oski003 said:

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If you had a 3 year old and had $25,000 to put into a Vanguard investment college fund, would you do it now or wait a few months? If now, what would be the composition?

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Do it early as possible. I helped a granddaughter with 401K Vanguard selections and I will say her choices were not unlimited, but we picked VPMAX,VIGIX, and VWILX. I always look at 5 year growth for returns that are acceptable and the latter two are better than the former, but the three provide more diversification. I am not a FA though so check out whatever choices.

Unit2Sucks said:

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Congrats s Cal89!

Are you going to "semi-retire" or go cold turkey? I hear that a lot of people in your situation end up getting offers from your employer to consult once they realize the retired people aren't so easy to replace which might be a nice backstop if equities don't perform so well.

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U2S, it has been a while. Thank you.

Great question. For sure I'll be working my investments much more than I do now. Another factor that made this decision a bit easier was looking-over the tax returns, the last few years in particular. Investment income had overtaken my salary lately, last year by about 2.5x. The trend is reassuring. I caught the pandemic lows in March very well in some of accounts, less in others where I felt caution was more important than nailing a bottom. I really enjoy such and look-forward to dedicating a little more time toward this passion. I believe I mentioned it many pages back, but I'm a technical trader who loves reading charts, analyzing candles, drawing trend lines, support and resistance, Fibonacis, Keltner channels, moving averages, et al. While I use various platforms such as ThinkorSwim (TDAmeritrade) and TradeStation, more recently Active Trader Pro (Fidelity), I hope to get into strategy refinement. I already have trade set-ups that that work well for me, and I've been anxious to refine those through back-testing and Monte Carlo sims. I have been too busy to invest any meaningful time in these endeavors, but that will change after the New Year. I purchased a trading platform years ago called MultiCharts. Unfortunately, I cracked it open maybe a dozen times since. It's modeled after TradeStation, including the language, so hopefully I'll be a quick study...

The main reason to retire is to spend time with my family. My parents each live alone, which is not easy at their ages, more so since the pandemic. It has been rough. We all can relate, I'm sure. More time, quantity and quality, with my wife and children too, is huge. I knew for sure I wanted to retire before they began high school so I could maximize the time with them before leaving home. I will cherish the moments with them and do my best to make the most of it. The oldest, in 6th grade, is showing signs of being an excellent student. I was a bit worried at first being an August baby, the youngest in her class. Last year in 5th grade she did a 6 minute mile! Two boys beat her out though. Had to have a tactful conversation with her about athletics, differences with boys and girls, and how those amplify in the coming years. When she wasn't around, I about died trying to run a 6 minute mile! I failed. As happy as I was for her, I realize how I had degraded over the years; and I didn't take that so well. It still bothers me. I never ran track, but clocked a sub 5 before, 4:58 something as I recall. The pandemic hit, the fires (we were evacuated), poor air quality... and she hasn't run since. Sucks. I hope to run with her soon... As for the other daughter, she's hasn't yet found her mojo in school. She's quite bright, at times outshines her older sis in "tests" I give them at home. After much research, I'm growing more convinced she is dyslexic. I have much in store for her during my retirement...

To whatever extent normalcy returns, some travel would be nice too. My wife and her family is from Taiwan. I spent much time there, first while doing research for my thesis. My wife was a singer there actually, many moons ago.

That all said, and to your question, I have received some interest in employment after I leave in Jan. One last stint, maybe a year or so in duration might be in the cards. With about 20 years at my current employer, my resume has not been touched in ages. Apparently it's not just the content that needs refreshing, but the format or style too. Geez. LinkedIn also would need to updated, and I'm gradually making some progress... With respect to reuniting with my employer, even as a consultant, I cannot do so for a while, I think a year, per the agreement.

Exciting times.

Cal89 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Congrats s Cal89!

Are you going to "semi-retire" or go cold turkey? I hear that a lot of people in your situation end up getting offers from your employer to consult once they realize the retired people aren't so easy to replace which might be a nice backstop if equities don't perform so well.

---

U2S, it has been a while. Thank you.

