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.
Again ignoring tax consequences, what's past is past and the only thing you can affect is the future. The question is, would you buy this CEF today or would you buy something else instead? If you'd buy the CEF, naturally there's no reason to sell …
What do you think of Glenmede fund?
Speaking as someone who knows practically nothing about option investing, I can only echo what msf says. It seems to be a conservative fund that uses only covered options. FWIW, so far it has delivered about …
There are plenty of closed-end bond funds trading at 10-15% discounts and paying out 9-12% distributions. They're usually either global bond funds, emerging market bonds or junk bonds. They'll usually use leverage, tend to be owned by individuals …
FYI, I've been informed by my insurance company (Anthem) that my monthly payments for the same policy will rise by 32%. Oh, excuse me, I exaggerate. Rounded off it's only going up by 31.9%. This follows the 16% rise from last year.
I should add …
FWIW, RSIVX is underperforming OSTIX by about 3% so far this year after outperforming it by around 2.6% last year. So this is no disaster though I do own it and I am a bit disappointed in two permanent losses of capital in a market that hasn't had …
FYI, I've been informed by my insurance company (Anthem) that my monthly payments for the same policy will rise by 32%. Oh, excuse me, I exaggerate. Rounded off it's only going up by 31.9%. This follows the 16% rise from last year.
I should add …
In line with the esteemed @David_Snowball, does anyone have suggestions for small, value-y, global funds to keep on the radar?
The only one that comes to mind is EVGBX, and that's a little expensive for my tastes. PGVFX is a nice multicap option, …
Poland wages here are translated into euro for comparison? And you read the piece, right? I thought some of your queries were addressed in it.
Expressed in Euros, yes. As for the article, Krugman pretends that the Euro is the problem causing the un…
Okay, according to the OECD, GDP per hours worked in Greece is 34.5 (measured in U.S. dollars); in Poland it's 28.1. Not nearly comparable to the difference in average wage rates. Economically speaking, that implies either massive unemployment in …
"The main answer, surely, is the Euro"
Though I, personally, consider the Euro a quack currency and the cause of all kinds of problems (and think the Greeks should default, not that doing so would prevent much suffering there), I don't think it wou…
RSIVX has had a pretty lousy last month (down about 2%) for whatever reasons (probably just that the high yield market is having problems), but for the year it's still only done about .5% worse than Vanguard's Total Bond Fund. I'd have to say that …
Hi @Vert,
Thanks for the insight from Andrew Foster! There certainly seem to be a good number of "value" emerging markets fund because a lot of them were coming up on the screens I did for low P/E, P/B and such. I'm not sure how that works out on…
Hi @Vert, Brandes seems to have a number of pretty decent funds. I first learned about them and BISMX when reading David's review of QUSOX and they seem to be to have done a good job with the international small cap fare but not quite as well in th…
@msf, here's a recent article from Advisor Perspectives that confirms growth has been outperforming value recently but that value eventually has its turn. Over time based on their comparison of the cheapest 20% of stocks on a book value basis compa…
If you're looking at turnaround plays or at cyclical companies, high p/e's (or losses) will often go with deep value stocks since they've run into problems one way or the other. As for Morningstar, they definitely give considerable value weighting…
I was surprised to see that PVFIX remains in the value box, though it's outside the small cap box and into micro territory. Doing a P/B screen, the only other domestic fund I found outside the value box (taking that as deep value territory) was CHO…
Looking at the usual metrics, emerging markets count as the world's value stocks. Similarly, you'll find most of the world's lowest valued stocks among international small caps. Presumably the Price fund will be the valuey part of emerging markets…
>> The markets were already in established downtrends before that time.
Not so much, at least 1987 not at all. Look at SP500 and FCNTX. For 7y ago, yes, this week right now was the very week of turn. Not much of a trend prior, spring 08.
