Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

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.
  • Irrational Exuberance: AI Edition

    ...
    One aspect of the CHIP Act is to bring manufacturing capabilities and capacities back to US. TSMC is on track to build a manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Az and another one in Germany. This will take several years to complete but it will stabilize the manufacturing capabilities in US and Western Europe.
    So we were out at a club last weekend and via some mutual, professional friends, we met and spoke at length to one of the many Project Managers at the AZ site. The man has been a PM all of his career and engaged in many national/international high $ and high profile construction projects.
    We asked him how things were progressing at the site.
    Um, OUCH!
    He related some stunning (and detailed) comments (that I won't detail here) about the company's lack of understanding and appreciation for the many layers of regulation, inspection and certification on US construction projects. For much of his time during the early stages of construction, he would get to the site, 'splain again why they need to adhere to this/that regulation, tell them to Just Do It, and then go home for the day. Next day, rinse and repeat. In his over 30 years as a PM, he stated he's never seen anything approaching the issues on this job.
    LOTS of other issues surround this project and they are being documented daily by local press, TV and the like. Online searches will easily locate many of the biggest issues.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    Yogi: "FR/BL are great for rising rates. But when rates are steady or declining, they act just like risky short-term HY (FR/BL are low-rated). That party is/maybe ending soon too."
    There is always a risk/reward decision to be made in investing in bond oefs. FR/BL did very well for many years, in the last 10 years, when rates were flat and certainly not rising. As a junk bond category, (most BLs are B rated), I frequently used them in the past, as a "lower risk" option for junk bond investing. When I read the Feds intentions regarding rates, I am not struck with the impression that a rate drop, is very likely this calendar year. On the contrary, I see the Feds raising rates very gradually the rest of the year, and trying to find their happy place for a smooth landing, and trying to keep inflation under control. The beauty about Discussion Forums, regarding bonds, there is often varying opinions about what the market is presenting to an investor as an opportunity. At any rate, I thought this thread should have an option of actually discussing "Bonds", as an alternative to some of the other topics on this thread, that do not appear very constructive!
  • Irrational Exuberance: AI Edition
    There is lots of work to be done on the software side. It may take several more years of refinement before they will start be deploy. On the hardware front, NVIDIA and other gaming chipset manufacturers are the spotlight lately.
    Another play in this AI space is the “picks and shovels” companies that enable this technologies. TSMC is the largest semiconductor foundries in the world in producing chipsets for many electronic devices including Apple. However, the geographical risk with China is causing many investors to pause.
    One aspect of the CHIP Act is to bring manufacturing capabilities and capacities back to US. TSMC is on track to build a manufacturing plant in Phoenix, Az and another one in Germany. This will take several years to complete but it will stabilize the manufacturing capabilities in US and Western Europe.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    Hank: FD - Just a reaction to your use of “proprietary”. It sounds as if you can’t share your approach on a board dedicated to sharing and helping one another. But perhaps I misunderstood your intent. Sorry if I offended you.
    FD: I did share, read the link. The following is a main tech indicator I have used called, three line break. For over a year now, all my bond trades were in HY Munis using 2 out of the 3 funds each time (ORNAX,NHMAX,XXXXX). This (chart) shows how it works. Green bars=buy, Red bars=sell. This is a decent indicator that works with many bond funds. How and What else I do is proprietary, especially using mainly 2 funds. This is why I bought in the middle of last week.
    But, there is a change. The Fed fund rate, as we know it now, is stabilized at +-0.25% for the next several months. This means to me that finally, the risk of higher rates is lower, I can use other categories, and Multi is where I find unique funds. Munis were easier to predict with my trades and behave better than treasuries.
    I already posted that this time I bought NHMAX. This fund is usually the riskiest, the chance is for a better upside this time. As of April 30, it has an effective leverage of 27.3% per Nuveen site, there isn't other HY Muni OEF with such a leverage, unless I missed it.
    So, after more than a year trading only HY munis, this time NHMAX is only a small % of my portfolio, the other bond fund isn't.
    ========
    Dear stillers:
    1) Let me ask you an easy question. Why did you use 3 different names(stillers,Arriba, Albie) on different sites? Did you try to hide something?
    2) Why don't you try to register on BB as stillers? You have no chance with the moderator who knows you for years.
