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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
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: Today the trade volume is only 1,150 shares. Interesting, Malaysia is the top country at 22%, and China is not even on the top 10.
Reply to @Investor: Gotta love that "trickle down" theory, only if that works at all for the middle class. There is an informative interview with David Stockman (former budget director of Ronald Reagan) who shared his view on this matter. I believ…
Reply to @scott: I agree that single country China funds/ETF is not such good idea for risk management perspective. For now I am using mainly MAPIX to gain direct exposure.
As I recalled there were several Chinese companies listed in US stock …
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: Thank you. For now I am using Matthew Asia Dividend, MAPIX for Asian region exposure. Other diversified foreign funds generally avoid China directly. Many including Oakmark prefers to invest developed countries su…
You are doing quite well with only 22% equity. No direct exposure to oil/natural resource ?
Came across this article in the morning. Not exactly what to make of it. To do well, one must able to time the market just right. So this leaves me out …
"...will beat money market returns by 150 to 200 basis points"
And that is significant in this low return environment. Unfortunately, stable value funds are not available to retail investors outside of 401(K) plans. Pimco's new stable value offer…
For those who missed the conference call, a replay of the IVA Funds update call is available through March 9, 2012. Dial-In: (703) 925-2533 or (888) 266-2081. Access code: 1564717
Reply to @catch22: Thank you for sharing your thought. Recent market run-up enabled early rebalancing and consolidating to fewer positions for ease of management. Otherwise I will have a few cold ones.
thank you. Very informative article. Another article mentioned from 2008 time frame before the housing bubble burst.
http://www.fpafunds.com/pdfs/commentaries/Crossing_the_Rubicon.pdf
Below is a recent article on FPA Capital fund and its 40% wei…
Reply to @Investor: I agree. There is increasing probability that Europe will enter recession this year. Hopefully that will be a short one and Europe re-emerge in better shape.
Last week China and Japan pledged to help the IMF, but it is unc…
"Cheap and safe"
Jaffe must be kidding. Third Ave fund has been trailing badly in the last several years as he made BIG and WRONG bets in oversea real estate market. He may be around for long time, but there are better fund managers out there.
Thank you. Largest outflow from US equity, and into mostly bonds and muni bonds.
Vanguard picked up most of the business. Surprisingly DoubleLine is doing quite well.
Reply to @scott: What is Marketfield investment strategy? I see it is shorting foreign equity by 17%! Is this real that they are so bearish on foreign equity?
Reply to @scott: There are other fund managers who are more flexible and manage their funds through the up and down cycles. One I particular like is Steve Romick of FPA Crescent.
Reply to @kevindow: I agree that many diversified ETFs have the edge on ER over the average actively managed mutual funds. Same goes to index funds. However, lower ER is only one of the many criteria for constructing a globally balanced portfilio.…
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Depending what brokerage you are using for the institutional shares:
Vanguard requires $25K with $20 transaction fee, $2 additional purchases (2 required)
Fidelity requires less than $1M with $75 transaction fee, $5 addition…
Apparently Chuck Jaffe is not a big fan of Facebook. The article pointed out several valid arguments against Facebook IPO.
http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=72B2FD36-4E07-11E1-803F-002128040CF6
We have been using Fidelity as our primary brokerage for long time. Their website continues to improve year after year and that is important to us since we do all transactions online. Customer service is excellent and they have branch offices near…
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Bear in mind that this asset class is not without risk - high volatility compared to domestic government bonds and higher correlation to equity. On the plus side, EM bonds provide >6% dividend and potentially high singl…
The 'fear factor' is fading somewhat compared to December 2011 time frame. This morning the unemployment figure improved considerably, but even at 8.3% is still too high. Housing market is still depressed... Hopefully the confidence among average…
Reply to @Investor: Often the employers failed to explain the concept of 'vesting' and their consequences in clear and understandable language to new employees. Company matching is what many companies like to boost.
Thank you. Wish the commentary includes more details on which stocks did well and those didn't. For example, they picked Hewlett Packard because of the valuation. Is this another 'value trap' given the recent flops...
For the month of January, both domestic and international equities have done very well. Is this the "risk-off" environment and the Europe crisis is far from resolved?
This article is really dated! Gross changed his tune on "New Normal". In addition to investing in treasury and muni bonds, he is also buying emerging market bonds.
Reply to @VintageFreak: The prospectus is available FPA funds website. The International fund, FPIVX, is a no load with ER at 1.35% after fee waiver.
Please note that both managers came from Harris Associates as international equity analysts. I…
Reply to @Investor: If Fairholme gets cash out a significantly higher price, it would be good for the Fairholme's shareholders, assuming the average purchase prices are much lower.
Hi Catch, As I recalled you are invested in Utah 529 plan, right? If there is only 6 years of investment time left, your current 80/20 equity/bond allocation is too aggressive in my opinion. At this point the emphasis should shift toward capital …
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: Thank you for the reminder. The conference calls will be recorded and make available 72 hours on their website for those who cannot attend.
Reply to @bee: Thanks for your input on USAA muni funds. Why are the yields are considerably higher than the respective Vanguard fund with respect to duration? For example, Vanguard Intermediate term tax-free fund, VFICX yielding 2.03% while USSTX…
