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@msf Yup. I don't imagine it's that hard - they already have to block you from some securities if you're not "special" (e.g. an accredited investor).
I got into TIBIX at Schwab for $100k by begging!
Well isn't that special (Schwab normally sells …
Pennywise and pound foolish is the phrase that comes to mind. Like starving the IRS (where each $1 extra spent results in $4 extra collected) because people would rather cheat on their taxes (we're not talking about raising taxes here, just collec…
Interesting...so, if you were buying through a fund marketplace like Schwab, they would "block" your account somehow, if you lived in a non-MAPOX state?Yup. I don't imagine it's that hard - they already have to block you from some securities if yo…
I believe this might be what David means. Per M&P prospectus:
The Mairs & Power Balanced, Growth, and Small Cap Mutual Funds are offered by Prospectus only. The Funds are not available for sale to investors residing outside of the United Sta…
How about VWELX?
You can't open it at Fidelity, but you can open it at Vanguard, and AFAIK transfer it to Fidelity. I don't expect a transfer fee either way (i.e. Fidelity doesn't charge for partial transfers, and I don't believe Vanguard charg…
The column didn't strike me as one of Dr. K's better ones - a bit rambling and indecisive. Rather than focusing (or not focusing) on general public debt levels, he could have concentrated on why increasing public debt now could be a good thing.
He…
One of the quirks of the Fidelity Amex card is that even though it is marketed as a 2% cash back card, what you're really earning are WorldPoints (2pts per dollar spent).
Here are the complete terms of its rewards program. You can redeem points:Fi…
Here is my question to the above products. Does the cost of purchase always stay the same; with inflation taken into consideration. In other words if the market takes one (heck) of a beating, will it cost less after the beating? Derf Maybe, but if s…
I agree with you that coupling BofA/Merrill's ofA/Merrill Edge Preferred Rewards program (that increases rebates by 25%, 50%, or 75%) with a BofA credit card can give some large credit card rebates.
The reason why I suggested the BofA Travel Card a…
For a peek into the future, one can look at costco.ca, where they switched over to MC at the beginning of this year. (If it asks you for province, just pick one.)
http://www.costco.ca/capital-one-platinum-mastercard.html
Curiously, according to t…
One Article linked here states the following:
"The cumulative dollar amount invested into ALL QLACs across all retirement accounts may NOT exceed the LESSER of $125,000 (original regulations were only $100,000), or the aforementioned 25% threshold.…
Maximum purchase age - haven't found an absolute upper limit (beyond the obvious that it can't be above 85, since payments must begin by then). But I did find a commercial QLAC offering that allows purchases up to age 83. So it appears my think…
Interesting - I was going to link that article, but figured I'd wind up writing too much text around my link (I also wanted to cross check the calculator figures with the ones in the article, and didn't get around to that).
I thought most of the …
FWIW, here's the Vanguard website page on the fund (open only to clients of Vanguard Institutional Advisory Services®):
https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/investments/productoverview?fundId=1298
Fidelity provides a calculator here: https://gie.fidelity.com/estimator/gie/gielanding?refann=061
It looks like it will calculate payouts starting any time (immediately or deferred) for money that you annuitize now (i.e. pay the insurance company n…
American Beacon Funds were originally American AAdvantage Funds - created exclusively for American Airline employees retirement plans. The family was spun off and later renamed.
The AA retirement plan remained a large institutional investor in …
While Amex will be happy to see you maintain any Amex card (to keep receiving network fees), they're not going to be that happy about your transitioning to a Fidelity card issued by FIA (BofA subsidiary). They'll lose the portion of the fees that …
The article includes a rare concession from M* that classifications of funds can lead to misleading conclusions. That's implicit in Ms. Benz exclusion of allocation funds because "offerings [can] rate as low risk simply because they employ light e…
The best store membership card I've seen pays a flat 3%. It's JCB Marukai Premium card, and the store is Marukai Japanese Supermarket. First year is free, after that it's $10 for the Marukai membership plus $15 for the CC.
