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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.
  • A New M* Low
    Firstrade was founded in 1985 by John Liu under the name First Flushing Securities. ... It has been overseen by founder and CEO John Liu since its beginnings as a financial services provider for a diverse customer base in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York.
    https://topratedfirms.com/articles/bankrupt/firstrade-goes-out-of-business.aspx
    Flushing is in a sense a second Chinatown in New York, somewhat analogous to the Richmond in San Francisco.
    NEW YORK, Aug. 15, 2014– Firstrade welcomed more than 100 guests at the grand opening of its branch and new headquarter location. The ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the new branch on Friday, August 15, 2014. US Congresswoman Grace Meng and NYC Councilman Peter Koo were present.
    ...
    To further enhance customer service and make space for a growing call center, Firstrade has also established a new state of the art headquarter at 30-50 Whitestone Expressway, Flushing, NY. This location also has a small branch in its headquarter to service brokerage clients. The call center employs one of the largest Asian bilingual customer service teams in the industry.
    https://www.firstrade.com/content/en-us/aboutus/press?&page=pr140815
    From day one, the brokerage has sought to serve the Chinese and more broadly the Asian community. In that it has always been highly regarded. It would not surprise me if many of the Flushing call center reps speak English as a second language.
    (It also caters to overseas Asian investors.)
  • RPMGX reopening
    Thanks for the information as I have been waiting for RPMGX to re-open. I will wait until distributions are paid mid-December.
    You are correct as here is the SEC filing:
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/887147/000174177321003638/c497.htm
    497 1 c497.htm
    T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth Fund
    T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth Portfolio
    T. Rowe Price Institutional Mid-Cap Equity Growth Fund
    Supplement to Prospectuses and Summary Prospectuses dated May 1, 2021, as supplemented
    Effective December 1, 2021, the T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth Fund, T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Growth Portfolio, and T. Rowe Price Institutional Mid-Cap Equity Growth Fund (Funds), each of which was closed to new investors on May 28, 2010, will resume accepting new accounts and purchases from most investors.
    Accordingly, effective December 1, 2021, the first two sentences under “Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in each Fund’s summary prospectus and Section 1 of each Fund’s prospectus are deleted in their entirety. In addition, in Section 2 of each Fund’s prospectus, the sub-section entitled “Closed to New Investors” is deleted in its entirety.
    Financial intermediaries and other institutional clients should contact T. Rowe Price or their relationship manager to determine eligibility to open new accounts and purchase shares of each Fund.
    The date of this supplement is October 27, 2021.
    G31-041 10/27/21
  • RMDs
    As I understand the IRS instructions, you have to use the total amount of all your IRAs to calculate the RMD.
    Do not calculate in your Roth IRAs, but do include your Roth 401Ks as part of your RMD (though that portion would be tax free). Once the Roth 401K portion is distributed it loses it Roth status. All this can be avoided.

    There are presently no RMD on Roth IRAs as it stand right now.

    If I owned any Roth 401Ks I would roll them over into Roth IRA status and enjoy the benefits afford Roth IRAs.
    You can avoid having to take future RMDs from a Roth 401(k) by rolling the money over to a Roth IRA. Roth IRAs are not subject to required minimum distributions. If some of your money is in a Roth 401(k) and some is in a traditional 401(k), roll the traditional 401(k) money into a traditional IRA and the Roth 401K money into a Roth IRA to avoid any tax complications. “That will make record keeping a whole lot easier,” says Stuart Ritter, a certified financial planner with T. Rowe Price.
    Avoiding Required Minimum Distributions from Roth 401(k)s
  • Far Out
    @Anna, Where is IBM I wonder (article below asked this question 10 years ago...Article date is 2011)?
    where-the-heck-is-ibm
    They are somewhere still:
    ibm-will-reskill-30-million-people-by-2030-for-future-technology-jobs/
    Sept 30th 2021 ibm-kyndryl-spin-off/
    Even the IBM Employee Credit Union has morphed into "Intelligent - Thinking" (iThink):
    ibm-southeast-employees-credit-union-is-moving-to-ithink-financial-credit-union
  • Anyone adding Chinese stocks /mutual funds etf?
    The following excerpts are from a current column by Paul Krugman, in The New York Times: "Is China in Big Trouble?"
    (That link will only work for NYT subscribers.)
