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.
If you're really interested in this type of security, here's a good primer I found from Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe: An Introduction to Pension Obligation Bonds and Other Post-Employment Benefits.
I would have thought that governments could …
I don't follow BERWX closely, but I suppose the writing was on the wall when Chartwell replaced the managers they had brought over from Berwyn (technically, The Killen Group) a month ago with a Chartwell lifer, David C. Dalrymple. He's been managi…
Load fund companies, including PIMCO, have always had a problem offering their funds without a load. If they simply sold A shares noload direct to the public they'd alienate their commission-based broker dealers. So they came up with many differ…
@guilhermes,
The further investment at 0 cost seems to be unique among brokerages. If someone else offers such, I would like to hear about it. Scottrade's 2 dollar per further transactions was not bad either.
I believe American Century's brokerage a…
John Rekenthaler's thoughts on the matter: "Putting Larry Fink's Corporate-Governance Comments to the Test"
http://www.morningstar.com/articles/845217/putting-larry-finks-corporate-governance-comments-to-the-test.html
The original thread, including…
https://seattle.eater.com/2017/7/17/15983558/farestart-amazon-expansion-open
Nonprofit Farestart, which offers food service job training to people struggling with poverty, addiction, homelessness, or a criminal record, celebrates the staggered roll-…
Really interesting proposal.
Touches on a lot of issues that many people will say don't apply to them. Such as Americans having to save more (e.g. than in other countries) because they're taking on more risk and getting lower returns than they…
So it's not honoring all the Scottrade pricing after all. The short term trading fee at Scottrade is $49.00, not $49.99.
See Brokerage Commissions & Fees (this pdf was modified last June, so I assume it's current, unless someone has a newer …
I have an account with Scottrade - I have confirmed that as part of the transfer to TDA the transaction fees for mutual funds will remain $17. That's great!
TDA has lots of different fee schedules written up - the standard retail one (no maintenanc…
A couple of paragraphs (largely fluff) on each of fifteen cities that didn't make the cut.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-losing-cities-list-2018-1/#detroit-michigan-1
Detroit, inadequate "talent" pool, Orlando, insufficient higher-ed fa…
"Click below to review the documents associated with Click below to review the documents associated with your account when it transitions to TD Ameritrade. to TD Ameritrade."
TDA did a poor job of documenting changes. Look at the info it gives fo…
He's not releasing his tax returns because they're under audit :-)
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1421/release-his-tax-returns-after-audit-completed/
Also according to the Scottrade to Ameritrade transition hub - https://welcome.tdameritrade.com/ The fees for transaction fee mutual fund purchases will remain the same.
I read that page a little differently. Under FAQ there's this Q&A:
What …
You're correct that TDA doesn't have an extra short term trading fee for TF funds. But it charges $49.95 to buy and $49.95 to sell, making its round trips more expensive than Scottrade even with its extra short term trading fee.
This is somewhat…
Sometimes brokerages' screeners/fund lists aren't easy to find without logging in. These should work:
TDA (it says that it offers 12,841 funds, 11,596 open to new investors):
https://research.tdameritrade.com/grid/public/screener/mutualfunds/scree…
May be a good time to invest in value, seeing all the capitulations to growth: looking hard at RPG, PRDGX an "obvious" choice within the TRP house, etc.
If you've ever used "mean regression" as a mantra, how does that apply here? I agree with hank…
But I agree there are many good value funds -- perhaps the cheapest, if not certainly the most keep-it-simple-stupid (and equal-weighted!) value fund is BRLIX....at least to me. Nice choice. I like Bridgeway as a company - investor-friendly, h…
"[TBGVX] hedges back to the dollar. The dollar is getting beat up, in 2017 and into 2018."
I'm glad you said that. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record when I point out hedging with some funds (posts mentioning VMVFX, FMIJX). Tweedy, Brown…
One quick observation - unless you're analogizing buying it to buying Dutch tulip fleurs, or have found a fund focusing on 1800Flowers, FTD, etc., you might consider changing the subject ticker.
