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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.

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  • Reply to @BobC: Thanks. I was guessing as much, but there was that nagging ambiguity. Doesn't seem to be worth hanging around in the hope of getting access to Aberdeen funds w/load waived. Some spot checking: Asia Bond Fund A (AEEAX) - load…
  • Reply to @BobC: The problem is that in order to do comparisons, one has to have something to compare to. Every approach has its shortcomings. Compare against an index? That's little different from putting the fund into a box. Compare against …
  • Reply to @BobC: M*'s methodology also doesn't care whether funds occasionally wander. The classification of the fund lags the classification of the portfolio to allow for such excursions. More specifically, "portfolios are placed in a given categ…
  • Reply to @NumbersGal: While it seems to be rare, sometimes funds are acquired with no grandfathering - not only does one not have noload access to other funds in the now load family (that's not uncommon), but the acquired fund itself is only availa…
  • Vanguard continues to demonstrate that fine actively managed funds don't necessarily cost a lot more than index funds. (The Admiral class shares, VWENX at 0.19%, even cost 30% less than the Investor class shares.)
  • I posted awhile ago on MCV funds - nothing perfect, the ones I identified as interesting and lower risk were: - JPMorgan Mid Cap Value A (JAMCX - Schwab OneSource, closing at end of month), - American Century Mid Cap Value (ACMVX) (NTF many place…
  • T. Rowe Price joins the opposition. http://www.nasdaq.com/article/t-rowe-price-to-vote-against-dell-buyout-20130212-01208#.URqh22cWk1I
  • Reply to @Jim0445: I've talked with Schwab about funds listed like this. Such funds do indeed have front end loads; these are loads that are waived for Schwab customers. Thus the former designation (NoLoad, NTF) describes the way the fund is so…
  • Reply to @hank: Sorry, I tried to be clear. Unlike Fidelity brokerage (60 day short term trading fee on NTF funds only), Schwab (90 days on NTF), Scottrade (90 days on all NL funds including TF funds), E*Trade (90 days on NTF), etc., WellsTrade …
  • Let me offer a contrary view. Slick asked about funds that resemble the old (pre-1980 or so) equity income utility funds. These were funds that generated consistent, reliable income, and if you were lucky, maybe a smidgeon of growth. The reaso…
  • Reply to @igno2: I believe there's no symbol because this is a fund designed to be sold only to retirement plans. For example, you can see a version of this fund offered by the Guardian Advantage annuity, designed for small to midsize company 4…
  • Reply to @hank: The SEC imposed Rule 22c-2 in response to the trading scandals. It requires only a seven calendar day redemption fee (of not more than 2%), and the fund has the option of demonstrating that the fee isn't necessary to avoid imposin…
  • Reply to @prinx: WellsTrade does not impose any short term fees of its own. There are lots of reasons why I would not recommend this broker, but it does meet your "no short term redemption fee" requirement. Note that if you don't link a WellsTr…
  • It's not a load because the money goes back into the fund (i.e. shared among all investors, including yourself). It's there to cover the additional trading expenses incurred because of your entry into the pool. In contrast, a load goes into the p…
  • There's no universal meaning for any share class - that includes, e.g. class A. (See BJBIX for example, where A shares are retail no load, and I are institutional no load.) So without telling us what fund or at least what family of funds you're l…
  • Fidelity says it is closed. Schwab says it is closed. Wells Trade says, well, WT doesn't say much of anything these days, but that's another problem :-( The fund is indeed open, according to T Rowe Price. There may be some brokers where new acco…
  • The USPS history of deliveries per day. I knew that until recently (late 90s) Manhattan got two deliveries per day; I did not know that several cities used to get as many as seven! This is a decades long decline - that peak was in 1922, and it's b…
  • Reply to @David_Snowball: The "quirk" is likely due to the marketing channels used, not M*'s creativity. If one looks at the prospectus of an Active Port (R) fund (there are five on the list of 25), one sees they are no load, but:Class A shares o…
  • Reply to @bee: I've barely played with it myself. It seems to show a graph for the duration of the portfolio (though I'm not sure even about that). It does seem to have a checkbox to force a graph of trailing twelve months, and in the numeric s…
  • Reply to @Charles: Perhaps IKEA an exception. Can't really think of other successful foreign brand name stores in US. Toyota, sure. But broader retail?H&M Group? First US store opened in 2000, 53 years after first store opened in Sweden. Unli…
  • Isn't that just the "My Performance" tab on M*'s portfolio manager? From M*: If you've set up a portfolio on Morningstar.com's Portfolio Manager, you can use the Performance view to see your results graphed alongside the S&P 500; the My Perform…
  • Reply to @BobC: Thanks for the clarification. To a large extent, I agree with you as well. I too would like someone who wasn't in bed with those they're supposed to oversee. Where we disagree are on the fine points. It isn't Congress creatin…
  • OJ - I'm less inclined to cut some slack than you are. You are absolutely right, that a lawyer, even a mediocre one, can argue both sides of a case. That's just a skill, as might be engineering an automated device like a drone fighter or a Roomba…
  • Skeptic that I am, I'm wondering if this is the equivalent of some films opening with limited distribution to qualify for the Oscars. In the case of funds, to be able to say a year (or three years) later that this is a real fund, not an incubator,…
  • Yeah, I know what you mean. Friday I bought a very small position in a small cap fund, and it's nearly the only holding I have that went up today. It usually works the other way around - everything goes up except what I just bought.
