I had a problem with TT Home & Business. Last year I made a QCD after I turned 70.5, but not 72. There was no way to make the QCD a tax free distribution until I increased my age a few years. I then was able to enter the QCD properly. After finishing, I put my correct birthday back in. That worked. Thanks to the TT forum.
I hope TT fixes this as this will happen to me this year too, and then others thereafter.

Hey all... a bit off topic (sort of)... but I still own PONAX and IOFIX came across my radar and have read a lot of positive comments on this board about it. It's performing just fine or better than fine in 2021... but did anyone here have palpitations in 2020 when the 1 year return was -9.59%? with the ER at 1.68%? I'm not being snarky... just trying to understand the logic of why you believe in it LT. Reviewed FD's chart showing the fund's momentum and it was logical. #IStrugglewithBonds and understanding the ballast / importance if you ignore 2008-which, hard to believe, was 13 years ago.

We have had great experience with TurboTax for many years. The deluxe version in CD costs $40 at Amazon. Download version costs the same at Costco and other retailers.

I tried Tax Cut once several years ago. Very hard to use. Turbo Tax is pretty easy and fairly cheap. Every time I tried a CPA they made a huge mistake. Just sent in daughter's return to both feds and state Both accepted it so I assume all of the updates are done.

I used to use H&R Block tax software some years ago. I think I entered too many items (dividend reinvestment plans) and the software crashed. I had to re-enter the information three times and each time the software crashed when I tried to move have it go to the State tax software. Ever since then I have used TurboTax.

'As increasingly widespread covid-19 vaccinations signal a possible return to normal life, the United States is moving toward an unusual experiment that could produce an economy many Americans will not recognize — for better or for worse.
Factories are humming and consumers are spending again, signs that the United States could emerge from the current health crisis with its strongest growth in decades. Goldman Sachs expects the economy to expand this year at an annual rate of 7 percent, the fastest pace since President Ronald Reagan proclaimed “morning again in America” in 1984.
The question is whether that fast-paced rebound can be made to last, freeing the nation from the low-growth rut it has plowed for most of the past 20 years, or will instead ignite the sort of inflation that has not been seen since the 1970s. Prominent economists such as former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers already are warning that potential overheating could end in a new recession."
WaPo Article by David Lynch

Fund has been around for years but has had a lackluster performance. Fund changed its investment style from domestic micro cap fund to predominately health/biotech micro/small cap fund.
Website states that management would close the fund when it gathers $100m in assets.
http://www.perkinsfund.com/performance.html

“The study findings, released Friday, portend a long era of muted returns for higher education institutions, which will likely encourage them to have a fresh look at financial and investment strategies in order to meet critical return targets and sustain their mission of providing urgently needed support to students. The new study was based on responses of 705 institutions representing $638 billion in endowment assets, and covers the fiscal year July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020.”
“Endowments’ average one-year returns were 1.8% as of June 30, compared with 5.3% for the previous fiscal year. The historical target return for endowments has been 7.5%, comprising spending requirements, but in recent years, endowments have been challenged to meet this target, according to the study.”
Article
NOTE - Study may be a bit misleading since it measures the one-year returns as of June 30 - shortly after the pandemic induced selloff. However, 1.8% seems like a dismal one-year return. My sense is that both 2019 and 2020 were pretty good years for most investors - despite the March / April pummeling.

I have owned IOFIX for several years but also traded it several times at Fidelity and Schwab. I checked my 1099-DIV for 2018,2019 Nondividend Distributions and they were at zero. To tell you the truth, I really don't care, I just copy all these numbers to my tax software annually.

was watching Druckenmiller interview w/ GS. He was saying that he buys the junk bond crash every 7 years it seemed to him but didn't own them long term.
When is time/what will be the signs to sell the junk bond funds like ARTFX? What do you think the current yield of that fund is?

I hear you loud and clear @sven on valuations and equity P/E... BUT... the stories covering that topic and sending out the alarms have been have been increasing in frequency the last 3 years. Then in March it was an I told you so moment but it ended up not being.
@derf I’m open to learning the value of bonds. Heck.. I’ve even admitted that I own a bond fund in each of my accounts. I’m trying to be conservative and note- I’m not yet relying on investments for retirement income. I’m not retired. When I do... perhaps I’ll pay even closer attention to them. It’s just for the last 10 plus years... I don’t understand how I benefitted from owning them when just comparing to an S&P 500 Index.
Still - love the conversation here and learning different perspectives.

Article in the FT today partially addresses the issue. Hard to link to it if no subscription. It’s the top one in the attached search query. Try this
Article: Should equity investors worry about rising interest rates? - Michael Mackenzie
Excerpt: “Bullish sentiment remains very high. The latest monthly survey of global fund managers by Bank of America this week highlighted that cash levels in portfolios are being cut to their lowest level in eight years”.

