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.
We have to look carefully at what "all else being equal" means, because that carries a lot of baggage that makes a difference.
Let's again take $8K sitting inside a traditional IRA. We can convert now, or convert at the end of the year, when (let…
The final outcome and whether it helps or hurts an employee also depends a lot on whether the market goes up or down. Such a shift to a Roth style account would've been far more valuable perhaps in March of 2009 than today. Strangely enough, assumin…
Being self-employed doesn't make this worse for you, but possibly makes it better, depending on your income. That's because only employee contributions, not employer contributions, would be forced into Roth 401k's according to Politico (derived fr…
The history of 403(b)s is essentially the history of TIAA. The TIAA traditional (fixed) annuity was started in 1918. "The usual method of contribution for TIAA annuities was joint payments divided equally between the individual and the individual…
So the 401k becomes a Roth IRA.We already have Roth 401(k)s. This would just make them mandatory.
While all the writing seems to be reading "after tax" contributions as "Roth", that's not the only way after tax contributions can be handled in a 4…
I'm no fan of SeekingAlpha, but this time I think they got the analysis basically right. In a taxable account where you can take the foreign tax credit, the after-tax dividends of each share class come out the same. However, since A shares seem t…
Interesting find.
An apparently little known fact is that several fund families, notably Fidelity, offer funds with performance based fees. AllianceBernstein is doing something a bit different in making nearly all of its fee performance based. …
Or a negative sign - that WF was so bad that not even Vanguard could stomach all of it.
"Vanguard funds supported 12 of 15 Wells Fargo directors on the ballot, and backed the company’s management on all nine shareholder proposals up for a vote a…
Nice writeup. Pretty basic stuff, but a lot of effort. (I've worked with a company off and on that does a similar form of machine learning.)
Good results for a prototype, though I'm not sure it's ready for prime time.
M* acknowledges that t…
When I worked at Bell Labs at the WE plant in North Andover Mass. we were told it was or had been the lead manufacturing facility for Ma Bell, though I don't know that that meant most of these phone were made there, perhaps more switching hardware.
…
Nice set of phones!
I've still got one like the second picture (yellow like the first picture, though). Unfortunately it's designed for wall mount so it's pretty useless now. Purchased it for $20 at Sears (another institution fading into oblivio…
A site I've been playing with for the past few weeks offers something similar, though rounded to the nearest $1K. But it has finer granularity - down to the zip code level.
http://www.esri.com/data/esri_data/ziptapestry
It also gives age and pop…
Monopolists can cut corners and make crappy products because they're no other options. ... With regard to crappy products, think about what it was like dealing with your phone company or cable company in the old days. Western Electric manufactured …
@MSF I think you're right for the most part as even in monopolistic industries people can often substitute with other goods. The problem is what happens when the marginal utility of a product is essentially unlimited. Such is the case with life savi…
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Could be wrong, but I myself bet that PK would not only concur in your explication but would point you to where he has a full grasp of the subtleties involved, quite elaborating on Samuelson. See for example the middle dozen slides here sta…
Monopolies are not exempt from laws of supply and demand. It's just how those laws work with monopolies that's different. Monopolies set price to maximize profits (MR = MC), while companies in a perfectly competitive market set price = MC.
Turin…
Krugman seems to be appealing to a commonsensical but wrong idea.
He writes about companies like Apple as virtual monopolies (okay) and then says: "Cutting the tax rate on such profits won’t make them employ more people, driving up the demand fo…
LewisBrahm: Are you talking phones or tennis shoes ? Ha Ha!
DerfSmart Running Shoes, they're two, two, two gadgets in one. (Apologies to Certs.)
According to the headline, they …
I have minor issues with his methodology and definitions. Nevertheless, his conclusions are reasonably valid. Though rather than saying that there's an inverse relationship (negative correlation) between analyst rating and actual future performan…
Wade Pfau has an interesting analysis arguing that "Low interest rates strengthen, not weaken, the case for purchasing a SPIA" (Single Premium Immediate Annuity). (The argument is somewhat different if you're not annuitizing now.)
