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.
Some fund categories are very broad while others are more focused. For example, M* divides broad based (i.e. not government or HY) taxable bond funds into short, intermediate, and long term. Recently it went to even finer granularity, dividing …
- I’ve been slowly reducing exposure to this one for the last 9-10 months because it’s had a very good run in recent years and may be nearing some sort of retrenchment. The “slack” (so to speak) has been taken up by PBDIX and PRIHX, both of whi…
It's unclear what risk is to be mitigated. LLJB speaks of " put[ting] your kids in equities ... and very likely have dug them[] a deep hole after 7 years."
LLJB then goes on to put this in the context of sequence of return risk: "because they g…
"My take is So what? 40y??"
It sounds like you are thinking about a single 40 year investment. Of course if we invest money in something with an average return of X% over 40 years, it doesn't matter what the sequence of returns is. We wind up w…
VWINX is my "go-to" fund to benchmark this category. That's not to say there aren't comparable funds. But because it is such a solid long term performer, for me to prefer another fund to this one I would want to see something about the other fun…
In checking against the Dec 31, 2019 semi-annual report, one sees that the 19% increase in "credit weighting" came primarily at the expense of government (sovereign) debt that declined 9.4% and securitizied debt that declined 10.9%.
Max drawdown of VWSUX was 3% between March 9 and March 20.
Max drawdown of VUSFX was 1.4% between March 11 and March 20
Vanguard Short Term Tax-Exempt Fund's inception was Sept 1, 1977. In 2001, Vanguard added Admiral shares. Doesn't matter, the…
This is good, if insignificant news. At 0.04% SEC yield, VUSXX is currently yielding 33% more than Vanguard's default money market fund, VMRXX (formerly a prime MMF, now a government fund). VMRXX is yielding 0.03%. And VUSXX is yielding a "who…
M* calculates most of the fund metrics itself (you can find various methodology papers for their different formulae, e.g. Style Box Methodology, Morningstar Fixed-Income Style Box, and Credit Quality, Bond Fund Classification, and Performance).
For…
I appreciate all the comments and observations about how OAKBX has altered its portfolio (both in allocation and in types of bonds) over the past several years. This seems to be in response to the changing fixed income market (interest rates low a…
It looks like HFCSX has a history of not being tax efficient. Its tax cost ratio, not counting the current distribution (figures are through Nov. 30th) is 2.29% for one year and 2.18% for three years. Though funds in its category, MCG, are typic…
Thanks for the pointer to the column. You can find a list of Ed Studzinski's pieces here, including his November post:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2020/11/the-end-of-many-eras/
Your memory is perfect, right month, and 3/3 on his reasons. …
I'm sounding like a broken record here, but 2020 was an unusual year. Take a look at its performance since inception through 2019 instead. Over the 7¾ years, it achieved an annualized return of 5.156% vs its peers' 3.936%. Still impressive, bu…
Thanks Lewis, you got to this before me. Though perhaps I can add a little context and data.
Here's a news report from KCRA Sacramento. This or something like it could be the source of this misinformation on rates. The headline is correct, but …
Fuss promoted himself (to the extent that he did any self-promoting) by pointing out that he is one of the few bond managers around with experience in rising interest rate environments. I can't say how valuable that experience is, but as investors…
" If the thesis were accurate then there should be little difference in nursing home covid deaths between NY and states that did not follow the Cuomo doctrine, all of them would have allowed covid in before leadership knew better."
There should hav…
Since it's my question and I was asking what changed at Oakmark while you commented and continue to comment on M*'s analyst (prospective) ratings, you are not addressing my question. Oakmark used to have 4-5* funds; they're now all 1-2*. As you w…
“Richard J. Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, told POLITICO. 'Some of this was avoidable, preventable ...'"
Richard Mollot [said] “There was little reason for nursing homes to think they should only take in patien…
Side note: what happened to Oakmark? Not a single fund rated higher than 2 stars. Though M* still loves the company, giving most of its funds gold or sliver prospective (forward looking) analyst ratings.
M* "likes" them because they advertise o…
> I tried VBILX, for YTD old M* chart was close at 9.05, new chart 8.77%, real number 9.06
Real number? According to whom? Morningstar? That's a secondary source.
>Chuck says VBILV 9.04 YTD I say I can live with .04, .05, or .06 !
