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.
The paper describes political bias as just another form of systemic bias, like hometown (or home country) bias. Sometimes systemic biases can be justified. Invest in companies near you because you have better information about them (e.g. Mairs an…
"You can't beat the averages."
That's not quite what Rekenthaler wrote. Rather, echoing Sharpe, he wrote that "active funds in aggregate were destined to track their relevant indexes." Emphasis added.
It would have been more interesting had he…
Yes, but you're assuming a binary classification, while the paper classifies firms (and funds) into three categories: Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning, and neutral. So while a Republican-leaning manager might invest 43% in Republican-leaning…
TGBAX is both a bond fund and a currency fund. Hassenstab seems to invest in bonds anywhere in the world based on how he expects those bonds to perform independent of currency movements. In that sense, one can think of the fund as a hedged inter…
If you're investing a smaller amount, you could invest in the fund via BAWAX. An extra 0.25% in annual expenses is used to offset the brokerage fee enabling you to buy it NTF.
Alternatively, if you invested $20K in BIAWX and hold for a year, you …
Don't be too impressed by these DIY investors. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI):
for 2019 as a whole – well, in a year that the S&P 500 rose more than 28%, and the Dow gained 22% (the NASDAQ was up an even better 35…
Nice piece.
A virtue of slowing the spread, even if as many as 70% of the population are ultimately infected is that the peak is lower. That lessens the strain on the healthcare system (insufficient number of doctors, labs, material, hospital …
How is Amazon going to get orders delivered if all the delivery people stay home?
Drones? According to Amazon’s consumer worldwide CEO Jeff Wilke last June: “You’re going to see it delivering packages to customers in a matter of months.”
https:/…
To stop spreading the virus China they lock down the entire city and it slows the spread somewhat. Cannot image this can be done in a democratic society of large cities in US or Europe.
Lockdowns may not work and may even be counterproductive.…
Fund page: https://www.griffincapital.com/griffin-institutional-access-credit-fund
Prospectus for share classes A & C (including fee structure): https://www.griffincapital.com/Documents/GIACX/Marketing Materials/Sales Kit/CreditFund-Prospectus-…
If the reason why you are considering leaving PIMIX is an increase in its reported ER (0.74% in the 2018 summary prospectus, 1.05% in the 2019 summary prospectus), I respectfully suggest that you take a closer look.
The true operating costs of fund…
I wrote: CreditKarma is offering free federal and state tax filings, no income limits, with no upselling.
When you file with Credit Karma Tax®, you’ll never face unexpected charges or be asked to upgrade to a paid version. It’s always free to file …
Here's a M* chart comparing the performances of PIODX and MITTX over the lifetime of the younger fund (PIODX, starting February 10, 1928).
PIODX gained 2,911,544%, while MITTX gained a mere 241,202%. At least if I got my decimal points in the ri…
May I respectfully suggest we pay less attention to polls of the moment and more attention to cost figures with a little rigor behind them?
Regarding costs: as with investing, it's not how much you pay in taxes that matters, it's what you net afte…
Of course it's political. The mind reels at all the ways this can be used that way.
Get lots of people who don't have any cash for emergencies to place $2 bets on the stock market. Then they'll cheer for market performance that doesn't help the…
VBS is good for providing access to some third party funds with lower mins (e.g. Pimco institutional class shares @$25K), and it pays good interest on its settlement/transaction MMF (VMFXX). Also, for Flagship customers Vanguard waives the fee on …
I'm glad you mentioned that zero, because it highlights the distinction between current yield (interest payments), and yield to maturity (for individual bonds) or SEC yield (for bond funds).
That zero "yielded" zero (duh). It paid no interest. …
A few financial institutions provide free TT to those with enough assets held with them:
T. Rowe Price: Personal Services clients are provided free Turbotax Deluxe OnlineFidelity: some investors, unknown criteria (rumored to be Private Client plus s…
Schwab announced for stocks, not ETFs. I haven't got a clue why ETFs should be different or harder, or for that matter why CEFs are not included as well.
https://www.etftrends.com/core-etf-channel/how-will-schwabs-move-toward-fractional-shares-aff…
I wonder why he chose to highlight DFSVX rather than DFFVX. The latter is a bit larger cap, though still squarely within the small cap value box, and still below the category average market cap. Aside from this difference, the two funds appear p…
@joe74 posted some of what I was constructing below, though I may still be filling in a little:
"other EM debt local currency funds". Is either fund primarily invested in unhedged, locally denominated debt?
