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.
HR 1 won't eliminate the step up. Here's the relevant text:(a) In general.—Except as provided in subsection (b), this chapter [11, that taxes estates] shall not apply to the estates of decedents dying after December 31, 2024 ...
[and] Section 10…
I'm curious what needs you have for cost basis tracking. I just keep a line for each lot purchased, and cross it off when I sell it.
If you're using average cost, that's a little different. Here's a template that might help with that:
http://w…
I sometimes find it difficult to tell whose point you are making in your qualifying followups. Then I must be doing something right :-) I'm trying to add a little shading.
Simplistic, unqualified statements shed only heat, not light ...
Here is …
Krugman says only that the Republican plans would raise taxes on "many lower- and middle-income families", not even a majority, let alone "most", or as you wrote "all but the grifter princes and above."
He can't say more, because he's just quoting …
What I look at first (and I figure pretty much everyone looks at first) is what index is being tracked. "Similar" is a vague term. I wouldn't call the S&P 1500 "similar" to the S&P 500, or VOO "similar" to VTI. Likewise, I wouldn't cal…
The quotes pages aren't working, but you can get to other pages for each fund manually. For example, to get to the performance tab of ALAMX, use the link below. (For other funds, substitute their tickers for ALAMX in the url.) From a fund's per…
It's the quality of the business much more than covenants that provide protection to bond holders. You're already giving up lots of protection by investing in junk - the entire company may be shaky, or these may simply be very junior bonds, the fi…
@Ted - apologies. OJ has got your rhythm down a little too pat.
Ignoring the political issues (hard to do here), there's still plenty for investors to focus on.
Do you accelerate contributions this year since (with the higher std deduction…
@jerry - this is just the latest and one of the largest assaults on the funding of education. The taxing of graduate students began in the 70s when TAs and RAs were first taxed on their paychecks. Schools came up with a workaround by saying that …
@msf, whom are you responding to ??
"Ted, did I ...?"
I juxtaposed multiple perspectives of the House bill, and in doing so, illustrated how ridiculous some of those perspectives sound. Ted's right about that.
Gay Cohn hyped the 1% reduction in…
Ted, did I misquote any figures or fail to cite their sources? Was my arithmetic in error? I offered multiple perspectives, including percentage of income saved and percentage of taxes reduced.
Regarding the latter: Is it not the case that i…
Alright!!!! A 7% tax break!!!!!!!!!!! (per the market watch chart).
Oh, wait... that's for people making a million a year or more. Darn it, looks like it "trickled down" to me at a little over 1%. Hmm, I'm wondering, is that fair or should I just b…
I like them as well. Years ago, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, I decided to wander into their offices. Some people shop retail on Black Friday, I shop funds.
Really nice views and nice people. But then I saw lots of Apple machines ready to …
The "technicalities" concern owning just one fund. By hypothesis, one would have to divest of other investments prior to going on that "three hour tour". So an investor would be stuck with lots of cash (as well as holding that fund) if the fund …
There are (at least) two different "Chairman's mark" of the senate tax proposal. The original, release Nov. 9th, includes the FIFO proposal. The second, much shorter version, released Nov. 14th, does not.
I don't know if the latter is just mo…
I'm still looking for the FIFO rule in the Senate proposal. Here's the 10PM Nov. 14th (Tues) draft. I find all sorts of other things that articles highlight, but I'm not seeing the reported stock sale proposal. (There's a lot on stock options,…
Gosh, you don't think this is really tax simplification? According to the article, you'll still have a choice between average cost and FIFO for mutual funds. Since the fund companies and brokerages typically use average cost by default, that mig…
No doubt in my mind it'd be GPEOX.How would you do that? You'd have the same problem I raised above regarding GPMCX - you cannot make it the one fund you'd take with you to a desert isle.
You already pointed out that little obstacle: "I can't add …
"Regardless of whether luck accounts of 92% or 98% of investment performance, the implications are the same: Almost all attempts to beat the market will fail."
A misleading statement because he's conflating beating the market with beating half of o…
Three words: don't do it.