I've given up guessing. So far, the stock market has played the metaphorical crowd witnessing Trump shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave. Move along, nothing to see here.
Longer term, an extended shutdown will harm the economy. But that cou…
Let's put the pieces together:
To Satisfy Its Investors, Cash-Rich Apple Borrows Money (NYTimes, April 30, 2013)
Apple said last week that it planned to distribute [$100 billion] by the end of 2015 in the form of paying increased dividends and buyi…
I used WellsTrade a long time ago to buy FT Advisor shares. Then years ago they severely limited the funds you could buy, going from one of the most open platforms to one of the more limited ones. They also overhauled their website, making it di…
Thanks. Funds that I'd looked at in the past for friends and relatives included Bernstein Short Duration funds (Calif., NY), which were also marketed under Alliance Bernstein (now AB). The AB Advisor shares had similar costs to the Bernstein offe…
Check out the Advisor class shares at Firstrade. Will include a T/F.Shhh. That's the only way I know to get cheaper FT Advisor class shares - they used to be available through other second tier brokerages. I've been wondering for years when FT w…
"However, SEC mandated reforms were implemented at the time which further restrict the type of investments the retail funds can make. Many (most?) became government-backed money market funds. These changes made the retail funds much less profitable.…
Here's a four page primer from Vanguard on the MMF rules, including background on why something like these rules is needed. It's dated 2014, before the rules became effective (late 2016).
https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/VGMMR.pdf
The final para…
As with VMNFX, FMIJX is currency hedged. This has made a big difference in the past few years, as the dollar has gone from soaring in 2016 to diving in 2017.
If what you want is a smoother ride (i.e. one where currency is taken out of the equa…
As it should have. He was talking about stocks, and there's a big difference between being a customer of a company and knowing a company. It's the latter sense in which he meant one should know what (company) one is investing in.
Still, when it…
Those are level load (C) shares. You can get the MGGPX share class mcmarsco originally named, without a load and with a much reduced 12b-1 fee (0.25% instead of 1.0%).
Of course that was never exactly Lynch's advice, more 'understand what you invest in' ---
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/06/peterlynch.asp ---
and he did often say things like 'know what you own and know why' etc.
Investopedia is de…
For those who might think that they absolutely need a tech fund I would suggest that you take a look at the Josh Brown article Ted linked earlier today.Thanks for the nudge.
I like the observation that there's no such thing as purely passive invest…
FWIW, M* lists 49 technology funds, 4/5 (39) are LCG. It classifies 1 of these as supporting, 8 funds are called specialty, and the remainder are unclassified.
At one of the (technology) startups where I worked, the HR person told me that most pe…
Thoughts followed by explanations:I'm not fond of using global in lieu of foreign + domesticThe funds listed are all good but are all of one type; you might want expand your searchVMVFX is rare, if not unique, for good or for bad
Companies that inve…
"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators met with administration officials this week to discuss legislation to spend $1 trillion to improve infrastructure."
That sounds like the Donald's campaign promised that he walked back many months ago. CNN rece…
Schwab has always used cash accounts as, well, cash cows. It lards its "Intelligent" Portfolios (robo accounts) with cash, and it offers little in the way of interest for its core/transaction accounts.
Those are the accounts being addressed here.…
That would be a good theory, except that this invests in ETFs that are primarily index funds.
Should Vanguard open another total bond market index fund because VBTIX has almost $200B in it? Oh wait, they did: VTBNX. I'm soooo confused.
Often people think that if SS reduces their checks because they're working, they're being penalized for that work. They're not - the benefits are just deferred, as stated in the final paragraph:
Benefits lost to excess earnings are not gone forev…
Correct me if I am wrong, but Fidelity has several higher minimum requirement money market funds with yields over 1.40% to as high as 1.52%. I talked to a branch manager who didn’t seem too up to speed on these funds other than to say they aren’t …
I forgot to ask. While the commission schedule shows an extra fee, this evening a broker set up a sale for me with no commission added. He was helping me fix a problem, so the trade may have been treated as a special case - not something I could…
