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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.
  • Getting off the sidelines - when?
    Maybe it is just me but still don’t see the fear associated with past declines of this magnitude. It is all about buying dips and potential buys. Although not into analogous year investing, this reminds me a bit of 1973. There we had weak January performance after a double digit gain in 1972. Like now the weakness was due to rising oil and commodity prices and inflation fears with a Fed that was about to aggressively raise rates. We then embarked on the longest and deepest bear market since the Depression.
    @BaluBalu. As you saw another bad day for the junk bond OEFs a bit surprising in light of the strength in the major equity indexes. Many of the bank loan funds were lower too. The latter began acting suspiciously earlier this week so I said goodbye. That leaves me at 70% with the usual suspect of IOFIX which at least so far has survived the carnage elsewhere and up YTD. The play there though seems pretty much over. Wish I could buy its younger albeit less stellar performing sister which has yet to have a down month since its October 2020 inception, but not available to me at TD Ameritrade. Kind of following in the footsteps of IOFIX which has been positive every month but five over the past 6.67 years. Of course one of those five was a doozy for those that stayed the course.
  • Getting off the sidelines - when?
    High yield effective yield has popped over 5%. Per FRED, last time it was at that level was November 2020. Could be looking at a spike that'll eventually be a good reentry point.
  • BIVIX
    Quick peek . Appears around Sept 20,2020 the fund took off ! Will it continue, is now the question ?
  • Getting off the sidelines - when?
    For those waiting on better valuations to buy Equities, at what point would you be a serious Buyer? Do you have a specific plan in place?
    What about Bonds (yeah, what about Bonds) - are any type/class of bonds worth holding in 2022?
    Current S&P 500 PE Ratio: 25.85
    Mean: 15.96
    Median: 14.88

    If you are on the sidelines congrats. Don’t see much fear in this market just everyone wanting to buy the dips. A lot of complacency. I guess that is what the past twelve years have conditioned investors to do. Should we actually get something more than a garden variety correction ala late 2018 and February/March 2020 would use a Zweig momentum buy signal to get back in. Worked like a charm after those two brief sell offs as well as the longer bear of 2008.
    As for bonds the scary consensus is buy floating rate/bank loan funds as they are the place to be during periods of rising short term rates. Can’t argue with that ( and I have an allocation there) other than it seems a bit too pat and overwhelmingly embraced. If you get a really bad bear market in stocks/junk bonds, the floating rate/bank loan category will not protect you,
    Without drilling deeper for month end distribution dates, month end NAV movements are always tricky to make sense of for fixed income OEFs but I see across the board both high yield and floating rate / bank loan funds are down on Thursday. It has been a long time since I have seen that happen. I hope this is not the start of something.
  • BIVIX
    With what Lewis said, also check out this radio interview. The manager of BIVIX, Ali Mottamed, seems to know his stuff.
    http://www.strategicinvestorradio.com/e/longshort-strategy-investing-invenomic-capital-management-wali-motamed-cfa/
  • How Often Should You Expect a Stock Market Correction?
    Correction is 10% loss;20%loss is bear market;50% loss is a crash. 2020 qualified as a short-lived bear market-perhaps computerized trading will lessen the length of bear markets going forward.
  • Core Alternative ETF - CCOR
    It's a difficult question to answer, and the most honest one I could give is I don't know. But it's worth noting the goal of many alternative funds is not to beat a 50/50 SPY/Cash allocation. It's to deliver positive absolute performance beating 100% cash or T-bills while not being correlated with stocks or bonds. This fund seems to have done that at least with stocks so far. (I haven't seen its correlation with bonds, but given its different construction I would assume it isn't high.) But that doesn't mean it will do this in the future. I just find its lack of correlation, its actively managed style and the fact it delivered positive results during the first quarter of 2020 while also delivering in 2021 interesting. As for having multiple billions of assets under management, such defensive funds usually only get that kind of money when markets are poor and they, hopefully, hold up well. During a strong bull market, most investors won't even notice they exist.
