Are You In The Top 3% Of Retirees? Here's The Shockingly Low Amount You Need Saved To Rank Among The Richest

Ivy Grace, Benzinga, 12/11/24
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-3-retirees-heres-shockingly-203017202.html

In deep blue Minneapolis, many Somali voters withheld support for Harris

Farah said he couldn’t accept that the Biden-Harris administration failed to produce a ceasefire, continuing to send taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel, which then showered them down on Gaza, where the death toll has surpassed 40,000. He couldn’t ignore the images of decimated villages and hospitals, of dead women and children and babies broadcast for more than a year.

... he is noticing increased grievances with the Democratic party in his own community, particularly with those opposed to the “liberal agenda.” He said many Somalis hold conservative religious and family values that have more in common with Republicans than Democrats.

. . . that they were “sick of the status quo” and of feeling “taken for granted by the Democrats.”

... Nearly 20 stood behind a podium, pushing their priorities — the fentanyl crisis, school choice, public safety, the economy and peace — as more aligned with Trump.

... as a result of public schools teaching what he says goes against many of their cultural and religious values.

“The last 10 years, the Somali community has been voting with Democrats with no return on investment in the community,” Ismail said. “They took their vote for granted.”

... “You’re telling us you’re doing something about the genocide in Palestine. You promised all these things, but you guys never kept it.”

“They wanted Trump, the guy who came to Minnesota in 2016 and called Somali resettlement a ‘disaster?’ ( https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/11/07/trumps-comments-on-mn-somalis-draw-sharp-response )   The guy who enacted the so-called ‘Muslim ban’ on several countries, including Somalia?” (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/01/28/us-judge-bars-deportations-under-trump-travel-ban)

the GOP presidential candidate told supporters that Minnesota had "suffered enough" for taking in thousands of Somali refugees.

He said Minnesota had seen first-hand the problems caused by what he described as faulty refugee vetting, "with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state without your knowledge, without your support or approval, and with some of them then joining ISIS and spreading their extremist views all over our country and all over the world."

President Donald Trump referred to African countries, Haiti and El Salvador as "shithole" countries ... and asked why the U.S. can't have more immigrants from Norway.

Bonds or bond funds bought 5-15 years ago have been barely positive (and mostly negative after inflation adjust)

Probably true going back even further than 15 years, but good total return stats are harder to find beyond that, so I kept it at 15 years.

I chose 5 years as the beginning of the range since it is well before the inflation and general high interest rates began. With periods less than say 4 years, I'd have to do a lot of fiddling around to get numbers for all 4 example bond funds below, and it would depend on the precise starting date, and most of these funds weren't around 15 years ago.

For example, for VCOBX, the first one below, the 3 year total return was minus 1.84%/year, while the one year return was positive 8.11%.

In the below, all the %/year numbers are total returns: price appreciation plus dividends earned (actually they've all depreciated in price in the past 5 or more years, so the dividends have been what's made their total returns overall positive)

This was originally written 2 days ago, so some values might be slightly different.

Let's take the intermediate-term Vanguard Core Bond fund VCOBX
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vcobx/chart and https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vcobx/performance
Over the past 5 years they've gained 0.47%/year on average, there's no 10 year, but the category has gained 1.38%/year in the past 10 years and 2.35%/year over the past 15 years.


Or VICSX, the Vanguard Interm-Term Corporate Bond Index fund ...
Over the past 5 years: 0.96%/year, Over the past 10 years: 2.80%/year, There's no 15 year record for VICSX, but for that category its been 3.73%/year

Looking at shorter maturity, VBIRX Vanguard Short-Term Bond Index Fund. It has an effective average maturity of 2.8 Years, Average duration: 2.6 Years.
Its performance: 5Y: 1.18%/year, 10Y: 1.54%/year, 15Y: 1.69%/year

Looking at even shorter maturity, VUBFX Vanguard Ultra-Short-Term Bond Fund -- with an average effective maturity of 1.2 years, and average duration of 1.0 years:
Its performance: 5Y: 2.37%/year, no 10Y. Since 2/24/15 inception (so 9 3/4 years): 2.01%/year.

Remember that inflation during these periods have been higher, so while they have gained a bit in nominal dollars, they have almost all lost in purchasing power over these periods.

As for what may happen going forward: yes bond fund yields are decent now. And as interest rates drop, their values will rise, for a two-fer: "good" yields plus price appreciation.

It has been my hope that my funds would perform quite well going forward. For example my intermediate bond funds gained about 13% in just a couple of months last fall when overall interest rates dropped for a time.

But instead, as I wrote in another thread, interest rates have counter-intuitively RISEN since the Fed's first rate cut Sept 18, except on the shorter end like less than one year. Bad for bond fund values for existing bond holders, very bad.

But eventually, we had hoped preelection, that eventually intermediate and longer rates would come down. But with the coming lunacy of Felonious Maximus at the country's helm and his Mad Magazine gallery of cabinet and administration picks, and plans to raise tariffs bigly, all that is out the window.

Edited to add: For longer term periods, one can use
https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.html
Although this is updated only yearly. It has end of year values all the way back to 1926.

Over the last 30 years 12/31/1993 thru 12/31/2023:

10Y Treasury bonds: increased 3.336-fold (averaging 4.10%/year)
(1.0410^30 = 3.338)

BAA Corporate Bonds: increased 6.860-fold (averaging 6.63%/year)
(1.0663^30 = 6.861)

S&P 500: increased 17.693-fold (averaging 10.05%/year)
(1.1005^30 = 17.689)

At 12/31/2023 the S&P 500 was 4770, and the10 Y Treasury yield was: 3.87%