Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

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.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

msf

About

Users name
msf
Joined
Visits
32,856
Last Active
Roles
Member

Comments

  • Factually speaking, voting by mail is a nearly universal option by now. We're only talking about a very few states implementing it for the first time this year. ... Not to get too far in the weeds but I believe only 10 states automatically mail out …
  • Seek and ye shall find. Ally Bank, loyalty reward. "We’re currently giving a 0.05% Loyalty Reward when you renew your CD to any CD with us. Check back 30 days before your CD matures to see what the reward is at that time." https://www.ally.com/ba…
  • It's not closing the bank account that can affect your credit score, but opening the account. A small number of banks do a hard pull on your credit report when you open an account. The hard pull in turn affects your score. https://www.doctorofcre…
  • The only thing I have done in taken equal time is to presents opposing views and perspectives that counters those posted about Trump. If that were the only thing you were doing, you would get more support, perhaps not for your perspectives but for…
  • Subject: Air Quality Alert - Red Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2020 20:29:56 +0000 (UTC) From: ALERTSF AlertSF is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco and powered by Everbridge, Inc. ALERTSF: Air Quality-Unhealthy: Active youth/adu…
  • Trump's cleanup crews present so many versions that one can hear whatever one wants to hear. Here is a Forbes piece, White House Walks Back ‘Permanent’ Payroll Tax Cut Amid Social Security Concerns, quoting people ranging from a Trump reelection ad…
  • This type of issue has been encountered elsewhere. There are Diversified Pacific/Asia funds, and Pacific/Asia ex-Japan funds. Though in the index fund for Pacific/Asia, VPADX, Japan represents 59%. That's nearly 50% higher than China's weight in…
  • That's very good to see. Karin Anderson's Fund Spy report at the end of July led one (or at least me) to believe that little if any of this new tool would be available to the unwashed masses. Useful data.
  • Chicago, Portland and Seattle where they defunded the police All I know is what I read in the "papers", like Fox News (headlines from August 18): Chicago Mayor Lightfoot, DC Mayor Bowser, slammed for handling of protests, deliver message at DNC ab…
  • Jobs created is reflected by decline in the number unemployed. To normalize comparisons, we look at changes in rates. It would hardly be fair to compare the absolute number of jobs created in a large metro area like Chicagoland with a "relatively"…
  • These days, investing directly in foreign stocks sold on foreign exchanges is pretty easy. I'm guessing that's what you've been doing. Investing in offshore funds is more difficult. Several years ago, I looked briefly into making use of a dua…
  • FWIW, the management fees are going up by 1 basis point (each share class), because Wellington charges more than Vanguard's Quant Equity Group (QEG). Also, there's a technical error in the supplement. I have sent the following to Vanguard: The fu…
  • Decline of the middle class, or a skewing within the middle class? 1967: 84% middle class 2016: 85% middle class The working class is another story. As the WaPo concluded: "Falling behind is the lower middle class, once called the working class."
  • You're usually better than "I heard something from someone who thinks that ..." (To your credit, you clearly stated the sketchiness of this rumor.) Let's ignore for the moment that such a tax would likely be unconstitutional, as the Constitution im…
  • WSJ: So Long, California? Goodbye, Texas? Taxpayers Decide Some States Aren’t Worth It Texas ranks among the states with the highest share of taxpayers who pay more than $10,000 in property taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builde…
  • $9B/20 miles ($450M/mile) is right in line with average costs, including foreign countries where construction costs are much lower. But all this comparison really shows is that one can't simply look at price tags, both because each project is uniqu…
  • This is a five minute NYTimes video from a couple of years ago, even more relevant now: https://nyti.ms/2F7niwO (if you're not a subscriber, there's a brief lead-in ad) Is There Something Wrong With Democracy For years, the number of democracies in…
  • Saw the article. This is absurd on its face - it would mean that all a president would have to do to avoid Congressional oversight would be to sign commercial agreements containing NDAs with private companies. The part you didn't mention: the com…
  • Trump gives so much pointers to them to act on but they are just sitting on behind. A friend of mine reminded me the other day (can't find a source): don't try to kill someone when he's busy committing suicide.
