Rollovers: There has to be a better way Our IRA and 401K transfers to Fidelity are mostly completed. The rollovers of our Roth IRAs from T.Rowe Price to Fidelity were seamless because we did in-kind transfers, so nothing had to sold or bought. The TRP funds showed up in our Fidelity accounts within two days, with no time out of the markets.
The 401K rollovers were more troublesome but not a disaster. All of the funds with Prudential had to be sold because they were proprietary funds that couldn’t be transferred in kind. However, Prudential was able to mail the checks overnight, so the money showed up in our Fidelity accounts in a couple of days. Unfortunately, the markets went up every day while our funds were in limbo, so we “lost” money in the process— probably a couple of thousand dollars. In the long run, it will probably be worth it having all of investments in one place, particularly when it’s time to take required distributions.
Fidelity’s website is far superior to TRP and Prudential, so it’s much easier now to track all of our investments, make changes and research offerings. Fidelity has far more investment options as well. We also have an advisor at Fidelity that we really like, which would be essential if I die before my wife, who has no interest in investing.
Dalio*s skewed views LB says it well. Don’t underestimate the importance of salesmanship - be it a used car or a financial asset.
John’s video is worth watching (at only 10 minutes) IMHO. I always enjoy Dalio.
Dalio’s not dumb. Nor is Marks, Fink, Soros or Gross. All worth listening to. In the end, each of us needs to decide how best to invest. And … Do you really think any of the above would release his “latest greatest” cool investment idea on the internet or Bubble Vision for all the world to see early in the game?
Dalio*s skewed views Let's say you have a money manager with a $100 million fund that goes up, say, 200% in one year. Say, $10 billion of new money pours into the fund as a result. The hedge fund manager charges a 2% expense ratio. The next year the fund is down 50%. By the end of the year say he has $3 billion as some investors have redeemed their shares. He still made well over $6 million in fees that year. The thing about funds is they're essentially toll roads and managers get paid whether they do well or poorly. Why am I posting this here? Because today's investment "genius," may be tomorrow's fool, yet he'll still be a billionaire at the end of the day. The genius is getting people to believe in his toll road, not in the accuracy of his predictions. The problem is some extremely wealthy managers start to believe their own hype. Worse, they think their narrow expertise extends beyond securities markets to other realms such as politics.
Inflation Is Real Enough to Take Seriously
What will you do if (when?)...."frothy" markets turn into a Scheisse Fest? This summer NW Oregon is experiencing an unprecedented heat dome. Last summer we lived through historic forest fires. Things are strange around here. A quote from
a WP article this morning:
“As there is no previous occurrence of the event we’re experiencing in the local climatological record, it’s somewhat disconcerting to have no analogy to work with,” the National Weather Service’s Seattle office wrote in an area forecast discussion. “Temperature records will fall in impressive fashion.”
Perhaps applying that quote to current stock market behavior makes some sense. Change the input variables enough and the history based models no longer provide a reliable guide.
What will you do if (when?)...."frothy" markets turn into a Scheisse Fest?
AMG Yacktman Focused Fund – Security Selection Only changes
Partial fund buying Schwab has $100 minimum on many funds, but the minimum holding period is 90 days to avoid trading fees.
Partial fund buying Fido allows partial purchases of their own mutual funds. You can start with $1 and add $1 per day if you want.
Partial fund buying Hello
Do you folks know any firm/broker that allow trading/ buying only partial of the funds instead of at minimal 1-2.5k to get in...or it depends on the manager and fund house rules that allow you to buy few hundreds dollars (exclude 401k brokerages)?
Inflation Is Real Enough to Take Seriously I think most investors should disregard it and most other "expert" opinions. Most should know their goals and risk tolerance and invest accordingly with min trading based on that. Most should stick to stocks+bonds and if you want to go crazy use 10%(maybe 20%) for other categories.
Lastly, even if you make changes, do it based on what happened lately. As a trader, I never make decisions based on prediction, I let the market tell me what has been going.
How many times did you hear, stocks are over value, rates can only go up, inverted yield is..., PE+PE10 is too high, bonds will lose money (hint: not all bonds are treasuries) and the new thing, inflation panic/warning for months.
So, what have I done with my portfolio differently and especially based on inflation? nada.