The card market is crazy right now. I was a collector years ago and held on to some stuff. I sold a few things recently for crazy profits including a Peyton Manning card I bought for $20 and sold for over $400.

Feb 20th Episode:

Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Asset Allocation:

On October 28th, Sébastien Page and Chris Dillon discussed principles from Sébastien’s recent book, “Beyond Diversification.” Sébastien combines his 20 years of investing experience; analysis from more than 200 academic articles; insights shared from a cast of expert colleagues at T. Rowe Price; and, perhaps most importantly, practical lessons passed down by his father, a renowned finance professor.

beyond-diversification-insights-webinar-replay
Against the Wind (CNBC Interview):

Sebastien Page's Bio and Articles:
Sébastien Page, CFA, Head of Global Multi-Asset

I reacquired some sets from my childhood around 1990-1991. I remember the 1968 Ryan rookie card worth $1200 being sold for $12.00 by a fill-in salesperson! Just a few years ago, the media was bemoaning the waning interest in baseball cards because the collectors were aging out, but with meager interest rates and inflated stock values the unloved has become the dearly loved !

5.25% front-load. Nope. This method sounds too complicated for ME. (I had to edit this down just a bit. Straight from the Morningstar report.)
...will close to new investors starting March 12, 2021. The fund will no longer be able to receive subscriptions from new investors from that date; however, existing investors will continue to have the ability to make additional investments or to reinvest distributions. Assets under management have swelled to $15.6 billion as of Jan. 31, 2021, following a rush of inflows in 2020. Soft-closing the fund is a prudent decision aimed at preserving the strategy’s ability to effectively execute options trading, and further reinforces its Morningstar Analyst Rating of Silver for the cheapest share classes.
Attractive fees, a transparent and consistent process, and an experienced manager elevate JPMorgan Hedged Equity ahead of its peers... Morningstar Analyst Rating of Silver.
...aims to provide smoother equity returns by a systematically implemented options strategy. (T)he team purchases puts 5% below the S&P 500’s value. To offset the cost of the puts, the team first sells puts 20% out-of-the-money ...to protect the fund from quarterly losses in the 5%-20% range; if markets fall less than 5%, the fund should fall in line with the market, and if the market falls more than 20%, the fund should incur the same incremental losses beyond negative 5%. The team also sells call options to generate enough option premium income to cover remaining cost of the hedges. The systematic options overlay structure has led to a dependable outcome even in the most volatile markets, such as in the first quarter of 2020, when it contained losses to less than 5%.
Hamilton Reiner is the lead manager and architect of the strategy. Reiner joined JPMorgan in 2009 and has over three decades of equity and options trading experience.
Assets have grown at a staggering rate, but the strategy should be able absorb the influx relatively easily as it uses liquid securities. In the past three years through August 2020, assets have grown from just over $1 billion to nearly $9.7 billion thanks to solid performance and low fees. Institutional and retirement share classes, in particular, are a lot cheaper than the options-based Morningstar Category average. These low fees coupled with JPMorgan’s transparent process make it an interesting option.
This fund uses a well-defined and thoughtful approach to options trading. Its transparent and repeatable process should deliver predictable results over the long term. The strategy earns an Above Average Process rating.
The strategy aims to provide a smoother ride to equity investing by purchasing 5% out-of-the-money put options and selling 20% out-of-the-money put options over a U.S. equity portfolio. This structure, called a put-spread, is designed to protect capital when markets sell off 5%-20% in a given quarter but also has a lower cost compared with outright put protection. However, since the short option position is so far out-of-the-money, management also sells a call option to cover the price of the long put position. The call options are usually sold 3.5%-5.5% out-of-the-money, depending on the amount of income needed to cover the cost of the long put, but periods of heightened volatility can move that target higher. The level at which the call strikes are written will determine the strategy’s upside cap for the quarter.
The team intends to generate a small level of alpha in the equity portfolio by slightly overweighting attractively priced stocks and slightly underweighting expensive stocks based on fundamental analysis. Since the constitution of the equity portfolio closely replicates the S&P 500, the use of the index options is not problematic from a hedging perspective.
The core long equity portfolio should track the S&P 500 closely as it constrains tracking error to 1.5% annually. It aims to outperform that index by tweaking the individual stock exposure within a 1-percentage-point range using a dividend discount model that ranks stocks from most attractive to least attractive based on forecast earnings and company-specific growth catalysts. The team creates a well-diversified portfolio that mitigates risk associated with individual holdings, with the resulting portfolio holding around 200 stocks. Sector weightings resemble the S&P 500 with modest underweightings in real estate and consumer staples and a small overweighting in consumer discretionary.
