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.
Quick terminology note: fee-only and fee-based are not the same thing. Lewis gave a link for the former.
Regarding bringing assets into TIAA - I believe there is someone on this board who has a DIY account with TIAA (don't remember who) that might…
An interesting question that illustrates why the upper crust have teams of advisers. It sounds like you might want to get a strategic perspective from you lawyer/tax specialist (here are the ways you can organize assets in order to optimize taxati…
" High levels of portfolio turnover may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes for you if your Fund shares are held in a taxable account."
Straight from the prospectus. It's got several more sentences about how turnove…
Nice article. I was somewhat familiar with the Undiscovered Managers fund UBVAX, but had never heard of FTHNX. Thanks for the pointer.
I find that it's not hard on occasion to spot a stock that has been unfairly beaten down on some news. But …
"The fund has shown occasional (small) losses for a quarter, which should be impossible if all its bonds are due in no more than 30 days and all pay up."
Say you own an FDIC-insured CD maturing in 30 days, but (to quote JG Wentworth) "you need it N…
"He says Barnes & Noble also invested in beefing up its online sales. Eventually, it also developed its own e-reader, the Nook."
And this was supposed to be a positive?
"Barnes and Noble has just announced [Nov. 2016] that Nook Sales have de…
I checked with my favorite site for total return ...
I also checked performance at M*, with their closest return indicator at 5 years and the total return numbers since inception are a match within .02%.
I fired up my handy-dandy HP-12C and did rou…
"I'm looking at the 5-year tax adjusted returns for RPHYX and it's 1.40%. Three years is 0.90%. "
Okay, but what are you saying? That this is better than cash, or that it's worse than more volatile funds?
If someone was in the top marginal tax b…
Didn't mean to sound critical of your comment. More of an amusing observation that the star ratings for the two share classes were different, despite the performance differing very little).
"The instititional version is a tad better but not that better."
True. Just the very little bit better that's needed to give the institutional class an extra star. (An artifact of star ratings being discrete; 1.99 stars are not given out, only 1 …
It probably doesn't help much, but if at some time you have a spare $100K lying around (yeah, sure), you can gain entry into the lower cost shares and then let the balance slide down.
I agree with you that the cost is ridiculously high (for my tast…
"The response you will get is that it is mischaracterized as a high yield fund by Morningstar."
Not quite. My response is that it has few if any peers, so it is not a mischaracterization by Morningstar (an extrinsic error). Rather because of its …
While I also have the impression that most (i.e. more than 50%) of fund families reopen funds through all channels, limited reopenings are not unusual. For example, Sequoia Fund SEQUX, T. Rowe Price Health Sciences PRHSX, Vanguard Capital Opportun…
MJG writes about 1792, as if Wall Street served the same function today as it did then. Some part of it does, and if Wall Street kept to that knitting, you wouldn't be seeing some of the posts here. But let's not confuse that with the last four …
You must be joking.
Panera: Clean food - "That means no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors and no colors from artificial sources."
https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/our-beliefs/our-food-policy/clean-ingredients.html
KK: "Deconstructed…
In its ads, is Schwab effectively selling away from SWPPX and SWTSX? Why offer them if Schwab 1000 SNXFX offers "decades of advantages"? Is Schwab doing its investors a disservice? (Well, we know they're not fiduciaries.)
It's all marketing. …
By taking the ira distribution now and paying the taxation leaves a good sum that can be re-invested outside of the ira. By investing the remaing sum and through investment return on these money I am letting time and the capital appreciation receiv…
Hi Davidmoran! Thanks for your comments. I think employee designation comes into play. The 12 yo mowed lawns, and its seems according to H&R Block that a 'household employee' under 18 who mows lawns, babysits, delivers newspapers is a special ca…
This is not in my range of experience, but I got curious and took a quick look around.
Most of what Skeet's report is saying is straight from the IRS (they say it's from Pub 17, but that in turn is from Pub 929.
What caught my eye there, especiall…
It's not as simple as minimizing this year's taxes.
As a rule of thumb, it's better to spend down taxable assets first because that allows for greater (longer) growth in tax-sheltered accounts. But if you've got a lot in tax-deferred accounts,…
Investopedia is another one of those sites that tends to get the general ideas right, but isn't that reliable on details.
If your 401K plan is under $5K, your employer has the option of forcing you out. If you've got more than $5K, you can keep th…
I've been buried for the past few days in a lot of stuff, including composing a letter to Pershing on wash sale rules (and why they're wrong - hard to prove when the IRS has been silent on much of this). At least that means I'm pretty current on t…
I might have a shot creating one based on the latter post (adverse selection), as it's more focused. I've also a draft sitting somewhere about making insurance more attractive by charging people for what they receive (rather than having one cohort…
I'm not agreeing that these funds are creating a conflict of interest. M* has been selling advice for years. If that didn't bother you, neither should this.
M* is foremost a data collection service. You want to know how a fund performed today,…
Schwab isn't selling advice on which funds to buy. To have a conflict of interest, there have to be two conflicting interests.
Morningstar rates funds, but also sells recommended portfolios of funds. It's motivated to rate the recommended fun…
A little on adverse selection:
One can argue that the problem of healthy people dropping out is not an adverse selection problem (and it's one I've addressed). ACA relies on healthy people because it is overcharging them.
If you view insuran…
I gave you two principles I expect any design to comply with:
1) All people should get adequate health care at a price not exceeding what they can afford (for the wealthy, it will almost by definition be at a price less than they can afford).
2) N…
See older thread on same subject:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/31799/m-makes-bid-to-offer-mutual-funds-for-exclusive-use-of-advisers
The key, not discussed in the MFWire feed, is that M* is taking a portfolio recommendation …
Originated in Taiwan. Been enjoying them there (and here) for years.
Tapioca is used for one of the best types of flour without gluten. Horn and Hardart used to make a great tapioca pudding.
Remember Horn and Hardart from a different era o…
Retiree Medicare Advantage. That's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish. A quick search turned this up:
https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/primer-medicare-advantage-employer-group-waiver-plans/
I'm not surprised that this sort of plan exist…
Yes, please do tell your doctors that your MA coverage is with a private insurer, since they seem to be confused on that point. They appear to think they're not dealing with a private insurer, or perhaps you misunderstood what they meant (e.g. tha…
For the sake of argument, let's say that MA insurance companies are not-for-profit. Make that substitution in my text, and nothing changes. These are still private insurers, and so doctors cannot be finding them easier to deal with than private …
Just to be clear, when you write that the subsidy programs are not a crazy quilt and that you know people on these various forms, you actually do mean the subsidy programs: QMB, SLMB, QI, QDWI? Then there are also the Dual Eligible variants: QMB Pl…
Saying you like something like national Medicare doesn't address the pricing issue. Do you support "free" care, a la Part A? Even for Buffett? What about the copay for people who can't afford it?
Or do you favor income based premiums as in Part…
Equating military servitude with economic contributions harkens back to the Civil War, when you could buy your way out of serving. But generally, conscription and taxation are substantially different subjects.
That said, I felt and still feel tha…
Of course you don't think some flood insurance policy holders should subsidize others. All I did was observe that this means you don't find insurance intrinsically incompatible with actuarial costing.
Thus we (or at least you) can ignore the st…