Vanguard says of its fund that "the ma…
Regarding the medal ratings - the old style analysis page of a fund still includes a list of all medalists in the same category as the fund being described. The analysis text itself seems the same as on the new version of the analysis page.
Prem…
Regarding IBM - it was a joke that displayed the contempt for AT&T's ineptitude - that it could wind up #2 by buying the computer leader and dragging it down to #2.
The first ESS, not surprisingly called 1ESS, was an analog switch. What made i…
The forced break up of AT&T by the federal government was in 1984, when the RBOCs and Bellcore were spun off. AT&T had delusions of grandeur, thinking that it was better off in the competitive computer market than in the regulated telecom …
The link that the page gives for Treasury yields is correct, but the yields it quotes for January 30, 2020 are way off on the long end.
"The current rate of the 30-year T-bond as of January 30, 2020, is 2.33%."
According to the Treasury page, the…
In terms of pure returns, I think you've got it right. Hank analogized paying off the mortgage with buying a AAA rated 4% bond, and that's a good way to think of it.
However, there are also risk factors that go beyond guessing which investment wi…
I couldn’t open Sven’s link.
Add a colon between the http and the //, or just cut and paste the link as "printed" in the post.
I agree with you about different value systems (recalling F. Scott Fitzgerald). My link works :-)
Regarding U of M, I …
That's right, we're going to Make America Great Again™ not by nurturing American businesses, but by becoming corporate raiders. Given the current budget deficit, I think it would qualify as an LBO.
See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/busi…
Are you trying to tell us that we should put our money into mattresses?
On the next trading day, CSPR closed at $11.05, down 18% on the day. That was lower than the bottom of its IPO pricing range, which had already been reduced by about a third f…
I wrote: The fund did well out of the gate, for its first two years, but has been essentially flat over the past three. My guess is that the star rating will nevertheless go up in a couple of weeks when the fund hits the five year mark.
The fund n…
I'm not clear how you're reading this. On the other hand, I took the fact that this was a 30 year loan as irrelevant, while you're trying to figure out what it means.
All that matters for a loan that you amortize (pay down by paying interest plus…
M* seems to have the value factor backward for all funds (or at least the few funds I spot checked). Evidence can be found by comparing the example for Brown Capital Management Small Company (BCSIX) in their Factor Analysis User Guide with the fac…
I read it as:
$150,000 balance [remaining on the 30 year mortgage]
$1,500 (P&I and a little extra for about a 10-year payoff)
(I also cheated and checked with an amortization calculator to see that a $150K balance at @4% can be paid off in ten…
@mcmarasco ISTM you're overthinking this.
The 30,000 foot view: What your are considering (investing the $150K) is a form of leveraged investment. It's as if you started with nothing in your pocket and your home paid off, and then you borrowed at…
Regarding the Credit Karma tax program.
Is this a download program that may be completed "at home" and mailed (paper form); or is all of one's data loaded to their server, remains there; and then the completed document is e-filed by the tax payer?…
There were competing proposals from the House and the Senate on eliminating/capping the ability to deduct state and local taxes. This was one of the most heavily discussed and debated provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Most …
There's a more interesting question because state and local tax (SALT) deductions were limited to $10K starting in tax year 2018. What happens if you do claim a deduction (of the full $10K) for SALT and then get a refund?
According to The Balance…
Is that all you had problems with? I'm still trying to decrypt this sentence in the piece:
China’s central bank talked about the cross would save particular that there turned ample liquidity throughout the banking scheme and assist present a bag …
Even without writing checks, simply having a bond fund where you automatically reinvest monthly can create pages of transactions when you sell enough of the fund.
I liquidated a fund in 2018 and the software generated 3½ pages of entries on Form 89…
