anyone buying today?
think many pundits stated many issues causing massive run toward bear market: volatilities in Oct very high, end of bull cycles, unfavorable data reporting, employment rate issues, pending Trump impeachment
recession coming?
we are still 80/20 still have > 15s 20 yrs left and we don't have enough valuable insights 'TIME THE market'. Maybe its better to sit tight and keep rolling/couch potatoe approaches
Did buy more VDE, VWO, VGSTX today

Since these brokers sell their order flow for money to make up the difference, the spreads will widen and you wont get the best price. Assuming I did the math right, if you loose a penny better price on a $40 stock you loose money if you trade more 500 shares at a time. All depends on your behavior and your portfolio

...But if a stock or fund is trading that particular day at a discount? Or even for an extended period of time? (IRL, CM, others.)

Since these brokers sell their order flow for money to make up the difference, the spreads will widen and you wont get the best price. Assuming I did the math right, if you loose a penny better price on a $40 stock you loose money if you trade more 500 shares at a time. All depends on your behavior and your portfolio

FYI: Over the past few days, online brokers have rushed to roll out commission-free trading deals, but is there a catch?
Robinhood started the trend of free trading. Recently, other brokerages jump on the bandwagon. Late last week Interactive Brokers previewed IBKR Lite to offer an unlimited commission-free trading service. Then Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade jumped on board, with Ameritrade includes options as part of the commission-free offer. So what are the implications for investors?
Regards,
Ted
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonmoore/2019/10/01/the-hidden-costs-of-commission-free-trading/#7a3dba1562b7

That 2.48% (or 2.17% after backing out shorting costs and fee waiver subsidy) is for the "super" institutional shares. The "regular" institutional shares cost 25 basis points more for "servicing".
What are institutional shares doing with a service fee? On top of that, the retail (investor) shares are load shares. That's because those shares are charged the same 0.25% line item service fee and then ladened with an additional 0.25% 12b-1 fee. That makes it a load fund (like class C shares). All this plus high management fees.
[SEC: under FINRA rules, a fund is permitted to ... call itself "no-load," unless the combined amount of the fund’s 12b-1 fees or separate shareholder service fees exceeds 0.25%."]
As the Professor said, this fund has the usual three year claw back provision: footnote 3 on p. 1 of the prospectus.

Bloomberg’s all over this. Horrific day for the brokerage stocks. One dropped 25% today alone. Reminiscent of the Detroit area gas wars of the 70s when you had four different brands on every corner and they’d dog it out, undercutting one another down to as low as 15 or 20 cents a gallon. Sweet while it lasted.

@Ted It's complicated, but it really isn't 3.26% because of the costs of shorting which are counterbalanced by cash carry. I think a more accurate number is 2.75%, but Morningstar has 2.62%. Sans shorting, both fees are very high. I'm looking at Invenomic's fee sans short, it is around 2% but with a subsidy which is generally temporary. Sans subsidy, it's 2.17%. But let's say 2% for Invenomic to be fairer. 2% on $3 billion is still $60 million in fees a year for a boutique fund shop with only a few employees--11 on their web page: https://invenomic.com/our-team. Nice work if you can get it.

At the time when Boston Partners Long/Short closed to new investors in 2010 it had about $300 million in assets: https://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/831114/000095012310100719/g06730nvcsr.txt
So it's a little unsettling to read that the planned capacity for the newer Invenomic is $3 billion. Admittedly, this is Motamed's sole charge, and Boston Partners has multiple revenue streams from other funds, but technically each fund is supposed to be a separate investment company and the best interests of that particular fund's shareholders should be first. If you consider the management fee is 2.48% for Invenomic, about double that of a traditional active fund, and Boston Partners' fee is also very high, one might expect a much smaller capacity than $3 billion to stay nimble for shorting and small cap investing. I say this not because I dislike the fund's strategy or the manager but because I actually like them. Of course, Boston Partner's BPLEX is also now reopened to new investors and it has $247 million in it and a slightly higher 2.62% expense ratio. A 2.48% expense ratio on $3 billion in assets is $74 million in fees. It truly is an anomaly to see such high fees today. I hope they earn them.

