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.
Hank, I’ve already been converting my 401K to my Roth IRA in blocks each year, at a rate that keeps us from bumping to a higher tax bracket. My question really concerns SS, since we will unavoidably jump to the 22% bracket once I start drawing it. W…
PTIAX has held up very well and gone up YTD more than any of the multisector bond funds that I track. It’s mid and long term returns are also excellent.
Crash - Since you seem to be interested in TR Price bond funds, you might want to check out PTTFX, TRP Total Bond. It’s been around about three years and has done very well. It’s what I would call a high quality multisector bond fund. Unlike RPSIX, …
Seems like most of the funds on this list invest in sectors. I personally wouldn’t want a large percentage of my portfolio in sector funds, despite their past performance. So that would involve rebalancing unless you didn’t mind having a large perce…
You’ve got a seriously deficient 401K plan if those are the only two bond funds. Most investors would consider a high quality intermediate bond fund, total bond or bond plus fund to be the starting point for the income allocation in a portfolio. Tha…
I just realized that NBR is now kaput. What a shame! I tried watching Bloomberg business new tonight, but it’s focused on Asian markets in the late afternoon.
Interesting. I had opened a position in YACKX about 10 years ago for the reasons listed above, with the intention of moving more of my IRA into it as I approached retirement. However, Fidelity or Yacktman placed a hard close on the fund, preventing …
@msf — Your suggestion was the best that I could think of as well. I don’t hold any cash in my IRAs but have some reasonably safe bond funds that could suffice.
I suppose that I could also initiate a series of smaller transfers that would minimize …
Crash - I’m not following you either. Why remove money from IRA accounts and pay taxes on it prematurely, if it’s not needed for five years? Couldn’t you just move the money to safer funds within your IRA? Or, alternatively, convert it to a safer fu…
I don’t make predictions about the markets or pay attention to those made by others. The returns in 2019 have surprised me, but I’m always surprised by particularly good years. I disagree with the characterization of 2019 as the best year ever, but …
I’ve got about 7.5% of my IRA invested in Fidelity’s real estate income fund, FRIFX, and consider it part of my bond/income allocation. Its yield and long term returns are comparable to some of the better high yield bond funds. What I like about is …
Why should anybody care what Gundlach predicts for the stock market? It’s self serving since he’s a bond fund manager, and his previous predictions have been wrong.
Check out the new Toyota RAV4 hybrid. It gets 40 mpg in city driving, even with AWD. Price supposedly starts at $28,000 but all the ones I’ve seen at the dealership near me are loaded with options and more expensive. Presumably you could order a bas…
It’s distribution season again. Get ready for regular alarms about funds plummeting compared to others.
Whenever of my funds has a large drop compared to comparable funds, I check to see if it’s had a distribution— which is the case 99.9% of the t…
We wife reached full retirement age (66) early last November. She filed on-line in October to start payments at that time. She received her first check in December.
I agree with the author on this issue. I hold 15-20% of my portfolio in foreign stocks funds for diversification purposes, but see no need for higher percentages. Foreign stocks have been a drag on my portfolio for the past 10 years, but I also reme…
BTW, we’ve been investing our munis in the following funds: FTABX, FLTMX and GHYAX. In addition, we have substantial holdings in TAIFX, American’s tax advantaged balanced fund, which invests in munis and dividend stocks.
Even if you are in a lower tax bracket, munis can be useful if they keep from bumping to a higher bracket. That is our situation. Although we are solidly in the 12% bracket, we’ve been doing Roth IRA conversions that push our total income close to t…
I have a similar dilemma. GE spun off a subsidiary company, Wabtec, and we’ve been receiving quarterly dividend checks of 24 cents for our two shares. I’ve got two fat dividend checks waiting to be cashed out or reinvested.
I’m waiting for 0% loan offers before I buy my next car. I qualified for 0% on my last car and it saved me a lot of money in finance charges plus I could keep more money invested. The local dealers are discouraging, however. All they seem to stock a…
We’ve ridden our GE stock down about 75% over the past couple years, so it’s such a small part of our portfolio now that it matters very little if it goes bust. It’s not worth selling at this point because I would have to hire an accountant to figur…
No, I don’t try to time the markets. My asset allocation is set to my time horizon and needs. Reduced my overall stock percentage from about 60% to 50% when I retired because we would be making periodic withdrawals, but no need to change now because…
I’m more concerned with its performance lately. It has been sucking wind. Pimco must be shorting treasuries or something because it’s been dropping on days when the general bond market is up. Down 0.5% today alone!
I have a different take on this. Most older Americans who attended college, which describes almost all politicians, benefited from lower tuition fees, higher student aid and relatively low interest rates on loans. In the 1970s, was able to work my w…
I can’t imagine why anyone would pay for M* premium service. The site to me is worth what I pay for it, which is nothing. It also has been apparent for a long time that M* considered its forums an inconvenience and didn’t care if people quit using t…
I’ve participated in M* forums for more than 20 years and consulted M* reports at my local library for more than 25 years. I seldom post in M* forums anymore and visit infrequently. The technical problems are part of the problem but, for me, not the…
I can honestly say that I used every bit of my education in my work as well as my personal life. Education doesn’t have to mean college but it does tend to open people’s minds and expose them to ideas and knowledge that they wouldn’t otherwise get. …
Conservatives have continued to rally around Trump, no matter what he says or does. Trump has been very vocal about his skepticism and hostility toward scientific consensus on a number of issues including climate change.
I worked most of my 40-year…
Investing with TRP for bonds is a tough call. I’ve used Spectrum Income (RPSIX) as my primary bond fund at TRP for many years. It’s largest holding is PRCIX, but it also holds plenty of high yield, foreign and EM bonds and dividend stocks. I’ve cons…
Two years ago, we were faced with a similar dilemma. We had inherited a sizable (for us) sum of money, but couldn’t invest it in IRAs. Although we already own our home and have no plans to move or buy a second home, we could use the money to live on…