  • It is not for the US to "make Jerusalem the capital of Israel." According to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (a US Public Law), "Each sovereign nation, under international law and custom, may designate its own capital." What's Harris' po…
  • " is on the record opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel" just like that Jewish fellow: " I do not support the BDS movement," https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-statement-on-anti-bds-bi…
  • Here's the prospectus supplement announcing the change from diversified to non-diversified (and the vote required). The funds affected are "Vanguard U.S. Growth Fund, Vanguard Health Care Fund, Vanguard Energy Fund, VVIF – Growth Portfolio, and VVI…
  • We are already seeing price inflation in real estate prices as a result of low interest rates (fed policy). It doesn't look like that's been the case over the past three years. Though what's missing from the graph below is median square footage. …
  • not that I know of when the candidate is in the office and campaigning at the same time Trump started campaigning for reelection even before he was in office. So if "campaigning" is the metric, he could never change running mates while not campai…
  • Not that it matters, but the tickers for the last two funds (Int'l Gov Bond and US Core Bond) are reversed. This filing is in a sense a followup to a filing last February liquidating the four Wells Fargo Factor Enhanced funds. https://mutualfundobs…
  • One can see from the images below, the glide path of these new funds is the same as the glide path of T. Rowe Price's Retirement Fund series of target date funds. That's TRP's more aggressive target date series. The difference seems to be that th…
  • There's a whole spectrum of risk/reward in the "cash-ish" arena. If one is looking for something one can draw from daily, that's called a checking account. One can fudge that by using a savings account (generally limited to 6 withdrawals per mon…
  • So far, TRP seems to be putting old wine into new bottles. It has historically positioned itself as a money manager that does more intensive research, thus adding value. This has enabled it to charge the higher fees that go with active managemen…
  • "What happens if you have no poa/beneficiaries and something bad happen to you -Probate processing maybe costly and time consuming." Probate of an uncontested will is usually easy and doesn't incur large legal fees. While state laws allow executo…
  • If you mouse over the curve, you'll get the 0.087% figure (roughly the 0.1% you eyeballed). Yes, sir, that's about a half buck every six months. And you'd have to reinvest that king's ransom yourself to get it to compound. Be of good cheer - it…
  • Bubkis (0.087%). Current AAA muni yield curve: https://emma.msrb.org/ToolsAndResources/BloombergYieldCurve?daily=True
  • Love OJ's pictures. Shares of Kodak plunged Monday after a US agency suspended a loan intended to support the former photo giant's launch of a new pharmaceutical venture. ... The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Securities and Exchange Comm…
  • I figured that you linked to the week 10 report because that was the source of the article's data. Likewise, I used the later data primarily because it was in the CityLab article. One would hope landlords would be forgiving, but many times it does…
  • While Wellington has been associated with Vanguard for as long as Vanguard's been around, it does also submanage many funds elsewhere. A couple of the other families that come to mind are: Harbor Funds: HMCNX (not cheap, a new midcap fund) Hartfo…
  • There's a renters sheet for each state in the HPS weekly survey spreadsheets. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2020/demo/hhp/hhp12.html AK: 25% Occupied with Rent................No confidence....Slight confidence...Moderate confidence..High conf…
  • I wasn't familiar with the Household Pulse Surveys: The U.S. Census Bureau, in collaboration with five federal agencies, is in a unique position to produce data on the social and economic effects of COVID-19 on American households. The Household Pu…
  • Magnitude 5.1, Sparta N.C. https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=-19.64259,-203.55469&extent=73.87372,8.08594
  • Obama reduced (admittedly not down to zero) social security taxes without reducing the amount of money going into SS. Trump virtually never provides details of how anything works ("I'm sure he's too ill-informed to know that"). So, unlike many o…
  • "If I'm victorious on Nov. 3, I plan to forgive these taxes." This is buying votes, pure and simple. Apparently perfectly legal. Still, I find such crude quid pro quo odious: To quote Justice Brennan of the United States Supreme Court, in his 19…
  • There's "flexible" and there's flexible. The former (perhaps I have these backward :-)) is what @Bitzer is describing: funds where the pool they "fish" in is everything. Commodities, alternatives, whatever, anything goes. Flexible funds, on the…