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.
I did not look at this fund but many commodity funds invest in commodity futures. As part of investment in futures they need to put collateral. They can use t-bills as collateral which appears as cash. PIMCO likes to use TIPS so other choices exist …
Reply to @johnN: Funny you say. Houston Pensions are among underfunded and was one city that was mentioned in the news after Detroit bankruptcy.
And, yes, are you proud to be in the state that most people without healthcare. Are we competing to the…
Reply to @DlphcOracl: I've added a post to that thread with actual statistics from S&P when indices beat and when it did not. Conventional wisdom expressed by fundalarm does not very well. One category that active management is clearly best is I…
Reply to @fundalarm: You have echoed the conventional wisdom. It is reasonable, in theory, there is more opportunity in the less researched areas for active managers to excel. Having said that the reality is a bit more complex. There is good researc…
Before making investment decisions using Schiller CAPE review this article:
http://oldprof.typepad.com/a_dash_of_insight/2013/07/how-to-profit-from-the-shiller-cape-ratio.html
Reply to @Ted:
I don't think that is a fair criticism.
in fact, the fact that this site is hosted by a company whose only concern is providing this service makes the operations more reliable and allows David to concentrate on content.
Most webs…
Reply to @Charles: Depends on what you want from bonds. I keep a portion of portfolio in bonds to add stability and reduce volatility. Not for income. Occasionally, I also do trades like PONDX to capture momentum as well.
If equity portion declines…
Reply to @mrc70: I think bond environment now favors short duration. Thus my decision to move funds to RPHYX and add some to equity. I prefer to take risk on equity side instead.
The manager bought depressed below investment grade MBS in the dark d…
Reply to @VintageFreak: You can buy the ETF version of the same fund. It is identical to mutual fund without such restrictions but you pay a small transaction fee.
Reply to @mrc70:
I do have a lot of funds in my portfolio. Furthermore, I buy the same funds in several different accounts so it feels more. But in terms of number of unique tickers you have more than I do. And it looks like I have managed to conc…
Reply to @MaxBialystock:
-AKREX. OK, if you're going to dabble in a specialty sector....
This is not a specialty fund! Where did you get the idea? Perhaps the name "focus" lead you to believe it is a sector fund. @mrc70 does invest in a couple of s…
Reply to @Heathbob: ARTHX has a smaller asset base. Portfolio is composed of stocks that are less expensive by valuation metrics. I also like the fact that 1/3 of the portfolio is in defensive consumer stocks with more predictable performance as opp…
Reply to @Old_Joe: I try not to look at the cash value. The percentage makes more sense to put things into perspective.
When you have 17% invested in equities if 40% of that is US (6.8% of overall portfolio) or 60% of that is US (10.2%) just does n…
Just a comment on Janus Triton: Are you aware that the managers that made the track record for that fund has recently left. So, I would consider a change there.
Reply to @Old_Joe:
The cash sitting in bank is part of your retirement portfolio so there is no point in checking the asset allocation of your mutual fund portfolio in isolation. With 17% equity exposure a few percentage more US vs Foreign is a was…
Reply to @scott:
I don't think there will be huge move towards Electric vehicles and Solar/alternative energy systems until oil perhaps hits $5 average (in today's prices) and stays there for extended time (lets say a year or more). For vehicles, t…
Reply to @Kaspa:
Artisan has a number of global funds managed by different teams. So, far they all have been generally successful investors as global fund managers.
ARTHX is brought by the team behind ARTIX and ARTJX (closed) and it is a growth l…
Reply to @scott:
Oil prices going up and remain high for extended period indicates the idle capacity in economies around the world is brought online again. I welcome this type. OTOH, Speculative/manipulative rises when economy is getting weaker ca…
Reply to @Art: Apart from 1, 2 and 6 which are all trucks the rest are pretty efficient vehicles. Only Ford Escape is CUV/small SUV. 2013 version comes with 4 cylinder engines. The default is 2.5l but you can get one with either 1.6l Echoboost or 2.…
I got close to $3 level in May with 0.12/gal HEB (Grocery Store) discount when using HEB debit shopping card at the pump. I think I paid $3.05 Regrettably, that deal finished at the beginning of July but will probably come back around X-Mas time. Ty…
Reply to @BobC:
If you add the trillions of dollars that were yanked out of stocks during the 2007-09 selloff, there is still a TON of money on the sidelines. The majority of investors have not jumped into the markets.
Trillions that were yanked mig…
Reply to @kevindow:
Here is the chart:
It looks like the manager has nicely steered the fund allocation so far. At the beginning of 2008 the fund had 39% fixed income which has increased to 51% during 2008. This saved the fund from large declin…
What was it invested back then? For example, long treasury did very well at the time. Take past with a grain of salt. A lot of these past success stories will not pan out going forward. I am not talking specifically about this fund. I did not do res…
Reply to @Junkster: This is typical. After these big meltdown episodes the investors pull money and fund industry invents new vehicles to lure the investors back and show the wonderful backtested results. They are actually more expensive than produc…
There is a very good summary and links to various Retirement Calculators at:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Retirement_calculators_and_spending
For those that want to explore various various Spending Models in Retirement, FireCalc 3.0 (as MJG poin…
Reply to @JoeNoEskimo: They have several articles on the this page under Related Articles column:
http://www.morningstar.com/market-valuation/market-fair-value-graph.aspx
Reply to @MJG: The difference is that I was assuming 15 years of distributions and each year taxes has to paid. So, to keep after tax money on hand the same Roth vs Traditional, one has to withdraw more from IRA. While Trad. IRA enjoyed bigger contr…
Reply to @MJG:
Assume you had both a 10,000 dollar IRA and Roth.
I think you are beginning with a wrong assumption. If you invest in Roth instead of IRA, you are likely to have contributed less since you had to pay taxes on that amount so you had l…
Dup from yesterday:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/index.php?p=/discussion/7015/china-wealth-eluding-foreigners-as-equities-earn-1-for-20-years
Reply to @David_Snowball:
Speaking of WSJ, online at WSJ.com at Investing/Business section, they continue to have "Common Sense" section which was written by James Steward who also wrote Common Sense column. Steward left Smart Money some time bef…
Reply to @David_Snowball:
Global or International small cap is a good idea. GPGOX and GPIOX are closed but their new global reach fund could be an alternative. Also, the manager's former funds are still a good viable choice: WAGOX and WAIOX. Final…
