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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.
  • Crypto must go. Just plain true. Opinion piece.
    I've been thinking about "statists" and their insufferable rules. Specifically, the "statists" who are responsible for providing us with MFO. There’s a prime example of those who just love to curtail our freedoms.
    Because the great majority of MFO posters have made it very clear that they do not appreciate politically slanted postings, the managers of MFO have provided an Off Topic section where commentary not specific to financial matters may be posted, and they have requested that MFO members observe that protocol.
    But not Edmond- he won’t stand for having his “freedom” to say whatever he wants wherever he wants subjected to any rules. How dare they!
    Why, just look at how the statists attempt to restrict freedom lovers like Edmond: they make rules and laws that tell Edmond’s folks that…
    • they should respect and honor provably honest election practices
    • they shouldn’t try to intimidate perfectly honest poll workers
    • they shouldn’t attempt to pressure honest election officials to lie about the results
    • they shouldn’t attempt to overthrow Congress to prevent the results of an honest election from being recognized
    That’ll do for a start.
    Let’s hope that someone shuts this post down before it gets really nasty.
    Old_Joe Old_Joe in Other Investing
  • Crypto must go. Just plain true. Opinion piece.
    Crash :
    The Fed's money printing has been the biggest contributor to IN-equality during the past 20 years or so. --- As they have blown asset bubbles, everywhere. Who owns most of the stocks and bonds which have had asset bubbles? -- The wealthy.
    Its not the same as "printing counterfeit money". -- No one believes bitcoin is the USD. People want OUT of the USD. So your counterfeiting argument is easily discarded. Is gold "counterfeit money"? Of course not.
    Crypto the "invention of the criminally-minded". You sound like an expert. --So you must be aware that most financial institutions (banks, etc) are working feverishly to incorporate the underlying blockchain technology which is the basis for crypto, to service their existing businesses. --- So will you ban them from using blockchain technology? If not, then there goes your whole IN-equality argument: you want the wealthy to benefit from blockchain, but not the little guy.
    As for liberals spending for more libraries etc, fine, let them propose/pass tax increases, rather then debase the currency. --- Its the debasement of the currency which is the raison d'etre for crypto.
    Do you have an alternative to prevent sovereign currency debasement? Or is that crickets I hear?
    Edmond in Other Investing
  • “Everything we deal with is significantly cheaper than it was six - 12 months ago.” - Howard Marks
    From this week’s Barron’s: “Today I am starting to behave aggressively. Everything we deal with is significantly cheaper than it was six to 12 months ago.” - Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital
    There was no accompanying article in Barron’s. The interview they were referencing appears to have been published in the Financial Times. I’m unable to access it.
    I never felt Marks was telling you and me to start buying risky assets. Running a large investment company is much different than levering your family’s life savings.
    Thanks @Junkster for the comments. +1
    I’ll try to draw from original sources in the future. My thoughts are that Marks doesn't customarily dish-out investment advice to others. He runs his own ship and discusses his own methods and philosophy. I think trying to take instruction from him would be difficult. Personally, I love reading and learning about investing. It’s not important to me whether or not “actionable advice” can be gleaned from a source. But, others differ in expectations.
    hank in Other Investing
  • Vanguard Customer Service
    @sven, just call TIAA. It has 2 business sides, retirement plans with restrictions (for colleges/universities & nonprofits) and general accounts (for everybody) for mutual funds, brokerage (via Pershing), 529s, taxable annuities, banking, and used to be life insurance but it stopped those. As my involvement with TIAA is through retirement plan (403b), I don't have first hand info on the latter aspects. Remember though that access to TIAA Traditional (SV-like) and TIAA Real Estate Account VA (your indicated interest) is only for special IRAs that also meet TIAA Eligibility requirements (link below that was also posted earlier) - some direct or indirect/family connection with TIAA.
    TIAA Eligibility https://www.tiaa.org/public/pdf/eligibility_flyer_external.pdf
    TIAA Products https://www.tiaa.org/public/invest/financial-products
    yogibearbull yogibearbull in Other Investing
  • Falling Commodity Prices Raise Hopes That Inflation Has Peaked
    Excerpt from a WSJ article (on Apple News) that inflation may be cooling.
