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'm glad to see annuities mentioned as a component of retirement income. And she correctly (IMHO) groups annuities and social security together. I'm not sure I see where the article says that one should consider an annuity part of one's fixed in…
Reply to @Investor:
I was not aware of any restriction on naming these holdings. TIAA-CREF's Stable Value Retirement Annuity (offered in 403(b)s) says that it "is a guaranteed annuity backed by TIAA's claims-paying ability. [It] guarantees your …
Reply to @Charles:
Thanks for the mention of Edmunds. I remember them fondly as the best of the mail order places (haven't thought about them in many years, though). Not to mention Lafayette Radio and Electronics and other smaller companies. …
Reply to @Investor:
Kaye Thomas (Fairmark) is fantastic. IMHO, his writing is clearer, and frankly more accurate than the IRS publications (and he's the only person I would say that about).
J. Michael Hall (Moneymanagement - whose site I'm no…
Reply to @Investor: It's based on the age of the beneficiary (unless the owner was younger and had not reached RMD age), but not in the "usual" way. A couple of differences:
1) You use Table 1 - Single Life Expectancy - instead of the usual Table…
Reply to @Mona:
Thanks Mona. I had stopped looking down the document page once I got to "Holdings" (the spreadsheet two lines above the Statistics doc).
More importantly, I had misread the date on the annual statement (first doc on the Document…
I'd thought about adding a comment about buying an index fund being simpler (and cheaper) than balancing a portfolio yourself. But there are other reasons for ascertaining your bond "centroid" (much as M*'s X-Ray does for equities). Different ma…
The short answer is yes - if you want to know how much (i.e. value of bonds) that you hold in each sector, you just add up how much you own in each sector from each fund you hold.
The calculation you illustrated is implicitly weighting the sector p…
Morningstar rates fewer than 1/3 of funds 4* or 5* - 32.5%, to be precise, according to M*'s Fund Rating Factsheet. A 54% showing is significantly above average.
Regarding Wasatch, M* recognizes 20 funds, of which three are unrated. Of the rem…
We won't know what's been removed until they file the October 1, 2013 prospectus. A three line filing and they can't proofread it?
As to what's left to print, a gazillion other Proshare funds in the same prospectus.
Here's the old (October 1, 20…
Reply to @Old_Joe:
Not just "a" report, but the "final" report was released on Dec 1, 2010:
"On Wednesday, December 1, 2010, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform held its sixth public meeting to discuss the nation's mid- and…
Reply to @Old_Joe:
Thanks for the link. I learned something new - never saw the word "swingeing" before :-)
Regarding cause and effect - the Economist suggests that while the original authors were not careful in mass media articles, they were mor…
My, we are touchy.
Bridgeway funds' objective is to make money. To the extent that they fall short they fail to execute on their objective. The larger cap funds have done okay, but some small caps - which were supposed to be Brideway's bread …
First, let me say that I'm a big fan of Montgomery's company - limiting the ratio of highest to lowest paid employee (7x), significant performance-based fees, high donation of company profits. That said, execution has left something to be desired.…
Reply to @Anna:
The thing is, that unlike houses, shares of a given security are identical, except for their labels (i.e. a tagging of each share by purchase date). And the neat thing is that these labels are interchangeable. A broker just sel…
Reply to @mns: As I noted below, I had a long talk with Schwab not more than a week or two ago. What I was told was:
1) If you want to switch to or from average cost (as a default method) you have to use their paper form. (The IRS requires such…
Reply to @Old_Joe:
American Century's web site is set up for specific shares (as I noted in post below). I have a small legacy account there (which I keep simply because AC has from time-to-time put loads on funds, and I want to be a grandfathere…
Fund companies (and brokerages) are now required to accept your specifying which shares to sell. So the answer to #1 is yes.
The answer to the second question is maybe (based on my experience with a small but I believe representative sampling of …
Fidelity will charge investors $5/purchase ($0/sale) if they purchase additional shares via its Automatic Investment Program - but unlike other places, they'll let you cancel the scheduled investments after a single investment. So this lets you do…
Reply to @hank: The $3M cap is predicated on the idea that this would buy a $205K/year annuity.
