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Pretty weak article, and poorly written. Hard to figure out what it is saying anyone holds.
Is it counting ETFs as equities? Asked because it separates out investments in mutual funds (17.57% advised, 20.10% DIY).
Cash? 5.70% advised, 15.7…
Is this the SA piece you're talking about ("Norway's WHT is 15%.")?
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4633977-we-expect-lower-earnings-from-aluminium-giant-norsk-hydro
From the company's own website:
The withholding tax of 25 percent may be lower pu…
The bond market will close two hours early (2PM EST) on Dec 29th. Just in case you're looking to dump Treasuries as rates continue to rise. (That's a lighthearted statement, not a prediction.)
Less often practiced, but potentially useful, is tax…
IMO, robo-advisors are nothing more than hyped-up allocation funds that are liked by the younger generation. If one is willing to spend a little time, one can achieve a similar effect with traditional allocation funds (static-allocations; Income, c…
Have robos gotten their clients out of the cap weighted S&P 500 - or at least reduced exposure this year?
Hopefully not early this year. YTD (through Sept 22, data from M*),
VOO (S&P 500): 13.89% (23rd percentile LCblend)
IVOO (S&P 40…
Looking at a new ETF (INCM) from Franklin. 60% fixed income, 20% equity and 20% “convertible equity linked notes”.
ETF page
It helps to provide a link.
What the page actually says is: "Convertibles/Equity-Linked Notes". Convertibles and ELNs cu…
In the end, I believe the clients have the equal responsibility to work with their advisors in order to put together a solid asset allocation plan so to meet their future needs.
Wow are you on the mark. I know a few people who are using advisors …
I've not used any financial adviser, WEG or other, personally. My situation is simple enough to handle myself; just maximize after-tax value subject to risk tolerance.
Don't dig too deeply into the spreadsheet. It goes beyond obvious simplificat…
@Sven - very nice writeup specifically addressing some questions asked here.
Curious that your advisor said VPMCX wasn't available. From the fund prospectus:The Fund is closed to new accounts for investors not enrolled in Vanguard Flagship Servi…
for many funds, the documents only go back to 2007 even if the fund is much older (example: Ariel Fund).
That's not entirely correct. You may not be able to find them, but generally the SEC has fund docs going back to 1994 or 1995, including Ariel…
It's usually better (safer) to Read The Fine Manual (prospectus). Sample from VPMCX / VPMAX prospectus, Jan 25, 2008:
MANDATORY CONVERSIONS TO INVESTOR SHARES
If an account no longer meets the balance requirements for Admiral Shares, Vanguard may …
There's a difference between complexity and transparency. Transparency calls for, at a minimum, the availability of information. Complexity impedes transparency (if something is there but hard to find, it's less transparent). But the alternati…
@Sven - they're "probably" designed "properly" :-)
Robo (and to a lesser extent hybrid) advisors are designed for simpler situations - asset allocation, growing (or spending down) portfolios, tax loss harvesting, maybe targeting specific goals (amo…
It may depend on the fund. I had two VG Admiral funds that dipped below their min balance requirements (market movement) around the same time. VG converted one (a popular fund) back to Investor shares; the other one it ignored.
I don't recall wh…
Schwab & Wealth Enhancement Group:
Partnering for a Superior Client Experience
https://network.wealthenhancement.com/
From there, follow the full services link to:
https://network.wealthenhancement.com/services
Then to Financial Planning:
ht…
@Observant1 - point noted. Though treating the investments as cash seems to conflict with building goal forecasts by scaling the managed portion of your portfolio to your total portfolio size. The former would lead to a lower projected return ov…
I just got off the call with this guy [at Wealth Enhancement Group]. I was generally impressed. ( While he was not calling form his yacht, he was calling from second home in Maine!) They have a model which will calculate Roth Conversions and expe…
Critics say that many funds may move to more generic names or the rule may limit fund managers' flexibility.
To the extent that this rule change has any effect, I would tend to agree with the critics on the former (move toward generic names). But…
The difference between the individual recommendation and glide paths of various TDFs is likely due to the low (3.03%) withdrawal rate requested. That's quite low compared with the "rule of thumb" 4% or the base case of 4.7% used in this Vanguard p…
SSGA might have a point about SPY appealing to institutional investors.
If it were primarily a matter of cost, then why is SPY still so large? Its ER is more than triple that of IVV ($353B AUM) and of VOO ($334B AUM including all share classes)…
To get compound interest (or cumulative returns) - multiply by each period's (1 + rate).