The basic idea i…
It would be interesting to model the market for new cars. For people looking to get a new car every few years, it may not affect their lease vs. buy decision much. Leasing should be getting more expensive for the lessee (lower residual value for…
I posted my comment to the Investment News article itself. Briefly, this article strikes me as a bunch of excuses for the problems with most (but not all) annuities. There are good annuities, and these are the ones that should be written about, …
Here's a similar off-topic link to Bloomberg (except this one doesn't have any connection to hard assets like cars or investable businesses like rental companies):
220 Tons Of Snow ? Bills Prep For Game
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/dis…
I've checked brokerage balances, maybe even made trades from transit stations. Just killing time waiting for trains. Platforms used to have payphones, and brokers didn't add a surcharge for automated phone orders (800 numbers).
Though I don't…
Not sure about what's being asked here.
These days, all devices are computers, it's just the form factor and the OS that varies. If you're not an Apple lover and are worried about Android, you can use a Windows-based cell phone. (If you don't t…
Did you forget something? We need to look beyond this post's label and understand what is (or isn't) in the tin.
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=823264
It seems to be pretty much in line with the usual suspects, CAIBX, MDLOX, SGENX, TIBIX.
Slightly better performance, but looking at its portfolio, that could be explained by its slightly more aggressive stance. It's a bit more growthy than the oth…
It's the largest ETF of ETFs; go with the herd.
Seriously, this has got to be one of the most stupid ideas I've seen in awhile. It equal weights five of its own family's ETFs. I have problems with simplistic equal weighting, but in some domains…
Preferred stocks are said to be targeted at institutions if they have a $1k par value? These just sound like vanilla bonds, most of which have a $1K face value.
Admittedly most preferred stocks, unlike most bonds, are for smaller denominations. …
Muddled writing in the article, but an interesting graphic. Short term Treasury bill debt that matures at the end of Sept. (when the debt ceiling is projected to be hit) has fallen sharply in price (yield is spiking). People are pricing in the…
Thank you @shadow for adding an SEC filing link to an earlier thread on this subject. For anyone having difficulty finding that earlier thread, it's here:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/34872/vanguard-announces-plans-to-laun…
@Old_Joe while I appreciate Ted's links, he does not have a monopoly on them.
Ted is quick to point out when others have repeated his links, but he hasn't responded to my request for existing links to help avoid such repetition. It could be that d…
People might think, isn't this old news? Wasn't this already decided by the Supreme Court in 2015?
I was contemplating linking to articles on the actual rulings since that SC ruling. (The article linked to above is a commentary on the most recent…
I'm simply pointing out that WF is as good as BofA when it comes to doing "a ton of community stuff". In the day-to-day stuff (i.e. ordinary customer service), BofA is rated worse year after year.
The Worst Banks in America (Wells Fargo Isn’t Eve…
The purchases may be planned, but only in a vague sense since no specific target acquisitions have been identified.
As noted in the article, AC "is competing with other large asset managers also looking to acquire capabilities in quantitative equi…
I don't begrudge businesses spending marketing dollars either. That's part of doing business. I just call it what it is. BofA is no different from Wells Fargo in this respect.
Though somewhat dated, here's an interesting analysis of some meg…
I wasn't making myself clear. I don't regard self promotion as charity. For example, "this program was made possible by a generous grant by ExxonMobil" strikes me as indistinguishable from advertising. It's hardly way up on Maimonides' scale of…
My guess is that "local contributions" comes under their advertising budget. In this era of "stockholders first, last, and only", companies justify "community stuff" by how it affects their bottom line. They don't care about their employees, or …
Vinik took over from Morris Smith (FMAGX). If you're talking about taking over Fidelity "flagship fund" status, as I recall Contra's AUM passed Magellan during Stansky's tenure.
Stansky is a prime example of what the report is talking about. …
