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.
A low cost VA is somewhat like a nondeductible IRA - a tax sheltered investment that you fund with post-tax money, and that you pay ordinary income taxes on when you take your money out.
The cost of paying ordinary taxes on earnings tends to outwei…
While I agree that VAs are widely oversold, you'll notice that the second and third paragraphs above are comparing VA deferred annuities with fixed income immediate annuities. Not especially meaningful, but it makes for a great sound bite.
Do you…
" Individuals are limited to purchasing $10,000 of I bonds each year"
In addition, tax filers may also purchase $5K of paper I bonds, using their tax refunds to pay for them. That means that if you file jointly, you and your spouse are still limi…
What does "pound for pound" mean? ISTM that family net inflows per family AUM would be a reasonable metric. But this article talks about a family's net inflows per fund. It gives EJ as top gatherer ($75M/fund), with runners up gathering $65M/fu…
I agree that 3-PEAT seems to be the better tool. But since this entire thread is on MC, and ORP includes MC, that's what I addressed.
It seemed pretty clear that the idea of partitioning samples into Pos and Neg sets was to contextualize the retu…
See https://www.i-orp.com/ModelDescription/MonteCarlo.html
It makes curious use of historical returns, see Appendices B and C. Not that I have any idea how I would make use of historical returns, but partitioning into positive and negative years …
On the flip side, years ago we went from half gallon (64 oz) containers to 2 liter (67.6 oz) bottles. Sometimes a liter is just a liter.
Now if I just knew how many cubic inches my 2.0L engine displaced, I'd be all set :-)
https://www.cjponyparts…
@MikeM 's comment illustrates what I meant in saying that the Monte Carlo method is misunderstood. The method is nothing but a technique that "solves a problem by generating suitable random numbers and observing that fraction of the numbers obeyin…
I think people know that I'm not enamored with "Monte Carlo". That's because IMHO it is misunderstood, misrepresented, and misapplied. So it may come as a surprise, but I think the criticisms in the column miss the mark.
Given a numeric problem…
I went to a talk by the managers of MWTRX (20 years ago?) before MetWest was acquired by TCW. One of the audience questions was how they would compare themselves with PTTRX. They said that PIMCO funds (and PTTRX in particular) were so large that …
Sold out of most mama's fidelity equities positions at openings . Will Add more Fbnd and fidelity2015 TDFThe fund companies finally realized that one size does not fit all, so they've got multiple series of TDFs.
Would your Fidelity 2015 fund be:…
See my post above. I'm looking at the current (July 31, 2019) summary prospectus.
Vanguard is reporting the ER as of 6/10/2019, i.e. prior to the current prospectus. So its figure isn't current. It comes from last year's prospectus, dated July…
Memories fade. Sometimes we remember what we want to remember.
My own memory says that PIMCO funds were generally expensive, though I believe that there was a period of time when they actually got cheap. I think at one time Bill Gross said s…
"To further complicate things, the federal government in 1983 significantly changed the construct of the Consumer Price Index. The net effect was to understate the rate of inflation compared to the previous formula. The benefit to the government was…
You can find Part D standalone plans on Medicare.gov:
https://www.medicare.gov/find-a-plan/questions/home.aspx
There are 24 plans for the zip code you gave, including three Express Scripts plans: Choice ($79/mo premium), Saver ($23.90/mo), and Valu…
Senior drug coverage unlike the rest of Medicare is provided exclusively by private companies, not by the government. The theory is that they will compete for your business.
