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.
Reply to @Investor: "Stable value funds typically hold insurance contracts." not quite. Stable value funds hold mostly short to medium term high grade securities. the funds have an insurance wrapper guaranteeing that the investors will receive their…
also owned JRO, VVR and JQC in the past. JQC, with a relatively modest premium after the divvy cut, looks like a re-entry candidate. i am however relying on multi-strat income funds to allocate for me to floaters... those like BGH and /or PDI. fl…
Reply to @bee: "The opportunity exists in the fact that higher yielding (often older issued HY debt) will appreciate as lower yielding issues come to market and compete for investor dollars. " That's exactly to which i responded. this has happened …
HY is overpriced. The FT article today is even more direct. You have a record number of CCC issuers coming to the market at yields below 7% (S&P assigns CCC to a company with a 50% chance of default). Pure supply and demand. There is a huge d…
Reply to @andrei: 2000 was a top of the tech bubble and S&P had a lot of that... this is one very piculiar period for comparisons. i wouldn't draw much from it.
hi Puck, please re-characterize this as 'off-topic' from the 'fund discussions'. to answer your question, the brick and mortar costs much more money - real estate, salaries, benefits, etc. the virtual is much cheaper, hence the difference in rates…
Reply to @ron: leave the balance in cash for now. wait for 10 yr rates to hit around 2% before adding to fixed income. this happened several times during the recovery. just a suggestion of course.
don't follow anything on TV, but check Bloomberg and WSJ websites several times a day. also, committed to reading certain institutional weekly research, specifically on relative attractiveness of different asset classes. read everying i can find r…
about 23% of the total in PTLDX, and various state-specific muni fund (open and closed-end); about 14% is in credit -- high yield, loans, mortgages, asset-backs, EMD, etc); i also have the CPI+ bucket, which (at 10% of the total) contains TIPs among…
Reply to @AndyJ: NAVs on PDI, DMO, JMT and JLS went up more than 1% yesterday - outperforming the respective share prices. some mortgages got marked up apparently.
Reply to @Charles: 4 houses in our vicinity were snached up within days of going to the market. all at or around market prices and some with multiple offers. my only observation is that these are fairly cheap for the area, so they make decent start…
if you are looking at a specific CEF, check out the z-score on morning* or 'pricing' tab on CEFconnect.com (again, for a specific name).
You'll find, as should be expected, that equity cef's are priced relatively high (discounts are lower) while fi…
this commentary, while issued today, reflect data as of 2/28 and speaks nothing of the carnage that munis experienced in march. it is too outdated to be useful.
thanks, TheShadow, as always for your understated and helpful reporting. as a result, i expect to maintain some sanity when my vanguard healthcare fund drops $4 on monday.
i know you despise volatility of the closed end fund universe. however, nuveen-symphony managed JRO, JQC and JSD killed NFRIX on YTD and since inception basis. oh, the magic of leverage and investor greed! (and fear, like today.)
Reply to @Hiyield007: nope. most floaters have a floor nowadays; they need a jump in rates of 4% or so to start reinvesting higher. HY is partially correlated to equities and short term high yield will get you where you need to go just like the floa…
@jerry: If you pick a TRP fund in your rollover IRA that you might be better off with the 2010 or even the 2005 fund as the asset allocation would be more in line with your risk tolerance.
2005, 2010 and income fund have all now converged. at the e…
i exited MPEGX in the fall after over 4 year of successful investing -- for the single reason of them buying and holding GRPN all the way down. it seems that their growth team has lots of clout with the investment bank and gets on all hot IPOs. I a…
Reply to @BenWP: from the linked article:
"For example, his mutual fund owns shares of Alpine Total Dynamic Dividend Fund (AOD +0.25%, news), a closed-end stock fund that trades at a 13% discount to its NAV, compared with an average discount of abou…
i would think so are many other financials.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/catalysts-leading-major-financials-back-to-52-week-and-multi-year-highs-2013-02-12
Reply to @kevindow: done. thanks Kevin for the encouragement. any opinion on ETF? it is under a proxy vote to change its investment mandate from mostly EM communication to a smaller cap frontierier offering...
it is with a bleeding heart that i put a TF order at Fido for AEMSX. i am basically paying 50 bps for this thingy to replace MGEMX that i held for many years. i hope the Aberdeen magic continues so that the decision pays off long term. if anyone ha…
I would think that having a chunk in Stable Value is a good idea. It is in effect a very short maturity bond fund with an insurance wrapper on top. if you're are 60/40 now and are going to sell 10% of equity to be more concervative (which makes to…
Reply to @Jim0445: you might want to start a new discusson on this and leave this one for skeeter and his responses. i would respond in a separate threat.
this is easy, right? when they traded below par and at large spreads to treasuries, they traded more like risk assets and went up when equity went up. now that they are priced at record low spread to treasuries and often above par, guess what? they …
