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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.
  • Inflation Is Real Enough to Take Seriously
    Sounds like a good question for @AndyJ
    My comment (which Andy cited) was based on background info from my general reading (WSJ, Barron’s mostly) and from investing in and watching some funds in the commodities / NR sectors. Also, it’s pretty general knowledge that NYMEX “bottomed out” at - (negative ) $30 per barrel 15-16 months ago and has now climbed to around $75 - a gain of over $100 on the futures markets in little over one year. If that’s not being “bid-up” I don’t know what is. Lumber doubled or tripled in price over the past year (but is now beginning to pull back). Copper’s been hot. Corn has sky-rocketed in the past year.
    Some one-year returns:
    PRAFX +44% (I recently sold)
    BRCAX +46% (still own)
    PRNEX +48% (don’t own)
    I don’t know much about growth funds. I’ve owned some DODBX for many years. That house is value focused. After many disappointing years value has turned up, and DODBX is reflective of that. One (but not the only) factor in value’s turn-around is that many bank stocks occupy that area. Banks do fine when interest rates are rising, and so with the expectation of higher rates, banks have turned up.
    Hope this helps.
    Analysts? I don’t trust any of them. But I enjoy Randall Forsyth’s column is Barron’s the most. This week he’s looking at bonds, which he considers at present valuations to represent “return free risk”. (take with grain of salt)
    I also subscribe to Bill Fleckenstein’s daily “Market Rap“. But I don’t consider him an analysist. He’s more of a market “pundit” and a “contrarian” if ever there was one. His customarily bearish views on equities, central bankers, and the investing herd serve to keep me “sober” and perhaps prevent me from taking on too much market risk.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    Schwab's platform fee discsloure to 403(b) plans includes:
    Transaction-Fee Funds (“Fee Funds”)
    As set forth in the Commissions and Transaction Fees section of the Charles Schwab Pricing Guide for Individual Investors, Schwab charges clients a transaction fee for the purchase or sale of certain funds that are not included in the Schwab Mutual Fund OneSource® program. Some Fee Funds pay Schwab an annual fee usually equal to $20, but sometimes as high as $30, per customer position, typically subject to a quarterly minimum of $7,500 per fund. Rather than paying a per-customer account fee, some Fee Funds choose instead to pay Schwab an asset-based annual fee of up to 0.25% of the average assets held at Schwab.
    When adding a new fund to Schwab’s platform, Fee Funds also pay Schwab a one-time establishment fee, which Schwab may waive. The amount of this fee generally does not exceed $10,000 for the first fund added and $2,000 for each new fund after that. To the extent any of these fees are paid out of fund assets, fees are included in the fund’s OER and are indirectly borne by the fund’s shareholders
    https://www.schwab.com/public/file/P-5358937
    Fidelity used to have a similar disclosure, but about 4 years ago switched to an "infrastructure" fee that obfuscates the cost. It recently won an appellate ruling that this was legal.
    In any case, as @Observant1 stated, the $75 fee is applied to funds that won't pay for shelf space. In addition to D&C and Vanguard funds, Fidelity also charges $75 for some Schwab funds, including SNXFX and SWTSX.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    “Now if Vanguard and Fidelity would expand access for their funds, I wouldn't need 4 or 5 brokerage accounts!”
    Interesting comment. I’m spread out across 1 brokerage now + 3 fund companies. In retrospect it was a mistake to let most of that pile up at TRP. For many years I held a kind of reverence for them. I know some disagree, but spreading it out a bit seems like a good idea. I’ve toyed with getting something going at Schwab. I’ll wait and see.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    I don't think TRP cares where you buy their funds. They saw their AUM stalling out and allowed Vanguard, Schwab and Fidelity to sell their funds etf. Apparently E-Trade and TD Ameritrade weren't generating enough sales, so they opened fund access to the Big 3. Now if Vanguard and Fidelity would expand access for their funds, I wouldn't need 4 or 5 brokerage accounts !
    Thanks @carew388. There were brief times in my discussions when I thought I detected some animosity (maybe cultural clash is a better term) between the 2 firms. T Rowe wanted to keep me as much in the “fog” as to what had happened. Fido, on the other hand, seemed more open about what they knew. I’d say Fido’s mailing me copies of the bounced checks (unsolicited) sorta confirms that.
    ”If I recall correctly, TRP is a publicly traded company. It could be that large investors are pressuring the company to cut costs, leading to the decline in customer service. We invested directly with TRP for 25+ years, and their service has definitely declined in recent years.”