    BTW, the subject of this thread is bond, why not make comments on it?
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    Curious, as I'm not as knowledgeable in the least bit on bonds as many of you are-with our large allocation to TRAIX/PRWCX and the significant holdings for a number of years of the fund in bank loan/floating rate bonds, how do these bonds typically react to a reduction of interest rates by the fed?
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    And so it begins.
    Banned from BB for 90 days, he will need an alternate forum to many times, each and every day, spew his condescending, self-aggrandizing crap. And sadly for MFO posters, this will be his likely spot for the duration of his 90-day stretch.
    No surprise his likens himself via parallel acronym to his true god. Funny how he used to boastfully post daily about his god but has duly STFU about him over the past months/years as the buffoon charts paths to incarceration in multiple jurisdictions.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    Some people have T-DS and some have FD-DS.
    Hank, if you think that my system is too funny, I welcome you to dive a bit into it(link). Several did and doing very well. The whole idea is to find great risk/reward funds, small AUM is a plus, an uptrend is a must + owning only 2-3 funds. In the last several years it's mostly bond OEFs. These funds eventually get discovered. I held PIMIX for about 7-8 years, then came IOFIX. HY Munis have always been a part of it.
  • Updated MFO Ratings Thru 23 May 2025
    @Charles, check out Barron's,
    TRADER. Stocks rose as the wall of worry faded away. The RALLY broadened beyond large-caps to small/mid-caps and cyclicals (financials, industrials). The SP500 was in a bear market for 248 days (Edit - the longest since 1948) and it may reach a new high that is +10% away. Of course, there are economic data, the FOMC meeting(s), and a possible recession along the way. Enjoy the rally while it lasts.
    https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-gains-as-wall-of-worry-crumbles-what-happens-next-75e1dc1e?mod=past_editions
    You may be thinking of the time it took for the SP500 to recover fully, and that was about 5 years after the GFC; however, the allocation funds recovered much faster.
  • 15% “hit” to ADR dividend payment for “foreign tax”
    Appreciate those thoughts, @hank. Am I shooting myself in the foot? Maybe so... But the dividend, even after taxes, is lovely. And I have deliberately chosen NHYDY to be the stock I own in that investment sector: Aluminum and green energy. They even mine their own bauxite. Did a lot of homework on it. One of the biggest in the world. It's not at all in any financial pressure. They just bought back a lotta shares, last year. Taxes are not an issue for us, in our circumstances, though--- so it pinches when that happens, and there's no way to get it back on the 1040. Nothing to deduct it against, if you know what I mean. So I get credit for paying a bit of foreign tax. It's like a certificate hung on the wall telling me I'm a part-owner of the Green Bay Packers on account of my donation to the team in the lean years.
  • The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings
    @Anna : Is it possible that building didn't meet code requirements for assisted living ?
    No there was no problem that I know of. I knew someone whose relative lived in assisted living there for years. She finally died and I lost track of what happened after that. It was an old landmark hotel. At this time it has been modernized and converted back to a hotel. So whoever ran the assisted living facility must have sold it.
  • Concerning SPY and concentration in top 5 holdings
    correction indicator :)
    For many years my father had an investment timing / trend analysis service whose most beautiful feature was his individual (per client) hand-drawn and -colored moving averages serving as graphics for his nicely written newsletter. That is some swing in the WSJ poll.
  • The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings
    @LewisBraham- Sorry, but I have to disagree on this one- the Examiner article refers to an individual as I described above in reply to Anna: an ordinary person who has fallen on really bad times. There are in fact a number of organizations here in SF who do really excellent work in helping out in those types of situations, and my wife and I have substantially supported them for many years.
    To repeat- the majority though, at least here in SF, are druggies, thieves and crazies who respond to nothing other than their next high. A number of the hotels described in the Examiner article were substantially trashed during the pandemic temporary housing program- something that the Examiner chose not to report.
    A short excerpt from a pertinent report in the San Francisco Chronicle:

    Hotels are seeking millions from S.F. for damage when they were homeless shelters.
    Hotel Union Square’s cleanup bill was steep — $5.6 million to repair rampant smoke damage, broken light fixtures, mold and other problems.
