In case anyone still gives a hoot about FAIRX
POSITIONS

Sorry- corruption and sneaky dishonesty needs to be called.
Watching a poster have two accounts and to pretend to be two different people is just another reflection of the complete lack of honesty and moral scruple emanating from and endorsed by the very highest levels of our present government.
This sad little MFO situation is of course much less important than the current attempts of the president's political appointees to "spin" and even suppress extremely important data reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but very much in the spirit of the current administration.
It's not a coincidence that this farce is being produced by a fervent admirer of that administration.
If this post results in this thread being shut down that's just too damn bad. Good riddance.

@msf

"single-family buildings with between one and four units".
How do you legally get four units into a single-family building?

Depends on the size of the house. I've seen many homes cut up six ways from Sunday. Typically in college towns. But it probably happens elsewhere too.
I suspect that the reporting will get better on this as more outlets take a whack at it. I don't think of Politico when I think about strong financial reporting.
But even at 42-43% of those four units holding a mortgage there is the potential for some serious pain.
Here's CNBC taking a whack.

Nearly a third of renters who live in single-family or small multifamily properties owned by individual landlords were unable to pay their August rent, according to a survey by Avail, a technology and marketing platform for small landlords. That is up from just under 25% in July. Avail received responses from 2,225 landlords and almost 3,000 renters.
[ellipses]
Individual landlords make up the majority of single-family rental owners. Nearly 23 million units in 17 million properties are owned by individual investors, according to the most recent count by the U.S. Census Bureau. Just under a third of these investors are retirees.
Nearly 54% of the income from a typical rental unit normally goes toward fixed costs associated with property ownership, according to an analysis by Zillow. These expenses include mortgage payments, property taxes, maintenance, insurance and capital improvements. Without the rent, landlords still have to cover shortfall.
“Our data show that 42% of renters and 35% of landlords are digging into their emergency funds and savings to cover everyday expenses,” said Ryan Coon, CEO of Avail.

Here is an opinion piece in The Hill taking on mortgages in general, as well as renters. The opiner calls for more relief. And I wonder where that ends, whether it's to the renters, the landlord, or both.

According to the most recent Federal Reserve data, the top 1 percent of U.S. households by wealth own 39 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 10 percent own 83 percent . Also, the top 1 percent of U.S. households by income own 41 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 20 percent own 87 percent.
https://federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#quarter:122;series:Corporate%20equities%20and%20mutual%20fund%20shares;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7;units:shares;range:1989.3,2020.1
This data suggests the need to sell shares to fund retirement needs is likely to have a fairly small impact on stock market behavior. (I just noticed @Mark posted some of this data on another post earlier this morning.)
The quote already pasted to this thread about valuation and TINA speaks to the PE ratio question. That's a daily marketplace decision. But, that decision takes into account the knowledge that central banks are active participants and that fiscal policy is also playing an active role in supporting the economy. The quote suggests it will be difficult for valuation concerns to gain traction in this environment. I suspect if the upward creep in the P/E ratio is gradual the marketplace will continue to accept it assuming the economy can return to a pattern of growth (but I am certainly not betting the farm that is the case). But, what happens if (when?) inflation takes hold? That will presumably force central banks to modify their behavior. The limits of MMT tie in with this too. But, it appears the marketplace views those issues as distant concerns for another day.

While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of mom-and-pop landlords, the thesis of the article is not well supported by the facts presented. The thesis being that it is the ban on evictions that is "threatening the livelihood of millions of landlords".

One in three tenants failed to make their September rent payment on time, according to the latest Apartment List survey. And a little over 25 percent said they had slight or no confidence in their ability to pay their rent this month, according to Census data published Wednesday, with another 22 percent expressing only moderate confidence.

