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.
@derf
I was at the VA until 1997. There are some very good VAs especially in the South where many Vets move when they retire.
Since 1997 the VA budget has increased dramatically from all the post 9/11 vets flooding into the system.
The problem…
@LB
You sound a lot like Karl Marx, not that he wasn't a genius!
The other issue is how rigged the system is ( Now I sound like TFG...UGH) in favor of big corporations and the uber wealthy. "Corporate Welfare" doesn't begin to cover the control th…
Bloomberg has a great piece by Matt Levine pointing out that the debt ceiling applies only to the principal of the bonds not the interest. So it would be easy to get around the limit by selling bonds with high interest for a premium, which is entir…
@Observant1
Several political blogs questioned why Santos's opponents campaign or the national Dems couldn't find stuff that the NYT easily uncovered. I looked into it a bit and found the research paper the Democrats wrote on Santos. ( If anyone i…
Sure a plaintiff can go after anything but these lawyers work on contingency so are likely to take cases they have a chance of winning. I think it would be very unusual to see a judgement of millions of dollars from an auto accident, unless it was …
Anytime. I am paranoid and have a policy since I got married. As soon as you have any assets ( and anyone with a house qualifies, given most real estate markets now) you could be a target. Doesn't happen very often; I cannot say I have ever heard o…
Very important points. I have heard of folks already being a bit leery of Florida and especially Miami Muni bonds, for example, and utilities in states like California. PGE is a good example.
It is hard to predict the impact of global warming …
One suggestion often overlooked is additional "umbrella insurance" for your homeowners and auto policy. $5,000,000 coverage is fairly cheap and will cover a judgement for an automobile accident or something at your house.
The data on "fixing the dirtiest" is fascinating. I also heard today that the author (a Forbes employee) of a book about the meat industry "Raw Deal " calculates that if "plant based meat" and beyond meat etc reached 15% the same penetration of…
Ah the eternal debate, almost as eternal as Sox vs Yankees
I think there are far more academic stories on this issue than the ones he refers to.
The plan suggested
"Another alternative is to rebalance only when your portfolio’s losing assets a…
@LewisBraham
for future reference
https://www.usdebtclock.org/# ( has a separate clock for each state)
Also lists Medicare and Social security deficit, but I am unsure where those numbers come from.
While this is a bit off topic, the debt bu…
@crash
My fav is Lagavulin, but I will choke down McCallan if I have to.
Unfortunately, since Covid I have had to, as I can't find Lagavulin 16 anywhere
@Staycalm
Useful philosophical musings, but I have rarely seen concern for fairness in any policy making. There are many examples on both the right and the left. Lefties point to the tax structure etc but my favorite still has is the outrageous …
Thanks to OJ, I bought a small amount of ASML, but now wonder if it has gone too far too fast. The money pouring into new fabs will flood the chip market. I assume the fab companies have already put their ASML orders in and they are reflected in sto…
I seems to me, although I haven’t looked at the 50 year chart that the major advantage this portfolio has is avoiding the two “lost decades”
“The key thing about AANA is that in 50 years it has never had a lost decade. Whether the 1970s or the 200…
Thanks for charts YBB and catch22
I have not had the patience to read the entire 55 page House resolution that apparently has to be passed Monday for the HR to open, but as I understand it, it is the source of the power and obstruction that the rad…
I think 2023 will be very trying and full of ups and mostly downs, due to persistent inflation.
Consequently, I am not increasing equity exposure, except maybe to Deep Value funds like PVCMX where I can count on the manger not being fully invested.…
@derf Thanks for npr post. While technically a "default", forgetting to cut the checks is somewhat different than refusing to pass legislation that allows the Government to borrow the money needed to continuing to function. Note however that even…
Goldman Sachs has a long detailed analysis of the thinking behind GCEBX
https://www.gsam.com/content/dam/gsam/pdfs/us/en/fund-resources/other-reporting/GS_Clean_Energy_Income_Fund_Overview.pdf?sa=n&rd=n
that is worth reading. They have a sign…
@LewisBraham
Probably for the same reason someone would believe that the US should default on it's debt, eliminate Social Security and Medicare, require five year reenactment of all federal legislation and firing and re-hiring of all federal empl…
I assume that a fair number of people deposited their Bitcoin at SI assuming they would easily turn it into cash when they wanted to. The cash would be FDIC insured, but when everyone ran for the door at the same time their Bitcoin was worth a lot l…
SI ( down 48% today ) and COIN both crashed today as it turns out SI was unloading assets at fire sale prices to raise cash to pay withdrawals, that I would think was to avoid going bankrupt. WSJ reports that SI unloaded massive amount of debt it ow…
Thanks for reminding me of As you sow and fossilfreefunds and Climateaction100.org
The latter’s report on NEE is rather unclear. I also think that you have to avoid being too much of a purist. While NEE may still have a significant carbon footprint…
Thanks for all the useful information
@msf
NALFX available at Schwab without a load.
NEE has an enormous portfolio of renewable energy so it can really not be considered as fossil fuel dependent as other utilities.
I have not found ESG calculati…
@LewisBraham
I have owned FPNIX for years but lightened up last year as they lost money.
Does the large exposure to asset backed securities based on automobile loans bother you? If we hit a serious recession a lot of these are going down. Obviousl…
@yogibearbull
For example the YTM on TIPS maturing 1/2028 is 1.697 at Schwab. That is the YTM received after paying original price plus accumulated inflation adjustment, correct? (For this particular example, I can't see the actual accumulated ad…
When I looked at buying TIPS in secondary market, there was a large additional principle payment attached to the price. Is this the recompense to the original owner for the added principle as inflation rises?
It was hard to figure out what the ac…
@yogibearbull
Thanks for the correction. The PE of VWINX is still pretty close to SP500 at 13.5 but M* has in in Large Value. Probably correct but not deep value
I sold my VWINX in 2021 bothered by the duration. I am unsure why the managers did not reduce the duration going into 2022 given the likelihood that interest rates would spike. I have to assume that they felt many of their customers wanted income b…
It did not really take much doing. I just filed a complaint with the SEC with the details like Ticker symbol, share amounts, price change etc. IT took about ten minutes.
I had a similar thing happen several years ago but for only 20 or 30 busks dif…
Count yourself lucky. We lost a large amount of money on our house in CT 1987 to 2020. We got about $50,000 more than we paid for it but in the 30 years we redid two BRs, kitchen, all the windows, new roof, finished the basement, new deck and sunroo…
I tend to agree with LB that TSLA does have an advantage over GM F etc that have to retrofit all of their manufacturing, but both have made projections of meeting these goals in the relatively near future.
M* has the fair value of all three near do…
Bloomberg says CEO said
"If you took our crews, we have a lot moving all over the country. If they get reassigned, someone needs to call them or chase them down in the airport and tell them.”
Really?? in 2022? guess they dont have cell phones!!!
Musk seems to be going after Fauci again too, if I read the timing ( 13 hours ago) correctly. Is retweeting a 2021 article. Why is this news?
I think he is seriously mentally ill. At least other corporate executives who destroyed their companies (W…
When operations are normal, flights arrive pretty much on time and where they are supposed to so they can assume a crew is available there. With massive cancelations, I think unless they track the crews specifically they have no idea of who is where
