO

 

[alevin]

Hi PO. Agreed, I am thankful to still have them both. Which is why I am still working on figuring this out, looking out over the next 15 years. Both sides are known for longevity into mid90s or beyond. Dad is a 2x cancer survivor, however. so no telling. could be either one goes before the other.

My mom's side are the story tellers, Dad's side not so much. The parents were both children of the depression, born right in the midst of all that was happening. Depression-era stories both sides, one side's stories better than the other's. I know them better than the younger siblings do. Another reason I've so careful with my tsp, too careful maybe. sometimes risks are worth taking, sometimes they're not. I need the wisdom to know the difference. working on it.

Maricar's question has led me to running the math again, with some different numbers. Goal is still to retire age 61-62. trick is how to afford the part that my house wouldn't pay for, maintain cashflow for other needs including car payment in same timeframe. I'm being conservative with assumptions, ie 15yr mortgage @5%, with principal paydown to ensure paid off in 10 yrs total. Debt-free by 70, car and house. the goal. and have just enough cashflow in the interim to afford building up the mini-farm into paying a little something for itself, in terms of reducing storebought food costs and providing occupational therapy, besides providing rental income to offset the mortgage paydown.

Current owner of the target property is planning on putting new roof on soon, it needs it. One family depression story however, is of great-grandfather being overextended on farm real estate (real farms), losing them all, family having to move in with family til economy got better-not sure how long they sheltered with family, need to ask mom for that story-if she remembers. The parents both have good memories still. knock on wood.

 

[Maricar19]

Alevin, I understand your dilemma. Sometimes you gotta do what you think is best for you. Your parents are lucky to have a caring son like you.

 

[konakathy]

Hey girl! I've always admired people who can plan and calculate for their future and you seem to have a very thorough and well thought out plan for retirement. Excellent ! I love your farming concept of sustainability and income producing. Something I've been pondering for a few years.

I wish sometimes my personality was wired for planning and sticking to the plan , but no, I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl - always deciding my course of action as I go along, using my own instincts and initiatives rather than a pre-determined plan. It's worked well for me so far and I've been blest, but who knows, it may come to bite me in the seat of my pants one day.

I have one suggestion for you to add to your retirement plans and that is to factor in some play and adventure .... It's good for the soul.

One of of my favorite inspirational quotes I try to live by:

Remember the past, plan for the future, but live for today. Because yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.

Aloha - KK