    China’s economic growth has been gradually slowing. Here’s a five-year moving average of the country’s growth rate:
    image
    Basically, China has masked underlying imbalances by creating an immense housing bubble. And it’s hard to see how this ends well.
    image
    Now that’s a housing bubble. Kenneth Rogoff and Yuanchen Yang
    Rogoff and Yang also show both that housing prices in China are extremely high relative to incomes and that the real estate sector has become an incredibly large share of China’s economy.
    None of this looks sustainable, which is why many observers worry that the debt problems of the giant property developer Evergrande are just the leading edge of a broader economic crisis.
    China, which maintains controls on the flow of capital into and out of the country, isn’t deeply integrated with world financial markets. So the fall of Evergrande isn’t likely to provoke a global financial crisis in the same way that the fall of Lehman Brothers did in 2008. A Chinese slowdown would have some economic spillover via reduced Chinese demand, especially for raw materials. But in purely economic terms, the global economic risks from China’s problems don’t look all that large.
  • Selling or buying the dip ?!
    Sold a little on the pip today. Across the board. Hurts a bit to sell some favorites. Unlike many here, I maintain no separate cash reserve - although a very small amount resides within the invested total. So, couldn’t resist parking a bit for my 2022 distribution. I tend to pull from the traditional IRA for the year’s budgeted needs early in the year - more than the required amount. Prefer to pay taxes and let the Roth continue to grow in proportion - now over 75%. of portfolio. Not a market call. Just socking away some sun while the hay shines!
    Good retort @Old_Joe. Depends on type of advice. General financial principles and sound planning = appropriate advice. But buying, selling, allocating - Hell No
  • Selling or buying the dip ?!
    "thx Old_Joe advise"
    For the record, Old Joe did no such thing, and never would attempt to "advise" anyone on financial matters. At 82 with very decent pension & SS income we are much more concerned with financial stability rather than increase. Our accumulation days are well over.
    I did use some "Vegas money" during the dip to buy a little ASML, which has done very well so far. That's going to be a keeper, because ASML really has a very wide technical moat, no significant competition in equipment of it's class, and a future world needing ever more, smaller and better chips. It's also already very highly priced, so no more buying unless the overall market again retreats so as to provide another decent entry point.
  • Robert T. Gardiner announced future plans to change his role at Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, LLC
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/915802/000139834421020090/fp0069682_497.htm
    497 1 fp0069682_497.htm
    FINANCIAL INVESTORS TRUST: GRANDEUR PEAK FUNDS
    Grandeur Peak Global Contrarian Fund
    Grandeur Peak Global Micro Cap Fund
    Grandeur Peak Global Opportunities Fund
    Grandeur Peak Global Stalwarts Fund
    (the “Funds”)
    SUPPLEMENT DATED OCTOBER 19, 2021 TO THE SUMMARY PROSPECTUS AND
    PROSPECTUS DATED AUGUST 31, 2021, AS SUBSEQUENTLY AMENDED
    On October 19, 2021, Robert T. Gardiner announced future plans to change his role at Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, LLC (the “Adviser”) in connection with an extended sabbatical commencing on approximately July 1, 2022 (the “Effective Date”).
    During the sabbatical, Mr. Gardiner intends to continue to serve as Chairman and member of the Board of Managers of the Adviser but, for a period of approximately three years following the Effective Date, he will no longer serve in a guardian portfolio management role for these Funds. Therefore, all references to Mr. Gardiner in the Summary Prospectuses and Prospectus will be deleted as of that date.
    INVESTORS SHOULD RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
  • Long term owner of MWTRX
    I use to be a fan of MWTRX, but stopped owning it a couple of years ago--glad I did after seeing its abysmal 2021 performance. I am not a fan of Intermediate Core/Core Plus funds which have struggled overall in 2021. If I was only interested in a well known and established Intermediate Core/Core Plus fund, to replace MWTRX, I would tend to lean toward DODIX. If you are looking for a lower risk and safer fund, then PTRIX, is a logical choice. Overall, sticking in this category, I personally like ANBEX. I will just add that I don't like PIMIX as a possible replacement for MWTRX--I consider PIMIX as a previously great fund, built on its performance shortly after the 2007/2008 financial crash, but it has ballooned into an AUM bloated fund, that now has to dabble in more risky assets to try and produce its income. Just recently PIMCO introduced PEGIX, a cousin of PIMIX in the multisector category, run by some of the same good PIMIX managers, and PEGIX is a very attractive newcomer, with great promise. I personally am focusing on shorter duration funds, that should do better in an inflationary market, and it is hard to find those in the Intermediate Core/Core Plus category.
