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.
CNBC article, Monday:
"In the days ahead, Jones expects the Fed to institute some type of facility to address commercial paper."
NYTimes article Wednesday (link comes from Mark's MMF article):
"Taking a page from its 2008 financial crisis playboo…
Here's the Fed PR release:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/files/monetary20200318a1.pdf
I'm surely in the minority here, but my reaction is: how dare they!
The federal government bailed out MMFs a decade ago and swore it w…
The IRS finally issued its guidance as Notice 2020-17.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-17.pdf
Payments may be delayed until July 15th, not 90 days as Mnuchin stated. Close enough for government work, I suppose.
Taxpayers are also allowed t…
"You get so used to CNN and the others exaggerating stories to attract viewers that by the time something serious like this comes along you’ve become a bit jaded and dismissive. But this is the real deal folks."
There's a fine weekly program on NPR…
In the past, ARTKX is a fund I would have looked at. But given its declining relative performance over the years (going from 5* over the past 10 years to 4* over the past five, to 3* over the past three), I might have expected it to have reopened …
"Ordinarily, individual income taxpayers must submit their 2019 tax returns by April 15. This delay would push the due date to July 15."
Are you sure? The article says that taxpayers can delay payments up to 90 days, but it doesn't seem to say th…
By definition, prime MMFs are not exclusively invested in federal government securities, let alone treasuries. This is why the SEC instituted regulations on prime MMFs that require them to impose redemption fees and/or restrict redemptions when th…
And then there's all the lights and heat not being used in the public schools, the parochial schools, the churches, (all of which have, in the past, been immune to recessions and are now closed).
Plus just the lights in restaurants and stores…
The US does have more ICU beds per capita than other countries as the graphic shows. A Johns Hopkins page provides similar data.
That's certainly one measure of preparedness. But it's just one of many and IMHO underscores how the US healthcare…
All gone. Donated: 2/3 to a local church, 1/3 to Tennessee attorney general's office.
https://www.boston.com/news/national-news-2/2020/03/15/matt-colvin-donates-hand-sanitizer
The originally cited column reads in part:
If you’re a young investor, and even if you’re anxious about the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, most of your 401(k) should be invested in stocks, with a smaller share in bond funds
But what if you'r…
Dollar, Equity Futures Drop as Fed Slashes Rates (Bloomberg via Yahoo)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yen-extends-gains-fed-slashes-210909833.html
Futures on the S&P 500 fell 3.9%. The gauge advanced 9.3% on Friday.
Also because, as @PRESSmUP pu…
But wait, there's more. Remember how WHO offered to send test kits to the US and we didn’t take them? Then Jared Kushner was put in charge of the response?
Oscar
Two guesses who’s brother owns this company...
About OscarNot to get too far off t…
In the way back days I lived in Taiwan for 2 years. There would be, as there are now; times when one wouldn't have a full understanding or full thought or reply to a question or circumstance.
One phrase I used, at times, in Taiwan was:
我能说什…
What about testing to know if someone has COVID-19? Bottom line, there is not enough testing capacity to be broadly useful. Here’s why.
■ The leading clinical lab firms, Quest and Labcore have capacity to process 1000 kits per day. For the na…
Here's a NYTimes article on the TP panic buying.
"A retail analyst, Burt Flickinger of Strategic Resource Group, said big box retailers like Costco and BJ’s Wholesale Club have been able to restock most empty shelves within a few hours, or by the …
I had transferred my taxable account holdings (cost basis figures don't matter in IRAs) out of Merrill Edge because of their rounding/fudging and other problems. Merrill provided the receiving brokerage its incorrect figures.
The receiving broker…
"This is why we have to Flatten the Curve."
All the bullet items shown are economic. Why would spreading out the same number of incidents over a longer period of time ("flattening the curve") help the economy? IMHO, we need to (a) flatten the cu…
Now I see for EACH of my $100 x 4 investments I've been charged $50 commission. If anyone contemplating TIAA, stop. I'll try to figure it out. The funds STILL show NTF. And I was never charged for my initial investment. It's also clear additional in…
If we're going to go all technical on a poorly written speech (cargo included), let's get it right. The speech mentioned the United Kingdom in the 7th paragraph, not Great Britain.
