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.
In addition, I looked through my stack of funds; and, I have two that bettered the 8.9% objective over a ten year period. They were FDSAX and SPECX. However, remember the 2007 and 2008 returns from the Great Recession that brought the average dow…
Here's the full Natixis 2017 global survey report:
http://durableportfolios.com/global/understanding-investors/2017-global-survey-of-individual-investors-retirement-report
and the full Natixis press release on the US slice of that survey:
https://n…
Finally found a copy of the iMoneyNet taxonomy of enhanced cash vehicles:Cash plus funds - mark to market, seek $1 NAV, up to 180 day maturities
Enhanced cash funds - floating NAV (like RPHYX), durations up to a year
Ultrashort bond funds - floating…
ISTM that enhanced cash is a poorly understood or appreciated type of investment, both generally and especially in light of poor execution and implosion in 2008. See, e.g. Schwab Yield Plus).
As the old (2006) Northern Trust paper linked to above…
New York is unique in several ways. We can deconstruct these data:
Aside from Minn., NY is the only state to provide a Basic Health Program (PHP). This is a heavily subsidized, virtually zero cost (to patient) plan allowed by ACA in lieu of indi…
Another sector (not "the" other one) knocked out was consumer staples (one of the four in the index in July). The one replacing it in August was industrials.
https://barxis.barcap.com/US/7/en/etnsnapshot.app?instrumentId=174066 (July 2017)
The S…
I wrote: The next time you hear that the ACA needs to be repealed to enable states to implement their own solutions, take a closer look.
[HHS] issued a statement that read in part:
'The American people know a bad deal when they see one and many wo…
What the insurers appear to be doing is pricing their policies for the worst case scenario.
Under the current law, insurers are required to provide silver plans with reduced deductibles, copays, and coinsurance (cost share reductions) to lower i…
D&C distributions page: https://www.dodgeandcox.com/performance_HD.asp
Note: "The Stock and Balanced Funds’ third quarter investment income includes a special dividend from Baker Hughes, a GE company. As a result, the Funds’ third quarter ordin…
Yes they can, though there may be laws I'm unfamiliar with when the distributions are involuntary (e.g. if the company exercises its right to close a small account or if your mother is required to take distributions by the IRS).
Years ago I worked …
The private industry overhead is less than 20%. That 20% is overhead plus profit. The medical loss ratio (that measures the amount that insurers actually pay for health care) has hovered around 83% for awhile.
The ACA requires large insurers…
I completely agree with Lewis here.
I know people who have dabbled in politics at the lowest rungs (e.g. party central committee) and found what they needed to do even at that level so distasteful that they had to get out.
One would hope that…
Target date funds are designed as set-and-forget investments for those who want to have nothing to do with their investments. (I doubt many people here fall into that category.)
It's rarely pointed out (as this article does in its first paragraph)…
"This must be true, unless you believe that $1 is not worth $1."
Something I agree with. In the 90s, I walked into a Dreyfus office, and commented that I didn't see a difference between growth funds and growth & income funds (the latter placin…
" Also promised—repealing the Affordable Care Act, which subsidizes muni-bond-financed health-care facilities via Medicaid reimbursements."
This seems to be conflating two different factors - changes in Medicaid coverage (which pays for hospital se…
Ted seemed to have had an off day yesterday. NLIP (no link in post) here, either.
http://www.morningstar.com/articles/825339/theres-likely-more-risk-and-less-reward-in-foreign-small-caps.html
A confusing title/column. More risk and less reward…
No way this is going to be a short post, because people have a mistaken fixation on zero, such as: "I'll wait until my returns get back to zero before selling, that way I won't have lost anything."
Similar fixation with zero with respect to vola…
"But in journalistic (and financial adviser) idiom, rightly or wrongly, an uncorrelated asset is one that does the opposite of or at least is reliably different from, the rest. In my experience."
Uncorrelated means unreliably different. What you'…
As Kaspa observed, it's not just cost but affordability - how well incomes are tracking housing costs (combination of sale price and mortgage rate). Here's a slide show (dated April 2017) of the 13 least affordable counties in the country.
