Certain foreign denominated CD's at EverBank pay 4%+. Look them up on the
Web.


"sand" <referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ded9a432.0411221232.59e26622[at]posting.google.com...
- quote -



======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you are responding.

- quote -

Thanks to all for their comments. From here on, private email would
be more appropriate for etiquette issues in this thread. The thread
remains open for early retirement comments.
Your cooperation is appreciated.

-HW "Skip" Weldon
Columbia, SC

"Sgt. Sausage" <nobody[at]nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:9x4sd.4$gV5.2[at]fe37.usenetserver.com...
- quote -

I agree. That said, we all have to be a little patient with people who may
not know netiquette.

Brent D. Gardner, ChFC
Chartered Financial Consultant
http://members.cox.net/brentdgardner1378/
http://www.topgunproducers.com/

Si vis pacem para bellum!

"Be ever questioning. Ignorance is not bliss. It is oblivion. You don't go
to heaven if you die dumb. Become better informed. Learn from other's
mistakes. You could not live long enough to make them all yourself." - Hyman
George Rickover (1900-86), Admiral, US Navy, advocated development of
nuclear subs & ships

The Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) and Chartered Financial Consultant
(ChFC), designations owned and exclusively offered by The American College,
signify the highest standards of academic study and professional excellence
in the financial services industry.

"sand" <referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ded9a432.0412021822.639ac388[at]posting.google.com...

[snip]

- quote -

Umm ... Listen to him.

All upper case *is* annoying to most people.

referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com (sand) writes:

- quote -

You didn't even do that.

- quote -

It is. Your posts will be ignored by lots of knowledgeable
folks if you insist on ignoring convention.

EVERY single time I post here, the bottom of my post
includes a .signature with a pointer to a web page
which explains how best to make sure that your responses
are easy for people to read:

Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

Folks often have trouble with the quoting conventions,
particularly if they've only been using something like
Outlook for office correspondence (which is a very
different thing from usenet newsgroup messaging).

It never occured to me that something as basic as
not writing in all upper-case would need to be made
explicit.

If you think that having your response in upper-case
is a means of distinguishing your content from that
to which you are responding, you are mistaken. That
purpose is served by proper use of the > signs.

Modern GUI-based newsreaders will even highlight
different levels of response by replacing the > with
nice bars and even different colors.


--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

But it's alot easier to read when interspersing (embedding) my replies
into the sentences of the person I'm responding to, as in the previous
post.
That's when I use uppercase. And no, upper case is not annoying to
most people. The only people who don't like it is those who read
somewhere a long
time ago that "upper case means shouting", and they just automatically
assume that without thinking. This is shouting: !!!!!!!!!!!!!
(explamation points).

- quote -

referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com writes:
- quote -

PLEASE DON'T SHOUT. All-upper-case is awfully annoying to read.
It's roughly like shouting.

That said, no, you're *not* stuck with that vanguard healthcare
fund. It's just that to get out of it before those five years,
you'd have to pay a fee (which goes back into the fund, to
the other shareholders, not to Vanguard). It's 1% and considering
how low the fees are on that fund, even if you pay that
redemption fee, you'll have paid less for that fund than if
you'd bought most other actively managed specialized sector
funds in the regular course of their ownership.

Moreover, even though healthcare is well represented in
the indices, some would argue that there are good demographic
reasons to overweight that sector...



--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

Responding to TB
snip the first half

- quote -



YES, IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I BOUGHT AND I'M STUCK WITH IT
ANYWAY FOR AT LEAST 5 YEARS...THAT'S OK, BUT I'M NOT GOING TO ADD
ANYTHING TO IT.


- quote -


YES, QUITE A BIT OF OVERLAP, BUT NOT WORTH SELLING ANYTHING TO REDUCE
THE OVERLAP...JUST A BIT MORE PAPERWORK TO DEAL WITH AT TAX TIME, ETC.
I DO LIKE TRP EQUITY INCOME, WHICH HAS DONE MUCH BETTER THAN THE
TOTAL MARKET INDEX OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS...SO I'LL KEEP BOTH OF
THOSE.

- quote -


- quote -



YES, THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT I'LL DO.


- quote -



I'M PRETTY SURE TRP EQUITY INCOME IS HEAVILY VALUE-ORIENTED.


- quote -



YES, I PLAN TO ADD MID/SMALL INT'L. I WAS HOPING TO BUY VANUARD
INTERNATIONAL DISCOVERY BUT ITS CLOSED TO NEW INVESTORS...MAYBE I'LL
GO WITH TRP INTERNATIONAL EXPLORER (BUT MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE
FORMER).

