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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
I gave up on paper subscription awhile back when we adopted iPads in our household. We still subscribe electronically to New York Times, Washington Post, and WSJ.
@STB65, Regardless what others may think you need to have an allocation/plan that you can sleep. I agree what you said on QE and market valuation. As always market timing is difficult and many of us have learn here.
Lately I have been rebalanc…
We need to pay attention to the expense ratios for these "cash equivalents". ERs above 1% quickly eat into the lowly 2% total return. That is not counting if they are transaction fee mutual funds.
That fake reviews and counterfeits are the main reason I shop less and less with Amazon. Only few books and definitely no electronics. In 2016 all Christmas gifts were purchased from elsewhere.
Most of them wants $10/month for subscription.
Washington Post allows 10 free viewing than they ask you to subscribe. New York Times also doing the same for sometime now.
Yes. After 15 year period, the annual return of VTMFX is 1.13% higher than USBLX due to its lower ER. Also the tax cost ratio is better (lower values).
Political instability with respect to North Korea affects Asia stock market. Otherwise US market has been trading over the historical P/E for several months. How will recent immigration policy affects oversea workers that the tech sector and their …
High fee is a consideable drag on annual return. The worst of all it compounds itself just like annual return. Unless the company offers a significant matching, 10% for example (in reality this is rare), it is difficult to cancel the disadvantages…
Agree. Highly regarded First Eagle and IVA global funds are also holding over 20-30% cash and small % of gold.
Don't recall ever seeing Klasman portfolio. Certainly he is not following the index and he had only 3 bad years out of 34 years of inve…
I was invested through 1994 when Fed (Alan Greenspan) raised rates 6 times. Bond lost 3% that year, BUT all asset classes rocketed from 1995 to 2000 when tech bubble.
Remember that we have a very different Fed Chairman today, Janet Yellen. My o…
FMI beats to their own drums as long as I have invested with them. Their reports are what I considered realistic and at times quite pessimistic. That is reflected in the large cash position (10-18%) among the 3 funds.
That is no different than …
Many expect the market to go higher. As DJIA reached new high last week, I rebalanced more back into bonds and cash, ~25% and 5%, respectively.
Any idea on how DoubleLine Total Return and Core bonds are doing?
@mrc70, You are getting excellent advices from many experienced investors here. Overall, the choices in your 401(K) plan are actually pretty good. Fidelity's index funds offer low expense ratio and they should form the basis of your 401(K). One s…
@TSP_Transfer, Going forward REIT could face sizable headwind with higher interest rate and other competing asset classes such as bonds. I sold most of my REIT in June last year and increased the cash position.
Thank you. Charles De Vaulx gave one of the very best interview on value investing, and why he is holding nearly 40% cash. He shares similar view to First Eagle's Matthew McLennan (previous WealthTrack interview) who also have difficult time find …
Perhaps this is part of rebalancing as equity has out paced bond sector last year. Also there are more people retiring in combing years and they depend on bond for their income.
The country allocation of GVAL is bit too risky for my taste:
Russia 11.2%
Austria 10.9%
Brazil 10.2%
Portugal 9.7%
Spain 8.9%
Hungary 7.9%
Greece 7.8%
Poland 7.7%
Czech Republic 7.1%
Norway 6.5%
Hong Kong 6.2%
Italy 5.8%
I will stay with S…
@BenWP,
FMIJX now offers an institutional class, FMIYX at lower expense ratio at 0.84% and a minimum $2,500 (not $1M with most institutional shares). At Fidelity, it requires $50 to purchase this transaction fee fund. You can buy more later via …
I work in the technology sector where I am position to adjust our workforce to the customer demand. The growth has been anemic comparing to past recovery cycles. However, I am cautiously optimistic that Ed Hyman's observation is right going forwar…
Agree. Matt McLennan's cautious approach has done well over time. Like he said value investing is about finding compelling value and it is not easily done today.
"of the major asset classes, emerging markets remain the cheapest and we recommend tilting portfolios accordingly. And we favor active management over passive management at this stage of the market cycle."
In another word let us manage your money.