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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.
  • RMD changes coming now the road
    The Comment section is worthwhile to see the new proposal in different situations. For example,
    professor Kelly, "But Munnell objects to increasing the age for RMDs to 75. Employees are permitted to save pretax dollars so they can have a decent retirement, she says. Postponing RMDs to 75 would permit wealthy people to build up
    big cash piles that they don’t need to touch, she says."
    I consider this to be a bit of a tax trap. With the new rules for heir requiring a 10-year withdrawal window, it's quite possible that heirs will be forced to withdraw a lifetime's accumulated savings in just a few years, throwing them into punitive tax brackets, depending upon the number of children heirs involved. For the non-super-rich, Roth conversions in retirement are becoming more and more important.
    Reply
    20
    KENNETH MORALES
    Professor Kelly
    15 minutes ago
    You hit on the rational objectively. These new laws would benefit the "under saved" more than the "over saved". The over saved crowd can't take it with them and the Secure Act, "secured" taxes will be paid by their heirs. If Biden gets his way, he would sign legislation that would shut down the step up in basis on those inherited assets, there by increasing thd tax load.
  • RMD changes coming now the road
    The increase in starting RMD age would apply to all tax-sheltered plans, including 457 plans and regular IRAs (as contrasted with individual retirement annuities). The article lists only 401(k)s, 403(b)s and individual retirement annuities, leaving one to wonder about the rest.
    Many (not all) people working more years already have a mechanism to defer RMDs until they retire.
    As for everyone else, the ability to put off RMD for more years would benefit primarily those better off, those who don't need the additional tax break.
    [T]his is only an issue for about 20% of people because most people already take out the required minimum amount or more annually... That’s “because they need the money to live on” — or they don’t even have a retirement account to begin with.
    Here's What's Wrong With Raising RMD Age to 75, According to Retirement Experts
    https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/04/16/heres-whats-wrong-with-raising-rmd-age-to-75-according-to-retirement-experts/
  • Ping Roy, allocation mix with ETF's
    Hey catch, thanks for your suggestions.
    Yes, in the past I paired up some equity funds with bond funds for a desired allocation mix. Beginning in 2006 mainly switched to moderate allocation funds, primarily PRWCX, but also a few others. One reason then as now and going into the future was for simplification. My wife is not interested in investing, so I needed a plan that could largely run itself if something happened to me. We are 57 & 54 and have largely saved what we will probably need for retirement and are pretty much just looking for moderate growth for the next 5-7 years.
    I'm guessing Giroux is around 10 years younger than I which may mean another 13-18 years at PRWCX before his retirement, fingers crossed. After which I would still be looking for a one stop fund of some sort. From my minimal research, current allocation ETFs (AOR for example) are pretty lousy compared to PRWCX.
  • RMD changes coming now the road
    For those, as myself; who can not access Barron's, the below link.
    Retirement proposals
  • De-accumulation phase
    Call me dense, but I have been trained/educated over the years, to shift from accumulation investing, to preservation of principal investing. That relates to the "age in bonds" principal, the older you get. What I was not trained/educated over the years about, is that not all bonds are the same. Some bonds are traditional safe harbor, low total return, and low income producing funds. Other bond funds are much more "equity-like" in total return, that can be invaluable in preventing erosion of principal.
    Now that I have been in retirement for the past 8 years, my objective is to develop a system of harvesting RMDs, that is tax friendly, but not necessarily tax avoidance. My system is devoted to shifting my principal from tax deferred, retirement accounts, to taxable accounts that I can more easily use for all kinds of age related expenses, and expenses I can address from a taxable account. My system is devoted to having a preservation of principal investing strategy, in which I use more aggressive bond oefs to produce sufficient total return to "recoup" RMD amounts that were harvested, so that my principal in tax deferred accounts can stay neutral, while my taxable account grows in principal each year. I don't want/need the extreme volatility of equities, where my principal can drop 25% to 35% over night, forcing me to have "patience" in an advanced age, to recoup major principal losses over time, which leads to age related stress in my golden retirement years. More aggressive bond oefs (nontraditional, multisector, HY Munis, FR/BL, etc. bond oefs) have great "total return" value for me, to preserve principal, with modest total return, in my tax deferred accounts, while I can use some more conservative bond oefs in my taxable account, to minimize taxes and prevent any major drops in principal.
    I have become more and more a trader of bond oefs (both aggressive and conservative) to prevent major losses in recessions and black swan events, and to prevent major erosion of principal I have accumulated in over 40 years of working and investing for retirement.