"Merrill edge ... only costs are to buy private bonds, which can range from 10 to 20 bucks/trade for small investments buy 5k-20k."
Except for:
- Treasury auction bonds: free at most brokerages, $29.95/trade at ME (since they're not avail online)
- Secondary muni government bonds: $1/bond, $10 min
- Government agency bonds: $1/bond, $10 min
Of course "free" bond trades just mean that the commission is built into the price. Merrill Edge even discloses this in black and white.
Which brings us to markup. How good are the prices you get on bonds at Merrill Edge? For example (I just spot checked Calif. 10 year munis that were not zeros):
CUSIP 13077CU28 (AA, 7 yr maturity) Price/YTW:: ME: $109.668/2.175%; Fidelity: $109.284/2.231%
CUSIP 219764PA9 (AA, 10 yr maturity) Price/YTW:: ME: $109.924/1.467%; Fidelity: $109.799/1.488%
Bond inventory online?
ME has 10,000+ bonds (it sells no new issues online), including corporate, treasuries, agencies, and munis. 3,000- munis, fewer than 600 in California.
Fidelity offers 65,000+ bonds (including160 new issues). 50,000+ munis, including 7,000- in California.
The last time I compared Schwab with Fidelity on bond prices was around a decade ago, and my impression was that Schwab was slightly more expensive, but that may have changed.
Even with stock/ETF trades, all brokerages are not created equal. A zero commission rate does not guarantee you'll come out better.
https://www.stockbrokers.com/guides/order-execution
Vanguard stopped charging commissions on ETFs for all customers, not just Flagship customers a year ago. Unlike Merrill, and most of the other brokerages, for Flagship customers it offers a limited number of free TF fund trades annually. It's been doing that for many years. What changed fairly recently (a couple of years ago?) is that Vanguard increased the annual number of free trades.

What Schwab is doing is IMHO unique (so far) - no min balance, ETFs and stocks, and backed by a large institution that should be able to continue this indefinitely (especially since it makes money on all the free cash in its lower paying MMFs). In that sense I differentiate it from Firstrade. The latter strikes me as more like Scottrade, which for some time sold all mutual funds without a fee, but couldn't sustain that.
It will be interesting to see when Fidelity matches Schwab. Those two seem to move in parallel, e.g. both dropping their TF rates from $75-$76 down to $50 within a year(?) of each other.

@_zenbrew
Thankyou. what about Merrill edge, free trading IF have substantial amounts in holdings of boa/brokerage and 401k... only costs are to buy private bonds, which can range from 10 to 20 bucks/trade for small investments buy 5k-20k.
Vanguard is also trying to get rid of these practice also only for Flagship members
Every firms are trying to do same thing - free tradings, and cut down on their ETFs annual fees also to almost 0.

According to Marketwatch, starting October 7, Schwab will be eliminating all stock, ETF, & option commission fees.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/schwab-shares-slide-premarket-after-news-it-will-drop-commissions-on-us-stock-etf-and-options-trades-2019-10-01?siteid=bnbh
Since most of all my finances are with Schwab, I'm very glad to see this. Now they just need to eliminate all transaction fees (though they did decrease their fee from $76 to $49.95 without much fanfare about a year ago) on mutual funds as well.
Not surprisingly, I have not seen this announced on the Schwab website yet.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/932471/000093247119007316/ps2404.htm
497 1 ps2404.htm INTERNATIONAL CORE STOCK FUND-SUBSCRIPTION PERIOD SUPP
Vanguard International Core Stock Fund
Supplement Dated October 1, 2019, to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated October 1, 2019
Subscription Period
Vanguard International Core Stock Fund will hold a subscription period from October 1, 2019, through October 15, 2019. During this period, the Fund will invest in money market instruments or hold its assets in cash rather than seek to achieve its investment objective. This strategy should allow the Fund to accumulate sufficient assets to construct a complete portfolio and is expected to reduce initial trading costs.
The Fund reserves the right to terminate or extend its subscription period prior to October 15, 2019.
During the subscription period, you may invest in the Fund online (if you are registered for online access) or you may contact Vanguard by telephone or by mail to complete this transaction. Please see the Investing With Vanguard section of the prospectus for more details about requesting transactions.
© 2019 The Vanguard Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.
PS 2404 102019

