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As an aside, I actually have a friend that works there.
I wouldn't worry about it -- using the platform requires a good amount of technical sophistication (i.e. programming) that most people don't have.
Exactly why would DLN have a higher total return? DLN may have a higher current yield, but these are equities and that's not predictive for returns.
Personally, I really like VIG. I like vanguard as an organization and I have a hard time seeing wh…
No, I don't think he meant that just for his wife - I think he meant that an average investor would be better pretty much entirely in stock. He's probably right, too.
Reply to @MarkM: I don't think that assessment is correct. If positions are held on average for 3-4 years, then on average turnover will range 25-33%, far lower than many if not most bond funds. Cash management strategies (i.e. Treasury bills, comm…
I had been looking pretty hard at NXP, NXQ and NXR for a while. These 3 sister funds have low leverage, yield about ~5% and have low expenses, ranging from ~.28-.35%. Unfortunately, they've run up in price in the last week and no longer have as lar…
Is there a reason the core international fund isn't an index fund? If you are trying to give people options so that people who want to make their own choices may, that's sounds completely reasonable, but I read "core" as "default" and I think it is …
BTW, FAIRX has a very large distribution upcoming, something like 7% of assets. Best guess is that he liquidated something, but SHLD and BAC I'd guess are in the red and wouldn't cause a taxable distribution, so AIG? Here's the link: http://bit.ly/J…
Yes, you should max it out. The investment/tax reasons are fuzzy, but the real reason is behavioral. Presumably, you would like to retire one day, which will cost millions of dollars. This is much easier to save if you can't touch the money.
I'd add Daniel Kahneman's book to your list as well, "thinking fast and thinking slow." His work shows how people make judgements under uncertainty and the work is so informative that it's hard to have a conversation about the topic in a professiona…
Reply to @VintageFreak: ah, I missed that about the capital losses. Makes sense. You know you can carry those over indefinitely, counting the losses against taxable income until they run out, right?
SEQUX has substantially lower risk in terms of t…
Have you ever seen the movie "Charlie Wilson's War"? It's a Tom Hanks movie from a few years ago - he plays a congressman in the early 80s pushing american involvement in Afghanistan. Good movie. Anyway, there is this scene when Tom Hanks and Phili…
I think the most compelling thing I've ever read about a fund is that David Herro has $3 Million in it and that its not David Herro's fund. Everybody eats their own cooking, but I think I'm smart too.
It looks like the expense ratio will drop by the end of the year for RWGFX. Looking at the RiverPark semiannual report, it looks like the fund charged $178K for advisor waiver recapture over the last 6 months and there is another $37K left it can c…
The more I spend thinking about it, the more I think this type of judgment is something I'm not capable of making. When you buy a fund, you're buying a basket of securities run by some manager, so you probably buy it because you have (1) an opinion …
I read the articles at morningstar.com as well as their newsletters - I get online acess from home provided by my local library. Very level headed, often something interesting. Vanguard puts out interesting research and I really like David Merkel at…
Oh, the monty hall problem. I love this problem - I have to say someone had to explain it to me before I understood it. This is a classic, very famous problem is statistics.
Risk parity is a levered bond fund with small amounts of equity and commodities exposure and I'm going to venture a guess that levering up bonds when 10 year treasuries are at 2% is a bad idea.
Any expectations of the stock price that is reflected in Put or Call contracts should be reflected in the stock price as well. This should be true in the aggregate as well. It doesn't have to be the case if something is mispriced, but that's not eas…
Its an intelligent (through risky) move. Natural gas prices have plummeted in response to a large increase in supply, but because energy is fungible, you would expect oil and natural gas prices to equalize as people shift from one energy source to a…
What's several years? Less than five? Intermediate municipal bonds or FDIC insured cash account. Otherwise, equity, ideally an index fund. It sounds boring, I know, but I don't have anything to sell you...1
Market sentiment tends to follow the price of something, not the other way around, so people don't like Apple because its stock price is down. There are reports in the news about lower orders to their suppliers, which as a shareholder I am suspicio…
Ten, fifteen year out, returns on bonds aren't going to look great. But it really all depends on what you're comfortable holding. It also depends on how much money you have, because series I bonds are much more attractive than treasuries, but you ca…
Reply to @LarryH: The thing with magic is, if people know how you do the trick, they won't pay to see you do it. You could make an argument that the financial industries collects rent by making things complex. Okay, so yeah, they definitely do that.
Reply to @VintageFreak: I would tend to agree. Hussman, and people like him, profits at the expense of his shareholders, and by always claiming the market is going to collapse, he sets him self up to make money by selling his product.
I'm not accus…