Slide …
>> if noncorrelated means losing money
When everything (stocks, bonds, REITs, and more) rises in synch in a bull market, then necessarily so. That would be negatively correlated.
Uncorrelated means, roughly speaking, that one has nothing to…
"Cybersecurity experts believe the breach is one of the largest data hacks ever disclosed."
Therein lies part of the problem. Lots of motivation to keep these problems hidden, and little in the way of US laws to compel disclosure. What laws do e…
The old Bull Moose Growth Fund, more memorable for its name than its performance. After it changed to the Roosevelt Anti-Terror Multi-Cap Fund, I figured it hadn't really gotten the Bull out, and stopped following it.
TALKING TO A BROKER or insurance salesman? Here are 10 things you’ll likely never hear:
1. 'Wow, your 401(k) has great low-cost institutional funds. There’s no way you should roll that money into an IRA."
I had to double check that the date of …
Some things are too vital to a society to be left in the hands of for-profit corporations with limited resources and conflicted interests that align them more with their shareholders/owners than public consumers. The military and our courts system a…
Here's the filing, clear as mud:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34066/000093247117005317/activeetfapp_clean.htm
I see no reference to Vanguard's patent that enables a shares of an individual fund to be sold both directly to investors (OEF …
VF - I think rforno answered your question (opting out of arbitration), but here's a more complete column on that:
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/08/equifax-says-it-wont-bar-consumers-from-joining-breach-related-lawsuits/
@Anna made this point, which is apparently this case; based upon other reporting I have seen:
Additionally, they have an agreement that must be signed that waives your right to be part of a class action and has also been reported to say that they …
Schwab is returning to offering credit cards that deposit rewards directly into a brokerage account. There is a no-fee card with 1.5% reward on all purchases and a premium card, $550 per annum, with many bells and whistles. I haven't read all the fi…
Years ago I read (on Epic?) what seems like an obvious statement - the objectives of a number serving as a universally unique identifier and of ensuring security are conflicting.
On the one hand, SSNs are used to uniquely identify you, so that f…
@bee - we've had exchanges on these things before. If these particular strategies work for you, more power to you. They do seem to carry some assumptions that may not apply to some other people, so they're worth pointing out.
I have a few person…
I'm still looking for a primary source (i.e. tax code, or even IRS) on this. Best secondary sources I've found so far suggest that the "successor beneficiary" simply continues the same distribution schedule. No lump sum is required.
After an in…
If you wanted to move money from an ETF to a mutual fund, under T+3 you had to wait a couple of days to buy the mutual fund (or buy on margin). That's because the proceeds from the ETF weren't available for three business days, but you had to have…
The Citizens United Supreme Court ruling basically legalized graft and influence peddling:
latimes.com/nation/la-na-court-mcdonnell-corruption-20160627-snap-story.html
I'm sure that George Soros and Hillary Clinton were as happy as one over the USS…
Self employed people are allowed to contribute $18K (plus catch up if over age 50), plus 20% of their remaining income, up to $54K to an individual 401K plan. Rather than being subject to various low contribution limits ("5500 and nowhere near 18K…
Interesting thought. The fund screens out those who don't pay to play, then takes the top 150. That's based on total dollar amount and percentage that goes to GOP candidates. So big companies can win even if they're just hedging their bets.
Ev…
"The filing didn’t say what securities would be held in the fund, instead directing individuals to the website 'www.investpolitically.com', where it said daily portfolio holdings would be available. That link, as of Thursday, simply features a place…
I'm a big fan of pre-paying taxes (via conversions as you did in '09 and '15), both to get more money sheltered and because, with individual tax rates at near historic lows, they have little place to go but up.
As you observed, the benefit from th…
This is letting the tail wag the dog. If you want to invest in companies based on Trump policies, you invest in companies whose businesses might profit from his policies, as opposed to what party the company employees support. Though perhaps figu…
