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.
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MikeM
I know you are not a fan of his, Mona (understatement :) )
Another Bills fan!!! Junkster just sent me a note saying the same. GO BILLS! They will be right down the road from me when training camp starts next week at St. John Fisher College. But tickets sold out in hours, so I won't be going. Are you from the area, Western NY?
Old_Joe , lots of places in SF to buy babka. I know it as a Turkish or Greek desert kuchen/bread, but not sure of it's origin. It is a little too sweet for me, but pretty good none the less. You're probably walking by one of these bakery's on the wa…
@Maurice, love Wegmans. It's my number one go to super market. Best thing to come out of Rochester since Kodak film. Good luck with your Schwab meeting.
@bee, I agree with your assessment of @Ted 's comment, keep it simple. I wish I would have done that many years ago and kept the faith. Sometimes here at MFO I think we, and I'll include myself, want to build a fantasy football team (or fantasy-fund…
To be honest, I don't have a comparison to reference. When I left my employer of 40 years, I pulled a good portion of my 401k proceeds (not all) and put them in a Schwab IRA. The 401k is with T. Rowe Price who I like very much, but no brick and mort…
I guess I'm in the minority here, but I will never understand this toe-hold thing. Shouldn't any fund you buy have a purpose in an over-all return portfolio? Shouldn't the question be do I need (or don't need) this fund to strengthen my total retur…
I like PTIAX also, but it should be said it's good performance is mostly due to riding the Muni-train for most of it's life. That is a good thing, but the next question would be will the manager shift focus if and when needed. So far I believe they …
I've been getting Kiplinger and Money magazines for years. Like others have said, at about $10 a year (cheap) for each, they are worth it to me just to have something to skim through while sitting on the patio drinking a beer. There is nothing in th…
@brbrock , fwiw, I use GTLOX as my large cap pure equity fund, but other opinions to use the S&P500 index are good suggestions. The fund you are in is a fairly concentrated fund and apparently the managers stock picking ability has not been good.
You will find a lot of differing opinions on what is a "core" holding. What is your definition? Personally I don't pay much attention to the word core. DSENX is ~15% of my self managed portfolio FWIW.
@Old_Joe , I'm jealous. Paris was the most beautiful city I've ever been to. I was lucky enough to go to Chalone-sur Saone France a couple times for work in the 90's, and on one of those trips my wife and I took some vacation time in Paris. I was he…
I'm not really following the "black box" concept being applied to DSENX. It's pretty straight forward it invest in the S&P 500 sectors deemed to have the most value and along with that a fixed income allotment that are swaps and/or derivatives. …
Dumb title. Isn't comedy suppose to make you laugh or at least smile? This is just a sad list of our financial and political institutions and leaders snubbing their nose at us.
@LewisBraham I agree with @Ted. Predictions are fun as long as you don't react to them. Heck, the Carnac bit was fun and funny. Yes... lighten-up Lewis :)
I never understood why United, or any airline, just doesn't keep a prop-plane ready at all times to move their personnel as a fall-back emergency solution. Especially at one of the largest hubs in the country.
@bee, almost starting to sound like a bucket system. If you are lucky enough to have more money than you will need, put some in an all-equity bucket and manage the rest of the portfolio as a more conservative income stream. Good thoughts.
I think the equity allocation is based on what you need for withdrawals. Most of my retirement calculations are based on a somewhat conservative 5 to 5 1/2% portfolio return meeting my needs in retirement.
This is really where the Monte Carlo softw…
Good article @bee and I like your quip on rate schedule for MFO clients. But to be serious, the negatives listed from the article below I think is the opinions or posts I see all the time here at MFO. Especially the 2nd. In any case, even though the…
@BenWP , my favorite place also to hang out most weekend mornings. I must say though that every "new" opening Panera is cookie cutter, not-as-cozy as the 1st ones. I will drive an extra 10 miles to go to one that still has the cushy chairs and fire …
@LewisBraham, what is the "unnecessary speculation and financial engineering" you are speaking of? Investing in stocks is speculation. What is the unnecessary part? I suppose the financial engineering is what you point to as the unnecessary? Don't…
In my opinion, sector specific funds are not needed as long term holdings in a portfolio. As you point out, your overall portfolio is already being addressed for REITs by your fund managers. The exception may be heath care. Short term bets on sector…
MikeM, a big Bills fan, will be very pleased, I knew Tom couldn't get along with Bill Belichick !
Man, I would be ecstatic just to see them both retire. I begrudgingly admit they are the best NFL dynasty of all time - at the Bills expense.
Trump announced that as soon as he's done bringing coal jobs back, he plans to get Fotomat workers back to developing film.
Oh @PRESSmUP the yellow box memories. I helped make the film coating machines run efficiently for almost 40 years. Good memo…
Good question @Crash. Here is some info from Investopedia on the correlation between REITs and interest rate hikes. You can probably get what you need to know from the summary I copy-pasted below.
If you are going to switch the fund to another se…
@VintageFreak, VRX is not a Ponzi scheme. It is a real company that unfortunately had dishonest management that tried to grow through acquisitions and poor, bordering on dishonest, accounting practices. They had short term profit growth mentality t…
Looks like he may be getting out of Valeant when the company's stock may have bottomed. Valeant has all new management and an entirely different scope, paying down debt, research, customer focus and quality over acquisitions and a fast buck. Buy hig…
Joe, the math for putting money in an HSA works at any time, any age. There is no other savings vehicle that you can put pre-tax money in and take it out tax free (for health care costs only of course). Even if you spent each year what you put in, n…
@Anna said: When I ran the numbers, it looked like they only work for young healthy people who can spend many years building up the balances to the point where a serious health problem could be covered. I decided someone 10 years from retirement …
I still remember my training from back in early grammar school. The nuns were directed to teach us how to "duck and cover". A special tip was if you could scoot under your desk a little that would even be better. I think everyone should have this tr…
Skeeter, I respect your percentage adjustments within a range based on value analysis. I have no doubt it is and has worked for you. Keep at it and keep sharing your thoughts. I gain insight from your posts.
Quick and dirty breakdown of (apparently) MFO's most committed-to funds from bee's list. These are funds that had more then 2 submissions.
(quick and dirty means no guarantee on accuracy and possible mistakes with share classes).
PONDX 10
PRWCX 9…
Thanks @PressmUp. Without researching this farther, I'm going to guess transfers 'in kind' cannot be made from a 401k to an IRA, only from IRA to IRA. Thanks for the info. I'm happy keeping my 401k active to keep GPGOX and PRWCX for now, so I won't …
Thank you bee. I did ask the adviser at Schwab (when I opened the IRA) if I could keep closed funds from my 401k and the answer I got back was no. Maybe I didn't ask the question correctly. But basically I transferred all 401k money to a sweep acoun…
You do not have to roll from a 401k to an IRA when you retire or change jobs. People often do it for different reasons, including consolidating investments or because IRA's typically have more options to invest in than many 401k plans. But no, you …
That 5.75% load is a real turn-off ...
I keep seeing responses to loads on certain funds (probably because M* says so) having loads. Maybe it is you PopTart that brings it up, I don't keep track. But most big name brokerages offer these funds load w…