With a large swath of renters being unable to make timely payments, would landlords be better off evicting tenants who may be paying some money in the hope of finding new renters able to pay more during a pandemic? Is it really the eviction ban creating this threat to landlords?
From another, slightly earlier (and somewhat less conclusory) Politico piece:

A ban without assistance, [ National Low Income Housing Coalition CEO and President] Yentel said, is a “half-measure that extends a financial cliff for renters to fall off of when the moratorium expires and back rent is owed.” ...
“Without direct rental assistance, rents cannot be paid, and owners face a financial crisis of their own by not being able to maintain properties and pay their mortgages or property taxes, ”NAA President & CEO Bob Pinnegar said. ...
Mnuchin also supports rental assistance, he told lawmakers: "Our first choice is to have bipartisan legislation that allocates specific rental assistance to people hardest hit."

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/01/trump-administration-block-evictions-backlash-407060
BTW, I linked to the "Census data published Wednesday" in my post here.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/131148/#Comment_131148
The original article also includes some statements and figures that seem at best a bit flaky:
"single-family buildings with between one and four units".
How do you legally get four units into a single-family building?
"In a four-unit building, if one person can’t pay rent you’ve just lost 25 percent of your income."
That may have seemed obvious to the person quoted, but it's not necessarily correct (the situation can be much worse):

About 40 percent of seniors who live in and own two-to-four-unit buildings have a mortgage. If these older landlords with a mortgage do not receive rental payments, not only are they likely to lose their single source of income, but some may lose their homes.

https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/owners-and-renters-62-million-units-small-buildings-are-particularly-vulnerable-during-pandemic
Small landlords often live in multi-unit buildings they own. So in a four-unit building, if one person doesn't pay rent, they've lost 33% of their rental income. Aside from losing a larger percentage of their rental income than the article says, these owners are themselves at risk of eviction (post-foreclosure).
"And most of those buildings have a mortgage — meaning the property owners themselves still need to make their own monthly payments."
According to the Urban Institute's presentation of RHFS data, 42% of 1-4 unit buildings have a mortgage, not most. The RHFS data itself (click the "apply" button on the linked page for this table) says about 43%. Just 3/7, not "most of these buildings".
As far as "property owners themselves still need[ing] to make their own monthly payments", many will need to, some won't. "[T]though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have established multifamily forbearance plans, small-building landlords are less likely to hold federally backed mortgages". Urban Institute, ibid.
"Fannie Mae today [June 29, 2020] announced updated renter protections and forbearance extensions for borrowers."
https://www.fanniemae.com/newsroom/fannie-mae-news/fannie-mae-announces-updated-protections-renters-impacted-covid-19

I don’t do podcasts unless it’s something really compelling. (A return from the dead by Louis Rukeyser for a “special” present day market update might qualify. :) )
While I don’t much listen to podcasts, I like Bloomberg TV as background noise, so have likely heard all of the opinions here sometime over the weekend as the show is rebroadcast several times. Can’t stand (“wet blanket“) Lawerence Summers as a market prognosticator, though I respect his considerable intellect. David Westin’s a solid “B grade” program moderator and also a Michigan native, so let’s be kind here. I’d not walk across the street to hear Nancy Pelosi (or any politician) comment on Wall Street / investing during a heated and tumultuous election season, although I agree with her on most issues political. Rick Rieder (mentioned in the excerpt at bottom) from BlackRock appears often on Bloomberg and usually makes good sense.
Some of the guests in the podcast @Crash linked:
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
- Bloomberg Senior Executive Editor for Economics Stephanie Flanders
- Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers
- Gerber Kawasaki President & CEO Ross Gerber
- Alger Management CEO & CIO Dan Chung
Additional:
“Sep.11 — This week’s Wall Street Week features David Westin’s interviews with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Bloomberg Senior Executive Editor for Economics Stephanie Flanders, Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, Gerber Kawasaki President & CEO Ross Gerber, and Alger Management CEO & CIO Dan Chung. The conversations analyze the need for more economic stimulus in the U.S. and the ECB’s decision to hold steady on further stimulus spending. Afsaneh Beschloss, RockCreek Group CEO and Rick Rieder, BlackRock Global Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income discuss the return of volatility to markets, concerns of over-valued assets, and the whether there is a shift in the fundamentals.”
https://finanz.dk/se-wall-street-week-full-show-09-11-2020/

Yes, capitalism is the only game in town. Yes, presumably, we are all investors here, or people wanting to learn how to be smart about it.
But Bernie is not an extremist. He wants universal health care.