However, they rely for the most part on just three PBMs (70%+ of market …
@MFO Members: As a holder of Pimco Income Fund I admit the expensive is high, but what concerns me is the size of the fund $103.3 Billion. I beliece it's size has hurt performance over the last couple of years despite Dan Ivascyn's claim that it…
In a sense, people in the US already have a form of basic income. It's just that it's provided via a crazy quilt of programs. So much so that Milton Friedman proposed simplifying with his version, which he called a negative income tax. All vari…
IMHO this is not a big surprise. ABSs tend to have negative convexity and do not respond well to sharp drops in interest rates. Since May, when the 10 year Treasury was still fluttering around 2.4%, the 10 year yield has plummeted to 1.56% today…
Much of the difference is in how much borrowing the funds do. PTTAX pays 0.25% in interest expenses, while PONAX pays 0.55%. I assume this is borrowing is for the purpose of leverage. Under "Leveraging Risk" the prospectus reads:
"to the exten…
Once again we see context insensitive data masquerading as something applicable to now.Specifically, based on Trefis analysis of many decades of data:
There is overall about 8% chance that S&P 500 will drop by -5% or more, over 20 trading d…
Speaking of tracking multiple portfolios, I have a traditional IRA plus 3 separate converted Roths. It’s nice to track each of those IRAs separately. Only 1 Roth has satisfied the IRS 5-year holding time. A second one will in January.This is a bit o…
Now that M* mfund graphing is back partly working, does anyone have any thoughts about ETFs? When you graph a given mfund's $10k growth, then add an ETF symbol to compare, now M* appears to have restored their ETF database only partly, and moreover …
SPAXX is classified as a government MMF, meaning that it invests in government securities and is considered safe enough by the SEC that it is not required to impose redemption fees and/or redemption gates (freezes on withdrawals) in times of stress.…
As the article states, existing retail investors (as opposed to those working with advisors) can switch their accounts to use SPAXX as their core (transaction) fund. Note that FDRXX, another government fund, is currently yielding a few basis point…
The Fund seeks to generate returns that have low correlation with the returns of the stock and bond markets and seeks capital appreciation. The Fund's performance benchmark will change from the FTSE 3-month US T-Bill Index +4% to the FTSE 3-month US…
As Groucho Marx might say, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? A problem with visuals, and why I generally prefer numbers, is that visuals can be deceiving. The curves may appear alike because each represents an incremental chang…
According to Porfolio Visualizer, VTIAX (VXUS) and VEURX correlate 0.96.
DLEUX doesn't correlate as well to either of them, but it still correlates more closely to the Europe index (0.92), than to the total int'l index (0.87).
Here's the correl…
I really don't get into options, so all I know is what I see on the distributions. From Jan 20, 2017 to the present, Fidelity shows no short term cap gains for the fund, only long term gains.
That is, at least as far as reporting the divs was co…
Over DLEUX's lifetime (Dec 23, 2016 to present), VTIAX's total return has been 24.31%, while DLEUX has returned 23.69%. Not a big difference one way or the other.
(Remarkably, it is still possible to coax this data out of M*.)
DLEUX gets its …
"it’s tricking folks into missing out on big dividends (I’m talking yields of 8.6%+) and upside."
ETV is a managed payout fund where 93.5% of those "yields" is return of capital.
(The payout amount was apparently set so that it would match divs…
Fidelity's data, like Yahoo's, is delayed (it only shows June's div). Expect it to show the July div on Monday.
Merrill Edge, am I surprised?
Good idea to check brokerages. Schwab is up to date. It reports 3.99 cents.
Thanks to @catch22 …
Yes, distributions no longer seem to be available at Morningstar. That's been mentioned in the thread over at Morningstar.
You can still get distribution data from Yahoo. Like other third party sites (including Morningstar), Yahoo seems to l…
I stand corrected. Nice to know, it might help some people thinking about which brokerage to use.
It looks like VWELX can be bought at E*Trade if you already have a position there. (One can probably open an account at Vanguard and then trans…
I've heard that the big 3 will now control 95% of the US cell phone market. Does anyone here use any of the other providers such as Cricket, Boost, Consumer Cellular or other? If so what has been your experience? Thank you.
Mobile Virtual Network Op…
Fidelity and Schwab appear to charge to buy/sell Vanguard funds. Everybody (except for Firstrade, that sells all funds NTF) charges customers to buy Vanguard funds. In fact, at Fidelity, it costs $75 (rather than $49.95) to buy Vanguard funds bec…
The Money's My Life site missed a short term "bonus" promotion by Merrill Edge. Rather than the $600 shown there, one can get as much as $1000. See the Merrill Edge promotion page: https://www.merrilledge.com/offers/1000offer
Good through Sept.…