    As city supervisors consider shelling out millions to settle the dispute over damages at one of San Francisco’s hotel homeless shelters, taxpayers could be on the hook for millions more to settle similar claims from other hotels that participated in the program.
    In September 2021, the owners of Hotel Union Square filed a claim with the city, alleging unhoused residents who the city had placed there had caused $5.6 million in damages — and cost the Dallas-based hotel operator hundreds of thousands more in lost rent.
    City officials created the Hotel Program in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and used it to house more than 3,700 high-risk residents in 25 hotels. With federal and state funding drying up, the city has gradually closed most of the hotels.
  • The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings
    Old_Joe said , "For a couple of years during the pandemic SF leased a number of smaller hotels- decent buildings- to use as temporary housing for a number of the street people. When the leases were up, the hotels were found to have been largely trashed. Now the taxpayers are on the hook to fix that, too."
    I don't doubt that one bit !!
    @yogibearbull : Are you suggesting the city use TIF to convert the hotels to living quarters ?
    Heck, hire a doorman & desk clerk & let the homeless in !
    Just joking, Derf
  • The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings
    Tax-incremental-financing (TIFs) only waves future incremental tax revenues for a while (20-30 years) and there is no immediate money commitment from the local government. So, the current "low" taxes on that property continue now, and for the future, until the TIF period expires (and taxes jump to the new property assessment level). Real cost to the local government is higher level of city services it has to provide on the new property if it comes to fruition (many such projects are delayed or fall through, and then the local government doesn't lose anything except face).
    If in addition, the local government issues bonds (munis), to be supported by the future property revenues, then it on the hook to the extent spelled out in the bond issue. Those holding munis know these as AMT munis.
    However, there is multiplier effect with the TIFs because private funding becomes more easily available, and some federal funding can also be tapped.
    I think TIFs are great.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_increment_financing
  • The Next Crisis Will Start With Empty Office Buildings
    @Derf- For a couple of years during the pandemic SF leased a number of smaller hotels- decent buildings- to use as temporary housing for a number of the street people. When the leases were up, the hotels were found to have been largely trashed. Now the taxpayers are on the hook to fix that, too.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    DT: Good on ya. Can't tie up my $$$ for very long like that. Of course, I'm investing, and that's long-term. What you're doing with CDs, I'n doing with bond OEFs.
    Crash, I understand. I am retired and focused on preserving principal, while making a decent TR with CD interest payments. After I retired, I focused on making 4 to 6% TR, but CDs paid nothing, and so I chose to focus on low risk bond oefs. Loved those years with PIMIX from which I collected monthly income payments that were very predictable and dependable. I had several other bond oefs that I did well with--SEMMX, VCFIX, NVHAX, etc. When the FEDs got serious about raising interest rates, bond oefs got less appealing to me, but CDs became attractive alternatives. I have no idea how long I can ride the CD gravy train, but for now, I will enjoy the stress free 5% returns during my "golden years". I keep watching Floating Rate Bank Loan funds, which I played with for a few years, and keep wondering when they will start benefiting from the rising interest rate period.
  • Pimco Secular Outlook Webcast June 7
    Will we be in another decade where a good manager, deploying a multi-sector bond approach, provides equity like returns from a collection of bonds... with a lot less volatility?
    That sounds like their contention, for five years anyway. (And another strong run for HY munis sounds good to me.)
  • Income vs Total Return
    @larryB, you can play with that PV Run template to test other possibilities. Free PV database goes to 1985, so 38 years is the max that you can go back with this type of PV analysis (Paid PV may have longer database). PV also defaults the the shortest common period, so you have to use funds that have all existed for 38+ years (Paid PV will use similar funds to fill the time gaps).
    At some future time, I may add examples of some conservative- (VFINX) and moderate- (VWELX, PRWCX) allocation funds.
    Let us see how this thread develops. I don't want to spend lot of time cranking out numbers if there isn't much interest.