Contrary to common misconceptions, universal health coverage (UHC), socialized medicine and single-payer systems are not interchangeable terms. ... UHC is an umbrella term that socialized medicine and single-payer fall under; socialized medicine and single-payer systems may be implemented in an effort to achieve UHC

https://healthforce.ucsf.edu/blog-article/healthcare-policy/health-care-systems-101-how-does-us-compare-other-countries
This is an excellent, relatively short read on the different health care models: Beveridge (socialized, UK), Bismark (private insurance; Germany, France), hybrid (Canada). See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/18/upshot/best-health-care-system-country-bracket.html
Bernie's model of UHC is generally regarded as closest to Canada's. His "Medicare for All plan would leave intact the current infrastructure of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers, but nationalize the health insurance industry."
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/03/politics/medicare-for-all-annotated/
Capitalism is not the only game in town. In most respects, Bernie is no socialist, regardless of how much he may say otherwise. But here at least, he is advocating nationalizing an industry. Though he is not suggesting that the health delivery industry be nationalized, and thus falls short of the existing US model where the government runs the VHA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans_Health_Administration#VHA_Nationalized_Healthcare_System
Such considerations bear directly on funds like FSHCX (top 3: 25% United Healthcare, 9% Cigna, 8% Humana) and IHF (top 3: 23% United Healthcare, 12% CVS Health (owns Aetna), 7% Cigna).

"Wealthy investors and the Fed have been propping up large companies. It can’t last."
"If the stock market doesn’t reflect the health of our economy, what does it measure? Most directly, it indicates the financial health of the richest among us. Overall, about 55 percent of Americans own stocks, according to Gallup, but ownership is heavily skewed toward the wealthy. According to Federal Reserve data, the top 1 percent of U.S. households own 39 percent of equities and mutual fund shares, and the top 10 percent own 83 percent — which leaves workers in the bottom 90 percent owning just 17 percent."
Article Here

per Politico:
I read that the stock market isn't the economy, but after a while . . .

More than 22 million rental units, a little over half the rental housing in the country, are in single-family buildings with between one and four units, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute. And most of those buildings have a mortgage — meaning the property owners themselves still need to make their own monthly payments.
“In a four-unit building, if one person can’t pay rent you’ve just lost 25 percent of your income,” Pinnegar said.
Most of the units are owned by mom-and-pop landlords, many of whom invested in property to save for retirement. Now they’re dealing with a dramatic drop in income, facing the prospect of either trying to sell their property or going into debt to meet financial obligations including mortgage and insurance payments, property taxes, utilities and maintenance costs. If enough landlords can no longer make those payments, it would threaten everything from the school budgets funded by property taxes to the stability of the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage market itself.
Six months into the crisis, millions of tenants can no longer meet their rent — and the situation is only getting worse. Tenants already owe some $25 billion in back rent and will owe nearly $70 billion by the end of the year, according to an estimate last month by Moody’s Analytics.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”

