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.
Since the mid-90s and my first car, I've had GEICO (or their partners) for auto, condo, and umbrella policies. Not having an agent to talk to is fine by me ... I've never had problems with their call centers when filing claims or updating my poli…
Nice observation.
I would not be able to plug a car in at home (and couldn't see parking at Whole Foods every time I needed refueling). Otherwise I would have loved to have looked into the Model 3.
In the case of Tesla, one isn't just looking at…
Regarding diesels and cheating companies - I'd thought about that (though more in terms of MF scandals than bank "improprieties"), but I figured that was a whole 'nuther thread, perhaps tacked onto ESG.
Not trying to dive into this ethical/legal qu…
Drove over to Fidelity and asked them about APDFX, among other things that wanted to inquire about. Told that the initial minimum for an IRA is $250,000. So that ended that.Not much help, but at Schwab, the min is "just" $100K.
At Fidelity, if yo…
I finally found the NYTimes Op-Ed piece I was looking for (May 4, 2017):
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/opinion/noncompete-agreements-workers.html
Once reserved for a corporation’s most treasured rainmakers, noncompetes are now routinely applied…
These days, businesses try hard to impede mobility of workers (unless it's a worker whom a business wants to snatch from another company). The use of non-compete clauses has been expanding.
Not only are they used to protect trade secrets, client…
The idea that one should be able to travel freely, e.g. for work, is hardly a new pie in the sky concept. Here are a few quotes courtesy of the ABA, dating as far back as the Articles of Confederation in the 18th century.
The fourth quote is fr…
Trump is clearly promoting this Senate proposal for his own political benefit (as the next shiny object for distraction and/or to appeal to his base). Putting that aside, this does have economic implications and if taken objectively does have meri…
Sorry to hear about zion. I never used them but they looked like they did a good job at pricing. I've used Fidelity for a few muni bonds and checked on EMMA to see whether I got fair prices. I've been satisfied, and the platform is easy to use.
…
Apparently Barron's (the source of the scorecard table) is offering its article free, via google:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Barrons+rating+robo+advisors&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
The article with the table is "Rating the Robo Advisors" (firs…
Various Fidelity funds have been closed from time to time. I don't have a good way to find them, but if you've got a guess, you can go to the "Composition" tab on Fidelity's web site and look near the bottom of the page for "Historical Fund Informa…
There are a fair number of nuances here. I'm talking about something very specific - I'll try to clarify by working my way down from the broad to the specific.
Broadly - there is funding (where the money comes from), and paying (who takes that mo…
"Butler [Heritage Foundation, in 1989] opposed community rating, viewing it as an indirect tax on the healthy – but called instead for big subsidized high-risk pools to cover those private insurers would otherwise shun."
In other words (i.e. other …
How about this one from a week ago - perhaps mere incompetence, but it still suggests how much or little WF cares about its customers:
"Wells Fargo Accidentally Releases Trove of Data on Wealthy Clients"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/business/…
Actually this is something I'd be guessing at - call it intelligent guessing, but still nothing I could say with 100% certainty.
@Mark looks like he's right on the money - that's my understanding as well about PLC - sort of like Corp. in US. Tha…
"New Yorkers like to curse. I'll be honest."
I had thought about that. But as you noted, he's bad at it. You have to recognize that he's just a Noo Yawker wannabe from Port Washington, Long Island. Not even bridge and tunnel (outer borough - …
When it [the Roth IRA] was conceived, there was no way for higher earners to contribute to Roths. Now there is.
msf,
Forgive me, what is that way?
Just one word: backdoor.
Follow the link. Here it is explicitly: http://www.rothira.com/what-…
Indeed you might say (and many have said) that Roths are specifically prohibited "for the wealthiest among us." Part of the point when it was conceived, actually.
Just one word: backdoor. (Maybe that's two words?)
When it was conceived, there wa…
As a side note, if I were to move, not crack my eggs from a tax deferred status (as a result of RMDs) to a taxable status I would strongly consider owning stocks instead of mutual funds so as to insure that these investment, if not spent, would be …
Yes. That's the point. All you're required to do is remove a specific amount of assets (the RMD amount) from your IRAs. That is the taxable event.