  • Core Alternative ETF - CCOR
    I find the Core Alternative ETF (CCOR) to be one of the more interesting defensive funds: https://corealtfunds.com/assets/pdfs/Core_Alternative-Presentation.pdf It is one of the few to have been profitable during the first quarter of 2020.
  • How Often Should You Expect a Stock Market Correction?
    +1
    Actually my previous post pertained more to bear markets than run-of-the mill corrections. I’m not attuned to the finer points, except bears tend to last longer - usually measured in years. That’s why many keep the cash reserve.
    If the early morning numbers hold up or get worse, we’d probably be in correction territory in most
    markets. Calling it a bear would be premature.
    Qtr 1 of 2020 was somewhat unique. Huge 15-25% selloff across many asset classes in 2 or 3 months. WTH that was, I’m not sure.
  • Creditors (including Fidelity) consider seizure of Mexican media conglomerate over delinquent debt
    “A consortium of U.S.-based creditors to Mexican multimedia conglomerate TV Azteca S.A.B. de C.V. has threatened to take action to seize its assets in Mexico and abroad after the company skipped a year’s worth of interest payments and is on the cusp of forgoing another in February … Mexico City-based TV Azteca is the second largest producer of Spanish-language television programming in the world …
    “TV Azteca has been in arrears on its debts for almost an entire year, after it skipped a $16.5 million interest payment on a $400 million dollar-denominated bond due in 2024 last February and hasn’t sent creditors any money they are owed since. The company also opted not to pay another $16.5 million interest payment that came due in August, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
    “The company’s largest U.S.-based creditors, including Fidelity Investments Inc., Contrarian Capital Management LLC and Cyrus Capital Partners LP, met with a representative for TV Azteca at Fidelity’s headquarters in Boston on Wednesday to discuss a plan that would repay the bondholders in full plus accrued interest over time, one of the people said. TV Azteca has yet to decide if it will accept the offer.”

    (Excerpted from)
    “Pro Bankruptcy Distress”
    By Alexander Saeedy
    The Wall Street Journal
    January 24, 2022
  • TIPS,,,,, can anyone explain price decline YTD
    Rising bond yields, particularly on inflation-protected Treasurys, are viewed as close indicators of borrowing costs for businesses and consumers.
    Investors pay close attention to yields on TIPS because they offer an important gauge of financial conditions, indicating whether borrowing costs for businesses and consumers are rising or falling when stripping out the effects of expected inflation.
    “Often referred to as real yields, yields on TIPS have been deeply negative since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, helping to fuel outsize stock-market gains by pushing investors into riskier assets in search of better returns. Even today they remain below zero, meaning holders are guaranteed to lose money on an inflation-adjusted basis if they hold the bonds to maturity. Yet they have climbed even more this year than yields on ordinary Treasurys—a sign of higher borrowing costs for businesses, better forward-looking returns on bonds, and a return to more normal growth and inflation as the Federal Reserve starts tightening monetary policy …”

    Also (Same Article):
    “Donald Ellenberger, a senior fixed-income portfolio manager at Federated Hermes, is among those responsible for surging real yields. Starting in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, he was a major buyer of TIPS, steadily increasing them from 4% of his multisector bond portfolio in March 2020 to 7% by November of that year. Mr. Ellenberger’s concern at the time was that historic fiscal and monetary stimulus would lead to a surge in inflation—a fear that proved prescient as TIPS rallied and the consumer-price index soared… By the end of last year, though, the Fed had shifted course, promising to accelerate a wind-down of its bond-buying program and start raising interest rates … In response, Mr. Ellenberger and his team slashed their TIPS holdings from 7% to 1%.”
    (Excerpts from)
    “Tech Rout Fueled by Bond-Market Turn”
    By Sam Goldfarb
    The Wall Street Journal
    January 24, 2022
    In a separate article, the same issue of the WSJ noted that municipal bonds are also seeing outsized losses of late.
  • How Often Should You Expect a Stock Market Correction?
