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.
Reply to @BobC: The distribution rules for Roth 401Ks say that if you do a partial distribution and partial rollover/direct transfer, the taxable portion of the Roth (i.e. the earnings on the post-tax contributions) go first to the new Roth (see Par…
I was going to write that it got 4 stars because there aren't enough funds in its category for it to get 5 stars :-). But it turns out that there are 14 closed end Pacific ex-Japan funds rated by M*, and 10% are supposed to get five stars (and 10%…
To put some numbers behind what BobC is saying, here are the IRS's life expectancy tables from 1994, (see p. 60, Appendix E), and here are the current (2011) life expectancy tables (see p. 86, Appendix C). Both are from IRS Pub 590, the tables used…
Here is my understanding. I'm fairly sure it differs from what other posters understand, and my understanding likely differs from reality (what you actually have) as well :-). I'll try to be as concrete as possible so that we're on the same page.…
With no load funds, you can buy and sell generally without charges (some funds have short term redemption fees, typically of 30-90 days; past that, no fees). With load funds, you can usually move money just across funds in the same family, as were…
Not sure what you're seeing in the article that suggests managed ETF portfolios, but let me address (or at least highlight) some items in the article.
The article starts by saying that the question of active vs. passive is the wrong question; that …
Reply to @catch22: Yup, you're right. That's where I got the prospectus from, and the performance data. Me, I just jump right to the docs; never looked at this "glossy" sheet. Could have saved some time - but one should still always check with t…
Don't have the time right now to go into full depth. Here are a few quick answers (worth exactly what you paid for them :-):
I'm assuming from the name you gave of the annuity, and the fact that it's being used for an IRA, that this is the prospec…
First article:
"This [realizing capital gains] can happen if your fund actively trades securities in an attempt to beat their benchmark returns"
There's active and there's active. In the sense that it's being used here (realizing and distributing…
Another writer not clear about the statistics. The survey cited reports that total expense ratio for US equity funds vs. UK equity funds is 1.11% vs. 1.18%, not the 1.53% vs. 2.48% stated in the article.
The article says that these figures are wh…
This is really an article saying indexes are different, not that ETFs are different. To put it simply, the S&P 500 is different from DJIA, and the Wilshire 5000 is different from the Russell 3000 (duh). Same thing for sector indexes.
Differ…
Rolling over a Roth 401K into an IRA can be exceedingly tricky, as this article at Fairmark.com (an outstanding site for tax and IRA issues) attests.
Since you have significant assets in your current 401(k), you have the right to keep your money th…
Some interesting thoughts. In my mind, I compare and contrast them with Fidelity and Vanguard, for different reasons. Like Fidelity (especially in the 90s) I think they focus on conservative investors (Fidelity pushed the retirement plan side of …
"By the way we pay pay for this poney show one way or the other. No performance incentive that I can see."
The vast majority of funds do not have expense ratios that include a performance adjustment, so this is not news. (The largest family that d…
Hi Catch,
I'm sorry if I came across sounding harsher than I meant. The only statement I was reacting to was the suggestion that this is (though you did add "and/or was") the thinking of east Asia. While certainly cultures are different, a I fee…
I don't think you're being fair to Taiwan. While you acknowledge that you were there decades ago, you suggest that lack of respect for property is both cultural and insurmountable. The latter is clearly not true. A couple of decades ago, it was…
There some things I'd knock Schwab for, just as every service has its issues. But fund availability is not one of them. Historically at least, Schwab has been adamant about being able to offer the lowest cost retail share class on its platform. P…
Artio funds generally invest heavily in emerging market countries, notably those in central and eastern Europe. That's very difficult to find in other broad foreign funds. You can, of course, roll your own - there are now several funds focused o…
Depends on size of assets, what you're trying to accomplish, where you live. There's no single correct answer.
If you live in a community property state, you would likely want to retitle as community property - that way the entire account gets a s…
This is old news, and somewhat distorted statistics. If what you care about is mutual fund AUM, then JPMorgan was in the top four in Nov 2009 (so it's hardly news that they broke into the top 10). CBS News citing Investment News, reporting data fr…
Bonds are significantly more complicated to deal with than stocks. The fact that the IRS (correctly) mentioned interest and no poster here picked up on this attests to the complexity. If you buy a bond at a market discount (not to be confused with…
Reply to @Old_Joe: I'm not old enough to remember the glory days of radio, but I am old enough to remember all the "stereo enhanced" albums (remastered monophonic recordings) for an extra $1 when stereo became popular. And that does make me cringe …
His paper may be reasonable (haven't read much of it yet), but Pastor's article for the "popular press" is weak.
In the article, he writes that "As the active industry grows, more money chases opportunities to outperform passive benchmarks, and suc…
There are several size-related reasons why a fund might close. One is its size relative to its market (can't find investments). Another is its absolute size due to 1940 Act limitations on how much of a company it can own (e.g. a diversified fund g…
What's the issue with Artisan Int'l? Top seventh YTD, top 1% in the past 366 days, top 3% calendar year 2011. If there was an problem with performance, it was 2010 where it was in the bottom 1/8th. Its 3 year risk adjusted performance is 4*, vs.…
For those who are self-employed, note that while Vanguard added the Roth option to its individual (solo) 401(k), neither Fidelity nor Schwab offer that option. T. Rowe Price (not mentioned in the article) has offered this option since day one (2006…
"SPY is organized as a unit investment trust. So, it follows the rules of these trusts."
In particular, the rule against perpetuities. As this article suggests, the rule has been around since about 1680, though there's been a trend by states to do…
Agree with others that VA should not be used before some other forms of tax-sheltered investments (notably IRAs and defined contribution plans).
Catch - I think that what you were looking at was the older VA that Fidelity used to offer - Retireme…
I'm happy to agree that VAs are not good products for most people. But while I like Scott Burns, this article is filled with distortions and half-truths.
"[A] death benefit ... guarantees that your designated beneficiaries will get your original i…
What's the percentage of load funds these days? 2/3? 3/4? So it wouldn't be too surprising if most of their selections were load funds - you'd expect that by random selection - and since the load is supposed to be paying for the service you're re…
As I've written before, we also don't see eye to eye on this. I think your view (pardon me if I'm misstating or misinterpreting it), is that you'd like to see how much (percentage-wise) your original contribution(s) increased in value.
Consider a …
Interesting, though it suffers some of the same deficiencies that it complains about.
Basically, it is saying that if the absolute bare minimum you're willing to accept in income (draw) is less than the standard 4% (or whatever), then you can wit…
FDIC insurance limits apply separately to each of eight categories (single owner accounts, joint accounts, retirement accounts, revocable trusts, irrevocable trusts, etc.). So the fact that you have multiple accounts at a bank is irrelevant, unless…
1. For any tax changes to have an impact on the demand for muni bonds, the change would have to decrease the after tax return of taxable bonds to below that of muni bonds (adjusted for the additional risk). Traditionally, munis yield about 85% of…
Reply to @David_Snowball: TRowePrice enables one to be a M* premium member without being a paying customer. True, you have to be a TRP "Preferred" client ($100K+). Still, this is a "back door".
http://individual.troweprice.com/public/Retail/Produ…
Reply to @catch22:
Regardless of whether there are regulations dealing with how an annual statement defines "cash", the reality is that the ARIVX is keeping its cash (or at least the vast majority of it) in BlackRock Liquidity Funds Treasury Trust …
Silly me. From the title I thought it might be something about getting burned by wash sales when redeeming bond funds. (Since those funds typically pay dividends monthly, you're almost certain to have bought via reinvested dividends within 30 day…
