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.
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Sven
Lynn,
Thank you so much. I am planning on a 3-year ladder since I am a year away from retirement. Lots of spreadsheet work to calculate the income replacement needed. This ladder will create a steady income stream. So thank you for all your help.
I moved back to high quality bond funds this year. Some of which you covered in the SA article. For now, I will stay with agency bonds to the bond ladder. I will pick active managers for corporate bonds.
Sven
The Chinese EVs are eating Tesla’s lunch in China. Tough to compete when these EVs cost 40% lower than the cheapest Tesla model. They are moving manufacturing to Mexico so to minimize tariff in US market.
We took profit on our US equity and bond % since the election concluded. Lost confidence in both.
The likelihood of soft landing scenario is fading as sticky inflation and employment number. FED is in no hurry to cut rate in December and there is…
Thanks @msf for uncovering all the management details.
Next question is the management fee for this ETF, and there will be a sliding scale based on the AUM.
Each brokerage has different policy / agreement with the specific mutual fund companies. You may want to call TRP directly.
I am surprised that RSIIX, an institutional shares, is on the T. Rowe Price’s no-transaction fee platform. Apparently, Cr…
Thank you for the additional information. There are five co-managers on this ETF and D. Giroux is the lead manager. Farris G. Shuggi, is also the co-manager on the Capital Appreciation & Incone fund. Will wait for more details to be released? …
The main issue apparently isn't about salary increase. The union is trying to restore some version of a defined benefit retirement plan. Probably a lost cause, but I wish them well.
Good luck with that. Losing the accumulation phase is nearly imp…
Credit card is a very profitable business. That is one reason Visa and Master stocks are often in growth funds. They charge the merchants up to 5% fee and give back the customers, 2-3% and pocket the rest. Our corporate credit card, American Express…
Similar to everyone here, we like our Costco Visa card for many purchases and get a healthy check by year end.
These days in foreign travel we get the best exchange rates using our credit card. Still having some cash is good in certain places, bu…
@AndyJ, the living environment in Oregon have improved considerably since we moved there 30 years ago. Revitalizing older neighborhood through special measure was great for everyone, although some thought of it a waste of their tax dollars. Our y…
hank said : Morningstar made me take one of those “prove you’re not a bot” tests the other day before I could continue. (I successfully identified all the busses in the photos.)
Think there are bot-generated stuff going on. My call to the credit ca…
Vanguard’s patent is for index funds only, where the portfolio turnover is low. Long term performance between the two is very close.
Actively managed ETFs are quite different animals and post challenge to replicate the identical stock and bond hold…
I like @msf’s approach the best. Taking the dividend as cash and reinvest later will get your desired pricing.
One thing I notice that Vanguard’s stock pricing is lagging the real time when you trade throughout the day. Fidelity is much better.…
Think TRP is trying to sell more of their products via the ETFs route. My hesitation is their above average fees they charged comparing to those from Capital/American funds. I understand these are actively managed but this asset class is expanding…
I have not had blocking issues on my cell carrier, Verizon when I do transaction with Fidelity. Unless I specify those specific phone numbers as “spam” on my phone. Lately I get phone calls from Fidelity financial consultants. Without verification …
Early voting is very easy in Oregon. There are local votes and special measures that we are voting too. Few we voted for many years ago to rebuild a river front that revitalized the local business and public recreation. We are ready to cast our bal…
Truly unbelievable! We fill out our ballot already and will bring to voting place early morning on November 5th. Don’t want to take a chance by mail. Our college kids are doing the same. Never in our lives that we witness this sort of voter intim…
Sport bars are the worst, especially during sport events. In Europe, there is the smoky atmosphere too. Thus we choose small mom & pop restaurants when they are available. For most of the time, we invited our friends to our home so we can have…
Ed Yardeni suggested that the Bond vilgilantees are back. Think @WABAC posted that question earlier.
It is nuts. The 10-year Treasury yield increases by 63 basis points to 4.25% since the FED announced a 50 basis point rate cut in September meetin…
However the difficulty will be in developing a method for economical recovery without destroying a big chunk of Arkansas.
All mined minerals require extensive processing in order to convert the target material to a useful form for the consumers an…
"High Yield Spreads are now at their tightest levels since June 2007 (2.89%) and Investment Grade Spreads at their tightest levels since March 2005 (0.83%). Bond investors are reaching for yield and behaving as if there will never be a default cycl…
Perhaps this is one of the reason some investors prefer trading mutual funds instead of ETFs and individual stocks. You place the order (buy or sell), and you get the NAV price when market close.
Indeed that is a good news. Here is a map from USGS on lithium deposit in US.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2017/5118/sir20175118_element.php?el=3
US is not a big producer of lithium, majority of lithium came from Chili and Argentina.
Surprise there is not more women came forward of his “sick” behavior toward women.
Remember, he said once that “just grab them by their “p…s” because I am a star “. Others said that is just locker room talk, but it never happened. The man is just…
One needs to pay attention on the expense ratio of active managed funds. There is a fine balance between accessibility (via brokerages) and cost of owning these active ETFs. Hopefully these active ETFs are equally as tax efficient as the passive ET…
Thanks @Mark, it is very helpful to see the tedious process to hand count the votes.
Don’t forget the counting starts after the voting places close. It is ridiculous to count ballots by hand and there is where mistakes can easily made.
The GOP …
@Derf, Reinvestment risk has arrived as the safe 5% yield CDs and money market are no longer exist. Unless 4% yield is acceptable to you, I think there are other viable choices.
I track the short duration indices/funds such as MINT and SHY and i…
What becomes clear with the medical issue is if you live long enough costs increase at a faster and faster rate.
How true. Our private medical premium is going up faster than the COLA. So are the copays. Fortunately our family is pretty healthy …
If solid state batteries have increased energy density of several order of magnitude. This would improve many shortcomings of today’s Li-ion powered cars. Think we still have several years to go if and when the solid state batteries are widely impl…
It may be too early to tell the actual cost in production. For sure the higher energy density and reduced fire hazard are welcoming attributes for EVs.
While solid-state battery manufacturers certainly agree that cost reductions can be achieved, sp…
It is reasonable to reduce equity risk in light of high valuation and many uncertainties. Bonds got complicated with stronger employment number than expected. Is it a one off or not?
Now that the generous 5% yield in Monet market, CD, and T bills…
Perhaps more seriously, I’m deeply concerned about the ”politicalization” of recent hurricanes by some politicians.
The politicalization and layers of lies are impacting human lives and suffering.
https://npr.org/2024/10/07/nx-s1-5144159/fema-fun…
We moved on from Tweedy Browne many years ago when we found cheaper alternatives with comparable and often better performance. Currency hedging adds to the expense ratio.
Additionally, value style has lagged growth style in oversea investing.
@chang,
The fund hedged the currency being invested. Professor Snowball provided a detailed write up on this fund on October’s commentary.
The fund will hedge its currency exposure with one- to three-month forward currency swaps.
https://mutual…
Flagship investors at Vanguard get few perks such as 25 free trades on transaction fee OEFs per account. All our transactions are online, thus there is no fees. There is no dedicated rep for Flagship customers.
A year ago, we set up Personal Adviso…
@Observant1, I have been investing with Vanguard since the 90’s before the internet age. My frustration with Vanguard today is their customer support simply cannot keep up with our needs. As a Flagship customer, we use their special phone number w…
