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
It's interesting but not news. People have known for decades now how difficult it is for active funds to beat the benchmark with any consistency--and the consistency part is perhaps not dicussed enough. My problem is with the basic assumption, i.e.,…
What I'm saying is the funds that routinely beat their bogeys and/or the S&P are relatively easy to find because they pretty much do it ALL THE TIME.
No, they aren't easy to find and no they don't do it all the time.
https://spglobal.com/spdji…
My left brain tells me not to pay 2% a year in management fees for this fund. My right brain wants to make a comic doodle of the managers with a shovel while my lizard brain wants to set the prospectus on fire.
It's really not that hard to beat the market. Simply BUY the funds in the smaller percentile that ALWAYS do.
OK, that's funny, like saying It's easy to get a 100 on a test. Just don't get anything wrong.
@JonGaltill You are correct that these kinds of stories are always about active versus passive, but the implicit assumption in them is instead of going active one should just buy and hold an index fund and in the long run one will benefit. But there…
If forecasting never works, why should one invest in the stock market at all and why does our society allow everyone's retirement to be dependent upon something that is completely unpredictable? Isn't "in the long-run stocks go up" a forecast?
WATFX is a good fund, but since it has a decent amount of duration risk, a short-duration fund like RPHYX might be an acceptable complement to it. At 87, you probably shouldn't be taking on too much risk and RPHYX though it isn't a high income fund …
I think it's wise to read PC Magazine reviews which still exist online--https://pcmag.com/picks/the-best-laptops --as well as customer reviews to determine which is worthwhile.
The truth is, I'd rather fiscal stimulus than monetary stimulus any day of the week, and targeted fiscal stimulus to the areas of the economy and society that need it is superior to just cutting checks for everyone. Monetary stimulus is the bluntest…
@JonGaltill You’re probably right. It won’t matter because the truth is most CEOs don’t matter and most great ostensibly world shaking Ayn Randian “heroes” don’t matter as it is really their employees who do all the work and produce all the real val…
Her argument is that by pushing up the stock prices of dicey companies it makes it cheaper for them to access capital, and that affects the bond market's pricing. It seems rather tangential and too much of a reach, given just a handful of companies …
This I find harder to believe because the bond market is a large institutional one. It seems like an easy target to blame Reddit. I also suspect "Reddit traders" aren't all really Reddit traders. How easy would it be for any institutional money mana…
Lenovos aren't that expensive, especially if you buy refurbished ones, which still come with the company warranty: https://lenovo.com/us/en/outletus/laptops/c/LAPTOPS
Grantham and GMO usually makes predictions over the next seven years. This is different in that he’s saying the downturn could happen in the coming months, that we are near the top. Also, the extremity of the collapse he’s predicting is new.
Lenovo used to be good--basically IBM's laptop division which they sold. I'm not sure if they're still good. Asus I dislike. You can get a "lifetime download" for MS Office without subscriptions: https://amazon.com/s?k=ms+office&ref=nb_sb_noss_2…
Excellent interview, didn't find it "rambling" at all. Love the quote near the end about Milton Friedman. Clearly, valuations are stretched. Yet I am not convinced that when the bubble bursts, emerging markets or value in general will necessarily do…
I wouldn't say the stimulus package is priced in at this point because the margin Democrats have in Congress is the slimmest possible and also markets usually have two reactions--the initial rally or decline when news of a possible event breaks and …
Historically, Bridgeway gave a lot of money to charity and American Century funds gives half of its revenues or profits I think to its cancer research center, which is pretty cutting edge.
If Biden's stimulus package gets passed, I'm not sure it will be that hard to make money. Valuations are admittedly stretched, though, but one could argue that is more of a sector problem than the entirety of the market. Covid is a wild card--always.
I had a financial adviser tell me once that holding gold bars in one's house made no sense as what's to stop someone from coming to the goldbug's house and beating that person to death with their own bars? Banks exist so one doesn't have to deal wit…
Tito was not a democratic socialist, even remotely, despite party names, any more than the Nazis were socialists. (The Nazis actually put socialist in camps.) Nor is Biden. Bernie Sanders is sort of. But if you want to hide your money away in rubies…
Can't really answer that question without more information regarding investment goals and financial situation. Is this money for retirement or to pay for college for instance? If it's for the former it should be invested aggressively, the latter con…
If people are asking, it probably is. That doesn't mean they won't stop paying 208 times earnings for its largest holding Tesla, which is 10% of its portfolio.
Ransom Stoddard: You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott?
Maxwell Scott: No, sir. Th…
This interests me too, although I think the Fed and economic stimulus play a bigger role. Also, I think covid plays a role too. Everybody's working from home, making it far easier to day trade.
The thing I really don’t like about brokers and most financial institutions as far as I can tell is the agreement they make you sign to use arbitration instead of the courts if there are any problems. I could imagine in a hacking or theft situation …
Think of it this way: Inflation can be good for the seller and bad for the buyer. Investors, most of whom are high net worth, are the buyers of financial assets. But who is the seller in this case--the issuers of stocks and bonds. In the case of se…
Except it is not the inflation most people care about or should care about: https://financialpost.com/investing/how-americas-1-came-to-dominate-stock-ownership
The richest 1 per cent of Americans now account for more than half the value of equities …
And yet here we are still: https://nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-trump-approval-remains-stable-republicans-unmoved-after-capitol-violence-n1254457