Also, a fund like PRNHX continue to impress me in the mid growth space...up 80% since March...40% YTD...27% over 3 years...23% over last 5 years...21% over trailing 10 years...15 % over previous 15years.

Plausible outlook. And, the last sentence lines up with what the Fed chair recently said....

“Given historically low yields and high equity valuations, it makes sense for portfolio managers and asset allocators alike to lower their return expectations rather than stretch too far and extend too far down the quality spectrum in hope of maintaining historical levels of returns,” PIMCO said.
“While central banks including the Fed have the means to provide a backstop for asset markets in times of crisis, credibly achieving their inflation targets requires a tool they cannot control: fiscal policy.”/blockquote>
https://reuters.com/article/us-pimco-outlook/pimco-sees-low-return-environment-likely-for-next-3-5-years-idUSKBN26S2C4

@msf
So I don't have a TRP "brokerage account". Honestly I did not know they had one else would have opened that one when I transferred IRA to them from an old 401k several years back.
My best bet is to see if they use someone else for ACATS clearing.
Next best bet is to file that IBKR form and see if they will wire money directly to IBKR account.
Last resort I have to do things old fashioned way and have them mail be an FBO check I can send IBKR. This is 2020. IF I have to do this, no one is ever going to Mars, ever.

I've seen this reluctance to transfer via an old-fashioned check quite a number of times on MFO, and never quite understood the issue. Years ago in transferring IRA accounts between banks, brokerages, and mutual funds we just received a check, endorsed it over to the receiving party, mailed it via registered mail/return receipt requested, and that was that. Has something changed in that regard?

The issue is when your bad luck is excellent and you find incompetent people in the back office who screw up the check and don't make it FBO, and then blame YOU for not giving proper instructions.

Any thoughts on his GE bet?

He is really negative on Treasuries:

When it is hard to envision a scenario in which an investment generates a mid-single-digit return—and when it is easy to envision a scenario in which an investment generates a double-digit loss—one should stay away from those investments. Unfortunately, that is the circumstance that investors in Treasury bonds find themselves in today.

Ditto - Just finished reading the awesome report. That was my main take-away as well. The phrase begins with something like “Other than short duration high yield bonds ...” (which he still likes).
Well - That’s a fine one. What’s an older conservative investor supposed to buy for diversification in lieu of investment grade bonds? TMSRX? Perhaps - but 2 years does not constitute a serious test. On the surface that might well suggest putting more into equities. However, every so often there come along those nasty 30% market dips. If you’re in the distribution phase, those can seriously upset your cart. BTW - Hasn’t this “can’t win with bonds” prediction been echoing through the chambers of investment gurudom for something like the past 12-15 years now?
-
RE GE - They’re big in jet engines and suffering along with aviation in general. One chief competitor, Rolls Royce, has been plagued with serious quality issues in recent years. Most commercial aircraft can be adapted to accommodate engines from different manufacturers depending on what the airline prefers.

Yes, the IRS might vigorously pursue your small potatoes. For several years, though underfunded, the IRS has chosen to continue auditing low earners at the same rate while reducing the number of audits on high earners.
https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-now-audits-poor-americans-at-about-the-same-rate-as-the-top-1-percent
Apparently, the IRS doesn't "get" Willie Sutton. Banks may be harder to break into than a tenement, but the payoff still makes them the better target. Same for tax evaders.

In 1989, the real estate mogul Leona Helmsley was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion after she tried to write off improvements to her estate in Greenwich, Conn., as business expenses.
One of her lawyers was Alan Dershowitz, who defended Mr. Trump during the impeachment proceedings.
The United States attorney who brought the charges? Rudolph W. Giuliani, who appeared this week with Mr. Trump to denounce The Times’s reporting and has called Mr. Trump a “genius” for finding ways to shrink his tax bill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/business/trump-taxes-hair.html

Good read with lots of charts but I could not find predictions about the markets, especially near term.
I think the SP500+QQQ are consolidating after a huge run and the next leg is up. The price is bouncing around the 50 days moving average but the trend is still up.
Prediction based on PE + value/growth can be off by years

I've seen this reluctance to transfer via an old-fashioned check quite a number of times on MFO, and never quite understood the issue. Years ago in transferring IRA accounts between banks, brokerages, and mutual funds we just received a check, endorsed it over to the receiving party, mailed it via registered mail/return receipt requested, and that was that. Has something changed in that regard?

The calculation that caps Treasury returns in the mid-single digits is straightforward.
"0.6% (the current yield on the 10-year note) "
Assume one can't go negative on nominal yield.
Then price appreciation is limited to what you get when rates drop from 0.6% to 0.0%.
Take a $100 par 10 year note with 0.6% coupon.
Total cash flow = 0.6% x $100 x 10 years ($6) plus return of principal ($100).
Discount that to present value at a 0% discount rate; that's $106.
So you buy a $100 note, rates drop to 0.0%, its present value (price) rises to $106. 6% gain, max. Even that he finds "hard to envision" because "investors are likely to demand a higher return than 0.6% ... in the future."
In a sense, rates dropping to zero is the worst case, because it means that there's no way to get any safe yield going forward.

