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 tried approaching your question from the other end. Instead of first trying to pick an investment or strategy, I looked at the question: how much money will you need to invest to achieve the desired cash flow for 32 years, at which time you'll h…
Like most I have assumed [gradual upward drift in rates] would mean trouble for bond fund performance, and generally I am skeptical of 'this time it's different'. But the fed fund rate has tripled since 12/15 (still very low of course), and if you …
"but you are less likely to get caught in a sharp downdraft"
What is the objective, starting with why invest in bonds? This is not a flippant question. If preservation is paramount, with an eye to getting a little something, as opposed to, say, …
I may not have been clear enough. I was writing about two different things.
One was and continues to be ongoing maintenance, or at least a notice about maintenance that hasn't gone away for about a month, day or night.
The other was Fidelity'…
I've never paid taxes in Wisconsin, but its Pub 126, Section 4(B) says:
B. Social Security Benefits
Federal tax treatment
Up to 85% of your social security benefits may be taxable.
Wisconsin tax treatment
Social security benefits are not taxable by …
Here's a page about getting consent for electronic delivery of 1099s:
https://qbochat.com/1099-delivery/
The recipient (you) must be notified that "If the recipient does not consent to receive the statement electronically, a paper copy will be prov…
Currently and for the past month Fidelity has put this notice on the page I get after logging in:Note
While we’re doing some maintenance on this page, you might not be able to access some content, including customized page views. Thank you for your…
Ted clipped the article in the middle. The "effort" that it is attempting to discredit as incoherent is the following thesis (my paraphrase):
Corporate tax cuts were supposed to stimulate growth and jobs. Since much or most of this money is bein…
An RMD is a "required minimum distribution", to be a little obvious. It's a very precise amount determined by the IRS. It sounds like one of your concerns is that you satisfy the RMD requirements.
Going step by step:
1. RMD on 401k to IRA trans…
I think you'll find that commuting to work accounts for at best 300, not 3000 calories. The average daily calorie consumption is under 3000:
https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/usda_food_patterns/EstimatedCalorieNeedsPerDayTable.pdf
"I…
Just trying to be clear on things here ...
- You're planning to take money from your traditional IRA in 2019 to pay taxes on your 2018 Roth conversion. (I guess this from your saying you'd use RMD money, and there's usually no RMD on a Roth.) So…
Here's a long (18p) active thread at boggleheads about broker bonuses. I've only skimmed a few pages, but some posts there are similar to my experiences, and there are other useful comments (if one can wade through everything).
https://www.boglehe…
One option (no pun intended) is to use index options to protect against major losses. This could make sense in your situation since you have a specific short term target date - either the date of your move when you can sell with lower taxes, or th…
I don't try to time markets - as is oft noted, you have to be correct twice, both getting out and getting back in. And I'm in for the long term. So I'm not selling equities.
But ... I do dabble in guessing the best time for Roth conversions (yo…
"Is this something he'll walk back soon, like so many other supposed policy shifts?"
One can hope so, but I see three reasons why the walk back is less likely than the others:Trump has almost no positions that are not mercurial. An exception is h…
Oyez does a very good job of summarizing cases in plain English. From its page on HellerThe Court held that the first clause of the Second Amendment that references a “militia” is a prefatory clause that does not limit the operative clause of the …
While some UITs are open-ended, "traditional" UITs are not part of the "open-ended fund world".
From the SEC: "A UIT typically will make a one-time 'public offering' of only a specific, fixed number of units (like closed-end funds)."
https://www.se…
"Support for universal background checks is itself almost universal, 97 - 2 percent"
- and -
We can't get anything (including background checks) done because "there are enough people in this country who are fearful of losing this so called 'right…
http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/best-brokerage-bonuses/
The above site is updated monthly. However there are a lot of bonuses out there that aren’t mentioned above. For instance, Fidelity will pay you $2500 to transfer a million dollars and over…
"And for comparison, something along the lines of 40,000 people are killed in the USA in automobile accidents. Where is that outrage?"
