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.
T. Rowe is an interesting case as it isn't owned by a larger financial conglomerate such as a bank and has long specialized in no load funds. Yet I do think it has drifted some away from its original mission with advisor share classes and some funds…
The article is from 2008. You can tell from the copyright at the bottom of the article. Or the fact that it talks about management investment in Schwab Yield Plus, that ultrashort disaster that serves as a poster child warning for fads and "safe"…
MJG and Lewis have pretty much hit the factors I use (along with several I don't place as much weight in). Of the factors given, the ones I consider most important (not in any particular order):
1. Cost - I'll pay transaction fees for institutio…
Here's a list of internet funds from 2001. Very familiar names from the dot com era. Was M* wrong to pan this subcategory en masse, given that the vast majority of these funds are no longer with us?
If M* was going to pick one, should they have…
The SS formula is rather convoluted. In a sense it takes 0% of some of your MAGI (the part up to $32K for couples), 50% of a middle range of MAGI (between $32K and $44K for couples), and 85% of your MAGI above the second threshold ($44K for couple…
Countries where there is socialized medicine have longer life expectancies and pay less per capita for healthcare than the U.S. Click here: ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.phpIt's not that counties with socialized medicine have better health/lower costs; rat…
"there's now legislation that has been introduced to prevent money from being sent out of the country. You know it's always a bad sign when the Government attempts to hold hostage the resources of its citizens"
When the US "place[d] restrictions on…
Vanguard shows that its tax managed Capital Appreciation fund is open, with a $10K min. That's because these are Admiral shares; the fund switched from offering Investor shares to offering just Admiral shares in 2001.
Vanguard generally does not o…
Huh? Vanguard shows Exxon as the 2nd largest holding.
It tries to track the Russell 1000 while reducing taxes by harvesting losses, keeping turnover low, and incorporating a bias away from high dividend stocks. That bias doesn't eliminate divi…
Hadn't seen this (generally old) thread before. Some quick observations:
- There's a real Eventide healthcare fund: ETNHX (for scott, Kevin)
- M* posted returns ignore the load (though the star ratings use load-adjusted performance). For 201…
"M* don't like. It will never admit it, while it keeps currying favor with other managers whose funds never "recovered" (sic)."
M* didn't like this fund when it covered it (aside from one later report, it stopped covering the fund in the mid 2000s,…
Well that's a blast from the past.
The best known of the early managers went off to form his own competing fund that cratered even worse. Like the fund he left, this "spinoff" did marginally worse than VFINX over the past five years, but a smid…
I don't know how to get access to the institutional share class OSMYX of Oppenheimer Int'l Small Company without going through a plan (e.g. 401(k)) or advisor, but you can purchase load-waived A shares OSMAX NTF though a variety of brokers (Fidelity…
I'm wondering if I ran across the education/crime linkage because I followed some links here already, ran across it on my own, or just saw it sometime in the past. Regardless, I'm aware of the huge payoff, and don't need to be sold.
Unfortunately,…
@Dex - Your timeframe on open admissions is a bit off - it was enacted in 1969, became effective 1970, and was substantially gutted in 1976 with the beginning of tuition.
Even open admissions had standards - you could not get into a senior college …
Side note to @LewisBraham - part of the reason I'm so familiar with corporate rules (DGCL) and misdeeds is because I've lived enough of it. In the 2000s I worked at a small company that didn't hold a stockholder meeting for three years.
The manag…
The government (courts, if you will) has a very strong interest in who pays fines. There are several rationales for punishments: General deterrence (the possibility of being caught and punished will deter criminal acts by the populace in general)S…
Everything in the government budget is just a transfer of wealth. Taxes are transfers of wealth (cash) from some people (depending on the tax) into a general fund (usually). Expenditures, including so called subsidies, are payments for various t…
You're right - I scrolled down too far in the prospectus before cutting and pasting - Driehaus did this "prepending" with a number of funds. For DMCRX, it prepended Driehaus Micro Cap Fund, L.P. - hope I got it right this time. The prospectus a…
not much of a track record yet, but I've been happy with DMCRX.
(I was writing up my post and didn't see this.)