  • No way.... ENIC
    Thank you a lot for your thoughts, guys. With my limited Spanish, I had just lately sent an inquiry to their Investor Relations office. I actually received a rather prompt reply from them, from Santiago. I actually was able to make sense of it. She even offered to arrange a phone call between us. I don't think I'll be needing that, even in English. By the way, some financial news sources have not updated, and still refer to ENIC as "Enersis Chile."
  • Long term owner of MWTRX
    Although Pimco Income is a decent multisector bond fund, I don't expect the fund's excellent past performance to be repeated. The fund's managers made astute investments in legacy non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) after the global financial crisis. The availability of legacy non-agency RMBS has declined while Pimco Income's AUM have increased considerably.
  • The General Employment Strike of 2020-2022
    Howdy folks,
    It's going on as we watch. How can we play it?
    All around us, not only in the US, but overseas as well, we're witnessing (and participating in) a General Strike by workers everywhere. 'Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more'.
    Workers have more power than they've had in decades and they're using it. Deere and Kellogg are out and on the west coast, the TV and Movie peeps narrowly avoided a strike because management caved in on every issue. At Deere, they were offered 5-6% and the workers are saying, Stuff It. I seriously believe the west coast hospital workers will walk and think of their leverage. And folks, this is only the beginning. Pilots can't strike, but they sure can get sick. Oh, and think how easy it is right now to supplement your strike pay. McDonald's is hiring at $21 per hour. This seems to me that the workers are going to win. Tough to bet against them.
    The pandemic has created a perfect storm for workers and employment in general.
    1. Not safe to go to work because of the virus.
    2. Kids at home.
    3. Tired of receiving shit wages for shit work.
    4. Additional unemployment benefits [although the bs the republicans spread about exacerbating the problem has proven to be just that - BS. Indeed, the states that cut benefits early not only didn't see any reduction in help wanted signs, but it actually hurt their overall economies more than the states that maintained them due to a reduced aggregate demand.]
    5. Lack of some spending - travel, dining out, concerts, movies, etc. - has allowed many households to become cash flush.
    6. Perfect opportunity to change careers.
    7. Virtual options for financial gain - Ebay, Market Place, OnlyFans, etc. My barber has a friend, who is buying Amazon 2nds for peanuts and reselling them.
    Sokay, how to play?
    Watch for the companies that figure it out and take the 'high road' vs. the ones that don't. A very easy tell, is whether there are Help Wanted signs or not. The businesses with pervasive help wanted signs are having a very tough time even staying open. How many restaurants do you know with reduced hours and menus? Which are simply raising wages and benefits and not bitching.
    New industries that get it (e.g. pot. I was talking with a budista and he said, they were receiving great pay and benefits and it was the best job he'd had in years).
    Short? Anyone that relies on truck drivers. Again, POT. To drive a semi, you have to have a CDL. With a CDL, you are subject to random drug testing and pot has a half life of 30 days. Hell, they're pushing to allow teenagers to drive. Feh, in my state, you've got to be 21 to buy pot.
    Just a start of a discussion.
    and so it goes,
    peace and wear the damn mask,
    rono
  • now, here's an unusual financial calculator need
    Re IRS penalties etc. vs a gogo bull market.
    I have just been informed that an older relative, not out of it but trending, hasn't taken RMDs (large sums, meaning v large accounts) for the last 5y, nor filed returns ... and therefore looks to owe over a half-mil in penalties, taxes, and late fees. Maybe well over.
    (This is a 403b, so hey, I wonder if you can sue TIAA for not automatically moving the RMD each year into some nonretirement cash account ... assuming they did not.)
    Everything in SP500 ETF, I am told.
    Anyway, to slightly soften the grievous sting of this supreme idiocy, I was going to rough-crunch how much extra they made in this almost-doubling bull market over that timespan. Close to a half-mil?
    I ask about this only because their heirs will be, rightly, wailing about how many college educations etc. the forfeited moneys could have gone toward. And so on.
    (What a dumbass mess, yes.)