One has to believe that the $205,000 annual income limit isn't coming out of the clear blue. A likely source of this figure is Internal Revenue Code …
Here's the full Whitehouse "statement" - apparently a verbal "statement" to Politico:
http://www.politico.com/playbook/0413/playbook10370.html
It looks like Australia is proposing something similar. I'm not familiar with Australian newspapers, so…
I believe that this (and Morgan Stanley, from whence the numbers come) misrepresent tracking error.
Here's a short article - with a pretty picture :-), for those who like graphs from iShares describing the difference between tracking error and trac…
Good idea in checking track records, but perhaps the better fund to look at would be AllianzGI International Managed Volatility, e.g. PNIDX (D shares), NAISX (Inst. shares).
The lead manager (Ghosh) of AVYDX didn't start managing US Managed Volatil…
Reply to @BobC:
I'm not sure I agree with you ("what's the point?"), but I believe I understand your view about LCV - you're thinking about these as traditional equity income funds (funds designed to generate income via stocks that are very stable …
Hard to know what are the good funds one hasn't heard of (I was familiar with Matthew 25 - love the symbol MXXVX), but I'm up for the challenge :-)
Ran a M* screen, came up with Nuveen NWQ Flexible Income A NWQAX.lw, now available at Fidelity, Schw…
Reply to @prinx:
David is correct that as far as the 60 day restriction is concerned, Fidelity and the other brokers use FIFO. That means that so long as you've got some shares that were purchased more than 60 days ago, the Fidelity won't charge y…
Nice find.
You (and I, and others) have commented on these risks before. See the thread (from two years ago!): How Much Will 'Floating Rate" Funds Really Float started by PatShuff.
Reminiscent of Crabbe Huson Special (CHSPX). From NYTimes, quoting Russ Kinnel of M*:"The Crabbe Huson Special had been a strong performer until 1996, when manager Jim Crabbe started negotiating short positions, an area in which he clearly hasn't s…
Reply to @rono:
I'm in a similar situation - having gotten a couple of funds from parents (one was a fund purchased in the 50s that was gifted to me years later; the other was purchased in the early 70s and went through a UGMA account). In each …
Reply to @AndyJ:
Vanguard Total Bond Fund II, investor shares (VTBIX): -0.06% YTD. This even with the fact that the fund outperformed its benchmark index by 6 basis points.
Vanguard Total Bond Fund, investor shares (VBMFX): -0.22% YTD.
There a…
PIMCO reports PONCX @ 2.57% YTD. (PIMCO also reports PBDCX @ 0.91% YTD) Click on the performance tab (data on this tab is as of 3/28/13).
M* multisector bond fund returns
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/multisector-bond/$FOCA$M…
Reply to @Investor: The Florida tax was indeed eliminated in 2007. (Perhaps I was being too oblique in my reference to Cypress?) The elimination of the Florida tax (and the subsequent, albeit tardy, elimination of funds designed to circumvent tha…
One can go to the source - Blackrock (click on the portfolio tab). To no great surprise, 42.4% is below BBB, 23.8% is not rated, and 13.8% is BBB - only 20% is in the A range.
Note that while BAICX gets 4 stars from M*, BAICX.lw (what you get via …
Some people have been scoffing at the idea of a government taxing bank accounts (that seems to be a topic du jour). They might keep in mind the late, hardly lamented, Florida intangibles tax. While it is true that this did not tax bank accounts, …
Reply to @hank: Stong marketed its Advantage (STADX) fund as an enhanced cash fund, though it didn't use that term. Rather, it said that this was good for cash that you didn't need for 1-2 years. It later brought out Strong Muni Advantage (SMUAX…
With all the endorsements of FMI Int'l (FMIJX), I took a closer look at the fund. It has some distinctive attributes that may make it more or less appealing to various people.
First, the mechanical stuff - it does currently sport a low 1.00% ER, …
Reply to @Investor:
Thanks! For some reason, I'd forgotten that M* added the 15 year performance to its "visible" data, which is why I've coaxed it out of the premium screener for a long time. (Doesn't work for MMFs, since M* doesn't track them, …
