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.
@MikeM That seems like a reasonable plan, did you figure out how you're going to keep funding the safe IRA? I think that is the most important aspect and will have a bigger impact on the longevity of your nest egg than optimizing the return from the…
I would second David's mention of NEWFX American Funds New World. It can invest in developed world companies that derive a significant portion of their reviews from the emerging markets, so it is not quite as volatile.
The fund flows and manager decisions will also impact the distributions and yield. If the fund is in redemption as bonds are tanking, the fund could unload the more liquid assets (likely higher quality, lower yielding bonds) to meet the redemptions,…
The rough market cap of the holdings in VSCIX is about $3.6 trillion while VIMAX is about 3.9, so a 50/50 split would be pretty close to market weighing the holdings across the two funds.
"The amount and timing of repurchases will be at the discretion of Tekla Capital Management LLC, the investment adviser to the Fund. There is no assurance that the Fund will purchase shares at any specific discount levels or in any specific amounts …
The load model of compensation is awful and it would be nice to see an industry titan take a stance on that, but I think it's fair for M* to consider the funds both with and without load because many people do have access to it no-load. My wife had…
The $1500 minimum makes it sound like they're creating a share class that will not participate on NTF platforms and will pass along the savings to the investor. I recall reading somewhere that Fidelity charges something like 40 basis points per yea…
There's been numerous articles on this subject recently, is anyone playing this opportunity? If so, what have you found attractive? I've been looking at various muni CEFs and it's been challenging to find one that I'm comfortable with. Most have …
Scout Unconstrained's objective is "to maximize total return consistent with the preservation of capital." Looking beyond the income distributions to total return, the fund has held up reasonably well. It's gained 1.64% YTD, compared to -0.93 for …
Perhaps Berkowitz got out in March when the stock surged to 12.50, up from 8 in December. If so, it's hard to fault him for taking profits after such a run up. If I recall, the price shot up on rumors of a settlement that didn't materialize at tha…
Schwab does not let you specify lots for mutual fund sales, but you can choose your cost basis strategy. The default is average cost, but other options are FIFO, LIFO, Highest cost, Lowest cost and Tax Lot Optimizer (take short term losses first, t…
Consider Vanguard Wellington VWENX as a one stop place to put the money and let the smart folks and Wellington handle rebalancing. No subsequent effort required, and the expenses are tiny at 0.17% per year. Two things though that I don't like abou…
Seems like moving to a closed-ended format would be a more straightforward way to create a permanent capital base and not have to worry about investors pulling money at inopportune times. Bill Ackman is moving in this direction.
A negative duration bond is not equivalent to equity exposure. It has some similar characteristics, but duration is only a measure of interest rate sensitivity; credit quality is also a major component of bond returns. A strengthening economy may …
Personally, I use multiple managers in my core allocation holdings like international or mid caps. I have stayed away from that approach for sector plays mainly because it would result in too many funds to follow. My sector funds each are not a larg…
I've recently switched over to EITEX for my primary exposure to emerging markets. It is less concentrated than the MSCI Emerging Markets index in both individual holdings and country weighting and has more expose to the frontier markets as well. I…
I too have been thinking about cutting back due to the expenses creating a large hurdle to overcome. What alternatives do people use for a deep value global fund?
Here's an article that explains what a rollover IRA is:
http://www.buyandhold.com/bh/en/retirement/qa/rollover_ira.html
But the short answer is yes, a rollover IRA is designated for funds that originate from an employer's retirement plan.
The self-…
Scenario 1 is fairly straightforward, I went through something similar when my company discontinued their ESOP program in favor of 401k matching. All you need to do is open a roll-over IRA and transfer it over. I went to Fidelity and they walked m…
Generally the best place to be during a recession is long-term treasuries, it was the only place to hide in 2008. I personally can't bring myself to invest it in now though, too scary. I have a hard time imagining how the economy recovers and the …
Consider the transaction fee when comparing the expense ratios. Fidelity is a rather steep $75 for the Vanguard fund. Not a big deal if you're investing 50k (in which case you'd be looking at the even cheaper Admiral version from Vanguard). But c…
There are lots of different ways to interpret the data, and ICI has lots of it! YTD, domestic mutual funds saw outflows of 80B, but foreign equity funds had inflows of 17B. Diversification? On the other hand, with equity assets in mutual funds at…
Reply to @David_Snowball: It would be interesting to hear their thoughts on how a growing asset base will affect the fund. Will the fund have to go further down the list of best ideas or will it get more favorable terms because it can buy in bigger…
Reply to @scott:
Back in 2007 Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook. This seems like Microsoft is taking their original capital out and letting the profits ride rather than dumping/bailing on Facebook. Their sale of 6.6m shares amounts t…
It depends on what is moving the price of oil, a supply shock will have the opposite affect between the price of oil and the stock market, while a demand shock (like a weakening economy) will cause both to move together.
I would suggest to putt tax-free income investments and low turn-over equities in your taxable account, and put your bond funds in your retirement accounts. Check the capital loss carryforwards (or gains exposure) for your equity funds. Many still…
Reply to @Maurice: The Morningstar data is just information, it doesn't actually say what will happen. But given that there have been significant redemptions, Fairholme had to sell something. So I would fully expect that they'd be picking the high…
With the poor performance this year, they should be able to harvest losses to cancel out the gains. Morningstar has their potential cap gains exposure as -13% so it's unlikely we'll see capital gains distributions this year.
Perhaps there are some undervalued Greek companies due to this mess, but their sovereign bonds are not appealing. Whether you'll get your money back depends on essentially the generosity of their EU colleagues and not the strength of Greece. The g…
bnath, sounds like the PCRA is somewhat limited in what you can invest. If you have a standard IRA, you should be able to invest in zero coupon bonds. Can you roll over your PCRA account into an IRA? If you're going to use the zero coupon strateg…
You can achieve similar results and generate significantly better income. For instance, you can invest your 100k in zero-coupon treasuries. The 11/15/2029 bond is priced at just under 46. Invest your 100k in this and you'll have about $222k in 20…
Vanguard Wellington is available at all those brokers except Goldman according to M* http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=VWELX®ion=USA&culture=en-US
The transaction fees for Wellington will vary between the broker…
A change like this could be quite disruptive to the organization. On the other hand, it may give employees a greater opportunity to participate in the success (or failure) of the company which would be good for the shareholders and hopefully their …