  • De-accumulation phase
    Another read:
    Optimal Retirement Asset Decumulation Strategies: The Impact of Housing Wealth
    A considerable literature examines the optimal decumulation of financial wealth in retirement. We extend this line of research to incorporate housing, which comprises the majority of most households' non-pension wealth.
    We estimate the relationship between the returns on housing, stocks, and bonds, and simulate a variety of decumulation strategies incorporating reverse mortgages. We show that homeowner's reversionary interest, the amount that can be borrowed through a reverse mortgage, is a surprisingly risky asset. Under our baseline assumptions we find that the average household would be as much as 24 percent better off taking a reverse mortgage as a lifetime income relative to what appears to be the most common strategy: delaying tapping housing wealth until financial wealth is exhausted and then taking a line of credit. In addition, the results show that housing wealth displaces bonds in optimal portfolios, making the low rate of participation in the stock market even more of a puzzle.
    Link to Full Text:
    optimal-retirement-asset-decumulation-strategies-the-impact-of-housing-wealth
  • Why do you still own Bond Funds?
    Thanks for the thoughts @dtconroe
    You are correct that I currently tend to view bonds as ballast. Years ago I sold all my PRHYX after Price did a soft close (their 2nd in recent years). I assumed that (1) They knew something I didn’t about valuations and (2) Even if I sold 100%, the fund would reopen again eventually. Not sure about the first - but the second did not occur.
    That probably had a lot to do with my current lack of interest in bonds for generating return. Like the poem - “Two roads diverged in a wood”.
    Your thinking is spot-on about retirement investing. Hope your plan / methods work out for you.
  • Why do you still own Bond Funds?
    hank: "I hope that better quality, longer duration bonds continue to suck air. Because if they begin to perform well in a meaningful way it means that other, riskier, markets (including junk bonds) are in a heap of trouble."
    Depends on what kind of investor you are. Equity oriented investors, tend to only think of bonds as "ballast" instruments, focusing on treasuries and investment grade options. Bond oriented investors, are aware that there are a wide variety of bond oefs, that perform differently in different environments. Funds like PIMIX and DBLTX were birthed in the ashes of the 2008 crash, purchased nonagency mortgages that were out of favor, and over the following decade of equity bull market performance, those junky bond oefs became hugely popular, replacing CDs for income flow, and making great total return, without the volatility of equities.
    I am not a great trader, but I have found that bond oefs move slowly enough that I can establish sell points for bond oefs, and easily switch to other bond oefs, in other categories, and still make a nice, lower stress, total return result. I did that in March 2020, when I sold my junkier bond oefs (with a small loss after hitting my sell point criteria), replaced them with some safe harbor bond oefs like GIBLX and BIMIX, and then when those junky bond oefs were once again performing well, I was able to switch back into funds like DHEAX and SEMMX, and make a nice total return. I am beyond my youthful days of heavy equity oriented investing, but have found my bond oef stage in retirement, provides a very nice total return result, allowing me to preserve what I have accumulated, and still grow the principal each year, even with the required RMD harvesting.
    I am 73 years old, in retirement, with no company pensions to provide me a safety net. My preservation of principal objectives, with modest total return, fits my current investing objectives and needs. I am quite content making 4% to 6% annual total return, with minimal volatility and stress, using bond oefs.
  • MUTUAL FUNDS WHY?
    I’m very interested in more discussion on the advantages of ETF’s vs MF and not just in taxable accounts but in retirement accounts + in retirement accounts where the investor has no interest in being an active trader.
    Ben Johnson, director of global ETF research for M*, wrote a recent article discussing the benefits and drawbacks of active ETFs.
    Link
  • MUTUAL FUNDS WHY?
    I’m very interested in more discussion on the advantages of ETF’s vs MF and not just in taxable accounts but in retirement accounts + in retirement accounts where the investor has no interest in being an active trader. Perhaps that deserves its own thread? Or is this what was intended here? Fido has a limited number of etf to choose from plus some iShare options. Their offering seems very limited to me. Fido that is.
  • RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund to close to new investors through financial intermediaries
    I am thinking of utilizing RPHYX for some cash in a taxable brokerage account. I used this fund in retirement account so I did not care much about tax efficiency and cost base accounting. But in a taxable account one needs to be more careful not to be surprised.
    Any tips on using RPHYX in a taxable account?
  • MUTUAL FUNDS WHY?
