Morning Coffee,
Per Ms. Dee Lee, from the article related to MFO: "Also utilize the Mutual Fund Observer newsletter for research on funds. They don’t tell you when to buy mutual funds but when to sell a mutual fund.
If only it was this simple, eh? Buy whatever one wants and wait for MFO to indicate a sell signal.
Me thinks she does not grasp the intention(s) of the MFO site.
The full article containing other comments related to investing, is just below
.
WBZ, Dee Lee article
Take care,
Catch

@Ted
Shame, shame! I linked this last July (http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/43546/#Comment_43546) and maybe another time before that!
(In all seriousness, an excellent video and well worth the watch. The whitepaper is also worth reading. Think Professor Snowball linked it in his DODLX review.)

FYI: Vanguard Group's decision to publish details about how it uses its huge shareholder clout to influence corporate governance issues is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough, according to the founder of the mutual fund company.
"We still have a long way to go," said Jack Bogle, who now runs a market research group funded by Vanguard, but no longer has an executive role at the company he founded in 1975.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthmanagement.com/print/industry/vanguard-should-say-more-how-it-influences-companies-founder

Regarding the cash component of this fund, M* shows this statistic. The first number is net percentage, second is percentage short, and third is percentage long.
Cash -106.15 237.97 131.83

How many of the 30 are one manager over the 20y? I wager none. Can you parse similarly for 10 and 15y? Can you parse for one manager? Forgive me if I have missed these capabilities.

Overpriced? compared to what?..., Tell me where you can get the same amount of information for 50 cents a day (peanuts for my investing success)....Necessary evil for decision making, I'm in Morningstar.... till I find a better source..... just don't go too much higher......WSJ much higher for what?

--- NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BEEN THERE -- DONE THAT -- and CANCELLED PREMIUM MBSHP. --- Years ago-
AND ITS GOTTEN WORSE = SEE MORNINGSTAR CONV. BOARD =
"HOW TIRESOME --PORTFOLIO AGAIN NOT UPDATED AGAIN" = OVER 250 REPLYS
from Morningstar members. !!!!!!!!!
Ralph

FYI: Eaton Vance (EV) lined up its first partner for its recently approved exchange-traded managed funds: American Beacon Advisors.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/01/15/eaton-vance-snares-first-partner-on-etmfs-american-
Investment News Slant:
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150115/FREE/150119948?template=printart

Dex, mailed my $250 my check to heezsafe the other day. If I have to pay you off will send it to you and you can do whatever with it. But we have a ways to go there. I'm 100% in junk munis too now and will try and stay with the trend and have some sort of exit strategy in place. Markets tend to surprise. If we have some sort of dramatic economic slowdown that could impact the lower rated munis and the place to be would be investment grade. I am licking my chops hoping hi yield corporates fall out of bed as they will be the next great thing somewhere down the road like they were in December 2008.

The portion of the healthcare sphere that involves robotics, wearables, bionics etc has huge growth potential. For someone with a long time to invest these are the kinds of future stocks that hold a lot of promise.

@JohnChisum, are you aware of any funds/ETFs/CEFs that focus on these areas?
Here's a question I keep thinking about and asking myself when I consider new healthcare investments: The expense ratios of these "passive" ETFs seems to fall between 50 and 100 basis points whereas Vanguard offers an active fund for only 30 basis points, T Rowe Price's healthcare fund costs 79 basis points and Fidelity's biotech fund costs 75 basis points. Are there any good reasons to go passive when you only have to pay 25 or 30 basis points for someone to be a bit more selective with your money and how to invest it, and especially in cases where the active funds have lower costs than the ETFs?

Junkster awhile ago in a discussion I said the US 10 year will go to 1% before it goes to 3%.
It is in the 1.7% area today and with the Swiss' interest rates at 0%, it won't be too long until the US hits the 1%.
I'm still 100% in US High Yield Muni Bonds and I think they will do well this year and maybe several years in this low rate environment. I can sleep very well at night with this - thanks for pointing it out.
The way things are going - low interest rates and strong US$, there may come a time when High Yield Emerging Markets and other foreign bonds will be the investment.

Ha!
Everyday, another stock in my portfolio drops 5%.
Did add to BAC on the (let's hope) "dip".
It's now off 16.5% from about one month ago.
That's more than the stock gained in all of 2014.
Good grief.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-edge-lower-1421328394
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2015-01-15/u-s-index-futures-advance-after-s-p-500-posts-four-day-retreat.html
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USKBN0KO1C120150115
MarketWatch Slant;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-rebound-on-tap-as-futures-surge-with-big-bank-earnings-ahead-2015-01-15/print
Markets At A Glance: http://markets.wsj.com/us
Current Futures: http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

@johnN: Already been linked !
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/18285/john-waggoner-fund-pros-picks-for-2015-jim-lowell-dan-wiener#latest

Ugly day for biotech
Jan 15 2015, 14:03 ET | By: Douglas W. House, SA News Editor Contact this editor with comments or a news tip
Money flow is decidedly negative today for (IBB -2%) (BIB -3.9%) biotech. For whatever reason, there always seems to be a sell-off at the end of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.
ALPS Medical Breakthroughs ETF Dow Jones
SBIO 25.87 -3.36%
Real-time: 2:55PM EST
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA:SBIO&ei=UBu4VOnFFY6lsQeH1IC4BA

About the PQTIX portfolio allocation, it's all over the place from month to month. Here's the range of exposures from April (when I first started following it) through December 2014, per the monthly spreadsheets:
Equity 2-54%
Currencies 16-43%
Rates 0-72%
Commodities 0-13%
Volatility 0-23%

MFO, certainly nice work, I'm about max. on mutual funds, but have to do some work on these funds...Always room for a winner or two
Best of the Best?" only about 30 are top quintile across all five evaluation periods (20, 10, 5, 3, and 1 year), yes even in 2014"..... fascinating stuff, worth some effort with these nuggets
thanks, tb

According to Pimco's website, the assets of PQTDX consist of:
Percent of Risk Allocation as of 12/31/14
Rates 41.83
Currency 38.81
Commodity 13.42
Equity 6.36
Volatility -0.42
https://investments.pimco.com/Products/pages/659.aspx
Click "Portfolio" tab. It appears PQTDX is a current play on interest rates and currency. Not my cup of tea. Many bond managers got burned in 2014 when they thought the only direction for yields was "up." Could managers in 2015 be making a similar mistake by continuing to "bet" on a stronger dollar? I hope for those investors in this fund that the managers are correct.
Mike_E

@Ted wrote posted a note about this ETF at the end of December when it was launched. There's no question it will be volatile but I have been watching it because like you JC I think there will be very big winners in their universe and hopefully not so many losers that its all offset. The biggest concern I had when reading about it was that the rules for their index are limited to companies with market caps less than $5 billion. I think that means some of the really big winners will get knocked out of the index, and the ETF, so quickly that the biggest gains will be missed and you will need a much higher success rate with the companies in the portfolio to offset the failures and deliver exceptional returns.