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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    A Schwab rep called on Monday. We talked about Schwab acquiring a lot of former Vanguard customers and what Schwab can do for them, like waiving Vanguard fund fees. A very open conversation, where I asked for fee waivers and Schwab was amenable within limits (still get charged on most families). I asked about a transfer bonus and he responded without hesitancy - though for one promotion he said he'd have to double check that it was still available. In short, an offer I couldn't refuse.
    (The call was from an office 20 miles away. He offered to have someone call from my local office, but I declined since I would use the local office at most quite infrequently.)
    I got follow up calls from Schwab on Tues (to confirm offer) and today (to ask if I wanted to open an account now or wait until I'd positioned assets for the transfer). No pressure, but then again I'm going to transfer most of my Vanguard assets there, so what's to press?
    FWIW, I'm also looking at Merrill for its current transfer offer (see below) and as a replacement for Vanguard Cash Plus, where I have VUSXX and a bank sweep paying 4.6% (was 4.7%). I like to keep a modest amount in a bank just in case the world collapses or the credit markets freeze up again. Merrill offers institutional class shares of third party MMFs with a $1 min.
    I also spoke with Fidelity, who pitched their services as being superior, and specifically highlighted Schwab's poor MMF rates. My response was that at Merrill I can do better than at either Fidelity or Schwab. Mostly we went over ground that's been covered ad nauseum here already.
    Merrill transfer bonuses ($1K for $250K transferred, $400 for $100K, $200 for $50K, $100 for $20K).
  • Good site for Bank Ratings?
    I like the idea of looking at NRSRO ratings such as Fitch. Financial institutions will usually give their ratings on their website.
    For example, here's Morgan Stanley Bank's ratings. Morgan Stanley has its own credit ratings and separate ratings of its subsidiaries. Scroll past the former to get to the Morgan Stanley Bank ratings.
    I also like Weiss (not an NRSRO). From WSJ, May 6, 2010 (subscription required):
    Weiss Group LLC, an independent research provider, bought back a financial-institutions rating business it previously sold and intends to apply for the unit to become a "nationally recognized statistical ratings organization," or NRSRO, the group's chairman said.
    The unit, Weiss Ratings, produces "financial-safety ratings" for hundreds of U.S. banks and insurance companies and doesn't accept compensation from the companies it rates.
    ...
    The ratings from Weiss are meant to be an indicator of the risk and financial soundness of banks and insurance companies. They are similar to the "financial strength ratings" that NRSROs like Moody's Investors Service and A.M. Best currently provide on financial institutions.
    Here's Weiss' rating of Morgan Stanley Bank, and Weiss' page describing its bank ratings in detail.
    DepositAccounts rates Morgan Stanley Bank a B+ for health. The single 3* rating that you see is just a subjective rating by a user apparently disappointed with the rate offered on a CD. It has nothing to do with safety, which end users are ill equipped to comment on.
    https://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/morgan-stanley-bank-national-association.html#health
  • BKIPX? Not available at Fidelity?
    @BaluBalu - Is there any way I might buy into the “plan” level if I come up with the $5M minimum?
  • BKIPX? Not available at Fidelity?
    @hank, The $5M minimum is at the plan level and not at the individual participant level.
  • Frost Municipal Bond Fund will be liquidated
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1762332/000139834424011580/fp0088639-1_497.htm
    497 1 fp0088639-1_497.htm
    FROST FAMILY OF FUNDS
    (the “Trust”)
    Frost Municipal Bond Fund
    (the “Fund”)
    Supplement dated June 11, 2024 to the Fund’s Summary Prospectus (the “Summary Prospectus”), Prospectus (the “Prospectus”) and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”), each dated November 28, 2023
    This supplement provides new and additional information beyond that contained in the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and SAI, and should be read in conjunction with the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and SAI.
    The Board of Trustees of the Trust, at the recommendation of Frost Investment Advisors, LLC (the “Adviser”), the investment adviser of the Fund, has approved a plan of liquidation providing for the liquidation of the Fund’s assets and the distribution of the net proceeds pro rata to the Fund’s shareholders, effective as of August 5, 2024. In connection therewith, the Fund is closed to investments from new and existing shareholders effective July 31, 2024. The Fund is expected to cease operations and liquidate on or about September 5, 2024 (the “Liquidation Date”). The Liquidation Date may be changed without notice at the discretion of the Trust’s officers.
    Prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may redeem (sell) their shares in the manner described in the “Purchasing, Selling and Exchanging Fund Shares – How to Redeem Fund Shares” section of the Prospectus. For those Fund shareholders that do not redeem (sell) their shares prior to the Liquidation Date, the Fund will distribute to each such shareholder, on or promptly after the Liquidation Date, a liquidating cash distribution equal in value to the shareholder’s interest in the net assets of the Fund as of the Liquidation Date.
