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 @David_Snowball:
Hi David, Yes, we were generally lucky to have very good weather by Alaska standards. It was cooler for us from warmer climate but not to the point of requiring thick winter clothing for the most part. I hear we had lucki…
Reply to @Mark: No, not northern lights but at mid-night when I went to sleep, it was more like 7pm in Austin. I believe if I were to go above 66th parallel, I could see mid-night sun as well. For northern lights, you need to go further north, close…
The street and Zacks fund recommendations are the worst. I too highly suspect they get paid for such recommendations as most everyone would not come up with such lists.
Reply to @BobC: Star ratings are purely quantative based on backwards looking data. Analyst rating has nothing got to do with star rating. On the other hand, Neutral/Bronze/Silver/Gold etc. are purely analyst driven based on their future expectation…
#3: Bummer... I am a sucker for small cap funds. I hope I live long.
Seriously, small caps like any other style come in and out of preference. In 90s they performed terribly. That is why, you need other asset styles and classes.
I used to subscribe to Smart Money and Money. I stopped both. I received the print edition almost a month earlier than the printed date on the magazine. Even so, the articles printed were contained outdated data. For example, for June their cut-off …
Reply to @msf: Since corporations are now considered people thanks to Supreme Court decision, they should themselves be allowed to be elected to congress. A company that is 25 years old can be a representative and one that is 30 years old could be s…
A lot of fund managers are using 3rd party research and models. I am not sure why ZH is making this a big deal. They have taken it to the level that he was stealing it. They is paying for these research and models. I see ZH reporting rather poor her…
Lazard has launched 3 more EM equity funds after they closed LZOEX. Take a look at them.
LDMOX EMBOX EMMOX
and EMDOX is EM Bond funds.
You can buy FNMIX without transaction fee if you open an account at Fidelity. It take 5-10mins online to open a…
G20 is dysfunctional. They have all the talk but when it comes to action the action falls short of words. The pledged amounts are tiny. Still G7 is the key to any meaningful effort.
Reply to @AndyJ: I rather like simplicity in bond funds. Pimco TR is too complex and I do not like its derivative exposure. I understand they need derivative exposure as the fund has too much assets to invest comfortably otherwise.
The ETF, BOND is…
DFA funds are trying to extract illiquidity premium from small/micro caps. Thus, to achieve that they need to have low turnover in their strategy. If someone is not willing to sit tight in short term, these funds are not for that investor thus thei…
Reply to @VintageFreak: I read the whole article yesterday. Today, it requires registration.
It's PIMCO EqS Long Short Fund. There is another thread on this fund going on now:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/333…
Reply to @msf: I think selling equities in taxable and buying them back in IRA is an interesting technique. My only concern is that this can make RMD bigger later on.
Reply to @johnN: If dow drops back to 5000, I'm selling all of my safe funds, balanced funds and buying riskier stock funds, may be even some 2x and 3x funds.
Taxable and tax-sheltered portfolios should be managed together but asset placement should be done carefully.
In this respect, I disagree with this investment rep. My understanding is like you. Income producing products should be tax sheltered whil…
OJ, not everyone can be competitive at the same time. If one is more competitive, it will be at the expense of someone else but market forces work against the gap between competitive and non-competitive.
Germany is in this position because cheaper…
Reply to @MaxBialystock: Opportunity does not always turn into profit. India is at the edge of being the first BRIC nation to be downgraded to Junk rating status.
I just noticed that there is another thread posting the same.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/3309/schwabs-yield-plus-and-ineffectual-fund-boards-
I stopped reading his column a couple years ago. Repetitively doom and gloom and conspiracy theories. I wonder why he does not write for Zero Hedge (perheaps he does, I do not regularly read ZH either).
Reply to @MikeM: There are not many of those politicians crossing the isles left. Anyone that is crossing the isle is branded as enemy within the party base and voted out of office or threatened so they do not dare to seek middle ground.
Sad state …
Reply to @scott: I don't care much if the retail investor will stay in the sidelines or not.
The question is can they afford to stay on the sidelines. Some that has accumulated enough may.
The data that I am exposed says most others cannot stay a…
Reply to @scott: These things go in cycles. Just when all hope is lost the market starts to go up again.
After a while some will wait too long and will be disappointed as they once again sell at the bottom and buy at the top. The key is stop trying…
Reply to @Maurice: Maurice, your accusation is unfair. I kept my discussion on this topic rather unpolitical despite attempts to pull me in other directions. I find your post unfortunate. In particular, the character assassination part.
I could hav…
Reply to @tip: The problem is TBTF is no joke. Bush administration could not do it. Obama administration could not do it. Failure of these banks causes chain reaction and smaller otherwise healthy banks could fail just as easily and that brings the …
Reply to @Old_Joe: My intention was to keep it limited to Bankers and their influence and why we are unlikely to have a change.
It looks like John has stirred it really up. In other times, I would go over Johns points one by one but I'll let that …
Reply to @Mark: Cookies have a lifetime. MFO cookies expire in a month. So, I logon to MFO on my computer each month.
If you are loosing the logon cookie set by MFO more frequently, one of your security tools might be actually removing the cookies…
I do not like PTTRX. Because of the size of the fund, he is using synthetic exposure to various bond sectors using derivatives. I would rather invest in plain vanilla bond fund these days.
Reply to @scott: LOL.
I gave you Tea Party because the tea party crowd were against the bailouts the banks have received. So, they selected these politicians to change that. In other words, they were specially selected to go against the usual stan…
Reply to @Sven: I agree that Canadian property bubble might not be as severe as in the US but you never know. Here are a couple of articles:
http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/58937/neville-bennett-worried-major-housing-bubble-canada-may-cause-inter…
Reply to @Anna: It looks OK to me now. I mostly directly jump to the forum via bookmark and visit home page when updated for monthly commentary or to link over to Amazon.