Morningstar calculates a numeric tax cost ratio. On the "new" M* pages, you'll find the three year figure on a fund's "Price" tab. It's also informative to look at the tax cost ratio over different time frames. Unlike ERs, tax costs can fluctuate quite a bit from year to year.
You can find the 1,3,5, 10, and 15 year tax cost ratios on M*'s "legacy" pages. For example, here's the legacy tax cost page for TMSRX. (Replace the ticker with the fund of your choice for that fund's legacy tax cost page).
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=TMSRX
TMSRX has a one year tax cost ratio of 1.11%. Its one year return was 9.40%. After tax, its one year return was 8.18%. If you started with $10K, after a year you had $10,940 pretax, and $18,818 post tax. That is, after taxes, you were left with $10,818/$10,940 (98.89%) of your investment. Taxes took 1.11% of your end of year value.
Not bad, but not great. For example, two peer multialternative funds (M*'s classification) are DRRAX and DVRAX. Their one year tax cost ratios are 0.80% and 0.37%. On the other hand, another peer, BAMBX, has a 1 year tax cost ratio of 1.28% (and a three year ratio of 1.98%).
While I pay some attention to tax efficiency, I consider it of secondary importance. Certainly I don't want a fund that's spinning off a lot of interest (except for a taxable bond fund), nonqualified divs, or short term gains. So I find it good to check for extremes. But beyond that, it's better to have a fund that's making money and losing some of it to taxes than to have a fund that's losing money in the market while losing nothing to taxes.

The original OP mentioned tax efficiency. That’s where I stepped off ship as my investing is 95+% in tax sheltered vehicles. But I’d be remiss not to mention that the Lipper analytics which can be accessed through Reuter’s and some other venues does rate funds on “tax efficiency.”
There are many other concerns of course, but if seeking information on tax efficiency you could do worse than to consult Lipper. I’ve run several of the funds mentioned in this thread through the Lipper screen. The large majority score quite poorly. I suspect that the hedging tactics that make these defensive to some extent also generate a lot of taxable income or short term cap gains.
Here’s a couple that I checked:
MERFX scores reasonably well garnering 4 out of 5 for tax efficiency according to Lipper.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=MERFX.O
BAMBX, on the other hand, scores poorly, receiving the lowest (1 out of 5) rating for tax efficiency.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/funds/overview.asp?symbol=BAMBX.O
I own TMSRX but didn’t check. I assume it’s too new for Lipper to have rated. To be succinct, there are no easy answers to playing defense in today’s environment. A healthy slug of cash equivalents and / or short-medium duration AAA bonds, rebalanced periodically and faithfully is one part of the answer. Yes - I too like TMSRX and David has done a good job profiling it. If anybody here is willing to write a complete analysis explaining each of TMSRX’s five subsets, how each subset is managed and what its current positions are, and how different economic fundamentals might impact each of those 5 subsets as presently positioned, I’d enjoy the read. The “under the hood” workings of this highly complex approach remain largely a mystery to me. TMSRX’s 1.22% ER, while reasonable for a hedge-type fund, is still a bite out of your long term returns and substantially more than for a plain vanilla AAA rated short-medium term bond fund.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1020425/000168386320013174/f6885d1.htm
(MSSFX)
497 1 f6885d1.htm FORM 497
LITMAN GREGORY FUNDS TRUST
Supplement dated September 11, 2020
to Prospectus of the
Litman Gregory Funds Trust dated April 29, 2020, as supplemented
This supplement should be read in conjunction with the Prospectus dated April 29, 2020, as supplemented.
For all existing shareholders of the PartnerSelect Smaller Companies Fund (formerly, Litman Gregory Masters Smaller Companies Fund):
The Board of Trustees (the "Board") of the Litman Gregory Funds Trust (the "Trust" or the "Funds") has approved the tax-free reorganization of the PartnerSelect Smaller Companies Fund, a series of the Trust (the "Smaller Companies Fund"), into the PartnerSelect SBH Focused Small Value Fund, a series of the Trust (the "SBH Focused Small Value Fund") (the "Reorganization"). The Reorganization does not require the approval of the shareholders of the Smaller Companies Fund or the SBH Focused Small Value Fund.
The Reorganization was proposed because, among other things, the announced pending retirement of Dick Weiss, portfolio manager of the portion of the Smaller Companies Fund sub-advised by Wells Capital Management, Inc., and the decision by Litman Gregory Fund Advisors LLC (the "Adviser") to not recommend the continuation of the sub-advisory relationship with Wells absent Mr. Weiss as portfolio manager. The Board also considered the overall decline in assets in the Smaller Companies Fund from shareholder redemptions that has resulted in a corresponding increase in the Smaller Companies Fund's expense ratio. The Adviser has advised the Board that it is unlikely that the Smaller Companies Fund will increase in size significantly in the foreseeable future. The SBH Focused Small Value Fund and the Smaller Companies Fund have the same investment objective and similar investment strategies, policies, risks, and restrictions. Furthermore, the investment sub-advisor of the SBH Focused Small Value Fund also currently manages a portion of the Smaller Companies Fund, thus preserving access by shareholders to this manager's portfolio management expertise. The Adviser has committed to limit the expenses of the SBH Focused Small Value Fund at a level below that of the Smaller Companies Fund at least through April 30, 2022. By consolidating the two funds instead of liquidating the Smaller Companies Fund, the Adviser believes that significant realized and unrealized capital losses and capital loss carryforwards may be preserved for the benefit of shareholders while allowing individual shareholders to assess their particular tax situations and act in their own best interest with respect to the realization of capital gains or losses.
To effectuate the Reorganization, the Smaller Companies Fund will transfer all of its assets to the SBH Focused Small Value Fund, and the SBH Focused Small Value Fund will assume all of the liabilities of the Smaller Companies Fund. On the date of the closing of the Reorganization, shareholders of the Smaller Companies Fund will receive Institutional Class shares of the SBH Focused Small Value Fund equal in aggregate net asset value to the value of their shares of the Smaller Companies Fund, in exchange for their shares of the Smaller Companies Fund. The Reorganization is expected to be effective in October 2020.
Effective September 14, 2020, shares of the Smaller Companies Fund will no longer be offered to new shareholders, and shareholders holding Institutional Class shares of any other series of the Trust will not be able to exchange their shares for shares of the Smaller Companies Fund. Shareholders of the Smaller Companies Fund will be allowed to redeem their shares in the Fund until the closing of the Reorganization.
Please keep this Supplement with your Prospectus.

