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.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
LewisBraham
Hi Hank,
Your satire came across very well. Don't worry about the user name.
Best,
Lewis
@JohnN Tesla is down another 11% today. Seems like a falling knife right now. You could be right eventually, but the pain in the short-term now is real.
This should be interesting to watch as my impression was at this point Russian stocks can be neither bought nor sold in the market. So, how do they liquidate?
Heavy selling today, down 9%, for some of the same concerns it seems: https://cnbc.com/2022/12/22/tesla-shares-slide-on-demand-concerns-elon-musk-twitter-distraction.html
Also, this article says it is the most profitable short pick of 2022:
https:/…
The suit isn't strange if you consider whether Microsoft, which owns XBox, will allow users of Sony Playstation to continue playing updated versions of extremely popular Activision games like Call of Duty after the merger is done. Microsoft's promis…
The largest concentration of electric car charging stations are in liberal blue coastal states and in liberal blue cities even within red states: https://chargehub.com/en/charging-stations-map.html
@Gary1952 Although Zuckerberg is not as erratic as Musk and not making toxic statements to tarnish Meta’s brand on a daily basis, many ESG funds have actually minimized or eliminated their exposure to Meta because of its ethical problems; https://m…
And now this: https://businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-employees-allege-illegal-firing-criticism-elon-musk-covid-2022-12 There is an intangible often called "brand value" that matters especially in luxury goods. I feel like Musk doesn't quite reali…
To me the notion that money can be completely divorced from politics is absurd. The idea people can just silo or segregate the two when money and politics are in reality like peanut butter and jelly is in fact political. It’s a libertarian free mark…
I can say this: When I talk to investors who specialize in foreign stocks, political stability or instability is always a factor in how they invest, especially in emerging markets. They will insist on a larger than normal discount to a company's int…
My impression is launching a PRWCX ETF would not only be unlikely from a business perspective--it doesn't need an ETF sales boost--but is impractical and maybe impossible because of its unique strategy. It doesn't just hold common stocks, but less l…
I honestly think selling an index fund with a 1% or 2% TSLA position doesn't make much sense unless you're doing it for ethical reasons. VTSMX, for instance, has a 1.3% position. It won't influence performance much at that level. There is a case to …
Relatively easy to tell which funds own most of its shares and which have the most concentrated positions, two very different things, as a small fund can have a 10% position while a large index fund can own a lot of shares and not have a big positio…
I agree with Crash, but one thing I’d like to add, which should be self-evident on this board, is that a company’s stock performance is not the same as its performance as a business or its underlying profitability. I haven’t done a deep dive on the …
Pretty funny that now you see an article saying swearing's a sign of intelligence you're suggesting you're better at it than Crash. I feel like the two of you need to meet and challenge each other to a round of the Dozens to see who's victorious.
I'm OK with the d words, both kinds, but in another era you would have been condemned to the firey furnace below for using such language. Luckily with regard to language, we live in 2022. In other ways, 2022 not so lucky. :-)
To me, the cost of living adjustment indexed to inflation or COLA described in the article makes the most sense. If the Times is worried that inflation won't last and they'll be promising too much, COLA would hedge their bets but also ensure that em…
@sma3I think this is just a publicity stunt from Griffin,
Remember the good old days when billionaires didn't seek to be in the public eye, but just quietly ran everything behind the scenes?
I do wonder when someone is worth $32 billion like Griffin what the point is of spending $54 million to fight a state tax to save $80 million? It reminds me of a story John Bogle was fond of recounting:
At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter I…
I think it is POAGX that is re-opening here, not POGRX. GQEPX has done well, which leads me to believe it may lag soon if we go from bearish to bull, but it is a good defensive fund.
I am a fan of this fund shop and this fund, but I have to say its large position in Tesla, which had and still has nosebleed valuations, gives me pause.
Not exactly the same but there seems to be some debate about fraud and who's financially responsible when fraud happens with aggregators in general: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/banks-seek-guidance-on-whos-liable-for-open-banking-data-f…
@Crash In many ways Qatar is worse than China in how it treats labor: https://hrw.org/news/2022/11/17/fifa/qatar-migrant-workers-call-compensation-abuses I think investors should probably boycott the country for this reason. But another consideratio…
It seems a misnomer to call any Treasury but ultrashort term T-bills risk-free as in the “risk-free rate.” If you don’t own a 10-year Treasury until maturity, you can have significant losses if you need to sell it before maturity. Locking up one’…
Or you could say it’s her way of announcing immediately after the Democrats won a majority in the Senate that she’s newly available to support the usual Republican blockades of every appointment and piece of legislation. I actually think this is mor…
Indeed, one month return is a high—for this kind of fund—0.6% for retail shares, 0.7% for institutional ones. So clearly bond prices rallied. If it was 0.6% every month, you’d get a 7%+ total return over the next 12 months. That’s improbable, but st…
Are these CDs FDIC insured? Also, has anyone considered the after-tax returns for CDs versus 2 or 3 year Treasuries if you consider that Treasuries are not subject to state taxes?
@StayCalm You are right. I was referring to another interval fund— CCFLX—run by the same manager Cliffwater. But the issue regarding pricing for private securities for both funds is the same. The question comes down to whether securities are mark-to…
I never said in any of my posts the managers were committing fraud. The appropriate term, "returns smoothing," would be as described in the Advisor Perspectives article:
Stale pricing can create problems for investors. For example, funds are incente…
The stale pricing issue I am describing is not necessarily particular to this fund but a universal one that is particularly relevant though with private funds that don’t price every day. Most corporate debt funds don’t have pricing that reflects mar…
It’s not what CELFX is investing in that is the problem I am identifying but how much it’s yielding above Treasuries, i.e., the yield spread, after deducting significant fees without showing any apparent volatility while public markets invested in…
@StayCalm The smoothness of the returns of NICHX and CELFX during periods of distress makes me less comfortable, not more, about investing in them. Here is how various publicly traded debt markets traded in March of 2020 during the worst of the pand…