    I think Mutual Funds will continue to be the main mechanism in retirement accounts where once a day trade is just enough. ETFs will be increasingly dominant in taxable accounts. Not all ETFs are now cost and some hide the acquired funds' underlying ER and ETFs in low liquidity assets tend to diverge from underlying asset values. So, they many reasons to continue to invest through mutual funds.
  • Holding non-Vanguard funds at Vanguard or Schwab
    Aside from Vanguard funds, there are funds from other fund families where Vanguard sells a cheaper share class than you can get at Fidelity/Schwab/TDA. For example, Columbia Thermostat is easy to buy anywhere, but Vanguard sells the cheaper COTZX class I shares. They're even NTF with a low ($2K/$3K) min.
    (About 1/3 of the funds returned from a M* search I ran were Columbia funds, so if you care about getting a cheaper share class of Vanguard or Columbia funds, you might want to seriously consider VBS.)
    Then there are other funds that Vanguard sells but retail investors can't get (any share class) at the other brokerages. For example, GEQIX and TSYNX/TSYIX
    M* lists of brokers:
    COTZX: http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=COTZX
    GEQIX: http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=GEQIX
    TSYNX: http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=TSYNX
    TSYIX: http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/purchase-info.html?t=TSYIX
    M*'s brokerage data is not the most reliable part of its database, so I checked each of the sample funds above.
    I ran the following screen on M*. It returned 258 share classes, at least some of which were wrong (e.g. CGM funds are no longer available at Vanguard. The screen returned all three surviving CGM funds.)
    (Brokerage Availability = Vanguard TF
    or Brokerage Availability = Vanguard NTF)
    and (Brokerage Availability not = Schwab All (Retail, Instl, Retirement))
    and (Brokerage Availability not = Schwab OneSource & NTF (No Load & No Transaction Fee))
    and (Brokerage Availability not = Fidelity Retail FundsNetwork)
    and (Brokerage Availability not = Fidelity Retail FundsNetwork-NTF)
    and (Minimum Initial Purchase <= 50000)
  • Why do you still own Bond Funds?
    @Crash, yes and no. Someone can do pretty well with minimal changes. I held PIMIX about 7-8 years. I held one HY Muni for 3 years. In the last several years I invested mostly in HY Munis + special securitized bond within Multi/NonTrad.
    So, I babysit it because I love it and it works pretty well but someone can make 1-2 changes annually and still do well. Many have no problem trading stocks/ETF/CEFs many times annually but somehow it can't be done with bonds or believe that bonds have only one category.
    Bonds are the true simple mainstream ballast to stocks and when you go deeper into several bond categories you will find they can do even more and have different correlation too.
    Sure, I used to be many years in stock funds at 85-100% but as I got older and especially in retirement I learned a lot more about bonds.
  • Why do you still own Bond Funds?
    @FD1000. Rookies do need to learn the ins and outs. And even some folks who have learned quite a bit about how this all happens and about all the different menu items, so to speak, just don't care to babysit their stuff all the time. For me, it's my hobby in retirement. A nice problem to have.
  • Single Life Annuity Alternative: The Tontine?
    Despite the fact that one research paper recently found Americans are more afraid of outliving their money during retirement than death itself, and economics research has long since shown that leveraging mortality credits through annuitization is an “efficient” way to buy retirement income that can’t be outlived, the adoption of guaranteed lifetime income vehicles like a single premium immediate annuity purchased at retirement remains extremely low.
    In a recent new book entitled “King William’s Tontine: Why The Retirement Annuity Of The Future Should Resemble Its Past”, retirement researcher Moshe Milevsky makes the case that perhaps the primary blocking point of immediate annuitization really is its cost, and that guaranteeing mortality credits takes an unnecessary toll on available retirement income payouts (not to mention creating systemic risk for insurance companies if there’s a medical breakthrough!).
    As an alternative, Milevsky advocates for an alternative retirement income vehicle, called a tontine.
    kitces.com/blog/tontine-agreement-instead-of-annuity-lifetime-income-mortality-credits
  • Why do you still own Bond Funds?
    I don;'t own PONAX or PIMIX but I do own their CEF counter partners PCI, PDI and PTY. Why do I still own them? Because on the first of each month they politely drop $1K+ of distributions into my retirement account. To carry my lunacy even further I also hold IOFIX. Equities at current levels aren't compelling enough to me to make any switches.
  • De-accumulation phase
    Great tread on retirement withdrawal. Where does target date funds fit into the strategies discussed here?