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.
The 3-5 years of expected PORTFOLIO withdrawals protected. The 3-5 year number does not include SS benefits, any pension, annuity income, etc. - just what you would need to take from your investment portfolio. This might include required IRA distr…
How poignant that some of the funds on this list are having a great year, once again. Retail investors are notoriously fickle. The studies comparing a specific fund's returns, compared to the returns of the average investor IN that fund almost alw…
The current secular bull market has been referred to as the most unloved bull market in history. Maybe so. Oh, for the days of no 24-hour 'news' being blasted at us. Very little of it is news. Most is opinion and hype of the crisis du jour. I s…
As is usually the case, I will pass on this webcast. While Mr. Gundlach is no doubt very intelligent and a very good bond manager, his pomposity is way over the top.
This should have been written months ago. The big gains for EAFE came in the first two months of the year. There are likely more to come, but like so many 'expert' commentators, this one is late to the party.
OAKIX was still available at Fidelity 5-6 months ago. HAINX, ICEIX are still open, although availability on some platforms is spotty. SGOVX, IVVYX are available on some platforms NTF, but often only via Registered Investment Advisers. QFVIX is an…
Like other great sales organizations, American Funds has made sure there is a product to fit every imaginable opportunity. Different combinations of front, back, and ongoing commissions; different ERs; 12b-1s and no 12b-1s. Crazy, you say? Americ…
I have been doing retirement planning for clients for almost 30 years, and key to ANY successful retirement is the level of debt carried into retirement. No mortgage makes an enormous difference, perhaps the single biggest identifier of successful …
GMO does some great white papers and investment letters. Unfortunately their record is less than great. They have been big on timber for many years, and that has played out well, but that is a non-starter for most investors. Give them credit, tho…
The 15-year number does not mean much to me. Cycles occur, as when U.S. stocks under-performed international from 2001-2007, and the reverse happened in 2008-2014. Most of these funds have had multiple manager changes in 15 years. I would be much…
Mona, I am not a fan of PIMCO's secret sauce that permeates its bond funds. We do use PAUIX, and it does have some fixed-income, but has a very different strategy for cash and bonds in general than other PIMCO funds. As we all know, this secret st…
BX at this point has not said anything about changing things at First Eagle. And changes, if made, might be more window dressing than substantive. First Eagle went through a bunch of management changes in the last 10 years, and management team mem…
A friend of mine compared Bill Gross to the game of whack-a-mole. He just keeps popping up.
Wonder how many people know that Janus has eight (!) share classes of this fund. The marketing folks at Janus have found a way to sell it to just about …
Just one more self-proclaimed guru. At some point all of these 'experts' could be right, but making investment decisions based on their calls can be hazardous to your health. My advice is "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." This is …
Non-dollar bonds are being pressured by the strength of the U.S. dollar. Unlike international companies that generate revenue from outside their borders, foreign bonds are dependent to a great extent on the value of their currency. Some folks beli…
Janus? No thanks. On the surface, it would seem that investors might be just as good with Vanguard Mid Cap Index as Mid Cap Growth Index. Less volatility for about the same returns over time. For actively-managed mid cap growth funds, Ivy IYMIX …
Regarding PFF, which we used from early 2009 through 2012, this is NOT a safe investment. Consider the 23% loss in 2008, when there was not market for these securities. Yes, it bounced back in 2009, but it is not SAFE. We currently use KIFYX in o…
So short-term Treasuries will be 25 bps higher at some point this year. That is not the reason some dividend stocks have had a pullback. The reason is they had a tremendous year in 2014. AEP was up 34%. So it's down about 4% YTD. But not becaus…
We owned this fund from almost its beginning, given Aronstein's track record and his innate sense of global macro themes. It did what we expected of it through third quarter of 2013, then it just went off the tracks. Aronstein admits they did not …
Interesting to do a search for international (blend, growth, value) funds that are in the top 15% for 1,3,and 5-yr periods. Only four funds show up, and only two of those have had the current manager at the helm for five years: Ivy International Co…
Hot money is of no concern for me. It drives managers crazy, however, because they must hold more cash than they otherwise would want. Hasenstab is a top manager. He did not take dumb pills. There have been instances like this in the past, where…
I would avoid TIPS funds and ETFs. If I wanted TIPS, I would buy them directly. That way you are in control of individual maturities. But even then, I would not be interested.
FWIW, we are on our third Subaru, the current one being an Outback. Subaru's are not inexpensive, but they are very well made, very comfortable, lots of head and legroom (especially the back seats) for those of us tall people with long legs, and am…
Seems to me sales and buys are after the horse has left the barn. The issue is just when the changes were made, since funds usually delay the disclosures as long as possible.
msf, you are so right about Pershing. We used to custody some accounts there, and it was a mess. Their technology, compared to Schwab, TD, Fidelity, and others was almost pre-cambrian. Our staff was always frustrated dealing with Pershing. Their…
We have had particularly difficult time dealing with TIAA-CREF. They always treat client dollars as their own. The TIAA portion is very problematic to deal with, since clients rarely understand that this cannot be rolled over at retirement. It ha…
Fortunately a very tongue-in-cheek essay. Quite clever, actually.
We have had a number of clients who come to us with existing variable annuity contracts. If they are lucky, they have held them long enough to be free of deferred sales charges. …
A BlackSwan event is one that was not anticipated, something that happened 'out of the blue' which no one would have expected. That is how I define it. In many instances they are geo-political events that cause economic events. Those economic eve…
The fund is one of many fund that address some investors' religious convictions, just as other funds (all part of the greater-SRI universe) target environment, women's issues, renewable energy, sustainable businesses, worker rights, weapons, tobacco…
Look, it seems pretty clear that when the Fed begins moving the Fed Funds Rate higher, that it will be in small 1/4% increments. I do not buy into the deflation argument at all, and I am not convinced that Mr. Gundlach is any more visionary than wa…
There is still about $550 million in his Total Return fund. That's down from $2.7 billion in 2011. But it is hard to believe any shareholder would still be in the fund. Similar for the so-called Growth fund, which has actually a 10-year NEGATIVE …
I was not aware Mr. Merriman ever used the work "best". The only terms he seems to know are "terrible, crash, beware," and other negative terms. I stopped reading his column a while back and don't miss it one bit.
This is such a crock of horse feathers. As I mentioned in one of the other manager of the year threads, this has very little to do with how the funds did in 2014. By requiring a M* analyst rating, that eliminates about 80% of funds. Then you consi…
Anytime an article or headline starts with "Experts", you can bet it will be full of crazy predictions. Just look at Faber. He got the 1987 call right, but has missed almost every big prediction since then. But he is considered an "expert" by the…
Interesting that M* admits that the Manager of the Year award actually is not based on the current year. Why not call it fund of the decade that happens to have the same management for 7 years and has at least $10 billion is assets? If the award i…
I agree with most of the posters on this. The market does not NEED to drop 25%. Indeed it COULD drop 25%. Unlikely, but it could. Just because I did not have everything in the S&P 500 the last five years does not mean I want a big sell off. …