M* gives a ten year record for this fund, and since the source of the table was M*, I didn't look more closely - I just assumed that IBD…
Why a table of 13 funds? That's a pretty odd number, not to mention unlucky.
Should Triton be on the list, or should one follow the managers (to Meridian Growth and Small Cap Growth funds)? And since they listed Triton, how about listing Janus Ve…
The following is a distillation of this UPenn Journal of Business Law paper pp. 176-180:
A necessary component of a crime is mens rea - intent to commit the act. Since corporations (though they are "people") don't think, there are a few substitut…
>Existing shareholders of other Tweedy, Browne Funds may establish an investment in the Fund.
That sounds like a pretty big back door. (If it had said that you had to be an existing shareholder as of July 29, 2015, that would have made more se…
A few months old? It's 115 years old (since 1900) :-)
Don't know what use to make of it, but you're right that it looks like a fun read. A very brief skim turned up the fact that the US and France are the most diversified nations (by sectors), …
I sent email to Jaffe; he responded that he's working on a correction for the open end funds.
I also questioned his statement that all of the Donald's Baron funds had "fee levels" above average. His response was that if you compare the Baron fu…
"All of Trump’s open-end mutual funds are from the Baron Funds, a mid-sized fund family headed by the audacious Ron Baron."
Well, sort of. His six 7-figure fund holdings ($1M-$5M each) are Baron funds. But aside from smaller Baron fund holdings…
I generally don't discuss funds I've owned, but it's worth making an exception here, because this was a holding I went into with eyes wide open - taking a flyer despite knowing all the strikes against it.
PBHG Emerging Growth (PBEGX). Managed …
Regarding science and religion, here's a current (June 2015) Pew study: Catholics Divided Over Global Warming, subtitled Partisan Differences Mirror Those Among General Public.
Here's the latest (July 14, 2015) Pew survey across nations (Climate C…
As usual, my suggestion is to go to the source (though the Scientific American article was an unusually good encapsulation).
Here's Pew Research's own summary of the Pew Research/AAAS survey: 5 key findings on what Americans and scientists think ab…
What I read was Cullen stating: “If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.”
It se…
I experienced dynamic pricing when I was booking a return flight from some off-site work. The price would bounce around by the hour in a way that suggested the system was trying to find the highest price I would nibble at. I stopped looking, wai…
Jet's website could use a some work. Its cart gets confused between the price for one item and the price for all items in the cart. (Sometimes I have to go to "proceed to checkout" to see the full cart price.)
I asked for gluten free cold cer…
BobC - Are you saying that you have to be drugged to go into a Walmart :-)
Interesting that Walmart and Amazon are moving in opposite directions with respect to delivery. Five years ago, Walmart started offering free shipping to local FedEx store…
Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Krugman discussing "Globalization, Technological Change, and Inequality", or as the moderator described it: "Are the robots eating our jobs?"
The actual presentation starts around the 35 minute mark (empty chairs before then)…
Another fluff piece, and not entirely correct.
DJIA does not depend on number of shares outstanding (as claimed in the article). In fact, that's one of the criticisms of this average - that it is not cap weighted.
Price weighting is not "complete…
This is a report of how employees of national firms (such as Edward Jones) like their employer, not how customers like their advisors.
One cannot read the actual study (this is how companies like JD Powers make their money), but one can still go to…
MJG - here's where it seems you're not being entirely forthright. You rate government programs a failure by using a metric (presumably the Census Bureau poverty statistics) that explicitly excludes major components of those programs. (Not to ment…
Edward Jones' statement:
-Our responsibilities when providing brokerage services ... Act under a suitability responsibility to you
- Our responsibilities when providing investment advisory services ... Act under a fiduciary responsibility to you
…
Several of the Mutual Series funds hold the same PR bond (rated CC/Caa/CCC- by Fitch/Moody's/S&P), trading around 72 (and it was issued with OID) - not too bad. CUSIP 74514LE86.
No other PR bonds on a quick scan.
@MJG Mathworld is indeed a great site; I've used it for years.
You wrote: "In the last decade or so, the USA [Gini coefficient] value has increased from a roughly 0.3 level to a higher level. That means, on a relative basis, the rich have been gett…
