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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.
  • AGG Up 8.4% This Week

    DODIX, FTBFX, BOND are managed bond funds while AGG,BND and VBTLX follow the US Total bond index and why they are very close long term.
    Usually, but not always. Index funds, especially bond index funds, are also managed, though perhaps not in the way you are thinking. I'll just quote Vanguard from its 2002 annual report for VBTLX:
    Of course, the objective of an index fund is to track its target benchmark closely. On this score, three of our four funds came up significantly short. The Total Bond Market Index Fund--our oldest and biggest bond index fund--returned 8.3%, well below the 10.3% return of the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index. Our Short-Term and Intermediate-Term Bond Index Funds also trailed their target indexes by about 2 percentage points. The Long-Term Bond Index Fund's return was within 0.4 percentage point of the target.
    ...
    As we explained in our report to you six months ago, our funds' returns will typically differ from those of the indexes for two primary reasons: The funds incur expenses that the indexes do not, and the funds' holdings do not exactly replicate those held by the indexes. The expense difference will always work against us in our goal of providing close tracking. The difference in holdings arises from our "sampling" approach to indexing, which is necessary because it would be impractical and very costly to own all the bonds in the target indexes.
    Around that time, the WSJ wrote:
    Those are huge discrepancies in the bond world, and an embarrassment for the Malvern, Pa., firm whose name is practically synonymous with index funds. The flexibility to deviate from the benchmark index is disclosed in the Vanguard's prospectuses for its bond index funds, but nonetheless is surprising for those under the impression an index fund mechanically invests in the securities making up its benchmark.
    "Indexing" is not synonymous with "unmanaged". Vanguard had tinkered with sector weightings. As the WSJ notes later in the article, it didn't change the prospectus in response to the poor management performance. The prospectus remains the same to the current day.
    Prospectus wording then (April 2012) and now (April 2019):
    In addition, each Fund keeps industry sector and subsector exposure within tight boundaries relative to its target index. Because the Funds do not hold all the securities in their target indexes, some of the securities (and issuers) that are held will likely be overweighted (or underweighted) compared with the target indexes. The maximum overweight (or underweight) is constrained at the issuer level with the goal of producing well-diversified credit exposure in the portfolio.
    Italics in original. What's "tight"? At least Fidelity quantifies the guardrails for its "index" fund: "The Adviser expects the fund's investments will approximate the broad market sector weightings of the index within a range of ±10%."
  • Stocks close sharply lower after massive 3-day rally fizzles out
    "Stocks ended sharply lower Friday, giving back some of the strong gains from the previous three days to cap another volatile week on Wall Street.
    Sentiment took a hit as investors focused back on the coronavirus outbreak as the U.S. became the country with the most confirmed cases.
    The Dow closed down 915 points, or 4%. The S&P 500 slid 3.3%, while the Nasdaq shed 3.8%."
    Article From CNBC
  • AGG Up 8.4% This Week
    Hi @davidrmoran
    You noted:
    since the first week of March
    My bad. Okay, so; the beginning of the week.....March 2 or the end date of the first week of March. What date ? Will try to get the graph to stick for a short time frame to move data here.
    OR, one may click and hold the left edge of the 254 day period and slide to the right to about 20 days to arrive very close to the beginning of March.
    Regards,
    Catch
  • AGG Up 8.4% This Week
    Hi @davidrmoran
    Just for the heck of it. From your list and few more.
    Some bond funds, 1 year to date
  • Timeless advice from Peter Bernstein
    Timeless advice from Peter Bernstein - bumped into this interview via Seeking Alpha
    https://jasonzweig.com/a-long-chat-with-peter-l-bernstein/.
    Timeless advice from Peter Bernstein
    Peter Bernstein Interview. — Money.com, Oct. 15, 2004
    Quotes:
    Because the more you think this is easy, the more you persuade yourself that you can take the heat. And then, the sooner the oven gets hot, the more shocked you are and the worse you get burned. After 50 years in the investment business I still haven’t got it all clear.
    Understanding that we do not know the future is such a simple statement, but it’s so important. Investors do better where risk management is a conscious part of the process.
    Somebody once said that if you’re comfortable with everything you own, you’re not diversified.
    The great Michigan economist Paul MacCracken, at the blackest moment of 1974, told me never to believe in apocalyptic scenarios.
  • 20 years at 4%
    Of course, the two 50% drawdowns and the 3 bear markets over this period have helped keep millennials away from investing. I actually think they were finally starting to warm-up to it, until this March's madness.
  • 20 years at 4%
    Yes, exactly. That's why I love looking at rolling returns. You can't decide the year you were born and the 20-year period(s) you were invested. Going back 60 years through February, the S&P 500 delivered anywhere from 5.6% to 18.3% annualized over 481 20-year rolling periods. Timing is everything.
