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This Fitch insights page provides more details. https://www.fitchratings.com/topics/us-debt-ceiling#insights
US Rating DOWNGRADED to AA+
US GSEs DOWNGRADED to AA+
US Farm Credit System DOWNGRADED to AA+
US Corporations Unaffected (so, JNJ & MS…
Good news is that Fitch is NOT downgrading all US financials to AA+ (as the S&P did in 2011). So, Fitch is maintaining AAA ratings for "New York Life Insurance Company, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Teachers Insurance and Annuity As…
Timing for debt downgrade is never ideal. While odd, Fitch had the US on negative outlook and may have deliberately avoided the period around the debt-ceiling fiasco, a mistake that the S&P/McGraw Hill made on 2011.
Only 2 US nonfinancial compa…
@wxman123, it is well-hidden in the supplementary info.
One has to dig deep into brokers' website to find %income from US Treasury Obligations for funds.
So, one can easily miss these if not specifically looking.
Munis are good for high federal tax brackets; there could be high state tax in addition. So, look at effective/tax-equivalent yields. Barron's had a recent piece that munis now have tax-equivalent yields of 5-8% and are attractive. They are useless …
You have to sign up for the auto-roll program and it basically locks that money. Any changes (additions/subtractions, etc) to it would cancel auto-roll; also the auto-roll order can be cancelled manually when it shows up around the roll time. I trie…
See current Barron's for a feature on pharma (just 1 segment of healthcare), LINK1 LINK2
The PHARMA industry (MRK, JNJ, BMY, ALPMY, etc) is launching legal wars against Medicare/CMS on its new DRUG PRICING negotiation authority. The pharma industr…
Thanks @BaluBalu, @msf.
Federal VMFXX should have higher yield that Treasury-only m-mkt fund but its ER is 2 bps higher than that for VUSXX. So, they are quite close. Also, despite marginally higher current 7-day SEC yield (well, that was yesterday…
Berkowitz gets to play boss at St Joe, and has seat at the table for his other big holdings, both big ego boosters, all on his shareholders' dime. What do the shareholders get?
FAIRX holds 4 stocks. It is non-diversified in extreme.
Investment rate is the bond-equivalent yield.
All brokerages show Cancel button on Treasury orders but I haven't watched when it disappears. My guess is that orders can be cancelled until the brokerage cutoff time for Auctions.
@BaluBalu, both post cutoff dates, so yes, you can enter orders in "early" AM on the Auction day. But I do this ahead, much ahead - soon after the Treasury Announcement is out. With T-Bills maturing in 4 brokerage accounts, and each brokerage site …
Applying 5% withdrawals - With COLA and Without COLA
Lump-sum $1,000,000
Period 1/1/2000 - 6/30/23
All distributions reinvested.
Monthly withdrawals $4167/mo initial + COLA (or $50,000/yr initial + COLA); also a column for without COLA (in th…
He did say that - inflation may be down to +2% average target only in 2025, but rate cuts may start as inflation approaches +2% (sometime in 2024, but not in 2023). So the cuts may start when inflation is between +2% to +3%, but he won't commit to a…
There may be a mix up in times, EST, PST, etc.
Bond market closes at 2pm Eastern.
Stock market closes at 4pm Eastern.
Mutual funds price at 4pm Eastern.
YBB Notes
FED FUND rate hiked by +25 bps to 5.25-5.50%; bank reserves rate 5.4%; discount rate 5.5%. Discount Window use is up and that is being encouraged. More rate hikes are possible but at slower pace. Monetary policy is restrictive as the real…
I have seen issues mentioned elsewhere (e.g. M* TIAA Forum). Sometimes, wrong tables were used. Default is to take RMDs from multiple 403b (from different employers) when the IRS allows consolidation , i.e. round-up and add all 403b RMDs, but take a…
I don't rely on firms' RMD calculators. They have some built-in assumptions that may or may not apply to individual situations.
When I take RMDs, I don't even designate them as RMDs to avoid firms' default RMD screens. I just take them as withdrawa…
In stable markets, OEFs vs ETFs is a wash and only the reinvestment convenience of OEFs matter (automatic on the ex-div date). There are some behavioral aspects too because of OEF pricing only at 4pm Eastern market close and other OEF trading restri…
As for loads, front-load, class A aren't the worst. A good thing is that the firms can simply waive them for 3rd party noload/NTF platforms. This is simpler than firms like American Funds that create new classes for every niche segment.
