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maj wrote: If defined contributions are the wave of the future for retirement, I suggest that a refinement of the glide path for target date funds is the best gift to give employees. If those funds are indexed, even better. Yeah, but as long as the masses have the choice to do something different, most of them will still screw up by buying low and selling high (note: I'm not advocating against choice, just pointing out the major downside...

Beagler wrote: Provided the above Eugene Fama quote is true, I'd love to see tadamsmar's response. It's hard to parse the meaning of talent. The quote is from The Behavior of Stock-Market Prices, Eugene F. Fama, The Journal of Business, Vol. 38, No. 1. (Jan., 1965), pp. 34-105. The meaning of talent seems clear, both as a dictionary matter and from the context in the quote.

richard wrote: tadamsmar wrote: ObliviousInvestor wrote: tadamsmar wrote: He just means that ''fully reflects" needs a definition. (Obviously, a hypothesis with undefined terms is not testible.) That's precisely the point. You can test it. But you can't test it without adding something to it. You can't test just the existence of efficiency or lack thereof. It can only be tested alongside another assertion....

Quote: For instance consider the 2-3/8% 4/15/2011. From the WSJ link, the price is about 103.21 so the YTM is -0.218% . Now I know for a fact that it will be worth exactly 100 on 4/15/2011 which is in 15 months. $100 at maturity? Is there no inflation factor on this issue?

meckaneck wrote: This is one reason which gives me pause on the PP. Long term stock and bond performance versus cash and gold? http://www.screencast.com/user....c7052ad279 IMHO, that's a misleading chart, and it is part of the propaganda that publications like "Money" magazine use to make the world seem like a simple place. Where, I wonder, would the investor from 1800 have specifically needed to place his money to get...

kb0fhp wrote: Lack of qualified engineers But we've got plenty of lawyers....

DRiP Guy wrote: * I abhor the use of leverage, in any form. * I detest shorting as a concept. * I want all of my investments to be as close to 'first order' or 'native' products as possible, that is -- they do what they say they do directly, and not through synthesis, replication, or artificially mimicking a thing. For instance, I shudder at those CDs that supposedly hedge against currency risk (for a fee), but do that by...

I have to admit that the idea of holding a 30-year treasury makes me nervous. If interest rates move up significantly both stocks and long bonds will get trashed. 50% of the PP is exposed to the risk of rising rates. We know from many comments on the thread and elsewhere that gold is NOT a direct inflation hedge - it is a hedge against financial stress. Can somebody talk me down off this ledge?

Doc wrote: If you believe in efficient markets and MPT you can't get a higher return without taking on more risk. Actually it would be more correct to say you don't get higher expected returns without accepting additional risk. But, under the assumption of an efficient and rational market, the expected return of the short term CD should be about the same as the expected return of the short term TIPS as both are essentially risk...

Kenster1 wrote: nisiprius Lets see the real money in the bank numbers for US investors. You can have an investment return -1% annually for the past 10 years and another investment return +15% annually and call it very close corrrelation because on a graph when one goes up so does the other and then when one goes down so does the other. But who cares? I see one investment as having negative returns and another with handsome positive returns....