The team constructs a zero-cost option overlay at the beginning of each calendar quarter and resets it at the end of the quarter. Call premiums received should improve with persistently high market volatility and higher interest rates, thus improving the strategy’s upside in such a market environment. This was the case at the beginning of 2020’s second quarter when the call options had a strike price closer to 7% out-of-the-money following a period of extremely high volatility. However, in periods of serious market stress (such as Black Monday in 1987, where the S&P 500 dropped 23% in a single day), the short out-of-the-money put leg of the spread may expose the fund to additional losses.
An experienced and dedicated manager and access to JPMorgan’s ample resources earn this strategy an Above Average People rating.
The core team tasked with managing this strategy is small, but concerns about its size are assuaged by the options overlay’s systematic implementation and access to a strong support team. Lead portfolio manager and strategy architect Hamilton Reiner joined the firm in 2009 and has extensive experience trading derivatives, with a career dating back more than three decades. Prior to joining JPMorgan, Reiner held senior positions at Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers, and Deutsche Bank, and he spent the first 10 years of his career at O’Connor and Associates, an options specialist firm. It was announced last year that Reiner would be responsible for leading JPMorgan’s U.S. structured equity team, although this new responsibility should not interfere with his portfolio management duties on the option-based strategies. Raffaele Zingone, the other named portfolio manager, joined the firm in 1991 and is responsible for the equity portfolio implementation. He directs JPMorgan's deep bench of 26 equity analysts, who average 20 years of industry experience.
Reiner has more than $1 million invested alongside investors, signaling a strong alignment of interest between management and shareholders. Zingone has between $500,000 and $1 million invested in the fund.
Parent |
Above Average Jun 2, 2020
J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s strong investment culture, which shows through its long-tenured, well-aligned portfolio managers and deep analytical resources, supports a renewed Above Average Parent rating.
Across asset classes and regions, the firm's diverse lineup features many Morningstar Medalists, such as its highly regarded U.S. equity income strategy that’s available globally. There's been some turnover in the multi-asset team recently, but it remains deeply resourced and experienced. Manager retention and tenure rates, and degree of alignment for U.S. mutual funds compare favorably among the competition. Managers' compensation emphasizes fund ownership over stock ownership, which is distinctive for a public company.
The firm continues to streamline its lineup and integrate its resources further. For instance, in late 2019, the multi-asset solutions division combined with the passive capabilities. The firm hasn’t launched trendy offerings as it’s mostly expanded its passive business lately, but acquisition-related redundancies and more hazardous launches in the past weigh on its success ratio, which measures the percentage of funds that have both survived and outperformed peers. Fees are regularly reviewed downward globally; they're relatively cheaper in the U.S. than abroad. Also, the firm is building its ESG capabilities and supports distinctive initiatives on diversity.
Performance
This strategy has consistently met performance expectations.
Since its December 2013 inception, the strategy has returned 7.8% annualized through August 2020, beating the options-based category average by nearly 4.7 percentage points annualized. It has also outperformed on a risk-adjusted basis. Its Sharpe ratio of 1.0 since January 2014 trounces the category average of 0.3.
The options overlay is designed to protect capital when the S&P 500 drops 5%-20% in a given quarter. This means investors will be exposed to losses if the S&P 500 loses less than 5% in a three-month period. However, this hasn’t stopped the strategy from achieving its goal of lower volatility relative to the S&P 500. Since December 2013, it has had a 6.7% monthly standard deviation compared with the S&P 500's 13.8%. Moreover, the maximum drawdown (based on monthly data) has been limited to negative 7.9% relative to the S&P 500’s negative 19.6%.
Investors should note that the intraquarter experience will vary given that option pricing is dynamic until expiration. Options’ values are marked to market daily, which often results in intraquarter deviations from the quarter-end return. For example, the strategy was down nearly 19% at one point in the first quarter of 2020 but ended the period down 4.9%.
Price
It’s critical to evaluate expenses, as they come directly out of returns. The share class on this report levies a fee that ranks in its Morningstar category’s second-cheapest quintile. Based on our assessment of the fund’s People, Process and Parent pillars in the context of these fees, we think this share class will be able to deliver positive alpha relative to the category benchmark index, explaining its Morningstar Analyst Rating of Bronze.

I have owned VHT for at least 10 years and never looked for an other. I think it covers health well.

These are funds acquired from Gurtin Funds two years ago. PIMCO retained Gurtin as their submanager. The name change appears to be purely cosmetic for now, i.e. no change in management.
The more significant section adds that PIMCO may soft or hard close the two "Opportunistic" funds.
Wild speculation based on no additional information: Gurtin feels that it may not be able to manage the funds if they grow much larger, and PIMCO is debating whether to drop Gurtin or comply with its desire to slow inflows. I can't recall PIMCO closing any of its funds.

I've dealt with Amy a few years back & found her to be very helpful. Thanks @InformalEconomist.
Stay Safe, Derf