FYI: Mark Mulholland tells MarketWatch he set up a mutual fund, Matthew 25, after a homeless man quoted a section of that gospel from the bible.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/meet-the-quiet-christian-money-manager-whos-comfortably-beating-the-market-2019-09-30/print
M* Snapshot MXXVX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/mxxvx/quote
Lipper Snapshot MXXVX:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/mxxvx
MXXVX Is Ranked #45 In The (LCB) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/large-blend/matthew-25-fund/mxxvx

aka: The Link

@MFO Members: 3/10/03 ICI Caught Up In GOP Ethics Flap:
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNSPKy_-nfBEmSyH5oyCr9gyUBS4bg:1569853776690&source=hp&ei=UBGSXaudJ77K0PEPztmIyAc&q=ICI+caught+up+in+GOP+ethics+flap&oq=ICI+caught+up+in+GOP+ethics+flap&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i160l2.3300.3300..5143...0.0..0.135.135.0j1......0....2j1..gws-wiz.YdA7WVNObZc&ved=0ahUKEwirhdOF4fjkAhU-JTQIHc4sAnkQ4dUDCAc&uact=5

I think this is the incident that I was referencing. Certainly, it does not identify TRP as pro-Republican or pro-Democrat. Sorry if I gave that impression:
In 2003 Republican Senator Michael Oxley tried to pressure mutual fund firms boards of directors into voting for a Republican to head the ICI, the trade association representing fund companies. T. Rowe Price found itself on the “wrong” side of the fence in that political dust-up, supporting the than Democratic leadership of the ICI.
Some relevant excerpts from the linked article:
“At issue are allegations that the committee's chairman, Ohio Republican Michael Oxley, has threatened to investigate the mutual fund industry unless the ICI brings aboard a Republican to succeed its president when he retires. ... The fracas blew into the open Feb. 15 when The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, claimed in a story that Mr. Oxley and some staff members were pressuring the ICI to hire a prominent Republican. ”
“The push, the paper claimed, was part of a broader campaign by Republicans to place party loyalists in top jobs at corporate lobbying offices and trade associations. Citing six unnamed sources, both Republican and Democratic, the Post reported that certain members of Mr. Oxley's staff suggested the congressional probe ‘might ease up if the mutual fund trade group complies with their wishes.’ “
“At the heart of the fracas is the fact that ICI president Matthew Fink and his likely successor, executive vice president Julie Domenick, are both Democrats.House Republican leaders have been trying in recent years to get more Washington professional and trade associations to hire Republicans as leaders, a campaign that has been dubbed the ‘K Street Project.’ “
“Meanwhile, the fracas has caused some roiling within the ICI. At a mid-February board meeting, representatives from The Vanguard Group in Malvern, Pa., T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. in Baltimore and Capital Management and Research Co. in Los Angeles expressed support for the organization's leadership.”
-
Where’s the link? @Ted has provided one that works better than mine did. See Ted’s follow-up post to access this Investment News article from March 10, 2003.

@Sven,
It would be difficult to construct the CD Ladder that I presently have with current CD rates being what they are. My ladder was built over time. And, I'm not sure I'll roll the one I have maturing come December as its current rate is 2.55% and a replacement, with like maturity, is at 1.80%. With this, currently my money market mutual funds offer the better deal should I choose to keep the money inside the cash area of my portfolio. I might look outside the cash area for opportunity for placement of this money coming due and take on more risk in return for better yield. Not sure at this time what I'll do. Something to ponder.
Skeet

In comparison, my three step CD Ladder has a current yield of 2.6%.

@Old_Skeet,
Where did you find CD ladder with 2.6% yield? Many brokerage such as Fidelity offers 5 years ladder (4 CDs) with 1.88%. A sizable reduction after Fed rate cut.