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.
Read the full analyses. The current one (almost a year old) has the summary line: "This remains one of the more independent-minded, idiosyncratic funds around, but this hasn't led to outperformance in recent decades."
Let that sink in. Hasn't ou…
"Case in point" this is not. The S&P indexes, as I've written before, are the exception, not the rule.
I wrote about (and linked to a column about) the S&P Index Committee where at the end of the dot com boom, it made a misplaced bet o…
“What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Or in this case, stink as much. One can slap a Merrill Edge name on Banc of America, it's still a bank brokerage, conceived by a bank, launched by a bank, and (…
Merrill Edge was always a supposed to be a brokerage attached to a bank. It is essentially a 2010 rebranding of what used to be Banc of America Investment Services' discount services.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/elainewong/2011/01/23/bank-of-ame…
Thanks for the suggestion on My Final Picture - I'll take a look at it.
Generally, my experience with brokerages attached to banks is that they are clunky and have limited offerings. If an account gets me a perk I value (like boosted credit ca…
Vanguards balanced fund which is closed to new investorsVanguard closed the Investor share class of its index funds to most retail investors because it lowered the min of the Admiral class shares for these funds to $3K.
Check out VBIAX. It's ope…
Whether @hank intended it this way or not, I'll take his post to convey the message that while Shakespeare penned a marvelous piece of rhetoric in which praise for Caesar was "buried" in language that ostensibly condemned him, the cited article is n…
Taxes?
If they're a concern, my first choice for an actively managed tax-efficient balanced fund would be Vanguard's own VTMFX. Since you asked for non-Vanguard alternatives, there's also TAIFX.
Here are some additional clarifications:
1. A syndicate can be a group of borrowers and/or a group of lenders; there is even a loan syndication association which created rules on how to manage a syndication : https://www.lsta.org/
Of course a syn…
"As the name of the counterparties clearly states these are SYNDICATIONS"
Minor item first, I guess. A SYNDICATE is a group acting together for a purpose; in the financial arena that's often a group of lenders coordinating a sizeable loan, or a gr…
To effect a merger.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1558107/000139834418018590/fp0037914_n14.htm
January 27, 2019
Dear Shareholder:
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of ALPS Series Trust (the “Trust”), we are pleased to invite you, as a…
A quick note on your numbers, and then a longer discussion of reverse repos.
From fact sheet: 0.40% ER + 3.96% yield = 4.36% gross return
70% Treasuries @ 2.4% + 30% @ 7.5% = 3.93%
(I agree with you that 2.4% is a reasonable guesstimate for 3 mo…
FWIIW, Panasonic, of which we own two TVs and 3 vacs, has abandoned the US consumer market.
Sept. 03, 2014
"Panasonic Corporation today announced that it will launch its audio products under the Technics brand name again, reviving its brand long sy…
Even older funds may not gather many assets if they don't market themselves. See BRUFX - 35 years old, $500M, not available through any brokerage. (But it does offer an HSA - talk about a stealth product!)
Bus/rail/walking (I guess that's "self"-motoring). Looking into bikeshare (there's talk of adding motorized bikes). Supermarkets a quarter mile away, do work from home, not a big need for driving. Save on gas, help the environment, get exercise…
What sort of diligence do you feel is due? I'm not suggesting that brokerages have no responsibilities, but rather wondering how you feel Vanguard might not have satisfied them.
Vanguard is facilitating the sale of an SEC-registered security, as o…
FWIW, my Cash Rewards (legacy Schwab Visa card) just went live with 3% category selection. My rewards page now gives examples of types of merchants in each category. Travel is as I described above. Home Improvements & Furnishings includes B…
Texas has received more than 2,900 claims from federal workers since the shutdown began on Dec. 22, while Ohio is approaching 700. Kansas reported 445 filings, and Alabama was closing in on 500. Montana said it had logged almost 1,500.
But those ma…
Taking a closer look at this now than I did in the last thread, and I'm wondering how far off you are with that "Bernie" comment.
The strategy has echoes of RPHYX's - buying "orphaned securities; exceedingly short-term (think 30-90 day maturity) se…
Section 22(d) of the 1940 Investment Company Act "generally prohibits the sale of mutual fund shares (i.e., redeemable shares) by a principal underwriter or dealer at any price other than the 'current public offering price described in the prospectu…
Large retailer moving into financial services/products space. Where have I heard this before?
Oh yes, 1981, when the U.S.'s largest retailer (Amazon is currently only third), already owning an insurance company, acquired a financial services comp…
Is there anything in this short article that is correct?
Put simply, the R-class of mutual funds are available only through employment-based retirement accounts ... In other words, investors access R-class mutual funds through their employers or wor…
Not sure what you mean by "the same". If you mean two different sets of allocation funds, what Vanguard offers is one set of target date funds, Target Retirement 20xx, and one set of static allocation funds called LifeStrategy Funds.
The differen…
Though I've never used target date funds, I think they're reasonable options for people who don't want to think much about their investments. I regard them as substantially the same as robo advisors. They both provide all-in-one allocations based …
Ages ago, I asked Fidelity if they were outsourcing FullView to Yodlee or taking it in-house. The answer I got was that it was run in-house. Since then, I suspect they started interfacing to outside financial sites via Yodlee rather than running…
I agree with @hank, and would go even further. What @sma3 did was put up a subject for discussion - trading policies and product offerings of brokerages. While it was obviously motivated by Vanguard's new policy, it's a different subject. Linki…
This is not John Bogle's Vanguard:
"I say you don't need to have non-U.S., but if you do, limit it to 20%. A lot of portfolios now have 25%, 35%, 45% in non-U.S. securities, and I think that's just too much."
Morningstar, Oct 16, 2018, Why Jack Bo…
What are you so worried about? Here's a real life example: one person with a big utility bill that's going unpaid due to the shutdown, and the utility company is just letting it slide.
$5M water bill, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC.
ht…
"They will get a very big check"
From the article cited: "The affected workers could eventually get back pay once the shutdown is over, but that’s not guaranteed since it would require an act of Congress."
You seem more certain that workers will g…
Well, steel really sounds really great, but with those 25% tariffs in place, won't that raise the price from $5.7B to $7.1B?
I'm sorry, Mr. Trump, but if we can't afford to pay some farmers to not sell soybeans, then I don't see how we can pay so …
Always got issues with M*. But not with Portfolio Manager; at least for now it's working for me (though I haven't verified that all the prices are accurate and up to date).
Apparently the tax collection part of the IRS was always deemed essential, so it was never going to be shut down. It was only the refund part that was considered superfluous.
"If people weren’t able to get refunds there would be "excruciating pressure" on lawmakers to cut a deal, said Mark Everson, a former IRS Commissioner."
And this would be a bad thing?
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/01/07/us/politics/ap-us-g…
A somewhat moribund (last updated 2012 or so) site that I've found excellent for investing in bonds is ... investinginbonds.com
I invest in munis, and this page (5 pages printed) was invaluable in understanding accretion and amortization, the asymm…
Between Nov 2 and Nov 9 (inclusive), 5 year Treasuries paid above 3%. They have not paid as much as 2.5% any day this year so far.
Treasury rates are set by the market, not by the Fed and not by retail banks. I generally expect bank rates to trac…
WF acquired the funds in 2005 and kept the no load shares as "Investor Shares" until 2015. In 2015 the Investor class shares were merged into the A class shares. So a search by (old) ticker comes up empty. Looking at the A share inception dates,…
