Trading Update Part 2

I slept on yesterday’s purchase decision and am reasonably comfortable with it.

Used the remaining cash in retirement account today to buy VPU @ 134.748. I’m now all in on the Vanguard Utilities ETF. Other than reinvesting dividends on autopilot, the only trading I intend to do in this account is withdrawing to meet minimum IRA distributions. That starts in about 14 years.

This also means that I’m officially an old geezer. Don’t expect any more fireworks in my retirement account, unless the entire United States power grid someday fails. Of course, in that instance cash would have hardly been a much better investment. I only half-joke. *cringe*

Still intend to use money outside my retirement account to buy more savings bonds. That part isn’t changing.

Trading Update

Bought shares of VPU @ 134.325 inside my retirement account today, bringing the cash in that account down from 100% to just 29%. I expect VPU to be a very, very long-term holding.

I would prefer to buy long-term TIPS instead at some point, but that party appears to be over. I’m reasonably convinced that this economy can never survive high real yields again with all this debt.

For more than a decade, I’ve believed that our ultimate destination would be nearly permanent ZIRP. Not seeing anything that would change my mind.

My next purchases will be more I-Bonds and EE-Bonds next month, outside of my retirement account. Not expecting much from 0% I-Bonds in a potentially low inflation environment. The EE-Bonds doubling in 20 years appeals to me much more (but lack safety if inflation does somehow accelerate).

The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. - Alan Greenspan (1966)

May we live in interesting times.