After that, what you do with the distributed (withdrawn) assets is up to you. That's why how…
RMDs are just tax events. Nothing more. The government isn't requiring you to withdraw money from your next egg.
To abuse the metaphor, you've got eggs in multiple baskets (traditional IRA, Roth, 401k, taxable), and you're just required to mov…
And yet we talk about word usage. Well, some of us do, though I wouldn't say most. :-)
Pictures are hung, traitors are hanged. Communications director, huh?
From the article:
a rising equity glide path in retirement could start with an equity allocation that is even lower than typically recommended (in safe withdrawal rate research literature) at the start of retirement, but then slowly increase the sto…
"Numerous explanations have been offered for the failure of the Obama Justice Department to hold the big banks accountable: corporate lobbying in Washington, appeals-court rulings that tightened the definitions of certain types of corporate crime, t…
6.22% and 11.88% foreign equity (amounting to about 1/6 of each fund's equity). That foreign equity is comprised of multnationals like BAT, Unilever, TransCanada (Keystone pipeline), Novartis, AstraZeneca, Total, Accenture, Canadian National Railwa…
I'm not as concerned about who gets which fund - Link is also managing several other (domestic) funds - JNL/WMC Value (co-manager), HBLAX (co-manager of equity portion), HQIAX (co-manager), HIAVX (co-manager). That alone could explain his not getti…
Superficially sounds really good (global versions of Wellesley, Wellington). Not so sure of the details. Some of my concerns:
Does Vanguard (or Wellington Management) have a good track record internationally? Vanguard's weakest funds on average a…
Need? I didn't infer that from the 90/10 rule. Just that 10% in cash/short term bonds is sufficient (according to Buffett) to protect against sequence risk.
That leaves you free to invest the rest however you see fit subject to the constraint …
It (90/10) works for Buffett:
"I’ve told the trustee to put 90% of it in an S&P 500 index fund and 10% in short-term governments. And the reason for the 10% in short-term governments is that if there’s a terrible period in the market and she’s …
>> I figure every day has a 50/50 chance of going up, or going down.
?
And then you go on to say that actually this is not how you 'figure'. I mean, none of us does.
Disregarding the subjective stuff ("sleep at night", selective memory, etc…
Right. First it excludes all companies that are involved (generally 5% or more of their business) in alcohol, gambling, tobacco, military weapons, civilian firearms, nuclear power, adult entertainment, or GMOs. Then on what's left it applies incl…
Well of course. The RBC study reveals its bias toward exclusionary rather than inclusionary screens: "after all, the raison d’être of SRI is to exclude 'irresponsible' companies from consideration".
It even cites evidence supporting outperformanc…
"The first that you may notice when looking at the simple index funds compared to the complex funds is the difference in expense ratios. ... The simple index fund ... does very little trading, which is what helps it keep its expense ratio so low."
…
Yes, I forgot he was the guy who chaired the attempted revival of Wall Street Week.
Wasn't that the show that premiered with a backdrop so cluttered, fast changing, and irrelevant to Wall Street (Times Square) that viewers were distracted from the …
We went to a wedding reception in Taipei. Having already crossed the Pacific, and little desire to hang around in humid. 35C weather, we looked for more comfortable climes. Northern Japan was a thought. However, since we'd been to Japan but nev…
I just got back from a three week "holiday" down under. It's always an eye opener to see how some of the other 95% live.
Universal health care in Australia (Trump praised it) and New Zealand. (They even take gluten free seriously - no problem …
"If you look at the fund's trailing SD, you will see it at 18.11 over 10 years, then it drops drastically to 11.41 at 5 years. You think something changed in their investment strategy during that time?"
Not based on that data alone. Since std dev …
"Huh? Gosh, the three ]LCV funds] I moved to long ago from DODGX (before placing everything LCV in DSEEX): PRBLX. YACKX, and TWEIX."
What is long ago? DODGX was in the top quintile for 2009 and top fiftieth (second percentile) in 2011 and 2012. …
"In addition, the management never owed up to mistakes made either in interviews or shareholder reports."
About its 2008 performance, D&C president "Olivier says, 'it's hard to defend our investments in the banks. We misjudged the situation.'"
…