    However, I do see human irrationality playing a big part in the markets of recent years. That includes not only equities, but assets like real estate, bonds, crypto. And further, that uniquely human ingredient compounds the difficulty of determining where true value exists and where’s there’s mostly fluff.
    This time is really NO different, but perhaps worse just as you pointed out. Now we are facing several challenges: geopolitical (Ukraine, Taiwan, and to a lesser extent N.Korea), high inflation globally, and pandemic-induced supply chain issues. Feel like we are revisiting the spring old 2020.
  • FIVE GEE
    @catch22- following is the pertinent text from the NYT article. The SDS reference re Kudlow is interesting but not germane to the topic.
    The F.A.A. also argues that it was excluded from decisions about 5G. In 2020, the F.A.A. administrator, Stephen Dixon, prepared a letter to ... the F.C.C., expressing concerns about 5G interference, but the letter was not passed along by ... the acting director of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
    Larry Kudlow, who headed President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council, even bragged about blowing off the F.A.A., saying on his Fox Business show, “We ignored them because the science said don’t worry about it.” He added later, “We actually fought the F.A.A. and we won.”
    It appears now that the Trump administration won the battle but not the war. One result of the extended conflict between the F.C.C. and the F.A.A. is that even now, nearly a year after the spectrum for 5G was auctioned off, the F.A.A. is still at the stage of information-gathering as it moves toward eventually issuing new requirements for radar altimeters. It is likely to take five years for all altimeters to be upgraded.
    In my opinion the FAA is now and always has been notoriously slow in staying on top of evolving safety issues. They have been criticized many times by the NTSB for inaction on known or potential safety problems. In this case apparently they at least went through the motions of trying to participate in resolving the 5G issues, but were rebuffed by the Trump administration.
    The NYT article also mentions that there are technological fixes for radio interference by using various types of filters, and/or by redesign of the radio altimeters themselves. This is true to a point, the but installation of filters in the affected aircraft may very well introduce other problems, and of course modifying or replacing the altimeters will be a very costly procedure likely involving significant aircraft downtime. As usual, money is involved, so we have potential winners and losers.
    It's quite possible that rather than engage in an unproductive inter-agency fight the FAA elected to let the airlines themselves carry the fight to the FCC. These people are masters at this sort of thing. This is what I meant in my post up above where I said that "something is really smelly here.".
    OJ
  • Getting off the sidelines - when?
    The stock market is adjusting to the reality that interest rates are probably heading up for at least a while. It's too early for me to have a clear sense as to how far and for how long. As to one of the questions at the start of this thread:
    For those waiting on better valuations to buy Equities, at what point would you be a serious Buyer? Do you have a specific plan in place?
    My last significant portfolio changes occurred in 2020 when high yield and utility stock sleeves were added to the portfolio (they now constitute about 40% of portfolio). The high yield sleeve purchases mostly focused on real estate, financial, and energy sector stocks that appeared to be on sale as well as on a few CEF purchases. Also, I used proceeds from the sale of ZEOIX to buy some utility stocks that appeared to be reasonably priced. That active trading year was followed by some 2021 portfolio cleanup trades as well as a little "special situations" trading (that produced mixed results). My basic goal for 2022 is to refocus on being a buy and hold investor. VIX above 35 for a while with a fair amount of panic and exhaustion would get me thinking about making some changes again. A possibility list for trades is being maintained but I would want to see what looks interesting at the time I become motivated. That type of market probably produces the Zweig momentum buy signal Junkster mentioned. But I don't know where to find that one.
  • Parnassus Endeavor Fund
    Mark, I appreciate your input!
    Here's what I know and read:
    Endeavor is an All-cap Value fund (280.5B avg. weighted mkt cap; active share 88.63%) with a Capital Appreciation objective; Core Equity is a Large Cap Blend fund (510.4B avg. weighted mkt cap; active share 76.29%) with a Capital Appreciation and Current Income objective and the S&P 500 as its boogie.
    Per the Parnassus website, although they are invested in the same sectors (except for no Materials in Endeavor) the weightings are somewhat different. Several sector weightings are double the other fund. Both funds are concentrated, 38 for CORE EQUITY and 43 for Endeavor, that include contrarian stocks (per their website).
