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.
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…
Edmund's got a good point - BOND does look like a global fund these days. It looked much more like a conventional IT-TR bond fund when I owned it in 2012-13.
Cef's are complex and at times volatile investments that deserve a lot of study prior to diving in with more than a few test bucks (a tutorial, lots of reading at the M* CEF forum and the buy-sell thread under the M* Fidelity forum, etc.).
Just fo…
Crash, that's the first I've heard of PRSNX in a while ... owned it once, right out of its gate, when I had quite a bit of $ with Price. It was known as Strategic Income then; did they change the investment strategy, or just the name? Looks about mi…
I guess time will tell how AF's overweight to Latin America will work out, especially the ~ 2.5x weighting of Brazil. May have to wait a while for the upside.
Yes to junk munis, and junk mortgages have done pretty well too. And, for the last 3 months or so, so have less corporate-junky bond cef's and some of the US$-denominated EM debt universe.
Personally I am glad to be ... in ASHIX albiet it's has a bit of a rough past month.
Mona
Yep, I noticed that like several other high-yieldy funds, they bought into battered energy really early, from a couple of percent to 9% in one swell foop. Du…
Mona: "I am still trying to understand why all the ink on MFO on RSIVX and not a drop on ASHIX ...."
Hi Mona, the Allianz fund is mentioned in this thread, and a few others. Search on ASHDX to find them, as that seems to be the share class people h…
Is the MFO Premium membership really tax-deductible if we are getting something for it (access to search tools)? How does that work?
Good question. For donations to non-profits that publish a magazine, say, or put on charitable dinner events, you h…
