Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

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.
  • Stock Rover Pointers
    Adjusted-Price% for VWINX, VWELX, VFIAX, SPY (last 2 are indistinguishable).
    image
    Price% for VWINX, VWELX, VFIAX, SPY (last 2 are indistinguishable).
    image
  • Stock Rover Pointers
    @BaluBalu, SR-Chart allows OEFs, ETFs, Indexes that are Price% only or Dividend-adjusted-Price%. I will build some examples and post. LINK
  • Your buy - sells July forward
    Spy Iwm qqq Bottom very close based on fundamentals
    If we have a reasonable Earning seasons and Feds stick w 0.75% rates raised (maybe already priced in), maybe baby bull born...This Thursday is biggest day Apple Er and Feds decisions day....very volatile
    Could be last legs down another -12% next 5 -7 trading days (or could be stagnation then slight up trends after 7-10 days tradings)
    Friends say 65% that bottom maybe in (June 17 18th 2022), or 35% of another - 12% down. Some pundits even say sp500 go to 3100s levels.
    Could be lots speculation
    Get out your popcorn and cash/paychecks
    Maybe slowly Dca in, you maybe laughing your ways to the bank if buy soon and hold for 3 yrs
    Have a good wk investing
  • Stock Rover Pointers
    +1.
    Does the charts feature allow mutual funds total return charts to be compared against those of ETFs, CEFs, ETNs, etc?
    Thanks.
  • Pelosi bought lots chips techs last few days
    The speaker [i.e. Pelosi] serves as an example of good ethics - she is not among the "66 members of Congress [enumerated in the cited piece] who have violated a law designed to prevent insider trading".
    It's not the responsibility of the Speaker of the House to introduce legislation. But if you want to hold the Speaker accountable for perceived ineffectiveness of the STOCK act, then look to John Boehner.
    It was under his leadership that the House passed this legislation in 2012. If he really wanted to do something, he would have done more ram through the legislation (417-2 vote) with barely 40 minutes of floor discussion on Feb 9, 2012.
    https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/2038/all-actions
  • Your buy - sells July forward
    Last two weeks: Been taking profits in managed futures, down to ~ 1/3 of the peak allocation. Bought starter or added to ICLN, TAN, MUB, EWT.
    Hmm, Crash, Qatar. Maybe some attention & action from the upcoming World Cup (soccer-futbol, Nov.-Dec)? Not much volume in that iShares etf. Wouldn't hurt to watch, tho.
  • Time is your friend.
    Quite right. But c'mon: $1k per month is a FANTASY for most, anyhow.
  • Time is your friend.
    The power of compounding is huge. Let's assume 10% return per year. Investor X started investing at age 25 $1000 monthly and stopped after 10 years. Investor Y started investing 10 years later, at age 35, investing $1000 monthly for 30 years to age 65.
    Who will have more at age 65?
    Investor X will have a lot more money, investing just 10 years VS 30 years.
  • Pelosi bought lots chips techs last few days
    @FD1000 Sure, and while we're at it, why don't we get corporate money, lobbying and influence out of politics altogether: https://washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/31/business-lobbying-democrats-reconciliation/
    Oh, wait.

    ding. ring that bell.
    Trading stocks should be banned, and especially inside trading. (link) "66 members of Congress have violated a law designed to prevent insider trading and stop conflicts-of-interest....While lawmakers who violate the STOCK Act face a fine, the penalty is usually small — $200 is the standard amount — or waived by House or Senate ethics officials."
    The speaker should be an example for good ethics, if she really wanted to do something, she would have done it. Nothing new, our politicians don't follow the advice they recommend us to do.
  • Time is your friend.
    Other than small position on shorting of S&P500, what else can D&C do on the bond portion of the fund? YTD of D&C Income vs VG Total bond index, is -8.1% vs. -8.8%, respectively. Few variables they can use - credit quality and duration.
    Nevertheless, YTD, D&C balanced fund is ahead of other value-oriented VG Wellington and Oakmark Equity Income, -7.7 vs. -13.7 and -12.3, respectively. Ironically, the balanced fund is slightly ahead of its Stock fund.
