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.
Seems to me to tend to the slightly less risky, based on my uninformed historical lookbacks and comparisons. (How's that for handwaving?) Its past performance looks not bad when it comes to slumps (bond portion w Gundlach sauce), and its general out…
Herro's guru status has always puzzled me. OAKEX has seemed like a so-so offering from an otherwise great shop, whose performance always seems to be overlooked when Herro is trotted out to do an interview somewhere.
+1. I think (and the charts show…
Another vote for StockCharts here. But actually, M* charts are nothing to sneeze at if fairly basic data is what you're after. Have to be careful with etf's and cef's using M*, but for oef's, it's decent and intuitive how it works.
AndyJ do you ever venture into the preferred? I normally stick with the open end junk munis or junk corporates whichever is trending. But am buying some NPSRX today. CPRRX is the master of that domain but I prefer the funds where the dividends ac…
P.S. I'll try to remember to call 'em tomorrow and see what they say. I've talked to an analyst or manager there twice but can't recall if the IG-junk breakout was a topic.
Did so, nobody was available from the MF team, so I was asked to e-mail a de…
Good point; you're right that it's an assumption. I'd forgotten that it was one that I made early on, but it's made so much sense over the ~ two years I've owned it that I've obviously started treating it as fact.
The mortgages are non-agency, whi…
PTIAX is my largest bond fund holding. The strategy is barbelling IG munis against below-IG non-agency mortgages: good yield, not tax-exempt, with a slight tendency toward rate sensitivity most of the time. A few months ago they lowered the muni per…
Hi Junkster, I had good reason today to regret the buy in the short junk cef, but luckily I hadn't added to it. If it doesn't gain tomorrow, it's gone. The notorious Pimco taxable cef's got blasted; the ones I checked are down by well over 2%, one d…
ECRI looked beneath the surface of the headline jobs numbers and sees them more or less like Art C. does: they're apparently distorted by multiple job holders landing more part-time work.
Not equities, for me anyway, at least yet. This drop is looking like a possible test of the August low to this kid, and that's 70+ points lower on the S&P 500 from here. EEM broke below its longer term trend yesterday, too.
Ended up selling two muni cef's today. They've gone parabolic in the last couple of weeks, up to a 10% total return for 4 months, can't keep that up. Nibbling now at a short duration junk corp/mortgage cef that's picked up some momentum lately.
willmatt, there are dozens of muni cef's, many of them with portfolios that are very much alike. I've got about fifteen on a watchlist to keep track, off and on, of what's in reasonable premium/discount territory. wxman's MMU is on it, along with se…
To willmatt's original question, which seems like a good discussion topic, here's ~ 2.03 inflation-adjusted cents' worth from this house.
For now, sticking with moderately significant changes made in mid-2015, which consisted of (1) reducing equity…
Nice metaphor extension from a fellow named Mark Yusko of Morgan Creek Capital Management: "Trying to catch falling knives always results in lost fingers… Better to let the knife hit the floor, bounce around a little, and when it stops moving, go pi…
@ BobC, don't forget about OSMAX (I have the Inst. version), it's been my winner this year.
Foreign mid-cap growth funds had a great 2015 (OSMAX, AOPAX, PRIDX, etc.) ... so great, that those with the highest P/E's might be ripe for a stallout. (Same…
Scott brought up RIMIX many moons back, and I've followed it but not invested. Right, it's been pretty much an Asia fund, which puts it a leg up versus funds with stakes in Latin America (esp'ly Brazil). I'd compare it more to Matthews and other Asi…
Hi Junkster, right, you have to wonder when and how these current trends are going to break. If I knew of a good HY oef with low/no oil & gas, I'd be watching to put some $ into it, but I don't know of any, so I'm watching and once in a while di…
Fixed income cef's with low/no junk corporates, and munis of the lower IG/non-IG persuasion have beaten the S&P 500 pretty handily. Many muni, preferred, and mortgage-heavy cef's are up roughly in the range of 6-12% (some even better), and HY mu…
TSP, thanks, HASI looks interesting. The financing side of renewables is definitely cranking up. "Yieldcos" have been in the news lately too, sort of the MLPs of the alt energy world.
thanks....but as a group, these seem not worthy of a wager. Sounded like a good idea at the time though.
I think it'll be better for MF investing when more broad-based funds start taking normal positions in a few renewables companies as part of a mo…
All the pure plays are pretty volatile - the ups and downs have been a fact of life to this point. I've owned a tiny bit of NEXTX for a while - the theme is "new economy," including renewables - and I've bought and sold some QCLN and ICLN a time or …
As a former brokerage account holder there, I'd say Vanguard's highest and best use is as a spot for holding a low-maintenance portfolio (or sub-portfolio) of Vanguard funds, and that's it. I agree with larry and little5 that the V. customer service…
At Fidelity, there is a $2,500 initial buy for AQR, but it's only in retirement accounts. (Bitzer, the Fees and Distributions page for a fund is the place to look at Fido for the details on cost & purchase minimums - the Summary page is the abbr…
The Fed has talked this one up, so it'd be surprising if they don't move now.
But all the blather about it over the past years is coming mainly from the financial press, most of whom have never had any idea what they're talking about.
J, I'd call that protecting accumulated profits, and I have my own reasons for wanting to call it that - this week, for selling DBL as it started heading into serious premium-land and then watching it get more and more serious for days afterward.
S…
The only active bets I'm making right now in any asset class/sector (other than the ones the managers I've hired are doing for me) are short commodity energy equity and high yield corporate FI, zero commodities, and overweight FI non-agency mortgage…
MUB, though, was up, and on greater than avg. volume, but nothing like the HYD volume anomaly (if Yahoo & M* are correct). Something specific to HY munis, about, say, private activity bonds or Puerto Rico? Tax selling after Monday's dividend pay…
True, msf, though the fund reports aren't much to write home about, they do sometimes point out a wrinkle or two you wouldn't know from the parent co.'s material. Like just about everything, it takes a grain (or a bucket) of salt to get down to the …
For me, numero uno of the specific features by far is the premium portfolio info for oef's, etf's, cef's. Without that, I wouldn't pay for the rest of the features.
Otherwise, I occasionally use fund analyst reports (more value there for etf's, for…
Bitzer, imho, the best shot at figuring out why an MF fund loses or gains a ton on a given day/week is to look at the last portfolio data disclosure and see if the long and short exposures explain it. But of course the disclosures are infrequent and…
Some cef's are thinly traded, some aren't, pretty much the same principle as goes for the universe of etf's. For sure, check the trading volume and the spreads between bid and ask for both cef's and etf's.
Another caution: cef's employ leverage, so…
Vert makes a good point about earned income. Another reason to keep up on earnings is that a blip on that score can be a signal to cef traders to sell-sell-sell, which will drive down the price (which can be a buying opportunity, or not, as with any…
