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Baron has in general run very good funds and has been able to attract and keep good employees
I am kinda surprised the SEC lets him get away with it in a fund under the 1940s law. I haven't read the law specifically but I thought it required "diver…
@hank
I don't see DFND on Simplify website and M* says is from SRN advisors.
Simplify has many hedged ETFs but their descriptions of what they are designed to do is rather vague unless you understand options better than I do.
Bassman is quite …
I have a chunk of my daughter's account in BPTRX since 2003. Needless to say she thinks I am a genius, although her suggestions to buy APPL and AMZN in 2012 and 2014 have actually done better.
We have been cutting back. I think APPL and AMZN are …
Well, just to F/U. To fix issue we called Vanguard, got a rep within 5 min, but she couldn't fix it so sent us to Transfers department, waited on hold for 20 min. They had to call somebody else to remove hold on account, then transferred us to brok…
This is a Vanguard Treasury Money Market. I am sure it cannot be held at Fidelity, but I am stuck in limbo, because Vanguard online will still not let me sell it, nor have they responded to my two daily messages, going on day three now.
Will have …
It will matter a lot more when interest rates on the debt go up, as that bill has to be paid every year.
China is in almost as bad a situation as US re total debt vs GDP, unless you think they can grow their GDP faster. The lack of rule of law in …
I agree VWINX is a conservative choice that has been hard to beat, but with stocks at an all time high (VWINX PE is 15) and interest rates so low ( VWINX duration is 8) , both of these allocations may be bad places to be in the near future. In the p…
I have fiddled around with L?S funds off and on for years, but never had much success. I usually sell them if they loose 10 to 15%
LSOFX did pretty well last year and is more consistent
David reviewed LSOFX a couple of years ago
https://www.mutua…
noteSimplify could do a much better job of detailing how their various ETFs are designed to work.
The article I quoted above is here
https://www.barrons.com/articles/option-etfs-51630661401?mod=md_funds_news
But weirdly, the current online ver…
SPD is one of the new Simplify ETFs with complicated strategies. The web page has little information but the theory should work and is very quantitatively documented. I have not tried calling them to get a little better description of potential up…
Much more information on PFIX is available from it's creator, Harvery Bassman, whose commentaries and musings on interest rates, money creation and the economy are really worth reading in detail.
https://www.convexitymaven.com/
He has a very enter…
I would rather use ETFs unleveraged such as SH as you can set stop losses so don't loose your shirt.
while it doesn't make sense to use them in Retirement account as there are no capital gains, in a taxable account they can protect you from gen…
I have had sig Commodities esp energy since last year's oil crash. A lot of the ETFs are too heavy in Oil to be a diversifier, so I added DBA for agriculture and GMET for "green metals" REMX for "strategic metals"
For broad based funds, I still …
I have owned VTMFX for several years and think it is a "file away and forget it" fund, although I am not sure it is really "defensive"
1) it is 50% equities and 14% FAANG and their sibs. A day like today with the Nasdaq down 3% will hit this fund …
I appreciate all the hard work and thought that you have put into this, but I am always leery of any "System" that claims a better return based on publicly available data.
If rotating thru sectors based on an idea of "where" the economy is works so…
I too am perplexed by positioning in my fixed income sector. I planned for higher interest rates in 2021, and shortened duration. But the shortest stuff JCPB,VUSB, loss money ( although not much, but I would have been better off in cash) and core …
Will read the article but it is a rather odd title. I was alive in 1970-1981 when the federal funds rate hit what? 12 14%? My first mortgage in 1984 was at 11.5%
Somehow all the humans I knew then seemed pretty ingenuous.
It is complicated. I am not sure why there is so much focus on the "4%" rule when the IRS forces people over 75 to remove 4.07% of your retirement accounts. By 80 it is up to almost 5%.
While I am irritated by a lot of the smugness at American As…
That is the only site I know of, but doesn't really tell you all of what you would like to know.
I saw LLPFX jumped up 8% in a week recently, and even though it has less than 30 positions, without looking up each one, I could not figure out why.
…
Update.
There are still bugs. The double entry accounting persists, but is a minor irritant as one line is just blank. Most of my Schwab transactions download, but several from over a week ago are missing. Why who knows? The only way I knew was I …
Same thing here. The download continues to work, but all of the dividend and cap gains reinvestments are labled "bought" and there is a separate line with a transaction labeled "ReinvestInt" for int, st div, st and lt cap gains.
On my Schwab accoun…
I have been lucky in that when I re-established my download capability, all the transactions came through OK. A lot of people on the Quicken discussion boards report the same problem though. Look for "Schwab CC_501 Loop" or other Schwab transaction…
Interesting and useful discussion.
there are a lot of option hedged vehicles available. I have been satisfied with JHQAX and GATEX; both are close in preformance.
Simplify Asset management has a number of relatively new option based ETFs that clo…
If people are interested I seem to have fixed the Quicken issue using @gsundel suggestions on the Quicken Community board.
IT is lengthy but in sum
deactivate all your Schwab accounts, especially hidden ones. Then Erase the account numbers and f…
Both of the lawyers I talked to over several years, told me that 401ks are protected, but did not mention contributory IRAs are more vulnerable.
An Umbrella policy increases the liability limit on your current homeowner's and auto insurance. Good t…
Even worse, I deactivated another account that I had previously linked the "Schwab Bank Investor C".
Still CC-501 error with "Schwab & Co" and as with the other account I can link it to "Investor -C" but the account is not listed in the "link …
Unfortunately, I just tried to re activate my deactivated account to link to "Schwab & Co" and I got the cc 501 error again. I do not sync my accounts to Quicken on the web so cannot "reset" my cloud account
Nothing has changed in over a week.
They did require a new POA. I know this because when we switched my wife's mutual fund account to a brokerage account, the full POA I had on the account is now just a limited POA. Her other accounts remain full.
I am sorry but I can't remember if w…
From personal experience, POA does not transfer. Nor will most brokerages accept a POA form from you lawyer. You usually have to fill out their specific form, usually notarized.
As platinum and palladium have fallen, other rare minerals are up.
REMX up 78% this year GMET has exposure to "green medals" used in EVs.
What vehicle are you using for platinum and palladium?
@MikeM
The easy metric I have seen used on cash returns is to subtract the current "Rate" of inflation ( 4 to 6% ??) from the 0.001% most money markets pay and say you loose that every year in cash.
This is really only true if your spending and e…
It is a little easier to follow an account with several mutual funds than individual mutual fund numbers. Easier to add more money too
We converted funds to brokerage account without any issues.
I used 2021 B premiums.
Here is link to 2022 data
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2022-medicare-parts-b-premiums-and-deductibles2022-medicare-part-d-income-related-monthly-adjustment
2022 basic B is $170/mo First step up at same AGI i…
The info on brackets I have are ( MFJ vs Single)
zero IRMAA under $176,000 $88,000
$59 /mo/person $176,000 to $222,000 $88,000 to $111,000
$148.50/mo/person $222,000 to $276,000 $111,000 to $138,000
There is a great $4 book ( Amazo…
I have joined carew338 in abandoning Vanguard for anything other than their funds that are unique are Admiral class or that I have a large capital gain in.
Their systems are slow, clunky and full of restrictions that "Mommie" Vanguard claims are n…
@ Hank
Does it matters what you convert, if you can always buy or sell anything in either account tax free?
Once you have the capital in a Roth, I agree it should be probably devoted to more risky, long term investments.
Converting before you are…
The 12/3 support steps are nonsense in my experience. They do not work. I have sent information specifically to Quicken reps about the issues, at their request, but they have not fixed anything yet and there are worse stories than mine on their boa…
