Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Wow. Not to be too dramatic, but I wonder if we'll look back someday at 6/23/16 as the start of whatever is going to unfold over the next few years.

What else will be a good bet in the short term besides gold and miners? I wish I knew more about the forex market.

Dragline wrote: Certainly a "Fourth Turning" kind of event.

I had this run through my head quite a few times this week and I had figured that since we are in crisis stage right now that they would vote to leave (or it would be really really close ).

What specifically is the UK giving up by leaving the EU?

vexed87 wrote:the libertarian in me compels me to vote leave

We are also forgetting who caused all this....vexed87!

cmonkey wrote:What specifically is the UK giving up by leaving the EU?

bureaucracy

cmonkey wrote:What specifically is the UK giving up by leaving the EU?

Its comparative advantage as it pertains to the EU markets. Specifically, easy access to/from the EU markets. It will be harder for the UK to import skilled labor (think IT/research/banking) from the rest of Europe. The UK will be less attractive for other countries (think the US, China, Japan, India, Singapore, Australia, ... ) to open offices in for access to EU markets.

E.g. suppose you were a Japanese or an American company that opened a research office in London to access the continental market. You hired experts from Germany, Belgium, and Italy because they were the best and they were easy to hire. You chose the UK because of the low language barrier, and you're partially funding your office with EU research grants. Well ... That value just went *poof*.

From what I can estimate (TSP/401k being on a 1 day delay), my PP-inspired portfolio is going haywire, but the change in overall value thus far looks pretty negligible? I imagine it won't hurt that I've been stockpiling the cash portion lately.

Will this be the start of a major change or more of a one-day blip? I know that I don't know. So I moved a little of the already overbalanced cash portion into the S&P fund this morning. Beyond that, I'm trying to trust my allocations and watch the fireworks. Usually when I do anything else it's the wrong move anyway.

On whether "the UK punches above its weight"--While this may be true, the UK was indisputably stronger as part of the EU. For instance, I read that for every 1 pound the UK spends on scientific research the EU provided 1.40. Consider Germany as a better example of an overachieving nation, and whether or not they would ever go down this road.

Yesterday the Guardian suggested some concerns beyond the economic for U.S. interests:
"Furthermore, from a national security perspective, Brexit would deprive the US of a crucial window and important pro-American voice in pan-European meetings.

It also would risk Scottish independence, which would probably require the relocation of Britain’s nuclear submarines and weaken the UK’s military at a time when Europe faces a growing threat from Russian expansionism."

@SW - More a one-day or a one-week bleep than anything else ... except if you're in[vested in] the UK in which case things could get more tricky. This isn't like Grexit where nobody had much of a clue and people re/negotiated for many months. The vote was a single event in time where things went from uncertain to certain. Had the vote gone for remain, today would have been flat.

Spartan_Warrior wrote:From what I can estimate (TSP/401k being on a 1 day delay), my PP-inspired portfolio is going haywire, but the change in overall value thus far looks pretty negligible?

Yep -- it's times like these when the PP really shines. Even when there's blood in the streets, the PP just shrugs and has a cup of coffee.

What does PP stand for?

PP = Permanent Portfolio

@Tyler--How is the GB doing today? (Another great tool for PC would be real time-ish tracking of the sample portfolios.)

The Golden Butterfly is also up. Gold is more than offsetting the extra stocks.

Good idea on the real-time tracking. There were a few issues the last time I looked into it so I tabled it for a while. But now would be a good opportunity to revisit.

Its not only @vexed87 that you can blame (here) for this. I also voted leave - it felt very very scary and was not something I made a decision on easily (I even watched the debate!). Still feels scary, but I'm an optimist and hope very much that the UK will make something positive out of this. I am more optimistic about that than about the UK having a great future as part of the EU. We are the country that always seems to be at odds with what the rest of the EU bureaucrats wish to achieve. The odd man out. Now we really will be 'out'. It will be like a divorce (good and bad) but staying together for the sake of the children did not have appeal.

Local News: Prediction is that oil costs will go up (fuel going up as much as 2p per litre) in the coming week as oil is priced in dollars. We currently have enough heating oil here to last to November, by which time I hope that things will have settled. Wishing I had bought dollars in past week in anticipation of holiday in New York in September. Also wishing that this uncertainty does settle itself and your portfolios return to their prosperous former selves.

Today is another reason I love being in the 4 part Permanent Portfolio. It's behaving splendidly.

Note to self: I think it's pretty neat that as a result of us having different investment strategies and personal journals, and that we're all a fairly rare subset of prudent and strange ( ) humans, we can witness not only how our sample/customized portfolios react, but how we as individuals cope with the external financial changes in our individual lives. That's special, especially to share/commiserate/be in the hullabaloo over a shared space such as this thread.

Looks like I'll wind up down 3-4% which isn't all that bad for a day like this (dunno if I read this right, but I saw US 10yr bonds were up [edited to add forgotten decimal pt!]~1.0%, which'll take a bite out of my losses). Was afraid bonds would get clobbered too. But the real test is where I find myself 3 years from today.

saving-10-years wrote:Its not only @vexed87 that you can blame (here) for this. I also voted leave

So thanks to you I may not be able to retire to other European countries, or at least as easily as I could now. That's the dream I've been looking forward to and the main reason for my ERE-mission.

Thanks for ruining my life.

IlliniDave wrote:...but I saw US 10yr bonds were up 10% ...

The yield dropped 10% relatively to where it was or about 0.17% in absolute numbers. Multiply that by the duration (about <10 yrs) to get the change in bond price. The bonds [price] themselves are currently up about 1.3%.

saving-10-years wrote:Its not only @vexed87 that you can blame (here) for this. I also voted leave

So did I. Still utterly shocked by the result though, even though it gave me almost 4% increase in value of investments, which should make me cheerful. Really uneasy about what we've done here, though. Doesn't mean it was the wrong decision, but I'm far from sure it was the right one.

jacob wrote:

IlliniDave wrote:...but I saw US 10yr bonds were up 10% ...

The yield dropped 10% relatively to where it was or about 0.17% in absolute numbers. Multiply that by the duration (about <10 yrs) to get the change in bond price. The bonds [price] themselves are currently up about 1.3%.

Yeah, thanks. I was hoping to get that edit in before anyone caught it. Missed the decimal. My bad. I was just doing the quick math: percent drop in yield/10 years or about 10/10.