Another Absolutely Awful Day for Bond Funds @hank, I-Bond sales data are available as Excel download,
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_tdsecuritiesissued.xlsmMonthly I-Bond Sales10/2021 $0.23 billion
11/2021 $1.07 billion (new rate 7.12%)
12/2021 $2.78 billion
01/2022 $3.26 billion
02/2022 $0.91 billion
As noted in the I-Bond thread, one can bunch up lot of buying as gift I-Bonds. So, let us say that you have 5 favorite relatives and friends (include me, if you want (-:)), then you can buy, say, $100K for EACH in gift I-Bonds to HOLD in your Treasury Direct account, and dole/DELIVER them out at $10K/yr/person over 10
years. That would be $510K total in I-Bond purchases NOW or ON 5/1/22, $500K in gift I-Bonds and "puny" $10K for yourself (-:). Well, this a hypothetical for those who complain about not being able to buy enough but think of the estate and asset transfer angle. Of course, you cannot have the gifted bonds yourself for any reason (actions are irreversible).
What if the I-Bond rate collapses in a year or two? Well, then you still go through your estate plan but the receiver can sell them and buy something else.
Edit/Add: Treasury Direct also has linkable history of Savings Bond sales, 1935-2012. Sales peak (including all types of Savings Bonds) were in 1944 ($16.04 billion; WW II time), 1978 ($7.96 billion), 1986 ($11.91 billion), 1992 ($17.70 billion), 2001 ($11.58 billion), 2005 ($22.43 billion). I am sure there is a good story behind the ups and downs in the Savings Bond sales.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/history/history_sbsales.htm
While You Were Sleeping - FAIRX is #1 again FAIRX ranks in the top 1 % percentile for Large Value funds (YTD)...rising from last in class...the fund's bifurcated performance over the last decade has been a very bumpy ride for shareholders. I exited the fund
years ago. M* places FAIRX in the LV category yet describes it's investment style as Small Growth.
77% of the fund is one company (St Joe = JOE) which probably was bought at a low in 2008. JOE's weight seems to skew it into the SG investment style while the other holdings (24% of portfolio) appears more LV. 42% of JOE is owned by Fairholme. For that privileged Fairholme shareholders pay a 1% ER. Ouch!
Anyone use this fund in small amounts? Attempt to buy the lows, not the highs when it comes to the fund.

What are you buying - if anything? The only munis I follow are the short-intermediate high yield ones. IMHO they are bottoming right now. PRIHX will be off nearly 7% YTD after today’s small drop. Depends on what muni(s) you own. But, generally speaking, states are flush with cash. Pension funds are in the best shape they’ve been in for
years. I’d not be selling their bonds at this point. But that 5-7% on I-Bonds sounds nice if you want to lock up a sum for a year. (I knocked a couple % off the advertised rate because there’s a penalty for unloading within 5
years.)
Thanks for adding to the thread
@BaluBalu. :)
Not sure if we've hit bottom on the munis, their dip seems to be lagging the taxable space...but definitely moving into excellent buying opportunity. The best market moves I've made in my entire investing life was going big into Vanguard HY corporate on its lows and same with Vanguard HY Tax exempt mainly when people thought that market was going to implode. Just keep buying more and either you will get capital appreciation, higher yield or both. Yes, I know, rates could just keep rising to the sky...but if that happens then all our plans will be laid to waste, not an investing strategy IMO. Just need to be patient, and collect the income while you wait.
Another Absolutely Awful Day for Bond Funds With a lot of discussion about folks building up cash %age, note that fund flows into equities have not slowed this year, while flows into bond funds are negative (redemptions, no surprise there!) and to my amazement, flows into money market funds are also negative this year. The latest 3 mo flows out of MM funds is twice as much as the outflows from bond funds. This data is from Fidelity.
(I also wanted to bump up this thread lest folks forget about it when rates start going down for a few days.)
Outflows from MM funds is an interesting phenomenon when total outflows from MM plus bond funds together constitute 50% more than the inflows into equity funds. And working folks are constantly earning new money and so, I expect MM funds to continuously have inflows. Are folks starting to draw down MM funds to fill their online savings accounts + buy (treasury?) bonds directly? or is there a bigger phenomenon such as private equity + venture investing + multiple home / rental real estate + alternate assets investing?
In the last 4+ years, the only time MM funds saw this much (or bigger) outflows is during the last six months of 2020 when folks were buying first bond funds and then equity funds with both hands, drawing down the trillions of $$ of MM funds built up during the first six months of 2020.
Teach your children well,,,,,,,, It's not unusual for the Primecap team to experience periods of underperformance.
VPMAX trailed the S&P 500 the past three calendar years.
Their funds have always bounced back.
I'm fairly certain that VPMAX will generate good long-term returns for your daughter.
She is fortunate to have this fund available in her 401(k).
What are you buying - if anything? The only munis I follow are the short-intermediate high yield ones. IMHO they are bottoming right now. PRIHX will be off nearly 7% YTD after today’s small drop. Depends on what muni(s) you own. But, generally speaking, states are flush with cash. Pension funds are in the best shape they’ve been in for
years. I’d not be selling their bonds at this point. But that 5-7% on I-Bonds sounds nice if you want to lock up a sum for a year. (I knocked a couple % off the advertised rate because there’s a penalty for unloading within 5
years.)
Thanks for adding to the thread
@BaluBalu. :)
Phaeacian Accent International Value & Global Value Funds to be liquidated In its 5/24/21 issue, Barron's noted that value had been down for so long that many older value managers died, retired, quit or became GARP managers. But it identified a handful of the "next generation" of value managers who had at least 10+
years of career ahead of them. Ironically, Pierre Py was among those. May be it is just a business setback for him.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/140/thread
Phaeacian Accent International Value & Global Value Funds to be liquidated Sorry to see these two go. International Value still has a strong long-term record--3, 5 and 10 years. Key man risk I imagine. As for a pronounceable name, well, isn't that like an American saying at a shop overseas, "What's this in real money?"
It is ever thus...bonds! Thanks
@wxman123. I hope you are right.
The author definitely leaves this open to interpretation. I interpret what this says as we "may" be starting into a prolonged inflationary rising-rate environment like maybe the 60's-70's. I don't take that as a good buying opportunity for total return when what you show is that trends tend to last 10-20
years. As an older guy, I do hope you are right though. It would be nice if bond funds continued to playout as a good diversification role in a portfolio with returns in the 4-6% range again and not a weight that continues to be just a slow(er) money loss than equities.
from the article:
Inflation picked up in the 1960s and rates followed its lead. Prices spiked even higher in the 1970s and inflation didn’t let
up until the Fed raised rates to more than 20% by the early-1980s. That bear market lasted more than 20 years.
Is this the end? Is the four-decade bond bull market over? Should investors prepare for a bear market in bonds?
I’m not smart enough to know these answers, but I thought it would be helpful to look at what happened the last time
bonds were in a sustained rising rate environment.