- quote -



- quote -


- quote -


- quote -



YES, THAT'S MAYBE WHERE I'LL MOVE MY IRA'S TO. OR MAYBE TO FIDELITY
REAL ESTATE (MORE EXPENSIVE THOUGH).


- quote -




THANKS, THATS THE KIND OF INFO I WS LOOKING FOR.


- quote -


- quote -


- quote -



I'M GLAD I BOUGHT TRP REAL ESTATE LAST MARCH, EVEN THOUGH MANY PEOPLE
SAID IT WAS A BAD TIME...SO FAR, IT'S SHOT UP....(MAYBE IT'LL CRASH
SOON THOUGH). BUT, I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE 40% OF MY
MONEY THAT'S SITTING IN THE BANK EARNING 2%, WHILE I CONTINUE TO LEARN
AND SLOWLY INVEST INTO MORE FUNDS AND ADD TO EXISTING FUNDS. SHOULD
I PUT MORE OF IT IN MY SHORT-TERM CORPORATE (NOW CALLED
"INVESTMENT-GRADE") BOND FUND...it SEEMS VERY LOW RISK, AND HAD NEVER
REALLY DROPPED IN THE PAST...AND SEEMS "SEMI-LIQUID" (IS IT??). I KNOW
I SHOULD KEEP A FEW YEARS OF LIQUID MONEY, TO USE IF I DON'T WANT TO
WITHDRAW FROM ANY FUNDS THAT MAY BE WAY DOWN...BUT NOT SURE WHERE...


- quote -

sand <referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

Why not buy a keyboard with a working capslock key first, to avoid
offending most of the people here?

http://www.hfac.uh.edu/mcl/karima/co...netiquette.htm

--
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is
not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they
are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them
as they fly overhead. -- RFC 1925

snip the first half

- quote -

ANYWAY FOR AT LEAST 5 YEARS...THAT'S OK, BUT I'M NOT GOING TO ADD
ANYTHING TO IT.

You might also look at the overlap b/t
- quote -

THE OVERLAP...JUST A BIT MORE PAPERWORK TO DEAL WITH AT TAX TIME, ETC.
I DO LIKE TRP EQUITY INCOME, WHICH HAS DONE MUCH BETTER THAN THE
TOTAL MARKET INDEX OVER THE PAST TEN YEARS...SO I'LL KEEP BOTH OF
THOSE.

- quote -

YES, THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT I'LL DO.

- quote -


- quote -

YES, I PLAN TO ADD MID/SMALL INT'L. I WAS HOPING TO BUY VANUARD
INTERNATIONAL DISCOVERY BUT ITS CLOSED TO NEW INVESTORS...MAYBE I'LL
GO WITH TRP INTERNATIONAL EXPLORER (BUT MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN THE
FORMER).
- quote -

YES, THAT'S MAYBE WHERE I'LL MOVE MY IRA'S TO. OR MAYBE TO FIDELITY
REAL ESTATE (MORE EXPENSIVE THOUGH).

- quote -

THANKS, THATS THE KIND OF INFO I WS LOOKING FOR.
- quote -

I'M GLAD I BOUGHT TRP REAL ESTATE LAST MARCH, EVEN THOUGH MANY PEOPLE
SAID IT WAS A BAD TIME...SO FAR, IT'S SHOT UP....(MAYBE IT'LL CRASH
SOON THOUGH). BUT, I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE 40% OF MY
MONEY THAT'S SITTING IN THE BANK EARNING 2%, WHILE I CONTINUE TO LEARN
AND SLOWLY INVEST INTO MORE FUNDS AND ADD TO EXISTING FUNDS. SHOULD
I PUT MORE OF IT IN MY SHORT-TERM CORPORATE (NOW CALLED
"INVESTMENT-GRADE") BOND FUND...it SEEMS VERY LOW RISK, AND HAD NEVER
REALLY DROPPED IN THE PAST...AND SEEMS "SEMI-LIQUID" (IS IT??). I KNOW
I SHOULD KEEP A FEW YEARS OF LIQUID MONEY, TO USE IF I DON'T WANT TO
WITHDRAW FROM ANY FUNDS THAT MAY BE WAY DOWN...BUT NOT SURE WHERE...

- quote -



- quote -

Thanks very much for the comments...I'm going to reply in a day or so.


TB <borekfm[at]pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<Lcpod.21085$zx1.7214[at]newssvr13.news.prodigy.com> ...
- quote -

snip

Have you thought of keeping the next 3 years worth of income in cash,
the rest in stocks-bonds-REIT? it would minimize the upds and downs
of the market some relative to income you need immediately/ short
term.

referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com (sand) wrote in message news:<ded9a432.0411211325.52955d8c[at]posting.google.com> ...
- quote -


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you are responding.

