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the answer is stay dynamic .
as the big picture shifts you evolve with it .
i own lots of bond funds now . they are all up capital gain wise plus providing income .
i have made thousands since january trading in and out of TLT the long treasury bond fund for fun . every time the market spooks like clock work it goes up , i sell it and wait for the fear to fade .
last year junk bonds were the place to be . the market priced them like 1/2 the energy companies were going out of business . it was really low hanging fruit . 20% of my portfolio was in fidelity high income .
it had volatility that was 1/2 the s&p 500 and returned 16% beating equities . this year they are gone . the low hanging fruit has been picked and the fund swapped .
i made about 9k earlier this year just trading for fun in and out of HYG the junk bond fund .
having a dynamic portfolio today i think is important . the days of buy and die may be coming to an end with the 35 year bull market in bonds . but for now bonds are still good in the hood .
the answer is stay dynamic .
as the big picture shifts you evolve with it .
i own lots of bond funds now . they are all up capital gain wise plus providing income .
i have made thousands since january trading in and out of TLT the long treasury bond fund . every time the market spooks like clock work it goes up , i sell it and wait for the fear to fade .
last year junk bonds were the place to be . the market priced them like 1/2 the energy companies were going out of business . it was really low hanging fruit . 20% of my portfolio was in fidelity high income .
it had volatility that was 1/2 the s&p 500 and returned 16% beating equities . this year they are gone . the low hanging fruit has been picked and the fund swapped .
i made about 9k earlier this year just trading for fun in and out of HYG the junk bond fund .
fidelity as well as other fund families have lots of overlap if you are not careful . that is why i like the newsletter . they stay current in what the major holds are .
fidelity has a very strict policy for fund managers . most are not free to buy what they like . fidelity analysts maintain an approved list that they have to pull from .
that can create quite a bit of duplicate holdings .
most balanced funds will hold long term treasuries because unlike intermediate term they trade more on fear ,greed and perception than rates themselves . coupled with short term bonds you have the duration of a intermediate term bond fund but with a lot more fighter cover when those long term treasuries soar in a stock downturn .
i enjoy trading in and out of gold too .
high quality bond funds will act pretty close to individual bonds as long as you hold for the duration figure . the increasing rates as rates rise will eventually offset the nav drop bringing you back whole again .
you will see close to the yield you had the day you bought same as an individual bond would . they both will be behind the curve when rates rise .
take a bond fund at 10 bucks a share and a hypothetical 5% yield with a duration of 5 .
if rates go up 1% the fund drops to 9.50 a share but the extra 1% interest over 5 years makes you whole again , same as buying a 5% bond on the same day.
but in both cases you are getting 5% in a 6% world .
the only wild card is if there are a lot of credit rating changes . they could make things a bit better or a bit worse for the fund , never a problem though with treasuries .
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-25-2017 at 03:43 PM..
anyone can claim anything on the internet and in fact do . they can make up great success stories or you never hear about how much they lost .
within the context of the discussion i have no problem posting my ytd brokerage trading statement .
this is only my fun trading portion not my seriously invested dough .
although i have had good luck darting in and out of stocks i would never recommend anyone do this with their serious dough . that should be invested ,diversified and just nudged over time to fit the big picture .
so far year to date just playing around i have over 71k in gains after subtracting out the slight losses .
the losses are held to a minimum and if they do not move in a manner i like quickly , i dump them ,sometimes in a day or 2 .
gold accounted for 26k of the gains with 28 trades in and out since january .
i find it far easier to make money in etf's that are based on asset classes rather than individual stocks .
cisco ,ibm , verizon all missed earnings and were severely punished so they had to get sold with small losses or little gain . i guessed wrong and right or wrong i am out .
so losses were a few hundred bucks while gains less the losses are 71k so far .
BUT THEY STILL MAY NOT GIVE ME A MORTGAGE! or if they do asset based lending it will likely be crappy terms .
.
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-27-2017 at 03:41 AM..
Its not like an 85 year old has a life expectancy of 115.
It is clear that credit availability has vastly increased the price of houses and housing.
This is a really dumb statement. What does age have to do with mortgage qualifications? At death the house would be sold either directly to a family member or sold with the equity being split among the estate.
Age should represents a valid risk factor and it can be calculated actuarially.
An 85 year old female has an expectancy of 6.42 years and thus should be totally ineligible for anything over that term.
Again what does mortgage qualification have to do with age? Do you really think the bank takes a hit when somebody that owns a piece of property dies? Their note will be paid by the estate. If it isn't they simply seize the property.
age can be a bigger factor to a landlord who rents to older tenants .especially here in nyc where seniors are protected under stabilization laws and 1/2 of all rentals are stabilized .
Again what does mortgage qualification have to do with age? Do you really think the bank takes a hit when somebody that owns a piece of property dies? Their note will be paid by the estate. If it isn't they simply seize the property.
Banks have nothing to do with 30 year mortgage loans beyond originating them and then pawning them off (conforming) to a GSE and then getting paid to service them. That is why loans are written to 85 year olds, because it is just one of many ways home loans don't make a lick of business sense. It is a government sponsored Ponzi Scheme.
Actually age is a factor in extending mortgages, JUST NOT HERE IN THE US.
Writing mortgages that make business sense, JUST NOT HERE IN THE US.
---eg. The "foreign" country I bought real estate in did not write fixed rate 30 year loans; they only wrote five year mortgages, which meant you could either roll the loan in a way similar to an ARM, or replace the loan; both options at prevailing rates.. No private individual would write a mortgage loan at current rates for 30 years.. Its a total money loser, so the US government steps in. Also the LTV requirements were allot stricter; typical was 30%+ not 0-20%. And, you could depreciate commercial property but recapture on sale would kill you via taxes (so you never depreciated and thus never recaptured on sale)
Why? Because real estate purchasing was not subsidized via public policy or tax policy. Banks would only write loans to people that had skin in the game, could pay back the loan, and that would make money for the bank directly rather than selling paper back to a GSA. Here in the US banks make easy money originating loans and servicing them. Also mortgage interest was only deductible on commercial property, not residential.
The idea in the US is to have as many people "buying" homes as possible with the federal government subsidizing an oversized financial industry. Local School systems cost shift thereby providing subsidies as well. Net effect housing in the US is a ponzi scheme of the first order.
Government involvement has inflated the cost of housing dramatically both to purchase and to carry. Many of these ponzi policies were put into place during the great-depression.
all that matters at the end of the day is that we all play the cards we are dealt as best as we can and that we use all the tools and laws in place to help us ..
if they offer mortgages to seniors and you want one , great take advantage of it .
if you don't do what is best for you , no one else will .
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-29-2017 at 07:08 AM..
Just curious why you cared about saving $50 a month on TWC/Spectrum when you made $71k in five months in your short term "fun trading" (not serious investing) account?
Pay cash. You are being programmed by the banks. They run the world.
From birth you are programmed to buy into the system and the dream.
Wait an extra 10 years if you have to and pay cash. Don't keep feeding money to the banks.
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