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.
My post at Twitter, 10/14/22 (LINK)
Weak excuses by someone w Harvard & Stanford education, & whose name has been floated for Treasury Secy, Fed Chair, Comp of Currency, etc. Atlanta Fed Prez is really a private sector job w some public rol…
@msf:
"When it comes to Schwab, Schwab Bank is a real, FDIC-insured bank, separate from but affiliated with the broker-dealer Charles Schwab & Co. "Affiliated" here means that they are both owned by the same parent company, The Charles Schwab C…
Are you catching up with March/April 2021?
Anyway, GABVX is a focused MC-blend, but has high exposure to SC; it also has exposure to M&A deals. So, SP500 isn't a good benchmark for it. As it has only 25 stocks, you will have to dig into those f…
There is some validity to what Paul Schatz said.
Stocks beaten down by market forces (not for fundamental reasons) do rebound strongly later. January-effect for small-caps and tax-loss hit stocks is based on that. As they say, grease does float to …
The IRS just denied my deduction for foreign taxes that were shown in my brokerage 1099s; I didn't file From 1116. IRS said that those foreign tax credits were just offset by my AMT obligations. I am really far from AMT but did have high tax-exempt …
Sure, a bond guy can say that.
To friends who have already suffered historic bond losses this year, I have suggested to shift "some" to stocks for better recovery. Better yet, to use multi-asset funds that mix stocks-bonds-alternatives (FMSDX, VPGD…
@Derf, of course, you know that there is no "fund" or "separate account". All FICA taxes go into the general Treasury fund, and all SSA payments come out of that. All this talk about the "fund" and "fund running out of money" is just government inte…
There are various government inflation releases: CPI (by default, CPI-U), C-CPI-U, CPI-W, PCE, PPI. All have headline and core versions, seasonally adjusted and unadjusted versions.
Already we see that different measures are favored by different gr…
Here are live CPI level and %change charts from FRED. I have set them to 10 yrs, but the data goes to Jan 1947 (Max). FRED is updated minutes after the CPI release.
CPI Levels https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=UOyx
CPI Annual % Changes https:…
That is correct. For I-Bonds, Treasury Direct uses March, September, March (end) points for 6-mo inflation adjustments for seasonally unadjusted CPI. These are the most recent CPI reports available for May 1 and November 1 I-Bond rate announcements.…
@JD_co, for the variable part, guessing has ended today as Mar-Sep CPI data are in. The fixed part is entirely up to Treasury (Yellen) & it tracks 5-yr real rates (TIPS yields) with some lag - it was negative in Mar but is positive now (+1.8%). …
Oakmark/Harris is a value-oriented boutique shop based in Chicago (not far from M* offices but I don't think that impacts M* ratings). Some of its managers follow concentrated, high-conviction strategy. Hero (OAKIX) and Nygren (OAKMX, OAKLX) are oft…
September CPI was +8.2% y-o-y
Updating calculations for unadjusted CPI,
New fixed rate (November 1) 0-1.5% est
New I-Bond Rate (November 1) 6.47-8.02% est
@johnN, September CPI +8.1% y-o-y is the consensus. I used it to estimate the new I-Bond rate (November 1) in this link that I will update tomorrow. BTW, est for Social Security COLA will also firm up tomorrow.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/dis…
@hank, as noted by @LewisBraham article in Barron's Funds Quarterly, the some of the outflows from active funds are going into unlisted CITs, index mutual funds/OEFs and (indexed) ETFs. Among the large money managers, Price has missed 2 revolutions …
TROW is down sharply on declining AUM
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-rowe-price-group-reports-123000033.html
"T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. (NASDAQ-GS: TROW), today reported preliminary month-end assets under management of $1.23 trillion as of Septem…
Good point about payments (none or nominal?) for benchmarks for active funds. For index funds (OEFs, ETFs) & naming, they do have to pay.
Another difference is that MSCI has been slower to raise China weightings (vs FTSE).
Vanguard had a dispu…
Interesting.
Remember 2012? That is when Vanguard dumped MSCI as indexer for almost a couple of dozen Vanguard funds because MSCI got too greedy (after its spinoff from MS in 2007) and forgot how Vanguard had nurtured it when it was developing with…
Interval-funds are newer types of funds with some features of CEFs, OEFs, ETFs. Note para 3 of the filing for limitations of interval-funds:
"Interval Fund. The Fund is designed primarily for long-term investors and not as a trading vehicle. The Fu…
@BenWP, I suspect that some bank a/c# or routing# info got messed up in your or TD data entry. One suggestion is to just write a letter to TD explaining the issue, provide the required info again and ask TD to try again. Worth a try before giving up.
Foreign central bank holdings of Treasuries at the US Fed are down sharply as the dollar has become strong (there is an inverse relationship). For foreign central banks, these are savings/reserves to be used in difficult times. They are using these …
@BenWP, coincidently, my TD account link is with Schwab Bank and I haven't had any issues so far.
My TD account (Trust) did take about 6 weeks to activate after sending the requested Signature Guarantee paper.
This may help,
https://treasurydirec…
While not mentioned in this Barron's issue or supplement, one can use multi-asset funds that mix stocks-bonds-alternatives. Examples are FMSDX, VPGDX, etc. They have also been hit but the hit has been several % points less than conventional moderate…
I-Bonds rate is still 9.62% for 6 mo if purchased by 10/31/22. Annual limit is $10K/person.
New rates on 11/1/22 should be lower. Variable inflation has moderated but fixed rate may be raised above 0%. Estimates are 6.278-7.825%.
https://ybbperson…
Sudden gates and/or redemption fees at prime m-mkt funds are more probable than outright failures.
With government m-mkt funds, that risk is minimal (but not 0).
If you think about it, mutual funds have no guarantees. The whole system is based on …
One of the affected persons by the TBO scam can set up a semi-private site elsewhere. There may be a steep learning curve involved in doing so. One example is ProBoards where site access can be controlled (fully public, public-private, fully private…
@balyan55 and others, if you get calls from a site just because you searched for them on the web, those can be traps. Don't slide from one scam into another.
@Gary1952, great point. The brokered CD market is illiquid and the broker would try to sell it on best-effort basis.
So, best to hold brokered CDs to maturity. If there is any doubt about that, stick with liquid T-Bills/Notes.
Fed fund futures market-based projections are 75-50-25-pause bps-hikes at Nov, Dec, Feb-later FOMC with terminal rate of 4.50-4.75% (current 3.00-3.25%). Remember that the Fed controls the ST rate only. The US/global factors determine IT/LT rates.
h…
Deferred-income-annuities (DIAs) from taxable accounts were around for a long time. But there were some complicated issues with related RMDs for buying them from tax-deferred accounts and the IRS clarified those during 2012-14 (initial guidelines 02…
@Baseball_Fan, Wade Pfau, Princeton PhD, is professor at American College
https://www.theamericancollege.edu/our-people/faculty/wade-pfau
American College offers degree and certification programs for financial professionals. It is tied to financial…
Stockcharts has lots of useful TA data. There are also helpful links under Chart School. Investors may use technical analysis (easy to pickup, so may be abused, misused), fundamental analysis (harder to learn; may require business school degrees), o…
Current AUMs from M*:
LOMMX $282.4 million
CGMFX $341.9 million
CGMRX $347.8 million
Total for 3 CGM funds $972.1 million
And nobody wanted to buy them?
I think that there is some story or strategy behind this.