    Also, I believe both Endeavor and Core Equity focus on ESG. Not sure if one is more focused than the other, but either way ESG has NO bearing on my decision to invest or not!!!
    One last thought, they do not seem to act in tandem very often, per my observations, not statistically verified.
    I don't know if there is enough differences between the two funds, hence my question and hesitation!
    Any further comments, suggestions, thoughts very welcome!
    Matt
  • Getting off the sidelines - when?
    Sources?
    DepositAccounts reports:
    Ally Bank - 769 customer reviews, 3½ stars
    Discover Bank - 231 reviews; 3½ stars
    Marcus - 198 reviews; 2½ stars
    If we're talking about personal experience, I've been a customer since before Goldman Sachs renamed it Marcus Bank (Dec 2017), before Goldman Sachs acquired the former GE Capital Bank (April 2016). I got tired of chasing bank rates and settled on a bank with moderately high rates that didn't bounce all over the place.
    Maybe if you're dealing with the bank for a loan, or need help wiring money, quality service isn't there. I don't know; I just use it to ACH money back and forth. Never had an issue. If you want cash management services (checking, ATM) it's not the bank for you.
    Money starts earning interest the day you initiate an inbound transfer, so I don't care whether that ACH takes one day or three. Unlike some online banks, one can link two ways, so that pulls or pushes work from either side.
    I've used Ally Bank, and I still use it for liquid CDs (Ally gives a 0.05% bonus for CD renewals). Though they were more useful in the past to lock in rates when they were falling. Now with rising rates, not so much. Limited to six withdrawals per period.
    Discover Bank pays the same 0.50% as the other banks, though that's new. Like Ally, still limited to six withdrawals per period.
    That's according to the mouse-over for the "excessive withdrawal fee" on this page. OTOH, one of its FAQ answers reads: " We are currently not enforcing the monthly transaction limit on savings and money market accounts." So the bank doesn't allow you more than six withdrawals but it won't stop you?
  • I'm Not Sure Wood at ARK ETF Knows What "Soul Searching" Really Is
    Here is the Zweig article: https://google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/cathie-wood-ark-innovation-performance-11642175833
    Even if such big gains are possible, many investors may not be able to stomach this kind of volatility and could time their purchases and sales as poorly in the future as they already did in the past.
  • I'm Not Sure Wood at ARK ETF Knows What "Soul Searching" Really Is
    I guess we'll know in 5 years. Right now her largest position in ARKW (what I own along with ARKG) is coin base just moving past Tesla. Coin is down 23% just like ARKW. I can easily see big gains for Coin if Crypto is a real thing, and I think it is. Josh Brown (who I think is terrific) is all in. I am buying BITQ every dip, so far, no good, but 5 years is a long time.
  • I'm Not Sure Wood at ARK ETF Knows What "Soul Searching" Really Is
    This piling on is so unfair. The market is just in liquidation mode for high flyers, was inevitable but that doesn't mean this is dot.com 2.0 (it isn't IMO). Those who held ARKK since inception have still averaged 25% CAGR versus 14% for VTI. What, did folks who gained 157% in 2020 think there would be no extreme volatility? Buy more, I am (but not with what I'm looking to retire on, one never knows........)
  • TRP ridiculousness
    The SEC’s issue wasn’t so much with interfering with the fund’s operation (buying / selling) as with the fact that outsized “gains” were going out the door into the pockets of the slick operators. (Hence the term “skimming). Say an ETF investing in mining companies (highly volatile) jumps in price by 10% on a given day. I’ve been tracking the holdings or an index of mining companies and I sell 100% of my holdings at 3:59 PM. Two days later, the ETF drops by 15%. I reinvest my outsized gains, buying an additional 15% more shares in the ETF than what I had 2 days prior. Now, tell me harm wasn’t done to those who sat tight and didn’t sell at the high and buy in at the low. If I do this over and over again, often enough, those who sit tight will bleed (financially).
    And, this would appear more serious in an actively managed ETF.