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.
Cost of an import/export license in the US
You generally don’t need to pay any fees to get an import/export license in the US.
The procedure for obtaining a trade permit depends on the agency you are dealing with. For imports, most PGAs only requi…
I'm using M*'s chart page (a tab found on any fund/ETF page) such as:
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fltr/chart
Set the Frequency to Daily and the Data Type to "Growth w/Dividend". That gives you total return and scales each fund charted co…
One has to be comfortable with a large amount of hi-yield fare in RPHIX. I ended up with CBUDX instead. Information on the composition of the funds is near the bottom of the links. Two funds near their range of M* standard deviation would be JPST an…
It may also be considered as an export tax.
Yes. If it walks like a duck and squaks like a duck …
Then it's an unconstitutional duck.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 5:
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
https://consti…
Agreed. The retail vs. institution data is so dirty that IMHO it's not even worth trying.
The link above gives the share classes of funds targeted at institutions. These include institutional class shares and institutional only funds. I believ…
Current status: $40M and still being litigated.
https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/07/district-court-strikes-down-40-million-settlement-agreement-in-target-date-funds-case-based
In Jan 2025, Vanguard reached a settlement agreement wi…
https://www.independentvanguardadviser.com/meet-your-peers/
To be clear, the Average Vanguard Investor Index (AVII) is an average how the each dollar invested in Investor, Admiral, and ETF share classes and in VIP (Vanguard Insurance Product) portf…
So how did the SEC manage to remove those - or some of them anyway?
It promulgated a new set of fund report/advertising rules, effective Jan 4, 2023, but with required compliance deferred until July 24, 2024.
Funds will not be permitted to includ…
A few observations about this FoF, and replicating it on your own:
Unlike Vanguard that uses expensive share classes of underlying funds, AQR uses its cheapest (R-6) share class for acquired funds. In replicating this FoF, one would only have acc…
@WABAC - thanks for the post, and for reassuring me that I'm not an idiot posting about BBH and Payden. (Or perhaps we both are :-)).
Some of the funds you mentioned as not losing money did draw down microscopic amounts (in the rounding error rang…
Generally speaking, how does a fund like RPHIX compare to a moneymarket fund like SUTXX?
I spend (waste) the next couple of paragraphs below going through this year's returns because RPHIX has been a bit of a disappointment in 2025.
YTD (in just …
In 2022 VTAPX lost nearly 3% while NEAR gained a little. To me the latter is a better cash substitute. Cash should not experience down years.
Calendar years are easy to get statistics on. But I think the sentiment here is that cash should not be d…
Often when a fund sponsor (e.g. AQR) offers a fund of fund, it does not charge a second level of management fees. No drag there, and if it eats the FoF's "other" fees, there may be no difference between the FoF and owning the underlying funds sepa…
FWIW, the SUTXX US Treasury Mmkt at Schwab slowly declined from 4.12% on 5/30 to 4.01% on 7/14; and then increased from there to 4.13% currently.
fwiw, FIGXX 7d is back to 4.2%
Fidelity MMFs tended not to waver much in yield over the past few month…
Gemini won’t reveal source for data, but
https://www.tiingo.com/products/end-of-day-stock-price-data
$30/month
Claims to have data from 1970s, then can have AI write Python code to generate output needed.
They offer a pretty generous free subsc…
Here is a 14 month no-penalty CD from Sallie Mae Bank with 4.20% APY offered through Raisin. (No penalty after 30 days.)
I've never had an account with Raisin myself, but have heard some positive things about the platform.
Agreed, especially wit…
It's all in SNAXX at 4.29%
SUTXX nets more after accounting for state income taxes. And it's safer as it is a pure Treasuries fund.
SNAXX yield drops to 4.067% after subtracting off state taxes. SUTXX yields 4.13%. It's been like this for a fe…
Marcus has had the worst customer support of any bank or brokerage I've ever dealt with (at least a couple of dozen).
While not trying to minimize your personal travails with Marcus, they beg the question: are your experiences typical or are you an…
Note: Start date defaults to 01/04/2016 which is the first trading day in Jan. 2016
Why does it do that? Testfolio says that the run is limited to 1/4/16 by the inception date of MRFOX. But the fund started on 12/28/2015, per Marshfield.
