rjb123,

By the way,

1) Vanguard is the world largest mutual fund company.

2) Vanguard is owned by the mutual fund holder. Aka, it is a not for profit company. It operates the mutual fund at cost. See below URL for more details.

https://investor.vanguard.com/what-we-offer/why-vanguard

Dreamer

X.E.D,

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snap...ntExt=INT#tab=0

VT annual expense is 0.18%.

Dreamer

wodenus,

The money is held in TRUST independent of whether the person is a citizen or not.

It is THE SAME as your stock is held in CDS A/C in Malaysia. Your broker do not own those stock in your CDS A/C. You do.

Whatever your question is. It applies THE SAME in Malaysia. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is USA has the larger scale and better transparency.

Dreamer

rjb123,

http://www.sipc.org/

SECURITIES INVESTOR PROTECTION CORPORATION

Brokerage A/C is protected by SIPC.

Bank A/C is protected by FDIC.

Dreamer

X.E.D,

VT is an ETF. You can buy and sell it just like stock. As long as your Schwab is a stock brokerage A/C, you can buy it.

Dreamer

This post has been edited by dreamer101: Jun 24 2014, 12:54 AM

rjb123,

By the way, TD own a bank too. It is called the TD Bank. So, in your case, your spare money is rolled into a bank A/C. Hence, it is protected by FDIC. In some other case, the money is held right in the brokerage A/C. Hence, it is protected by SIPC.

In any case, it is protected by FDIC or SIPC. One way or another.

Dreamer

rjb123,

I have a TDAM A/C too. It is for my play money..

Dreamer

rjb123,

I do so little trade that I use TDAM.

Dreamer

oneeleven,

<<Is this period of record high prices>>

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BND&t=1y&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=VT

1) High price for stock mean low price for bond usually.. In most cases, not all asset classes hit high or low at the same time. Look at above chart of VT versus BND.

<< Won't the fees from regular rebalancing of ETFs lose most of the edge over just sitting on the above?>>

2) A) Unless you are US resident, you cannot invest on Vanguard mutual fund. ETF is the only choice.

B) Regular re-balancing??

i)Normal recommended re-balancing schedule is once every year or every two year.

ii) If you band (5/25) based re-balancing, you should adjust your band wide enough so that it only do re-balancing once or twice per year.

Dreamer

Folks,



Asset return that you can capture via ETF..

Dreamer

zk9,

You can use US Brokerage A/C from anywhere in the world as long as you have access to Internet.

Dreamer

MNet,

Many people on this forum had done it. And, they are not US citizens. So, which US broker do you refer to??

Dreamer

Folks,

Somebody want to a dumped down simplified step to this approach.

1) Save 3 to 6 months of expenses as Emergency Fund.

2) Save at least USD $2,000

3) Use the USD $2,000 to open an US Brokerage A/C

4) Use USD $1,000 to buy BND and USD $1,000 to buy VT. We are using 50/50 ratio

5) Save USD $2,000.

6) Transfer the money to US brokerage A/C.

7) Use the USD $2,000 to buy BND and VT. Buy them at different amount so that they stay at 50/50.

For example, if BND worth $250 and VT worth 750, use the new $2,000 to buy $1,250 of BND and $750 of VT. You will ended up with $1,500 of BND and $1,500 of VT.

8) Go back to (5)

You can continue this forever. After your portfolio reach USD $10K, you may want to do annual re-balancing. That means you sell either sell BND to buy VT or sell VT to buy BND. Basically, you sell whoever is more than 50% of your portfoli to buy whoever is less than 50% of your portfolio. To save cost, if the difference is less than 2K, do nothing.

Dreamer

endau02,

1) Probably, yes since the inflation rate between now and end of the next year will be very high.

2) Probably prudent for people to keep some of their emergency in Singapore or foreign A/C

Dreamer

MNet,

Most US brokerage charge a fixed price per trade (buy or sell) up to 5,000 shares. There is no other fee. For example, if TDAM charge $10 per trade, the total cost will be 10 x $82.17+ $10 = $831.70

To minimize the cost, each trade should be around USD $1,000 or higher.

Dreamer

langstrasse,

90+% of my investment is in this. But, since I am US resident, I invest on mutual fund directly instead of ETF.

<<70% of my money is in PNB fixed rate funds, >>

You have too much money tied up in a single country.

Dreamer

guy3288,

Come on.. If somebody tell you that you cannot open A/C using address from Malaysia, isn't it OBVIOUS that you should open A/C using address not from Malaysia. For example, an address in USA??

Do not let education spoil your brain. LEARN to THINK creatively.

Dreamer

oneeleven,

I do not understand what you are asking.

Dreamer

oneeleven,

Yes. But, you have to be US resident in order to buy those funds.

Dreamer

oneeleven,

Yes.

Dreamer