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
@Tampabay, "Holding a Healthy % of cash and short term bonds" is a very expensive mode of operation, good luck shopping
It boils down to personal approach of risk management. The price tag for these alternates are too high for my preference while …
@catch, I still get similar commentaries from investment films I inquired about in the past, although I seldom find them useful. I rather spend time here to get a much broader perspective and insight discussion. So I contribute to MFO through our…
@openice, ... has not been interested in growing AUM at the expense of shareholder returns"
Bill Gross said the same thing post-2000 when the asset of hid Pimco fund rocketed upward. Yes he made many good bets in his favor in his earlier days, but…
@john, several months ago, we, the MFO members agreed NOT to post articles in their entirety to respect to author's intellectual property. An URL link with a short summary would be preferred. Thank you.
I have been watching on the sideline on this " alternatives" while holding with a healthy % of cash and short term bond funds. I welcome another 10% drop as of this Friday - great entry points.
Although Berkshire Hathaway, BRKB , is not considered a mutual fund, Warren Buffet's writing is always informative and insightful. He discussed individual stocks that didn't worked out and those that contributed materially.
Concur with Andy on FMI writing. Another one I like is Osterweis funds - detailed analysis that reflects their cautious and conservative approach in portfolio construction and positioning.
Sometime convenience of camera cell phones has it's price. Take a good look at Jennifer Lawrence's (and others) case and the consequence of poor judgement. I love my digital SLRs and am very careful with cloud storage.
Regardless whether the government is right or wrong to the shareholders, this is an example of downside risk of narrowly focus (financial) and concentrated mutual funds.
@John, Rebalancing your portfolio is a solid approach in risk management. I too have fair amount of exposure to Apple and having been trimming it (along with Google) and buying bond funds. Still think economy is not robust enough for interest rat…
I am definitely NOT smart enough comparing to these experts. I do agree with Scott that healthcare and energy are long term themes we need, and that where I look for buying opportunities.
so far this year...
It is important to look the performance or compounded return span over a full market cycle, I.e. 2008 to present. YTD return is another form of performance chasing.
Oakex has a large stake in Europe where it is in or near recession. Smaller caps companies don't have sale in other part of the world where their economy is doing better. If you have a long term perspective, it will likely work out okay.
I per…
@catch, I lived in Michigan briefly in the 90's, and never understood the thrill of deer hunting, especially when the state allows for the practice of "baiting" prior to the season opening. Over-population of deers is rampant across the country in…
Will see how this will play out. It is really unfortunate that the government is trying to reduce the debts by taxing Roth IRAs. What about all those corporations who move their headquarters to countries outside US in order to avoid paying their f…
@Max, you can get institutional share with $5k minimum for tax deferred account plus a transaction fee in most brokerages. Fidelity charges $50 whereas it costs $20 at Vanguard. Wish more companies would lower the $minimum for IRA accounts.
The article forgot to mention that Vanguard also offers a fine array of actively managed funds.
Quietly, T. Rowe Price is also doing very well in attracting new asset this year.
@Andy, I think DBLTX has a slightly better downside protection (3 years) than DBLFX according to M*.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/ratings-risk.action?t=DBLFX®ion=usa&culture=en-US
@Charles, thank you for the detailed report. Particularly,
He know what it takes to advance technology, not financial engineering. Take a look at IBM, HP, Cisco, and other old tech firms who fail to understand what "innovation" requires. Soon…
In recent years Amazon is became less relevant for us as consumers. We now shopped less than 10% than we used to.
Hardware they made, Kindle Fire and Fire phone, are barely competitive both in price and functionality. We have both Android and i…
@Kaspa,
Still driving a 1992 Honda Civic with 200K miles - remarkable reliability! Before we bought 2011 Odyssey minivan, we did fair amount of research on both crash test and mechanical reliability and came back to Honda again. European cars are…
Agree! Very informative. Have been reading his las test book.
"Reducing the Risk of Black Swans: Using the Science of Investing to Capture Returns with Less Volatility Paperback"
Totally agree. Fear is a powerful motivator for selling newspapers. It is particularly troubling to see the decline of financial journalism among major papers including WSJ and Barrons.