Please try to quote a little more carefully. The above reads as though I wrote the statement rather than quoted …
"And for comparison, something along the lines of 40,000 people are killed in the USA in automobile accidents. Where is that outrage?"
Likely meant as a distraction, but it's instructive to compare auto safety and gun safety. History might teach u…
I say lower. If I'm right, I've got that going for me. If I'm wrong then I've made money.A game theorist (maximizing the minimum result). My kind of guy/gal!
A petty concern, but TDA is adding a fee (amounting to a cent or so). Since we have only a penny left in our account there, literally, that added fee could wipe us out :-)
From our January statement:TRADING ACTIVITY FEE
To continue facilitating t…
Can't we all just get along? How about just One Meatball (with Lou Costello)?
(For a more serious and brilliant version, here's one of Josh White's earlier recordings, and background about the song.)
Somewhat related: Why Big Cities Thrive, and Smaller Ones Are Being Left Behind, NYTimes, Oct 10, 2017:
... another cleavage dividing the haves from the have-nots across the United States: geographic inequality.
Whether they rely on steel mills or…
I've got to write faster - the post below echos some of hank's and bee's thoughts. Nevertheless, I hope it adds some value.
circa33 is correct in so far as buying stock from another owner does not directly affect a company's coffers. But it affec…
"But without any public disclosure of the assessed price or public disclosure of an unrealistic stale consensus price, there is much more limited liability and less of a paper trail for lawyers and prosecutors to use in pursuing the parties guilty o…
I'm a big (but not uncritical) fan of Consumer Reports. Here's a very detailed report they published three years ago. You'll find their fruits and vegetable tables on pdf p. 19. The tables list the relative risks of conventional produce (from v…
I didn't address your comment about the problems in valuing illiquid securities because I felt that while that was related, it did not directly address the matter of degrees of liquidity, and disclosure thereof.
Also, I didn't want to go down that …
Different funds have different amounts of the same security. A tiny fund investing in a microcap stock could have ample liquidity to trade it while a behemoth fund owning more than 5% of its outstanding shares won't be able to get out of the positi…
Demonstrating that my little knowledge is a dangerous thing, here are the four categories (buckets) that the SEC Rule defines - note that three of them are slicing and dicing liquid assets; it's only the last bucket that is illiquid. This is rough…
Before leaping, it might be a good idea to understand what's being discussed here. (I'm just beginning to read the rule, so I speak from a fair amount of ignorance.)
ISTM that there are at least two different issues here. One concerns a 15% limi…
Looking at assets (or AUM) of financial institutions presents a distorted picture. Banks, investment companies, etc. control lots of assets, but those assets are owned by others. The value (market cap) of these companies is much smaller than their…
Here's Fairmark's page, Excess Contributions to Roth IRAs, current as of February 7, 2018:
http://fairmark.com/retirement/roth-accounts/contributions-to-roth-accounts/excess-contributions-to-roth-iras/
Short answer: withdraw contributions and earni…
@LewisBraham - you raise some interesting points.
Though let me start by saying that I was simply suggesting how one could "roll one's own" and come up with similar aggregate figures. Since the results are aggregate, a modest measure of noise d…
Lewis From what source are you culling these facts? Thx.
Of 2,258 diversified U.S. equity funds, only 111 have 10% or more in cash—and their recent performance has been poor. Just 18% of those with five-year records have beaten their peers as of Fe…
It's hard to see why one would seek out New Insights over Contra.
Years ago, the former was a much smaller, more nimble fund. It's still less than 1/4 the size of Contra, but at $30B, this is no mighty midget. Except for 2016, it has not perform…
I believe you're misreading the Arizona case. Most of it is explained in headnote #2 of the ruling.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/06/25/scotus.arizona.pdf
What Arizona did was not enforce federal law, but enact its own laws. That's u…