Great question. For sure I'll be working my investments much more than I do now. Another factor that made this decision a bit easier was looking-over the tax returns, the last few years in particular. Investment income had overtaken my salary lately, last year by about 2.5x. The trend is reassuring. I caught the pandemic lows in March very well in some of accounts, less in others where I felt caution was more important than nailing a bottom. I really enjoy such and look-forward to dedicating a little more time toward this passion. I believe I mentioned it many pages back, but I'm a technical trader who loves reading charts, analyzing candles, drawing trend lines, support and resistance, Fibonacis, Keltner channels, moving averages, et al. While I use various platforms such as ThinkorSwim (TDAmeritrade) and TradeStation, more recently Active Trader Pro (Fidelity), I hope to get into strategy refinement. I already have trade set-ups that that work well for me, and I've been anxious to refine those through back-testing and Monte Carlo sims. I have been too busy to invest any meaningful time in these endeavors, but that will change after the New Year. I purchased a trading platform years ago called MultiCharts. Unfortunately, I cracked it open maybe a dozen times since. It's modeled after TradeStation, including the language, so hopefully I'll be a quick study...

The main reason to retire is to spend time with my family. My parents each live alone, which is not easy at their ages, more so since the pandemic. It has been rough. We all can relate, I'm sure. More time, quantity and quality, with my wife and children too, is huge. I knew for sure I wanted to retire before they began high school so I could maximize the time with them before leaving home. I will cherish the moments with them and do my best to make the most of it. The oldest, in 6th grade, is showing signs of being an excellent student. I was a bit worried at first being an August baby, the youngest in her class. Last year in 5th grade she did a 6 minute mile! Two boys beat her out though. Had to have a tactful conversation with her about athletics, differences with boys and girls, and how those amplify in the coming years. When she wasn't around, I about died trying to run a 6 minute mile! I failed. As happy as I was for her, I realize how I had degraded over the years; and I didn't take that so well. It still bothers me. I never ran track, but clocked a sub 5 before, 4:58 something as I recall. The pandemic hit, the fires (we were evacuated), poor air quality... and she hasn't run since. Sucks. I hope to run with her soon... As for the other daughter, she's hasn't yet found her mojo in school. She's quite bright, at times outshines her older sis in "tests" I give them at home. After much research, I'm growing more convinced she is dyslexic. I have much in store for her during my retirement...

To whatever extent normalcy returns, some travel would be nice too. My wife and her family is from Taiwan. I spent much time there, first while doing research for my thesis. My wife was a singer there actually, many moons ago.

That all said, and to your question, I have received some interest in employment after I leave in Jan. One last stint, maybe a year or so in duration might be in the cards. With about 20 years at my current employer, my resume has not been touched in ages. Apparently it's not just the content that needs refreshing, but the format or style too. Geez. LinkedIn also would need to updated, and I'm gradually making some progress... With respect to reuniting with my employer, even as a consultant, I cannot do so for a while, I think a year, per the agreement.

Exciting times.

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Congrats! I retired a few years ago (a couple of years before I had planned) to be a stay-at-home dad: Totally worth it, for me! My oldest is in 6th grade, too.

There are always those stories of people who don't adapt well to retirement, but I am not one of those people and, just from reading your posts, you will not be either. Life is rich with things to do and you will always cherish the extra family time.

Cal89 said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Congrats s Cal89!

Are you going to "semi-retire" or go cold turkey? I hear that a lot of people in your situation end up getting offers from your employer to consult once they realize the retired people aren't so easy to replace which might be a nice backstop if equities don't perform so well.

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U2S, it has been a while. Thank you.
...

Exciting times.

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Sounds like you have plenty to keep you busy! My kids are a few years behind yours and I've been enjoying all of the extra time with them this year, although also feeling sad they are missing out on things that many of us have taken for granted for so long. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think this is going to be the first generation of kids that will be excited to get back to school. On the other hand, someone pointed out that we've seen the last of snow days now that we can (more or less) easily go remote.

oski003 said:

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If you had a 3 year old and had $25,000 to put into a Vanguard investment college fund, would you do it now or wait a few months? If now, what would be the composition?