  • PRWCX Cuts Equity Exposure
    If I'm interpreting portfolio data correctly from the TRP website dated 9/30/21, PRWCX equity allocation has increased to 75.68%.
    Sector Allocation
    As a percentage of Total Net Assets
    As of 9/30/2021
    INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
    14.33%
    HEALTH CARE
    13.58%
    CONSUMER DISCRETIONARY
    10.58%
    FINANCIALS
    10.28%
    UTILITIES
    7.19%
    INDUSTRIALS & BUSINESS SERVICES
    7.04%
    COMMUNICATION SERVICES
    5.97%
    OPTION
    4.48%
    CONSUMER STAPLES
    1.92%
    ENERGY
    0.18%
    REAL ESTATE
    0.13%
    Top 10 Holdings
    MonthlyQuarterly
    Represents 38.51% of Total Net Assets
    As of
    9/30/2021
    Microsoft
    7.02%
    Amazon.com
    5.51%
    GE
    4.48%
    PNC Financial Services Group
    4.03%
    Yum! Brands
    3.16%
    Thermo Fisher Scientific
    3.11%
    Alphabet Class C
    3.08%
    UnitedHealth Group
    2.98%
    Marsh & McLennan
    2.70%
    Humana
    2.43%
  • TRP Ultrashort Bond ETF Market Purchase Disallowed at Fido
    Apparently, Fido considers the new TRP ETF TBUX to be illiquid based on volume. Fidelity will only allow limit orders to buy TBUX due to low volume. Why can't TRP create a market for this etf by getting financial advisers to buy it for their clients ?
  • Jason Zweig - New SEC Rule Designed to Protect Small Investors May Have Opposite Effect
    “Never take liquidity for granted. The ability to convert securities into cash promptly, at a price close to the last trade, isn’t a permanent property of markets; it’s a privilege that can disappear almost instantly at the worst possible time. Like water itself, market liquidity can evaporate in an instant. Many traders learned that in January when Robinhood and other brokerages restricted trading in such hot stocks as GameStop Corp. GME 0.33% and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. AMC -2.49% Liquidity also dried up instantly during the “flash crash” of May 6, 2010. In the financial crisis of 2008-09, even ultrasafe money-market funds temporarily suspended giving shareholders their money back on demand. …..
    “A rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission went into effect at the end of September, generally preventing brokers from providing public price quotations on securities issued by companies that don’t release current financial information. Ladenburg, acquired by privately held Advisor Group Inc. in early 2020, no longer provides financial statements to the general public …
    “ ‘If [small investors] were not paying attention to that rule change, they’d better be happy with what they own, because they may be stuck with it for a very long time,” says Robert Forster, a former hedge-fund portfolio manager who sometimes trades over the counter. “You owned a publicly traded security; now you’re a private-equity holder. Congratulations! You own it forever.’ “
    Article appeared in today’sWall Street Journal and it appears you may link to entire article Here
    image
  • FSRRX
    That piece is arguing that at best, VWINX will fall less than other traditional funds, e.g. since it leans toward value¹. That's in contrast to funds that are designed to benefit from inflation. Which is why I felt that it doesn't make much sense to directly compare performance of these two types of funds.
    ¹This is not unusual for traditional 40/60 funds. Only 4 out of 120 (30%-50% allocation) funds have portfolios that are in growth style boxes (per M* screener).
    The writer speaks in sweeping generalities without substantiation:
    • the fact that the Fed Funds rate will stay at or near zero for at least the next few years [as of Sept 2020].
      Facts don't change, but predictions do as events change or more data is known. In June, "The central bank forecast[] it would raise interest rates twice by the end of 2023 after previously estimating there would be no interest rate hike until 2024."
      Most recently (Sept), "Just over 70 per cent of [leading academic economists surveyed by FT] believe the Fed will raise rates by at least a quarter of a percentage point in 2022, with almost 20 per cent expecting the move to come in the first six months of the year. That is far earlier than the 2023 lift-off from today’s near-zero levels that Fed officials pencilled in back in June."
    • Higher inflation likely leads to higher interest rates and a steeper yield curve?
      Wellesley traditionally holds a longer duration portfolio than is typical for its peers. That would hurt Wellesley if you believe this generalization linking interest rates and yield curves and that it will hold the next time.
