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.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with share-based compensation.
It’s prevalent in Silicon Valley and biotech because of startup culture.
With limited cash, a company operating out of a garage needs to dangle
the possibility of a bonanza to attract …
The givebacks are all over the map. Here's one for a Humana PPO plan covering parts of Georgia and South Carolina for 2026. The amount is $130/mo. I've seen much smaller ones as well, though I've never seen one as low as yours.
https://www.hum…
Yes, they do. Which is why the I calculated the increase in the Humana PFFS plan not as infinite ($0 2025 to $27 in 2026) but as 26%, all in.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/200450/#Comment_200450
Some plans actually "giv…
Humana's HMO plan H4141-017-003 isn't an option.
If your wife's employer(?) is giving you added benefits but offering fewer options, I can't speak to that. H4141 is generally available to subscribers in most of Georgia (Metro Georgia). See first …
If you have the same plan as Mona's, it's a PFFS plan. That Humana plan costs more in 2026 than 15 other Humana plans.
If you are flexible and willing to go to whatever providers are in an HMO network, you can save even more money to invest. C…
The beauty of QCDs is that they let you take RMDs and get the effect of a deduction without itemizing.
More precisely, you declare your total IRA withdrawals including QCDs on line 4a (IRA distributions). Then subtract out the QCDs from the tax…
. Friction costs such as higher expense ratio and bid/ask spread are the primary factors.
The comparison being made here is between an index ETF and an actively managed ETF. From the retail investor perspective, while ER differences are real, bid/…
It seems to me that before Charles arrived with Premium , MFO took donations with a certain % tax deductible.
MFO received its certification as a 501(c)(3) in 2015 and also initiated Premium that year. There was little if any period of time where…
Would a QCD to MFO qualify? Seems part of subscription to Premium is tax deductible.
You cannot not fund a membership this way. Part of the membership is not deductible because you receive benefits of value. QCDs must go to something that's 100% …
Below is largely esoterica. That's where the fun is :-)
QCDs can be made only from TIRA
QCDs can also be made from Roth IRAs if the distribution would have been taxable. For example, if you only opened your first Roth less than five years ago. …
There's also at least one interval fund: AARTX. Just in case you want to up your risk (and reward).
Thus, while the interval fund’s expected returns are higher, its risks are also higher.
https://www.morningstar.com/bonds/catastrophe-bonds-strategi…
It's a pay package that accrues over time, not $1T all at once. Still, no one is worth $1T over an entire lifetime.
Even made of solid gold, he'd only be worth about $13M
$4K/oz x 16 oz/lb x ~200lb ≈ $13M
I was pleased to note on the M* ownership tab that Fido was not among the top 20 "institutional" owners of Tesla.
FMR is #10 on the list of major institutional owners.
Goede Capital, spun off from Fidelity and the firm sub-advising Fidelity's index…
I don't expect much from the usual suspects.
That depends on whether they follow the guidance of the duopoly of proxy advisors, Glass Lewis and ISS.
Proxy firm Glass Lewis has recommended that Tesla (TSLA.O) shareholders vote against the proposed $…
But why do you think A's strategy statement is as it is, compared w FDFIX. Why does A not have the last sentence that D has? Something lawyerly?
I doubt it, except to the extent that marketing material has to stay within the bounds of the law. I …
Many times I have posted that people should RTFM (read the fine manual, i.e. prospectus). Once again sounding like a broken record, you also might consider doing that. Fund companies have a lot of leeway in what they can publish outside of SEC fil…
I asserted FXAIX was (simply) the best of the (plain-vanilla) SP500 indices.
And I took that to be any fund that Lipper and MFO classify as a plain vanilla S&P 500 Index fund.
https://lipperleaders.com/index.aspx (Lipper screener; search for …
Not too long ago someone mentioned WCPBX in another thread. The only brokerage I could find that sold it for under $1M was Vanguard ($500 min). At Fido the min is $1M (even in IRAs), same at Schwab.
Wells Fargo will also sell it to you for $1M,…
Ah, that chart ends at the end of September.
The data table has two rows with the funds and columns with performances over various time periods through October 31. It shows FDFIX beating FXAIX by 3 basis points annualized (17.65% vs 17.62%) over f…
the best, FXAIX
The best for you and undeniably one of the best. But simply the best, better than all the rest?
