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.
I used to invest in BUFBX. It’s always been overweight energy, at least in recent history, as well as value stocks. Thus it hasn’t performed well in recent years until recently, as growth stocks have tumbled and energy boomed.
The way I look at it, you’ll get at least 75% of the current inflation rate investing in I-Bonds, assuming you cash out before holding five years. I bought bonds when the rate was 7.1%, and it will go up to 9.6% for the next six months. So I’m guara…
I wonder if any of the workforce dropouts are simply people old enough to retire who decided to quit working sooner than they would have otherwise.
Regarding the WSJ, I consider its new coverage reasonably neutral — and my political views are left …
Thanks, Yogi. I guess we’ll have to create another account. I was reluctant to buy iBonds in the first place due to the potential for my wife forgetting about the account if I died before her, but it’s hard to pass up the current rates when virtuall…
Here’s another I-Bond question, rather than starting a new thread. I opened a Treasury Direct account in January and purchased the maximum individual amount ($10K). I would like to purchase another $10K in my wife’s name. Do we have to create anothe…
I’m continuing to hold FMSDX and have no plans to sell. It is outperforming most hybrid funds that I track, including many that have prior records of doing well in down markets. We are in an unusual period in which both stocks and bonds are down, an…
I moved our TRP accounts to Fidelity last year due to declining customer service. We had invested with TRP for about 30 years. I would have moved sooner but was holding out on the chance that PRWCX would open to new investors again, but finally deci…
You need a lot of patience (or luck) to invest in small cap funds. Their returns vary widely among funds and from year to year with any particular fund. I’ve invested in small cap funds for about 30 years and they often have long spells of underperf…
For what it’s worth, we are spending much less in retirement so far than 4% annually. COVID has made it difficult to meet our spending “goals” because it’s so difficult and risky to travel, eat out and participate in other forms of entertainment. In…
Definitely invest in a Roth IRA to get lifetime tax free growth, plus he could make a penalty free withdrawal for down payment on first home. I would keep it simple an invest a total market index fund, either domestic or global — such as FZROX or FF…
FSRRX holds TIPs, floating rate bonds, REITs and commodities— which presumably includes exposure to metals. It is designed to provide multisector exposure to assets that provide inflation protection. Long term it hasn’t performed that well but infla…
My parents lived on a lake in the north Georgia mountains that was owned by Georgia Power Co. The power company owned most of the land bordering the lake and leased lots to homeowners for 100 years. That arrangement apparently hasn’t hurt residents …
I maintained an account with T Rowe Price for years in the hope that they would reopen PRWCX. I finally threw in the towel and transferred all of my TRP funds to Fidelity to simplify my investments and have access to more options. My Roth IRA is sti…
T. Rowe Price uses the same hedge fund in some of its other allocation funds, notably TRPBX and TRSGX. Much of my Roth IRA is invested in TRPBX but I’m not sure what to think about the hedge fund. Both of these Spectrum allocation funds also hold su…
One of the worst investments I ever made was in Artisan Global Small Cap. It was losing money after three years and then Artisan decided to close it, ensuring my losses.
Our IRA and 401K transfers to Fidelity are mostly completed. The rollovers of our Roth IRAs from T.Rowe Price to Fidelity were seamless because we did in-kind transfers, so nothing had to sold or bought. The TRP funds showed up in our Fidelity accou…
I was reading the reviews of the M* app on the Apple store, and apparently everyone is having the same problem. And apparently M* doesn’t read its reviews or simply doesn’t care. Seems like a functional app is pretty important these days for compani…
If I recall correctly, TRP is a publicly traded company. It could be that large investors are pressuring the company to cut costs, leading to the decline in customer service. We invested directly with TRP for 25+ years, and their service has definit…
We just completed a transfer-in-kind from TRP to Fidelity for our Roth IRAs. There were about a dozen separate accounts because TRP created an account for each mutual fund, for some odd reason. We were not charged any fees, and the funds showed up i…
Funny, I wrote a lengthy message to TRP through their website, explaining my reasons for transferring our accounts to Fidelity. However, the message wouldn’t send due to yet technical glitch on their website. I gave up. Money speaks louder than word…
Wow! I just transferred in-kind our entire Roth IRAs for my wife and I. Hope we don’t encounter similar problems. So far it seems to be going smoothly but we didn’t buy or sell any funds. All were direct transfers in kind.
We’ve had our accounts wi…
Our 401K is currently invested in proprietary funds with Prudential. So, we can't do an in-kind transfer of funds. In my experience from previous rollovers, it takes at least 7-10 days for the money to show up in my IRA. In theory, we could get luck…
BTW, Fidelity has added a series of zero expense index funds in recent years, and its regular classes of index funds typically have expenses as low as or lower than comparable ETFs. The only advantage of ETFs in these cases would be the potential ab…
OK, I’ll give an example of why I chose a mutual fund over a comparable ETF. For small cap exposure in my IRA, I had used a small cap index fund, DISSX, with an expense ratio of 0.50% for many years. Realizing that I could get slightly better return…
FCNTX and FLPSX are two of the stalwarts in my portfolio. I got into both when they reopened after long closures and have never regretted it. FCNTX has grown more than 400% since my initial investment in 2003. My acquisition of FLPSX is more recent …
Don’t let politics guide your investments, although it’s admirable to have a moral compass. One of my best performing funds, PRBLX, could be described as “woke,” and that hasn’t hurt its returns. In fact, all of the Parnassus funds have excellent ri…
Returns on energy stocks have sucked for many years, and I suspect that investor concerns about climate change has accounted for some of the poor performance. Although many conservatives consider climate change a hoax, the scientific data doesn’t su…
It makes perfectly good sense for Fidelity to require investors to speak to a representative if you try to buy muni bonds for an IRA account. In nearly all cases, such a trade would be disadvantageous for the investor. Fidelity is merely looking out…
Same thing I’ve always done during market drops. Nothing. I periodically rebalance my accounts when the markets are up, but I never hold cash waiting for a drop. That’s a losing proposition in my book, unless you need a certain amount of cash to liv…
