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.
We have not had the kind of pull back I am seeking to start deploying ballast capital (cash) to establish any special investment positions. As it is, I'll continue to buy around the edges with the cash my portfolio generates monthly.
Old_Skeet
Hi hank,
Many season investors including myself have a weather vane so to speak concerning the market. No doubt some of the vanes are more complex and provide more information than others. Mine follows pretty much a keep it simple type format bec…
Hi Hank and others. I posted this piece over the weekend from Seeking Alpha. This is a pretty long reading article but has a lot packed in it. I thought it worth posting the link again under your thread. If you don't wish to read the whole thing…
Hi MikeM,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the market. After all, it is the varied thoughts of many that make the market as for every seller there has to be a buyer. Those with the better thinking and have an investment strategy I feel will be…
Hi Cman,
Linked below is the site’s historical for it's calls. It appears, at times, a cash position has been taken. I too, questioned this most recent call to SPY. However, I am thinking, large caps should perhaps fair better over small caps in…
Hi Cman,
Thanks for your additional comments. I looked at using my domestic hybrid sleeve as a bench mark through an Instant Xray analysis and when adjusting the amount of cash (percent wise) held it Xrayed much to that of my portfolio as a whole.…
Hi Charles,
My Master Portfolio has a Forward P/E Ratio of 15.6 and at Trailing P/E Ratio of 16.3 with a value tilt along with being overweight to the defensives. It will usually better the Lipper Balanced Index in a downdraft and trail it in an u…
My Small/Mid Cap Sleeve, within my portfolio, has a Trailing P/E Ratio of 17.9 and a Forward P/E Ratio of 16.7. With this, I think I am in a good P/E Ratio sweet spot with a value orientation tilt. Time will tell. Anyway, that is how I am positio…
Hi Cman,
Thanks for your comments and your suggestion.
GBLAX is carrying to great of a foreign allocation and seems to be split about equally between domestic and foreign in the stock area. According to M* Xray, GBLAX is about 10% cash, 30% US st…
Hi Cman and others,
I'd much rather see up days in the market. No doubt, down days are also a part of investing. I have my portfolio benchmarked against the Lipper Balanced Index. Thus far, year-to-date the Index is up 1.68% and I am up 2.25%. …
In my way of thinking the high frequency trader is not a true market maker as they can turn their system off, or on, at anytime of their choosing where as a "true" market maker can not.
I have a provided a link to the definition of what a market ma…
Hi ducrow,
As you requested … Another look under the hood on my conservative allocation portfolio which consists of about 20% cash, 25% Income, 45% Equity and 10% Alternatives as recently analyzed by Morningtar’s Instant Xray. I have listed it bel…
Hello,
Thanks to those that made comments and requested information.
I am providing two of my reference links for those that might not have booked marked them in the past form my previous posts. From time-to-time I do provide some reference links…
I use the Moose, Leadership Strategy and my own asset tracking system to point out the faster moving currents in the market. With this, I don't subscrible to paid subscriptions of this nature. By all means though if you don't have a system to trac…
I have owned MFLDX since Main Stay Investments purchased the fund. It is true AUM has grown and I am sure the fund is not as nimble as it once was. However, I am still staying with it. It reminds me when I use to own WASAX and held it for a good …
Thanks bee for your comment. It is much appreciated and coming form you means a lot to me. My family has long believed that one of the best courses in life is helping others along the path of life. You being a retired school teacher believed in t…
Well, "Cash Is King" with me too as it is the single largest holding (being just short of twenty percent) within my portfolio. No problem with me paying cash either. However, I do put most purchases on a credit card and pay the full billed amount …
I have owned this fund for a good long while … since childhood ... and, I am now sixty six years in age as I write. In 1954, I invested some money in it that my late great grandfather gave me. He told me that he felt this would be a good long term…
I am invested for the longer term ... and, with this, I have listed below my top five funds along with their five year returns. They are as follows: HWAAX (32.48%) ... LPEFX (30.95%) ... FDSAX (28.47%) ... VADAX (26.59% and IIVAX (26.56%). Over th…
Old_Skeet has pretty much just been pondering for the past 30 days, or so, since the S&P 500 has rebounded from a recent low, week of Fed 3rd, and has had a nice upward move since then. Even though it has pulled back form a recent closing high …
Hi John,
Thanks for the update and I hope you enjoy your trip. Also nice to know why fellow posters go silent. When you don't see post and comments form them it makes one wonder.
Old_Skeet
Linked below is the latest signal form the Moose in which he has now switched from Europe back to US Small Caps as of 3/7.
http://decisionmoose.com/Moosignal.html
Liz Ann Sonders and Jeffry Saut are the two investment strategist that I follow the most.
Hers for more of a long term perspective and Mr. Saut’s for more of a near term perspective.
I have linked Mr. Saut’s latest commentary below for those that …
Short answer.
The value of assets appreciated over time and thus the principal grew with capital value increase. In addition, many of the investments kick off a good income stream that was mine if I chose to take or could be used to purchase addit…
I run an asset allocation model portfolio so I don’t have 100% of stock market risk. With this, I am not up the 170% of the market since 2009, but, I am ahead of where I was on the time line of 2008 before everything went to heck. In addition, I t…
In short words, for this strategy (or any strategy) to work, one has to have reached critical mass of principal.
No doubt, in this case, I believe it has.
Old_Skeet
After my parents reached the point that age was affecting their ability to make good decisions I took over the management of all family money and affairs. Since, their investments had reached critical mass and they had made good choices in preparin…
They are no doubt designed as a marketing tool to catch investor attention for a certain class of packaged product. And, I guess to some extent they have succeeded. It now seems someone, in the press, wants to write a story about what investors mi…
Hello,
This is a fund that I have owned for better than four years. As I had CDs that matured, in a low interest rate environment, this is one of the vehicles that I moved four positions of my twenty position CD ladder into. Over the past four pl…
Well Ted,
I think you have accomplished your mission as no doubt your help has helped make this the best investment board on the planet. I have linked M*’s Board for easy access below. Look around their board and read some of the discussions. No…
Hi davidrmoran,
Thanks for your comment and noting your observation.
You are right about the returns and it has not gone unnoticed by my brokerage firm as they are the ones that did the tracking and the reporting of the five year return number on …
Hi all,
Let's not draw lines. We are all here to help one another against our bogey the markets. Junkster I'd hate to see you or anybody else leave the board. I hope you will think this over before you make a farewell type post. I'll be most sa…
Hi Cman,
You come across, to me, as a well schooled “Wall Street” type knowledgably person. While I am an average “Main Street” type person. My strategy when applied to my portfolio has out performed both Fund Yardsticks Indexes “Balanced” and “S…
Hi Catch ... Good Morning.
We had a pretty good ice storm in the Murrells Inlet area of SC the past couple of weeks back. I went down to clean up from the storm and looked at a distant power pole ... The crew was from Michigan. Seems they came …
One of the ways I chose to help manage interest rate and credit risk in the income area of my portfolio was to split my income sleeve into two parts. One part holds three short term bond funds: LALDX, THIFX & ITAAX and the other part holds most…
