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.
They are clones now, since DuFour, the manager of Focused Stock, took over Fifty four years ago.
They weren't before, and Fifty has the poorer record. A record that will be lost to the ages.
Also, despite the somewhat lower AUM, Fifty has the low…
Sometimes ETFs are not more tax efficient.
Vanguard Admiral class shares and ETF class shares are identical in tax efficiency. Vanguard Investor class shares, which are a poorer choice, are inherently more tax efficient.
For example, for the Van…
One obvious suggestion is not to reinvest dividends, but to apply the money toward more tax-efficient funds such as ones you've identified.
Also, unless you know that dividends are going to be pure long term gain, sell before the distribution rathe…
I would have thought that was implicit in the discussion of low volatility funds. Dividend paying stocks tend to have lower volatility because of their moderately assured income stream - the same stream that makes them susceptible to interest rate…
@scott I think David and others have adequately addressed Gruber's description of what insurance does, but I'll add one comment about Forbes' assertion that the law was designed to be opaque - how often did you hear that "we need to sign up enough y…
you, msf, are de man --- do you write regularly somewhere?David,
Thank you for the kind words - I likewise appreciate your posts and calm style.
No, I don't write anywhere. Just comments and thoughts here and there from time to time when somethin…
The amount of misinformation floating around is staggering. Like the 5M policies cancelled. Even (and perhaps especially) the press gets it wrong. I'm as susceptible to errors as anyone else and welcome corrections (you've seen me correct my ow…
As I said, I continue find YOUR choice of words misleading. I am at a loss why you would say "it seemed fair to ask which half of the benefits of the old plan were lacking in the new plan", because I never said any were.
Let me try to summarize f…
With all the noise about plans being cancelled, I did a little checking. (David, that was a great Salon article, and it was one of the comments - that 5M policies were cancelled, that got me looking.)
A great report (and a great site I'm embarra…
Just my two cents: you maybe thinking twice before buying it...you are probably betting on your life if you don't get sick. if you are less than 40 years old, you probably don't need health insurance unless you are involved in many major sport ac…
OJ, allow me to reconcile those two statements about medical underwriting. They're not in conflict - they address different issues.
One, which Mona is writing about, is whether her old plan conformed or could be made to conform to ACA rules fo…
1. My plan met my needs.
2. I am now paying significantly more for an inferior plan for my needs.
You've told us how the old plan was inferior (e.g. it did not pay for mental health care), but that it didn't matter because you weren't using those …
She means "medically underwritten", i.e. considers health in assessing risk to the insurer. Substitute "pricing based on health" for "[medically] underwritten", and you'll see that the writing is a tautology:
"Plans with pricing based on health ar…
I actually did find the rate regions (probably on the Michigan state site) - didn't keep it around though. All I remember is that Ann Arbor is in some state beginning with W (long name) and it was just to the west of Wayne and another county that …
Thanks Catch. I'm having problems locating any Michigan plan with a deductible that high. Admittedly I'm not checking all the rate regions of Michigan - I just tried Ann Arbor. The highest deductible there is, yes, BC/BS of Michigan, at $12,700 …
Regarding "to comply with federal law" - if I read the original post correctly, this was given as a reason to raise the deductible from $12.7K to $13.2K.
There are (at least) three problems with this statement. One is that (outside of multi-state…
" you can not trust the drug companies, who were allowed at the table by Bush II"
The SJMercury had a multipage report in yesterday's paper entitled "The Rx Alliance That Drugs Our Kids", subtitled "The doctors get rewarded, the drug companies get…
Another perspective - ranking by percentage of market, and percentage increase/decease of position (e.g. a fund that had 10% or market share and now has 8% would have a decline of 20% of its position):
Family Market Share Pct Inc (Dec) Cumulative M…
Mona, I discussed NYC because you specifically mentioned the location. As it turns out, rather than leaving people up a river without a paddle, ACA made health insurance twice as affordable as it had been previously. Perhaps that is to you an ina…
I know this will open the apples & oranges benchmarking can of worms, but I got my info from the WSJ Quarterly Mutual Fund tables which are created by Lipper. The 3 funds had C and D ratings over the last 3 years. If there are better performance…
FWIW, here are the current IRS drafts. The checkbox (covered by insurance) mentioned in the article is on Line 61 of the 1040.