ETFs offer greater accessibility at possibly lower trading cost (bid/ask spread vs. TF at many non-Fidelity brokerages). Institutio…
Best guess (based on annual statement calling this GO VR with maturity 11/1/43) is CUSIP 74514L3T2. The GO means General Obligation; I'm guessing that TRP used VR to mean variable rate. It's actually a CVIS.
That's a really funky type of bond. …
BBH funds (only BBLIX and BBMIX)
Payable on Nov 7th; convert to ETFs on Nov 17th
https://www.bbhfunds.com/content/dam/bbh/external/bbhfunds/documents/fund-documents/2025/2025-BBH-Select-Series-Large-Cap-and-Select-Series-Mid-Cap-Distribution-Estimat…
M* has often been reported as being slow to update.
My problem is that M* wouldn't present a Legacy view. Just a blank area where the portfolio is supposed to be. This time I waited about 5 minutes and the legacy portfolio finally showed up.
Whoops. Should be 9/30/22 (not a Saturday).
All funds were plotted on the same graph, so the returns are correct. I only copied the end point incorrectly.
A conservative rule of thumb is to keep anything you expect to need in cash or something very close to cash, between 5 and 10 years in substantially IG bonds, and longer term in equity or near equity (e.g. HY bonds). A more modern rule of thumb is …
That's what I was in the process of doing. (I assume SWVVX should be SWVXX; for PV I substituted CASH.)
Forward looking (simulation) rather than retrospective. NRDCX is too new to include so I dropped it from the simulation. I assumed this was …
It's up to each retailer and middleman to decide. That's competition and capitalism.
What was it that Keynes said? Trump can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?
Those (inflation) numbers do not comport with my own experience. It feels greater than what the BLS has published. Some time ago I cited a replacement window identical to one purchased 7 or 8 years earlier. The price had jumped from $400 to over $70…
Our excellent Medicare Advantage plan used to have zero premiums for years, but it’s increasing to $27 next year. Still, we can see any doctor or hospital in the U.S
I'm going off on a tangent here, but private fee for service (PFFS) plans, as this…
Companies have been absorbing most of the higher costs from tariffs in the hope that they are only temporary.
Companies had passed along about 37 percent of new tariffs to consumers, forced 9 percent onto their suppliers and absorbed 51 percent th…
Memories fade. Perhaps the 25¢ comic books you are thinking about were the 80 page Giants, containing mostly reprints.
Prices for regular editions, by year and publisher:
Do you believe the numbers?
No I don't, not the numbers in the Wolf Street piece. From that writing:
Overall CPI rose by 0.31% (+3.8% annualized) in September from August. So not a benign inflation reading, but the second worst since January.
The…
It may be a long time before we see inflation at 3% again.
Y/Y trend:
April: 2.3%
May: 2.4%
June: 2.7%
July: 2.7%
Aug: 2.9%
Sept: 3.0%
Source: BLS CPI-U database https://data.bls.gov/toppicks?survey=cu
Thanks for notifying Chip & David!
Yes, thank you. I also noticed the same behaviour.
There's a tendency when one sees something to assume someone else has already seen it and acted accordingly. Something to keep in mind when things happen.…
Why don't government MM ETFs maintain a stable NAV?
I can understand prime MM ETFs not maintaining a stable NAV. They can't preclude institutions from buying shares on the secondary market and prime MMFs that are open to institutions must have …
their NAVs fluctuate a bit around $1
The actual NAVs of all OEF MMFs fluctuate a bit around $1, but retail and government MMFs are allowed to claim "a stable net asset value per share or stable price per share, by virtue of either the amortized cos…
Schwab's MMF rates:
https://www.schwab.com/money-market-funds
Merrill's (third party) MMF rates:
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/ICCRateSheet.pdf
Vanguard MMFs (usually the best rates and only a $3K min required)
http…
My reaction to the article echoes others'. My precise thought, one third of the way through reading it was: And how exactly is this news?
Actually it was Trump who said back in April: "Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dol…
Securitized AAA isn't the same as genuine AAA (only 2 companies).
There is a difference between securitized and structured.
Securitized debt is debt created when a financial institution pools multiple loans together and issues its own debt instrum…
