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.
@Observant1 and @stillers: I also have BISAX, certainly because it has knocked the socks off its peers but also because Brandes Funds runs some really good strategies, domestic and international. When screening for OEFs or ETFs, I find the “Parent” …
My thanks also, @AndyJ. I am giving The Contrarian a shot. A strike against newspapers in NYC in 1962-3 brought talented journalists together and the result was The New York Review of Books. Let’s hope The Contrarian lasts as long and has equal pres…
I can’t think of a more difficult and probably less rewarding jobs than those done by many high-profile special counsels. Lawrence Walsh, Patrick Fitzgerald, Robert Mueller, and Jack Smith took on malfeasance at the highest levels of our government,…
Je Ju Do (also spelled Che Ju) is an island off the south coast of Korea. It’s a major tourist destination, but in the old days it was Korea’s Niagara Falls, the preferred honeymoon spot.
What @rforno says about the “dividends” is true. My father-in-law received physical checks from such energy partnerships as well as regular stock dividends. Family members recall him running down to the mailbox just after mail delivery to grab his c…
Josh Brown on CNBC around noon today, theorized that the weakness in techs is due to the very rich selling now (or instructing their institution to sell), as opposed to before year end, because they wanted to avoid a big tax bill for 2024. He said t…
Suggested reading: John McPhee, The Control of Nature. As early as 1988, McPhee warned that disaster loomed in the LA area because of people’s unwillingness to accept the fact that they were building in geological and climate conditions inimical to …
Very interesting stuff here @hank and @Old_Joe. My only speculative comment is that Juju Air has a bad rep for pushing crews to get as many flights as possible in a day and for questionable maintenance. Given the option to upgrade a data recorder, f…
I agree with @Mark’s assessment , « Something tells me the rubes won't remember that and/or care.« All this bluster about empire-building could be a diversionary tactic. Not only the supposed supporters won’t care, but the attention of the people w…
When synthetic oil came to be required a few years ago, I read that the then-new ceramic engine bearings have such fine tolerances that a conventional motor oil cannot lubricate them at low temperatures. I had changed my own oil for eons until the a…
Thanks for that article @AndyJ. For about two years I had been dissatisfied with the content (not political) of the Wapo. I wrote the editor to point out that much of the web version of the paper needlessly provided multiple links to the same articl…
We live in no-fault MI, like @hank. Our youngest daughter, a med student in NC, had her 2016 low-mileage Sentra totaled by a pothead who was not listed as a driver on the AAA policy in the name of his domestic partner. I had advised our kid not to c…
Thanks for those thoughts @AndyJ. I also made a contribution to ProPublica in ‘24. The Atlantic did hire someone noteworthy (name escapes me) from WaPo recently. Ron Brownstein has been getting quite a lot of air time at CNN talking about Carter
Fortunately, and as reported by the Times, The Atlantic is hiring and beefing up its political coverage. I have really enjoyed this magazine, one I had read in the distant past but which I did not rejoin until 2022.
@Crash: kudos to you for helping your niece get an education. My hasty reading the first time through had me wondering if sending money to Australia was a new idiomatic expression for kissing money goodbye. Au contraire! I, too, will fund education,…
Not to pile on, but I do have my USPS peeve, also. My brother lives in the Hudson Valley in a regular house with a normal street address. He also rents a P.O. Box, for reasons that escape me. In past years we have sent him a present using UPS or Fe…
I tried to buy on Tuesday, but my target, CLF, suddenly reversed course and finished up about 1% on the day. This year, I am going public with my infallible market-timing scheme and I will do so by becoming an INFLUENCER. Watch out below!
@Crash: I recall that episode also. IDNK if the rebels/students/extremists thought they'd do better with Reagan as president; their delaying certainly made it impossible for Carter to overcome the hostage crisis in the campaign. This afternoon on NP…
@hank and @Old_Joe: I’m not surprised by the seeming reticence of Korean authorities to release hard facts about the crash. I came to understand that there is a reluctance to mention negative facts about almost any situation in Korea while we lived …
Eerily, I was reading a long New Yorker piece from the 90’s on the crash of USAir flight 427, when the news broke about the JejuAir crash. The article is wonderful in its depiction of how a team of investigators is assembled, functions, and struggle…
@WABAC: cash I have on hand will go almost entirely to OSTIX and CBLDX although I have not ruled out CB’s Nordic fund. Now that CLF has fallen 10%+ from where I bought it, I may try to double the position tomorrow. Josh Brown on CNBC said to anticip…
@hank: I have no real evidence or medical facts to back up the following opinion. However, here goes. The American sedan has fallen out of favor in recent years because most of the potential (and past) buyers are in such poor physical health that ge…
@Old_Joe: in 1987 North Korean operatives planted a bomb in an overhead luggage compartment of KAL 828, a Baghdad to Seoul flight. On board was a Korean diplomat, a possible target. Everyone on board was lost. The sister of the diplomat, a nun and c…
Joined @WABAC in GRID today when midday saw almost everything sag. Where is a good corset or waist-cincher company when you really need one? Many Santa Claus Rally deniers on the prowl today. OSTIX distribution day, so planning to deploy more cash o…
@rono: thanks for your warm and reaffirming holiday message. In fact, there is little any one of us can do about big issues (war, pestilence, famine, miserable leadership), but we can grow flowers and put them on our bridges for the wonderment of al…
My bent mind sees the prospect of annexing Greenland and Canada as a very clever way of locking the exit doors from the now-intolerable US of A. Moving to a sovereign Canada or a Danish-controlled Greenland or even to a Central American paradise, pl…
@PRESSmUp: even tho we live in a metropolitan area of SE MI, our house might as well be in rural MI for connectivity purposes. The neighbors have Xfinity, but that company wanted $3500 in 2008 to connect our house. We tried a TV dish antenna for 2 …
@Old_Joe: sometimes I play dumb. I did not know the origin of the term and was too lazy to look it up. Somehow my wife can see right through my attempts to say I had no idea what she wanted done and therefore did not do it.
If it weren’t for @Mark’s link, I’d have never found whatever in creation I was looking for. Now that PK has my email handle, I seem to have access to a whole stack of reading material. I get that. However, @ Old_Joe, where does the “sub” come in? I…
The frightening aspect of this for me is that there are loyalist/fanatics who have been preparing a take-over of key agencies for several years. They are hitting the ground running, something that they were unprepared to do in 2017. Appointing detra…
@hank: Travolta did this ad last Christmas season also. There may be a couple of slightly different scenes this year, but I can’t recall all of last year’s ad. Jennifer Garner’s presence in other CapitalOne spots and her smile give me more than a li…
We signed up for a free week of Discovery+ in order to watch a 4-part series. We were astounded at the number and frequency of ads. I assume if you pay double the intro rate, you get no ads. No interest in that, just a confirmation of why we don’t w…