  • Reply to @Investor: I find a similarity between the way credit card charges work and the way NTF funds work. In both situations, you think you're getting an extra service (paying with plastic, buying through a broker) without explicitly paying fo…
  • An indication of how varied the category of multisector bond funds is, consider that while M* considers LSBDX a multisector bond fund, Lipper classifies is as a Corporate Debt BBB fund. (It's not allowed to invest more than 20% in foreign bonds or …
  • Reply to @Anna: I think there are two different question here. One is borrowing vs. withdrawing, and the other is withdrawing vs. suspending. I'll assume for the sake of argument that a withdrawal is covered by one of the penalty exceptions (e…
  • As I noted below, MFCFX was not a balanced/asset allocation fund in the 2009-2011 time frame. M* had already moved it out of balanced into LCG by 2009, and even the Sept 2008 portfolio showed no bonds. So this may be somewhat of an apples to oran…
  • It's not clear whether you're looking for a fund like what MFCFX's prospectus allows (wide ranging such as LSWWX or other world allocation funds), or a fund similar to how Rao ran the fund (largely domestic equity). Rao's fund was neither global i…
  • Reply to @Ginko: Some prices (such as that movie ticket that went up 11x, or a dozen eggs that merely doubled) have gone up much less quickly than average income (15x). But many big ticket items went up much faster - including housing/rent (52x/27…
  • Reply to @ron: The absence of capital gains tax for those in the 15% tax bracket wouldn't seem to change the suggestion to keep securities generating LTCGs in a taxable account. It just makes the suggestion even stronger. On the other hand (for …
  • It's fairly unusual that a load family acquires a noload fund without grandfathering in the old investors (at least allowing them to purchase shares without a load, possibly offering them exchange privileges). But that's what seems to have happened…
  • Reply to @TNK: 1. For clarity, we're talking about effective duration, not modified duration, and certainly not Macaulay Duration. As the CFA study guide linked to on Investopedia states: "Effective duration takes into account the way in which yie…
  • I'd take DoubleLine's duration with a big grain of salt. Grundlach specializes in mortgage bonds; indeed M* shows 80% in securitized bonds, the rest in cash. Duration is a funny thing when it comes to mortgages. When interest rates rise, peop…
  • Fidelity, like most fund families, closes funds late and slowly. The best I've seen is Vanguard, that closes a fund at the same time it announces the fund closing. Their closes are often "semi-hard", meaning that they're almost hard closes (not…
  • A risk to the MMFs is that when people see the current value dip to, say, $0.9991, they'll worry that they're going to lose money, and start a run on the fund. As we all know from 2008 or 1932, that can kill a fund (or a bank). It's somewhat curi…
  • Thanks Ted. I guess we all figured she'd be launching her own multisector fund at EV, it was a question of when. But how can she be talking about "finishing her career", when she's nearly three decades younger than her mentor, who is still going s…
  • I can only talk about retail deferred variable annuities. Not 403b's, not fixed annuities, not immediate annuities. Within that context, Vanguard and TIAA-CREF charge similar amounts, but TIAA-CREF has a much wider range of offerings. Vanguard ch…
  • Reply to @hank: One can drive people to Fidelity while maintaining objectivity (independence, if you will) among Fidelity funds. That's what he sells - advice for Fidelity investors. So I don't see a lack of objectivity vis a vis Vanguard dimin…