    Beginning August 5, 2024, in anticipation of the liquidation of the Fund, the Adviser may manage the Fund in a manner intended to facilitate the Fund’s orderly liquidation, such as by holding cash or making investments in other highly liquid assets. As a result, during this time, all or a portion of the Fund may not be invested in a manner consistent with its stated investment strategies, which may prevent the Fund from achieving its investment objective.
    The liquidation distribution amount will include any accrued income and capital gains, will be treated as a payment in exchange for shares and will generally be a taxable event for shareholders investing through taxable accounts. You should consult your personal tax advisor concerning your particular tax situation. Shareholders remaining in the Fund on the Liquidation Date will not be charged any transaction fees by the Fund. However, the net asset value of the Fund on the Liquidation Date will reflect costs of liquidating the Fund. Shareholders will receive liquidation proceeds as soon as practicable after the Liquidation Date.
    PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.
  • Same Moat Approach—Now in Different Styles
    Most investors should keep it simple. The SP500 has proven that over long time, think 20-30 years it beats most stock funds because it represents 2 simple ideas
    1) American capitalism.
    2) The index is a cap weighted index
    Bogle built Vanguard on that.
    Why mess up with this formula is beyond me? but many "experts" have been trying for decades to come up with "great" new ideas and many continue to fall for that.
    It doesn't mean it's a guaranteed but in most cases, less is more, more diversification usually means more trading= more mistakes.
    It gets worse, so much time and energy are being wasted too.
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    FYI - The link takes one to the login page.
    If you're already logged in (requires a Merrill account) the link takes you to the cited page. If you have a log in but are not logged in, then when you log in on that login page you'll land on the cited page.
    If you don't have a login, you can still get the list of available MMFs from the next link (rates and mins). But you won't know what their settlement date is or by what hour you must submit orders for execution on the indicated day (ranging from 11:45AM to 5:00PM(!)).
    Why it matters is that settlement dates affect when cash is needed for trades. I've been unable to do an exchange between two MMFs in the same family simply because they had different settlement days. I had to sell one fund and subsequently buy another. What other timing/trading impacts the differences in settlement days have I leave as an exercise.
    Among other things, the inability to invest pennies means that small amounts of cash (earning virtually nothing) will gradually pile up. If your fund is paying $N.75 per month, then you'll have 75¢ in cash after one month, $1.50 in cash after two months, etc. I expect loose change in a couch but not in a financial institution. Material or not, this is a shortcoming that I've not seen at any other institution.
  • BKIPX? Not available at Fidelity?
    Thanks for the suggestion @bee / Nice looking etf. I’m just looking out a month or two at a potential need. Adding things to my watch list that look enticing. Yes - I’m aware Yogi pointed out that BKIPX was for retirement plans. I was just jesting about the $5 Mil minimum.
  • Tech XLK Rebalancing
    Tech XLK Rebalancing
    The next rebalancing of tech XLK may lead to a drastic change.
    Its indexing rule limits the super-sized weight total to 50%, so MSFT and AAPL are super-sized now, but NVDA’s weight is clipped*, and everything else is capped under 5%. If NVDA continues to have market=cap bigger than AAPL, then NVDA would be super-sized (i.e. MSFT, NVDA would be super-sized), and AAPL would be clipped*. This would require selling $11.4 billion of AAPL and buying $9.8 billion of NVDA. Both being maga-caps, this may be just a ripple, or not.
    Other tech ETFs do things differently and won't be affected by this change in XLK.
    *This is a weird aspect of SPDR XLK indexing rule. More rational would be to proportionately reduce the super-sized weights, but XLK takes it all from the smallest of the group, now NVDA.
    https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/xlk/portfolio
    https://x.com/JSeyff/status/1800602335733059779
    https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/715084
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    @msf- If you can temporarily pool enough cash to get into SUTXX, once that fund is open you can reduce the holding to well below the $1m. I was advised on that at our local Schwab branch, and that's our situation at the moment, having just taken cash from SUTXX to buy a couple of CDs
    Oddly enough, we just got a call from Fidelity. It was from the rep just assigned to our account after two years without one.
    Since I'm in the process of moving assets from Vanguard (all to Fidelity and then some, possibly, to a new Schwab account), I had an extended conversation of what I'm looking for. Including a solid Treasury MMF. He made the same suggestion as you - if I can temporarily pool enough cash to get into FSIXX (Fidelity's equivalent of SUTXX), then I can reduce the holding to any amount.
    I admit it - we're not starved for cash - but $1M is a whole heap of pocket change. Merrill provides access to FSIXX with a $1 min.
    A couple of quirks with buying this via Merrill is that it settles same day, not T+1, and one can only invest whole dollars. I believe that even div reinvestments must be in whole dollars; any remaining cents go into the settlement account.
