RetireJapan

I just invest in a couple of soverign bond trackers, not corporate. The vast majority of my assets are in equity trackers, but I stuck my toes in the water with some gilt funds last year when the YTM was around 4.5% and the duration of the portfolio was 18 years. Thanks for sharing your experience....

Lower costs and hence better performance in the long run. How strong is the evidence for that for passive vs active bond funds? It is more difficult for a bond fund to track in index because of the way one issuer has multiple bonds so they all have to do some active sampling but even the bonds inde...

The Robo Advisor seems to adjust the target volatility of its suggested portfolio depending on the customer's age, which you also input along with the various risk profiling questions. So I got it to suggest a portfolio at the highest risk tolerance portfolio again but this time for someone 20 year...

I guess it's algorithm can only allow so much variance in the portfolio because of my shortish time horizon (I'm going to start drawing my pension in a couple of years time ;-) I think I'll take Ben's advice and look at this ideco as simply one bucket into which I'll put something which has more up...

These "low risk" portfolio recommendations are generated mainly to address volatility rather than the risk of permanent loss and the glaring weakness in that allocation is that it is overly concentrated in Japan for its fixed income proportion and would provide almost no inflation protecti...

Only if you have the Legal Obligation to do so.. I am not certain you definition, as stated here, is correct. It is definitely counter to popular practice. I would also refer you back to the cases in the Diet, as well as the rules on supporting dependants. At least in the US paying someone else's e...

Our experience was that public schools in Japan are excellent, especially through elementary school.

What do you mean by your 2024 tax "forecast"? We pay the local tax (住民税) in arrears so while you make those payments starting around June of 2024 it is not a forecast of your 2024 income but you catching up with your local tax liability. The national income tax (所得税) will be based on your ...

There isn't a single time that the rebates are paid. I have received them anytime from mid April to late June and my accountant generally files the return a few days before the March 15 deadline. When you receive the refund later you receive a bit of interest added to the sum.

Our house was packed in scaffolding for the re-painting of the roof a few years ago (maybe 20 years after original purchase). I think the cost breakdown for the project showed that putting up and removing the scaffolding was a little more expensive than the actual painting and I don't think any of t...