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.
Many good thoughts in this thread, particularly about the cost of higher ed. Many things were ridiculously cheap in the early 70's as @hank has illustrated. We bought a modest house in 1973 for $32K, then heated it and ran a gas dryer and water heat…
It's unlikely that the many candidates for the presidency will address the causes of student debt, although some may offer band-aid solutions for the problem. (For the record, I'm and old retired professor, given to cynicism and occasional bouts of …
I never got into DLEUX, but I am a fan of DSENX and CAPE. It's hard to make a case for international stocks. CAPE has gained 96% over the past five years while VXUS has lost 1.27%. The highly touted FMIJX has a yearly return of about 5% for the same…
@catch22posted a gem:
"We are in the process of updating our Market Data experience and we want to hear from you." Quite frankly, you don't want to hear from me and I object to the notion that there is such a phenomenon as a "Market Data experience…
Global and International Select funds were announced a while back, now another one. One might argue that micro and small cap overseas stocks are contrarian by definition, so I wonder what would be new in the Contrarian fund.
@AndyJ: there seem to be all sorts of glitches. One that trips me up constantly is the "chart" function that fails to recognize a fund's symbols for the purpose of running a comparison. The app for iPad is also faulty and won't open on the "quote" …
Is true that the "Purchase" function is no longer a part of fund's profile on M*? I have often relied on this button to show all share classes of a fund. I don't see it these days.
I was a shareholder of more than one Bridgeway fund, including BRUSX, but performance has really disappointed. It has been a M* bottom quartile fund for 6 of the past 10 years and for BRAGX, it's 5 out of 10 years as a caboose. While they may have s…
I have used TT for Mac since its first iteration as MacInTax. In my experience, if I manually enter brokerage tax information, even if my work is correct, the IRS wants the data downloaded from the brokerage and will make me provide it. I've had thi…
I also like BIAWX and AKREX. MAPPX is fine; it’s one of several good growth funds at MS with the stamp of Dennis Lynch on them, although he is far from the only manager.
@Charles is a data guy, for which we are grateful. When I subscribed to Barron's I found the data pages were perfect for getting the kindling and logs going in the fireplace.
I agree with you, @Lawlar, that it's hard to get good information about this fund. The portfolio is rightly labeled by Lipper as multi-cap growth, not LC, but I could not tell what stocks it shorts or even evidence of gold holdings. Under the curren…
If you go to the MFO Search box at the top of the Discussions page and enter BIAWX, you'll find that several members offered takes on the Brown Advisory fund in April. To wit:
The write-up on Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth is very revealing. I wa…
If that's not enough bad news, many outlets are reporting on an investigation into the 787, as in the Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/business/boeing-787-dreamliner-investigation.html
As to who owns BA, I know that it's a big position in…
Interesting link, @davidmoran, to 2013 MFO commentary. The link to Sam Lee's M* article on CAPE is worthwhile, particularly where he says he'd prefer more history than just back to 2002. He was also very prescient in saying he'd feel more comfortabl…
Schwab. At 134.57, at 3:40PM, 134.48 bid and 134.75 ask, so a 27 cent spread. What I have found, if I'm buying, is to put in a pretty low offer, maybe a cent or two above the low of the day and hope to get that price at the end of the day. Volume is…
The Barclay's article linked by @msf helped me a lot in grasping how the CAPE sector rotation works. It's illuminating to see what sectors never made it in at all and that energy was in for only one month. If CAPE had a "value" tilt, sectors such as…
In the core or large-cap part of my portfolio, DSENX, has outperformed practically everything. AKREX and HNASX have gained more overall in the past five years, but DNSEX is a total-return machine due to its monthly distributions. Like @davidmoran, I…
Ditto my recent comments about M* being enthralled with certain value shops. I have no problem with them endorsing Vanguard Global Equity, but Oakmark Global and Causeway Global Value rank in the bottom 15% of similar funds for the five-year period.…
@hank: The senator from Illinois, Everett Dirkson, became famous for the remark, but I think he used "billion."
Just rode a newer A321 home from DC and it was really comfortable. If I flew regularly, I'd be inclined to seek that plane out.
@davidmoran: DSEEX routinely, monthly in fact, delivers almost 3% in distributions. Unless you buy a leveraged CEF, it's hard to find more yield than that. I don't mind reinvesting the distributions on my positions in DSENX; sometimes I'm buying che…
I agree with @Crash; I have let Grandeur Peak go and used some of the dough in WAGOX. As it stands now, from my quick review of their international and global funds, there's only one (Emerging Markets Select) that seems to invest in anything but sma…
M* seems infatuated with value funds. They have given a fair amount of coverage to the LSV family of funds, more coverage than the results warrant IMO. LSVEX (large), HIMVX (mid) and LSVQX (small) are all run my the same group of academic value quan…
Without researching the NYTimes archive, I still recall an editorial shortly before the 2016 election calling DT something like a "carnival barker" and a "con man." The behavior alluded to in @hank's post would seem to reinforce the accusation.
I use Dashlane to manage my passwords for desktop iMac and laptop MacBook. It's not free if you use it on more than one device. On my iPhone and iPad, Schwab access is via my fingerprint. Dashlane can also be set up for fingerprint recognition rathe…
Milk consumption has been declining steadily as more and more Americans and Europeans come to realize that animal fats can be harmful to our health and the raising of cattle harmful to the environment. For my part, I would not see conversions of Wis…
Thanks @lewis and @msf for confirming my correct decision some years ago to stay clear of Wintergreen. The smell of the tobacco was enough to deter me, but you have pointed out other good reasons.
Not that this is the only example, but the credibility gap between the administration and the public is so great that I have little faith in what our side says about the other.
The mutual fund marketplaces negotiate fees with the MF companies in return for marketing. Some of the fund companies don't want to play ball with the big enchiladas. BTW, I think ORNAX is a great holding; I happen to have it at Schwab.
It's an advantage plan, called BC/BS Medicare PPO. The annual deductible for a member is $1000, reduced to $900 if you answer a questionnaire satisfactorily. After paying the deductible, there is generally a 10% co-pay for almost all services. To th…
One thing to be prepared for once you begin Medicare and whatever options you choose: you will get reams of paper in the mail, especially the 8-page monthly summaries of your Rx usage related to Part D. Because Medicare and associated coverages are …
I am aware of other healthcare CEFs that provide a similar stream of dividends, not unlike equity-income funds. BME is the most successful while HQL and THQ (both Tekla) have steady distributions but lousy price appreciation. The CEF structure seems…
