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.
I've had limited vicarious experience (POA, executor) with investment real estate property including depreciating and inheriting it, and with using a margin account to borrow against securities (drawing out cash). So I've gone through the processe…
From the first piece:
You’ll want to put this money into the stock market, real estate, or another asset class that appreciates. ...
Real estate is almost perfect for this because: its value tends to go up,
it is not volatile
you can de…
It's often argued that SS COLA should be based on CPI-E rather than CPI-W. That's an argument that cuts both ways.
The latest (Dec 2020) relative weightings of the different basket components of CPI-E and CPI-W can be found here: https://www.bls.…
A bit more about how AMG handled the Brandywine funds (Friess Associates):
In 2001, Friess Associates facilitated succession from its founder by partnering with Affiliated Managers Group (AMG), making Friess Associates a majority-owned subsidiary of…
they have already appreciated well in HOPE of the bill passing (priced in)
While your particular fund may have gone up well, the infrastructure category as a whole is up "just" 8.19% YTD (using M*'s basic fund screener, Infrastructure category, re…
From cited paper:
One of the primary questions clients want answered is: What is the safe maximum withdrawal rate? Once again, Bengen has done some of the seminal work on this topic and has currently settled on a withdrawal figure of 4.15 percent fo…
Nice piece. Evensky is a common sense kind of guy. I'm not sure where that excerpt came from, because it looks somewhat like a mashup of three consecutive paragraphs on p. 71 (pdf p. 9) of the cited paper. It's worth reading what's in the paper…
Had Theil bought these shares in a taxable account the $5 Billion would also be mostly tax free to his heirs
Perhaps $3B would have been passed tax free to his heirs, after accounting for the 40% federal estate tax. While there are ways to circum…
founding shares with cost base that costs penny
Here's where one of those factors of 10 comes from ...SEC filings ... show that he bought his first slice of the company in January 1999. Thiel paid $0.001 per share — yes, just a tenth of a penny — …
I know I promised no quotes, but it's not accurate that "anyone here who is or was an excellent investor could have invested in their choice in 1999."
Mr. Thiel purchased his founders’ shares in PayPal through his Roth IRA during PayPal’s formation.…
One of a whole bunch (aka all) of the James Alpha funds
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2021/06/briefly-noted-58/
Aug 4, 2020 (Business Wire)
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200804005968/en/Easterly-Announces-Investment-in-James-Alpha-A…
The path was a little more messy.
Rochedale Emerging Markets Portfolio, starting on Dec 11, 2011. It was reorganized into City National Rochedale Emerging Markets Fund on April 1, 2013.
It has been managed since inception by Anindya Chatte…
In making these comparisons there are a few factors to keep in mind, for good or for bad ...
I believe Vanguard's portfolios are age dependent. That is, they follow glide paths. So depending on age, one person's "aggressive" portfolio could be an…
>> The Ulcer Index is about half of the S&P 500 meaning half as risky.
Is that what UI means / is supposed to mean?
IMHO the answers are: no (it doesn't mean this) and yes (it is supposed to mean this).
Leaving aside what "risk" even m…
@davidrmoran - my comment was self deprecating. Nothing more. An acknowledgement that my correction, though accurate, was immaterial to the topic at hand. If anything, by stating that Horstmeyer was a full professor I was giving more weight to a…
In the interest of petty accuracy and little else, according to his CV Horstmeyer is a full professor (as of February), and was a co-founder of the GMU Student Managed Investment Fund.
https://www.filesusr.com/ugd/3d3433_7004625502e5427fa5fb144f5ab…
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-big-charts-from-the-june-jobs-report-morning-brief-090813859.html
OJ is correct - the link is to each individual's email. I suspect that if Derf logged out of Yahoo and then followed the link, the system would pro…
The writer is a monthly columnist for the WSJ. I can find no corresponding working paper through the writer's website.
Unannounced to their investors, mutual-fund managers will often lend the shares they hold ...
Unannounced?Securities lending i…
Taking a quick look at MWFSX, I couldn't help but notice that M* reports a rather suspiciously high SEC yield of 8.55%! Just curious how that is possible in today's low interest rate environment? Certainly raises a red flag for me.
MWFSX : ER is a …
Was looking for a HY bond fund that had held up decently ("defensive?") in 1Q 2020. Found EIXIX with a 5.5% SEC Yield.