The card is a JCB card…
JP Morgan finally got back to me today about my question about the fund's credit quality for bonds. They said that FINRA does not allow the use of average quality in any materials. "The calculation of this information is considered to be subjective,…
There are two different items here, and it seems that they are being conflated:
1. Rigging the tax code for one's own benefit; and
2. Applying the rules in the tax code legally and intelligently to minimize one's taxes.
I'll happily concur with e…
Nicely stated description of mean reversion. The key, as you pointed out, is what mean one is talking about. Just because a fund/manager has performed above the industry average does not mean that the fund will "revert" to the industry average. …
That doesn't surprise me. A couple of years ago I went to a fund shareholder meeting and JPMorgan didn't send a single board member or manager - just their lawyer and a couple of other people.
In contrast, at the only other fund shareholder me…
These M* methodology papers are about a decade old, but I think they're still current:
Average Price Ratios To compute a fund's P/E, essentially compute the (weighted) average yield (E/P, rather than P/E), and then invert. As M* notes, this "harm…
Contra's prospectus uses the S&P 500 index as the benchmark with which to compare performance.
Perhaps more important, "the portion of [Danoff's] bonus that is linked to the investment performance of his fund is based on the fund's pre-tax inve…
Here's an article on Longleaf Partners (generally considered a deep value fund) discussing their cash buildup.
It confirms my impressions (which are admittedly vague and not well supported since I'm not a deep value enthusiast) - that the market …
"Is there any country that has just a VAT and no income tax????????????????????"
Newly minted - as of January 1, the Bahamas instituted a VAT of 7.5% to replace their 10% hotel tax. There is no income tax there.
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/…
I think you'll be surprised at how high you could go with tax-free gains.
The following is, of course, very crude and approximate. I'm using the IRS SOI Table 1.4 for 2012, all returns' sources of income, by size of AGI. The large majority of ca…
@Edmond - nice points; I alluded to some of them, but tried to stick to the specific items that Burns raised. Thus I let him keep a veneer of "flat" tax on "modified" AGI; while you (correctly) point out that "taxable income" is extremely flexible…
Ironically, Burns points out one of the conservative objections to VATs, but he fails to connect the dots. "[Taxes]give us something to complain about every day." That is supposed to provide a check on "tax and spend". On the other hand ...A VAT…
Indeed a classic joke (at least among statisticians).
Most people do not grasp conditional probabilities, which goes toward explaining misunderstandings people have of false positives/negatives.
(Probability of a bomb B given a bomb A) = (Probabi…
Ran across this video of Hasenstab from May that gives a fair glimpse into his thinking about both interest rates (e.g. having a negative duration in US - consistent with what David wrote) and currencies.
Not able to access that link.
Do you h…
I'd worry if all my funds were going up at the same time. I figure upon having some dogs every year along with the gems. I don't mind losing 2 or 3 or even 5% in one year. If over 5-6 year spans our $ is growing at an acceptable rate. Agree complete…
TGBAX also hasn't had much outside of EM for a long time. But as it's called Global, it satisfies the SEC's 80% rule. It can't hold more than 20% outside the globe - which it seems to be satisfying - I didn't see any Martian or even Lunar bonds i…
"Although LSBDX has had about a 20% equity inclusion."
The fund has tended to add a little equity in recent years, but nothing over 10%. A higher equity position must have been a long time ago. Here's what I found in the (semi) annual reports o…
Sell low, buy high?
What time frame are you thinking about when talking about performance "at this time"? YTD? 1 year, 1 month?
If some of these other managers are doing even worse at this time, would staying with them also be misplaced loyalty?…
@bee - you're right that the Fool did not make clear that the one rollover per year does not apply to trustee-to-trustee transfers of IRAs. (The one rollover per year rule is new this year only for different IRA accounts. You were always limited…
Funds of different types are clearly not "substantially identical" - they're not benchmarked against the same index, they're not expected to have parallel performance. You're assuming different risks and rewards when you invest in an IG bond fund …
IMHO there are two reasons for holding bonds - periodic interest/dividends, and diversification. These days, I don't see bonds doing much better than cash in the first (without taking on a lot more risk, which sort of defeats the second objective)…
I'm quite a fan of Kaye Thomas. Here's his explanation of "substantially identical" at fairmark.com: http://fairmark.com/capgain/wash/wsident.htm
IMHO, despite there being no definitive definition of what "substantially identical" means for mutua…
