HN Gopher Feed (2017-11-28) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Vanguard Founder Jack Bogle Says 'Avoid Bitcoin Like the Plague'
34 points by dionmanu
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-28/vanguard-foun...uard-founder-jack-bogle-says-avoid-bitcoin-like-the-plague___________________________________________________________________
westurner - 9 minutes ago
Over the past 7 years, Bitcoin has outperformed every security and
portfolio that Jack Bogle has recommended.
non_sequitur - 8 minutes ago
7 years is a tiny sample size if you are hoping to retire off it
(unless of course you cash out your millions during that time).
His advice makes sense if you are looking at a 30 year retirement
horizon - it may not be there in 30 years.
wdn - 6 minutes ago
What he probably means is if you missed the boat, it is too late
to get on.Sure, it may still double or triple in the next few
months. Or it can loss 50% over a matter of days
nostrademons - 6 minutes ago
Over the 7 years from 1993-2000, a portfolio of stocks with
".com" in the name far outperformed every other asset class out
there. If you held that portfolio for the 7 years following,
from 2000-2007, you would most likely go bankrupt.
barrkel - 1 minutes ago
So did tulip bulbs in Holland in the 17th century. It's still not
enough to make it a smart choice.
SilasX - moments ago
How about when adjusted for volatility?
bazizbaziz - 8 minutes ago
"There is nothing to support bitcoin except the hope that you will
sell it to someone for more than you paid for it.?Genuinely asking,
isn't this the plan for many people? How is bitcoin different than
other commodities or property in this regard? Would Bogle say the
same thing about those investments?
saryant - 7 minutes ago
Property can be used to generate returns (rents). Bitcoin
cannot.
MrFantastic - 2 minutes ago
Mature stocks will usually start paying a dividend.Equity in a
company means you own part of that company.Owning Bitcoin means
you own a BTC.
AnimalMuppet - 2 minutes ago
If I buy stock in a company, and the company pays dividends, I
get the dividend income until I sell the stock. That is, I
bought a future income flow. Same thing if I bought an income-
producing property.Raw land? Non-income-producing property?
Gold? Not so much.
CPLX - 1 minutes ago
There is a big difference. If you buy wheat futures and nobody
wants to buy them, you can take delivery of a bunch of wheat. If
you buy investment real estate and nobody wants it, you can live
in it, or build things on it. If you buy stock in a random
Fortune 500 company and nobody wants it, you can take possession
of a bunch of desks or factories or inventory or whatever their
deal is. And if you take possession of a bunch of US currency you
can be assured that you'll be able to use it to settle debts or
pay your taxes as long as the US government is around and has
better guns than everyone else.Bitcoin is different from all
those things.
non_sequitur - 5 minutes ago
?Bitcoin has no underlying rate of return,? said Bogle, 88, who
started the first index fund in 1976. ?You know bonds have an
interest coupon, stocks have earnings and dividends, gold has
nothing. There is nothing to support bitcoin except the hope that
you will sell it to someone for more than you paid for it.?Didnt
quite understand this quote - is he down on gold too?
HarryHirsch - 2 minutes ago
At least gold is used in jewellery and electronics. What is
bitcoin used for, except ransomware?
tootie - moments ago
I think you just convinced me to buy bitcoins.
wallace_f - moments ago
Bitcoin is not a traditional investment, it is a speculative
one.Blockchain technology is not proprietary to bitcoin, so given
this is fungible what are you buying
akozak - moments ago
I'm no financial advisor, but I'd probably fire the person who
recommended I buy gold as a long term investment.
csomar - 2 minutes ago
The common sense for the wealthy investor should have been to
invest 1% of his portfolio into bitcoin and other digital
currencies. If he did that two years ago he'd get x15-30 returns,
making Digital currencies over 10% of his portfolio. That would be
the time to "cash out" or "scale out" the original investment back
into traditional channels.Is it late now? I think wait a bit and
then start DCA that portion of your portfolio.
UncleMeat - moments ago
Why? Why was this common sense? What other things should people
have invested 1% of their portfolio in? Is every thing that has
the possibility of increasing in value dramatically worth
investing 1% of my portfolio?
gluestic - 16 minutes ago
Translation - "Don't move your money from our exchange to another"
saryant - 11 minutes ago
Virtually nobody has done more to give the average investor a
fair shake than Jack Bogle. I think he deserves a little more
credit than that.
codingdave - 7 minutes ago
Maybe partly, but he has a point - without anything backing it,
its volatility doesn't work well with traditional long-term
investing strategies.Vanguard investors are typically not high
risk/high reward investors. They are low/med risk investors
looking for a slower, steadier increase in their retirement
funds, with many of them just putting money in index funds of
target date retirement funds. Now, if you are not that kind of
investor, and you have less aversion to risk, then his point
doesn't matter to you. In which case, sure, go to town with
Bitcoin.