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.
carew388: "ZEOIX has a transaction fee at Fidelity, E-Trade and Vanguard also. Not sure how long Firstrade will continue to sell all OEM's with no transaction fee"
carew388, I am not aware of any brokerage without a TF for ZEOIX. The other issue w…
FD: "Why would any reasonable retiree go for a long term of 3% performance for their whole taxable account?"
FD, my statement above was: "I have generally wanted funds in my taxable account, with an average total return history of over 3%." Some f…
Gary: "...you may not need to start RMDs for your wife next year. Depends on when the SECURE Act kicks in."
Hey Gary, thanks for the information. We will be having some conversations with our Schwab brokerage reps, before we address my wife's RMD.…
Hi catch22, thanks for posting. Yes, we are aware of the various options for how you take the RMD. I have been taking RMDs for several years, and have done it a couple of different ways. When we transfer the RMD money to our taxable account, we h…
I have already stated the "reason" why we are looking at very conservative bond oef funds for my wife's IRA. We are not interested in Muni funds for her Tax Exempt IRA, and she is very very conservative, and so we will only focus on very low risk b…
I have watched FPFIX since inception. It is available through Schwab for $100k in taxable accounts, but you can get it for $5000 in IRAs. It is a nontraditional bond oef, and is from a company that has a heavy emphasis on "absolute" return objecti…
Back to some investing topics! My wife has a traditional IRA, and in 2020 she is required to begin her RMD process. Our approach to RMDs, is to take the total RMD amount at the beginning of the calendar year, transfer it to our taxable account, an…
I missed much of this conversation--had a family Christmas gathering tonight. I just started posting on this forum, after years of posting on M*. This thread is very much in line with two recent threads I started at M*, in which I used the same po…
syzygy--I agree. A couple of years ago I owned VMPAX and ORSTX--very similar funds that served me well at that time. If you are looking for lower risk Muni funds, these are funds I continue to maintain on a watchlist of funds.
One issue I am evaluating is how much, and what kind, of bond oefs, I want to hold in my taxable account. I have held BTMIX for all of 2019, and it had a good year, but it averages below 3% total return over its history. I have generally wanted f…
autoshops and Gary, thanks for responding. I have found investors have carved out their own unique mix of conservative bond oef funds, that fit their unique objectives and investing style. I certainly understand how many investors hold balanced f…