  • Income vs Total Return
    Income vs Total Return
    Some want reliable monthly income; others are fine with total return (TR) growth and selling as needed (that may be easier said than done). The TR formula shows that one cannot have high income and high growth:
    %TR = %Dividend_yield + %Dividend_growth + %Change_in_P/D
    For very long-term, the last term has a small contribution, so if dropped, we get the Gordon Equation approximation for multiple years (so, don’t create examples of annual exceptions):
    %TR = %Dividend_yield + %Dividend_growth
    I have seen this debate about income vs TR go on and on for years. My suggestion is for income-oriented posters to assume a fixed monthly/annual withdrawal rate, e.g. 5% annualized (not adjusted for COLA), and then compare the terminal balances using, say, Portfolio Visualizer (PV). In the example below, I will use utilities XLU, CEF PDI, REITs VNQ and VFIAX/SP500; the data will go back to 6/1/12 due to late-05/2012 inception for PDI; also, PV allows only 3 portfolios plus 1 benchmark at a time.
    PV RUN
    All 5% fixed withdrawal programs were successful in that the terminal values > initial values. The best for terminal values were, in order, SP500 (highest), PDI, XLU, VNQ (lowest).
    Intrinsic portfolio income varied, but the withdrawals were full covered by PDI, only sometimes by XLU and VNQ; so often, the withdrawals consisted of intrinsic income plus some principal.
    There were 3 equity funds and 1 leveraged CEF and their volatilities were high. The 3-yr volatility order was VNQ (highest), XLU, SP500, PDI (lowest).
    Max drawdowns were for PDI (highest), VNQ, SP500, XLU (least). That this order was different from that for volatility was a bit surprising.
    What happens to the withdrawn amount doesn’t matter. But it is most likely spent by the income-oriented investor. Some don’t need the income and reinvest it – but in that case, only a straight TR comparison (TWRR) matters, and the order then was SP500, PDI, XLU, VNQ.
    The period under consideration included the Covid pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.
    As expected, there was no clear conclusion. It boils down to the current needs and volatility tolerance (comfort level) of the investors
    It may be useful to add conservative/moderate-allocation funds into this mix but that is for another time.
  • Owner to give up two of San Francisco’s largest hotels
    Following is a current report from the San Francisco Chronicle. Anyone holding investments in real estate might want to take notice.
    Park Hotels & Resorts, the owner of two of San Francisco’s biggest hotels — Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Parc 55 — has stopped mortgage payments and plans to give up the two properties, in another sign of disinvestment in hard-hit downtown.
    Park Hotels & Resorts said Monday that it stopped making payments on a $725 million loan due in November and expects the “ultimate removal of these hotels” from its portfolio. The company said it would “work in good faith with the loan’s servicers to determine the most effective path forward.”
    The 1,921-room Hilton is the city’s largest hotel and the 1,024-room Parc 55 is the fourth-largest, and together they account for around 9% of the city’s hotel stock. The hotels could potentially be taken over by lenders or sold to a new group as part of the foreclosure process.
    “After much thought and consideration, we believe it is in the best interest for Park’s stockholders to materially reduce our current exposure to the San Francisco market. Now more than ever, we believe San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges — both old and new,” said Thomas Baltimore Jr., CEO of Park Hotels, in a statement.
    Those challenges include a record high office vacancy of around 30%, concerns over street conditions, a lower rate of return to office compared to other cities and “a weaker than expected citywide convention calendar through 2027 that will negatively impact business and leisure demand,” he said.
    Park Hotels said San Francisco's convention-driven demand is expected to be 40% lower between 2023 and 2027 compared to the pre-pandemic average.
    San Francisco Travel, the city’s convention bureau, expects Moscone Center conventions to account for over 670,000 hotel room nights this year, higher than 2018’s 660,868 room nights but far below 2019’s record-high 967,956. And weaker convention attendance is projected for each following year through 2030.
    Tourism spending more than doubled in 2022 to $7.4 billion compared to the previous year. A full recovery isn’t expected until 2024 or 2025.
    The company expects to save over $200 million in capital expenditures over the next five years after giving up the hotels, and to issue a special dividend to shareholders of $150 million to $175 million. The company's exposure will shift away from San Francisco towards the higher-growth Hawaii market.
    Parc 55 is a block from Westfield San Francisco Centre, the mall where Nordstrom is departing, and the block where Banko Brown, an alleged shoplifter, was killed in a shooting outside a Walgreens in April. Nearby blocks are also full of empty storefronts, as tourist and local foot traffic hasn’t fully recovered.
    Other hotels have faced financial distress. Atop Nob Hill, the historic Huntington Hotel was sold earlier this year after a mortgage default.