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.
2023 went out with a whimper rather than a bang, but it was a better year than most expected. I was most surprised by the rally in bond funds over the past couple months. Also surprised by the performance of foreign funds, which still trailed the S&…
@msf
You are correct that TRPBX slightly outperformed FBALX by about 1.1% in 2022.
However, over the following time periods, FBALX outperformed TRPBX annualized by this much:
1 year, 6.7%
3 years, 4.1%
5 years, 4.2%
10 years, 2.2%
Put another way…
If and when foreign stocks outperform US stocks, I suspect that TRP allocation funds will improve their relative performance. However, my observation is that foreign and domestic markets seem to move in sync more and more each year. So I’m not convi…
TRP certainly didn’t market or describe TRPBX as a global allocation fund when I started investing in it, although they’ve always had more foreign holdings than most balanced funds. If it’s a global allocation fund, then why did they create RPGAX? I…
We also own TAIFX in our taxable account, and it is also classified as moderately conservative. It’s supposed to be tax efficient. However, even considering the tax advantages of TAIFX, FMSDX has greatly outperformed it on an after-tax basis.
I’ve had a fairly large stake in FMSDX for about 2.5 years. Unfortunately, I bought it just before the last big market drop, and it’s just broken even during the past month. I’m sticking with it because it has a great record and I trust Fidelity’s m…
As far as I’m concerned, Matthews has poisoned the well. I will never invest with them again. When an investment company destroys my trust, I’m through with them.
Yes and no. I bought some US Treasuries this week that are maturing in 3-6 months with yields about 5.3%. I consider them comparable to CDs with certain advantages. My CD ladders will have issues maturing every 6 months or so over the next 5 years. …
@yogibearbull — Sorry, I didn’t mean to shoot the messenger, but I am disillusioned by M* fund rankings. I used to research funds religiously on M*, and experience has taught me that their rankings are nearly useless. I have bought many highly ranke…
FBALX is team managed, and Fidelity has a large stable analysts to draw from. M* praises other fund companies for using team management but they don’t seem to like Fidelity’s approach, even when it yields excellent results. I’ve owned FBALX for more…
M* continues to slight FBALX, one of the top performing balanced funds over every time period. Yet they promote TRPBX, a mediocre fund at best. I owned both for many years (until I moved funds from TRPBX to FBALX this year), and FBALX has greatly ou…
My experiences with foreign small caps and emerging markets have not been good. I invested in Artisan’s global small cap, and it performed so poorly that they closed it after a few years. I invested in MAPIX, and it was still losing money after more…
I guess I’ll have to call Fidelity and talk to a rep. I usually handle everything online, but couldn’t figure out a way to set this up. One of the funds is TCAF, which I assume will just make annual distributions, so reinvesting manually should be n…
Although there’s been a lot of discussion about CDs and Treasuries on the forum this year, I didn’t take that to mean everyone had abandoned bond funds. I certainly didn’t, and my bond funds have rebounded nicely over the past month. I set up CD/Tre…
@Sven - TRP still hasn’t posted details of PRFCX’s holdings, other than the overall asset allocation. According to their website, it’s about 40% domestic stocks, 50% domestic bonds, 5% foreign bonds and 5% cash
Over the past few weeks, I’ve purchased two new TRP funds in an attempt to replicate the long-closed PRWCX. Added TCAF, a stocks only ETF with same management as PRWCX, to my Roth IRA about a month ago. This week, I bought PRFCX, a more income orien…
Like @stillers, I jumped on new issue CDs when rates topped 5%, and I’m glad that I did. I’ve got CD ladders extending out 5 years in several IRAs and our taxable savings, with an overall yield about 5.1%. The last issues I bought were 4 and 5 year …
Fidelity website now lists PRCFX as no transaction fee.
I might just give it a shot. The largest single investment in our taxable account has been TAIFX, which has a similar asset allocation except it uses municipal bonds. It has been a decent fun…
T Rowe Price has posted more information about PRCFX on its website. Although detailed holdings are not yet available, the asset allocation is posted. Currently, it’s holding 51% in domestic bonds, 40% in domestic stocks, 5% cash, 4% foreign bonds a…
@Devo
what state has constant pensions? from retirement day 1?
@davidrmoran
North Carolina has no automatic inflation adjustments in its pension program for retired teachers and state employees. The state legislature has the authority to incre…
@Devo - Retirees who are drawing Social Security get annual increases in benefits equivalent to to inflation rate (CPI). That’s much better than my state pension which has no inflation adjustments
I’ve been buying longer term CDs (3-5 years) lately based on my presumption that rates were peaking. I was able to buy a number of call protected issues with yields all exceeding 5%, but available yields have dropped to 4.5-4.7% over the past couple…
I don’t know why so many seem to assume that investors are selling stocks to put in money markets. I’ve been holding steady on stock allocations but selling bonds funds to invest in MMs, Treasuries and CDs. What are often called “plain vanilla bond …
I’m highly skeptical of this report. It’s hard for me to believe that “an unknown number” of wealthy Californians would have a significant effect on stock prices that are essentially a global market these days.
You’ve been able to buy cars, many different makes, through Costco for a while. I looked into it the last time I was car shopping, but didn’t bite because I would have had to go through a dealer about 100 miles away. Not worth the trouble for me.
The Fidelity site now has no CDs available for terms 2 years or longer. This is probably just a temporary repricing in the market, but I expect available yields will drop. Fortunately, I purchased my latest 5-year ladder just before the changes. Unf…
I’ve been expecting CD rates to drop at some point. However, what surprised me yesterday was that it was just the 2-year CDs that were suddenly hard to find. I had no trouble buying 1, 3, 4 and 5-year issues.
Set up a new 5-year CD ladder in our taxable account, with an issue maturing in November each year — enough to cover our property taxes each year. The overall yield on the ladder is 5.3%. One less thing to worry about.
Curious development with regard to new issue CDs available at Fidelity today. I’m setting up another 5-year CD ladder in our taxable account so we’ll have cash available to pay property taxes near the end of each year. Yesterday, there were a bunch …
Sold the I-Bonds I bought a couple of years ago, now that the combined yield is less than 4%. Although newly issued I-Bonds are yielding about 5.3%, I’m going to reinvest the money in my CD-Treasury ladder due to its greater flexibility.
I’ve been laddering CDs to minimize the risk of selling before maturity. So I’ve got CDs maturing about every 3 months on the short end and 6-12 months on the long end. When I first started buying CDs last winter, I didn’t realize the distinction be…
We bought our two homes when interest rates were 10.5% and 8%. We refinanced the second mortgage when rates dropped to 6% and eventually paid it off at that rate. We survived.
I guess it’s time to sell the I-bonds I bought a couple years ago. The fixed rate was 0.0% at that time, so they are now yielding considerably less than CDs and Treasuries.
@hank — The way I am addressing the potential for more rate increases is to ladder my CDs and Treasuries. I’ve got CDs and Treasuries maturing roughly every three months on the short end, and every 6-12 months on the long end. My longest term CD is …
@stillers
As far as I’m concerned, this is a great investing time for retirees. I’m perfectly satisfied with guaranteed 5% returns, particularly with bond funds losing value every day
I’m not trying to convince anyone to buy CDs and Treasuries, just trying to wrap my head around investing in them. For most of my investing history, cash investments have yielded next to nothing. Treasuries and short term bonds fared little better.
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