Some 401(k) plans may start offering cryptocurrency as an investment option. Why that’s a bad idea. +1 Lewis Appreciate your humorous and informative responses in this thread !
Some 401(k) plans may start offering cryptocurrency as an investment option. Why that’s a bad idea. @Jojo26 It may be wage-related for some, but how about those living paycheck to paycheck (or close to it), but they still have iPhones, iPads, go out to eat and drink regularly, and basically just spend frivolously 100% of the time
Are you with every American living paycheck to paycheck
100% of the time? Or are you just monitoring all of them from your Orwellian control tower at Fox News? Also, do you think it's possible for any young American to hold down a job and perhaps juggle their family responsibilities today without a cellphone?
Regarding who are the primary owners of iPhones, I would suggest reading this:
https://nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24771/w24771.pdf
The brand most predictive of top income in 1992 is Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. By 2004,the brand most indicative of the rich is Land O’Lakes butter, followed by Kikkoman soy sauce. By the end of the sample, ownership of Apple products (iPhone and iPad) tops the list. Knowing whether someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to guess correctly whether the person is in the top or bottom income quartile 69 percent of the time. Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016.
While I know some poor people probably do buy an iPhone--for the same reason poor people used to want high-end Nike and Addidas sneakers--to pretend to be rich, most people buying these phones are middle-class or wealthy.
2021 Midyear Investment Outlook
Some 401(k) plans may start offering cryptocurrency as an investment option. Why that’s a bad idea. Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.
Not even close. See how folks in Portland are handling 115 degree weather today. Now Imagine ten or twenty degrees hotter in places that have no electricity. Imagine living for generations by a river that suddenly dries up or floods so badly your village is washed away. Or an ocean devoid of edible fish.
Also, financial literacy is pointless if employees aren’t paid enough wages to have anything left over to save at the end of the month. About half of America lives paycheck to paycheck. I know—“personal responsibility.” Let them live on top ramen and gruel.
I think there is a bit of a balancing act here... It may be wage-related for some, but how about those living paycheck to paycheck (or close to it), but they still have iPhones, iPads, go out to eat and drink regularly, and basically just spend frivolously
100% of the time.... People still have to live within their means.
Some 401(k) plans may start offering cryptocurrency as an investment option. Why that’s a bad idea. Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.
Not even close. See how folks in Portland are handling
115 degree weather today. Now Imagine ten or twenty degrees hotter in places that have no electricity. Imagine living for generations by a river that suddenly dries up or floods so badly your village is washed away. Or an ocean devoid of edible fish.
Also, financial literacy is pointless if employees aren’t paid enough wages to have anything left over to save at the end of the month. About half of America lives paycheck to paycheck. I know—“personal responsibility.” Let them live on top ramen and gruel.
Some 401(k) plans may start offering cryptocurrency as an investment option. Why that’s a bad idea. The average employee has trouble often understanding how a 401k works in many cases let alone cryptocurrency. I find the "personal responsibility" argument to be a hackneyed one I often hear emerging from libertarians. One response I have to that--as you can make a similar argument for almost any dangerous product--what is the personal responsibility of the drug dealer to the drug taker? Why is it always the consumer of the product that is blamed with that personal responsibility mantra? If you offer a faulty dangerous product and sell it to consumers, you should be blamed. And yes, offering crypto will be a magnet for lawsuits. 401ks are a common target for lawsuits as they work well in class action suits and the laws about what are suitable investments for retirement plans are strict.
Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.
Inflation Is Real Enough to Take Seriously There’s 2 ways prices of these securities (fund, etf, stock) can fall back to a more reasonable valuation.
1) Prices of the underlying assets can fall over time. (Already evident with lumber.)
2) Nominal prices can remain high as inflation rises. In this case you’d be able to purchase those assets with cheaper dollars at some future time.
Above not limited to the inflation sensitive sectors. Any overvalued asset should either eventually experience a price decline or will eventually lose value in real dollar terms.
Note: The initial comment of mine (reposted here by others) in from June 9. In the 3 weeks since prices seem to have stabilized. Some have pulled back. I’d never vacate the inflation hedged sectors completely. Was just cautioning against initiating new positions at elevated prices. I’ve pulled back a bit. Rotated to some of the less expensive areas.
