Tag: REITs

The Yield Illusion Follow-Up (SWR Series Part 30)

Welcome to a new installment of the Safe Withdrawal Series! The last post on the Yield Illusion (Part 29) was definitely a discussion starter! 140 comments and counting! Just as a quick recap, fellow bloggers at Millenial Revolution claim that the solution to Sequence Risk is to simply invest in a portfolio with a high dividend yield. Use the dividend income to pay for your retirement budget, sit back and relax until the market recovers (it always does, right?!) and, boo-yah, we’ve solved the whole Sequence Risk issue! Right? Wrong! As I showed in my last post, it’s not that simple. The Yield Shield would have been an unmitigated failure if applied during and after the 2008/9 Great Recession. So, not only did the Yield Shield not solve Sequence Risk. The Yield Shield made it worse! And, as promised, here’s a followup post to deal with some of the open issues, including:

  • A more detailed look at the reasons for the Yield Shield Failure over the past 10 years (attribution analysis).
  • Past performance is no guarantee for future returns. How confident am I that the Yield Shield will fail again in the future?
  • Dividend Yield vs. Value
  • Are non-US investors doomed? Probably not!

So, let’s look at the details:

Continue reading “The Yield Illusion Follow-Up (SWR Series Part 30)” →

The Yield Illusion: How Can a High-Dividend Portfolio Exacerbate Sequence Risk? (SWR Series Part 29)

Welcome, everyone, to another installment of the Safe Withdrawal Rate Series! See here for Part 1, but make sure you also check out Part 26: Ten things the “Makers” of the 4% Rule don’t want you to know for a more high-level, less technical intro to my views on Safe Withdrawal Strategies! Today’s topic is something that has come up frequently in reader inquiries, whether through email or in the blog post comments. Let me paraphrase what people normally write:

“Here’s how I can guarantee my withdrawal strategy won’t fail: I simply hold a portfolio with a high enough yield! Now the regular cash flow covers my expenses. Or at least enough of my expenses that I never have to worry much about Sequence Risk, i.e., liquidating principal at depressed prices.”

I’ve seen several of those in the last few weeks and it’s a nice “excuse” to write a blog post about this very important topic. So, what do you think I normally reply? Want to take a guess? It’s one of the two below:

A: Oh, my God, you got me there. This is indeed the solution to once and for all, totally and completely eliminate Sequence Risk! I will immediately take down my Safe Withdrawal series and live happily ever after.

B: Your suggestion sounds really good in theory but there are serious flaws with this method in practice. It will likely be no solution to Sequence Risk. And in the worst case, your “solution” may even exacerbate Sequence Risk!

Anyone? Of course, it’s option B. It sounds like a great idea in theory but it has very serious flaws once you look at the numbers in detail. Let’s take a look…

Continue reading “The Yield Illusion: How Can a High-Dividend Portfolio Exacerbate Sequence Risk? (SWR Series Part 29)” →

REITs pros and cons

We live in a low-yield world. Interest rates are much lower than in recent history and this has spurred a mad “search for yield” whereby investors look for anything, really anything, that offers yield above the measly low interest rates currently prevailing in this country. REITs have greatly benefited from this trend and when my hairstylist starts telling me that he invests in REITs it makes me wonder if that sector might be a little bit overheated (brings back memories of the late 1990s when a different hairdresser in a different city gave out Tech company recommendations). Here are some pros and cons of REITs.
Continue reading “REITs pros and cons” →

Why we don’t use Robo-advisers

  1. Most investors will get much smaller excess returns from the tax savings than what the Robo-advisers claim.
  2. Robo-advisers pick an asset allocation that may have tax inefficiencies built in for some investors, worth at least several basis points of annualized returns.
  3. Smart investors should still perform Tax Loss Harvesting, but it’s best to DIY because the benefits may not outweigh the Robo-adviser fees, especially if taking into account some of the potential inefficiencies introduced in the Robo-adviser target portfolios.

Intro

In our earlier post we showed how to be your own DIY Robo adviser. That post got quite long and even then it didn’t deal with all the issues of Robo advisers and especially tax loss harvesting (TLH). Here are some additional thoughts and caveats about TLH, Robo-advisers and their – in our opinion – slightly “creative” marketing practices. Continue reading “Why we don’t use Robo-advisers” →

List of Index ETFs and Mutual Funds

A list of (relatively) low cost index ETFs and mutual funds, their tickers, benchmark index, provider, current fee and yield (as of 12/31/2015 in most cases), dividend payment schedule and link to the fund fact sheet. I haven’t ascertained the dividend schedule for most of the funds yet. Continue reading “List of Index ETFs and Mutual Funds” →

Be Your Own DIY Zero-Cost Robo-Adviser!

We don’t use Robo-advisers because their services can be easily replicated with zero fees by smart frugal retirement savers. Tax loss harvesting, one of the Robo-adviser tasks, is also easy to perform yourself and we have been doing it since beginning to save in taxable accounts. Of course, once we are retired, tax loss harvesting is much less useful and for some early retirees, it is even completely ineffective. Moreover, investing only a small portion of your portfolio with a Robo-adviser, and managing the rest yourself is a bad idea because, among other reasons, some of your own trades could potentially invalidate the tax losses in the Robo account.

Continue reading “Be Your Own DIY Zero-Cost Robo-Adviser!” →