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.
I'm not a fan of rebalancing for the sake of rebalancing (and I expect to be very stock-heavy until they put me into the ground) but I agree completely that Yellen, Trump, CNBC, and economists generally are best ignored as part of a good investing s…
Sorry, USATODAY, the presence of an expense ratio is not 'cheating' people. We can argue at what point the ER becomes a fleecing of people, but an ER itself isn't cheating. Talk about a clickbait headline.
That's actually a pretty nice idea. Gugg's RSP is attractive (and been on my radar for ages) but having an equal-wt OEF that could be added to w/o commission regularly sounds excellent. I need to look into this ... might be a handy tool in the ar…
You'd think charging 5-plus percent loads on their funds, they'd be able to provide a higher regular dividend.
There's not much I like in the financial sector (I own zero) but I do waffle between TRP and BEN as possible candidates to own.
First there's a post saying "‘Alternative’ Mutual Funds Providing Limited Protection" and a few posts late I see "Liquid Alts Funds Pass First Real Test With Flying Colors".
Sounds to me like the jury is still out on these things.
I suspect the on…
Crap! I was thinking I would get out of WBLSX and buy VASFX at Vanguard. Why do they have to have 250K minimum? Makes no sense.
Probably in keeping with their conservative belief in providing 'the right products' to the right people. If your balan…
Not sure I agree equal-weighting = 'smart beta' ... sounds more like they're using that term to suggest "something different and new!" versus what most industry folks term as 'smart beta.'
I suspect fund companies will use 'smart beta' to mean 'n…
If Fuss, Ivascyn, Gundlach, Rivelle and gals...Gaffney are doing better than Hasenstab at this time why not take some or all of his fund money and move it into one of the better performers. You are losing the value of time compounding by this mispla…
I've held TGBAX for the past 6+ years. Pretty solid fund that at times acts like a stock fund. I generally like it but waffle about keeping it sometimes. As for the Ukraine impact, the fund's got like 2.5% exposure to the country, which to me is …
"Perma bear" does strike me as a curious locution, and potentially a way to avoid the argument. We don't have a similar term who folks who are sure that stocks will climb relentlessly higher; I haven't heard much of "perma bulls." Perhaps because th…
"All models in all fields are simplifications of reality. An infinite number of digits after a decimal point is never taken seriously by an experienced engineer. It is merely an artifact of the calculation itself. He appreciates the accuracy limits…
I refuse to pay for subscription-ware both to avoid lock-in and to facilitate resiliency/interoperability if/when a vendor decides to force some unwanted application change onto me or if I want to change providers.
I use Macs but few if any Apple-…
If you're well diversified, a hiccup overseas (or anywhere) shouldn't cause you significant grief. And when all correlations go to 1 -- ie, in 2008 -- stay the course because in such cases there IS no safe haven, and at least you know what you're h…
Faber's macro commentaries make sense (and I agree w/some of them), but he's been calling for a catastrophic drop for so long (YEARS!) that people now dismiss him as a perma-bear whenever he's quoted/interviewed in the financial media and/or tells …
ZH says there's reports that local police may arrest short sellers. Any truth to that? (That could explain the bounce today)
Given everything else they've (desperately) tried in recent days, if true I can't say I'd be surprised.
I agree. When I bought my condo in 2000, I put 40% down from stock options sold from my Dot Com company. Three months later, I cashed out the rest of them and paid off the mortgage.
My rationale? Simple -- I did not want debt ('good' or 'bad') …
I'll believe it's a done deal when it's a done deal. And then, maybe. (I'm not a cynic, but a realist.)
The market's reaction to the Grexit in recent weeks reminds me of Ed Seykota's "Whipsaw Song" (found on YouTube).
If a fund has FB in it's top 10 holdings and it's not even a technology fund, I avoid it. Heck, for a tech fund, I don't want a large holding in FB or any social media site for that matter. FB in particular I despise and consider a 'fad' and a 'h…
If it had LEAP options I might buy some on a pullback for a long-term bullish position.
That said, paying .75 ER and not even having a dividend to help (or completely) offset it rubs me the wrong way.
This is my industry/sector -- cyber -- and yes, the government's demonstrating complete idiocy in how it's handling this, particularly the clowns running OPM these days. Sadly, I think it'll make a fine case study one day on how NOT to a) conduct i…
Another reason why I don't often care if a fund beats its benchmark or not. I use my own financial goals and assessment of the markets as a viable target for absolute returns.
Chasing benchmarks, in my view, only sustains a herd mentality, crea…
I still trot that out in lectures as examples of Congressional wisdom.
However, nothing beats the late Sen. Ted Stevens' "The Internet Is a Series of Tubes" speech. That went viral before 'going viral' actually meant something!
I was quite excited to see WSW return in a new form. I saw one episode and was less than impressed by it and ditched it from my DVR recording schedule. But I guess they just bought the rights to the name and sweet-talked Louis' son to lend his nam…
I've held several AF's since 2006 and been very pleased with them. They're fairly straight-shooters as a company and I have no qualms with them other than the A-class loads[1] and how many share classes they've sliced themselves into. I also hold…
Metaphorically wrinkle-free.
Neutral-leaning-bearish, but cautiously opportunistic -- meaning I take smaller actions & DCA more into positions that I might do otherwise.
PFXF is my 'preferred' preferred ETF, though I don't own any yet. I don't want bank preferreds (though it does hold REIT preferreds) and think the fund's general composition is pretty compelling.
Of course they're being commoditized --- how many mutual funds are "me too" funds that have limited AUM and extraordinary fees? Why pay .50 or more for ABC S&P500 Index fund when you can get one (or an ETF) from Vanguard, TRowe, Schwab, etc…
HACK makes sense as a niche sector thing, but I think it's too high an ER for my principles. (And yes, this is my industry)
The other two funds they're rolling out .... yawn. Nothing to see here, not really sure why they're needed anyway.
They're both just someone's opinion. Doesn't really mean much to me in my investing decisions.
Maybe you can interpret it as 'skewing' an allocation toward/against something (and from that glean some potentially useful 'Street consensus' maybe) -…
I wasn't a paid contributor but I've been on Bloomberg a few times and CNBC once. One day I was double-booked on both to discuss the same topic, and I called the Bloomberg producer enroute to the studio to see if it would be a problem -- she said…
Yah it's ugly out there. Thankfully the colleagues I know live in the city are home, safe, and (we hope) out of harms' way.
My campus is just south of the city, but I live way down in Virginia. But I've had the news on since I got home. So sad…
Some useful tidbits there, yes. I guess.
However I think the bigger 'trap' in picking individual stocks is laid for the retail investor who believes whatever is promoted or mentioned on CNBC or held by a prominent investor/fund (Buffett, Icahn, L…
It may not be a "convenient store of value" but it sure is a convenient "store of power" when you want to pounce on (desired long-term) assets that go 'on sale' due to market insanity. In that case, the 'value' of cash is quite reassuring to me, e…
I love these "X fund(s) to hold forever" scenarios. LOL
Looking backwards, I'd throw in LEXCX (passive, 0% turnover) or one of the classes of AF WaMu Investors (active, low turnover).
Looking ahead, I'd include those plus MAPOX and potentiall…
