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
Getting 5% is pretty good. When I take into account of inflation (6%), I am behind by 1%. Right now I am adding to intermediate term bonds before the FED will pause after May ‘s rate hike. It is counterintuitive, but I think the longer duration bo…
Your CD is fine with the settlement date. I stay with large banks and make sure they are not callable. VG would state that clearly. JP Morgan always offer callable CDs and I avoid them. Hard to find 2 yr + CDs that pay over 5%.
Like you I am bu…
The maturity date, 5/15/23 indicates it is a 3 months CD when it was issued on 2/13/23. As of today, 4/24/23, it is approaching the maturity date.
No you are looking at the secondary market prices and you will not get the stated rate.
Best is t…
I fully expect that as a low cost approach. Think VG want their clients to move up to the next level of advisory at higher fees. Schwab has their robo-based advisory and one of our poster uses it to run part of his portfolio.
We invest with Vanguard primary with their actively managed funds. We use ETFs for their index funds in other brokerages.
So where are their human touch when they want to do more advisory services?
Does BlackRock offer actively managed ETFs, stock or bonds?
I have been tracking a few offer by JP Morgan, but their history is not long enough to gain confidence.
Comment from Mr. Lucas (Vanguard):
Lucas: Customer service complaints have always been sort of a feature of Vanguard’s history. If you go back to the days when Bogle led the firm—this is a point that I made at that conference—there were lots of com…
Alt funds are difficult to use for many investors.
They often buy/sell these funds at innopportune times.
How true as an investor. In addition, they tend to have high expense ratio. Many use gold funds such as GOLD and IAU as a hedge.
@larryB, the market took a dive when treasury was downgraded to AA+.
@AndyJ, Also there are bullions $ of money market funds invested in treasury. Hard to imagine they will not be affected.
For my kids 529 funds, I rebalance them every 3 years to reduce stock allocation. A year or two before tuition bills are due they were moved to money market funds. Rules on 529 funds are highly restrictive; used to be ONE change per year and now is…
@hank, you are far more sophisticated that I am. I just watch the sector movement that generally tells the story on the entire market. There are talks of introducing artificial intelligence for market analysis, and I will be very careful with that.…
Rebalancing our portfolio once a quarter is not too unreasonable. Except that is boring and we know how when behavioral investing is involved everything goes, including myself.
Thought Joe Scarborough’s comments is appropriate.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said the network could be "destroyed" for following Donald Trump's orders.
The conservative network issued a statement defending the parade of lies it broadcast about Domi…
In certain days, I found some oversea funds tend to skip or delay reporting their NAVs by the evening. Thought the NAV is automatically calculated and post to the public quickly, but this does not seem to be case under certain circumstances.
FOX news reached settlement before court hearing starts.
The parties settled for $787,500,000 — about half of Dominion's original $1.6 billion ask.
https://npr.org/2023/04/18/1170339114/fox-news-settles-blockbuster-defamation-lawsuit-with-dominio…
@hank and @yogibearbull, thanks for the details. Currently I hold both PRPFX and IAU in my alternative sleeve. Their ERs are cheaper to hold than other alternatives I tried.
Currently the price of gold is over the buying point that I want. Wil…
@Mark, Love your idea!
Fox News supposes to have deep pocket, and they can pay Dominion in full. What Fox wants is to negotiate to a lesser amount while without admitting their guilt to the public. Otherwise, this will hurt their image and view…
@larryB, I am familiar with those names you mentioned. Many changes but the most notable are:
1. Sogen International is still around but with a different name, First Eagle. This family of fund is excellent. Jean-Marie Eveillard retired and repl…
Thanks everyone. Your inputs are most valuable since I am still new with precious metals. Since COVID I hold about 5-10% gold stock, IAU, just to reduce the portfolio volatility. Sold some when it reached over $2000 an ounce and bought more when …
Thanks for posting. All the data are pointing to a slowing economy supported by the consumer spending habits. During the tech bubble in 2000-2002, consumers delayed buying new cars and kept up with maintaining their old cars, that benefited car par…
Although only ~7% now, I've doubled my holdings since the end of 2022,
@MikeM, am I correct to assume that percentage is your portfolio? I have owned risky asset but generally in well under 5%.
Mr. Jain uses a momentum strategy investing in the hot sectors/ stocks. When he is spot on oil producers when oil prices are rising, then the switch quickly to the next hot area. Not the kind of manager I want to invest in for the long term especi…
In the last 6 months, this topic has been discussed at length. https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/156944/#Comment_156944
Bought a CD several months ago from Barclays Bank - 12 months at 5.4% with NO $ minimum.
I too watched Kristina Hooper on Wall Street Week and not convinced of her argument. FED minutes indicated they are expecting the possibility of recession but that is not their priority as opposed to containing inflation.
Things to watch now is t…
Think you can do better at your brokerages where there offer many choices that pay higher rates (>5% 12 months) and no $ limit. Right now, 3 and 6 months T bills that pay a tad over 5% and the upper limit is $5M.
Trimmed back the following over last several weeks (on up days):
1. Smaller cap stocks
2. Growth stocks
3. Commodities
Bought more as CDs and T bills matures:
1. Short term treasury, government agency bonds, and investment grade bonds.
2. Tot…
@hank said: I rarely cite Bill Fleckenstein here. His daily column is by subscription. His views far from mainstream.
From March 27 (in response to a reader’s question):
”Never ever ever buy a bond fund. There is no maturity date on a fund! A trad…
ARTBX’s YTD return is 14.6%, very impressive.
ER is 1.42%. Portfolio’s market capitalization is $600 M (small caps) and the benchmark the fund used is MSCI AC World Ex USA Small Cap Index. Additionally, the fund has 26% small cap emerging marke…
Thank you. Large cap index is dominated by a handful of large tech companies (i.e. narrow breath) that make out-performing their respective index very challenging. When the leadership broadens out in the future, there will be more opportunities ava…
How long it took? Our return was accepted promptly after we submitted. The Federal refund has not appeared in our bank, but the state refund showed up quickly.
