HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

[dtimwinn]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Rather than buying individual bonds, I am interested in bond funds that hold a basket of bonds, staying away from any bonds issued by any governmental entity in California. I want to be prudent, but need more income than I can get with CD's and money market funds. Where does one go? Thanks. Tim

[Sharky]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Do tax-free muni funds make any sense? It seems to me that with our good friends in DC just waiting to raise taxes, that good quality muni funds may be an acceptable alternative to no yield cash.

How do you determine "good quality" munis in this market? Rating agencies? :eek:

A tax cut seems more likely to me than an increase in the short term -- the Republicans certainly seem to be pushing for one.

From my perspective, I would re-word your statement above as follows:

Are questionably-rated munis, insured by firms with probable negative net-worth, and issued by near-bankrupt entities an acceptable alternative to safe but no-yield cash?

[ASH]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Do tax-free muni funds make any sense? It seems to me that with our good friends in DC just waiting to raise taxes, that good quality muni funds may be an acceptable alternative to no yield cash. Comments? Thanks.

Tim

I am not much of a bond person and have never owned a muni-bond. Hopefully someone else can provide you with good opinion.

I have an opinion; not sure it's good. I tend to offer my opinion based upon scant experience, so Tim -- you have been warned.

Local governments are having revenue problems, and it's going to get worse. I perceive an elevated risk of default, and I think one should at least attempt to be selective about which bonds to buy. I gather the states are likely to get money from the federal government for healthcare and infrastructure spending -- and probably unemployment benefits -- but I don't think payment of their existing debt is necessarily guaranteed. Lord knows how/if the federal money will trickle down to counties and cities. Therefore, my uninformed advice is to stay away.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Do tax-free muni funds make any sense? It seems to me that with our good friends in DC just waiting to raise taxes, that good quality muni funds may be an acceptable alternative to no yield cash. Comments? Thanks.

Tim

I am not much of a bond person and have never owned a muni-bond. Hopefully someone else can provide you with good opinion.

[dtimwinn]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Do tax-free muni funds make any sense? It seems to me that with our good friends in DC just waiting to raise taxes, that good quality muni funds may be an acceptable alternative to no yield cash. Comments? Thanks.

Tim

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

there's cash and cash... you mean money market, cds, tbills, usa short term instruments only? i know i give you shit but i hope you see my motive... i'd hate to see you take a purchasing power/currency whack on our principle on top of the returns whack you took in 2008.

metalman, the reason you give me shit and others shit, I believe, is because you are full of it. I am in US $treasury money market and one that isn't. What sweat off your cojones is it if I take a whack or not?

A 3.5% loss in 2008 was not a whack. I don't think you know WTF you're talking about when you use the word "whack." I took a 900K paper loss and real loss from 2000 highs, that at least in my neighborhood was a whack, but having survived it I am not sure that it was not worth the lesson.

You are quick to criticize for someone who is basically a tight-lipped s*p*o*o*k who by the way has made the single dumbest statement I ever read on iTulip: I never sell anything at a loss. If that is true, then you have not been much of an investor or either not much of a record keeper in tracking highest attained values of assets.

Whenever you get around to tracking your own drawdowns and reporting them, then you come back and give me whatever ration of shit that fits your need, but until then as far as what I post about my wins, losses, or draws I think you should STFU.

[metalman]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I thought about getting out of 10% more of my long positions today, that would be most everything I have in equities except HSGFX, but I didn't.

I noted somewhere RickBishop wrote he closed out his long positions last Friday. I am still not sure, but that might have been a very good move, for Rick's sake I hope it is.

Today, I did liquidate my FXF (Swiss Franc ETF for a meager profit) and DBA (meager profit) and added a token of SRS (5K+).

Still basically 70% cash and 30% in market.

there's cash and cash... you mean money market, cds, tbills, usa short term instruments only? i know i give you shit but i hope you see my motive... i'd hate to see you take a purchasing power/currency whack on our principle on top of the returns whack you took in 2008.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I thought about getting out of 10% more of my long positions today, that would be most everything I have in equities except HSGFX, but I didn't.

I noted somewhere RickBishop wrote he closed out his long positions last Friday. I am still not sure, but that might have been a very good move, for Rick's sake I hope it is.

Today, I did liquidate my FXF (Swiss Franc ETF for a meager profit) and DBA (meager profit) and added a token of SRS (5K+).

Still basically 70% cash and 30% in market.

[Jay]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

I'm not sold on healthcare being a "booming" industry because people age: most of these people are broke and can't pay for anything, and public sentiment might become a bit more callous as bellies go empty...

While this may be true, renting to a dialysis center is somewhat protected as dialysis patients are guaranteed to be covered by medicare and I don't see this benefit going away easily. No dialysis means eventual death, a condition that tends to lose voters.

[LargoWinch]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Do you understand, Winch? If not, I'll try again.

Jim, that was perfect thank you. Got it 100%.


On my side, my drawdown would be roughly 18% as I was heavily invested (1/4 of my portfolio) in Platinum in the Spring. Ouch. Aille. Doh!

My spreadsheet will be much better for 2009 for tracking returns and I will make sure to keep track of drawdown as well.

Thanks again for the clarification.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

Jim, what do you mean by "drawdown"?

How does it differ from yoy return?

Say I started the year with 1,000,000 bonars and got up to 1,180,000 on the day my portfolio was at its highest. At that point, I was up 18% on the year, not figured on any compounded basis.

