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I bought 26 and 52-week T-bills this week. I had a lot of cash from liquidating my muni funds. I’ve also got a number of CDs and T-bills that will be maturing between now and December, as part of ladders. Hopefully, there will still be some good opt…
I’m noticing many price drops at the grocery store. Things like eggs, bread and yogurt have dropped a lot at my store. However, prices are still high for sodas, cereal, meats, beer, etc. I have no qualms about buying generic brands or skipping items…
Thanks for the link. Good analysis. I bought this for my Roth IRA, which has the longest investing horizon. I wasn’t expecting a clone of PRWCX but respect Giroux’s record. My Roth is value heavy in stocks, so this should add some growth.
I’ve heard it said, and agree, that diversification is a risk management strategy— not a way to achieve high performance. Face it, nobody really knows which markets or sectors will perform better or worse in the future. By diversifying, you are cove…
To me, the point isn’t that CD yields can be marginally higher than money markets. It’s that interest rates will start dropping at some point, and then MM yields will drop quickly. With CDs, you can lock in high yields for as long as 10 years, and y…
Personally, I’m optimistic about balanced funds going forward. Bond and cash yields are higher than they have been in years, so they could contribute a lot to performance, rather than mainly providing ballast. My largest holdings are balanced funds.…
@msf — I agree with you that the next 5-10 years could be very different. That’s why I’m maintaining significant holdings in bond and stock funds. However, in my lifetime as an investor, I haven’t seen cash yields this high and I doubt that it will …
BTW, Fidelity’s bond listings showed a bunch of new Treasury offerings today. This morning, the expected yield on the one-year Treasury zeros was 5.05% By this afternoon, the expected yield had risen to 5.35%. I’m going to jump on this. Unlike CDs, …
This downgrade might be a good thing if it convinces certain congressmen from threatening to shut down the federal government every time they don’t get their way
You can lock in non-callable CDs with rates exceeding 5% up to two years and 4.5% up to five years. I don’t own or track a single bond fund that has produced an average annual return approaching 5% over the past 5 or 10 years. What’s not to like abo…
I’ve been loading up on CDs and treasuries, with ladders extending out five years in my IRAs and three years in taxable savings. I don’t care if interest rates rise further as I’m happy to be earning better than 5% on all these cash investments. I’v…
My wife and I have been in the 12% tax bracket but will probably bump up to 22% this year. Even so, the tax-equivalent yields on our muni funds (FTABX and FLTMX) were competitive with taxable bond funds and CDs until the past year. Now the spreads a…
BTW, I understand that muni yields are almost always lower due to their tax advantages. However, I’ve never seen such a spread between the yields of munis and taxable bonds.
It’s already happened. The S&P lost money over the first decade of the 2000s, but you would have done reasonably well if diversified in the right areas, namely value stocks, REITs, small caps, bonds, etc.
TRAIX is not available to purchase at TRP or Fidelity, and website says it’s closed to new investors. I’ll take your word that it is available at Firstrade, but I was not aware of this, nor was I interested in opening another account with a differen…
I’m through with Matthews after the fiasco with MAPIX. I held this fund for more than seven years and still lost money. It did well for a while and then collapsed. I didn’t realize it had changed management and its investment strategy until it was t…
I used to listen to Marketplace on my drive home from work, and it was the highlight of my commute. I haven’t listened to it since I retired but should find a way to hear to it again. It is a great radio show.
PRWCX is closed to new investors, so I don’t know why people keep recommending it. Supposedly there are round-about ways to open a new account, but I view that as a myth. My wife and I had accounts with TRP for more than 25 years, and they wouldn’t …
FBALX, hands down. It can be a little more volatile than some AA funds at times but always bounces back. I’ve owned it for about 25 years and it’s my largest holding. I have never considered selling it because it’s consistently excellent. It also ha…
One of the reasons why I consolidated all of our retirement accounts at Fidelity is its account analysis feature. I used to use M* X-Ray often to review and and analyze our various accounts. Once M* started stripping away features, I started looking…
My wife and I both have pensions, but they are not necessarily the great deal that some people think they are. Our pensions are with the state of North Carolina, and have no inflation adjustments. So we are totally dependent on our Republican contro…
Fortunately, money market rates are high enough now (at least at Fidelity) that there’s not a big downside to holding cash. I’ve got three CD ladders right now in my taxable account and two IRAs. I am not doing automatic rollovers when CDs mature be…
I’m not usually an early adopter, but I bought 400 shares of TCAF yesterday. I’m pairing it with FADMX, and hopefully the combination will approximate PRWCX. I’ve been following PRWCX for a long time, with plans to transfer some of my other TRP fund…
T Rowe Price wouldn’t let me invest in PRWCX, so I sold my largest TRP holding (TRPBX) and bought TCAF. I’m going to pair it with a multi-sector bond fund, probably FADMX.
I’ve held TRPBX for many, many years but its performance has steadily decli…
I can still access my M* portfolios and watchlists through their app, but not if I go through their website. When I try to access portfolio view through their website, it goes to a page showing their membership fees. Sorry M*, but your content is no…
In the BB thread on how to beat PRWCX, I suggested the new ETF TCAF for equity and multisector bond funds (PONAX / PIMIX, FADMX, etc), and then wait of the record to develop (as there isn't any history to show), but posters there like to post histo…
FBALX is not far behind PRWCX and it’s open to new investors, has a low expense ratio, and has very consistent returns. I’m considering opening a position in TCAF, would prefer a fund rather than ETF for various reasons.
My Roth IRA is mostly with …
Personally, I’m very optimistic about balanced funds right now because this is the first time in years that bonds are paying healthy yields. Even with the market crash in 2022, my primary balanced fund (FBALX) has decent three and five year returns.
FYI, I tried to make a same-day exchange from a T Rowe Price fund to an ETF in the same family and the account rep told me they can’t do this. He said I would have to sell the fund first and then buy the ETF the next trading day. Likewise, he said I…
FYI, I just received my first call notice for a 2-year CD I bought in March. The yield was 5.5%, and I found a non-callable replacement yielding 5.15%, so that’s OK. I assume that most of the longer term CDs I bought back will be called sooner or la…
I am a long term investor with TRowe Price, and they have maintained large stakes in foreign stocks and bonds in their allocation funds for many, many years. Over the past decade or so, this has been a huge drag on the returns for their balanced, al…
My point is most Republicans DO care about money and property. When their beliefs start costing them real money, at least some of them might start looking at things differently. If they can’t insure their homes and property, then they could face rea…
Florida is next.
Sooner or later, insurance costs might be the factor that drives climate-change deniers to see the light. There is no doubt that climate change is fueling more extreme weather events and thus property damages. Wildfires, droughts,…
Another benefit with Fidelity, at least for us, is that they have many local offices where you can talk to real people in person. I have handled all of investments for decades, but my wife can take advantage of the local office and their advisors if…