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I would dollar cost average. Whether that is over 2 months or 2 years is up to you, but I would never go all-in, especially right now.

Looks like I forgot how to do multi-quotes here, drat

Thank you both. It really is a big decision, I feel especially so when I've been the only source of income for our family.

Big C, glad to hear retirement has been treating you well and that you too hung 'em up a couple years earlier than planned. Indeed, satiation-wise, I've always done a lot outside of work. Heck, pretty much finished-up a gazebo this evening. Curing the concrete footings for an entire month before drilling into to them to anchor the structure down with Tapcon screws...

U2S, same sentiment here regarding school for the little ones. They want to go back, in a big way. They both just started a new school actually and were hoping to make friends, which is quite difficult over Zoom. I don't think we are going-back completely to what it was like before as being remote clearly has some benefits too, as you noted, for schooling and biz also.

Back to the mkt, with us right near the early Sep highs, I'd watch to see what happens in the coming days. Going through, closing above, would be a good sign, as opposed to a rejection at that level. It seems that the coronavirus is not done messing with us, the world, yet. I'll likely buy protective puts on the market if we go higher, allowing me to stay long with some downside protection...

Thanks for the input!

For anyone interested, the TSLA chart looks to have formed a pennant, which is a break-out formation. I've never purchased TSLA before and only began following it because my dad wants some in his portfolio... That said, I just bought some Jan 2021 calls, 450 strike. We'll see...

I agree with your solution all the way up to present day. US Treasuries are toast as an investment vehicle ...... maybe forever. Why are they toast? The fed has stated they will not lower interest rates bc to do so would be copying Japan and the EU in negative interest rates. If rates can no longer go down - the price of us treasury ETFs (such as TLT/IEF/etc) can no longer go up.

Chinese govt bonds via CBON are in a good position to achieve the same returns you have with US treasuries over the next decade plus. Why? China has 3.5% interest rates and doesn't have insane debt - nor is it forced to deploy a crazy level of QE.

Personally - I have a second fund from the Sp500 and gold fund that is a 60/40 Chinese equities and Chinese govt bonds fund. 60% MCHI and 40% CBON. Back dated portfolio analysis shows this 60/40 strategy has a higher ROI than 100% Chinese equities and a much lower volatility. Read Ray Dalios research papers called The Changing World Order where he posits the US will lose Reserve Currency status over the next decade and will lose its place as the dominant power to China. Not betting on China at this point is extremely risky.

Something like 70% of the time - going all in with a lump sum beats dollar cost averaging. This is due to the power of compounding over time and you can't get back lost time.

That said - I agree that dollar cost averaging the investment - start today - over a few months is the way to go. We are in extremely volatile times. Trump is manipulating the markets with his tweets - anyone else doing this would be locked up by the SEC - but the SEC doesn't have the balls to mess with Trump

BearRaidNation said:

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I agree with your solution all the way up to present day. US Treasuries are toast as an investment vehicle ...... maybe forever. Why are they toast? The fed has stated they will not lower interest rates bc to do so would be copying Japan and the EU in negative interest rates. If rates can no longer go down - the price of us treasury ETFs (such as TLT/IEF/etc) can no longer go up.

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I can't say that I disagree with this statement but I don't understand what you are disagreeing with in what I said. I suspect it was about a Tactical Bond Program. The only way that a long term treasury equivalent is used tactically is as a default position when HYCBs exhibit sell signals. The HYCB issue is the prime investment vehicle, the treasury a comfort zone when HYCBs are not in favor. There are also times when the 10 year treasury equivalents become volatile as the yield rate goes up and down daily. Through our RIA it has been a very successful approach for us----low risk, reasonable return and gaining most growth through equities.

BearRaidNation said:

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The best Gold ETF is IAU (lowest mgt fee option and performs as well or better than GLD).

You want to hold Gold or Commodity ETFs in retirement accts if possible to avoid being issued a K1 during tax season.

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Warning - just because your K-1 is held in a retirement account, it may not be fully tax exempt. Not sure if these tickers throw off UBTI - but if they do, the filing threshold is pretty low. $1,500 from all sources and you need to file and pay taxes on it unless the amount has changed lately.