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/11/21176001/trump-coronavirus-speech…
I'd give the generic answer that Vanguard is better at running index funds - often holding less cash, trading with an eye to tax implications, etc. But there's an additional reason that Vanguard index funds are more tax efficient. They usually h…
A follow up article, of sorts:
in recent days, as fears of a pandemic have escalated, the market for Treasuries has experienced a liquidity problem — meaning that the buying and selling of this kind of debt at reasonable prices has suddenly gotten a…
Geez, thanks I think. I'm not sure I'm even in the same league as msf and TheShadow, and I often wonder if I'm even playing the same game. You're giving me way too much credit. Having worked a few years in the semiconductor industry (specifically …
As Boris Johnson explained a week ago:
1. Containment
2. Delay (so that resources will be less stressed)
3. Research
4. Mitigate
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1250211/Coronavirus-UK-plan-what-is-UK-plan-four-phases-Boris-Johnson-speech-in-ful…
I see the confusion - terminology. What you call the "retail class" is a fund with two classes, a retail class and an institutional class. The latter (PRAMX) has the same $1M min as the institutional fund's single share class.
The retail fund (i…
To clarify - these are two different funds. The fund being liquidated is "Institutional Africa & Middle East Fund". The fund you own, which has two share classes (investor and institutional) is "Africa & Middle East Fund".
The former (T…
Deposition and photolithography are two distinct steps in the manufacture of semiconductors. A third step is etching.
One deposits a layer of silicon, then applies the mask (stencil) for a layer of circuitry, and then etches the layer. Rinse…
I wonder why TRP isn't simply merging this fund into its retail Africa & Middle East fund, converting TRIAX shares into the institutional class shares PRAMX of the latter fund. Same manager, effectively clones.
TRIAX page: https://www.trowepr…
Corporate money market accounts used to be more common, but many shut down a few years ago. GE Interest Plus was one such account.
Dominion Energy is a holding company rated BBB and these unsecured notes are junior to all notes and other liabil…
"This is why when volatility increases, such as the last 3 years, their funds lag."
Volatility decreased for DODFX and in foreign markets.
Std dev Jan 2014 - Jan 2017
DODFX: 14.81%
EFV: 12.97% (iShares MSCI EAFE Value, used as proxy for foreign la…
"Taking into account bad performance of non-US stocks ..."
Local performance or converted back to dollars? VMVFX "seek[s] to hedge away most of the currency exposure resulting from its foreign stock holdings."
I didn't go back to check, but I'm…
I'm not sure that I've imported the daily figures correctly from Yahoo (website change among other uncertainties), and I think that daily returns tend to have too much noise (which is one reason why std dev of funds is typically calculated on monthl…
Just like Social Security retirement age, the government has defined two different end points for savings bonds:
SS: full retirement age (65-67 depending on date of birth)
Savings Bonds: original maturity (20 years)
SS: Maximum delayed retirement …
Media might be overdrive/panicking and overkill. Think we may have more patients die annual from flu
Patients less 60 years old usually recover 99%
Meaning that 1% of patients under 60 don't recover - a euphemism for "die". Of course fatalit…
The Aggregate Bond Fund, like its benchmark, is higher grade, investing in virtually no junk bonds. Even among investment grade bonds, it takes more risk, holding a lower percentage of government bonds and a higher percentage of BBB bonds.
It's t…
fido not so much, depending on your definition of skimpI had debated about mentioning that Fidelity's MMFs pay more, but since their top rate for sub $1M min MMFs is just 8 basis points above Schwab's, I didn't feel it was worth going into the numbe…
I would be inclined to use Schwab or Fidelity in the decumulation phase (retirement), because they charge nothing to sell TF funds. Also, they both have excellent customer service, and FWIW both have offices that you can walk into.
If you're l…
My point was that, absent this research to the contrary, one can not conclude that a fund investing based on politics is "not acting on the behalf of the shareholders." Such a strategy could actually inure to the shareholders' benefit (though the …
