Where can you find historical PEs of US indices?
Internet sites Books Academic
"&gt; can I use venture like that in a financial context, or does it refer specifically to venture capital?  Yes, any business is a ""venture"" so to speak.   &gt; so they would receive a smaller return, yes?  POSSIBLY yes.  Mezzanine investors are, well, ""middle"" investors. They're beyond seed and venture capital, but before more ""late-stage"" private investment. That doesn't *necessarily* mean they're ""after a seed or venture capital investment."" It can mean that, or it can simply mean the business is a little more advanced than a pure idea, or pre-revenue, etc.  Let's say a company is pre-destined to get to $100m in value IF it can secure funding. Naturally, later investors will have a smaller return. Of course, private investments are generally for smaller, younger companies, and thus are more risky, so an investor can still *lose* value in a private equity investment.  &gt; Is mezzanine investing particularly profitable?  Yes, absolutely. You have to understand, with investments in private equity, firms and individuals are often looking for a *multiple* of their investment (i.e. if an investor invests $1m, they expect $2m, $3m, etc. back). This is not necessarily for all levels of private equity, but many levels will attempt this. Generally the idea (as far as I'm aware) is a 20% IRR (which means that generally, the investment grows by 20% *compounding* yearly).   &gt; Secondly, why is dilution so important further down the road? Is it to do with valuation?  Absolutely. Let's think of our example earlier, where you, me, and Joe each own 33% at $300 total value.  If suddenly another company wants to buy ALL of our equity for $600, then we're all pretty happy. Each of us will get $200. HOWEVER, let's say Joe hadn't come along. If that other company *then* made an offer for $600, we'd both get *$300* for the company.   There's some other things about dilution too, such as the possible loss of control, but we'll save that for later.  &gt; Finally, at what point would a company aim to meet an IPO? Is it case specific, or is there a general understanding of the ""best time""?  It's VERY case specific. In *most* cases, depending on the industry, the company will be relatively a bit older, have both revenue and profitability, and a history of operations. In some cases, companies like this will choose to *never* go IPO (such as the Big 4 auditing firms, for one, among others).   There are, of course, exceptions. Many smaller pharmacueticals are *pre-revenue* and are traded on the market. Tesla is getting revenue, but *not profitable* and it's on the markets as well. These are, naturally, riskier investments, but at least you've got liquidity to help a bit with that.   When a private equity (PE) firm is looking to exit (sell their stake) through an IPO, they will try to engineer the company to be as attractive as possible to public investors. In fact, many PE firms will stipulate specific terms, and possibly get control of the company from the owner, when they initially invest. But there's a lot that goes into it. Perhaps /u/wreckingcru or /u/Seraphinic can go into a bit more detail on PE exits as while it's my chief interest and my career goal, it's not quite where I'm at *yet.*" To point #1: We are moving but I don't know If I can afford the rent as the family grows I would start by looking at your debt-to-income ratio. In the US, most banks look at this for mortgage purposes, but it also gives you a general idea of what monthly mortgage payments will be comfortable given your particular financial situation. Think of it this way, if a bank is unwilling to lend you money because of a high debt-to-income level, this indicates that you have very little leeway with regard to your budget. So a lower number indicates that you will have more flexibility and comfort with meeting your rent/mortgage obligations when unforeseen bills pop up. The article below indicates having < 43% DTI is ideal (in the US). Here's a link to a debt to income calculator and some extra info (I suggest finding one aimed at the UK market): WellsFargo debt to income calculator Why is the 43% debt to income ratio important? Point #2: How can a person measure how much to spend on food, car, bills or rent from his salary? Is there a formula to keep in check? Other answers have addressed how to make a budget, so I will not repeat that. However, here's another angle with regards to spending/saving. This article recommends 50/30/20: According to the popular 50/30/20 rule, you should reserve 50 percent of your budget for essentials like rent and food, 30 percent for discretionary spending, and at least 20 percent for savings. Read more at: https://www.moneyunder30.com/how-much-should-you-save-every-month-2 In the real world, these goals may not be realistic, and different people have different ideas about how aggressive to be with regards to savings. However, you can get a general idea and adapt for your particular needs. Point 3: I find myself looking at my account every single day and get tensed and sad because almost whenever the money (pay) comes in I freak out that after everything there is nothing for us to enjoy or save. I couldn't find historical data either, so I contacted Vanguard Canada and Barclays; Vanguard replied that  This index was developed for Vanguard, and thus historical information is available as of the inception of the fund. Unfortunately, that means that the only existing data on historical returns are in the link in your question. Vanguard also sent me a link to the methodology Barclay's uses when constructing this index, which you might find interesting as well.  