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.
An interesting perspective. I agree about 90%.
Since I invest primarily in funds, I don't care about all the bells and whistles, level II quotes, mobile apps, etc. Just something that does the basic the job. I can live with all their restrict…
It's a little difficult to divine intent in a single sentence, but what the heck ... And I'll try to relate this to M*'s issues with ALAAX.
I take Ed's comment to be a focused version of: if you find $1 worth of assets selling at 80¢, buy it. He…
You know that expression about old dogs and new tricks? I tend to stick with M*'s premium screener (free with the legacy Roth I keep at T. Rowe Price and almost never trade).
A relatively simple screen there:
5* rating
Style box = small (cap)
Cat…
The Professor may have been looking at Lipper, which classifies WIGTX as a global small/mid cap fund. M* currently classifies its portfolio as substantially all foreign, and the fund itself as foreign small/mid growth. But with a 176% turnover r…
SMVLX is sold to retail investors at Fidelity, just not to investors seeking to open a new position.
If the convenience of buying (additional) shares through Fidelity is worth a little effort, open a position directly with the fund company and t…
If I want to pay a TF, that’s my choice and I don’t expect other fund holders to subsidize me.
But they are subsidizing you. That's what I'm trying to say. Even if you pay a transaction fee to the supermarket, the fund company is still paying t…
JR writes in essence that minor discrepancies among multiple sources of data are on the same order of magnitude as the difference between multiplicative and additive calculations. So don't sweat it.
I'll decompose that because I disagree with two…
An investor should select a broker based on their needs and priorities.
Therein lies the key. Consider "investment choices". As a fund investor, I want access to the funds I want. That means that the fact that a broker offers a gazillion useles…
“Freeloading” is in the eye of the beholder. If Vanguard, Fido, and D&C don’t want to pay Schwab its shelf fee then that’s good for their fund owners. Why should I pay extra fees because someone else wants the convenience of buying their funds t…
The line item in the table is not well labeled. If you read the text, you'll see that this item is growth in profits, not profits.
Company profits are distributed to investors in two ways that are summed:
1. Dividends
2. Stock appreciation
F…
"Several experiences of waiting 20+ minutes on hold"
That sounds about right - the minimum time I've been experiencing. Though to cut it down to that "short" a time, I had to use two tricks.
One trick recommended to me by a Vanguard rep, is t…
While they may have better access, since 2000 any information provided to them must also be made public.
SEC Regulation FD (fair disclosure)
The timing of the required public disclosure depends on whether the selective disclosure was intentional …
I don't know how one chooses.
Isn't that really the point? That one doesn't know, except in hindsight, whether one's manager will be there tomorrow, whether a fund's method is "solid" or will change, or even if it doesn't change whether it will c…
My initial sentiment was only about sticking with solid method over time.
Your initial post showed how wonderful FLPSX was compared with other funds you considered as alternative investments at the time of a market peak (give or take). The fund …
Let us propose that in the late 1980s or early 1990s we were persuaded, from press or elsewhere, that this guy Tillinghast was worth giving some money too.
Using performance since inception, an objective time frame, is a definite improvement over u…
@msf, in showing how wrong additive decomposition of factors is, are you also making a point about this conclusion?
A couple, at least.
That his relying on people's intuition that the factor weightings should sum to 100% is wrong. So his factor w…
Graphical image to illustrate why one can't decompose factors additively:
Start with 1x1 square (black).
If you double the height, you add the yellow square (1 new square).
If you triple the length, you add the blue squares (2 new squares).
If…
As Rbrt pointed out, the effects of various factors are multiplicative, not additive. It is an error to try to hammer the question into an additive one. This mistake permeates the column. Not only in the "straw men" as John put it, but in the …
Yes, a smaller asset base might result in a higher ER, but M*'s speculation was that the higher fee was also due to its higher return potential.