    Natural-gas prices shot up more than 60% before falling back to close the quarter 3.9% lower. U.S. crude slipped from highs above $120 a barrel to end around $106. Wheat, corn and soybeans all wound up cheaper than they were at the end of March. Cotton unraveled, losing more than a third of its price since early May. Benchmark prices for building materials copper and lumber dropped 22% and 31%, respectively, while a basket of industrial metals that trade in London had its worst quarter since the 2008 financial crisis
    This accounted for recent decline in commodity and commodity futures funds and ETFs.
    Sven in Other Investing
  • Money Market Rates - interesting again?
    So, what was that all about pointing out FZDXX is subject to redemption gates, without mentioning that SWVXX is also subject to the same redemption gates?

    Schwab doesn't treat SWVXX as a checking account. So at Schwab you can't pull money out (say, at an ATM) moments before the fund is frozen. You can pull money from FZDXX only to have the fund frozen before the shares are sold at end of day.
    Fidelity introduced that problem and doesn't know how it would handle it.
    I expect financial institutions to be able to tell me exactly what will happen with my money when I do X. Fidelity can't. To their credit, they acknowledged this.
    For me, there is no disadvantage of FZDXX over SWVXX if and when redemption gates are triggered. I am not even considering Fidelity's cleaner history w/r/t MMF redemptions. SWVXX requires me to wait a day to invest funds in it, even when redemption gates are not triggered, which is a big disadvantage for what I want to accomplish. Do not worry about me. I am good.
    Just as we were discussing I remembered that I had some money in the Fidelity sweep account and I went ahead and moved the money to FZDXX. Thanks.
    BaluBalu in Other Investing
  • Money Market Rates - interesting again?
    So, what was that all about pointing out FZDXX is subject to redemption gates, without mentioning that SWVXX is also subject to the same redemption gates?
    Schwab doesn't treat SWVXX as a checking account. So at Schwab you can't pull money out (say, at an ATM) moments before the fund is frozen. You can pull money from FZDXX only to have the fund frozen before the shares are sold at end of day.
    Fidelity introduced that problem and doesn't know how it would handle it.
    I expect financial institutions to be able to tell me exactly what will happen with my money when I do X. Fidelity can't. To their credit, they acknowledged this.
    msf in Other Investing
  • Vanguard Customer Service
    Anyone can open a conventional taxable brokerage account at TIAA.
    https://shared.tiaa.org/private/mytcbrokerageaccountopening/aobrokerageapp/secure/required
    It gives you access to what you'd find at most brokerages - stocks, ETFs, mutual funds. Like those other brokerages, it does not give you access to mutual funds sold through annuities.
    Most brokerages offer retail IRA accounts that, aside from being wrapped up in an IRA, are virtually identical to their retail taxable accounts. TIAA does not. It used to but stopped offering such an IRA account a few years ago.
    What TIAA does do is sell retirement annuities. To colleges, that's a 403(b) annuity. Like most variable annuities, TIAA's have a limited set of funds that are sold only through annuities. Notably the CREF funds, like CREF stock. And like some variable annuities, the TIAA annuities offer a fixed annuity option. Here, that's TIAA Traditional Annuity.
    For individual investors, TIAA offers two variable annuities. One is your typical VA, called TIAA Intelligent Variable Annuity. It offers "funds" (typically VA clones) shown here. The other VA is effectively the equivalent of the 403(b) annuity (plus brokerage window). It's that one that gives you get access to TIAA Traditional, CREF, and TIAA Real Estate.
    That annuity is only offered to "eligible" investors, and only as an Individual Retirement Annuity. Unlike typical VAs, you can't buy it for a taxable account.
    https://www.tiaa.org/public/retire/financial-products/annuities/annuity-ira-benefits
    As Yogi mentioned, the TIAA Traditional Annuity (fixed annuity investment option) that you can get though this limited access IRA annuity comes with a lower rate than paid to 403(b) participants. It is paying 2.50%, and has a guaranteed floor of 1.0%. I believe the IRA annuity contract restricts Traditional withdrawals to one per quarter.
    An IRA investor is at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the CREF funds. Several years ago, TIAA split these into three share classes, with large institutions getting cheaper shares and small institutions getting the most expensive shares. As an IRA investor, you're thrown in with the small institutions. It could be worse; TIAA could have created a fourth share class for IRA investors.
