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.
“The foreign tax withholdings are lost money in an IRA.”
... Why should I care that my mutual fund, held in an IRA, has to pay these taxes as normal business expense? It's not lost. It's part of the funds expenses that translates to my total retu…
If that T-bill was sold out, the order shouldn't have been filled.
At the auction, Treasury first accepts all the non-competitive bids that comply with the auction rules.
Then, we accept competitive bids based on their rate, yield, or discount marg…
ORFN has 52 holdings.
So on average, each holding is weighted about 2%,
Chevron (CVX) is 4.34% of the fund, i.e. roughly overweighted by 2x.
iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) has 304 holdings.
So on average each holding is weighted about 0.33%.…
Here's the proxy for 12 Fidelity funds to become non-diversified. There may be an unrelated 13th fund floating around somewhere.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/35348/000120677423000176/fgf4137113-def14a.htm
Sometimes, not always, one ca…
Maricopa County (Phoenix) is number 1 with a bullet for heat.
Rhodium Group researchers estimate that under the RCP 8.5 scenario, between 2040 and 2060 extreme temperatures will become commonplace in the South and Southwest, with some counties in Ar…
Homeowners may choose to simply go bare.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17692537
That has long been the pattern with one natural disaster, earthquakes:
The top three markets in the country — California, Washington and Missouri — highlight how unpre…
Are you referring to TF mutual funds trading fees? See (from 2011):
https://www.onlinebrokerrev.com/2011/02/broker-mutual-fund-fees.html
Often when an old fee schedule is grandfathered, the entire fee schedule is preserved. When TDA grandfathered…
Brokered CDs really are FDIC-insured CDs (if they ultimately trace back to an underlying FDIC-insured bank). More than you ever wanted to know about how this works:
Brokered CDs are CDs issued by banks via a "master CD" to deposit brokers [like Sc…
What's the point in shooting the messengers? Vanguard erred and was slow to correct things.
The errors that customers saw on their statements were not in reported 7 day SEC yields. Rather they were in "the estimated annual yield and annual inco…
I never paid attention to a subsidiary called "Vanguard Marketing Corp."
"Brokerage assets are held by Vanguard Brokerage Services, a division of Vanguard Marketing Corporation, member FINRA and SIPC."
https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corpora…
If Vanguard hires a single subadvisor for, say, 0.50%, and that subadvisor has its own branded funds that it charges 1% for, what is the motivation for investors to buy any of the subadvisor's higher-cost branded funds? A single sub-advisor Vanguard…
A fund's board is responsible for hiring the fund's advisor(s). It may be a distinction without a difference, but at Harbor, a board hires the fund's advisor, which in turn hires the subadvisors. In contrast, at Vanguard a board hires multiple a…
All the bonds will gradually converge on their face value at maturity. So the 0.625% bonds, with a current price below face value, will continue to gain value as you said.
The 4.25% bonds are currently priced slightly above par. So their market …
Crocker Bank - for which Paul Williams and Roger Nichols wrote We've Only Just Begun.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/bank-commercial-inspired-the-carpenters-weve-only-just-begun.html/
The Crocker commercial, performed by Paul Williams:
…
@MikeM If you're thinking about doing a full transfer of an account to Fidelity, it would be better to wait until the account is officially a Schwab account. TDA charges $75 for a full transfer, Schwab "only" $50. At Fidelity full transfers are …
That ability of a fund to request information is a direct result of the market trading scandal:
The market timing and late trading issues of the mid 2000’s were caused, in certain cases, by the lack of transparency regarding beneficial mutual fund o…
Even with no change in market rates, bond prices change. This is most obvious with zero coupon bonds. They are sold at a discount and one gets yield from price appreciation.
As bonds get closer to maturity, their prices gradually converge to pa…
"Although usually forbidden if you're buying directly from a fund company, an existing shareholder of a closed fund at an outside broker can transfer a share to you without the fund company knowing about it. Once in, you can add to your position."
…
PIMIX hasn't had a cap gains distribution since 2015, so all else being equal, a similar fund with an ETF structure does not seem likely to be more tax efficient.