The full sentence reads: "Its fees are likely to come down as assets scale, but the higher levy also li…
There's no question that in its early days when FLPSX was a small cap fund, it was virtually peerless. But that changed after it drifted into mid-cap territory. Performance was readily exceeded by several of the funds you list here. Perhaps yo…
That remarkably awful last sentence comes straight from the WSJ (link to WSJ source provided in StockXPro column). The WSJ piece does have more information including:
TCW executives are confident that its team-based structure will help the firm av…
Question for the math inclined - he has simply added these rates, should he multiply each component? IE: (1+a/100)(1+b/100)etc…-1?
You're right. Further, this fundamental flaw permeates the column, so I wouldn't look at any of the numbers. (I di…
A couple of curious speculations from M*:
the higher levy [higher ER on Select Div Growth vs. VDIGX] also likely reflects Vanguard Advice Select Dividend Growth's greater return potential.
Vanguard says that it prices funds at cost. M* is specul…
Interesting that Schwab shows the fund closed today, a day ahead of the official closing. That's significant because Schwab allowed one to get in with a $2500 min.
Now that investors will have to go directly to RiverPark to open an account, the…
The third fund may be of interest to people trying get access to Baillie Gifford without being "impeded" by another management firm. (VWIGX is 70% managed by Baillie Gifford and 30% by Schroders.)
Details, details ...
The PR piece says that "The …
I have been using Firstrade for years and happy with service overall. I can confirm that they do charge loads for load funds, but I still find they have the best selection of funds being offered at NTF AND institutional shares at low minimums in s…
Just received from TDA...
However, the transaction fee for your purchases of funds from certain fund families that do not pay TD Ameritrade for record keeping, shareholder, and other administrative services on the shares purchased will increase to…
Firstrade:
A Short Term Redemption Fee of $19.95 will be applied to redemptions of mutual fund shares held less than 90 days. Broker-Assisted redemptions will incur a charge of $19.95. Redemptions of less than $500 will incur a $19.95 fee, unless th…
That says that Moodys is sticking to its guns, having predicted 4.5% based on last month's data (CPI-W through June). However, unless you expect deflation in the next couple of months (Aug, Sept figures), the Moody's figure is too low.
Assumin…
Here's SSAs summary of ways to make social security solvent. 22 out of the 33 pages are tables with bullet items and brief descriptions of different changes that could be made.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/provisions/summary.pdf
For the gory…
IMHO the headline is clickbait.
The column that is the source of these findings includes the paragraph:
And not just impulsive, but sometimes inebriated: 32% of investors admit they’ve traded stocks while drunk. ... younger investors admit to fa…
I'ves seen an increase in the use of harmonic average, because it supposedly eliminates outliers, is that correct?
Since no data points are excluded in calculating a harmonic average, outliers are not being eliminated. The formula doesn't even i…
I can't say how much BG is getting per dollar under management. But I can address the capacity question.
As of August 31, 2020, the two BG fund managers at the time (Anderson and Coutts) were managing a bit less than $110B, including four mutua…
The two Schroeder managers on VWILX comprise the management for SCIEX. The three B-G managers on VWILX are the three longest tenure (of five) managing BGESX. One of those, Anderson, also co-managed BSGLX from inception until a year ago.
So if I…
In another Bogleheads thread, there is the observation that negative earnings may not be that big a factor in S&P index funds. That is because the S&P indexing methodology excludes nonprofitable companies. Though there would still be a la…
Nice piece by GMO. It's basic enough that at most all one needs is Econ 101, not macro, to follow. But by the same token, it may be glossing over some things.
For example:
The impact of fiscal deficits on the economy is complicated and requires…
Yes, it's just supposed to keep us even-steven. But I can choose NOT to spend that 6.2% and INVEST it! Yaba daba doo.
Which means that the value of the remaining portion of your SS check, i.e. what you're spending, is 6.2% less than last year. …
Here's the relevant data presented in the opinion column:
"consumer prices rose a lot less in July than they did in June."
At least that's two data points (July and June inflation figures) as opposed to the single data point that the Senior Citizen…
