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  • See Ted's thread: http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discussions-3/#/discussion/4551/schwab-calls-for-compromise-on-money-market-reform For me, this is a perfect example of the industry's duplicity. In the mid 90s, Fidelity proposed offering insur…
  • Since this is from JH, I'm guessing it is a JH annuity (see footnote on JH's 401K page, saying that "Group annuity contracts are issued by John Hancock ....). For a sample prospectus, see similar prospectus. This matters, because (aside from c…
  • Artio Funds: https://www.artioglobal.com/documents/2012_Estimated_Tax_Distribution.pdf Legg Mason Funds (including Western Asset, but excluding Royce): https://individualinvestor.myleggmason.com/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=85286&cached=t…
  • Updated Columbia Funds (as of 10/31): - includes Acorn family (as above) as well as the Columbia-branded funds https://www.columbiamanagement.com/content/columbia/pdf/2012_YEAR-END_CAPITAL_GAIN_ESTIMATES.PDF
  • AFAIK, there's no brokerage that sells D&C NTF, but ... At WellsTrade, if your account is linked to a Wells Fargo PMA (checking) account, they'll waive the transaction fee (TF) on 100 trades/year/account. So technically there is a transaction…
  • Reply to @BobC: Bob, in August you wrote:Unfortunately, we are now concerned about Artio's Total Return Bond Fund (JBGIX, BJBGX), which has a tremendous history and great management. If the asset bleed should occur there, for no other reason than …
  • There are brokerages with real banks, and real bank accounts: E*Trade Bank, Schwab Bank. Look for "member FDIC", not just FDIC-insured. (Curiously, TDAmeritrade seems to offer a sweep account like Fidelity's - curious because Toronto Dominion ha…
  • Thanks for the update, Gary. Here are a few pages from Fidelity that may explain the account and its relationship to bank accounts like Wells Fargo. (I'm guessing that you have a "Cash Management Account".) - List of Cash Management Account ban…
  • My apologies about misreading "money market account" - could have sworn I read that, but obviously that was all in my mind. I agree with nearly everything Banned wrote - there are lots of different legal entities involved, and Fidelity would have l…
  • "I would think a check issued by fido bank and deposited in a fido individual individual money account would be available the next day at the most!!!!!" You're describing what you would like, but it's each institution's choice to go beyond what's r…
  • It sounds like you have deposited the money into one account (which could have been at Fidelity or anywhere else), and are now trying to withdraw that money to fund a Roth IRA. From a banking perspective, that's all that matters. It doesn't matte…
  • Federak Reserve Board Question #6 from FRB FAQs about Check21: Will Check 21 change how fast my bank must make my check deposits available for withdrawal? Another federal check law (the Expedited Funds Availability Act) specifies the maximum times…
  • “People start taking lumpy withdrawals at age 59.5 because the [10%] tax penalty goes away,” he said. “There's a definite trend in people not sticking around in the plan.” For qualified plans, e.g. 401(k)s, the penalty goes away if you separate fr…
  • Ted had the right comment for the wrong reason. The only value "added" by ZH was its headline - everything else was quoting press releases (for a change, it looks like full quotes, rather than selective editing). But look at that headline: " Algos…
  • I'm looking at a prospectus for a relative's 403(b). Including the annuity fee, the ER for some of the funds are: American Funds EuroPacific Growth 0.65% (M* 5* gold), Western Asset Core Plus Bond 0.55% (5* silver), DFA Emerging Markets 0.71% (4*)…
  • Let's try that again. In Nov 2011, you bought 527,000 pesos. Today, you sell those pesos, and for every 473 pesos, you get $1. We can add that up: 473 pesos = $1 + 473 pesos = $1 + 473 pesos = $1 ... --------------- 526,922 pesos = $111…
  • Interesting that Jaffe uses Vanguard to extol the virtues of ETFs. (Never mind Bogle's thoughts on ETFs, that's not where I'm going.)With the exception of a few cost leaders — mostly institutional funds requiring big holdings — ETFs are dramaticall…
  • Not mentioned in the article (surprising for an article with an Oct 3 dateline) is that Tempurpedic announced on Sept 27 that it would acquire Sealy. Hard to get a complete picture on that, though. The WSJ (Heard on the Street) says that Tempurpe…
  • Reply to @Charles I'm not going to criticize you for an apples-to-oranges comparison. On the contrary, let's go with the flow. You took a broad (global) fund and compared it with a fund having a narrower (international EM) fund. We can conti…
  • I'm puzzled by the EAFE remark. MSCI EAFE is a developed market index. If Morgan Stanley were moving Korea to EAFE, then it would be reclassifying Korea as a developed market country. This in turn would remove it from MSCI EM market index, and k…
  • There were two immediate effects of Congress enacting a law that stripped TIAA-CREF of its tax-exempt status: 1. TIAA-CREF's "profits" were reduced. Since it did (and continues to) operate without shareholders, all profits go back to the policy …
    in TIAA Comment by msf October 2012
  • I respectfully disagree. Consider the purposes of asset allocation. Diversification for stability (why?) and risk reduction (what risks?), a roadmap for drawdown (draw first from cash, don't anticipate using bond investments in less than five ye…
    in TIAA Comment by msf September 2012
  • There's no question that Wintergreen is a fine fund. A question is whether it would have been worth following the manager. Since the article used 1/3/5 year performance figures, we can compare his performance over those periods vs. the world stoc…
  • Talk about jumbled :-) Wellesley is 40/60; Wellington is 60/40 (stocks/bonds). Its SEC yield (per Vanguard) is 2.5%; the 3.3% figure (from M*) is trailing twelve month yield.
