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.
Historically, VG has quietly changed external advisors or their allocations, but it famously did high profile firing of GMO and AllianceBernstein. I don't think VG needs so many external advisors (now 6 for Explorer) to keep them on their toes and 2…
That sector effect cancels out to some extent if one focuses on relative-volatility wrt to a suitable or broad market benchmark. Relative-SDs remain surprisingly stable during different periods and over time.
In M* Screener, quantitative values of …
Reason people cannot remember DODBX "manager" is that there are 17 people listed - a crowd. I think that only the oversight of this crowd of 17 is changing, not the people themselves. FWIW, I can remember dozens of my user IDs and passwords - all in…
For 10-yr, $100 becomes $296.99 and $339.76 (by Investor. gov), respectively. So, that is +$42.77 extra for initial $100, and +14.40% over $296.99.
For 15-yr, $100 becomes $293.01 and $410.38 (by Investor. gov), respectively. So, that is +$117.37 e…
For 10-yr, (1.1301/1.1150)^10 = 1.1440, or 14.40% difference in final value.
For 15-yr, (1.0987/1.0743)^15 = 1.4006, or 40.06% difference in final value.
Powell referred to the yield-curve, and especially to the 2Y-10Y spread as being "normal". That spread was only 72-76 bps on the FOMC days. The spread fell further since (i.e., yield-curve flattened further, as it has been since mid-2021) and seems …
M* JR has an article today on falling dominos: ARK, SPACs, meme stocks, SC-growth. Next? Some LC-growth. https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1076351/the-stock-markets-dominoes-are-falling
PV FAQs cover lots of topics,
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/faq
It may be more useful to ask specific questions on PV usage.
The MOST attractive feature of PV, for me, is that it is the only FREE tool (as far as I know) that will calculate P…
For the S&P sector ETFs, Stockscharts also has nice chart displays for 2-, 6- (shown in the link), 12- months. Some sectors peaked in Fall (XLC, XLI, XLY), but most others peaked around the yearend - except that the energy XLE is doing its own t…
The ECB was on HOLD with the rates but MAY raise rates twice this year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/ecb-rate-decision-february-2022-inflation-.html
With the US media wild on speculations of 3-7 rate hikes by the Fed (5 by the fed fund futures m…
Correlation has the general sense of direction of the move but doesn't provide info about extent of the move. So, the question becomes: Given high enough correlation with PRWCX, which fund performs same or better than PRWCX?
American Funds are known for having lots of managers - some not even named. (And lots of fund classes too)
But some others have many managers too. Fido Balanced has 12 named managers.
VG may have thought that its Explorer didn't have enough with o…
It may be semantics. But M* defines World-Allocation as 70%- equity that includes 40%+ exposure to international stocks. On the other hand, moderate-allocation/50-70% equity has mostly domestic stocks.
World-allocation funds includes TIBAX/TBLD (C…
Fed fund futures market expectations now are +0.25% hikes in successive FOMC mtgs in March, May, June. Then skip hike in July, another hike (4th) in September, skip hike in November and another hike (5th) in December. This leads to a speculation tha…
Those 2 distinct VG TDF series were going to be merged. To make ER & min requirement adjustments just a few weeks ahead of the merger was very poor planning by VG that caused unnecessary disruptions & harmed the retail taxable investors. It…
What else peaked in February 2021? The EMs. Although ARKK doesn't have any EM stocks, the same speculative fervor that drove the EMs to February 2021 peak also drove ARKK. But then the Nasdaq peaked in early-November and ARKK was crushed again. So, …
ALL 42 holdings of Cathie Wood's ARKK are down YTD as of 1/28/22 (M* data).
It peaked at $159.70 on 2/16/21, closed at $94.59 on 12/31/21, day-high was $97.17 on 1/3/22, and close was $68.91 on 1/28/22 (Stockcharts data).
Loss from peak -56.85%, …
Thanks for posting the calendar. HK is trading this evening (Sunday evening/night, Central time) but China is not, so I checked the calendar and found the following market closures:
China 1/31/22 - 2/4/22
HK 1/31/22 (1/2 day) - 2/3/22
Singapore 1/…
I pointed out in the last post that convertibles are issued by speculative, low-rated companies and those haven't been doing well lately. I verified this further by checking correlations using PV: ANNPX has higher correlation with VTWO (small-cap R2…
It is fair to compare convertibles (hybrids) with moderate-allocation funds. However, the convertibles market is much more speculative now than a few years ago. Many speculative companies (startups, early-stage, low-quality) issue convertibles to ge…
FWIW, Vanguard Support page doesn't show phone number(s) anymore. One can be found on VG site search for "phone" and that comes with the note that phones are answered only M-F, 8am-8pm. https://support.vanguard.com/
Embedded Images at MFO
@stayCalm, MFO allows only the images hosted elsewhere, so you need their URLs.
Some sites such as M*, etc allow images both ways - direct uploads from PC and URLs from image hosting sites. These uploaded images from PC to …
Notes from FOMC releases & Powell's press conference:
Rate hikes will start soon (March). The fed fund rate will become the primary tool of Fed monetary policy. Expected will be gradual +0.25% rate hikes, but +0.50% hikes were not ruled out.
T…
The actions on Mon, Tue & overnight Wed as captured in the futures markets at 30 min is simply impressive.
https://www.cmegroup.com/market-data/delayed-quotes/equities.html
One options indicator I follow is $SKEW (Stockcharts, etc) or ^SKEW (Yahoo, etc). When puts are more expensive than calls (due to high demand from the hedgers), then SKEW is high (140+); otherwise, SKEW is low/moderate (120s-130s). This is a refinem…
For the 2nd day, someone is doing heavy duty selling (institutional rebalancing?) in the morning until about 11:00 AM Eastern, and then dippers come in around the lunchtime and onwards to reverse much of the morning action. VIX remains elevated at 3…
It is just the final step of the acquisition of BMO funds by Columbia Threadneedle that happened late last year. https://www.bmogam.com/us-en/institutional/important-announcements-regarding-bmo-funds/