    To avoid these quirks, at Merrill one might instead use TFFXX. Blackrock reports that 98.65% of its income was state-exempt last year, and 98.81% was state-exempt in 2022.
    MMFs at Merrill (generally next day settlement funds don't restrict transactions to whole dollars)
    MMF rates and mins
  • BKIPX? Not available at Fidelity?
    Thank you @yogibearbull.
    BAIPX wouldn’t come up for me at Fido.
    BIIPX did come up, but with a $2 Mil minimum. So I shouldn’t need it any time soon.
    BKIPX which I asked about now shows a $5 Mil minimum. (Didn’t notice that earlier) Yet in a separate article, M* promotes it as a top performer in its class. Go figure. How many dudes reading M* have $5 Mil to sink into a single fund?
  • BKIPX? Not available at Fidelity?
    Not all funds are supported at Fido even when it has a deal with iShares on many funds.
    iShares ST-TIPS:
    BAIPX https://digital.fidelity.com/search/main?q=BAIPX
    BIIPX is TF & $2 million min https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summary/09258N885
    BTW, BKIPX is retirement plan class K and not available to retail.
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    Thanks for the suggestion.
    Elsewhere (another thread) I considered SGOV or USFR as partial subs for Vanguard Cash Plus (which can hold MMFs as well as having a bank sweep).
    I could use an internet bank for FDIC-covered cash (many still paying 5%+), and something like SGOV or USFR for liquid Treasury cash.
    It looks like USFR has done slightly better than TFLO, outperforming or matching returns each year since 2017, with higher Sharpe ratio albeit with slightly higher volatility.
    Portfolio Visualizer comparison
    As it turns out, last year at least USFR held slightly more in Treasuries (99.9868%) than did TFLO (97.76%). Though that difference could easily be noise and could vary year by year. They're both essentially 100% Treasury funds. Just don't try telling that to the state taxing authorities :-)
    A problem using ETFs (or any bond fund) in lieu of a MMF is that either one takes the monthly divs in cash (rather than reinvesting) or one runs the risk of dealing with wash sales on each redemption. A minor nuisance but still something one needs to keep in mind.
  • Nvidia “Leapfrogs” Apple in Value
    In think what @baseball_fan is asking is if there is a potential fraud involved in Nvidia's revenue recognition? I would venture to guess there is probably some creativity involved (let us say, no more than 5% of the revenue) but within the bounds of GAAP / SEC's acceptable thresholds. Any one that is worried about Nvidia's Rev Rec issues instead should look at its cash flows. If you want a professional opinion on Nvidia's Rev Rec, send @Stillers, the accounting auditor professional in this forum, a private message. When Nvidia is being fed the revenue, I do not think they will go out of their way to be creative with Rev Rec.
  • Nvidia “Leapfrogs” Apple in Value
    @WABAC - The other way around. "Musk had redirected about 12,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units originally shipped to Tesla (TSLA) to two of his other companies, X and xAI."

    Talk about a conflict of interest and/or corporate malfeasance.... and yet he wants $50billion more salary from Tesla despite screwing them over. Yeah, good job, Melon, you cosplaying business jenius.
    Was wondering where to put this.
    “If Tesla is to retain Elon's attention and motivate him to continue to devote his time, energy, ambition and vision to deliver comparable results in the future, we must stand by our deal," she added.
  • Nvidia “Leapfrogs” Apple in Value
    I'll take who/what is CoreWeave for $500 please....and what is their relationship with NVDA really about...
  • Nvidia “Leapfrogs” Apple in Value
    @WABAC - The other way around. "Musk had redirected about 12,000 Nvidia H100 graphics processing units originally shipped to Tesla (TSLA) to two of his other companies, X and xAI."
    Talk about a conflict of interest and/or corporate malfeasance.... and yet he wants $50billion more salary from Tesla despite screwing them over. Yeah, good job, Melon, you cosplaying business jenius.
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    If you are looking for a highly competitive MM interest rate for your cash and can't find it at your brokerage, why not just put it into iShares Treasury Floating Rate Bond ETF (TFLO)?
    Currently, the 30 Day SEC Yield is 5.33%. In addition, while interest on US Treasury bonds is taxable at the federal level, it is exempt from state and local income taxes.
    TFLO currently invests 100% in Treasuries, hence the fund's interest is tax exempt at the state and local level.
  • Current CDs are Compelling
    Thanks. As it turns out, I just had a couple of conversations with Schwab today. They let me know about this option; they even referred to it as a loophole.
    No way I could come up with that much cash in a taxable account. Whatever taxable cash I have has been gradually depleted over the past 15 years - going to pay taxes on Roth conversions. (The income restriction on conversions was removed in 2010.)