A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[SFSecurity]

Belt and suspenders here, before I go off half cocked...

If I read this correctly:

...assuming one's desired fixed income / equity asset allocation is 20/80....

then we would have 20% in a good/better than US Treasury bond, maybe an A+ corporate bond, 40% on SSO or equivalent, and 40% in TIPS or maybe something like HSBC with a maturity of April 2015 paying 2.79% at a price of 100.046. - I selected that as I hate paying more than par for bonds. Is this correct or does the HSBC belong in the 20% allocation and something different in the 40%?

My understanding of TIPS is that their rate depends on what underlying inflation is and that they always pay par at end of life. Do I have that correct?

When my mother was alive we managed to get an odd lot of some bonds at 85% of par from an estate. They were sold at par or slightly above earlier this year. Not huge amounts of money but nice. The broker who now is getting greedy turned us on to them. I might not have started looking at handling the estate myself had I not noticed signs of greed.

Thanks,

Allen