Here: (1 - 11.94%) x (1 + 12.55%) = 99.11153%, meaning that an investor's got "just" 99% of what they started with at the beginning of 2022.
Shares outstanding (as of Sept 15): 8,450,000
NAV (as of Sept 15): $25.66
=> AUM = $216.827,000
https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/tools/fund-research/etf/TCAF
There are people posting here who have or are running funds; they are much…
Rather than the Fed "promising" rate changes, it "expects" or "predicts". That said, even before "early 2022", i.e. in December 2021, it "predicted" three interest rate hikes for 2022.
"The Federal Reserve said [on Dec 15, 2021] it would ... pave…
M* piece on floating rate funds, from mid 2022. It mistakenly says there are only two "medalist" floating rate funds. Fidelity's FFRHX is also a silver medalist.
In addition to the types of floating rate securities Yogi mentioned, there is also …
I'm inclined to think that with respect to advisory services, there are two major axes: degree of assistance desired (ranging from DIY to fully discretionary accounts) and degree of financial complexity involved.
M* suggests that as a first appro…
What is "enhanced" is M*'s revenue stream, as it continues to move features from low/no cost retail investor services to high cost institutional services.
According to M*, "Vanguard and Fidelity Go stood out as the best options, although [it] also assigned above-average scores to Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, Betterment, and Wealthfront." Vanguard scored 4.8 out of 5, Fidelity Go 4.0, Schwab 3.6, B…
Slightly shorter: the grass is always greener ..., and YMMV.
One more anecdote on the former ... A long time ago I opened an account (at Columbia) in an Acorn family fund that was closed except when investing directly with the fund - one of the met…
While Prof. Snowball's suggestions are all worth consideration, the situation is, as he wrote above, more nuanced.
Sometimes getting a gifted share does not enable you to invest more in the fund The Artisan Funds prospectus say that
You may open …
To be clear, the WSJ piece is not about the shopworn lament that retail bond investors, and more specifically retail muni bond investors, pay high transaction costs.
The Hidden Costs of Retail Purchases in Municipal Bonds, S&P Global, June 2022…
Fidelity has a search tool that allows you to search individual Muni bonds by state and category
Be aware that market discount (the difference between the "correct", often par price and the market price) is generally treated as ordinary, taxable in…
The green bonds piece is solid, and the 10 minutes to watch it are well spent.
The Lebenthal ads are mostly for amusement, though he did a good job of getting across the point that munis support infrastructure. Unfortunately, I had a hard time fi…
For decades, Jim Lebenthal sold muni bonds as investments in public works - power plants, sewers, parks, transit, etc. IOW, infrastructure.
But infrastructure ≠ ESG. (Hard to see how a Yankee Stadium muni bond is ESG.)
Here's a 1932 ad for mun…
BTW, MFO isn't user-friendly for tabular materials; often, the URLs have to be reposted/redone; as noted above, colors aren't supported
To preserve spacing, for tabular materials or other text, you can tell the browser that the material is preforma…
As with most other income-based taxes aside from IRMAA, muni bonds are exempt from the Medicare surcharge. That makes the case for munis somewhat stronger.
However, conversion amounts are not directly subject to the Medicare surcharge. Though t…
Lots to comment on here.
- RMDs now begin at age 73, giving an extra "golden year".
- Several states give capped exclusions for retirement income including conversions; this is a consideration in deciding whether to exhaust the Trad IRA (via co…
That's correct, muni income is included in the IRMAA calculation.
However, if you get the same net income (after taxes) from a taxable fund and a muni fund, the muni fund looks better from an IRMAA perspective.
For example, and to simplify arithme…
Getting pushed into a higher tax bracket itself (without other effects like triggering IRMAA) is often not a good enough reason to use munis instead of taxable bonds.
Say you're at the top of the 12% tax bracket. By assumption any extra taxable do…
42-day Auction is a CMB, so it isn't on the regular Treasury Auction Schedule. Some brokers may not offer them.
FWIW, they are also not available through TreasuryDirect. (In reference to another thread, I agree that there is usually little point i…
3rd paragraph - I think you mean Ariel (not Artisan) International. (Fixed! Thanks!)
The next sentence leaves me confused: " Given that Morningstar doesn't track growth and value separately, and Bhansali is a distinctly contrarian, value investor,…