    IMHO the only significant benefit to this IRA annuity is access to TIAA Real Estate Account (TREA).
    You can find the VA options (including those for this IRA annuity) here. The IRA doesn't give you access to the non-TIAA VA subaccounts listed (except for Nuveen, which is owned by TIAA).
    https://www.tiaa.org/public/investment-performance
    Since it is structured as an annuity, this IRA can be difficult to deal with. You can't do transfers in kind (e.g. for RMDs, or IRA-to-IRA). When transferring money out of this annuity, you have to initiate the transfer from the TIAA side; typically one initiates transfers from the receiving side. These are attributes normally associated with employer-sponsored plans (401(k)s, 403(b)s), not with IRAs.
    The website is atrocious. I'm won't go into details. Suffice to say that people who complain about Vanguard's website likely haven't yet had the "pleasure" of dealing with TIAA's. And you won't know what funds you can buy through the IRA brokerage window until you actually open an account.
    msf in Other Investing
  • Money Market Rates - interesting again?
    I put in an order to sell entire SWVXX at Schwab yesterday [Wed June 29]. I had to wake up today at 6 AM PST to pick a family member at the airport. So, I checked my Schwab account pre-market and the SWVXX sale cash was already in the account.
    Cash actually in the account? Or is Schwab just making it look that way without being very precise?
    Financial institutions have a propensity to offer ersatz services - carefully hiding details letting customers' imaginations fill in the gaps. NOW accounts are a good example. Savings banks offered these accounts that looked like checking accounts, felt like checking accounts, but were not the same as demand deposit accounts.
    https://www.creditkarma.com/money/i/what-are-now-accounts
    Schwab may have posted a pending credit prior to market open, making it look and feel like a cash deposit, knowing that any withdrawal would not be reconciled until end of day, i.e. T+1.
    I transferred money from one Fidelity account to another this weekend. The money shows as available for withdrawal in the target account. But my MMF position in the "from" account is unchanged. And the number of shares in the target core MMF hasn't increased. The cash has not moved. Yet.
    On the "Positions" page, Fidelity says that what's in the target account is a "Cash Credit from Unsettled Activity."
    FZDXX at Fidelity, unlike SWVXX at Schwab, is counted towards my cash buying power, and Fidelity will automatically liquidate FZDXX as necessary to satisfy any buy trade.
    True, and a nice feature, though it isn't a sweep account and Fidelity hasn't quite figured out all the mechanics. I know because I asked a fairly long time ago.
    FZDXX is subject to liquidity gates (at least until the regs are changed; see SEC proposal thread here). There is at least a theoretical possibility that Fidelity would impose a hold on FZDXX redemptions if the fund came under stress. What would happen with cash withdrawals made "immediately" on the assumption that cash could get pulled out of FZDXX? The honest answer I got from Fidelity was that they didn't know.
    (FWIW, it does not seem that Fidelity MMF needed bailouts in 2008; Chuck's did.)
    msf in Other Investing
  • 2022 Financial Market Performance
    The author analyzed all rolling six month returns for the S&P 500
    and 5 Yr. Treasuries for the period ending June 30, 2022.
    Link
    S&P 500: worst 3% of all 6 month returns since 1926.
    5 Yr. Treasuries: second-worst 6 month returns ever ¹.
    60/40: worst 2% of all 6 month returns since 1926.
    ¹ period ending 05/31/2022
    Observant1 in Other Investing
  • “Everything we deal with is significantly cheaper than it was six - 12 months ago.” - Howard Marks
    M* had more details citing MarketWatch (owned by News Corp/NWS, parent of Barron's, WSJ, DJ & Co, etc), https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20220628116/oaktrees-howard-marks-is-finding-bargains-i-am-starting-to-behave-aggressively-he-says
    Original/MarketWatch https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oaktrees-howard-marks-is-finding-bargains-i-am-starting-to-behave-aggressively-he-says-11656414153
    "That brings us to our call of the day from a well known voice on Wall Street, Oaktree Capital's founder Howard Marks, who says now's the time for "bargain" hunting follow the market's selloff.
    Marks is best known for his lengthy investment letters, and warnings. In early May he cautioned over bull-market excess, which seems as prescient as his similar year-earlier warning.
    "Today I am starting to behave aggressively," he told the Financial Times in an interview. "Everything we deal in is significantly cheaper than it was six or 12 months ago."