Remov…
T-bills are still an option (especially in taxable accounts) - the latest auction had a 6 week T-bill with an estimated yield of 4.33% or so.
And if you want something liquid and FDIC insured, Marcus is offering 7 and 13 month no penalty CDs with A…
To align survey workload with resource levels [budget cuts], BLS suspended data collection for portions of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) sample in select areas across the country starting in April. In April, BLS suspended CPI data collection entire…
Good luck with any of these when it comes to OEFs that converted to ETFs.
I'm looking at Lazard Int'l Dynamic Equity ETF (IEQ), formerly Lazard Int'l Equity Advantage (IEAIX).
Morningstar splices the two sets of returns together. TF and PV do not.…
it's hard to read the full rules of these agreements written on cheap paper napkins with cheap ink pens.
That would be following a tradition of simplistic economic writings on cheap paper napkins. The Laffer curve for example. Sure, the Smithso…
PGIM is a good bond firm but I don't know if the current environment is conducive to good CLO performance.
Last year I posted a line about how PAAA should be the safest of the AAA CLO funds.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comme…
I wish there were some more concentrated positions and fewer airports.
ISTM that one might be even more concerned about the size of airport holdings in GLIFX. Like BILT, it has five airport stocks. At least if I've counted correctly. But with h…
Why would a Fox reporter question virtue of corporations
A couple of thoughts come to mind.
Lauding big business - that's so 1980s. Putting a populist sheen (support for the struggling overcharged consumer) on actions that advantage the better he…
Those who travel a lot may appreciate the value of a stablecoin account that can be accessed anytime (24/7) from anywhere in the world, rather than carrying around cash $s or global ATM cards (Schwab or Fido - no ATM fees).
Note the 24/7 aspect - b…
For a firm that prides itself on penny-pinching and low-cost indexing, Vanguard’s leaders sure seem to be stuffing their bank accounts with a lot more than pennies."
Vanguard employees, including its CEO, are just that - employees. If you believe …
As described in M*'s summary of CGIC, "Most of the firm’s ETFs are carved from a legacy vehicle, which its portfolio strategy-management group uses as a base to parse into a more compact portfolio based on liquidity factors while ensuring the stylis…
You might check out TRIGX. A long history to study.
Like many int'l funds, it is light in EM and heavy in Europe. If that's what you're looking for, it is definitely worth checking out.
CGIC is also Eurocentric, but has healthy exposure (1/8) in …
VUSXX currently has a 7 day SEC yield of 4.18% (4.27% APY). It should be mostly state tax exempt and if you don't like dealing with Vanguard is available through E*Trade.
FSIXX currently has a 7 day SEC yield of 4.16% (APY 4.25%). You can get …
Also be careful with taxation of SS income. The percentage of SS that's taxable can go as high as 85% depending on "combined income", a form of MAGI.
Then there's the IRMAA surcharge. Another MAGI effect in addition to phaseouts.
Next, there ar…
According to the quote in the OP: "Now, Vanguard isn’t eliminating SpecID—but they are making it harder to use by removing it as a default option for your accounts."
This change does indeed better align Vanguard with industry standards. I wrote i…
Vegomatic, do you have some link?
Most of Vanguard's equity ETFs have been passive and those do require daily disclosures.
I believe you mean "do not". Regardless of the indexed fund "exception" for daily disclosure of holdings, generally ETFs f…
Why is SpecID still available for market orders?
Market orders are executed immediately at the current market price, making it easier to match the specified shares with the sale. This immediacy aligns well with the SpecID method, ensuring that the c…
While PCFs are usually very close to actual portfolios, they are not necessarily identical to a fund's portfolio.
Each trading day, ETF issuers must disseminate a portfolio composition file (PCF) which describes the makeup of the creation and red…
ISTM there may be less to this than meets the eye.
When selling shares, there are two questions:
1) What did each share cost, and
2) Which shares were sold
If you are using average cost (called average basis by the IRS), all shares have the same …
We still use checks because we don't want any outside agency to have digital access to our bank or financial accounts,
Bill payment systems make electronic payments, or if that is not possible (e.g. to your landlord) they send paper checks. It i…