  • When to start buying
    I'm waiting for the next significant downdraft to establish a position in AKREX. It's up 5.5% today when the S&P is down, so that's no help.
  • All Wasatch Funds are open except International Opportunities (unless directly from Wasatch)
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806633/000119312520017093/d842170d485bpos.htm
    From the 1/31/2020 prospectus:
    Open/Closed Status of Funds. The Emerging India Fund, Emerging Markets Select Fund, Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund, Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund, Global Opportunities Fund, Global Select Fund, Global Value Fund, International Select Fund, Micro Cap Fund, Micro Cap Value Fund, Small Cap Value Fund, Ultra Growth Fund, and U.S. Treasury Fund are each open to investors.
    The Core Growth Fund, International Growth Fund, International Opportunities Fund and Small Cap Growth Fund are each closed to new purchases, except purchases by new or existing shareholders purchasing directly from Wasatch Funds, existing shareholders purchasing through intermediaries, and current and future shareholders purchasing through financial advisors and retirement plans with an established position in the Fund. Fund officers may waive or revise the conditions of a closed fund for an intermediary depending on its ability to systematically apply the conditions .
  • 20 years at 4%
    I've asked for permission to reproduce the two graphics from today's Research Note in our April issue. One gave the returns for about 20 assets or indexes and the other compared current valuations to today's. I'll share if I'm allowed.
    Other highlights from today's Leuthold note:
    ... these results mostly reflect how exorbitant valuations were at the start of that 20-year span, and not how depressed they are today.
    ...the S&P 500 isn’t yet statistically cheap, but it is vastly more attractive than it was just five weeks ago.
    ... not a single equity sector generated a double-digit annualized return over the last 20 years, nor did any major asset class.
    Incredibly, the S&P 500 Energy sector (+2.4%) and Technology sector (+2.7%) delivered about the same results to those who bought them in March 2000 and held on for the ride.
    In sum, initial valuations matter, and the only good thing to come out of the last five weeks’ action is that the “cost of entry” into the S&P 500 has finally closed in on its historical average, and almost all other stock market cohorts (domestic and international) are well below their averages. Veteran investors will recall that the Y2K peak proved to be an excellent time to shift into Mid and Small Caps, and it’s worth noting that median valuations for these stocks are 15-25% below those prevailing at that historic turning point. Keep this good news in mind when dealing with the coming onslaught of bad news.
  • 20 years at 4%
    I’d love to see the details! Low volatility & dividend aristocrats beat the S&P 500 by 2:1? Obviously, significant. And mid caps & small caps also significantly beat the S&P 500? I guess it’s value & SCV that has done poorly.
  • 20 years at 4%
    @DS,
    Hmm ... how are they tracking Div Aristocrats back 20y, do they say? Or the others?
    VOO (best SP500 I know of) outperforms NOBL (Div Aristocrat) since NOBL inception, ~6.5y ago, and CAPE trounces both (also trouncing DVY and SDY), so it would be good to see graphs going back thrice that time.
    Roger all else; start and stop points are all.
  • 20 years at 4%
    Nope, not a bond yield.
    Today is the 20th anniversary of the peak of the dot-com bubble. According to the Leuthold Group, returns for the S&P 500 have averaged 4.4% per year from that date to this one. The MSCI Emerging Markets and Barclays Bond Aggregate have had identical 5% returns. Mid-caps and small caps have substantially bested all three.
    Among the sliced and diced domestic sub-sectors:
    S&P 500 High Beta: -1.4% annually
    S&P 500 Low Volatility: 9.2%
    S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats: 9.3%
    FSTE NAREIT Index: 9.0%
    Spot gold: 9.0%
    Of course measuring for the moment before one market collapse to a moment somewhere within another one is weird and unrepresentative. We ought all remember that the next time someone tries pedaling an investment based on its 3- or 5-year returns when those returns fall within a window of steadily rising prices.
    See? I'm an optimist! I'm foreseeing the New Bull and the New Bull marketing campaigns.
    Cheers!
  • Massive Carnage In The CEF Space
    RiverNorth, whose strategy centers on CEF arbitrage as the key to their competitive advantage, posts the following "Cliff Notes" version of their recent conference call.
    The following provides a brief recap of the RiverNorth conference call held on March 19th.