Backend loa…
In brokerage industry, it's OK to be bullish but wrong.
However, it's tough to be bearish but wrong.
Initially, Mike Wilson was praised for his bold bearish call. But he stayed bearish too long. Of course, when the last bears throw in the towel, …
Things were different in 1970s. I remember paying 6% commission. So, a switch from stock "A" (sell) to stock "B" (buy) would eat up 12% just in commissions. Then the era of discount brokerage arrived (Schwab, Fidelity, etc) and things started changi…
There are only a small number of American Funds/Capital Group. So, several are humongous and are team-managed. But those teams are internal - small groups of its analysts are given slices of big funds to manage. Typically, analysts only recommend/su…
Completion index is an interesting idea but the problem is that they have lot of garbage - 35-40% unprofitable companies.
There are several:
For SP500, completion indexes are VEXAX/ VXF, FSMAX, USMIX. They use different definitions of total stock …
M* responded with another nontrivial solution: Open new M* Investor/Click on Portfolios/click on "?" at the upper-left/click Legacy M* Portfolio. Obviously, it assumes M* Premium or M* Investor subscription.
So, M* was indeed doing some internal sh…
The era of growth-utilities (unregulated) started in 1980s and has now picked up steam with alternate energy. If you want to trace developments in this industry, check the history of Vanguard VWINX benchmark changes - it started with a very simple i…
I logged OFF and logged back ON using this direct link. After first refusing to connect, it connected anyway. Looks like M* is doing some internal server shifting and some clicks may be temporarily broken.
I was unable to access Portfolio from M* …
Interest-sensitive equities (utilities, REITs, dividend-paying stocks) are often called bond-proxies. I don't think that words such as surrogates or substitutes are appropriate for this. Contrast this with growth that is doing gangbusters this year.…
As posted nearby, the AAII Sentiment Bull-Bear spread is at 2.25-yr high.
I am starting to scale my tactical-asset-allocation (TAA) back to normal - for me, 40-60% effective-equity. My TAA had become too high from purchases during 2020-2022.
The …
Update, 7/18/23
Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers for recovery.
Current Score: YBB 1, Pneumonia 0.
I just completed a 5-day course of a strong antibiotics. It didn’t do much for 3 days – that was disheartening at one point. But then, thi…
I have stayed in Cleveland (major paper The Plain Dealer), Palo Alto (major Bay area paper San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst) and now Chicago (major paper Chicago Tribune; the list of its famous owners and/or editors would be too long to be included he…
@sma3, within the TSP, there isn't a m-mkt option, so G Fund has served that purpose admirably over time. It had nonzero rates when most m-mkt funds were hanging at 0.01% just to avoid breaking the buck, but now some m-mkts are paying better than th…
Be aware that most preferreds now are bank preferreds. And most bank preferreds are noncumulative - a regulatory requirement to be counted as bank capital. Some won't touch noncumulative preferreds. This shouldn't be an issue for the best too-big-to…
Article 2 is the "Explainer" for the proposal that has been around for months for comments.
Article 1 is the news TODAY (also leaked yesterday) that the SEC has dropped swing-pricing due to intense objections from the fund industry including its tr…
TSP G Fund is a unique stable value (SV) fund that I track monthly here.
TSP F fund is just the US total bond market (ETF AGG). "Total" is misleading because it's all investment-grade, so a true US TOTAL bond market is IUSB.
Anyway, this is the c…
He may diversify by selling and buying QQQ or SPY.
His student loans may have low rates, so he can keep them if he is handling payments. Car loan depends - if low 1-3%, he should keep them.
He will have opportunities to save more for wedding, hous…
M* Investor has good analytics, but lot of it just showcases M* databases, & not what many investors may need or want. Its shortcomings are in its portfolio functions (transactional or overview portfolio data).
M* originally promised not to ret…
Related Wiki article has better explanations and that "On March 10, 2000, the index peaked at 5,132.52, but fell 78% from its peak by October 2002." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasdaq_Composite
My guess is that the other summary article may have…