      However, when we look at the last sharp spike in interest rates (1978-1981) we see a very different picture. Rate going up across all maturities (which would hurt all high grade bonds), but with the yield curve inverting - the opposite of steepening. (Inverted yield curves often presage recessions, which in turn can be triggered by high inflation and lower spending.)
      image
      (Source page)
    Speaking of the late 70s and inverted yield curves, banks (notably S&Ls) took a beating, as they lent out long term money at lower rates while borrowing short term money (via deposit accounts) at higher rates. SA notes that VWINX concentrates on financials, but doesn't break it down further. (According to its latest semiannual report, about half of the fund's financial sector holdings are in banks: JPM, BAC, MS, TFC.) Personally, I have faith in Wellington Management to navigate this risk.
    M* has an actual analysis of real performance data for VWINX to see how the fund responds to rising interest rates.
    https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1041732/stress-testing-some-vanguard-and-t-rowe-allocation-funds
    What M* found was that Aug-Dec 2016, "as the price of long-dated bonds fell, Vanguard Wellesley Income lagged its average category peer by 1.2 percentage points." VWINX lost money over that period while on average its peers eeked out gains.
    OTOH, "over the more recent January-October 2018 interest-rate climb ... [VWINX] modestly outpaced the average of that group by 0.5 percentage points. Even with its longer duration, the strategy’s lower exposure to weaker-performing non-U.S. equities gave it a bump.
    Hmm, a lesser exposure to foreign equities. SA didn't pick up on this. Could help again if rates climb globally, but hurt if rates rise disproportionately in the US. Regardless, we're again talking about relative performance against peers, not measuring against inflation oriented funds.
    I certainly wouldn't sell VWINX. Though that's different from saying that this fund is designed to weather extended bouts of inflation well.
  • Selling or buying the dip ?!
    Its been a weird month where Energy boomed and everything else was sorta sagging.
    1 MONTH RELATIVE PERFORMANCE
    -6.3 % Healthcare
    -5.3 Real Estate
    -5.3 Utilities
    - 5 Basic Materials
    -4.2 Communication Services
    -4.2 Technology
    -3.7 Consumer Defensive
    -2.5 Consumer Cyclical
    -1.5 Industrials
    +13.9 Energy
    + 1.6 Financial
  • Will President Biden’s economic stimulus cause inflation? Economists are unsure
    @LewisBraham
    Your last entry reminds me of Ray Dalio's presentation on "How the Economic Machine Works". I recall one quote form his presentation that goes something like:
    "One man's debt (liability) is another man's income (asset)"
    Debt creates what he describes as the long and short term debt cycles. Individuals need to service (repay) there debt (Principal & interest) to the borrower (usually the bank). An arrangement exists whereby the government injects liquidity into the system at a very low interest rate (overnight bank rate). The bank in turns loans this liquidity (money) to individuals and corporations so that they can receive and offer goods and services.
    The money loaned to individuals and corporations needs to be repaid to the bank (both principal and interest). The money borrowed by the bank is only repaid to the government to the extent that it is borrowed and the banks only outlay is the overnight rate of interest. The government repo's (soaks up) any liquidity (borrowed money) that was not used by the bank to extend credit to credit worthy borrowers.
    If credit worthy borrowers add value (labor, innovation, good & services, demand for financial assets) they are able to both pay back the bank and grow the economy. It all works.
    When borrowers default, the systems grinds to a halt.
    I'm sure you understand all of this, but too many (myself included) Ray Dalio does a great job explaining it all (see video below).
    Getting back to inflation. It seems a strong economy should both inflate (have elements good inflation) and deflate (have elements good deflation) simultaneously (would be nice).
    IMHO, Biden's bill should be looked at through that lens.
    When is Inflation good?
    how-can-inflation-be-good-economy
    why-is-inflation-good
    When is Deflation good?
    can-deflation-be-good
    Ray Dalio's Presentation:

  • The 90/10 Rule - Pre and Post Retirement Thinking
    In preparation for retirement, most people spend 90% of their planning time on the financial issues and 10% on the non-financial issues. After retirement, the ratio reverses, and most retirees spend the vast majority of their time focusing on the non-financial issues of life
    Seems like a article worth sharing. Lots of links to other topics for both young (Pre-retirees) and Old (In-retirees).
    introducing-the-90-10-rule-of-retirement