    The manager said now seems like a "reasonable time to start buying," noting lower prices for such assets as high-yield bonds, mortgage-backed securities and leveraged loans. Oaktree specializes in alternative investment strategies.
    "Things may well go lower. In that case, I hope we'll have the will to buy more. It makes no sense to say: "I'm not going to buy until we reach bottom." We never know when we're at the bottom, and certainly I'm not saying we are today," Marks said."
    yogibearbull yogibearbull in Other Investing
  • At what point will the Fed cry “Uncle”?
    The following gets to what I was hinting at in my OP.
    “Central banks will not have the stomach to keep policy tight enough for long enough to squeeze inflation out,” says economist Martin Barnes.
    (Lead-in to this week’s’s Up & Down Wall Street - by Randall Forsyth, Barron’s)
    The fact that Barnes said it and Forsyth repeats it doesn’t necessarily make it true. We’ll have to wait and see. In addition, if you subscribe to this theory you must also believe that additional damage will be done to the economy and financial markets by the Fed’s newfound monetary restraint before the central banks decide “enough is enough” and lighten up on the hammer. This might have implications for investors.
    hank in Other Investing
  • Financials to stage comeback: Gerard Cassidy, RBC
    Hi Mr Edmond
    You answer your own question
    The ML advisor keep saying buy financial since 2009 lol

    ==
    Its kinda like any real estate agent with a pulse, when you ask them "When is a good time to BUY a house?" Their answer is always: "Now. Now! NOW is the best time to buy a house"
    **********************
    Of course. People with critical thinking abilities can read or listen or watch ANYONE talk about ANYTHING, and be able to read between the lines. Vested interests are always there, at least potentially. Disclosure is a good thing. When I KNOW I'm getting input from an RBC guy, then I have a better angle from which to interpret and understand what's being offered--- or spewed. And watch for what's NOT being said, too. Example: have you noticed that when it comes to markets and investing, not a single word is ever mentioned about what's ethical and what's not? I'm not talking about ESG. That's a token, a throw-away, a mere gesture. .......
    Crash Crash in Other Investing
  • Oldest mutual funds: name changes
    Not sure if it's had the same name?
    That would be a good guess. But it wasn't quite a name change. Kiplinger says that T. Rowe Price only started its first mutual fund in 1950.
    https://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/t041-c009-s002-top-funds-from-t-rowe-price.html
    In 1992, T. Rowe Price buried the real history of this fund (which existed at the time) and substituted the history of a different fund, Axe-Houghton Fund B, which had an earlier inception date. In short, RPBAX was created well after 1939, but you'll never know when.
    According to RPBAX's SAI,
    On August 31, 1992, the T. Rowe Price Balanced Fund acquired substantially all of the assets of the Axe-Houghton Fund B, a series of Axe-Houghton Funds, Inc. As a result of this acquisition, the SEC requires that the historical performance information of the Balanced Fund be based on the performance of Fund B. Therefore, all performance information of the Balanced Fund prior to September 1, 1992, reflects the performance of Fund B and investment managers other than T. Rowe Price.
    In 1992, the NYTimes reported:
    T. Rowe Price, a large no-load family ... took over six funds with total assets of $546 million from the struggling insurance company USF&G.
    ...
    five [of the] USF&G funds, and the funds they have been mingled with, are Axe-Houghton Growth, now part of T. Rowe Price New America Growth; Axe-Houghton Income, into T. Rowe Price New Income; RMC European Emerging Companies, T. Rowe Price European Stock; Axe-Houghton Fund B, T. Rowe Price Balanced; USF&G Cash Reserves, T. Rowe Price Prime Reserve.
    https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/03/your-money/IHT-briefcase.html
    Here's a little bit more about Axe-Houghton Fund B and USF&G:
    Prior to 1992, Axe-Houghton Associates was named Axe Core Investors, and was wholly-owned by Axe-Houghton Management, a subsidiary of insurer USF&G. Axe-Houghton Management’s services included mutual funds and institutional asset management. In 1992, concurrent with USF&G’s sale of Axe-Houghton Management’s mutual fund business to T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., senior management of Axe-Core Investors purchased the institutional asset management business of Axe-Houghton Management. Axe-Core Investors subsequently changed its name to Axe-Houghton Associates. In 1993, the Hoenig Group Inc., a publicly-traded financial services company, purchased Axe-Houghton Associates.
    http://www.managerreview.com/su_companydetails.php?iCompanyId=906&CompanyName=Axe-Houghton Assoc.