  • Stock Rover Pointers
    Stock Rover (SR) Pointers
    There are several Stock Rover (SR) links for Help, FAQs, etc, so I will not try to prepare a “Guide”. Rather, as the SR site is not very user-friendly or intuitive, I will give some POINTERS for new users.
    NAVIGATION is difficult. Some features/functions appear only on relevant pages/tabs. Page FRAMES can be expanded or shrunk – note up-pointing and side-pointing ARROWS; down-pointing arrows only open the MENUS.
    FREE version is very limited. It allows creation of 10 (max) Portfolios and Watchlists but doesn’t allow Table-displays or any analytics. DASHBOARD will show overall summaries including portfolio value, G/L, daily changes; PORTFOLIO right-PANEL (expandable with side-arrow) shows basic portfolio details. If you want to use SR just for QUOTES and CHARTS, the FREE version may be fine.
    CHARTS are not linkable but can be SAVED as images (so, this eliminates taking a screenshot). To POST them elsewhere, use copy-and-paste, site upload/attachment feature or an image hosting site link to share/post.
    WATCHLISTS have tickers only, but PORTFOLIOS have tickers, quantities, purchase prices.
    PORTFOLIO details and analytics are available with PREMIUM and PREMIUM PLUS. Premium has full portfolio functionality, but Premium Plus allows for larger (600 tickers vs 250 tickers) and more (60 vs 25) Portfolios and Watchlists. Premium Plus has many other advanced features. Unfortunately, Essentials doesn’t have much portfolio functionality. So, PREMIUM should be fine for serious portfolio users. https://www.stockrover.com/plans/why-go-premium/
    Portfolios to be IMPORTED should have required Excel columns for tickers, quantities, costs/share. For M* Portfolio (that don’t have these 3 columns present in any tab/view), use Export from Tracking==>Gain/Loss to your PC. Insert a column for Tickers and add tickers (using another M* tab/view or from memory), then IMPORT into SR; Name/Rename (see below). SR Portfolio basically starts fresh from the import date; old transaction history at M* (or elsewhere) will be lost. Multiple Portfolios can be COMBINED.
    For SR-IMPORT, Click PORTFOLIO on the left-menu, make sure that Portfolio HEADING is clicked/highlighted in the main page (down-ARROW will show full Menu), then from the Menu or the right-PANEL, choose CREATE PORTFOLIO. Entries can then be made MANUALLY, or portfolio IMPORTED from Excel (with Tickers, quantities, costs/share columns), or via CONNECTION to selected brokerages (I won't be trying that). Steps are similar for importing a WATCHLIST, but some options shown are different.
    Portfolio TOOLS/Future SIMULATION can be used to conduct SYSTEMATIC WITHDRAWALS/INVESTMENT studies with various other options.
    CASH row can be displayed in Portfolio Table (from Portfolio, EXPAND Portfolio panel to see the option for cash display). ADJUSTING CASH (transactional) is by click on every buy/sell. Fully SOLD positions are not deleted from the record (so that performance calculations remain accurate).
    LAST-CLOSE prices are updated after next market open. This is to properly indicate price change data. (this is unusual as most want complete updates by evening, but SR notes that this would make all changes 0)
    YIELDS are forward yields. FUND YIELDS include CG distributions. Most financial data are for CALENDAR years and for GAAP accounting with applicable RESTATEMENTS. DIVIDENDS are shown as cash and must be reinvested manually. However, Portfolio Analytics does dividend reinvesting internally.
    Standard deviation (SD; 1-yr, 3-yr) is based on DAILY returns and then ANNUALIZED (using sqrt(252) = 15.87 or 16); multiply by 100 to show as %. The SR SD values are much higher than those from M* and Portfolio Visualizer (PV) that use monthly returns. Unfortunately, SR just uses a WEIGHTED-AVERAGE of component SDs for PORTFOLIO SD and that is an overestimation (as it ignores cross-correlations). SUMMARY VALUES in portfolio Tables are also weighted-averages (so, not good for Portfolio MPT data) except for ratios such as P/E, P/B, P/S etc for which harmonic-averages are used. Negative P/Es are replaced by blanks.
    LIMITATIONS
    SR system is POSITIONS-based, not TRANSACTIONS-based. INTRADAY trades are netted for the day; holding SALE prices are closing prices only (default) – so all G/L are approximations.
