251–260 of 279 posts
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This is a really weak way to think or see the the world. Regardless of who is correct in this specific situation.
No, it very much is not. It's literally how all education works, for example.
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If rent really is lower than the mortgage payment (assuming the alternative return on the downpayment is taken into account, etc) for an equivalent property, then buying is pretty reasonable in most circumstances. I'm observing rents way, way below mortgages, but it's very location dependent. When making decisions about where to put my money, I stopped worrying about what other people are going to do and are doing, w…
In the Netherlands, there are no places where rents are below mortgages. Unless you apply for social housing, but that requires you to be below a certain income threshold, which means that you couldn't have bought a house anyway. Social housing also have 20 years waiting list.
How does the math work in the Netherlands?
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> Cap your downside, go balls out with the rest. This doesn’t mean anything to me. Can you elaborate? Also, why are revenue generating assets better, and doesn’t pursuing revenue generating assets imply prioritizing cash flow? Sorry for the noob questions.
> This doesn’t mean anything to me. Can you elaborate? Taleb elaborates better in his very accessible book(s). The basic idea is to invest/use most of your net worth in “safe” investments, those primarily keeping up with inflation or just barely beating it. If shit hits the fan, you have a cushion to fall back on. Anything beyond keeping you safe and comfortable enough should go chasing the highest returns possible.…
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Vanguard notoriously calls mid-caps "small," e.g., VB. Anyway, they're not the ones who select S&P500 index components. I love Vanguard, but this is one case where they're kind of off-base.
So Vanguard (venerated investment institution for 50 years) is wrong and you (random HN commenter) are right? Sure, okay.
I've often read Stocks average +10%/year, is this true when factoring in taxes + inflation? Wondering if other investments that appear less attractive on paper are actually better than traditional equities.
From what I understand, SPY returns adjusted for inflation over long term average to 7%.
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No, it very much is not. It's literally how all education works, for example.
You’re sticking to the same logic of blind trust to tradition and authority
I trust institutions who have a strong track record of predictiveness and desirable outcomes. Vanguard has both in spades, and has earned their authority. If they stop accurately predicting future behavior and/or stop producing desirable outcomes, that will change their authority on matters of investing.
Not trusting predictiveness and desirable outcomes seems prone to bias. If your alternative is that you only trust yourself, that seems like both a paranoid and privileged outlook, given how much time and how many resources you'd need to expend to gain even half of the knowledge Vanguard as an institution has about operating as an investment advisor.
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Can you tell at a glance which asset had a better return since the start date until March of 2009? A plot of total ROI (with all assets starting at y = 0) would make that obvious (for any given end date). As far as I can tell, the different intercepts just add noise (price of a single stock) that is not helpful to visualize what the plot is supposed to be showing (total returns).
To within a fraction of a percent? Probably not, but to within a reasonable fraction of total performance over 13 years... yes. Look at the initial separation and the final separation and see if the are larger or smaller or look the same. If you can't see it, use a larger monitor. I'd see the point of scaling them when looking at VFISX vs GOOG since there would be a huge range on the scale, but even there you can see…
You didn't answer my question. Could you tell which one had larger returns from the beginning of the period until March of 2009? I couldn't easily tell, and yet VMBFX has a total return of 127% and VFINX 89%
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So Vanguard (venerated investment institution for 50 years) is wrong and you (random HN commenter) are right? Sure, okay.
Vanguard tracks the index. The index are US large caps. In this case OP is right and vanguard is wrong. You should do a little research before you display such ignorance.
Like, find a company in the S&P 500[0] that is not an American company? A company named, oh I dunno, Linde plc, which trades as $LIN and was founded in Germany[1] and currently has its headquarters in the UK?
So on the technical merits, what I said was correct, the S&P 500 does indeed have non-US stocks. Further, on the general thrust of my point, that the S&P 500 has exposure to international markets, that also holds true, something like 71% US and 29% international based on some cursory research [2].
But please, continue to lecture me on my ignorance. :)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linde_plc
[2] https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/daily...
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You can rent, but that's money wasted. The longer you rent, the longer you didn't invest. Also rents are higher than mortgage payments, making it worse.
I really hate this mindset. I rented for about a decade. Renting allowed me to bounce around from job to job in various cities and grow my career. Had I owned houses during that time I would have lost money due to the transaction cost overhead. I was also not responsible for any upkeep, which I'm not well suited for anyway. Oh and I absolutely did invest. My money was simply invested in the stock market which had a f…
As for investing: you invested what you had left after rent, but you didn't invest what you paid in rent. With a mortgage, you are investing the mortage payment minus interest, and you can still invest what you have left.
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You’re sticking to the same logic of blind trust to tradition and authority
Who said anything about blind or tradition? That seems like stuff you injected into this convo, not me. I trust institutions who have a strong track record of predictiveness and desirable outcomes. Vanguard has both in spades, and has earned their authority. If they stop accurately predicting future behavior and/or stop producing desirable outcomes, that will change their authority on matters of investing. Not trusti…