    I’ve often wondered how that public ownership might play out - if at all. Assumed it would be on the fund management end. Likely it’s playing out instead on the client service end. Hard to think of any company where the client-customer end of the business hasn’t deteriorated. Humans are expensive to maintain due to their propensity to eat, along with the need for shelter, medical care, etc. A lot cheaper to have computers run the show - even perhaps at the cost of losing some business.
  • Waiting for the Last Dance -- Jeremy Grantham
    Is anyone looking around and deciding to bail or to substantially reduce their risk exposure?
    ***********************************
    No. In fact I just bought into a Chilean electricity company. All the numbers and Analyst projections look good for that stock. SOMEONE'S been shorting the little booger ever since I bought-in, though. ORK! It's a tiny position. "Play money."
    (hank:) "I agree things look bubbllish. But how you react depends on your initial positioning, as well as how diversified you are..."
    I'm standing pat. And sitting pretty. I've not put anything into the IRA in the past few years. No earned income. So, letting it ride. The only activity is in my PTIAX. It grows, then after a while there's always a reason to "steal" from that fund, so it must grow back over time. But hey, it's just money. I'm as diversified as I want to be. My allocations are always a work in progress. For example, I'd prefer to own a bit more bond-ballast, but the Fund Managers have me in a bit (just a bit) more CASH than I'd prefer. My investing horizon extends beyond my own earthly existence. If someone has a magic pill to offer me, in order to get wifey to understand that, I'm ready. :)
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    There were about a dozen separate accounts because TRP created an account for each mutual fund, for some odd reason.
    My understanding (read: no citations, I could be in mistaken) is that until sometime in the 80s(?), each mutual fund investment at any company was treated as a separate account with a separate account number. Similar to buying stock directly from a corporation. Two different companies, two different accounts.
    I don't know about other companies, but in the 90s(?) Fidelity grouped these separate accounts together under a single "T account" number. It reported the accounts together on a single statement under a single T account number. But on the 1099 each fund still appeared as a separate account with its own divs and cap gains. (Contrast that with a brokerage statement where there's a combined set of figures for all the holdings.)
    I looked at an old 90s statement and an old 90s 1099 to confirm this.
    You can still find traces of this at Fidelity. On this Fidelity page describing direct deposits, click on the "Mutual Fund Account" tab in the middle of the page, and then look for "T account number".
    https://www.fidelity.com/tax-information/direct-deposit
    Whether the accounts were technically separate or not mattered. Until a few years ago, one could perform one 60 day transfer per IRA account each year. (Current law is one 60 day transfer, period, each year.) If your IRA accounts were separate, you could do a 60 day rollover of one, then later decide to do a 60 day rollover on another.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    If I recall correctly, TRP is a publicly traded company. It could be that large investors are pressuring the company to cut costs, leading to the decline in customer service. We invested directly with TRP for 25+ years, and their service has definitely declined in recent years.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    Not to beat a dead horse to death here ….
    But, does anyone know (or have an opinion) on whether a company like TRP really cares whether or not you own funds directly from them? It’s occurred to me that those AUM figures take into account assets in the funds they run - not necessarily under their roof.
    Quite possibly they view the client interface, particularly live phone reps, as an Achilles Heel they can do without. I recall much better personal service 10-20 years ago. Easier to get through to a supervisor as well. Obviously, the phone reps at TRP are (often) poorly prepared for the variety of concerns they need to field. Hard to fault the employee if not qualified for the job or given the tools / authority they need.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    To Hank, thanks for clarifying my in-kind transfer question. While I may still invest in some of TRP's better (open) funds, it will be simpler to consolidate within one brokerage. While not suggesting any (stress) equivalency with your situation, I experienced two examples of where persistence paid off in the face of front line customer service ignorance/poor training. I was given a penalty/interest bill for something that was not clearly covered in the regs. I appealed and paid what I believed was the correct (i.e. much lower) amount. Then, despite hours and hours on the phone, customer service stood firm until . . . I escalated to a manager and pointed out that I had remedied my situation months before and had already proved it, she immediately did a u-turn and I was in the clear. Prior to speaking with the manager, customer service seemed either not to understand the regs and/or perhaps were poorly trained. The second example was with my phone carrier which changed its terms to make its service much more expensive. I called and informed them that I would have to terminate my service. I mentioned that I had been a faithful customer for 10 years and that to replace me will cost them more than keeping me. At first, the CS person balked. Ten minutes later, she called back and informed me that they had reinstated my account for 3 months of service at no charge. Hang in there!!
  • Waiting for the Last Dance -- Jeremy Grantham
    “Is anyone out there looking around and deciding to bail or to substantially reduce their risk exposure?”
    In short - Not here.
    I agree things look bubbllish. But how you react depends on your initial positioning, as well as how diversified you are (plus lots of other factors). I try to look at “worst likely downside” for things I own. If I’m comfortable with that, than fine.