I always like the term chartists. There's really nothing "technical" about what they're doing.

Apologies for posting this one. Thought I had verified the date, but must have missed it. It is from July, 2020. And @WABC is right. This one doesn’t pretend to be tech analysis. Just a chart of the NASDAQ bubble going nearly straight up. Well, I suppose the recent downdraft partially confirms the author’s foreboding. However, I’m not sure it qualifies as a “crash” yet. Geez - what can you say? A dumb article. And from Forbes.

“The Nasdaq is on its final run and is going vertical, a classic end of bubble move. This is trader heaven and turns into speculator hell for those who think that markets do grow to the skies. It could go up a long way in price but it won’t go for long in time. It could last to Christmas, it could fold tomorrow, but my feeling is that unless this bubble is cut down by the Fed, the final move will be large and quick.”
-
Disclaimer: I do not necessarily subscribe to these views. I’m linking article for discussion purposes only. While not a technical analysis adherent or so skilled, I always enjoy reading technical analysis as yet one more way to understand both markets and market participants.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2020/07/16/stock-market-crash-2020-welcome-to-the-end-game/

Stocks fell sharply in volatile trading on Thursday as the rout in tech — the best-performing sector in the market — resumed after a one-day respite. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 405.89 points lower, or 1.45%, at 27,534.58. Earlier in the session, the Dow was up more than 200 points. The S&P 500 slid 1.8% to close at 3,339.19. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 2% to 10,919.59 after surging as much as 1.4%. It was the fourth decline in five sessions for the major averages.
Article
I will be very surprised if this elephant can’t be kept aloft until November. I think Congress and the Federal Reserve will be throwing money at it soon. However, I’ve been wrong before. The deadlock in DC may be so severe that it allows this rout to continue. If this slide is allowed to get much worse, likely nothing will be able to halt it. I say that I don’t invest according to my macro read. Generally that’s true. But sometimes my “compass“ gets a bit disturbed by my macro view. Hard to shut everything out. BTW - I like gold at least to November - probably much longer. What do others see in the months ahead for this market?

