<p>“Wow, Fed just issued minutes - several members would like end of Quantitative Easing by the end of 2013.”</p>
<p>This is news??? and the market reacted to it? It’s comical.</p>
<p>Sigh…now I remember why I never post on these financial threads.</p>
<p>Adios - I’ll go back to talking to the other portfolio managers.</p>
<p>Oh c’mon, dadinator. Those of us who are financially clueless really appreciate the advice and information you professionals give us. Don’t give up.</p>
<p>And there are other professionals lurking.</p>
<p>Yes, pls. come back dadinator. We need all kinds of viewpoints here. Every time someone pushes you, you could push back too. :D</p>
<p>Ever since QE started, there have been fed members against it never mind ending it. Algorithms picking out key words in headlines reacted and sold.</p>
<p>I think this thread is too financially sophisticated for me.</p>
<p>Is there some consensus here that inflation is going to kick in big time? I checked and we have funds that are full of inflation linked bonds, as well. They seem to be doing not-so-great and I was thinking of ditching them. But maybe not.</p>
<p>Is this too stupid to ask? Is the Buffet rule of thumb to have your age in fixed growth still a good idea? I generally follow it and sometimes have really regretted it.</p>
<p>Dadinator, did you just want to mention you are a portfolio manager of do you really care about this…</p>
<p>"Wow, Fed just issued minutes - several members would like end of Quantitative Easing by the end of 2013.</p>
<p>Dow has fallen 40 in less than 10 minutes.</p>
<p>10-year Treasuries up 4 basis points in a few minutes to 1.90%."</p>
<p>Your clients care about the above?</p>
<p>I did mean to sell TLT calls naked today. Damn it. Posting on CC costs me money.</p>
<p>I dislike TLT.</p>
<p>“And there are other professionals lurking”</p>
<p>I was a professional for 2 or 3 decades. And you like to argue with me. ;)</p>
<p>Sewhappy, it is not a dumb question.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, I’m sure it depends upon the fund, and how it’s linked. I really like my Vanguard Inflation adjusted security fund. Here are their returns:
Average annual returns—updated monthly as of 12/31/2012</p>
<p>1 Year- 6.78%<br>
3 Year- 8.68%<br>
5 Year - 6.68%<br>
10 Year-6.39%</p>
<p>Since Inception
06/29/2000- 7.5%</p>
<p>Not spectacular, but better than plenty of other funds for both short and long term performance. Pretty stable.</p>
<p>Busdriver,</p>
<p>does your fund guarantee that you never loose any money unless there is deflation? Does it beat inflation? Basically, is it a sure bet against inflation?</p>
<p>^ Ours are Black Rock and similar yields. I just feel bad because my friends seem to have gotten more growth this year. We’re just around 10 percent or so and my DH thinks I’m maybe too conservative. :(</p>
<p>In truth, I put more than our age into the fixed growth stuff. I’m a weanie.</p>
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<p>I went to dinner with relatives last night near Northeastern. I was stunned at how hard it was to find a parking spot at 7:00 PM on a Thursday night. We circled for about 20 minutes and even tried a parking garage but it was full. We lucked out and found a spot - we left at 9:30 and a car wanted our spot about 10 seconds after we got into the car. A big attraction seemed to be the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In general, the arts in Boston do well when the economy is doing well.</p>
<p>I was quite surprised at the FOMC minutes. They’re talking about ending QE mid-year to the end of 2013. The previous talk was to keep interest rates until unemployment gets to 6.5% and the expectations for this are late 2014 to 2015. I’ve also been watching the price of oil and it has been surprisingly strong. I was hoping for a price band of $80-$90 to provide good earnings for oil companies and good gas prices for consumers. Domestic gasoline consumption seems to be declining so it seems that we don’t have fundamental (supply/demand) factors hitting the price. It could be speculation based on Fed QE froth. </p>
<p>On the other hand, gold has taken a beating the last few weeks which implies less inflation ahead. Locally, gasoline prices have started to move back up.</p>
<p>It feels like we have a sniff of inflation. It’s definitely nowhere near raging but it’s a warning sign when we see the Fed talking about unwinding QE. If you’ve been in investments that have made a killing on low interest rates and QE, then you might want to keep it in the back of your mind. I don’t think that they will unwind really quickly but it’s probably time to start watching those set-it-and-forget it type things that have worked so well for several years.</p>
<p>2012 was the first year the money we have in age based banded funds did anything very good. I haven’t been a fan of those types of investments in the past. </p>
<p>Am trying to figure out allocations right now.</p>
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<p>When you say “ahead”, what is the time scale? Is it years, months?</p>
<p>I’d say months. The Fed is working like mad to induce inflation and it has always succeeded before outside of the GD.</p>
<p>^ You mean the Fed is trying to increase inflation?</p>
<p>Absolutely. Interest rates have been zero or negative for a while and the Fed has been doing $85B/month of bond buying for QE. That’s really inflationary stuff. Basically to counteract the strong deflationary forces that we had after the RE bubble popped.</p>
<p>Ok then, I’m going to go rebalance some stuff and increase in the inflation-linked bond funds we have.</p>
<p>“For low- and middle-income women, the culprit is the renewed extension of unemployment insurance, as well as the Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance that will phase out at 400% of the poverty line in 2014. These subsidies will be initially based on tax returns filed in April 2013.”</p>
<p>“For some married upper-income professional women, it’s the new tax law, with its top tax rate of 39.6% that begins at $400,000 for singles and $450,000 for couples.”</p>
<p>[Higher</a> taxes penalize working wives - Diana Furchtgott-Roth - MarketWatch](<a href=“Higher taxes penalize working wives - MarketWatch”>Higher taxes penalize working wives - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>I guess this explains the declining marriage rate. It makes better financial sense to be legally single.</p>
<p>Just installed two sets of TurboTax updates. I guess I should try to download MA forms too.</p>