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.
Not buying (in 79% equities in tax advantaged portfolio I can't touch for a while) but slowly liquidating my bond positions in that portfolio to raise cash. When the markets recover bonds are going to crash hard as interests rates jump back up and t…
Always struck me as a Yogi Berra without the "say-what?" zinger quality especially in these short CNBC segments. He is very observationally knowledgeable given his long tenure and exposure to trading. But insights, I am not so sure.
There is some silver lining for big biotech/pharma with hefty cash position if this downtrend continues. Funding and exit options are drying up for biotech startups so their valuations will drop. Large biotechs can go shopping at liquidation prices …
Another outcome might be that they don't get invited to speak at lunches anymore which, in my opinion, is a very good thing given their contradictory babbling all of last year that just created unnecessary volatility.
Percentage allocation to shares can be very misleading since funds can load up on high beta stocks while showing lower allocation. Even the bond allocation can contain debt that is correlated with equities. They get exposed when risk on tide goes ou…
@junkster, the problem you are alluding to of indiscriminate falling tide for all biotechs regardless of their financial situation has to do with most of the money flowing through sector funds and ETFs which don't do much due diligence but just depe…
Not sure if this thread is worth prodding into a better dialogue given what it has evolved into but will try.
@LewisBraham, you seriously need to think about whether your goal is to figure out how to help the problems you are pointing to or just wa…
@LewisBraham, I may understand you position better if you were clear about what you actually mean.
You refuted @mjg's statement about Capitalism as factually incorrect. Perhaps you misunderstand what he was saying. All that statement says is that C…
@old_joe, one could have the same extreme worry about southern states of the US so reliant on oil! Venezuela will be in trouble but the effect may as equally be loss of power of the dictatorial regime there when they can longer bribe people into sta…
@MJG You say: "Capitalism does not produce without purpose: it judiciously produces to satisfy the anticipated and directed needs of the masses." This is factually incorrect. It produces to satisfy the needs of those with financial capital. At this …
I agree with his take on the downtrend. But not as surprised or negative about the reason - herding.
Herding is also what makes bull markets with very often a disconnect from underlying reality.
Ever since the capital markets started to attract m…
Hilarious writeup by Hussman, although I couldn't help thinking that is exactly the mirror image of his own investing behavior when markets are going up!
A problem for Hussman is that the bear markets don't last long enough for him to make back all…
@old_joe, I meant to highlight such activity by entities who were neither on the production nor on the consumption side who were doing it to support their commodities trading. If airlines buy excess oil as a hedge and store them in old barges or tan…
Good point from @mjg about earned vs inherited.
There is a much finer nuance to it even within earned which explains the reaction or lack of it to the salaries of athletes and entertainers. Bay Area wealth is a good illustration of that. While ther…
@hank, my pet theory which is as good (as bad) as any tin foil hat theory out there is that the price in oil follows the rise and fall of commodities trading and that the increasing securitization of energy created artificial demand.
I am just glad…
@mark, in the specific case of a fund that you have lost faith in, there is no way to predict with any kind of study/experience whether it will come back up or not or over what period of time as each situation is unique. So there is no right or wron…
That is not suit against Vanguard for charging too much. It is a suit against a plan administrator (Anthem) in part for using investor class shares (rather than institutional shares) of Vanguard funds.
@msf, I am confused. What suit are you ref…
Given that there are so many people already so wealthy or much more going about with their daily lives in the open why would the lottery winners be at more risk? Other than the possibility that even stupid people can win the lottery and may do stupi…
"If they lose the issue [say that] ... we believe we have acted in good faith ...."
This sequence doesn't work.
What you say after the case depends on how you lost not whether you did. So, if the companies lost on a technicality or if it was a clo…
@msf you are probably right on the legal defense strategy (I am not a lawyer) but I wasn't talking about that.
A corporate lawyer NEVER concedes the possibility of potentially losing a case or even parts of it in public statements
In cases like this…
To the extent it may be found that plaintiff was subjected to any of the actions alleged . . . which Vanguard denies, such actions were contrary to the good-faith efforts of Vanguard to comply with the federal anti-discrimination statutes."
Read mor…
@maurice, apologies. Didn't see any comment to respond to. I think you misunderstood my statement of an extreme. It is as silly and equally extreme as the "socialist agenda" anytime anything Govt does or the welfare of labor is mentioned. That is a …
Sorry @bee wrong premise it would appear. The only oil producers that have gone into debt producing oil is the fracking industry in the US. Why would their failure increase systemic risk of countries failing based on debt? In the worst case some reg…
Here are some articles on the theme of The Fourth Industrial Revolution from the agenda for the World Economic Forum, the host of the Davos summit that is the perennial target of the 99% because of the 1% that attend.
I don't expect everyone will a…
In my opinion, "no regulation is good regulation" is the extreme position. :)
Note that this is also a report for the entire world not just the US. Many parts of the world don't even have the regulation we have to prevent monopolistic practices, p…
Tabloid journalism at its best.
In case we have forgotten, subprime mortgages were originated and packaged as investment grade debt and so made its way into a lot of portfolios where they could not keep junk credit and would have had to sell them i…
Thanks @old_skeet. Will follow this with interest. Hope you can post the magnitude of the movements with your regular postings as well if you don't mind sharing. Just roughly including spiff investments. I have pondered this kind of movement myself …
Unfortunately, drawing a pretty chart of what happens when the world ends does not explain why the world ends or make any such claims credible. :)
Seems like we have replaced one group of doomsday people who have been crying oil is going to run out…
@Old_Skeet, may I ask how much percentage of cash roughly you move into equities at these milestones? Roughly. Is that predetermined as well? Just trying to understand your technique.
The fact that people are buying this popular plausible explanation without questioning is precisely why I am sticking to my 80% equity allocation and have not sold any of the oil or commodity equities despite the deep drawdown.
Think about it.
The…
Ah, the eternal question baseball team owners ask every season when the pitcher they signed up for gazillion dollars immediately hurts himself or starts to pitch 4.0+ ERA. :)
It would depend very much on the context. Answers without that context mi…
A plane crash is always a combination of things each of which wouldn't have caused the crash by itself. Same thing with the markets.
An explanation in my mind is that market trading is now sufficiently dominated by trading algorithms that only care…
The concept is doomed to failure because shifting large allocations is not very practical or cheap even if you are able to time it well. Any fund with over $200-$250 million in assets is going to find it difficult to move their allocation significan…
we can assume that in general the wealthy will over the long-term figure out new ways to exploit the poor/labor and squeeze more profits out of them.
This isn't a fact, it is a populist opinion. It comes from a self-fulfilling definition/axiom/premi…
@lewisbraham, if people were to catch us on our lamenting moments, they would probably find us deploring injustice and unfairness in the world in the same way. But having said that, you are caught up in your own definition
By its nature, profits in …
The last time I bought a lottery ticket many years ago, I was just one number short ...
... of getting at least one number right in the winning combination. That is a powerful demonstration of the odds.
Not sure what you mean by "highly unlikely…
With all due respect, this reads too much like the typical populist class baiting in the media with a suspect premise.
Markets are like fantasy sports played with real money, loosely tied to physical reality but guided by (behavioral) game theory s…
Thanks for the info.
You are right about not being able to change the type of oil as input but I was observing the increase in a week of the same input being acquired and stored. Given that refiners can vary the utilization of these plants almost …