When I read the opening paragraph of the NYTimes article, my thoughts immediately jumped to the question: is this a prohibited transaction? That would void the IRA, making it immediately taxable (and subject to penalties…
Concerning American Funds, I'm with @Old_Skeet on this one. They have a good number of reasonably low cost funds. Except for possible gaps in their lineup, I don't see why he should have to look outside, simply because other funds are available.…
Moving securities from one taxable account to another is not difficult. I've got a standing Letter of Instruction with a broker to enable me to move assets into a relative's account with just a phone call.
If you move shares from one owner to ano…
I wasn't going to wade in to this decidedly political, off-topic discussion that Ted introduced. But I decided (perhaps against better judgment) to offer a few observations:Nothing new here - it's been shown over and over that the public would not…
I admit it. I've moved into the computer age (barely)! I set up spreadsheets to mimic my tax returns (both federal and state).
This gets me accurate figures for 2017 (since I update exemptions, thresholds, etc.), and lets me cross reference in…
While I didn't agree 100% with what she wrote (who does?), I did agree with her the vast majority of the time. She performed an admirable service extremely well and will be missed.
To a fair degree, I've got to beg off, since Grandeur Peak isn't a family I follow that much.
That said, a superficial look at GPRIX, GGSYX and GPGIX suggests a fair degree of overlaps among the Grandeur Peak funds.
Top 10 holdings in both GPRI…
There's a subtle implication made when stating that a fund is miscategorized. It suggests (however slightly) that the fund was put into the wrong category, as opposed to there not being a category for the fund. This is reinforced by the use of "p…
@LLJB We're actually in pretty strong agreement. I gave the information about the (semi) hard close of GPMCX largely in response to Ben's implication that an existing shareholder could buy more shares. That would be likely be necessary even for …
There's some ambiguity in the question. Does owning a fund for 10-15 years mean only that one doesn't make changes, or does it also imply that one is investing with the intent to draw from the fund after 10-15 years?
jlev seems to take the former …
"The interesting thing about this kind of lending is that from a legal perspective two mutual funds even if they're run by the same manager are separate investment companies ..."
How deep into the weeds do we want to go? :-)
These days, many funds…
That's why the bump-up rate CD I mentioned is particularly attractive. A bump-up feature is rarely useful, but it can provide interest rate protection especially if/when there are subsequent rate hikes during the CD's 15 month term.
Regarding APY…
Interesting column.
The transactions between MMFs and equity (or bond) funds to provide liquidity for the latter bear a superficial resemblance to security trades between funds in the same family. When one fund wants to sell a stock and a sibl…
Huh? Something may be off or I am misreading the graphs.
From Magellan inception to mid-May '72, M* shows $10k going to ~$123k. ~12x.
Ted's span from then to fall '96 shows $10k going to ~$589k, for like 59x.
No?
Ted invested in a fund that used…
@ MFO Members: For those of you who go back to the Fundalarm days , Roy Weitz ask me what was the single best investment I ever made ? The answer was simple and is still true today, Fidelity Magellan. I invested in Magellan in the spring of 1972…
Wow, 25 shares! When Met Life demutualized, I got 10 whole shares. So little that when they spun off Brighthouse Financial I would have gotten less than one share, so I was forced to accept cash in lieu.
I was notified about the shares when the…
IMHO it's not Lewis per se as much as it how he posted: an excerpt (within fair use) and a comment. You gave the link and commented on its contents, but weren't as clear on what the contents were (much beyond something bad in the government).
htt…
Don't you get it? When Trump said "drain the swamp", he didn't quite mean get rid of the corruption, he meant get rid of the insiders. Not just Washington insiders, and of course not his insiders, but insiders to whatever.
What could be more of …
APY is a legally mandated term of art. As @hank wrote, it's the amount of interest (including compounding) you get each year. Think of it as annual simple interest.
My go-to site for bank rates is depositaccounts.com. For Michigan, what appea…
A sequence of return risk always exists so long as there are withdrawals. If there are no withdrawals, it doesn't matter whether the market starts off down and then goes up, or starts off well and then declines, so long as it winds up in the same …
