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.
I wasn't suggesting that the education provided by the top schools and partaken of by the best students isn't as good as ever. Regarding musicianship, we have been enthralled by the performances in a chamber music series featuring mostly young(ish…
Got to agree with Dex here - my reaction was that this article was at least a generation off. The era of The Organization Man passed many decades ago. And while educational credentials have increased, it's not clear that the educational level ha…
Table II is actually just the "upper half" of a joint lifetime table; the older age (the IRA owner) is along the vertical axis, and the younger age (spouse) is along the horizontal axis.
The number that you look up in the table tells you your (j…
Exactly right - just a smaller percentage of IRA assets, since you and wife are expected to live longer than a couple where they're both your age.
The tables are in Pub 590B, Appendix B.
Most people use Table III (Uniform Lifetime). It just depe…
Donald Trump is refusing to debate seven of his fellow presidential candidates on stage that night, which is near unprecedented.
This should read “nearly unprecedented”. Unprecedented is an adjective which must be modified by an adverb. How is it…
More precisely, if your spouse is your only primary beneficiary (and there's a 10+ year age gap) ...
Then there is another schedule used for inherited IRAs which is less generous than the usual schedule.
I've been very distracted dealing with a health insurer, and (after a year of errors) am now filing a complaint w/state regulators - about a dozen pages, spreadsheets, email transcripts and summaries, etc. So I'm just now getting back to other stuf…
I'll go along with OJ's comment, with one qualification - with a Congress and president of the same party, it is likely that the proposed regs from the executive branch would satisfy Congress. Congress would not oppose the proposed regs.
@msf read the section titled "How is the Congress in involved in reviewing final rules?" in the link that you posted.
There are regs that remain temporary for years or decades. Can't think of any now, but there are some well known IRS regs that we…
Just as regulations are refinements of a law, Congress can "refine" its laws, like Dodd Frank, but it has to do so explicitly with new laws. Here's a NYTimes article from a year ago describing that approach:
In New Congress, Wall St. Pushes to Un…
Congress generally isn't involved in the process of making regulations, unless it passes an explicit law to change a regulation. So lobbying Congress isn't particularly effective.
Once a law is passed, the executive branch takes over to implem…
Just a follow up, vkt. Thanks for your post. It seems logical that west coast pols would use the two you named, since both Charles Schwab and Bank of America (who owns Merrill) are headquartered in San Francisco. A popular misconception (vkt is rig…
I learned very early on in my teaching career there was a big difference between a 40b(b) (IRA deferred annuity with loads, riders and fees) and a 403b(7) (IRA mutual fund account at low cost places like vanguard).
I think you mean 403b(1), not 40…
it may be a distinction without a difference, but while Dodd Frank is a statute that calls for regulations to be written, the DOL regulations are just that - the next level of refinement (written regulations). In addition, the DOL regulations were …
Large outflows turn out to be a double whammy. Funds may be forced to liquidate securities with formerly unrealized gains, and those gains get divided among fewer remaining shares.
Either I'm reading the DOL proposal wrong or the news article is an insurance industry PR piece.
If you want a "short" summary, here's the DOL fact sheet:
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsconflictsofinterest.html
My two line summary: Fiduciary r…
IMHO the only somewhat reliable indicator is if there's been a management change to a new manager with a different investing style. For example, I'd expect a larger distribution with a management change at Fidelity than at T. Rowe Price where ther…
@Ted, it's hard not to get political when the first fund family that comes to mind (before following the link) is Goldman Sachs.
Look at it this way - now we know it's the Republicans who are paying Hillary's fees :-)
Chartwell's prospectus for the Short Duration High Yield Fund indicates that on January 15, 2016 the "A" shares were terminated and only the "I" shares exist. Investors in the "A" shares had the right to convert to "I" shares. We're reading the pr…
I was wondering if anyone had noticed Boulez' passing. He had a thankless task, succeeding Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic. His interpretations were criticized as being cold, but crystalline might have been more apt.