    Prices are delayed 1-5-15 minutes. Tables and charts REFRESH manually on browser refresh but can be set to Auto-Refresh at 1-5-10 minutes (OFF by default) in Preferences for Premium and Premium Plus.
    LINK
  • Time is your friend.
    @Observant1 - Thanks for posting. Changes hadn’t yet been implemented far as I could tell when I checked the December 2021 report a while back. (But was aware of the S&P short position.)
    That last line … a bit disconcerting … :) / Also a timely reminder, I think, that each of us invests at his / her own risk .
  • Time is your friend.
    @Crash,
    My information source is the DODBX Fund Report published by M* on 06/16/2022.
    A new balanced fund committee took over management of DODBX in May 2022.
    This committee began as a working group following the fund's steep losses during the 2020 bear market.
    In 2021, DODBX no longer had to fully mimic the stock/bond sleeves of DODGX and DODIX respectively.
    International stocks are now included to further diversify the portfolio.
    Other changes include allowing a small S&P 500 short position for protection against market selloffs
    and selling covered-calls on stocks that are perceived to be at/near full value.
    "The increased focus on managing risk is a welcome improvement, but a longer track record
    of execution would increase our confidence that the changes will lead to a smoother ride going forward."

  • Time is your friend.
    "Instead of focusing on finding the next Tesla — not an easy task — the approach that, in my opinion, works best for most people, most of the time, is to construct a sensible, diversified portfolio, and then to give it time to compound."

    I agree and this is what I strive to do.
    This is simple, but not easy.
    Since a vast amount of investing information (both good and bad) is widely available,
    investors may be enticed to execute nonessential trades in order to "outsmart" the markets.
    You hit the nail on the head. And we are certainly living "in interesting times." (@catch22 likes to employ those words.) Do I like being 20% in bonds and up to 73% in equities right now? NO. But in order to be pre-positioned for the recovery after the expected recession, that's what my stash looks like today. That's why I'm down -14% YTD. And bonds have not helped to mitigate such results. .....I'm just watching Wall Street Week. Bob Michele is recommending High Yield bonds. That's my only bond fund: TUHYX. Yes, the yields are VERY attractive. And unfortunately, in my entire investing career, I always find myself "cash-poor." So, I have to do my adding in small dribs and drabs--- apart from a customary first-of-the-year withdrawal from the IRA, annually. But if I'm still down so far when January arrives, that withdrawal will have to be postponed---- because I am able to postpone it. Thankfully, I don't need to do that in order to live.
  • Time is your friend.
    @hank. Great minds think alike. And I track, but do not own, DODBX. I track it because I put a friend's money in that fund. Back in 2010, she and her husband asked me to "husband" their money for them. They are just petrified of the process, the decision-making involved, and simply don't have the interest in doing the learning necessary in order to make prudent, educated choices re: investing. But let us know, please, whatever you find out about D&C's reevaluation regarding DODBX.
  • Time is your friend.
    @Crash. Good points. My comment was directed more at young and middle aged investors. I don’t think either of the following is inconsistent with the advice @Bobpa shared: (1) gradually shifting to a more conservative allocation over the years commensurate with age or (2) allocating a small % of one’s holdings to tactical / speculative gambits - if so inclined. In addition, gradually adjusting one’s portfolio positioning relative to the highly unusual interest rate environment that has evolved in recent years (as many here have done) would seem wise. Even Dodge and Cox is in the process of reviewing / modifying their highly successful Balanced fund (DODBX) - I suspect due to that rate environment.
  • Buffered ETFs: A Comprehensive Guide
    As noted in the excerpted text ("long the province of structured products"), this sounds a bit like old wine in new bottles.
    Buffered ETFs vs Index-Linked Annuities
    There are differences including ETF-specific risks of "suboptimal [management] decisions" and difficulty in handling large cashflows (in or out). On the positive side, these are ETFs, not ETNs. So while they suffer those risks, unlike ETNs (or notes generally) they don't have the same counterparty risks as ETNs or annuities.
    There are investments comparable to index-linked annuities without the annuity wrapper: market-linked CDs and market-linked securities. They come in a wide variety of target indexes and risk profiles.
    https://www.morganstanley.com/structuredinvestments/docs/marketingmaterials/Introduction_to_Structured_Investments.pdf