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.
Here's the US News link:
https://money.usnews.com/investing/bonds/articles/2018-07-16/how-to-invest-in-zero-coupon-bonds
As it points out, zeros include those issued by a government:
"Like all bonds, zeros are loans from the bond purchaser to the c…
If you have access to M* premium and look at the holding data (premium), you can see how the top 100 holdings did. (You'll have to do this within the next dozen hours give or take, before M* updates the daily changes for Friday).
If you export thi…
From a NYTimes OpEd:
"his administration had rebuffed every invitation from the Obama transition team during an inherently stressful time, including to learn how to keep the lights on."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/opinion/trump-recording-pr…
Medicare is an interesting place to start. Original medicare includes copays for hospitalization and coinsurance (20%) for services. The ability to buy first dollar supplemental coverage is about to go away, supposedly because of moral hazard. …
There are richer examples:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.23.5.194
A question I have concerning the $20K/$20K example. We all(?) know that the perceived value of a dollar of income decreases as income increases (diminishing mar…
There's that "whatabout" ism. Deflections. How about a discussion?
I didn't say that the problem could not be dealt with, just that in addressing some problems others were added. As is often the case. What are some checks and balances one mig…
The tendency to overuse health services because they are "free" or at least cost less than they're worth to you.
For example, if you reach your maximum out of pocket cap for the year (zero if services are free), you might just have that covered ba…
@LewisBraham Implicit in my emphasis on subsidies was that they were funded out of taxes, as you described. You make a good point that whatever health subsidies the wealthy receive can be taxed back. So perhaps I too am getting a bit too hung up …
@LewisBraham, I agree with 90% of what you wrote (about not forcing people into bankruptcy, about dealing with bad products via excise taxes). But the alternative to ignoring health risks in setting rates is not necessarily barbarism.
That's why …
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue."
We've had a little of this before, though there's a clear distinction between foolish and intentional, between naive and destructi…
>> Shouldn't the rates be age- (health-) independent?
I took the first part of this to be rhetorical, not serious; apologies if you are truly making some quasi-libertarian (?) free-market (or whatever it is) argument here.
Thank you! I as a…
“Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.” Pearl S. Buck
I prefer the formulation incorrectly attribut…
"No response, of course. Why is it that those who tend to his side of the political spectrum are great at lobbing grenades but not so good at actual attempts to deal with problems?"
I agree that there seems to be greater prevalence on one side of t…
"The companies that run these funds want your money."
Like any service company does. Cramer's CNBC wants him to generate eyeballs, not money directly (that comes from advertisers), but it's the same thing.
"The amount of money they make depend…
The article cited was full of maybe's, possibly's, could's, and no real numbers or information.
UnitedHealth "was due a net $281 million in risk adjustment payments" (small business mkt)"In the individual market, it had limited participation and wa…
But the larger question is can health insurance really be like a traditional competitive market ... whether these small new entrants are worth saving is an important question.
Agreed, but that leads to an existential question - can the ACA model, ba…
@LewisBrahm, you've got me scratching my head.
All that I quoted from an AEI presentation were statements that:holding off on 2018 risk adjustment payments is unnecessary and will harm ACA plans (increase premiums and cause insurers to drop out)if …
Is anyone other than Lewis interested in something other than sniping?
There's more to the story, and to the potential effects, than the little fragment he quoted above. Many people, including the state insurance regulators in NY and MD, complai…
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You have a good memory. Earlier prospectuses (e.g. this one from 2013) didn't imply there were fixed stock/bond ratios, but the current prospectus does: [For AOM] As of July 31, 2017, the Underlying Index included a fixed allocation of 60% of its …
Not to worry about cellphones. Even with the added tariffs, ZTEs will still be cheap. I forget, is that ban on ZTE using US parts on again or off again?
For me, the big deal was buying a new car last year - assembled in Mexico with a German-manuf…
Give or take rounding error, Barclays is doing the same thing as Vanguard. All the sibling funds hold the same underlying funds (though unlike Vanguard, these may vary from time to time).
If one looks only at the underlying equity funds, these…
The idea behind cap weighted indexing is that you duck the risk (and benefit) of issue selection by buying everything.
I've never seen anyone advocate choosing a stock/bond ratio to match the ratio of worldwide equity to worldwide debt. So impl…
"he's got a lot of experience with negotiation. He wrote a book ..."
Now I understand the problem. Article confusion. He wrote a book, he didn't write the book on negotiating.
Actually a ghostwriter wrote a book. Details, details.
http://the…
"Both came to prominence in the 1970s".
A nice sound bite, but a bit simplistic. Vanguard didn't even exist until 1975, and at that time it was a load family.
From Forbes (Ferri): "The Vanguard Index Trust was launched in early 1976 and received…
A quick search turned up this Financial Adviser Mag article from 2014. It cites a Vanguard figure saying that 20% of RMDs were reinvested there.
Of course that's only Vanguard investors, and may only count the RMD money that they reinvested at…
I might suggest a different word: disingenuous.
>> It was originally designed to simply present a medley of military songs. I had no hidden agenda.
Something that could have been presented any day of the year, though it was presented explici…
For those who prefer the written word, here's the Des Moines Register story from the reporter being interviewed. The YouTube video was published June 18th, the article discussed in the video was published June 15th, and updated late on June 18th.
…
Not an angry reply, just a couple of facts about the video. Whether you find them inspiring or ironic or both is up to you.
The performer selected is a foreigner.
The composer came to the U.S. at the age of five as part of a family seeking refuge…
So I checked a few sources. Of course, any quoted percentage must be a little soft given the uncertanties and records of that time. The resources that I visited put the loyalist percentages between 15% and 20%. Allow me to amend my too optimistic 10…
Take the reporting in this Markewatch column with a whole lot of grains of salt. First item I checked ...
Marketwatch: " having loving relationships with friends and family was one of the top three most popular personal definitions of wealth, acc…
Forbes has a good blow by blow description of how this shell game works (i.e. most lines simply moved to other, new schedules so that you're more likely to miss them an make errors).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/06/30/heres-ho…
"A person with knowledge of the new form said on Monday that it was meant to replace not just the 1040, but the 1040A (the “short form”) and the 1040EZ (for filers without any dependents)."
Replace a 14 line form with a 23 line form (over 50% longe…
If you have $20K+ in combined balances, you qualify for some level of BofA Preferred Rewards. You do have to enroll. (I suspect you've done this, since you've written about having gotten a low rate on a mortgage or HELOC - that comes with Preferr…
The banks are raising fees in the same way that the airline industry is. Just went to transfer some dough to my daughter from our BOA checking to find that there's now a $3 fee for a 1-3 day ACH transfer. Our Schwab brokerage accounts remain free fo…
It looks like I wasn't clear on what I was trying to say. In response to Crash's comment about using CU services, I opined that it was difficult to find CU credit cards that were comparable to what is available at (usually) TBTF banks.
The All…
This is an example of why we need a vigilant CFPB.
One list of best CU credit cards (2018):
https://www.valuepenguin.com/best-credit-union-credit-cards
Aside from the Alliant card that pays 2.5% cash rewards (but costs $59/year), it's hard to find…
That sounds correct. The new restrictions apply only to MMFs, and even then, generally don't apply to government MMFs. Bank account rules haven't changed.
That's why brokerages (that don't sweep cash into banks) switched the core/transaction/set…