Been occupied a few days, so I'll try to be relatively brief:
Lawyer was stating only what had already been stated in Vanguard's answer (legal filing) to complaint. An answer is a filing where all the defenses are laid out - we didn't do it; yes, …
That is not suit against Vanguard for charging too much. It is a suit against a plan administrator (Anthem) in part for using investor class shares (rather than institutional shares) of Vanguard funds. That part of the suit seems like a winner …
"If they lose the issue [say that] ... we believe we have acted in good faith ...."
This sequence doesn't work.
When (and if) the court decides there was discrimination, it will also have decided whether Vanguard acted in good faith. Vanguard wil…
The lawyer laid out a textbook defense - we didn't do what was claimed, and even if we did, here's our affirmative defense. Failing to claim a defense would be reason to fire the lawyer.
Note that good faith is a defense against punitive but not …
"Could we still see further erosion in the near term?" he added, "Sure".
More completely:Fink said markets will probably decline another 10 percent before rebounding in the second half, and oil may test $24 a barrel.
There’s “not enough blood” in …
RPHYX:
Per MFO: think 30 - 90 day maturity
Per M*: any fixed instrument with less than one year to maturity [is] cash for the purposes of calculating a fund’s asset-allocation breakdown
One can't look at M*'s figures and conclude that there's even…
To directly address what I think was the original question - I believe in mark to market, period. Ignoring friction, invest in what makes sense for your portfolio.
If your reason for holding something has changed, don't hold on because you're …
If there is a possibility of returning to a nearby non-airport facility from where you can take a cab, you will avoid those ridiculous airport fees which is essentially a way for states and municipalities to tax out of staters over the locals who vo…
The top court in New York is the Court of Appeals. See recent obituary of widely respected Chief Judge Judith Kaye this past week:
"Judith S. Kaye, the first woman named to the highest court in New York and the first to serve as the state's chi…
Edit: NY jurisdiction is valid; most defendants reside in New York, and there is a nexus (business activity in NYS).
Venue (NY county) is valid: at least one defendant lives in Manhattan.
See p. 6 (pdf p. 8) of summons.
Here's the summons:
htt…
The survey reported that: "Nearly a quarter of people, 23%, reported they would pay for an emergency by reducing spending on other things." Maybe not an explicit annual budget adjustment, but effectively the same thing.
The financial advisor see…
There are both similarities and differences of faults with hedge funds and open end funds. In one sense, you're right about people tending to pile into some funds based on manager past performance.
People piled into Gundlach's funds, even thoug…
There is an investing issue buried here. Should you invest in those 1,000 monkeys at typewriters?
If they come up with the script for Star Wars Episode 8, who owns the rights - you or the monkeys? If the Force Awakens within them, will Disn…
Intellectual property may be created using property of others, but it is something distinct. In your hypothetical, I would suggest that you might sue your neighbor for conversion (the civil analogue of theft - using someone else's property as one'…
Both the headline and subheadline are misleading.
From the Bankrate.com article that the Marketwatch story is citing:
"'Let's give everyone credit for that. 60% are taking grown-up responsibility for the expense,' says Robert Fragasso, chairman an…
"[Inherited funds in IRAs] don't get a basis step-up, but generally, the distributions follow the same rules as they would for the original owner."
Except that they're not subject to an early distribution (10%) tax, spousal IRAs can be transferred …
I thought that VBS, like nearly every clearing brokerage, used DTC. That's certainly implied by their fee schedule, where they charge $50 to process a foreign security that can't be held by DTC.
If the clearing broker works with DTC, it seems tha…
Edit/add: One of the very first pieces of financial advice that I can remember was from my parents when I was very young, and I believe it is still totally valid: Don't do business with BofA!Wasn't that when it was AP Giannini's Bank of Italy? :-)
If I understand you correctly you would like to achieve a return of 7.1% for this year, and increasing in subsequent years. That's based on Table III in IRS Pub 590B, which says an 86 year old's RMD is 1/14.1 years.
That's a bit ambitious, acco…
