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.
There is a bit of confusion about core mass calculation and retirement planning. There are many tools for the latter. They are not necessarily the same.
Having a core mass at any point in time is where you have accumulated enough capital so that th…
Further along savings assets start to "grow" (in one year) in significant ways. They may begins to equals your yearly savings or even a year's salary. I believe it was at that point that the idea of retirement from a day job starts to become a poss…
@Junkster.
What are your favorite sentiment indicators these days?
Don't know if @junkster is still around but the answer would be NAV price I think. :-) Can't think of a better sentiment indicator.
@vert, the value premium has always been an argument against EMH. Defensive sectors aren't necessarily value. These are the typical utilities, healthcare, staples, etc.
@charles, mutual funds can and do go to cash often primarily between end of qua…
I wonder where the outflows are going to. Is there a website that shows this kind of information?
Usually, fund/sector flows arrive too late to be useful to anybody depending on them.
So they had a sudden epiphany about the fund? Too bad they didn't have it before they started it.
There should be clawback provisions for quick fund closings.
@scott, I never understood this move to defensive sectors as an allocation strategy unless it is a very short term momentum strategy.
Perhaps it is a vestige of a few decades ago when asset classes moved in economic cycles and there was a significa…
Something isn't clear here. Do you just want to transfer cash between your brokerage and bank account or do you want to transfer "assets" as in stocks, mutual fund shares, etc in kind. Typically signature guarantee is not required for the former onl…
When banking analysts start putting out these don't panic reports, it might mean one or more of:
1. They want the market to stabilize while their investment arm unwinds their positions.
2. They need to stop the bleeding because of all the clients t…
Yes, Latin Am technicals have improved significantly. Bought some today. Too soon to say if it will be a real uptrend. Confirmed by oil but not yet by commodities in general. Suspect this is related to easing of China concerns.
EM bonds have also e…
There is no good time to hit a panic button. The time to hit the sell button was 8-10% ago.
If you want to front run the technical traders, put a stop limit buy for IBB at around 243 to catch a possible bounce back between current price and 231 and…
Forget the load. This is the least of its problems.
The valuation of these companies in the secondary markets are completely ridiculous to make sense, if that is what these funds are buying and don't come with liquidation preferences of late stage …
Loved the interview on CNBC with the CEO, especially the part when Cramer recommended that he ask his bankers why they wanted to embarrass him today.
The CEO should have answered that he is indeed embarrassed to have his net worth go up more than C…
@STB65, the thing I don't like about Fidelity is that their frequent trading policy is not first in first out. So, if you have $100k long term in a fund and you have even a minimum buy at some point, the entire amount becomes locked in the 30 Day ro…
Isn't a low number to be expected after a housing bubble in a low interest scenario where people refinanced, moved up, flipped houses, took out second and third mortgages, etc., combined with a large number of foreclosures in the subsequent bust?
Meeting with a CFP is more or less like meeting with your primary care doctor. Make a list of all known problems/concerns and discuss them one by one. Let him/her go through your situation and assess current health and discuss goals and adjustments …
@rjb112, more like time to rebalance if your diversified portfolio had gotten skewed from recent high flyers or do nothing unless you have a more reliable plan for active asset allocation than forward P/E and internet forum suggestions. :-)
The best you can do is understand what annuities really are and where it works and doesn't and make a recommendation based on it.
Opinions on annuities vary but a lot of them aren't necessarily from a good understanding of them. The sleazy channels…
They have just become a click bait farm trying to drive traffic to get people to register. Must be trying to get an acquisition exit based on number of registered users.
It is just a blogging platform for anybody to write anything even if the atten…
Have been watching EWZ. Not convinced about a turn around yet. All trends are still negative. This is the problem with trying to catch bottoms. It is more luck than anything else. Do you feel lucky? :-)
@slick, exactly.
If you measured last year, including 2008, VIG comes out even better and if you do the same measurement next year without a crash until then, DLN will likely come out better. This is the limitation of single metrics such as total …
Lots of meaningless labels. It is musical chairs and the music has stopped for now.
Lots of technical selling as it broke through its resistance as believed by technical traders and programmed in. Front running this behavior would have placed stops…
Marc Faber.
Hussman's evaluation of the markets gives him a bearish signal most of the time and so he is unable to exploit the increase in the markets.
I agree with his analysis most of the time as an intellectual debate. But I see him as proof th…
Schiff and Faber, usually considered as permabears, are no more or less realistic than the permabull Jeremy Siegel. Calling someone a realist is more often than not a good indicator of confirmation bias.
The problem with these kinds of people isn't…
What was she saying in 1999-March 2000 before the bear
Blast from the past 1999: lest we forget
She has tried to counter the perma bull label by, for example, pointing out that she warned about the problem with housing in 2007 and the inverted yiel…
Where are you getting higher pretax returns for DLN? I'm very skeptical this is coming from analysis and is not just some assumption.
M* 5yr annualized (longest period available for these funds):
DLN 21.64% VIG 19.76%
Lipper ratings:
Total return:…
Financial markets are an organized way to get returns on capital, nothing more, nothing less. Money has no ethics or morals, it simply flows to where the returns are highest, whether it is based on unethical practices isn't a conscious decision that…
@bee, you seem to be reinventing technical trading with your own home-grown empirical observations. All of these observations have already been quantified and formalized in terms of moving averages, Bollinger bands, trend lines, convergence and dive…
I believe the thread with the confusing title was intended as YOUR best 5 funds YTD, not the best funds over the last 5 years. Just one of those forum feel-good pastimes not meant to be taken seriously as fund recommendation.
@NickF, they are not both tracking the same index and their performance will be reflective of their indices, so they are not directly comparable that way. DLN's index is WisdomTree's own large cap dividend index that does not try to be tax efficient…
@bobc, I don't pay much attention to any of these analysts for my investment decision to be accused of confirmation bias. My core is a highly diversified holding that doesn't care about market conditions and the play portfolio is a price momentum te…
That depends on why you are investing in them. For total returns with dividends reinvested or for getting a consistent income stream?
DLN will have higher total returns and be less tax efficient than VIG which will be more tax efficient and smaller…
@jlev is right. It is the curse of small numbers.
In any case, the impact of a rate increase is related to the increase in basis points regardless of whether it is at near zero or at 6 percent and the speed with which it increases. 75 basis points …
So, was today a case of good news being bad news or bad news being bad or good news being bad for previous good news or... Sometimes I get confused keeping track of reaction to FOMC words.
The loud mouth individual Fed governors will say something …
I do not disagree with the failings of M* but I am not sure reading the prospectus and investing based on that is a practical solution for most investors in terms of return on effort. It is like trying to decide which car to buy based on reading the…
