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.
Let's continue reading that quote from someone with a vested interest in seeing Fidelity accumulate assets (the editor of a Fidelity investment newsletter), and see how accurate it is:
Fidelity’s indexed funds are lower priced than Vanguard’s, and y…
TIAA-CREF is a massive organization, and one needs to be careful and precise when discussing their products and services. Without detail, it is difficult if not impossible to offer specific comments. For example, Hank talked about the TIAA-CREF …
Reply to @scott:
Welcome to catalog showrooms 2.0. The concept was always reduced service and automation.
Wiki is wrong about these showrooms not displaying merchandise - See, e.g. Service Merchandise. The point is that there's a whole spectr…
Reply to @Old_Joe: You must have been around for Playland at the Beach. It's my privilege to have known (and still know) the founder of the San Francisco Historical Society for many years; he talks frequently and so fondly of his memories of the p…
Reply to @Alex:
I believe Ted has already given you an answer. The argument for passive funds is that while there will always be some active funds that beat their benchmarks, one does not know in advance which funds those will be. Ted has posi…
T. Rowe Price has one of the best systems for management transition I've seen. Announce months if not years in advance, bring the manager on board, keep the analyst team intact, generally follow the same philosophy (though each new manager is still…
Reply to @bee: Yes, fewer assets now, but more assets down the road, because the IRS ultimately gets less, forever. That means that the management companies, like the taxpayers, come out better in the long term. Of course, management companies liv…
Reply to @bee:
The money doesn't permanently go away, only temporarily. As pointed out in the article: "Every dollar of that $12 billion is revenue that the federal Treasury would have collected in subsequent decades," Greenstein wrote in a pos…
From the prospectusThe aggregate management fee is calculated as follows: 0.75% per annum of the aggregate net assets less than or equal to $14.0 billion, plus 0.68% per annum of the aggregate net assets over $14.0 billion, up to and including $28.0…
Methinks they doth protest too much. What they are saying amounts to: We report stale numbers; so we're not raising the fee now, we already raised it. (The numbers are for older AUM and fees last year.)
Does it really matter to your wallet whet…
Reply to @johnN: "In addition, certain individual and business tax provisions that expired at the end of 2011 have been extended for both 2012 and 2013, including:
Deductions for state and local sales taxes
Deduction for tuition expenses
…
Reply to @catch22:
Special dividends are hardly unheard of. See, e.g. Microsoft, 2004, or as mentioned in the linked article, Limited Brands (LTD), Franklin Resources (Franklin Templeton - BEN), and Garmin (GRMN).
I see three possibilities about…
Another explanation may be that the S&P 500 "index" is really a managed set of stocks (managed by the S&P Index Committee). In the run up of the late 1990s, S&P was slow to include "hot" stocks (New Economy). Starting in 2000 the comm…
Reply to @Soupkitchen: The AF's prospectuses say (this is from EuroPacific, in case it matters): "Generally, you may exchange your shares into shares of the same class of other American Funds without a sales charge. ... Please see the statement of a…
Reply to @kv968: You're absolutely correct that M*'s methodology incorporates loads into the star ratings.
FWIW, I've sent a note to M* asking them about a 93rd percentile ranking for a fund that never dipped into the bottom decile on an annual ba…
Though it's true that there's no entitlement program that's part of the fiscal cliff, it's a closer call than one might think. Here's a video (nearly an hour) of an excellent presentation last August by Barry Anderson, who was, among many other po…
Reply to @hank: I share your disappointment with most financial reporting (and unfortunately, most "reporting" in general). Though this article was somewhat short on details, I did not find it quite as weak as so many others that seem to be written…
Vanguard kept its STAR fund open to investors with just $1K to invest - they felt it provided a good broad market exposure for investors just starting out. There's something to be said for a new investor not going 100% into stocks. I can still re…
A difference between American Funds bond funds and equity funds is that, while much of the money in the bond funds is in Class A shares as you note, that's not necessarily the case for the equity funds.