I…
I was interested to see Ed reference Joel Tillinghast to the effect that Japanese and Korean small caps are about the only (absolute) value areas left in this market. Ed seemed to agree, at least on the Japanese part (Ben Graham heaven he called it…
Global: Tweedy Browne Value (TWEBX)
International: FMIJX or Tocqueville Value (TIVFX) or Schwab Fundamental Index (SFNNX)
International smallcap: Grandeur Peak (GPIOX) or Brandes (BISMX)
Emerging: Seafarer (SFIGX) or Schwab Fundamental Emerging…
Assuming it takes 16 years to break even if you take SS at age 62 then everyone who dies between 62 and 78 will come out ahead by taking it early. Also, as Dee points out above, getting the money when you're more capable of enjoying it should be we…
I would think the odds of loss in any of these worthy funds over the next 5y to be nontrivial, no matter what they do, even, you know, BERIX and FPA. So I would stick a hundred thou, or even more, into SC 4% bonds, and make a few thou against inflat…
I would think the odds of loss in any of these worthy funds over the next 5y to be nontrivial, no matter what they do, even, you know, BERIX and FPA. So I would stick a hundred thou, or even more, into SC 4% bonds, and make a few thou against inflat…
Thanks MSF and Vert for your summations of FPNIX. Is it also a short term bond fund in effect?
In effect it pretty much has been. Doesn't have to be, though. Two good things about Baird funds: They have low expenses, which I guess is uncontrove…
FPNIX is IMHO a unique fund, one managed for preservation (using a wide variety of strategies and derivatives defensively), as contrasted with a fairly vanilla (albeit well managed) short term bond fund.
Different paths to the same end. As you…
Great call; missed it but caught the mp3 yesterday. I thought AF's explanation of how security picking and macro interact in the Seafarer process was about the most detailed and illuminating I've heard from any manager.
Let me second AndyJ on this. …
If prices are not low enough on some input to clear the market, a surplus of that input will occur. A surplus of labor is called unemployment. If the price of labor (wages or salaries, this includes fringe benefits and all other indirect wages, of…
It appears that the key words were "IF ECONOMY FALTERED". With respect to "theories of insanity", the word "theories" is at least correct, as we are still seeing where this particular theory will take us. We do know, though, where the Austrian/Unive…
Doing a quick dirty check based on simple p/b, it seems as if you have to stick to small cap if you want domestic deep value. Otherwise the choices are few and far between: the Franklin Balance Sheet fund David mentioned, maybe Fairholme or Goodha…
Looking at the returns, e.g., FTBFX vs. BCOIX, it seems to me that the Baird family does a slightly better job than Fidelity with their bond funds (while following a similar philosophy), yet M* doesn't seem to cover Baird at all. Too small?
I just looked at RPHYX's chart on M*. It's performing exactly as advertised: a very gentle but nearly straight line up, delivering a bit more than 3% better than MMFs, which are delivering just about zero. The only time it ever had a negative quarte…
Gee, I just looked at some funds and in every case Vanguard's actively managed funds beat their indexes. VEIRX beat VHDYX, both Windsor and Windsor II beat VIVAX, VDIGX beat VDAIX, and to top things off, the Total International Index Fund was beate…
The word "Panic" certainly puts you in a panic, Old Joe. Why do you think that the fact that a country's economic growth hasn't followed a perfectly straight upward line demonstrates that the country hadn't experienced (I used the word "enjoyed") g…
..... short article link
To note, from a portion of the article: "Economists fear that the self-reinforcing spiral of falling prices would weigh on growth...
Global 10 year yield data
I'm afraid that one of the biggest problems is that economists…
Wonderful article! It never bothers to tell us what it means by "the market", however only 2 funds finished in the top quartile of whatever it is for five straight years, less than randomness would produce. This is said to show that you should buy…
@msf But you did enjoy and were grateful for the extra customer service and advice you received while you were paying the extra 12b-1 fee at Citibank, didn't you? :)
@Crash
1. do you have any clue what the difference between PRSNX and their new Glo…