As Derf notes, Matthews Emerging Markets (MEGMX) is just six months old. It has seen consistent inflows and is sort of clubbing the competition: up 32% since inception versus 20% for its peers in the same period.
Matthews Emerging Asia (MEASX), on the other hand, has had a harder time with three lean years and a couple years of outflows, though the management team has remained unchanged.
I had a chance to chat with some of the Matthews reps. They're a bit concerned that headlines ("Exodus!") will override the substance of the stories: a couple really good managers (and their seconds) moved took plum positions elsewhere, a less excellent manager might have been replaced, and cancelled business initiative in China might have displaced another, all of which is pretty normal in the industry. They admitted to not knowing much about the administrative departure, but promised to try to find out.
For what that's worth,
David

David, thanks for the comments. All true, however, I do not find it common for a CIO to stay only 7 months since being brought on to presumably turn around the performance, which has really taken a nose dive in the last 3 years. Pacific Tiger and Asia Dividend, two of the largest funds, are both less than 50th percentile compared to peers 3-year trailing return. I presume the CIO was brought on to fix that performance, which seemingly never happened as the returns as of August were still poor versus competitors.
In addition, losing someone like Tiffany, who is a great fit for a firm like Matthews, is quite shocking. How did they not retain her? And why did they all leave at the same time? 5 PM departures in the span of 5 months, and all of them were up-and-coming PMs. Dare I say next generation leaders.
Lastly, executives departing < 15 months is weird. I have long been investing in boutiques, and can tell you this is not normal at all. I get retreating from China, but surely a COO does more than just china expansion, no? If not, why did they hire them?
That against the backdrop of huge outflows...something smells funny. Either these departures are just shockingly coincidental, or something seems broken internally. And yes, MEGMX seems to be off to a roaring start, however, Mr. Zhang was a co-lead on that and he just left. So, how does one think of that performance without him there? Worst case scenario: he was the driver of much of the returns! Regardless, I try and not get too excited with such a short track record. There are alot of good emerging markets managers, Baillie Gifford and Ashmore are two from Europe that have been building good track records over here.

Economic growth can come in many ways. From more workers (and requisite capital to sustain productivity/worker). From longer hours, e.g. converting part time jobs to full time jobs. From increased worker productivity, e.g. from better training, reduced turnover, better tools, or simply improved working conditions/worker satisfaction. From replacing workers with machines.
Farming illustrates the potential for increased output from improvements in technology and increased automation even as labor decreases sharply:

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/farming-and-farm-income/
Regarding the employed/population ratio (56.6%). One calculates this by multiplying together:
employment rate, i.e. 1 - unemployment rate, and
"participation rate", i.e. percentage of people employed or actively looking for jobs.
(1 - 7.9%) x 61.4% = 56.6%
This is one reason why the official unemployment figure can be misleading. If a lot of people get discouraged and drop out of the workforce, then they are not counted as unemployed. This shows up as a lower participation rate rather than a higher unemployment rate.
The participation rate, 61.4% is almost two percent lower than it was a year ago (63.2%). However, that participation rate from a year ago was itself lower than it was "at any point in the Great Recession." So at least some of the decline in the percentage of the population working likely has little to do with the pandemic, but rather reflects a generally declining participation rate. It's difficult to disentangle multiple causes.
(Seasonally adjusted, from the end of 2007 to the end of 2010, the participation rate dropped around 1½% , continuing to decline slowly for another 3-4 years. It stabilized and began rising slightly only in the second half of 2019.)
Please consider providing links to sources, especially ones quoted. Statistics also.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/upshot/2020-terrible-job-market.html (quoted text)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm (Current BLS employment report, generally released first Friday of each month)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm (BLS total employment, unemployment data)
https://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm (Employment, unemployment historical data)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm (BLS nonfarm data, incl. mfg detail)
https://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm (Nonfarm historical data)

Our state retirement board makes the plans.
We have both Fido and TRP as plan providers (VALIC was dropped a few years back) ... I found it noteworthy that a) 3 of TIAA's most prominent VA offerings were nixed from *their* plan offerings, and b) replaced with funds that were higher-cost.
I always find it fascinating the seemingly random nature of independent fund picks in plans ... you'd think plans would stick with big names like TRP, Vanguard, AF, Blackstone, etc. Victory RS? I never heard of them.

It sounds like there are not many choices of providers. Years ago my institution finally made Fidelity a choice, in addition to some insurance companies. I was with Valic, but there were several good funds to choose from; T Rowe Price Science & Technology was good to me. I'd been enrolled enough years that I could exit with no fees.
The Fidelity account restricted me to Fidelity funds (and not quite all Fidelity funds were available), but there were plenty of good choices.
When I retired, I rolled the 403(b) over to an IRA (at Fidelity).
Who makes the choices for your system?
David

If that patterns hold, this implies that the recession will last for several more years. The COVID infection will complicate the business cycle and its recovery if the cornavirsus is brought under control quickly.