I haven't heard from Barclays, but I presume the story is the same; even if they've been collecting data on Canadian bonds since before the inception of this index, they probably didn't aggregate it into an index before their contract with Vanguard (and if they did, it might be proprietary and not available free of charge). "You cannot just read one book and some articles on Technical Analysis and some indicators and expect to be an expert and everything to just start falling into place and give you signals that will tell you when to buy and sell with precision and massive profits all the time.  It is like someone reading a book on how to drive a car and then expecting to drive flawlessly the first time they sit in the driver's seat, or someone reading a book on brain surgery and expecting to be able to operate on a live patient the next day. It looks like you are using 3 or 4 indicators to get daily buy and sell signals on a daily chart for an EFT you're looking to hold for decades. So firstly you are using short term indicators for a long term outlook. You need to decide what timeframe you plan to hold your investments for and use chart periods and indicators that suit that timeframe.  Secondly, each indicator can be used in a number of ways and the settings you use for each indicator can determine whether you get earlier or later signals. Also, you need to work out which indicators work well together and are complementary, compared to those that don't work well together and give conflicting signals. All this information will come together for you the more you read about and practice the art of Technical Analysis. If your timeframe is very long-term (decades) I would be using mainly a weekly chart, with a longer period MA, the ROC indicator and possibly some trend lines. Keep it simple. The price itself is very important too. You can determine when a trend is starting or has ended purely using the price. The definition of an uptrend is higher highs and higher lows, so on the weekly chart if there is a lower high followed by a lower low - this could be the end of the uptrend. If we get a lower low followed by a lower high - this again could be the end of the uptrend. These could be a good time to start getting cautious and maybe looking to sell. If you are using stop losses (which I recommend) this may be a good time to tighten your stops. Similarly, a downtrend is defined as lower lows and lower highs. If we get a higher low followed by a higher high it could be the end of the downtrend and maybe the start of an uptrend. This could be a good time to start getting ready to buy. You need to learn about how and where to set your buy and sell orders (including stops) and whether you wait for confirmation when you get a signal. All this takes some time, but the more you read, the more you attend live events and the more you practice the more they will become second nature. In order to get the best out of Technical Analysis you will need to learn, plan, practice and execute. A good book to help you prepare your trading plan is ""Smart Trading Plans"" by Justine Pollard. One of my favourite books is ""The Complete Trading Course - Price Patterns, Strategies, Setups, and Execution Tactics"" by Corey Rosenbloom. And another good book is ""Trade your Way to Financial Freedom"" by Van Tharp." "He is wrong.  Using Total Return (Reinvesting Dividend), from the peak in December 1999, it only took 6 years to recover.   You can check the data for free here. Make sure you choose ""Gross Index Level"".  ACWI Index is Developed Markets + Emerging Markets.  World Index is Developed Markets only." There are multiple ETFs which inversely track the common indices, though many of these are leveraged.  For example, SDS tracks approximately -200% of the S&P 500.  (Note: due to how these are structured, they are only suitable for very short term investments) You can also consider using Put options for the various indices as well.  For example, you could buy a Put for the SPY out a year or so to give you some fairly cheap insurance (assuming it's a small part of your portfolio). One other option is to invest against the market volatility.  As the market makes sudden swings, the volatility goes up; this tends to be true more when it falls than when it rises.  One way of invesing in market volatility is to trade options against the VIX. You will most likely not be able to avoid some form of format conversion, regardless of which data you use since there is, afaik, no standard for this data and everyone exports it differently. One viable option would be, like you said yourself, using the free data provided by Dukascopy. Please take into consideration that those are spot currency rates and will most likely not represent the rate at which physical and business-related exchange would have happened at this time. I found the zephyr database, which does the job. Nonetheless if someone knows other (open) sources, be welcome to answer.