See, e.g. the SAI for Bond Fund of America …
Reply to @fundalarm: Now that's a blast from the past. I haven't followed it since Armstrong left (a few years after Morgan Stanley acquired Miller, Anderson & Sherrerd - MAS). Good fund with Armstrong, don't know about it more recently (it …
Not just for 2012 but for the past three years, and not just a single fund but a whole management company: Perkins, Wolf, McDonnell.
Janus acquired a majority stake in 2008 (prior to that it had held 30%), and started marketing the heck out of Pe…
While Gaffney was heir apparent, Loomis Sayles added significant management support five years ago. So I agree with Ted, that at least so long as Dan is there, wait and see (and not make a fuss?).
With respect to PIMCO Income Fund, I might look at…
Reply to @Ted:
If it ain't broke, it might still be worth fixing:
http://www.tvspots.tv/video/13548/IBM-REFRIGERATOR
Cute commercial. (With Cisco's current hype about the Internet of Everything, this 2000 ad for a network appliance may bring ba…
While MSCI is the foreign indexer elephant in the room, it appears to be the only one that still considers South Korea an emerging market. So when MSCI finally makes the change, people who care about Korea specifically will still wind up having to…
Reply to @catch22:
I don't think so. Take a look at this chart, comparing RYSEX (Royce fund that had a sizeable distribution Dec 5) and PRSVX (another small cap value-leaning fund for comparison). http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.html?RYSE…
From the article: "ETFs disclose holdings daily in order to keep their share price in line with the market value of their holdings."
Not true. Only actively managed ETFs are required to disclose holdings daily (which is why this factual error does…
How can I put this gracefully? A numerically challenged article?
There's a valid argument to be made for recognizing gain this year - you can do this by selling and immediately repurchasing the same security. The argument is that it is better to…
It turns out that RSEIX (Royce Special Equity, Institutional Class) had a LTG distribution last year (2011) of $1.0775 on a reinvestment share price of $19.35, or about 5.57%. That compares with this year's LTG distribution of $1.0981 on a reinves…
What imagery comes to mind. State Street annually carting into Schwab a wheelbarrow full of GLD - that's all they've got, no cash.
More seriously, this highlights TANNTAAFL, and I'd avoid participating ETFs. Just as these days I look very closel…
In the phrasing "High-Yield Corporate['s] ... been nothing like some of the the higher-yielding, higher returning funds ... in the category", Mr. Wiener is not comparing high yield corporates to other types of high yield bonds.
Rather, he is compar…
Since the article mentioned Milevsky, and he's been very active in analyzing annuities (living benefits come to mind), here's his brief (5 page, "typewritten", double spaced), plain talk explanation of longevity insurance.
http://www.ifid.ca/pdf_ne…
Once you reach full retirement age (which for you could be 65, or as high as 66 if you were born in, say 1947 and are now 65.5), you are allowed to file for spousal benefits only, and defer your own benefits.
This lets you get credit for deferring…
Reply to @hank:
Unfortunately, insurers are like bankers - they won't sell you a policy (give you a loan) when you need it. Poked Genworth last summer (prior to their announced rate hike, they had some attractive options that were going away). …
There's an important point here that (to my surprise) I've rarely seen made elsewhere - that with interest rates so low, even a miniscule movement up in rates will result in bond losses.
Most of what I read tends to be along the lines of: the last …
Reply to @Ted:
You're showing why approximately 98% of annuity owners (SS is basically an inflation-indexed annuity) never annuitize, but take the cash instead. There are many other factors (security, peace of mind, etc.) beyond straight number…
Reply to @Anna:
Happy Birthday! The strategy you're following is often the best for couples - to have the larger earner defer benefits for as long as possible. The odds are very good that at least one person in a couple will live past the break…
With all the options, varied situations, and probabilities involved, it requires a good understanding of arithmetic, statistics, and rule-based systems to get a good grasp on all the SS scenarios. Unfortunately, that means that most "popular press…
IMHO, should be just the opposite.
The idea is to recognize cap gains this year, rather than defer them into future years. That is, if one purchased a share at $10 and it is now worth $12, one can sell/rebuy - recognize the gain now (pay 15% o…