  • Unfortunately with Windsor, I'm not sure how much one can make of its track record. It had a complete overhaul of managers in 2008. But it has gone, and seems to be continuing to go, its own way. Here's an article from 2008 analyzing Vanguar…
  • Mutual Series funds continued the same approach with Heine's protege Michael Price, and has continued the same path with its successors at Franklin since then. Following the lineage, one might also look at Wintergreen (WGRNX). Picking up on funda…
  • Windsor was managed for decades by the legendary John Neff, who never managed Windsor II. You're right about the timing, though - " in May of [1985], at the urging of its star manager, Vanguard closed Windsor to all but existing shareholders in …
  • Sorry about the duplicity - no insult intended - just spending too much time looking at numbers and not English. I agree with you about the basic concern being Fidelity's ability to run actively managed fund, and would take an even broader perspect…
  • I did a little checking - the duplicity, though still probably sizable, is nowhere near as large as the raw numbers would suggest. I used M* to look at all unique (just one share class of) funds managed by Fidelity, and how many of those did not h…
  • Reply to @fundalarm: Fidelity periodically sends out email like: Your Account Profile Confirmation contains the most current information we have on file about you and your Fidelity account. To ensure that we have the correct information, please re…
  • And they talk about the government being lax in allowing brokers to sell you things that are unsuitable for you. How is the brokerage going to know if something is unsuitable if investors don't declare what's unsuitable? Specifically, SEC Rule 17…
  • FWIW, I don't try to time the market, except in extremely small increments (around 1% of portfolio or less). So the only actions I am taking right now are waiting for a dip to do a Roth conversion (which is, in a sense, adding money to equities, s…
  • The article appears to be one of a series of "How to Retire Rich: 3 Smart Steps At Age N to N+15". The one that VF linked to focuses on college expenses because that's what middle aged parents typically focus on. It does have three steps - invest…
  • Let me be clear - I am all in favor of holding brokers to a higher standard, and I have no doubt that there are horror stories. I'd be happy seeing it made easier for investors to file class action suits, and for more of the practices that lead to…
  • Talk about dredging up old news. Blogger refers (without citation) to a 2004 settlement for failing to adequately disclose revenue sharing agreements. The problem was disclosure, not revenue sharing per se. EJ does clearly disclose these days, …
  • You make two points that I'll try to address: - you don't care where the money you pay goes - NTF fees don't appear to cost more Let me address the latter first. In short, TANSTAAFL. Funds pay brokerages, that money has to come from somewhere…
  • Let me posit that a fund that is looking out for its shareholders will not participate in NTF programs, paying as much as 40 basis points per year for the service. It's great marketing, but lousy for the shareholders who are ultimately the ones pay…
  • Calamos Growth A (CVGRX) is a large cap growth (M*) or multi-cap growth (Lipper) fund with 80% invested in the US -close to a global fund, but not quite. More important is that its expense ratio is in the third quintile (not lower than the 75th pe…
  • Reply to @Shostakovich: That's a question for PRESS, who speculated that " the average investor would consider Matthews over Seafarer ...for the overly simplistic reason that they would do a YTD comparison of the funds." But that they'd be wrong…
  • I regard the record of managers who have gone off and formed their own fund/fund families as mixed. For example, there's Yacktman, who underperformed the fund he left in 1992 for the rest of that decade, but has done great since. His problems i…