Thank you very much.
I have invested with Harbor funds for long time. I agree that the commentary from the subadvisor/manager is "light" even in annual reports. Andrew Foster of Seafarer funds and David Giroux of T. Rowe Price are exemplary on this aspect. Harbor hires managers with good track record and change them when their performance trail their benchmark for several years. Expense ratio of investor shares are reasonable and the lower fee institutional shares requires $50K.

One description: interest rates declined steadily for 150 years as the US economy matured and we weren't universally seen as an issuer of junk bonds, soared for 40 years during the "rise to global hegemony" phase and have now fallen for 40 years.
It's never safe to read too much into history, but an appreciation of how long "the long-term" can last might provide a useful frame for other discussions.
Just pondering, David

The article discusses why the time it takes for the economy to fully recover from the pandemic may well be measured in years.

....what makes a recession a recession is that the initial economic pain, whatever its source, transmits broadly to affect nearly every industry and drive millions of people not into newer and fast-growing sectors but onto the rolls of the unemployed.
The origins of the recession of 2020 may be different from those of the previous two downturns. But so far, the way it is spreading from company to company, and industry to industry, looks awfully similar.

https://nytimes.com/2020/10/03/upshot/pandemic-economy-recession.html

As Derf notes, Matthews Emerging Markets (MEGMX) is just six months old. It has seen consistent inflows and is sort of clubbing the competition: up 32% since inception versus 20% for its peers in the same period.
Matthews Emerging Asia (MEASX), on the other hand, has had a harder time with three lean years and a couple years of outflows, though the management team has remained unchanged.
I had a chance to chat with some of the Matthews reps. They're a bit concerned that headlines ("Exodus!") will override the substance of the stories: a couple really good managers (and their seconds) moved took plum positions elsewhere, a less excellent manager might have been replaced, and cancelled business initiative in China might have displaced another, all of which is pretty normal in the industry. They admitted to not knowing much about the administrative departure, but promised to try to find out.
For what that's worth,
David

@Derf,
My initial (2020) purchase of PRLAX occurred on 2 successive days, April 2 and April 3. Was off close to 50% YTD at that time. Sold a couple small chunks (about 20%) late April / early June as it had risen quite a bit. As of yesterday, fund was still off 31% YTD. My 6-month gain’s probably going to be close to 15%. Beats 0.07% in a T-Bond money market fund. Been eying DODFX for a couple months. Should be a smoother ride. But doesn’t have the same upside potential.
Otherwise, you might be referring to roughly 4-5 years ago when I also played PRLAX for a quick gain. If that’s it, you have a damned good memory! They had an exit fee back than if the fund was held for fewer than 90 days. Actually sold it and paid the fee, since it had done so well.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” - B/F

Dear friends,
We posted our early autumn issue of the MFO monthly this morning. I tried to focus a bit more on individual funds that might be worthy of attention.
Seven Canyons World Innovators (WAGTX) started life as Wasatch Global Tech, morphed into Wasatch World Innovators, and following founder Sam Stewart to his new firm and became Seven Canyons World Innovators. The manager commentaries are unusually lucid and thoughtful. I'm struck, in particular, by their discussion of whether the entire (developed) world has become Japan: slow growth, aging population, vast debt, no room for more monetary stimulus and at risk of stagnation. Their argument is "true enough, but some Japanese firms did fabulously well. Let's learn from them." Both raw and risk-adjusted performance is consistently top tier.
Harbor Global Leaders (HGGIX) sort of caught Ed's eye about a month ago, and I promised to write a bit about them. The short story is that this used to be a Marsico-led fund and, three years ago, became of somewhat different Sands-led one. The Sands team has had top tier returns but ... their Lipper peer group is a bit squishy since it's a "global" group that includes domestic funds and their shareholder communications are pretty bad. Like Fidelity, Harbor uses a template for their reports which limits the manager to about 100 words of useful content and they don't push any material that's not required. As a result, my read on them is a bit thin.
Evolutionary Tree Innovators just launched with the leadership of a guy who used to be a bigwig at Sands Capital. The strategy seems to be an ... uh, evolution of the domestic large-growth strategy he helped pursue at Sands. Two problems. (1) A near-institutional minimum and (2) limited access to role in the non-public version of the investment vehicles.
The Matthews folks have moved to Artisan, but it looks like they'll be working with private rather than public vehicles.
Lynn Bolin does another rich job of reasoning through his shopping list. Lynn is skeptical of the state of markets and the economy over the next five years and was looking for funds that (a) have flexibility in their mandate and (b) use it well. There's ground for lively discussion there.
Speaking of "lively discussion," the off-topic board is less closed than it was. With any luck at all, I've succeeded in modifying the settings so that folks can post there but O-T posts don't appear on the "recent discussions" view that is the default landing page for the discussion board. That way, if folks want to participate in off-topic discussions they can but the landing page highlights on-topic discussions instead. Thanks, especially, to O.J. for helping me think about this.
And thanks, especially, to The Shadow. Usually Briefly Noted is the product of parallel investigations: Shadow tracks filings and I track filings, with his work helping me be sure that I haven't screwed up and missed important stuff. This month was vaguely a disaster for me and I was about 95% dependent on his finds. Fortunately, Shadow does amazing work, which saved me. So, thanks!
David