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.
Second the recommendation for Schwab. Consolidation has made things a lot easier. Short term trading fee is not an issue for me, as I tend to buy mutual funds with a longer term view anyway. For short-term trading I use ETFs.
Same here. I was tempted to buy some IVV couple of days back, as the momentum was beginning to change, but the volume was petering out as it approached a resistance. I was ready to pull the trigger if it broke the resistance with good volume. Stil…
My trend-following portfolio is still 100% in BOND (since end of April). IEF and TIP have since shown a little more strength, but I am happy with the parking place. This switch has saved me a ton of money. So far so good. Let's see how it works…
I believe Schwab reinvests dividends for stocks too, but not 100% sure. $8.95/trade. They also have one of the most (if not the most) number of NTF mutual funds. I used to be at WellsTrade, but have since switched to Schwab and have been very hap…
I use Firefox and Chrome. The main advantage of FireFox (and to some extent Chrome) is various add-ons that you can use. Some addons that I like are Adblock to block most ads, Noscript to block scripts running without your knowledge, Zotero to man…
I have and like HDV. It does not have a long history, but since inception a little less than a year back, it has done better than all the above recommendations. Only time will tell how it will do long term.
Reply to @catch22: Smart ones know what they don't know, so I count you among them :-). I follow only a few indicators to make my decisions (one, three, six month relative returns, volatility, couple of moving averages) and try not to get distracte…
Reply to @catch22: Not exactly relative strength. It is a form of looking at extremes of market breadth. The challenge I find with such systems is that extremes can stay in that zone for a while and test your patience. Trend following is a bit ea…
Reply to @perpetual_Bull:
Last year I had invited some input from the board about dividend funds and finally zeroed in on the iShares ETF HDV. It is based on Morningstar Dividend Yield Focus Index, So far I have been quite happy with the perform…
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue and others: Thanks Ken. I do realize that I may be chasing returns and switching unnecessarily. That was one of the factors why I was not completely sure about switching to ARTGX, as it does not have a longer history…
Reply to @Tony: Good for you. I used to trade on short-term signals, but have since settled on a longer term to minimize whip-saw and reduce trading frequency. These days, I look at the charts only on weekends for a few minutes.
The S&P has dropped below 50 day moving average and I will lighten up on my positions in my tax-sheltered trading account. My momentum signals still have not signaled a switch, so I would not get out completely.
I agree, a correction is overdue, but let the market trend be your friend. Holding on to IJR and IVV in my trend-following portion of my portfolio (about 40% of my total).
This is a small correction (so far) of about 2-3% from short-term top for the S&P500. The uptrend is still intact. We are still comfortably above the 50 day and 200 day averages. Of course, there is a correction due, but no one can predict whe…
I agree that we should keep the Off-Topic posts, with a gentle warning (followed by action if needed) to waaay off-topic posts, left to the discretion of the moderator. Those who don't want to read can choose not do so. OT posts are a dual-edge sw…
Reply to @Anonymous:
If you have funds/stocks/ETFs in your WellsTrade account, you would need to sell, which can incur taxes. I don't think they have a fee to transfer cash between different WellsFargo accounts. You can ask.
Reply to @claimui:
I did own BRSIX for a short time, but I think IWC is equivalent,
or marginally better considering the expenses. Have any of the Bridgeway funds beaten their benchmarks? I respect their ethics, commitment to investors and unique…
Reply to @Heathbob: As with all funds, I will keep an eye on performance and the primary reason I have it my portfolio (global small-cap exposure). If that changes, I will switch funds, but not before. GPGOX performance so far is almost identical …
Try etfreplay.com. They have reduced their free content, but it is still useful. They rank high-volume ETFs by returns and volatility. There is also a charting feature.
If you just need performance results for a handful of ETFs, you can use Morn…
You should also take a look at WAGOX. Bought it couple of years back and have been happy with it. I know about the manager movement to GPGOX, but Wasatch is a good shop for small-cap. I just wish their expenses were a bit lower.
Reply to @MaxBialystock:
I second your praise for msf. He is very informative and precise, as always.
Always read his posts and almost always learn some details and subtleties I
have overlooked.
Has anyone tracked the performance of this portfolio since it was set up? I was trying to set it up in M*, but it was not easy to just plug in percentage numbers from say 2009 onwards and get an idea of the returns in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
Reply to @kevindow:
Few months back, I had asked a similar question about buying a mutual fund/ETF with low/no exposure to financials and this may be the ticket. I have been eyeing this ETF for a little while now and would likely jump in and buy …
Very sorry to hear about your loss. I am not as knowledgeable in matters related to living trust and like, but am glad to hear that in general you have some good professional help (and knowledgeable MFO board members' advice) to steer you
through t…
Very sad to hear about this. As others mentioned, Jerry was genuinely interested in sharing his knowledge and sent his reports for free to anyone interested. My prayers are with his family.
Interestingly, FAIRX sold PFE in early 2010 and started buying financials.
Talk about perfect timing. See the chart of pfe vs. bac for the last two years.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=2y&s=PFE&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=bac
I agree with Mark. In fact, I used to be a proponent of Wells Fargo accounts and have recommended them on this board and fundalarm before for the very same reason Kevin mentioned (free trades). Certain recent interactions with them have rubbed me …
Has anyone here used options for portfolio insurance? I have read about buying LEAP puts, but have not used them as I don't understand them well. These are longer term options and should not need frequent (daily) trading.
I used to play with 2X/3X bull/bear funds few years back with a small amount of money and have learnt that it is very difficult to make money with these in the long term. These days I mostly use broad ETFs (e.g., SPY, EFA, EEM, GLD, BND/AGG) for my…
No changes in taxable account, majority of which consists of three allocation funds (OAKBX, FPACX and PRPFX), with smaller amounts in other equity funds. In my momentum portfolio, got out of stocks earlier as they fell below 200 day average again.
…
Reply to @johnN: She will use mutual funds -- at least, that's my advice to her. She is not very knowledgeable about investing and the simplest thing for her is to find
a good core fund like FPACX, PRPFX and invest a part of her earning every month.…
I believe you are thinking about Gladwell's book 'Blink', which has similar thesis about
fast thinking. 'Outliers' talks about the need for sustained effort to get to the top of any field.