Then on any day after that highest valuation, as long as my portfolio was worth less, the difference of the present value from the highest is the dollar drawndown, or you could figure it in percentage. Say from 1,180,000 to the end of the year, the portfolio's value ended at 1,062,000, that is a loss from the highest valuation of 118,000bonars or 10% So the drawdown at year end would be 10%.

I think the point to be taken from considering drawdown is a lot can be obscured in talking to others, reporting results in investment funds (I've never seen a mention of drawndown in discussion of mutual funds) if there is no accounting for drawdown.

If I told you, as I in fact wrote above, I lost 3.5% for 2008 and you compared that to the SPX, you might say ole Jim didn't do so badly, but if the truth be known, I really lost 15.26% from what I had had on one day. So ole Jim in fact took a significant hit.

The only reason I fool with tracking this stuff is to know reasonably well how I actually did over periods. I am down a 1.6?% compounded since my highest ever portfolio value since 2000, I don't track a simple single percentage for that drawdown. If you only looked at your numbers from a monthly statement, one could have a vastly different impression of how one did by failing to appreciate what was the actual highest value attained on a given day. If you value your portfolio weekly, you have more accurate assessment considering computation of drawndown, and if you do it daily on closing prices you get an even more accurate picture.

Do you understand, Winch? If not, I'll try again.

[Debt-freeTICer]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

[quote]

1st: Happy Birthday!

2nd: Thanks for your post and welcome to iTulip.

3rd: I find your post very valuable and perfectly fitted for this thread. So don't be afraid to test your strategies, better be warned on the internet in a forum than losing your precious life savings.

Besides, the only members to be really afraid of are The metalman and Lukester and maybe Jim Nickerson on a bad day (he remains a AAA gentlemen though), but I prefer someone punching me on the head here than doing stupid things with my hard-earned money.

I would be particularly honored if these three would chime in.

Having said all that, iTulip does not provide investment advice (Ed. I hope you approve of my disclaimer), but its members on a voluntary basis will if they feel like it.

Myself, being in Canada and with limited knowledge of the IRS tax code cannot help much.

However I would venture and say this:

a) Given the size of your capital, I think you should "invest" in an iTulip membership! (Ed. do I get brownie points for this?).

I am a yearly paid subscriber. How is a membership different?

This paper from EJ regarding 2009 could prove very useful:
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6504

b) One of the main issue I see with your investment is that it is not liquid.

Presently, I could sell all or part of my holdings within 3-6 weeks through the Agent I purchased from. I would pay Capital Gains taxes of 15-20%.

c) What if we have a severe recession lasting multiple years? How many tenants can you lose to break even?

We have no debt to service, so I suppose one lease would pay the property taxes and insurance on the others. I would be back selling full time.

d) Lastly, the last bubble occurred in RE and I doubt it will re-inflate to previous level. Inflation will of course support nominal prices somewhat of a deflated bubble, but I think inflation will show up somewhere else. My humble guess is that Gold and Crude Oil are likely to benefit the most. Hence, your nominal returns maybe ok, but your real returns may turn out to be negative.

e) I don't know about the costs of ownership, but if the increase in rent are capped a 2%, your are likely to suffer during POOM.

f) Last but no least: EJ/Ed. do recommend a mix of gold and cash (nothing else at this point).

I don't have any physical gold presently. I do own mining claims which were explored through a Joint Venture we had with Goldfields in 1990-92. We have a couple of drill holes with gold showings for 800 feet. Waiting for gold to Poom, to explore with more drilling. I also hold an interest in an old silver mine with 10 million ounces of proven silver reserves.

[LargoWinch]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

The rest of the story is that I finished the year with a 15.26% [COLOR=black]drawdown

Jim, what do you mean by "drawdown"?

How does it differ from yoy return?

[phirang]

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

It strikes me that if you have to own retail based commercial real estate your tenant makeup is pretty good. Family Dollar and Dollar General are in a retail segment that should perform well during poor economic times (now).

http://www.lohud.com/article/2008812230362

That said, there are no guarantees of continued success...

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...lenews_barrons

Your fourth tenant, a dialysis center, is in a potential growth industry given the aging boomer population.

You didn't say what percentage of your total holdings these properties represent. Assuming they represent the lion's share of your net worth, I would agree with Largo and Sharky; you may want to pursue a course of diversification and liquidity. You state you have the opportunity to sell some of your interest in the properties. While I am envious of your 100K in passive income, personally I'd sleep better at night having a healthy percentage of my holdings in cash and gold.

Best of luck and welcome.

I'm not sold on healthcare being a "booming" industry because people age: most of these people are broke and can't pay for anything, and public sentiment might become a bit more callous as bellies go empty...

Re: HOW ONE iTuliper IS INVESTED?

My True Confession. I was doing really well with my Junior Golds. I was up maybe 600% in 18 months. Despite a few whacks across the knuckles from Fred, I ignored him, and i kept my Juniors and added a bit. My main reason for doing so was the amount of tax i'd pay if i sold them. Now I'm thinking i can probably reduce my tax considerably by selling!!!
I did make one or two smarter moves and took some considerable profits, but the smart moves were few and far between.
For information purposes my investment in the stockmarket is less than 5% of my worth. (Maybe a lot less than that depending on the day ) So really it was a bit of a game in some ways. Now i'm wishing i had all that money I'd made.