Form 1040 draft
Form 1040 Instructions (draft)
If you are claiming an exemption from requirements, that's form 8965.
Fo…
Mona writes that without subsidies, you're out of luck on costs in NYC. But she doesn't say that in 2014, NYS individual care premiums dropped 53%.
msf,
No I did not and with good reason."Good reason" - something else not stated.
I appreciate a…
Medical care (like anything else) must be paid for. The government can pay for it (out of tax revenue and/or borrowing), individuals can pay for it (out of earnings and/or savings), employers can pay for it (as operating expenses - just another co…
Addendum: If you are liquidating, it's usually better to not use average cost. That's because long term shares (which are taxed at a lower rate) usually cost less than shortterm shares. That's good - a bigger chunk of your gain is attributable to…
Jerry is addressing the question of whether to liquidate completely (and implicitly, this year or across multiple years). That's because of extra taxes/higher rates that could kick in.
Edit: Upon rereading, I see Jerry largely addressed the item …
How extensive is your grandfathered policy's network? ACA plan networks tend to be very limited. Further, in many states all ACA plans are HMO/EPOs, meaning you get no coverage out of network.
Those plans pay relatively little to providers, w…
I agree with the first commenter on the WSJ page - this is not a particularly well reasoned column. Rather it comes across as a compendium of half-thought out rationales, perhaps hoping one will stick.
He seems to put forth an argument (one of the…
I'm not sure that gas at $2.70 is all that great from an historical perspective. It seems to still be noticeably above the long term inflation-adjusted prices. And then there is improved technology for finding deposits.
Infrastructure costs s…
I thought it was because I (and others) write longer posts, trying to add explanations to our pithy remarks. 19 words, 110 chars.
P.S. Since the original article included India and excluded Japan, "where's E. Asia" seemed like a legit question, r…
Old habits die hard. Along with making the rules for 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and 457s more uniform, the 2001 tax changes virtually eliminated the need for conduit IRAs. There is an exception, but it applies only to people born before 1936.
However, I …
Many families will allow you to open IRAs in closed funds if you do a rollover in kind of shares in that fund.
My experience with Vanguard (Roth conversions) suggests that it will not allow you to open an IRA in a closed fund with an in-kind rol…
To bee's comment that you might want to consider not rolling over the retirement assets at all (but leaving the 401ks and 403bs):
- Loans must be repaid shortly after separation from service, so the loan provision in some retirement plans is worth…
A rollover is a rollover is a rollover. In theory, you should be able to combine all of them (all the 401ks, all the 403bs together). That doesn't mean that everyone understands this, and you may face someone that says you have to have a separate …
The systems running the internet (whatever that means) consume power at the rate of 50M horsepower.
Horsepower? Unless you're planning to haul the machines away somewhere in your truck, who remembers that the legendary 18th century super horse p…
I suspect you're right about M* feeding fund data, not all data. The problems appear to be with M*'s site, not its content. (That is, M* has the data, it's just not presenting it in a timely manner.)
Where I disagree (somewhat) with you is th…
From the article: "The case for ETFs is pretty well known. It’s largely about costs, tradability, diversification and transparency." What advantage did the article miss?
But see Vanguard ETFs - lacking transparency (disclosures only every 30 days…
Open end funds - Franklin used to have California Growth Fund but it later broadened its charter, figuring that even Calif. was too localized. So I have my doubts on the equity side.
On the bond side, there are loads of state-specific bond funds,…
There's a structural difference between CEF and GLD which makes their tax treatments very different.
As you noted, CEF should qualify as a qualified electing fund (QEF). Basically, it gets treated as a closed end fund that just happens to own pre…
