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.
I responded further to your post in the other thread in yet more rambling detail, but I thought you (or others) may find this video on some of the things you've discussed interesting and a bit moving (occasionally a few laughs) at times. It's very m…
Reply to @Old_Joe: "My point is that NONE of these geniuses seem to acknowledge that we now have a major permanent systemic unemployment problem due to the mismatch in worker intelligence, education, native technological ability and skill sets."
Th…
Reply to @CathyG: PAUDX was down around 7% in 2008, and while past results are not indicative necessarily of future returns, PAUDX is less aggressive than its sister fund, Pimco All Asset, which cannot short.
Manager Rob Arnott is highly regarded, …
Reply to @hank: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/investors-nostalgic-logical-markets-boycott-new-centrally-planned-normal
"Question: If interest rates rise, what will typically happen to bond prices? Only 21% of the 2009 FINRA National Financial Capab…
A few different views.
One: you have governments that seem to be trying to attempt anything to stop the possibility of recession, which, while not pleasant, is part of the flow of the business cycle. You have a QE program that is open-ended, and co…
I'll sort of bounce around with a response. It's not too early to write a lengthy response, but it's a little early to write an organized one.
In terms of smartphones, people always have gone on and on about how "Best Buy is a showroom for Amazon" …
Reply to @CaryRaleigh: Not an apples-to-apples comparison, but Whitebox Tactical Opportunities is an aggressive allocation fund is that is heavily in cash and also has the flexibility to short and invest in various fixed income securities (although…
Reply to @hank: Maybe not baseball cards. Did that industry ever get ruined. Yeesh.
"Absolutely! We're not talking about a all expense paid stay in Maui here."
Yeah, that's all I'm saying - the fact that this is not a free lunch (although the Mau…
Reply to @Old_Joe: It's a little unfortunate (although pretty surprising) though, and really speaks to what I was talking about the other week, regarding financial education as a requirement at the high school level.
The Pimco fund (as well as a lot of the derivatives-based stock funds from Pimco) has had a history of enormous distributions at times, but they are not likely to be consistent. There was one last December (I believe) that was about 11%. Some discus…
Reply to @hank: "Fedspeak from couple other members this week suggests this Q could go on indefinitely"
Open-ended QE. $40B monthly of MBS. If that does not work, size and other assets can be considered.
You're going to have rolling short coveri…
Reply to @Old_Joe: AQR funds initially were $5K minimum and open to retail investors. Not that long (I forget the time period, but it had to be less than a year?) after the minimum was raised to $1M and the funds were then primarily geared towards …
Reply to @Old_Joe: "Imports as a share of US oil consumption dropped to 44.8 per cent, the lowest proportion since 1995, down from a peak of 60.3 per cent in 2005.
The US remains the world’s largest oil importer by far and is still exposed to the i…
Reply to @Investor: I'm not going to go do a city-by-city comparison, but let's say that prices at the pump are not that far from 2008 levels in many areas. (although the St Louis Fed/AAA said prices at the pump during the third week of August this …
Yeah, if I was going for energy in general, I like SMF, which has the ability to hedge. The Tortoise and Kayne Anderson funds you mention above are also very good (as I think most of the offerings from both are - TTO is particularly unusual in that …
Thank you bee for your comments and charts. The Integrity fund is pretty interesting.
My view with DWEIX (and maybe ENY, but I haven't gone there yet - ENY is the Canadian Energy Income ETF - that has, to use an oil term, tanked - but has started t…
I agree with Bee entirely. I also strongly questioned the appeal of Sears when it was over $100. Even if it gains from being broken up or other plans, I strongly doubt it'll ever see those levels again. From the article - "Sears does just enough, s…
Elsewhere: "Chinese banks and companies looking to seize steel pledged as collateral by firms that have defaulted on loans are making an uncomfortable discovery: the metal was never in the warehouses in the first place." (http://www.reuters.com/arti…
The Hodges funds are aggressive and really for those who have a high risk tolerance - they got creamed in 2008. As I noted with some threads discussing Mairs and Power Small Cap, personally, I'd rather suggest looking for sectors/funds that haven't …
Reply to @catch22: "If we can average 8% per year going forward, after inflation and taxes; we may be slightly ahead of the curve for purchasing power going forward. "
Sierra Core (SIRIX) actually has 8% total return yearly as a goal, and it is a f…
If it's the ETF, it's a fund-of-resource (both commodity stocks and commodities)/hard asset/inflation-related-etfs (holdings - https://www.spdrs.com/product/fund.seam?ticker=RLY)
I think I agree with both Skeeter and fundalarm. Skeeter is being disciplined and working off a very solid plan as to how to allocate and move in/out of investments, paying attention to fundamentals and levels. I find his posts incredibly informativ…
Reply to @Charles: "None of the critics of current fiscal policy seem to be pointing that out"
No one will argue that the stock market has gone up a lot. It's also no surprise that that has happened when a historic amount of liquidity has been thro…
Thank you so much for your comments, they're greatly appreciated. I don't really want to share the entire portfolio and haven't, because I think one:) It's really a very eccentric portfolio and has risks that I think are beyond or much beyond what I…
Reply to @ron: He's actually still around, consulting with Pimco and Paulson and talking about things on CNBC as if he had nothing to do with the problems he sees. Of course, CNBC being CNBC, the questions are as softball as something one of the anc…
Reply to @catch22: I believe Krugman's exact words were that it needed to be "more stronger". When this does not work, he will say, "See, needed to be more stronger." And on and on...
And when that doesn't work, he'll wonder why we didn't spend mon…
Reply to @Skeeter: Etrade is excellent for research and reasonably good in terms of fund selection. Reasonable TF fees and 90 day holding period for NTF. However, their customer service is mixed at best and irritating at worst. Ameritrade has (in m…
"You can debate the long term consequences, but unless seriously short the market, you gotta love the action."
No, there are a fair amount of people who aren't going to debate any sort of long-term consequences, because there are people who act lik…
Reply to @Old_Joe: If you're short, you're covering (or at least I'd guess it would be a decent idea for most who are) because I doubt many will want to short into open-ended money printing. I'd guess a fair amount of the move is short covering.
…
As I noted in another thread, I think this is going to be the moment where you start to see money trickle back into equity funds. If not, and people just regard this as another opportunity to sell equity funds and buy fixed income, then I give up - …
Reply to @Skeeter: Skeeter, thanks so much for your detailed thoughts - they are always greatly appreciated and, once again, I find them quite interesting. I thought by spiff equity position (I've done similar at times, although my label was "satell…
Reply to @Old_Joe: "The propping up of the market is going to continue until it doesn't."
So, what you would be appear to be saying is that yet another bubble is being created. That said, how do you think this period of propping up ends - in an inf…
