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.
Thanks for additional granularity. And I appreciate the optimism.
Still, could it be a little more complex than that? Higher services are still a drag on the overall economy. Affecting many income levels. Services includes healthcare, rent, transp…
In the IRA: Sold out HSDIX and remaining position in PRWCX. Sold out VNLA and GSST where I was stashing some cash.
At the moment the plan is to buy FEUNX and more--or less--add to existing positions in MGOIX, NRDCX, THOPX and JPIB. There will also…
A detailed takedown of the Citrini scenario at the dinky linky.
TLDR:
For AI to produce a sustained negative demand shock, the economy must see a material acceleration in adoption, experience near-total labor substitution, no fiscal response, negli…
They are attributing today's market drop to these new tariff
I'm not so sure it's the new tariffs per se as it is the increased uncertainty, as if that were possible. We have Trump telling the EU that despite having negotiated lower rates, he's st…
@DrVenture:
I can only have 50% of my 401K in the self-directed brokerage area. And I sold some mutual funds in the standard side, not too long ago. Waiting on a better opportunity (soon?) to buy back equity. BND seems like a better place than the M…
@WABAC, we have been reducing equity risk as we are approach retirement. In light of the stock market valuation and the over-hyped AI, we say no thank. Since you asked, we at low 40% stocks, and the rest are boring bonds, and money market.
@Sven…
More on the previous post regarding @davidmoran link, they suggest this "simple new portfolio":
5% in gold, via GLD, an EFT that holds physical gold
50% in VT, an ETF that invests in stocks all around the world, including the U.S. It has about 62.…
I wonder if there are lawyers out there now dreaming of class-action lawsuits on behalf of all the US citizens that were ripped off by Trump's illegal tariff scam. I mean, who wasn't?
Also from the NYT:
[Justice Kavanaugh] also noted that the administration had used the leverage of tariffs to enter into key trading deals with other nations. Mr. Trump, he wrote, “helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions of dollars — including…
Latest update from NYT.
"Another statute, known as Section 122, allows the president to enact a baseline tariff of up to 15 percent
on all countries to address issues related to the trade deficit, though the taxes on imports
may only stay in place …
Google AI answers vary slightly if the same question is repeated another time using the same browser & IP address.
The AI in their browser wouldn't touch it. I was surprised by the result from Gemini. It was much less verbose than it has been in…
MSN has it from Seeking Alpha: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/blue-owl-halts-redemptions-at-private-credit-fund-targeted-for-retail-investors/ar-AA1WExfr
I did a follow up with perplexity:
So if I ask you this question tomorrow from a different browser with a different IP address you promise won't make this mistake?
No, I cannot promise that, because each query is handled independently without retai…
Claude reigns. I asked haiku 4.5 via duckduck and got:
how would you allocate between these four mutual funds FPACX, PMAIX, IFAFX, and SGENX
Claude Haiku 4.5
I'd be happy to help you think through an allocation between these funds, but I need a bit…
Dueling AI's.
What I got from perplexity was that it couldn't accurately track tickers. It assigned PMAIX to PIMCO All Asset All Authority, and FPACX was variously assign to FPA Crescent and Fidelity Puritan.
Here is what I got after I corrected …
For what it's worth, Claude is by far the best of the consumer-facing LLMs and I suspect that Anthropic is the best of the AI companies.
Since you share with us the things you invest in, I'll consider this opinion accordingly.
In the IRA: Sold ALVIX, FMIEX is doing well enough. I'll likely flip the proceeds to VVOAX to get more SMID exposure. It also has ~9% foreign exposure versus ~7.25 for ALVIX.
Sold CBLDX. It hasn't been doing well in the recent environment. NRDCX wi…
Thanks everyone. I appreciate all the responses.
I recall USBLX using a similar tax managed strategy as VTMFX by investing in munis bonds. @msf or @observant1, do you know if the small cap funds, VTMSX or FSMD, are managed similarly?
I would like…
That's pretty hard to evaluate @Old_Joe.
I'm not inclined to pay for it when I can get it for free, or just do it the old-fashioned way digging through pubmed or google scholar.
I suppose I should consider myself lucky that there's just not near a…
Foreign large cap value etf from DFA. https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/ARCX/DFIV/quote
The investment seeks to achieve long-term capital appreciation while minimizing federal income taxes on returns. The Advisor buys and sells securities for the Por…
@WABAC - "Miniature"
Thanks for the education Mark. Always appreciated.
Interesting history at the link. I'm pretty sure I didn't see the colorized version.
I used Claude to find all of the Randomized Controlled Trials for Long Covid and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The first pass it identified a study and told me of the criticisms that have been published about this study, but did not find a newer one by …
Might as well file this here.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed an amicus brief in federal court on Tuesday to assert the agency’s right to enforce prediction markets instead of individual states, according to its new chairman, Michael …
In the IRA: Sold ALVIX, FMIEX is doing well enough. I'll likely flip the proceeds to VVOAX to get more SMID exposure. It also has ~9% foreign exposure versus ~7.25 for ALVIX.
Sold CBLDX. It hasn't been doing well in the recent environment. NRDCX wi…
Another disturbing trend is that private-equity firms are buying insurers and reinsurers and stuffing their portfolios with lot of illiquid stuff. When will state insurance regulators wake up?
X/Twitter LINK
Well that's alarming. How do I find …
I cannot speak for anyone else, but factoids like that make me feel like an idiot.
But --- thanks? lol
I remember standing in a backyard at a barbecue in Berkeley when some guy showed us this little device from Apple that stored music. "Oh. So.…
Any actor that can play a convincing mob lawyer or cowboy is doing a good bit of work.
I'm trying to remember the Twilight Zone episode he was in. Was it about people in a doll's house?
AI has nothing to do with this path of destruction.
I wonder what's happening with research into drug resistant bacteria and viruses that aren't commonly found on toilet seats.
Oh yeah!
K-Mart ruled their space at one time.
GE arguably collapsed as a conglomerate.
Montgomery Ward no longer exists in brick and mortar.
Interestingly, NCR transitioned into a software company. At one point AT&T bought them. The joke was…