    Probably more troubling than that initial downside, would be the persistency or length of the downtrend. A 7% yearly loss for 5 years would hurt more than a one year loss of 20% followed by some up years.
    Was glad to get a second chance to add a bit to my mining fund at Invesco this week. NAV fell back down to where it was 3-4 months ago. I did bail from PRAFX couple weeks ago (and it’s continued rising). Shifted that to a good global infrastructure fund. But that’s related to my outlook on the two sectors rather than a fear of markets in general.
    -
    FWIW - Watching the charts … energy & broad based commodities look high, Value looks decent - but a lot of “hot” money’s been moving in this year. I wouldn’t add to it if already exposed. . Small caps have been bid up by the fanatics at Robinhood. EM is probably good longer term but may go down before up. Some observers I watch like EM bonds better than equities. I think the dollar will weaken. But I’ve been mostly wrong on that for years.
    At this point it’s largely about gaming the central banks (and Fed) and anticipating how long they might allow a steep market slide to persist. My firm belief is they will continue to flood markets with easy money if necessary to keep the ship upright. (That doesn’t mean we can’t see a 20+% selloff in some equity markets nearer term. )
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    We just completed a transfer-in-kind from TRP to Fidelity for our Roth IRAs. There were about a dozen separate accounts because TRP created an account for each mutual fund, for some odd reason. We were not charged any fees, and the funds showed up in our Fidelity account in about two days. No shares were sold. We initiated the transfer through the Fidelity website and it was very easy using their on-line forms. The only hassle was having to enter and double-check each account number.
    We also rolled over our 401K accounts from old old employer about the same time. That was much more involved because the accounts were invested in proprietary funds with Prudential. We had to sell all of the shares in both accounts and get them to mail checks to Fidelity using overnight service. That process took 3-4 days and we lost some money due to market fluctuations but I’m glad to have it over with. Now all of our investments are with Fidelity, making them either to track and manage. It will really help when we have to start making required minimum distributions in a few years.
  • Waiting for the Last Dance -- Jeremy Grantham
    I just revisited Grantham's January 5 article. His best guess at that time:
    My best guess as to the longest this bubble might survive is the late spring or early summer, coinciding with the broad rollout of the COVID vaccine. At that moment, the most pressing issue facing the world economy will have been solved. Market participants will breathe a sigh of relief, look around, and immediately realize that the economy is still in poor shape, stimulus will shortly be cut back with the end of the COVID crisis, and valuations are absurd. “Buy the rumor, sell the news.”
    According to Grantham, it's time to look around (and bail).
    So, I'm looking around. The economy is in much better shape than I expected it to be at mid-year and its potential appears brighter than I expected. The Fed and other central banks are continuing to be supportive. And, there is momentum behind an infrastructure bill that has the potential to provide substantial long needed investment in the backbone of the country. Are valuations really likely to collapse in the near future based on valuations being "high"?
    One of today's headlines:
    Haters everywhere in stock market after S&P 500's big first half
    A few brief excerpts from that Bloomberg article:
    ...the S&P 500’s 14 per cent rally (is) putting it on course for its second-best January through June period since 1998.
    In the 27 years when gains in equities were this strong through the first six months, three-quarters of the time stocks continued to march higher by December.
    ...pushing against the wall of worries are the growing numbers of retail traders who bought the dip during the pandemic bear market and have since become the staunchest allies of this bull market.
    The trade-off households face between equities and other asset classes favors equities through year-end given anemic money market and credit yields
    I plan to continue harvesting year-to-date gains to restrict my risk exposure.....if the market continues to offer them (that process has provided a substantial boost to my "rainy day" cash on hand so far this year). But no significant other trimming is in the offing....
    Is anyone looking around and deciding to bail or to substantially reduce their risk exposure?
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    We’ve had our accounts with TRP for more than 25 years. We decided to move everything to Fidelity for simplicity and because their customer service is much better. Every time I call TRP I get put on lengthy holds. I like their funds but I can still own them through Fidelity with better service and options.
    Same here. Somehow TRP customer support has falling behind other large brokerages and the pandemic does not help. They need to hire more people and upgrade their hardware and bandwidth in order to stay competitive in this business.
    Fidelity provides the best balance of what we need online or speaking with a live agent. My asset transfer experience from TRP to Fidelity was done electronically and took 2 weeks for in-kinds transfer.
  • Rocky Transfer of Assets
    Wow! I just transferred in-kind our entire Roth IRAs for my wife and I. Hope we don’t encounter similar problems. So far it seems to be going smoothly but we didn’t buy or sell any funds. All were direct transfers in kind.