[Because of the way tax efficiency is calculated, if you have two funds with equal gr…
Vanguard is testing out two different cash programs. One is a bank sweep option for brokerage settlement accounts (Vanguard Cash Deposit). The other (Vanguard Cash Plus Account) provides enables bill payment but only via ACH pull (no checkwritin…
The way brokerages service cash accounts (variously called "transaction accounts", "core accounts", etc.) is confusing by design. Sweeps happen automagically (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain), and investors are not supposed to conce…
Thanks for reading. I'd wondered if anyone would slog through that.
WIth the Treasuries, remember that they are state tax exempt. That could mean a lot (around half a percent of net yield) in a high tax state.
As far as the banking sector go…
The 2019 ProPublica piece is out of date. The IRS announced significant changes Monday [Dec 30, 2019] to its deal with the tax prep software industry. Now companies are barred from hiding their free products from search engines [as reported in the …
s-l-o-w-l-y try to explain why an investor, going forward, should invest in either taxable or municipal bond funds in their portfolio's fixed income sleeve instead of say, 5-yr, 4.50%, non-callable CDs.
But please leave out the widely understood…
Fidelity Flex® funds are a lineup of Fidelity mutual funds that have zero expense ratios, and include proprietary active and passive funds. Flex funds are currently available only to certain fee-based accounts offered by Fidelity, like Fidelity Go®.…
It used to be (until 2015 or so?) that Vanguard would provide Voyager Select and Flagship customers with a free financial plan. After reviewing the basic survey that a customer filled out, a CFP would discuss the customer's situation over the phon…
No personal experience. I suggested Vanguard to a couple of people who are using it now, so I get a bit of feedback that way. They are primarily using it for asset and cash flow management. I don't know how much in the way of general financial …
Look at Chicago, getting choked by the pension costs and debt service....just like virtually all democratic run cities in the USA.
There's no question that Chicago's pensions are way underfunded - its four unions have funding ratios ranging from ju…
No other country has a concept of debt ceiling as far as I know.
Live and learn. The EU's concept of a debt ceiling (that's 27 countries) is "enshrined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and the 'Fiscal Compact' [Treaty…
At least early in the history of callable CDs, banks were pretty quick to pull the trigger as rates fell:
When banks and brokerages began hawking callable CDs in the mid-1990s, interest rates were generally headed down, which meant that many issuing…
I think we can all agree that this problem was created by Congress legislating an amount of spending that exceeded the amount of revenue legislated (taxes, etc.) plus the amount of borrowing legislated.
It used to be that Congress, via its power to…
Delays [on First Republic brokered CDs] may be because only the broker has customer details & Cede may be involved as an intermediary.
That doesn't seem to differ from any other brokered CDs: "CDs ... are evidenced by a Master Certificate of…
Here's that post by a reader on depositaccounts.com:
https://www.depositaccounts.com/banks/first-republic-bank.html#promo52225
Vanguard and Fidelity and probably many others charge $1/$1,000 face value commission for CDs and bonds traded on the sec…
Professor Tribe makes a nice case for disregarding the debt ceiling, but he is not making the argument that the 1917 debt ceiling law is unconstitutional.
As the Treasury writes:
The authority to borrow on the full faith and credit of the United …
ESG investors tend to reward companies with good ESG scores (like green-energy companies) and penalize companies with bad ESG scores (like oil companies).
IMHO most investors just look for an ESG label slapped onto a company or fund. Many rating…
I was addressing WABAC's comment on SS only. Underlying the speculation that the Treasury would not pay off bonds is the expectation that the Treasury will not have cash on hand (including inflows from general tax revenues). That's a very reasona…
With just a quick search, I haven't found much on how Social Security could be handled if the debt ceiling is reached and extraordinary measures are exhausted. Here's one page that came up, referencing a 1996 law giving temporary authority for SS…
Likely short sellers are hard at work here
Reuters: U.S. officials assessing possible 'manipulation' on banking shares
Increased short-selling activity and volatility in shares have drawn increasing scrutiny by federal and state officials and regu…
May 3, 2023
PACIFIC WESTERN BANK ISSUES UPDATE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
...
The bank has not experienced out-of-the-ordinary deposit flows following the sale of First Republic Bank and other news. Core customer deposits have increased since March 31…
I've been following this as a customer. Our HOA fees are processed by Pacific Western Bank.
We were supposed to have moved to a better (whatever that means) bank months ago. I don't know what the holdup has been; I'm just glad to have quit a…
