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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

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  • Thank you. Did not know Portfolio Visualizer provides that level of details. I presume the data get refreshed every quarterly or when they are available from the companies.
  • @Crash, you are right that there is a toll road in Orange county, CA. These days I use my map app to review my trip to ensure I don't get surprise like I did in FL and IL. This helps to avoid the gouging and headache later. The local residences al…
    in Tolls Comment by Sven January 2021
  • Think there is always a catch with brokerages on free stuff. If the Premier version allow direct download from brokerage, you are way ahead of me. Still waiting for 1099 statements, W2 and other. I take an hour to enter the data manually but th…
  • Tracking the top holding also reveal whether the fund manager is doing "window dressing" at year-end. Some managers like to load up on winning stocks and dump the poor ones so that the optics look better. Some funds have low turnover rates while o…
  • @Mark, TaxCut software from H&R Block is another option. It costs a few bucks less than TurboTax. Deluxe Turbo Tax is suitable for our purpose. Also we can look back on various deduction and income for last several years. We found that is use…
  • This pandemic is hitting his pocket book pretty good as leisure business are struggling, and the pain is far from over. Think he has cruise line too.
  • Virgin Airline filed for bankruptcy last year during the pandemic. Branson still has lots of $ to explore other opportunities.
  • My father-in-law did that once but ending up buying TurboTax so he can save a copy on his tax return. We prefer buying a copy Deluxe TurboTax instead.
  • I use the same process as Ben. T. Rowe Price gotten cheap that certain Morningstar products are only available when you reach certain asset level. Portfolio X-ray was useful to see overlapping holdings.
  • We are not even into tax season yet. Just checked their site again. "Heavy call volume. Please try after 4:30 pm EST."
  • Right now @bee is not able to get them to return her call. That is unacceptable from their call center. One would plan to have that customer service phone number forward to multiple phone lines so their business would not disrupt. It is really not…
  • @bee, I have to do a similar IRA transfer with TRP several years ago and it took 4 weeks to complete. They follow all the rules and paper forms were required instead of electronically as in Fidelity. Don't know if this changed recently. Nothing w…
  • Agree. Bucket approach works well to ensure living expense for near term, 3-5 years. Shifting the gains from equity funds to the balanced funds make a solid approach in this low yield environment.
  • That is exactly what happened to our tax return last year which was submitted in February in paper form. We did not get our small refund until late July since the Oregon IRS office was closed for several months. This year we will file electronicall…
  • All the credit goes to my wife. She reminds us that we still have our jobs and there are many who much less fortunated than we are. By the way, our professor snowball also donated his stimulus check.
  • By now TRP should able fully geared to work from home. Customer support can be done with broadband connection. That how IT support is being done. I performed asset transfer online at Fidelity last week and it was completed in 5 days. As I recal…
  • One can donate the stimulus check to local food banks that can benefit many families who are currently out of work. These food banks rely soley on the local grocery stores and individuals. It is not much but we donated our first stimulus checks. …
  • Good for them if that is the case. They were quite good when they started at Artisan.
  • It is about checking a box from a long list campaign promise, nothing more. Empty promises to those captured voters. In the end, consumers paid higher price on Chinese products. Same go to bring manufacturing jobs back to US.
  • Value investing has been out of favor in recent years and Artisan funds are no acception as their domestic and overseas value funds lag their growth counterparts. Kieffer has been managing for quite awhile. Is the AUM dropping quickly? Trying to g…
  • @LewisBraham, I concur. Social media today help to spread the new without fact checking/editing board as in new channels. Thus the false information spreads like wildfire. Challenge is that many people do not question information posted in social …
  • I won't receive any stimulus money - I'm not eligible. Why you are not eligible? While we welcome you to the MFO discussion board, can you tell us something about yourself since you asked many questions? Investing is a lifelong learning process an…
  • Many financial advisors will help you to draw up a balanced and diversified investment portfolio. Ideally, funds chosen will have negative asset correlation to each other. High quality bonds and equities are the classic examples. While in drawdown …
  • Fido = Fidelity (brokerage)
  • That is why we have history class in high school. Variations on the repeating-history theme appear alongside debates about attribution: Irish statesman Edmund Burke is often misquoted as having said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to…
  • Manchin is different beast and perhaps that is the only way to get elected in West Virginia. Sometimes the moderate GOP senators are more amendable to work with. Will be patient for awhile since there was more uncertainty With the unemployment nu…
  • Exactly.
  • In another word, they have drank Jim Jones Kool aid and there is no turning back. Over 70 millions people voted for this big lies. Also they will likely to suffer from more COVID infection and not taking the vaccine when they are available. Incredi…
  • The press put it nicely but Officier Sicknick was essentially beaten to death with a fire extinguisher. He died from a blood clot in the brain after he collapsed at the police station. that is so sad! CanTrump pardon all these rioters since they …
  • I think we are on a similar paths toward a respectable return in this low yield environment. I re-read Lynn Bolin's articles on alternatives over the holidays and planning to increase % allocation. Not sure how bonds will play out this year. Thi…
  • @JonGaltIII, Drawdown has considerable impact on future returns. Let me try to explain this with some calculation. Let say you lost 10% in fund A in 2020. An amount of $100 investment is reduced to $90. 100 X (1-0.1) = 90 In order to regain …
  • Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this very productive tread. Yes, 2020 was a rough one as many of us survived while earned a few bucks. 2021 will be different again. Stay safe.
  • @JonGatIII, Be mindful of the risk going forward. I survived both the tech bubble in 2000 and financial crisis in 2008 through my risk-adverse asset allocation. Even then it took years to fully recover the loss. It was a humbling experience and th…
  • This riot in DC is far from over. The inauguration date January 20th will be very dangerous. Saw a piece from Michael Cheroff, former DHS head under Bush administration this morning and the failure to act on the intelligence available in the media …
  • Got to love Peter Sellers in "Being There". Thank you very much. The article has lots of very insightful (almost too much) information.
  • Dominion provides an advanced digital voting system that have vertifying (signatures and address of the voters) and recounting capabilities, similar to those used in the European countries. US is advancing to a more capable voting system. Still rec…
  • Question is will Sidney Powell's law firm survive when the lawsuit goes to court? To defend the claim without evidence is one hurdle that bankrupted many firms. https://npr.org/2021/01/08/954836971/dominion-voting-sues-former-trump-lawyer-seeking…
  • @JonGaltill, our own contributor to the monthly commentary, Lynn Bolin provided many insightful articles on preparing for retirement. Here is one from January 2021. https://mutualfundobserver.com/2021/01/as-i-age/ Charles also writes for Seeking …
  • While JHQAX perked an interest in MFO discussion, it is important to assess how JHQAX performed in 2020 relative to its peers with respect to their returns and risk. As @fred495 noted that the fund uses an options strategy for the past seven years.…
  • The institional share of Thornberg funds are no load and requires $5K at Fidelity plus $49.95 transaction fee. It is better to go with ARTYX, NTF at Fidelity with $3K minimum. I gradually move some overseas funds toward growth style over several ye…