I don’t recall receiving any message about a partnership. I was in Europe for three weeks so I may have missed the message. Contact me at physlab@comcast.net and let me know what you have in mind.

Lowell

I’m emailing you in regards to an email I sent to you last month about a partnership, have you had a chance to think about it?

If you have any questions or would more information, please advise me and we can go from there.

Kind Regards,
Andrew Knight

If we do not hit the levels you mention within the first six months of the Obama administration, I doubt we will retest these levels for many years.

Lowell

Lowell

I think the post 9/11 lows were hit in July 2002 and tested in October 2002 at about 10% below where we are now on the S&P and Dow. Maybe 7500 on the Dow and 770 on the S&P is where we should be looking for the “real” bottom. Those would be about a 50% correction.

Bob

We may see the 7,000 on the DOW tested before this is all over. I too picked up more TIP for portfolios as well. I reported on one over on Premium Content this morning.

I’ve only extracted from tax deferred accounts because of minimum requirements. Those withdrawals will be lower next year due to this bear market.

Lowell

I just read the Lewis article. That gives me the impression there remains much unwinding and “the fat lady has yet to sing”:^( I bought some TIP yesterday in two porfolios, thanks for the suggestion. I’ve also added some purchases (from MMF) to some allocation rebalancing in my largest passive portfolio and made allocation adjustments based on adding 10% bond (TIP) to the allocations. I still agree with the concept that SS + pensions represent a “bond allocation”, but things have been pretty scary so I’m going more conservative. Fortunately I haven’t needed to extract any money from my tax deferred accounts but that situation should change within a year or two.

Bob Warasila

Running out the calculation the way I did assumes one will live forever, or at least for a very long time.

The reason I used 6% comes from Bernstein’s book. Depending on how secure the “bond equivalent” that backs the pension or social security payment, one may use numbers such as 4%, 5%, or 6%. The smaller the percentage the larger the “bond equivalent.” I wanted to keep the value as small as seemed reasonable.

Lowell

That’s the way I did the calculation before and it is based IMHO on what one needs in the way of income, so it emphasizes cash flow. The AAII article argues one has a finite lifetime:^)) Based on family statistics my expected remaining lifetime is probably pretty close to the average numbers they use in their tables.
Bob

I generally evaluate the “bond equivalent” using an interest rate of 5% or 6% and the payout amount.

Example: Suppose one receives $1,000 per month from Social Security or $12,000 per year. If one assumes a 6% interest rate, then $12,000/.06 = $200,000 (bond equivalent).

Lowell