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.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
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
COVID cases are rising fast in Europe after a steady decline over the summer. Is this a second wave and the possibity of lockdown again? Money laundering among big banks shocked the market but this has been an ongoing business for a long time and …
COVID cases are rising fast in Europe that could be the second wave Dr. Fauci talked about. If this doesn't brought in control quickly, we can see lockdown again as in March. We all know how this affect the business and the quick V-shape recovery.…
@sma3, Our MFO contributor, Charles Brolin wrote a number of very insightful articles on the monthly Commentary as well as Seeking Alpha. Defensive for sure.
@msf, you have good memory. I invested with Contra fund in the 1990's and it was done well consistently. It was the rapid growth that concerned me at that time.
And I'm wondering why robots won't learn to take care of robots.
Robots are only as smarter as the person who programs them and optimize the algorithms. So I think programming jobs will continue to be in demand. For now they are very useful to do m…
At the same time, it's not hard to find large cap growth funds, mid cap growth funds, and global growth funds that have done better YTD without leveraging. Not to mention that the risk profiles of long and short positions differ: the amount you can …
I had invested with Will Danoff in the past. Very consistent performance from year to year. Even during the tech bubble Contra fund still managed to loss less. Just wish Fidelity let him to close the fund much earlier at smaller asset. On this asp…
More information. The young employee I was referring to likes to day trading for penny stocks. No doubt it was exciting to make quick bucks here and there. Putting money into a 401(k) account and investing in index funds was not his vision of savin…
Agree that the Artisan management fee could be lower and seldom they lower the fees as asset grows. Granite Peaks funds also have above average fees. That is one of many reason ETFs and index funds grow at much faster pace than mutual funds.
Robots need human maintenance. People need to learn computer programming and mechanical engineering so they can maintain the entire fleet of robots. He/she will be well compensated and above all those skillsets will be in constant demand. Manual la…
This young man who worked for me for several years, was transferred elsewhere. Delay gratification and saving for the future are difficult concept for the younger generations. Yes, he got debt from college loan. Other young workers tend to balance …
Totally agree. Many college graduates have large college loan debt - often $50-100K. Finding jobs in this pandemic is not easy. Our companies hired a few this year but that is less than the attrition rates due to retirement and others.
Younger gen…
Hopefully the new Artisan fund will be more successful this time. At present there are not many international small cap value funds. Oakmark International Small Cap fund is way too volatile for my taste.
For sure the NSA and the intelligence community's AIs are much more sophisticated. For now we are all using the simple ones Google, Bing, Siri and etc. As I stated earlier, technology can be used to benefit mankind as well as for the opposite purp…
You beat me to it. I read the article last night and still ponder on it.
Ray has money in the game unlike others. His argument is well supported, particularly with the debt US is facing today.
SkyNet was in the movie "The Terminator" 20 years ago.
SkyNet, or Titan[1], is a highly-advanced computer system possessing artificial intelligence. Once it became self-aware, it saw humanity as a threat to its existence due to the attempts of the C…
I think it has arrived in Europe...
https://vox.com/21435868/coronavirus-france-italy-spain-uk-europe
And the winter is around the corner where people are gathering indoor. With face covering and social distance, this may suppress the infection wh…
It will take several months to sort out the test data. The production of billions of dosages and their distribution won't be easy as the politicans like to see. Redfield is likely to be right - mid 2021.
This is part of tech advancement. Cars are built today by robots on assembly lines. Still it requires human to programming and maintenance of the robots. Machine learning helps to speed up the iterative development process for manufacturing. I can …
Several vaccination are required to be enrolled in Oregon's public school. This COVID vaccine will likely be required for new employees in private sectors. All jobs I had in private sectors required urine test.
5.9% is not unusual as a top 10 holdings and often that is without the limits set forth in the prospectus. When it gets over 10%, the managers better has a lots of conviction that the stock will go up. Just keep watching to see if the manager will…
Thank you. I read that teenager's brain are not fully developed until they reach 25 years old. So it is not surprising they would engage in large gatherings while most likely not wearing face covering. Not sure the administrators are aware of this…
I never paid attention to the barometric reading - though I guess some did. But, I’m a bit compulsive about allocations. That’s where I see value in Ol_Skeet’s barometric presentations. I used to enjoy studying various ones found online and than con…
That was the very same reason I did not want to invest with him since I already own BRKB. So today he is pulling out the old plays again, except that BRKA is no where as dominating as it was. I see little if any compelling reason to invest with hi…
Yes, the stock market and the economy is two very different thing. Those of us who have jobs and 401(K) are very different those who live from paycheck to paycheck with little saving, let alone investing for retirement. Unfortunately these income f…
The winter season is coming when human activities will be more indoor oriented which make the second wave situation worse. On top of that flu season is upon us too that will complicate the respiratory infection. The wise thing to do is take the flu …
Amazing that he still have investors. Never invest with him when Fairholme funds were the hottest thing. Soon they all crashed back to earth. One decent pick on his portfolio, BRKA. Not so much for the rest.
Somehow he manages to live like a …
I don't want there to be "too many cooks in the kitchen".
Often mixing different strategies do not work out well for the investors. Vanguard sometimes uses several subvisiors on their funds. Some works and some don't. One has to review the prospe…
@Observant1, Interesting concept at that time, kinda like the 1992 USA Dream Team. Invested with their International fund but found there nothing special but many downsides to it.
@msf, I remember Dick Weiss from way way back when he was with…
I reviewed MASNX and decided to pass given the high expense ratio. The drawdown in March really expose how funds, active or passive, response. Many tanked badly.
As I recall, this fund is consisted of several alternative strategies include M&…
You can also make your own assessment by review the year-end distribution from year to year. What you should be looking at is the amount of taxable distribution, i.e. dividend and short term cap gain (taxed at your income bracket) and long term cap…
