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Among the T-Bill ETFs with < 3m maturity, what is the attraction (besides a catchy name) of smallish TBIL with a higher ER and from a relatively new firm (with 10 ETFs, all 2022- ) ?
BIL AUM $28.43 billion, ER 14 bps, inception 5/25/07
SGOV A…
May be not the MFO monitors, but the site hosting (Vanilla) monitors? I didn't notice it before, but if it is only 2 immediate views, that isn't bad.
When I started posting on Facebook, I noticed that immediately there were about 15 views. At first…
Notary & Signature Guarantee
Notaries just require state registrations/licenses to operate. Some get it for earning extra income on the side. Many currency exchanges have notaries. Many legal offices have someone on staff as notary. All a notar…
BTW, the Treasury FRN ETFs are USFR, TFLO. All references to those have now rolled off to Page 1. I did execute ultra-ST ICSH to USFR switch last week.
So, I am doing both - using FRN Auctions (that will tie up money for 2 years) and FRN ETF USFR t…
Compare 2-yr T-Note (regular) to 2-yr FRN:
2-yr T-Note (regular) 4.92% (fixed; 8/18/23)
2-yr FRN 3-mo T-Bill yield (5.55%, 8/18/23, but will vary weekly) + spread (around +12.5 bps at 8/23/23 Auction).
So, you will start out with an edge of 63 …
Brokerage or fund firms are not fiduciary.
RIAs are fiduciaries.
Brokers, many advisors (non-RIAs), insurance agents, call center staff are not fiduciaries.
Fido & Schwab with local offices can be very help with complex situations. Most things are held in a single a/c.
With different mutual fund firms, one is still limited to phone or web. And dealing with multiple firms.
As for customer service,…
That is for individual stocks. Idea is that a portfolio of stocks should have 20+ holdings - otherwise, don't bother and just stick to funds. Stocks are volatile, and some crash, or even go bankrupt. So, the hit is limited to 5% per company.
It doe…
Actually, with both manual purchases and auto-roll, T-Bill purchases are coordinated with maturing T-Bills so that the money remains in T-Bills CONTINUOUSLY.
For example, 13-wk and 26-wk auctions are on Monday, and brokers may block the money neede…
There are now related FR threads - on Treasury FRNs, investment-grade FRs, regular FR/BL (really HY). Each will react differently to economic conditions. But rising or steady rates will be the most attractive environment for all of them.
My older c…
True, TIAA has SOME products for general public. But it keeps dropping many - LTCI, life insurance, etc. Some of its IRAs require TIAA-eligibility - some connection with TIAA due to current/prior job by self or close family members.
Likewise, there…
TIAA Brokerage is via Pershing/BK. So, things are clunky.
Nonretirement stuff at TIAA is only for those with retirement accounts that WANT to stick around for consolidation of accounts. TIAA hasn't made serious efforts to attract general investors.…
ETF.com duration numbers are NOT correct.
First, for securities that reset weekly, duration should be just 1 week.
Second, even if it calculated duration ignoring the weekly resets, a portfolio of 2-yr FRNs should have duration around 1 year. Ther…
In investments, not everything is long-term. Some opportunities are just transient. From tipsters, these can be scams. But the FRNs indeed present a good/genuine transient opportunity now - UNTIL the rates start to go down (late-2024? 2025?).
I wil…
Long-term performance of FRN ETFs is meaningless; during much of the ZIRP regime, they had negative spreads but spreads have been positive since mid-2022. FRNs have done well since 2022 because of the ZIRP regime being gone (first the expectations, …
Current rates:
Government M-mkt funds (7-day yield) VMFXX 5.26%, SPAXX 4.97%, SNVXX 5.04%
3-mo T-Bills 5.56%, 8/17/23
FRN yield = T-Bill yield + spread (2023 range 12-20 bps).
So, one has to decide if extra 40-75 bps over m-mkt funds with FRNs …
While Fido website doesn't recognize D&C funds or tickers, through an open web search, I found Fido links to several D&C I class funds (TF). It could be that Fido and D&C are negotiating new terms for Fido platform listings (NTF, TF). Sc…
Not a bad idea to get off the FR/BL train soon. When rates stop going up, these act just as short-term HY from low-rated companies that cannot access the normal bond market. There is a recession risk too, but the is consensus that it has been cancel…
PBI tracks down people & verifies if they are dead or alive without being obvious about it. So, it isn't a matter of - why they didn't just call me?
You may have heard of stories about people defrauding insurance & annuity co & retireme…
That is a common problem with bonds.
Most bonds don't trade often and funds are forced to use matrix-pricing, i.e. the prices of something else with similar quality and duration that traded. It is more pronounced for lower-rated bonds.
Only Treasu…
Thanks for clarification that FidSafe wasn't hacked. I am aware of similar digital-lock-boxes for important personal documents/data but I haven't use any. Looks like glorified Dropbox or OneDrive - I use both.
But Fido retirement plans were hit by …
And Howard Marks & a group left TCW before that (1995; founded Oaktree)). In fact, Howard Marks helped Jeffrey Gundlach a LOT (2009) by providing most of the the initial costs to set up DoubleLine (new fund registrations, new office, some basic …
USPS Informed Delivery is usually the same day, or the next day, or after 7-10 days (if mail misdelivered & hopefully returned to Post Office/mail-person).
Complaint is useless. I have complained about delated deliveries of Certified mail (not…
To the list I should add media owned/run by billionaires. Several look like vanity plays.
Benioff - Time (US)
Bloomberg - Bloomberg (already mentioned)
Bezos - Washington Post
Laurene Jobs - Atlantic
Musk - Twitter (social-media, nonprint)
Masa Son…
Major media is owned by big corporations.
Comcast/CMCSA - NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Sky News (UK)
Disney/DIS - ABC
Fox Corp/FOX - Fox News; Fox Corp is run by Murdoch clan that runs News Corp/NWS
News Corp/NWS - WSJ, Barron's, Sun (UK), Times (UK)
Paramoun…
From 2003-08, Neuberger & Berman was owned by Lehman. Luckily, it was one of the bright stars in otherwise sinking Lehman portfolio and came out OK in 2009 post-Lehman spinoff.
A program isn't a fiduciary. The RIAs (Registered Investment Advisors) are fiduciaries.
So, a RIA handling PAS (or other financial stuff) will be a fiduciary. The RIAs need Series 65, or Series 7 + 66, exam(s).
A call center employee (needing onl…
Many may not be following these details. But using the formula in Treasury LINK provided by @msf, I was able to verify the data for the recent 52-wk Auction.
In the recent 52-week Auction example in the OP, TR = 5.392% (calculated) and i = 5.351%, …
@CLAY62, brokers have higher fee incentives to pitch SMAs or advisory accounts. But ask them for multiyear, after-fee performance records. The posted data elsewhere for advisory programs don't indicate superior performance than good retail funds ava…
Unfortunately, bond ladders also have a duration. A 10-yr bond ladder may have a duration around 4-5 years.
So, the ETF PLW has duration 10.80 (M* Portfolio tab below) and SD 9.07 (M* Risk tab) - plenty volatile!
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xn…
@msf, thanks for Treasury and CFR links. I will go over them.
Interesting that calculations are different for < 6 months (an approximation) and 6-12 months (exact calculations).
There are 4 examples presented in the Treasury link. The first tw…
An actionable take from OJ was that funds within the T-IRA and 401k/403b cannot be touched, period, except by their owners. Even OJ's lawyer who were stiffed for their fees at some point (well, OJ was in jail) couldn't access OJ's retirement funds -…
