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.
It is really simple for me to understand. Risk free 10-20 year treasuries and CDs are paying about 3%. Given how efficient the fixed income markets are, any fund paying much more than this is taking on some kind of risk of loss of principal, whethe…
Schwab.com shows PIMIX with a portfolio breakdown consisting of 151% bondholdings, meaning it is highly leveraged, and PONAX is the same. With this much leverage these funds are too risky for this retiree. IOFIX appears to be nearly all securitize…
I want fixed income to balance the risks of stocks and floating rate funds don't look like a good risk/reward trade to me. For example PFIDX looks highly leveraged and is loaning money to companies with insufficient credit to float conventional bon…
LALBAX and BASIX heavily leveraged and too risky for this retiree's hardearned money. LALDX yield barely above that of a CD. Unless anyone else has a better idea I am sticking with cash, cd's and a few government or high quality bonds held to matu…
As a retiree I want my fixed income to be as risk free and immune to the gyrations of the stock market (and the effects of rising interest rates) as possible in order to act as a counterweight to the risk I am taking in equitities. With bond prices…
I am guessing these unprecedentedly low rates are causing market distortions which will play out in some kind of coming crisis but I cannot get my arms around what it all means.
As an individual investor I am locked out of buying any fund Schwab deems available for "Institutional Only" customers, although I can buy many of the institutional share classes (for example anything at Pimco) by making a large enough purchase. In…
It does bring some satisfaction to be appreciated for workplace contributions.
But it is also a money issue: I didn't realize it until I retired but most of the things on my retirement bucket list (travel, projects around the house requiring expensi…
Very good article.
I thought I retired in January, 2015, but by that fall I realized I didn't want to cut back on anything, and I was drawing down savings at an unsustainable rate. Result: I am back to working, although only part time.
Pretty good chance you will not need, want or even know about how much money you have if you live to a real old age. After the age of 65, the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease doubles approximately every five years and dementia affects one in …
I luckily bailed out of SEQUX when this Valeant thing first came up, on the general theory that were there is smoke there is fire. This general theory has also saved me from a number of other debacles including Enron. Lesson well learned.
This who…
5. Market prices in equities and fixed income built on record levels of debt, leverage, share buybacks and derivatives held by the top 5 us investment banks
2. Deflation causes a collapse similar to what happened in the great depression;
3. Central banks unable to stop it with interest rates already near zero;
4. Currency devaluation in China and elsewhere causes trade to slow;
I don't know any more than anyone else but I DO think this will be similar to 2008.
1. The commodities price collapse will cause whole nations to become insolvent along with half of the energy industry;
One of the worst investment decisions I have ever made was to invest in Dan Fuss' former co-manager Kathleen Gaffney's bond fund EVBIX. Last year Ms. Gaffney appeared on Wealthtrack and went on and on about all manor of non-bond investments which s…
My guess is that the dollar is ending a period of rising against most other currencies which is causing the fear trade to switch away from buying US T-bills to buying gold. All related to the commodities and especially oil market plunge which is pu…
I think there will be a lot more surprises when countries which are dependent on oil revenues start to default and half of the oil industry and the banks and other funding sources go under. Prices would need to at least double to prevent this and I…
I have been in the oil biz for decades and while that doesn't make me any better at predicting future oil prices than anyone else, what I do know is that a lot of energy companies right now are running on fumes and if oil prices don't move dramatica…
I wasn't affected by this but it does raise a concern I have always had about bond funds in general: as I understand it, because a lot of bonds are thinly traded (all?) bond funds determine their share price daily by somehow "marking to market" all…
I have been very disappointed in FPACX which I bought specifically because it should have been a very defensive holding. M* shows it holding 35% cash plus %10% bonds and I don't understand how it could be down so much with such a high cash position.
I owned FV for a while because I thought it was a good concept but sold it after the price went haywire in the August crash (trading was halted in some of the underlying stocks and FV flash crashed). Also got rid of my other ETFs
Interesting how different these portfolio allocations are. I noted the same thing some years ago when I decided to get rid of investment managers and run my own portfolio. I provided the same information to a number of managers (my age, investment…
Another unmentioned thing about an individual corporate bond concerns knowing exactly what the bond provides the bondholder in terms of call rights, liquidation preferences, covenants, etc. Corporate bonds can have very complicated terms and it is…
I bought IWIRX because of some comments I saw on MutualFundObserver, and liked what I learned about the fund. However I too am dissatisfied and thinking of selling. The fund seems to hold a concentration of old line US large caps to a large extent…
I am confused by this statement in the linked report:
"There is a common misperception that holding a bond to maturity makes your portfolio immune to interest rate risk. The reality is, when rates rise, the total expected return from a bond is ident…
Just got a $1500 crown here in an expensive suburb of Houston. Dentist had a high tech setup whereby he scanned in an image and made the crown on a computerized lathe right in the office. The whole thing took less than 2 hours, no sending out to a…
I saw an interesting article recently (but unfortunately cannot locate it) which maintains that the reason active management is not performing better is that "dispersion" (a measure of how differently individual stocks perform as opposed to the aver…
I was not specific enough with my question. I was looking for stock funds which didn't take the plunge, not bond funds. My rationale for being in managed equity funds rather than index products is a hope to be able to beat the index approach on bo…
