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
Investing and making the right decision with respect to risk-return is hard work. Many financial magazines such as Kiplinger, Money and others try to over-simplify these matters. At time Barrons is also guilty of that in their annual round table d…
Given the geopolitical situation across the globe, our portfolios have made modest re-balancing:
1. Switch FMIJX to the institutional share, FMIYX as the fund closed as of April 30, 2017
2. Increased bond allocation to PIMIX
3. Increased EM equi…
Please note that many American funds are available to tax-defer accounts, the R classes, the 5% front load is waived. Their dominance started to decline when inexpensive index funds are widely available in many tax-defer accounts.
In my case, the Discover card has an embedded chip but the gas station where I bought gas does not have chip reader. Instead it requested to have the magnetic strip swiped. Since the card reader appeared normal, i.e. no wire or other hanging outs…
Credit card issue also happened during my family vacation over the spring break. I found two unauthorized charges elsewhere on my Discover card and I notified Discover right away. A new card was sent the following day. In this case the embedded c…
No thanks. I would rather invest in something more constructive such as local farming and high quality food production. Many of these products are not publicly traded, but that is not important to us per se.
@Old_Joe, you are corrected. We switched to a local credit union over ten years ago after we closed our checking account with Bank of America. Never look back since then.
Last time I visited Chicago, I flew into Midway airport using Southwest Airline. American Airline is another decent airline if you wish to fly into O'Hare Airport.
After Border Books went out of business (not necessary due to e-commerce), Amazon is building retail shops in shopping malls. Barnes and Nobles is doing something right and they are still in business.
I have been rebalancing later out of US equity and into cash allocation. Don't think we will see recession soon with improved employment. Short term correction is always possible. All bets are off if geopolitical conflict arises.
Warren Buffet…
Vanguard Ultra short-term bond, VUBFX has been mentioned here several times. ER is 0.20%, SEC yield 1.24%, average duration 0.9 years.
The Admiral share is available for $50K minimum, ER 0.12%, SEC yield 1.34%.
@VintageFreak, All I can say is that Mr. B. is not my kind of manager. I can do better elsewhere while sleep well every night. Sears is just slowly dying unfortunately and each piece with some apparent values are being sold off. Hate to see an i…
For a supposedly smart manager like Mr. B, double down on a rapidly decline stock could end baby for his investors.
FYI. I never invest with Fairholme funds.
The only manager who still uses Michael Price's investment process is Peter Langerman of Franklin Mutual Discovery. Other former Mutual Series fund managers are nowhere nearly as successful as MP back in the 80 - 90's before he sold the firm to Fra…
They are baiting North Korea at present.
Yes, they are using the good cop and bad cop approach. First, DT said North Korea behaved badly and China has not help. RE said all military options are opened, then he goes to China to put pressure to find…
@Old_Joe, I couldn't more. Also the house panel is moving this already poor plan forward instead of addressing what is really lacking. Eight years later I guess the GOP has done absolutely nothing. The hastly plan is a disgrace. Adding this on to…
This reminds me of those invested with Enron. Classic mistake by putting all eggs in one basket and selling at the bottom. He should have learned from his depression experience.
During DJT campaign trail, he said everyone will get coverage but at a lower cost. Guess this is far from reality.
Many of my friends who are self-employed, have had hard time getting basic coverage until ACA came along. Now some of them are wo…
Way too large now. Long time ago I used it as a small cap value fund. Today it is considered an all cap fund. No thanks, there are better choices out there.
Nothing outstanding about Buffalo funds in general with respect to fund manager, long term track record (good and bad market cycles) and expense ratio.
We use Vanguard Health Care, ETF (VHT ) for taxable account; excellent tax efficiency. For our IRA, we use a combination of PRHSX and VGHCX. We side stepped Fidelity's offering due to too frequent manager turnover.
These annuity products are offered for private sectors on their deferred pension and deferred contribution plans. Nuts! I will rollover the deferred contribution or 401(k) into a rollover IRA, but I have to take the pension portion part as annuity…
Watch for the upcoming Fed meeting on March 16-17. Probability for 25 basis point rate hike is over 50%. If employment continues to improve and inflation exceeds target rate of 2%, several more hike this year.