    We’ve had our accounts with TRP for more than 25 years. We decided to move everything to Fidelity for simplicity and because their customer service is much better. Every time I call TRP I get put on lengthy holds. I like their funds but I can still own them through Fidelity with better service and options.
  • There Isn’t Enough Natural Gas to Calm Down a Global Price Rally
    Just keeping an eye on the evolution of the tug-of-war between fossil fuels and renewable energy. Fossil fuels are having a better year so far (at least judging by my investments). The continuation of the multi-decade transition towards renewable energy appears critical and clear. But, it doesn't appear to me the time for fossil fuel investments has fully passed (I still own gas powered cars and a house heated with natural gas). Anyway....
    “Supply will likely remain tight for the next two or three years as the industry makes up for the lack of new supply investments in 2020 and catches up with robust demand growth,” said Whistler.
    https://bnnbloomberg.ca/there-isn-t-enough-natural-gas-to-calm-down-a-global-price-rally-1.1621711
  • TMSRX Semi-Annual Report
    The largest single holding (1/6 of the portfolio) is T. Rowe Price Dynamic Global Bond (RPEIX / RPIEX). That's where the magic may be be coming from.
    A simple 18/82 blend of VTSAX and RPIEX produces a portfolio with
    - lower standard deviation (3.84% vs 5.06%),
    - higher Sharpe ratio (1.18 vs. 0.81),
    - double the Sortino ratio (2.51 vs 1.26),
    - max drawdown 60% less (1.74% vs. 4.68%),
    - virtually identical correlation with the US equity market (0.66 vs. 0.67)
    and an annualized return ½% better: 6.09% vs 5.50%
    See Portfolio Visualizer comparison.
    So far, I haven't been able to come close to this performance when substituting a different bond fund. There are a variety of other factors to consider. Rotation to value could account for some recent underperformance by the growth leaning TMSRX. The somewhat higher volatility (compared with my custom portfolio) could account for its relative underperformance in 2018 (a down year for the fund and my portfolio) and its relative outperformance in 2019 and 2020 (up years).
    Just quick observations. I haven't looked into RPIEX yet, or taken more than a cursory look at the Portfolio Visualizer data.
  • TMSRX Semi-Annual Report
    I figured since Giroux has touted the utilities sector as purchases for PRWCX , TRP could give him a separate utilities fund. Give him two assistant portfolio managers, put some of his utility picks from PRWCX in the new fund, and he could spend about 15 minutes a day running the fund! There probably wouldn't be many asset constraints. TRP had talked about Giroux running a 40/60 type balanced fund a few years ago, but it's never been launched.
  • TMSRX Semi-Annual Report
    More interesting, I think when examining a fund like this one is how well it held up during past periods of market stress and how well it recovered after them.
    Or - See how it holds up against your own other investments during times of stress. I track a lot of funds for informational purposes. But IMHO nothing compares to owning a small bit of a fund for a few months or years to see how it fits in with your other investments. Suspect that for some TMSRX serves a purpose (primarily moderating volatility / downside risk). For others not. Not everyone invests the same way.
    Yes - I’ve also gotten the sense TRP is trying to market this as a substitute for a bond fund. At least in the very early going that was the “sell”. And I’d agree with most here that’s not how they really intend the fund to act or what investors should expect.
    This isn’t something TRP has a lot of experience with. I’m curious why they even went with it knowing the challenges? Suspect market forces are “a funny thing” if you’re a big player like TRP. (I’ve owned the fund almost since inception.)
  • A Bitcoin / Cryptocurrency thread & Experiment
    Interesting take on the drop in value of Bitcoin / Crypto - currencies :
    Not much moves cryptocurrency markets like Elon Musk tweets -- except, perhaps, the idea of another crackdown in China, the world’s second-largest economy. From a trading ban on domestic exchanges to squeezes on power-consuming digital currency miners, Chinese regulators have tried to tamp down risks related to the stratospheric rise of Bitcoin and its peers for years. Yet a recent flurry of official reminders has traders nervous about more possibly to come as President Xi Jinping seeks to reduce financial risk in the economy and meet the country’s ambitious goals for combating climate change.
    how-china-rivals-elon-musk-in-rattling-crypto-markets
  • Latest GMO 7-Year Forecast May 31, 2021
    Hey Lewis. You wonder. Reminds me of Robert Kessler recent talk on wealth track. Cash is NOT trash. I remember seeing him maybe 40 years ago on a TV investment show stating to buy 30 year zeros. That's when I was a young buck watching TV after working at the local Texaco.
    So who knows like I said prior, I have no idea if the fool is the person in or out of the market at this time. I'm certain there's a fool on one side of that equation though
    I'm thinking there is no way fed can pull back on the reins... market would go splat
    Best regards
    Baseball Fan