    Axe-Houghton Fund B apparently dates back to August 5, 1938, but it might not have been offered for sale until its stated 1939 inception date. I'll leave it for others to resolve that minor discrepancy.
    https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_de/366229
    msf in Fund Discussions
  • Financials to stage comeback: Gerard Cassidy, RBC
    Hi Mr Edmond
    You answer your own question
    The ML advisor keep saying buy financial since 2009 lol
    ==
    Its kinda like any real estate agent with a pulse, when you ask them "When is a good time to BUY a house?" Their answer is always: "Now. Now! NOW is the best time to buy a house"
    Edmond in Other Investing
  • Financials to stage comeback: Gerard Cassidy, RBC
    Hi Mr Edmond
    You answer your own question
    The ML advisor keep saying buy financial since 2009 lol
    johnN johnN in Other Investing
  • Looking to Buy: Old Wiesenberger yearbooks
    Fascinating post. Sure sounds more rewarding that watching the stock indexes rise and fall. Takes me back to the early 70s when most ordinary investors waited to learn how their picks had fared until the following day when the WSJ or other financial print publication came out.
    I’m sorta thinking this post belongs in “other investing” where it would receive many more views and possibly offer a reprieve from the market doldrums.
    And welcome to the board.
    hank in Other Investing
  • Financials to stage comeback: Gerard Cassidy, RBC
    ty
    Hope so
    ml advisor keep preaching to buy financial and cryptos
    Got xlf bac recently hope they will moon soon
    johnN johnN in Other Investing
  • ESG Funds
    Further, some view ESG strictly from an investment perspective - how do these factors affect a company's risks - while others view ESG investing as a way to improve the world, or at least not contribute to its decline.
    For the first perspective (and a discussion of how varied ESG metrics can be):
    https://www.fastcompany.com/90754822/is-it-time-to-rethink-what-esg-investing-means
    “There’s a sort of obscure language that ESG raters use to talk about this stuff,” says Thomas Lyon, director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. “They like to talk about 'materiality,’ which means, is this particular thing going to have a material impact on our bottom line? It’s not asking the question, ‘Will it have a material impact on the planet, or on people?’ It’s all about the bottom line.” For example, MSCI, one of the largest companies that rates companies for ESG, says on its website that its ratings are “not a general measure of corporate ‘goodness'” or even “a synonym for sustainable investing”; instead they “provide a window into one facet of risk to financial performance.”
    The SEC recently proposed a regulation that would require companies "to include certain climate-related disclosures in their registration statements and periodic reports, including information about climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on their business, results of operations, or financial condition." Clearly focused on ESG from a bottom line perspective.
    See also this piece published today at Harvard Law on greenwashing and various regulatory responses to it:
    https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/06/23/regulatory-solutions-a-global-crackdown-on-esg-greenwash/
    I regard ESG as SRI 2.0. Whereas SRI tended to use screens (often exclusionary or negative, sometimes inclusive or positive), ESG tends to take a more holistic perspective, recognizing that no company is perfect in any aspect. Different ESG raters give different weights to various factors. Thus a company included in one ESG list may be excluded from another.
    msf in Fund Discussions
  • Can Home Prices and Interest Rates Soar at the Same Time? ---- Maybe Not......
    Here is statistical info that lends support to the comment @Junkster made:
    imageThose with cash and/or other financial resources are not yet being squeezed.
    Here is a comment that focuses on the single family rental market issue @hank mentioned:
    The U.S. doesn't have enough homes to meet demand — even now, as fewer people want to buy in the face of rising mortgage rates...Rising mortgage rates could actually put more pressure on the rental market: As first-time buyers put off a new purchase, they'll continue to rely on renting.
    Sadly, but not surprisingly, higher rents are hitting households with limited incomes the hardest. But, from an investment perspective, high demand for available rentals suggests there may continue to be opportunities for some single family rental investments. (A little over 10% of the high yield sleeve of my portfolio is invested in residential rental reits.)
    davfor davfor in Other Investing