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Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

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151–160 of 279 posts

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My philosophy is essentially buy low, hold forever. I don't put money that I might realistically need in the market

I mean… that defeats the point, no? Surely you must plan to use the money at some point , even if that is just enjoying the end of your days. That's still a time horizon. > I don't put money that I might realistically need in the market While it's great that you might have a time horizon far, far into the future, not everyone has that luxury. In theory , I'm supposed to purchase a home & start a family around this po…

My strategy is to ignore it until about my late 40s early 50s and then start slowly cycling it over into more reasonable investments and bonds.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#152

As of today, you need about 12% returns to break even after inflation and the IRS eat your return. Anything less than that and you are effectively losing. Especially annoying that capital gains taxes will be paid on any profits, even those less than inflation. Time for a new rule.

Wouldn't you lose more just by sitting on cash? Even now?

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't buy a house until the real estate market crashes. Then buy. I bought a fixer-upper in 2008 for 200k; sold it for 425k 5 years later. Recently it sold for 650k (we still get redfin notifications.) In the meantime I bought a house for 625k (nice house with some rough edges) and sold it 18 months ago in covid real estate madness for 950k. We certainly put money into both houses over time, but we'd never have been…

What if the house market crashes in 10 years? Live in a car for 10 years?

Are "buy" and "live in a car" the only two options?

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#155

Having all lines normalized so they start from a common point at x = 0 would be helpful. That would allow reading the total returns as percentage of the initial (1987) investment and compare them. Similarly in the drawdown chart, if it starts at 1987, it makes no sense to start the dollar at -81%. If I am looking at a chart from 1987 to 2022, I want to see how the dollar did compared to other assets in that time peri…

You don't really need that on a logarithmic plot since the ratio of stock prices is always a constant vertical separation. It is very necessary on linear pricing plots.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#156

Having all lines normalized so they start from a common point at x = 0 would be helpful. That would allow reading the total returns as percentage of the initial (1987) investment and compare them. Similarly in the drawdown chart, if it starts at 1987, it makes no sense to start the dollar at -81%. If I am looking at a chart from 1987 to 2022, I want to see how the dollar did compared to other assets in that time peri…

Is that even possible? Wouldn't that suggest something that is not true?

How is it not true? All these numbers are relative, and you can make the choice of comparing them to whatever reference point you want.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#157

If the goal is to demonstrate relative performance over time, wouldn't it be useful to use a normalization such that all lines either start at the same point (e.g. simulating investing X amount) or ending at the same point (showing requirement to get to X final amount)?

I think that's a reasonable idea and I may try including that option in the future. Right now, the start point is quite arbitrary: it's the first date where we have data for all the symbols requested. And date ranges dramatically affect any sort of relative performance comparison. So in the current code I decided to just normalize to today's nominal-dollar value so that the end values are relatable. What would the id…

Growth of $10K (growth of a hypothetical $10,000 investment) is a chart that is commonly-used to illustrate this. Your chart would then have VFINX, VBMFX, and USDOLLAR start with $10,000 on 1987-08-03 and go from there.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#158

As of today, you need about 12% returns to break even after inflation and the IRS eat your return. Anything less than that and you are effectively losing. Especially annoying that capital gains taxes will be paid on any profits, even those less than inflation. Time for a new rule.

Wouldn't you lose more just by sitting on cash? Even now?

Yeah, unless you have it earmarked for something today it isn’t worth having cash lying around except for buffer funds. It’s a bad time all around right now. Best off sitting on investments for the foreseeable future.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#159
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not according to Vanguard[0] (the link is for VFIAX but that's just the admiral fund), the quote I gave was from Vanguard's own description of the fund's composition. You can take it up with Vanguard why they describe the fund as I've quoted[1]. [0] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-fun... [1] https://support.vanguard.com/

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.

Re: Show HN: Inflation-adjusted stock charts – Total Real Returns

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the house market crashes in 10 years? Live in a car for 10 years?

Are "buy" and "live in a car" the only two options?

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.
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