    Capital markets and economic volatility/uncertainty has led to unprecedented volatility in the CEF markets
    RiverNorth estimates that 90%+ of the CEF market is owned by retail – and they are in full retreat
    Co-portfolio manager Steve O’Neill described some of the CEF price action last week as a “9.5 out of 10 on the CEF panic scale”
    Discounts hit (and in some cases exceeded) levels last seen during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008
    To keep investors appraised of the opportunity set, RiverNorth started posting discount data here: rivernorth.com/cef-discount-info
    The opportunity is broad based – nearly all CEF asset classes trading at historically wide discounts
  • Infinite QE Is Destroying Traditional Bond-Fund Strategies
    >> “The most applicable period is right before America entered WW2, when you had gigantic stimulus to spur the war effort."
    Thiel is in his early 50s and has a Princeton degree in Am history, it says, but I think the above may be seriously misphrased.
    https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543
  • Infinite QE Is Destroying Traditional Bond-Fund Strategies
    Interesting reading. Themes include low interest rates for now, inflation possible down the road, cash is king, and lack of clear historical context for current situation.
    Core tenets such as what constitutes a safe asset, the value of bonds as a portfolio hedge, and expectations for returns over the next decade are all being reconsidered as governments and central banks strive to avert a global depression.
    QE Kills Valuation Models -- Ordinarily, the prospect of a multi-trillion-dollar government spending surge globally ought to send borrowing costs soaring. But central bank purchases are now reshaping rates markets -- emulating the Bank of Japan’s yield-curve control policy starting in 2016 -- and quashing these latest volatility spikes.
    Inflation Risk -- Many market veterans agree that faster inflation may return in a recovery awash with stimulus that central banks and governments may find tough to withdraw...“There’s tension in all of this,” said Hamish Pepper, fixed-income and currency strategist at Harbour Asset Management Ltd. in Wellington, New Zealand. “I don’t think it’s necessarily about waking up one morning realizing that bond yields should be 100 basis points higher from here -- but you have to think about inflation at some point.”
    Haven or Not? -- “Will government bonds play the same role in your portfolio going forward as they have in the past?” he said. “To me the answer is no they don’t -- I’d rather own cash.”
    “It’s very hard to look at this in a historical context and then apply an investment framework around it,” said BlackRock’s Thiel. “The most applicable period is right before America entered WW2, when you had gigantic stimulus to spur the war effort. I mean, Ford made bombers in WW2 and now they’re making ventilators in 2020.”
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/infinite-qe-destroying-traditional-bond-174459945.html
  • Massive Carnage In The CEF Space
    Summary
    ° All high yield assets have been crushed in this market - in some cases worse than equities.
    ° The declines in price and NAV of most CEFs have been nothing short of massive. Investors are selling anything and everything.
    ° This is all liquidity driven declines. What we are seeing are the pitfalls of a daily liquidity "wrapper" holding illiquid securities.
    ° It is still far too early to think about jumping in en masse and reloading up portfolios with leveraged CEFs. That said, we have a shopping list ready to go.
    ° We are in a 1% interest rate environment. Anything yielding in excess of that level has some assumption of risk. You must accept that risk if you want to produce.
    SA Article Continues
  • Edward P. Bousa of Wellington Fund to retire
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/105563/000168386320001038/f2772d1.htm
    497 1 f2772d1.htm WELLINGTON FUND 497
    Vanguard Wellington™ Fund
    Supplement Dated March 27, 2020 to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated March 27, 2020
    Important Change to Vanguard Wellington Fund
    Effective at the close of business on June 30, 2020, Edward P. Bousa will retire from Wellington Management Company LLP and will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for Vanguard Wellington Fund.
    Loren L. Moran, Daniel J. Pozen, and Michael E. Stack, who currently serve as portfolio managers with Mr. Bousa, will remain as portfolio managers of the Fund upon Mr. Bousa's retirement. The Fund's investment objective, strategies, and policies will remain unchanged.
  • If today's gains hold up....
    Totally agree. What @davidmoran described resembles the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. Can't located the footage showed on CNN that go something like this: an earthquake occurred out in the Pacific Ocean and people were running into the exposed beach as the ocean pulled back. Then the outer waves grew taller and taller as they moved inland quickly and continued to surge. Boats, cars, and houses were tossed around like toys. The sound of people were indescribable.
    Here is one video that showed the carnage resulting from the tsunami in Thailand.
    https://bing.com/videos/search?q=tsunami+indonesia+youtube&&view=detail&mid=A3A63753C8C7FF817A0CA3A63753C8C7FF817A0C&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dtsunami%2Bindonesia%2Byoutube%26qs%3DMM%26form%3DQBVR%26sp%3D7%26pq%3Dtsunami%2Bindonesia%2B%26sk%3DHS1MM5%26sc%3D8-18%26cvid%3D1B1D0441DBF3432DB7A12BAE798AD205
    The impact of this global virus crisis, termed by Ed Yardeni is far from over and likely to last for awhile before recovery.
    Just imagine those people who went into the exposed beach as the ocean pulled back.