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.
Charting BTTRX (Zero Coupon LT Treasuries) against VTSMX (Total Stock Market Index) seems to paint an interesting 5 year picture. Twice VTSMX and BTTRX almost touched before VTSMX (US Equities) moved higher. This happened just after they become quit…
Here is a Scott Patterson Blog site to follow related stories, but they seem a bit dated:
scottpattersonreports.com/
Also a sample chapter of the book:
scottpattersonreports.com/scottpress/wp-content/themes/thequants/images/Dark_Pools_Pro_Ch1.pdf
Manufacturing has been a dirty word (in more ways than one) for a very long time in this country. Skilled Manufacturing and Skilled Trades will always provide a living wage and was largely responsible for the formation of our middle class after WWII…
Crash,
In general, decreased productivity due to less consumerism (regardless whether its for a piece of crap flat screen TV or for a productive piece of farm equipment) slows an economy.
To your point, I believe there's a lack of understanding …
There seems is a bottoming process that we are going through with credit, especially personal credit. Most individuals in Developed Markets are focused on consolidating long term debt (mortgages, student loans, etc) as well as reducing their short t…
This whip saw seem to have something to do with low interest rates allowing the small guy to deleverage their personal debt (at reasonable rates) while these same reasonable rates have allowed speculators to access cheap money through margin account…
Seems to me there are fewer managers who liquidate their portfolio.
I appreciate when a managers accumulates cash from successful investments and then deploys that cash where they identify value. I also appreciate a manager's ability to hold non-c…
Consumer sentiment from U of Michigan is at "80" for March (on a scale from 0 -100)
sca.isr.umich.edu/
Article on consumer senitiment from Bloomberg siting U of Michigan number:
bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-28/michigan-sentiment-index-decreased-to-80…
I was able to access by creating a profile. I was sent a temporary username and password. The presentation (Guide to the Markets) is to be updated quarterly. Thanks for the fnd.
It seems possible to download one page at a time and then bookmark tha…
Hi Mona,
Not sure...Jing will capture whatever you can display on your computer screen and turn it into an image (or video) that is assigned a web address when saved on Jing's server It can also be shared as html code that you can embed into a dis…
Creating a customize button is probably the most helpful (and most difficult step). This button needs to be created so that you can share your image as embedded html. Here's a short video on how to create a customized button.
techsmith.com/tutorial…
Thanks for the correction fundalarm. Looks like long term rate did raise, but was this "market induce" rather than "FED induced" ?
From this article date June 2013:
"For the sixth week in a row, the popular 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose closer…
The basic logic (my logic) is that longer duration bond funds will "fall and settle" at a greater magnitude than shorter duration bond funds. Timing doesn't have to be perfect, but to trigger this trade longer duration bonds need to first "fall thro…
Here's kWEB's relative outperformance to QQQ. KWEB represents Chinese internet companies and has less than a year of performance history (inception July 2013).
Up over 4% today (Apr 8, 2014).
A buy/sell strategy I am trying to implement has me holding shorter duration bonds just before rates raise, wait for the longer duration bond fund to adjust downward and then hold the longer duration bond fund as it recovers.
This can be accomplis…
Thanks cman for the additional explanation and the added word - "direct" - to the term rollover. Precise descriptors are impotant when you don't complete these transaction everyday.
Mona, I believe if you take a "distribution" from a Roth IRA and then want to "roll over" some or all of this distribution back into a Roth (within 60 days of settlement) you need to follow the same rules. An IRA "transfer" doesn't go through your h…
Not much attention is paid to properly managing a portfolio after retirement which, for some retirees, can be 30 years or more.
"Gliding " into retirement might be helpful to lower risk early on in a retirees distribution phase, but a bigger conce…
I can imagine one guy walking into a bank, holding it up and walking away with a majority of the banks desposits. Sometimes one is all it takes.
Having access to exploit (front run) the trading system, by its very definition, implies a minority to …
Go to Yahoofinance, Enter your fund in the search box, select performance tab, scroll down to the annual total return history.
Here's link USSTX and a snapshot
finance.yahoo.com/q/pm?s=USSTX+Performance
Here's a snap shot of USSTX:
USFIX also has exposure to equities (about 20%) which will hurt this fund in market downturns.
Maybe ST muni funds similar to NEARX or USSTX. Hogan's fund, VWLUX, I believe is also a long term muni fund, Vanguard offers VWSTX. NEARX has had only o…
Picking up on some of hank's thoughts... Investing and accumulated wealth, in part, stems from Saving. Savings stems from income minus spending. A budget attempts to priorize spending (into needs and wants) against cash flow (income).
I believe Sa…
Related article from Bloomberg:
"Isolated lurches in the Nasdaq 100 Index have become more common in the last two months as investors reassessed equities that have posted annual gains of 25 percent since 2009. The gauge twice tumbled more than 1.8 …
Another financial blog that seems to come out of the same area of the world is the "Short Side of Long". I appreciate the author's view on things, along with the comments from others at the end of articles.
Here's one snippet:
"The idea that globa…
A fairly new fund, USFIX, from a very good income fund family USAA (Voted #1 - Best Fixed Income - Large Fund Family by Lipper for 2014) USAA is available NTF through Vanguard brokerage.
Also, I just wanted to mention there are a number of Pimc…
A somewhat "real" estate fund from Fidelity that has impressive performance and downside market risk is FRIFX...maybe a combination of these two funds (FSRRX / FRIFX). Thanks.
Interesting White paper that documents the benefits on how owning equal amount of Real Assets (Timber, Farmland, Property, and Energy) with a 60/40 (equity / bond) investment. Paper contends adding real assets in equal amounts to a 60/40 investment …
Thanks Ted, I saved this Boglism:
"The stock market is not what creates value. Value is created by corporate America. That's dividend yield plus the earnings growth that ensues. And that's my formula for investment return."
cman's comment on the likelihood of a misinformed public is very common today. I'll add "Climate Change" and "Autism" to that list. Most of these opinions are based on misinformation and emotion. I think it's human nature to form opinions quickly ev…
Perhaps T. Rowe Price needs to head to Valley Forge, PA with a crabcake truck with the slogan "Why settle for "bread on the table" in retirement when, "for a little more", you can afford crab".
Also, Fidelity might want to counter with a "Select Hi…
