Petrocelli's anti-Boglehead Blog

A Surprise for Mel at Bogleheads VIII

rpetrocelli — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:31:51 GMT

This may the the first video specially created for Morningstar's blogs.

Click here.

Petrocelli

Q&A for rpetrocelli's JFMMMM Trust portfolio

rpetrocelli — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:28:21 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petro Retirement portfolio

rpetrocelli — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:00:11 GMT

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Bogleheads: Corrupting Today's Youth!

rpetrocelli — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:58:17 GMT

About every month or two, some hapless 20 year old stumbles in to the Boglehead.org forum, in between looking for a reputable tattoo parlor (if such a thing exists) and searching for a rave.

This week, I saw this post from some poor 20 year who wanted to know how to become a Boglehead. By the end of the thread, the Bogleheads concluded that he had to cut his budget by getting rid of his car, his phone, and his TV. Think of that: 20 years old and no phone. Yikes. Next move: Join a monastery. At a minimum, bookmark a number of good free pron sites.

I haven’t posted over there for a while. However, I felt compelled to intervene on this poor guy’s behalf. The 20s are a man’s golden years. He usually has some money to do some stuff – at least enough to buy beer -- and he is young enough that he can act like a total jackass from time to time. As an example, any of you 50 year olds, at the next company Super Bowl party at the boss’ house, try the following; show up with a six pack of cheap beer, and throw in a copy of Juggs magazine as a joke (particularly if it’s a special issue like the Double-D whip cream extravaganza); when you are seated on the couch, lift up your leg, and fart on the guy next to you, and then wave your hand around to clear the air, while remarking on your farting ability; try to pick up every girl there who is not your sister or first cousin; and end the evening by throwing up in the boss’s front yard. Better yet, throw up in his neighbor’s front yard while urinating.

If you were 50, you'd get fired. However, if you were 21, and at a party at your buddy’s house, you could probably get away with all this stuff, and get some laughs. Heck, I personally know guys who did some of them, and did many of them myself. When we get together, we talk about these events like they were yesterday.

The bottom line is that 20 year olds should not be saving money. They should be drinking, farting, watching football, and meeting girls in spite of all this conduct. In my opinion, the worst thing that can happen to a young guy is getting mixed up with those darn Bogleheads. Instead of chasing women, he will be collecting string and trying to reuse stamps while worrying about his expense ratio. If those Bogleheads really get their hooks in to the poor soul, he will end up at a Bogleheads convention, hanging around with guys like me who have trouble staying up past 9:00 and are balding. In fact, we are happy to have the letters “ing” after “bald”, so we are not officially bald. We will explain to the newbie why his generation's music sucks, and he will politely listen.

In any event, I don’t think single guys under the age of 30 should be allowed to post at Bogleheads.org. As for single women under 30? Most of them have way too much sense to sit around typing to a bunch of balding 50 and 60 somethings who like to argue about TIPS.

Can someone please get over to the Bogleheads forum and save this poor guy? Petrocelli

Q&A for rpetrocelli's Vanguard Tracking portfolio

rpetrocelli — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:37:19 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petrocelli's Stocks portfolio

rpetrocelli — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:10:42 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petro's Retirement portfolio

rpetrocelli — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:59:45 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petro Retirement portfolio

rpetrocelli — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:06:32 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's All My Funds portfolio

rpetrocelli — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:32:32 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petrocelli v. Troutner Bet portfolio

rpetrocelli — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:22:27 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petrocelli v. Wagner Bet portfolio

rpetrocelli — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:21:22 GMT

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Q&A for rpetrocelli's Petro's 5 Fund portfolio

rpetrocelli — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:44:26 GMT

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Diehards: A Documented History of Performance Chasing

rpetrocelli — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:37:20 GMT

OK. First of all, Take a deep breath and relax. I'm not criticizing the Diehard method of investing, I'm not going to parody a Bogle speech, and I won't comment on flying around the country to mini-conventions to discuss index funds.

I was searching through some old posts. As I did, I noticed this:

Initially, when this forum was "born". The prevailing view appeared to be that beating 500 Index or TSM was like defying gravity. (Hell, even Bogle bet that guy a buck that he couldn't beat the 500 Index, and he doesn't throw around a buck lightly.) There was documented evidence showing that if you invested one dollar in TSM on the day the Magna Carta was signed, you could now own Belgium.

Then the tech wreck came, and the 500 Index and TSM lost about 50% of their value. This gave rise to thousands of posts on the value premium. The prevailing school of thought then became that if you tilted to small and value, you'd beat TSM. Period. (Note that Larry Swedroe and Bill Bernstein were saying this in 1998, and you have to have rocks the size of a mini-Cooper to tout value investing in 1998. But no one here paid any attention to them, which is why we all got royally screwed in the tech wreck.) Hell, even the TSMers started conceding that you may want to add a little small value for "diversification purposes."

Then REITs went on a tear, and we had thousands of posts, out of nowhere, on REITs. This sector fund became a necessary addition to any portfolio. There were even posts where people were putting 20% or more in REITs. Swensen said it was OK, and he worked at Yale, which is a school none of us could get in to, so he had to be right. REITs were good for "diversification purposes."

We had certain mini-bits of performance chasing. How many of you recall a couple thousand posts on PCRDX? It was a "great diversifier."

Even Emerging Markets, which was viewed as a wacky fringe fund to us back in 2000, was now a "great diversifier."

Now I am not saying I am not a performance chaser. I am one of the few to openly admit I do it. In fact, I wrote up an IPS which requires me to performance-chase. I just thought it is interesting how the number of posts on a certain subject changes as that asset class does well. When it goes to hell, the number of posts on it drop.

Has anyone noticed an increase in posts on hot hands investing? Jump on board folks...

Petrocelli

Active (Windsor II) Beating Passive (IWD)

rpetrocelli — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:46:00 GMT

On June 30, 2006, in conversation 51574, I made a "bet" with wagnerjb in which he took an index fund -- ishares Russell 100 (IWD), and I took an actively managed fund -- Windsor II (VWNFX).

Since then, Windsor II has returned 20.58%, and the index ETF has returned 17.31% Thus, the actively managed fund returned 3.27% more. Note that if you included brokerage fees, Windsor II's lead would increase.

I will update you all on the status of the bet periodically. There is a long way to go!

Troutner/Index vs. Petrocelli/Active "bet"

rpetrocelli — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:24:29 GMT

In conversation no. 33614, a discussion was had whether a poster should have been advised to sell Primecap and TSM. This discussion resulted in a "bet" between me and Jeff Troutner in which he took TSM and I took Primecap, with $100,000 in each starting on March 4, 2004.

After just about 3 years and 6 months, here's where the "bet" stands:

Primecap: $146,330
TSM: $138,504

Primecap has returned 7.87% more.

I'll keep you updated.