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.
Reply to @msf: I absolutely agree. I am one of those that cash payers was subsidizing via cash back awards until now. Let's see how many retailers will offer discount/surcharge. I might have to carry more cash going forward.
Reply to @MaxBialystock: When you use credit card, the card company charges the merchant. Previously the card company prohibited the merchant offering discount for cash. So this is about that option. So, you can either interpret it as merchant givin…
Reply to @MJG: About keeping extra cash for buying opportunities, I try achieve this buy selling from low beta, low risk bonds and balanced funds to by more risky equities. Given cash has very low returns, I do not want to hold large amount waiting …
I too have what many consider as too many funds.
Specifically 24 unique funds are spread over 5 accounts compromising 68 positions at the moment (excluding cash which is very small if any). Top 10 funds make 62% of the portfolio. If I include one …
Reply to @Charles: In an earlier post he said: "I listed the A share class for each fund owned which is ok for me tracking what I have. However, in my 401k, for instance, I hold other share classes for the respective funds listed, I think most of th…
Reply to @fundalarm: EEM is beneficiary of assets which does not mean much for us fund investors. I really do not care if Blackrock is making more money or not for themselves.
A rare optimist.
Home bias is the cause of a lot of envy of other countries. We are innately familiar of what is wrong here but so much elsewhere and thus under appreciating the opportunities here.
If Korea underperforms with respect to other emerging market stocks the move might turn out advantageous to Vanguard fund. We will only know after the fact. Also, the stocks that vanguard is selling can provide downward momentum for those stocks. Ho…
Reply to @Anna: I believe borrowing from 401k is better than stopping contribution due to reduction in taxable income. However, some employees do not allow contribution until the existing loans are paid off so in that case the is little advantage.
…
As I said in an earlier thread, Active Share is a measure of just how dis-similar the portfolio is to the index. It could be very different but choices could perform really bad as well. The only useful thing it says is that if you have very low acti…
By the way, while we sometimes tear CNBC, I tried to watch Fox Business Network (FBN) and while there is a ticker at the bottom of TV, they are hardly any market, business discussion but simply more toxic venting of the sort found on regular Fox.
Reply to @kevindow: I watched the clip and I agree Icahn came up as a bully and he was rather unfair towards the host. They are supposed to discuss Herbalife and the clip was anything but that.
EXDAX is a fund to consider if you are looking for a conservative balanced fund.
A lot of Funds are MassMutual variety which I am not familiar one. Even the PIMCO fund is MassMutual PIMCO which might mean not the exactly same thing as PTTAX/PTTRX …
Reply to @catch22: Yeah, it is poorly worded. In fact, it should probably read:
His style might be difficult to follow by most people in particular by those near or in retirement.
Reply to @Mark: Apparently, they cannot completely eliminate salaries due to some constitutional concern (how convenient!)
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/264230/what-stops-us-suspending-congress-pay-er-constitution
Note his passing all…
I invested in this fund for a while when the ER was capped at 0.75%. When they jacked up the ER to close to double, I left.
It did not perform well in 2011. 2012 was much better.
Ken Fisher Guru Grades by CXO Advisory:
http://www.cxoadvisory.com/3190/individual-gurus/ken-fisher/
By this grading Ken Fisher is actually above average but he has an 'optimist' bias so he does not do well in correction but he catches the recover…
Reply to @scott: Not Interpid, but I stayed at USS Lexington (a WWII era Aircraft Carrier) at Corpus Christi, TX one night along with Boy/Cub Scout Troop when my kids were younger.
It was an interesting experience. If you visit Corpus Christi, tak…
Over the past 4 years, banks have been working the inventory of foreclosed properties. That is a reasonable period similar to earlier housing boom/bust. In the savings and loans crisis, Resolution Trust Company acquired the assets in 1989 and by 199…
Reply to @hank:
The operative word is "smart enough". I think many investors do not properly benchmark and do actually worse overall than these target funds. Not only their picks are usually not good, they are not smart enough to make correct timi…
Bespoke says 79.6% of stocks are overbought:
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2013/1/22/796-of-sp-500-stocks-overbought.html
And here are sector trading range charts:
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2013/1/21/bespokes-sector-trading-ra…
Unfortunately a lot of investors are doing even worse than the target funds on their own. They are not perfect but often better choice in a lot of retirement plans.
I have both the Roth IRA and Rollover IRA at Fidelity. They are different accounts by their nature but they will appear under the same login at Fidelity and you will get consolidated view. In fact, if you had a 401k account that is serviced by Fidel…
Reply to @MJG: Thanks for pointing out to additional valuable links on this subject. A couple times a year, I do use FinancialEngines.com for monte-carlo simulation of my portfolio (actually integrated to my 401k free of charge to me). It gives bett…
Reply to @TNK: Bingo!
Here is PIMCO's own words regarding negative cash:
http://investments.pimco.com/MarketingPrograms/External Documents/Understanding_Negative_Cash_PU006.pdf
In other words, yes negative cash indicates leverage:
Basically in…
M* might not be accounting the equity exposure properly as PIMCO index plus funds etc. get exposure via derivatives while holding bonds as collateral. So, it is really hard to get true exposures for many PIMCO funds.
I considered this fund a few t…
Reply to @andrei: I am disappointed about it as well. I have significant portion of my foreign exposure in this fund.
I do not know the new assistant portfolio managers but lead Mark Yockey is a veteran of Artisan and has done particularly well wh…
Reply to @Maurice: Mo, I hear that Republicans in the house like to play "Russian Roulette" with their pistols. That is probably their fondness of guns are coming from.
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Hey Max, are you replying to @Old_Joe? Could you please make a bit effort to use the "Reply" link in the post you replying and use the box for that post for typing your reply instead of the bottom one? That way logical order…
Reply to @MaxBialystock: you should be happy that you are getting 2 hr window instead of half a day or whole day. Many cable companies service visits are scheduled on wide periods. Two hours is good actually.
Reply to @Old_Joe: Count me in.
Debt ceiling has become a political obstruction tool. One day a Republican administration will come to power and then should Democrats refuse to increase debt ceiling should their (insert favorite issue) not passed? …
Reply to @MaxBialystock: max, sometimes seemingly innocent questions are used by hackers as an social engineering attack. So, it is OK to expect that they will gather as much information as their IT and legal dept deemed necessary.
Secondly site p…
Bad title by CNBC editor. Bogle did not claim mutual funds have no place in portfolio. He favors index mutual funds and says active funds have no place. Some idiot takes it as Bogle is against all mutual funds. Far from truth.