You may remember Stan Druckenmiller as a frequent guest on the old PBS Nightly Business Report. This is not intended to represent a broad spectrum of opinion. Nor is his view anything new (unless you’ve been asleep in a cave for the past decade or longer). Since Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, I’m quoting an amount of bio that under normal circumstances might be inappropriate.
“Druckenmiller began his financial career in 1977 as a management trainee at Pittsburgh National Bank. He became head of the bank's equity research group after one year. In 1981, he founded his own firm, Duquesne Capital Management. In 1985, he became a consultant to Dreyfus, splitting his time between Pittsburgh and New York, where he lived two days each week. He moved to Pittsburgh full-time in 1986, when he was named head of the Dreyfus Fund. As part of his agreement with Dreyfus, he also maintained management of Duquesne. In 1988, he was hired by George Soros to replace Victor Niederhoffer at Quantum Fund. He and Soros famously "broke the Bank of England" when they shorted British pound sterling in 1992, reputedly making more than $1 billion in profits, in an event known as Black Wednesday. They calculated that the Bank of England did not have enough foreign currency reserves with which to buy enough sterling to prop up the currency and that raising interest rates would be politically unsustainable. He left Soros in 2000 after taking large losses in technology stocks ...
According to Bloomberg News, on August 18, 2010, Druckenmiller announced the closing of his hedge fund "telling investors he'd been worn down by the stress of trying to maintain one of the best trading records in the industry while managing an 'enormous amount of capital.'" Duquesne Capital Management posts an average annual return of 30 percent without any money-losing year. His funds were down for about 5 percent when he announced his retirement in August. However, they had since erased the losses and closed with a small gain through successful bets that the market would rally in anticipation that the Federal Reserve would announce further "Quantitative Easing" to assist in reducing unemployment and avoid deflation.
According to The Wall Street Journal, on August 18, 2010, Druckenmiller "told clients that he's returning their money and ending his firm's 30-year run, citing the 'high emotional toll' of not performing up to his own expectations." He indicated it was not easy to make big profits while handling very large sums of money.“
Link to Wikipedia Article

Postscript: It’s clear to me that one of my money managers has absolutely no concept of what a bubble is. Dodge and Cox clearly doesn’t like to party. Their flagship domestic stock fund, DODGX, is down nearly 10% YTD. It’s negative over 1-year and has averaged just a sedate 5.2% annualized return over the past 3. “What mania?” they might be asking about now.
:)

An Ode to Balloons - James Parker in The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/an-ode-to-balloons/614221/

from today's New York Times:

A report commissioned by federal regulators overseeing the nation’s commodities markets has concluded that climate change threatens U.S. financial markets, as the costs of wildfires, storms, droughts and floods spread through insurance and mortgage markets, pension funds and other financial institutions.
“A world wracked by frequent and devastating shocks from climate change cannot sustain the fundamental conditions supporting our financial system,” concluded the report, “Managing Climate Risk in the Financial System”

Managing Climate Risk in the US Financial System (September 2020)
Recommendation #4 seems to directly address the administration's push against the inclusion of ESG investments in retirement plans. The CFTC, to the contrary, recommends:

The United States and financial regulators should review relevant laws, regulations and codes and provide any necessary clarity to confirm the appropriateness of making investment decisions using climate-related factors in retirement and pension plans covered by ERISA, as well as non-ERISA managed situations where there is fiduciary duty. This should clarify that climate-related factors—as well as ESG factors that impact risk-return more broadly—may be considered to the same extent as “traditional” financial factors, without creating additional burdens.

How this plays out at the individual investor level puzzles me. Even if we can guess the three likeliest short-term outcomes (say, increases in extreme weather, greater number of "orphaned" assets, a push for more-sustainable energy generation and distribution), I'm not exactly sure of how to act on the information. Do you simply dodge carbon? Look for "impact investors" who actively seek to mitigate effects? Shift to financials on the premise that insurance companies make money from catastrophic events (high short-term payoff offset by even higher premium increases)?
Curious.
David