I took only a cursory look at EIXIX so all I've got are lots of questions, not clear statements: What is the average credit rati…
Here's a more detailed history of AMG:
https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/13/Affiliated-Managers-Group-Inc.html
Until I checked, I also thought: "Affiliates operate independently" and "AMG invests in independent investment managers and a…
AMG is effectively a holding company. You may be familiar with at least a few of their funds, e.g. YACKX, TCMPX (mentioned by a few posters here as recently as 2020), BRWIX (formerly Brandywine), MGSEX (" Effective March 19, 2021, AMG Managers Spe…
I dearly wish, however, that MFO wasn't almost exclusively aimed at catering for those in retirement or approaching retirement.
There is practically nothing at all within these pages to cater for or appeal to those starting out on life's investmen…
How in the world can anyone short anything in this market ...
You might as well ask how in the world anyone can underweight anything in this market. Easy, because some securities perform better than others. Shorting just takes underweighting a …
Can't find the cited WaPo article on 2019 withdrawal option changes. Here's a reasonable alternative piece
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tsp/2019/09/new-tsp-withdrawal-options-are-live-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Regarding the claim that one ca…
We also have an advisor at Fidelity that we really like, which would be essential if I die before my wife, who has no interest in investing.
From Fidelity (all bolding is by Fidelity):
Our brokerage products and services for retail investors are pr…
Hank said ; Good grief. This stuff is complicated!
So complicated that the Fidelity rep got it wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. Recently in passing I commented to a rep that QCDs are available once one is 70½. He immediately "corrected" …
I’ll continue to learn. Experience is a great teacher - but it can be expensive.
I've found that the more expensive the lesson, the more likely one is to remember it in the future :-)
Umm … Just to clarify … Fido doesn’t appear to call those “short…
Based on what you were told, I may have misunderstood Fidelity's response. There are three ways fees could be imposed:
1) LIFO - if you purchased any shares within the past 30 days, a sale, even of different shares, would trigger a fee. Fideli…
1. Anticipating your question, I called Fidelity a couple of weeks ago. While I have nothing in writing, the front line support person checked with someone in the back and verified that NTF short term trading fees apply FIFO. (The policy could …
Schwab's platform fee discsloure to 403(b) plans includes:
Transaction-Fee Funds (“Fee Funds”)
As set forth in the Commissions and Transaction Fees section of the Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Individual Investors, Schwab charges clients a trans…
So long as one has an open position in a taxable account, I feel it is important to retain some proof of purchase price. One may need all the monthly statements because there are no trade confirmations for reinvested divs.
If one has been reporti…
There were about a dozen separate accounts because TRP created an account for each mutual fund, for some odd reason.
My understanding (read: no citations, I could be in mistaken) is that until sometime in the 80s(?), each mutual fund investment at …
Schwab seems to have the clearest description of violations and how they can/must be treated by the broker ("creditor" in the regs). The rules come from Regulation T, and in particular §220.8 covering cash accounts.
https://www.schwab.com/resourc…
I must not have been paying attention. While Schroder has been submanaging several Hartford funds for some time, it looks like they have also been moving out of the retail business. They currently have just two US funds still marketed under thei…
Here's a little more info:
Freeriding
In a cash account, an investor must pay for the purchase of a security before selling it. If an investor buys and sells a security before paying for it, the investor is “freeriding” which is not permitted unde…
Certainly RPEIX is not the primary driver, even if we take its 1/6 naively at face value. (I had considered posting a link to an explanation of notional value somewhere else in this thread.)
RPIEX (retail class of RPEIX) serves as starting point f…
The largest single holding (1/6 of the portfolio) is T. Rowe Price Dynamic Global Bond (RPEIX / RPIEX). That's where the magic may be be coming from.
A simple 18/82 blend of VTSAX and RPIEX produces a portfolio with
- lower standard deviatio…
On an every-day experience level we just came back from Safeway having purchased a favorite flavor of Hagen-Daz ice cream. I thought that the cartons looked a bit smaller than before. Sure enough, down from 1 pint (16 oz) to 14 oz. We have no idea w…
The best I was able to do (helping someone else with their account) was to liquidate, rollover cash electronically to an IRA run by the same institution, buy ETFs (no commission), then transfer the IRA in-kind to the place where the friend really wa…