"John A. Weeks III" <john[at]johnweeks.com> wrote in message news:<211120041636319525%john[at]johnweeks.com> ...
- quote -

Yes, i thought about those...still not sure I want.

- quote -

Yes, i hate having it in the bank, and I"m thinking of putting much of
it into my existing vanguard short term investment grade bond fund,
but it's only yielding about 3.3%...What do you think about putting it
there.
Very little principal risk, and probably not much of a tax bite to
sell shares when I need money (?).

- quote -

Yes, and I want to get up to at least 10% of my portfolio in REITs,
although I"m not saying it's a good idea to ADD money to my
REIT account RIGHT NOW or buy a new REIT account right now. But I"m
certainly not planning on selling...i'm mainly going to be a buy and
holder, within reason.
- quote -

sand wrote, (and Skip I can't snip it any more than this =) ):
- quote -

That's the kind of allocation that fits the "4%-could-very-well-work"
scenarios. You can add a lot of security to that by assuring that your
"bare minimum" withdrawals are comfortably below the 4%, so you could
ride through a market dip. Or, of course, work to at least get a little
income.

- quote -

Why bother with health care? As a sector it's already well represented
in the Total-mkt or '500 fund. You might also look at the overlap b/t
TRP Equity Income & the market, are you getting something much different
and if so what is it, and is that what you want? Rhetorical question.

- quote -

If that's the goal you could instead add one of the
S&P-500-complementary funds that is the "rest of the market." One
benefit of that approach is it would allow you to periodically shift
money from one to the other, rebalancing from larger to smaller & vice
versa. That rebalancing should help your returns long-term and in the
total-market fund it's not happening the same way - the mix is adjusting
daily really instead of having those times that you sell off your small
caps when they're up a lot, shifting $ to large-caps.

And keep in mind that Total-market and S&P500 funds are very highly
correlated because the '500 is a big part of the market. So this is a
tweak really, not a major shift. Even in the total-market fund you won't
have all that much in mid/small.

If it were my client I'd make the pitch for value-weighting the
portfolio instead of sticking with total-market funds, even through
something as simple as adding in Vanguard's value fund. Bogle isn't so
sold on that though. The TRP fund might have a decent value weighting to
it, I don't know.

- quote -

There's some research suggesting that you're better with Value &
small-cap stocks for your international allocations, because something
like the Total-Int'l is too correlated to the S&P 500. Big
multinationals are big multinationals regardless of where the stock is
listed - or so goes the argument.

- quote -

Some people stick only with short-term bond funds because the additional
returns on the others aren't worth it.

- quote -

Vanguard has a low-expense REIT fund you might want to check out.

- quote -

The studies you've seen showing 4% being sustainable assume you'll be a
dope about the withdrawals, blindly following some methodology from the
start. Generally you would keep your asset allocation in balance and
base withdrawal sources accoringly, but some common sense rules help
things quite a bit. Don't lock yourself into spending requiring 4%
withdrawals, so you have a cushion. If the stock market just tanked, you
don't sell off your stocks, and maybe you cut back on withdrawals. In
the rough spots tap into bonds first, even if your allocation goes out
of whack. Get a job and/or reduce your spending a lot if things look
really bleak. And if you have the flexibility to do those things 4% is low.

But more generally: I think you're onto the right approach...don't focus
on a 4% income return (as in 4% dividends and interest) from your
investments, think more in terms of withdrawals from your funds. As a
simple model imagine all your money in the Vanguard balanced index fund,
and you withdraw $1000 a month or whatever, and reinvest dividends &
interest. Vanguard is keeping that portfolio in balance (stocks/bonds)
and feeding withdrawals which might sometimes be solely from income,
sometimes are tapping into principal. You essentially do the same thing
with your mix of funds, adjusting the balance less frequently.

- quote -

Then again the REITs would have done well over the past year,
international is going through the roof as the dollar tanks, and the
cash had a negative return after inflation & taxes...

- quote -

An IRA is a good place for REITs, for the reasons you mention. But if
you're in the "15% or lower" tax bracket that's a minor concern
really...could be a wash when you factor in the higher tax rate that
will be applied to your long-term gains in those funds. Long-term REIT
returns aren't all dividends, it's a mix of divs and capital gains.

- quote -

Make sure you're not supposed to be taking withdrawals from that IRA!
Check the IRS publication on IRAs (www.irs.gov) if you're in doubt.

-Tad

In article <ded9a432.0411211325.52955d8c[at]posting.google.com> , sand
<referencestaff4[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

Take a close look at Ginnie Mae at www.ginniemae.gov. They have
had a pretty good rate of return over the years.

- quote -

Don't keep money in bank accounts unless you need it that month.
You can nearly always do better putting it in government bonds,
CD's, or even the money market. If you want your plan to work,
you need to keep everything working as hard as it can.

