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 @catch22:
Hi Catch,
FLPSX is about 5% of my total retirement portfolio. I have not made any changes to this position. I'm happy with the fund.
I've made several changes to my portfolio at year end.
I've sold PRPFX to buy 1/2 PONDX, 1/4…
I had a geometric (linked) return of 13.49% taking into account the inflows ( see my earlier post How to calculate portfolio returns )
My portfolio is about 2/3 equity so I consider myself having done well enough.
Certainly, you have done very we…
The articles numbers do not incorporate last couple of days of the year. Actually last day rally was the best since 1974 boosting the return significantly.
Here the total return of some of the indices:
S&P 500 Index: 16.0%
MSCI EAFE Index: 17.…
In bonds funds, high return and yield often come with higher risk. As you observed, the ones that has lower yield lost less in general tends to have higher quality bonds (often less junky)
Reply to @bee: it's an index measuring dollar to basket of currencies weighted by the volume of trade. Given inflation was also very subdued during this period the run of S&P 500 was very good.
I think UUP is a flawed ETF to conclude dollar debasement. In 2009 dollar indsx bottomed around 75. Today it's around 80. So, with respect to that bottom dollar has gained 6.7%
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy
They do provide some diversification value but if you are a conservative investor (which I understand you are), it may be difficult for you to stomach the volatility in market declines. If you are holding a fund like GPIOX or GPGOX these funds also …
Under normal conditions, I expect to have 85% of the funds I have currently have in my portfolio to remain for another year.
I am likely to dump PONDX and SUBFX if they start to fall behind. I bought these as trading positions.
I think the follo…
Reply to @Sven: I am about 2/3 equities in my portfolio. About half my equity position is international. I think I have pretty good exposure to risk assets. So, the change I have made above probably keeps my risk exposure relatively the same. PONDX…
Reply to @Sven:
I've put half of the monies in that was in PRPFX into PONDX. A quarter also went into SUBFX and the rest went to fund purchases into RWGFX.
Reply to @slick: I am still a big fan of Fidelity Low-Priced Stock fund, FLPSX
It is an all cap fund now with a weighted average of mid cap. Holds a good chunk in international as well.
Thanks for analysis. As @MJG has suggested, I also think a large number of funds that beat S&P 500 in 1998-2000 simply disappeared in the following period as tech bubble burst.
In any period, it is easy to identify winners retrospectively. It …
Reply to @BenWP: I am keeping CIPSX along with FMIMX which had similar performance shortfall. I sure wished better but these are low beta conservative funds. I will give another year.
Their flagship Hodges Fund returned -49.49% in 2008. The fund also returned -13.42% in 2011. Their style is very volatile...
Small Cap fund fared better but I would be cautious...
Poor performance of PRPFX resulted in me selling the entire position today. To be fair the fund has a static allocation but actively managed stock portfolio portion failed to cover up for underperformance in gold/silver and bond portfolios.
Now tha…
Today I started a token investment in RWGFX in my self-directed 401k account.
I've also sold all of my PRPFX. I'll probably going to redeploy some of this on my other funds on Monday.
Publishing podcast on iTunes is not so much more involved than hosting the mp3 files and providing an rss feed for them. This site already provides RSS feed for the forum.
Here is one page that describes the process of creating a podcast and publi…
One other option is to sell the home and pay her off with that and buy a smaller one for yourself at lower fixed 30 year interest rates available right now.
Alternatively, you can move to a apartment (rent) for a while.
Did you expect anything new. The twist operation was finishing so the $45B replaces the twist portion.
Considering they just decided the open eded QE a few months ago, this is nothing new on that front.
On the other hand, they now specified the co…
Reply to @catch22:
65+ is still providing economic activity although the nature is different. The additional medical expenses is driving growth in that industry, employing more young people who spend/invest their paychecks in other areas that the 6…
Missing that list is Fidelity which provides about 30 NTF ETFs and they cover broad asset classes.
https://www.fidelity.com/etfs/ishares
This list is actually 29 iShares ETFs. 30th one is Fidelity's sole ETF (at this moment): ONEQ
Reply to @MaxBialystock:
I am surprised you did not get a good representative that could answer your questions. That one conversation should not discourage you.
Did you call the office or national number online? Try the other one.
$5.00 fee is …
Reply to @Old_Joe: Around 2009, I was in a 401k plan that featured American Funds funds that were no-load share classes. I believe they were R-3 or R-5 share classes. The R class you get in retirement plan depends on how much record keeping/administ…
You can call the office and they can tell you if they can transfer in kind.
I think Fidelity will not have problem receiving and sometimes they will even reimburse you that the other place might charge for transferring out.
Reply to @MaxBialystock:
1) MSPZX is Mass Mutual PIMCO Total Return fund. It is sub-advised by PIMCO similar to Harbor one, I believe
2) CCASX fund has an expense waiver, keeping expenses at 1.10% until Feb 2013.
"Conestoga Capital Advisors, LL…
Fairmark site is pretty useful for a lot of tax questions.
http://www.fairmark.com/capgain/capgain.htm
Here on this page:
Capital losses are used first to offset capital gains. If there are no capital gains, or if the capital losses are larger tha…
Reply to @hank: At the time Schwab might have thought that the strategy was conservative and extra yield was just there for them to pick. Extra yield often comes with extra risk. This is especially true in bond funds.
Unfortunately, stock market returns and GDP have very loose relationship. The GDP might grow fast but it might not translate to stock market especially in emerging economies where share dilution is very heavy.
Reply to @BobC:
He has good investment skills but I do not like his "character" and so far I have avoided in investing in his new funds even though at one time, I had invested in his fund at TCW.
