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.
Wonder if we are late in the business cycle for smaller cap funds? With the possibility of several rate hikes this year and supply chain issue, I reduced my small cap % late last year and moved to more defensive positions.
It appeared that international value funds are leading their growth counterparts this year. They trail growth style for over 10 years. Will they persist in the near term?
We are all guessing at this point. Best is to watch for new changes in the fund. Wish they just launch a new fund with different strategy from the other D&C fund. This fund is already quite large.
Often OEFs would broaden their investment mandates so they can open other space. Likely the balance fund would invest more overseas as it become a global balanced fund similar to that of VG global Wellington.
Think there is more to unfold in next several weeks. Ten year treasury yield is moving up since the beginning of the year and the bond prices are falling. The 10 year treasury rate jumped sharply from 1.512% on 12/30/21 to 1.780% as of today.
Th…
Value funds such as Oakmark lagged S&P 500 index which dominated by FAANG stocks for awhile. It is more appropriate to compare them using the appropriate benchmark, VG Value index as you noted. Will see how this plays out this year with rising …
Growth stocks tend to lag in rising rate environment. Thus, quality stocks will do better with their lower valuation and dividend such as DIVO, SCHD and dividend growth funds. This week the value funds dominated. Same trend also observed in overse…
Thanks for the overview of your thinking. I agree that higher interest rates this week affect many sectors of the market negatively, and left few pockets unscathed. Hope thing wills settle down in next few weeks.
Glad to see "transitory" term is…
Good funds but bad timing to hold them right now. Also there maybe already too much overlap; best to verify that first. YTD return on several of the above funds are already in red. ARTYX is down 7.9%, for example.
More important questions should …
Several companies are starting to increase the unvaccinated employee’s insurance premium by several hundred dollars per month. The carrot days are over. Now comes the stick! One can have their freedom, but they are not entitled to infect others wh…
The COVID drawdown was rough on many mutual funds, even treasury. Many were down 10-40% within 2 weeks. Nevertheless, this drawdown recovered quickly comparing to the 2008’s drawdown that lasted several years. Since then value funds trail their grow…
Bill Nygren of Oakmark funds have done well in 2021 relative to their benchmark. He is a good value manager and he owed up to his mistakes (i.e. Washington Mutual back in 2008) while improved their risk management process to avoid the classic “value…
Good article. Being patient helped to navigate through the extremes of fear and greed. Now it is a good time to reflect and make the adjustment to face a new year (and challenges).
@Newgirl, to clarify my earlier statement, we moved more equity to defensive sectors such as health care and utility. Traditionally, these sectors plus consumer staples are considered defensive while the other sectors are considered cycincal. Thi…
For sure, I am looking forward to your article in Seeking Alpha. I too is rebalancing $ among the defensive sectors from real estate and health care to utilities. I also will focus more on the total return from dividend funds/ETFs than bonds since …
@Charles, Happy New Year. Thank you for the reminder.
I rebalanced in early December since my equity positions have grew considerably relative to bonds. This new year I will have more cash than bond, but always looking for opportunties suitable i…
My recent Roth conversion at Vanguard has completely online without any issue. Actually it is pretty simple and asked whether I want to have tax withheld. I declined and paid the tax directly to IRS (quarterly estimates). Fund was transferred in 24…
The month of December has been a risk-off and risk-on scenarios where investors are trying to figure out how badly the market can be impacted by Omicron variant. It has been a risk-off scenario for the last weeks.
This year uptick of infected ca…
@PRESSmUP, Thanks you for the clarification and how you managed the FI part. It is great that you can get that high dividend yields from SCHD and DIVO. I also use healthcare and utility in ETFs to generate some income with the understanding of incu…
@PRESSmUP, you must hold a sizable cash position since you are not holding any conventional bond funds? Can the other positions generate adequate income?
Yes, I did exact what you did at the library. For a number of years, I subscribed to No-load Fund Analyst that taught me everything I knew today about mutual funds and more. The internet allows me to further my learning in several blog sites includi…
@bee, as always thank you for the links. Took pre-retirement class at work, but there are many aspects of preparation for the drawdown and taxes.
@crash, the natural disaster are very hard for many people, especially in countries where the govern…
We will focus more on the balanced fund bucket in 2022 since we had hard time with our bonds this year. In order to fight inflation, the Fed has announced tapering in early 2022 following by several (3) rate hike from 0.25% short term rate. Which …
Interesting article. Looking back, many mutual funds used to carry front-load unless you invest through advisors. Then came the no-load mutual funds and investors can buy or sell directly from the mutual fund companies. Discount brokerages such a…
The 80+% bond allocation is well positioned for further stock decline. Majority of the bond is high quality, AAA and some in BBB. Duration is 5.5 years so it is reasonable for the rising rate in 2022.
This Omicron situation reminds everyone when the 2020 pandemic started. Even with the COVID vaccines, antibody and antiviral treatments, one would expect we would be in a much better situation but sadly we are not. I am not surprised that market fut…
I understand that Nesmith is a real musician of the Monkees cast while the rest are actors. Don’t see him much after the show ended. Nice to learn he continued to write music.
Not to get caught of confirmation bias, I wonder too if Jack Hough is repeating what other pundits are saying. I don’t invest in gold but rather to have a higher stock allocation (selectively) to counter inflation.
@dstone42, your 529 plan is administrated by your state who sponsors the 529 plan. Not familiar specifically with TRP's 529 plan. Withdrawing 529 fund to pay for "Qualified College Expense" is straightforward. Several options you can do:
https://…
Thanks, that is a significant flaw. Amazon and Microsoft have significant presence in cloud-based backup storage services to both business and government.
The dominant effect of the FAANG stocks over the S&P500 magnified even more after spring 2020. There was a short period (winter 2020 thru summer 2021) where the market broadened to allow the cyclical value stocks to out-perform (large and small …