- quote -

With interest rates going up and the real estate bubble starting to
burst, are you sure you want to be in REIT's? Are you really sure?

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john[at]johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

I would appareciate some of your opinions and advice about my
situation and plans. I've never consulted with any financial
planners, because of the difficulty i'd probably have finding a
good/non-salesman type, but I may start looking (though i'd prefer to
save the money and educate ..., I've spent that past year reading
investment books and mags so I know the basics.

I'm about 50, recently inherited some money, and planning to retire
now and live off a 4 percent withdrawal rate from my
investments...(then again, from what I've read, 4 percent is probably
too high and money will run out if I live 40 or more years).

About half my money is currently sitting in bank accounts earning 2%,
with the other half in mutual funds (MF's) based on the target
allocation I set up...I've been DCA'ing over the past year. I'm in
about 15% or lower tax bracket.

My tentative target is: 60% stocks MF's, 25% bond MF's, 10% REIT MF's,
and maybe 5% cash. International stock will be about 25% of my total
stock allocation.
Here's what I own in taxable accounts:

US Stock:
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index
Vanguard s&p 500 index
Vanguard Health Care
TRowePrice Equity Income

I plan to make Vang.Tot.Stk.Mkt.Idx. about 45% of my US Stock
holdings,
make TRP Equity Inc. about 20% of my US stock holdings, make Vang.
Health about 8 percent. Below I"ll mention what I plan to add.

I plan to sell Vang. sp500 as soon as it makes a decent profit and as
soon as it's at least one year after I bought it (for tax reasons)...I
initially bought it and soon realized I made a mistake and really
wanted VangTotStockMarketIndex. Obviously, I'm over-weighted in
big companies...I need small or mid caps (i'll mention that later when
I raise the issue of rolling over some old IRA's I have or inherited).
I probably should own other stock funds as well, but not sure yet.

Int'l Stock:
Currently own: Vanguard Tot. Int'l. Stk Index, and TRowePrice
International stock. I plan to sell the latter, and replace it with
something else (maybe something like TRowePrice Int'l explorer, or
vanguard int'l explorer, both of which are I think are mid/small cap).

Bonds:
Currently own: Vanguard total bond market index (and I plan for it to
be about 35% of my bond holdings), vanguard short-term investment
grade (plan for 35%), vang high-yield (plan for 20%), and then 10% of
the bonds will be something to be determined (international?). I've
been DCA'ing into these bond funds, but I'm not sure if I should do
that, or just put in a lump sum (i know their prices will be going
down though).

Finally, I own TRowePrice Real Estate (in a taxable account like all
of the above).

I have some old IRA's totaling about 4% of my total assets, and I plan
to roll these over (is that the term?) into different funds. I realize
I should be using IRA's for "tax-inefficient funds" . Comprising
that 4% of 10-year old IRA's are things like fidelity asset manager,
TIAA-CREF stock and social choice, and a federal TSP (mainly stock).

Here are some of my ideas and questions:
(1) I don't know what to do for current income. I know what bond ladders
are, as well as immediate fixed and variable annuities, but I'm not
crazy about any of them and not sure if they're appropriate for me
(and i don't know enough about bonds to start choosing individual
bonds). I've been assuming I would just invest most of my money and
then withdraw about 4% annually (monthly or quarterly), but from what
funds? Some of the things I've read say: "from the best performing
funds", while some say they prefer using a balanced fund for
withdrawals and just withdraw the same amount every
.....month/quarter/year. I doubt I would like to withdraw
automatically every month or quarter--I'd rather see what the market
is doing and then withdraw maybe higher or lower amounts based on
that.
I can see the point of using a balanced fund, since it's less likely
to drop as much as a stock fund. But my equity-income fund also seems
to be like that, but with better growth..so maybe that's a good fund to use(?).
I'm not sure about withdrawing from bond funds...probably not a good idea
since they don't grow enough.
(2) About half my money is in bank accounts (2% interest)...I've just
been living off that money while I invest over the past year, not
seeing any better place to put that money.

(3) Since I want to own more REIT funds (I currently own about half my
target), should I roll my IRA over into a REIT fund (since they are
very tax-inefficient).? And since I need to buy small or mid-size
cap stock funds, should't I use IRA's for those too (many of them seem
to be tax-inefficient, at least according to Bernstein's Four
Pillars...).

I also inherited (i'm beneficiary) a bank IRA (CD earning 2
percent)...I already did the transfer to myself (correctly, with no
tax penalty). I was told I can create a "beneficiary" mutual fund
account and roll it over (maybe that's not the right word) with no tax
penalty. I need to do something with that...maybe a REIT or
small/mid-cap fund?