Consi…
>> [new M* charts] show reinvestments for mutual funds only, not for ETFs
wow, how dumb
What does this chart supposedly without reinvestments show? Just price appreciation, or price appreciation plus divs with 0% return (i.e. one just pil…
For tax wonks: An organization must be more than merely nonprofit in order for contributions to it to be deductible. For example, superPACs are nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations, yet a taxpayer cannot deduct contributions made to them.
https://stat…
That's a great list of most of the important numbers.
One class of figures it left out is charitable contributions. For 2020 only, if you make contributions in cash to a public charity excluding DAFs, you can contribute up to 100% AGI. This drop…
There's more to analysis than reading numbers off a table or a chart. One needs to understand what they represent.
First, notice that according to Yahoo, the return was 0.00% (no change) between March 4 and March 6. In contrast, M* reports a ga…
Regarding quality of markets, IMHO the problem is more the level of enforcement than unpredictable legal environments. An example of the latter might be attempting to remove Section 230 protections from social media companies in order to secure mi…
Remember this is for the advisor share class. The retail Investor share class for Oakmark tends to run about a dozen basis points higher.
See also the different share classes for Oakmark E&I (13 basis point difference), Oakmark Int'l (11 ba…
Curiously, the advisor share class OAYMX of the Oakmark Fund OAKMX is available at Vanguard ($1,000 min), Fidelity ($2500 min), and TD Ameritrade ($100,000 min), but the advisor share class OAYCX of the Bond Fund is nowhere to be had.
M* purchase p…
Since Tesla's addition to the S&P 500 has no direct effect on its market cap (though an indirect effect by requiring S&P 500 funds to buy it), this should have little impact on its inclusion or exclusion in market-cap based indexes. For ex…
What matters is how large a percentage of a fund portfolio the stock constitutes, rather than how large a percentage of the company a fund holds.
For example, VTISX holds roughly the same amount of BB as does VHCOX, about 1.4% of the company. …
FEXPX started out in 1994 as Fidelity Export Fund, focused on companies deriving at least 10% of their revenue from exported goods and services. Aside from driving the fund toward larger companies, I'm not sure what effect this constraint had. …
I'd at least hold off awhile with this new fund. It's not clear how it is managed and ISTM you are comparing its performance with the wrong benchmark.
Fidelity's prospectuses are typically vague, but this one more than usual. This is a fund of f…
The latter figures posted (i.e.-5.2% YTD, 5.9% MTD) are NAV performance, not price performance. IMHO NAV performance is a better indicator of long term performance (i.e. how well the fund is managed), while price performance tells you what invest…
There are lots of what in most situations are minor differences between 401(k)s and IRAs. This includes at least a couple I don't think I saw in any of the links: Roth 401(k)s have RMDs, and so long as one is working, RMDs don't apply to a 401(k) …
Strange but true. Figures (as I noted a few posts ago) are from Fidelity's "Key Statistics" page for the respective companies. The number represents "EPS Growth (Last 5 Years)".
AAPL is no slouch, but everything is relative. Quite a period i…
IJR and VTMSX should track pretty closely, because they're both based on the S&P 600. The former is a pure index fund that is designed to track the index. The latter "purchases stocks included in the S&P SmallCap 600 Index—an index that …
I wouldn't compare BRK.A to anything else.
I don't see any reason to own BRK.A
SPY beat it easily for 1-3-5-10 years and with lower voltility.
Okay.
Apple P/E = 35.6 (link)
You must have a reason in mind, some point you're trying to make, by prese…
"And one could argue the planet’s environment itself though without human agency is a stakeholder. "
One has ...
Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing - Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects, Southern California Law Review 45 (1972)…
All true, but I think it misses at least two points:
Yet in recent decades, Boeing — like so many American corporations — began shoveling money to investors and executives, while shortchanging its employees and cutting costs.Schools teach, or at lea…
No spin - you chose to use CRSP indexes as your authority, I just looked at what those classifications represented.
Would you say that BRK.A is, or has been a growth stock over the past several years? I ask because based on the metrics you gave it…
somewhat OT, but can anyone find a link for closing a vanguard 403B and rolling the money out in-kin to another firm? I am having trouble assisting one of my kids in this ...The firms where I've had employer-sponsored plans have generally performed …
