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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 Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    ?? $75.
    BCOIX is $50 TF at Fido, but it says $25k min (self retirement accounts $500). PONDX, arguably better than any of these, is free, or, as noted if you're sure you're going to hold for the long run, PIMIX.
  • JPMorgan Tax Aware Income Opportunities Fund reorganized
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1217286/000119312517353626/d450598d497.htm
    497 1 d450598d497.htm 497 TRUST I
    JPMORGAN TRUST I
    JPMorgan Tax Aware Income Opportunities Fund
    (All Share Classes)
    JPMORGAN TRUST II
    JPMorgan Tax Free Bond Fund
    (All Share Classes)
    Supplement dated November 28, 2017
    to the Summary Prospectuses, Prospectuses and
    Statements of Additional Information dated July 1, 2017, as supplemented
    Merger Proposal
    At a meeting held on November 15, 2017, the Board of Trustees of JPMorgan Trust I (“Trust I”), on behalf of JPMorgan Tax Aware Income Opportunities Fund (the “Acquired Fund”), and the Board of Trustees of JPMorgan Trust II (“Trust II”), on behalf of JPMorgan Tax Free Bond Fund (the “Acquiring Fund” and together with the Acquired Fund, the “Funds”), approved the merger of the Acquired Fund with and into the Acquiring Fund. The merger will only be completed if approved by the Acquired Fund’s shareholders. This merger was recommended by the Funds’ adviser, J.P. Morgan Investment Management, Inc. (“JPMIM”), based on the belief that the Acquired Fund has limited opportunities for future growth and, as a result, the proposed merger has the potential to take advantage of operational and administrative efficiencies that may result from the reorganization of the Acquired Fund with and into the Acquiring Fund. After determining that (1) participation in the merger is in the best interests of the Funds and (2) the interests of each Fund’s existing shareholders would not be diluted as a result of the merger, each Board of Trustees approved the merger.
    Operating expenses vary between the Funds and distribution and service fees differ among share classes. In connection with the proposed merger, JPMIM and JPMorgan Distribution Services, Inc. (“JPMDS”), the distributor for the Acquired Fund and the Acquiring Fund, have contractually agreed to waive their fees and/or reimburse the expenses of the Acquiring Fund, as needed, in order to maintain the total annual fund operating expenses after fee waivers and expense reimbursements (excluding acquired fund fees and expenses other than certain money market fund fees, dividend and interest expenses related to short sales, interest, taxes, expenses related to litigation and potential litigation, and extraordinary expenses) of each class of shares of the Acquiring Fund at or below the level in effect immediately prior to the merger for the corresponding class of shares of the Acquired Fund. These contractual fee waivers and/or reimbursements will stay in effect until May 4, 2019 for the Acquiring Fund. There is no guarantee that such waivers and/or reimbursements will be continued after May 4, 2019. The expenses of the Acquiring Fund’s classes may be higher than disclosed if the expense limitation expires after May 4, 2019.
    It is anticipated that the merger will qualify as a tax-free reorganization for federal income tax purposes. Prior to Closing, any net investment income and/or net realized capital gains will be distributed to shareholders of the Acquired Fund and may be distributed to shareholders of the Acquiring Fund in order to seek to avoid any negative tax impact to any of the Funds’ shareholders as a result of the reorganization.
    Completion of the merger is subject to a number of conditions, including approval by the shareholders of the Acquired Fund. The merger is not contingent upon the approval of any other merger of JPMorgan Funds. Shareholder approval will be sought at a special meeting of shareholders expected to be held on or about March 28, 2018. If you own shares of the Acquired Fund as of the record date for the special meeting for shareholders, you will receive (i) a Proxy Statement/Prospectus describing in detail both the proposed merger and the Acquiring Fund (including, among other things, any differences in strategies, risks and fees between the Acquiring Fund and the Acquired Fund), and summarizing each Board of Trustee’s considerations in recommending that shareholders approve the merger and (ii) a proxy card and instructions on how to submit your vote.
    If the merger is approved by the shareholders of the Acquired Fund, each holder of a class of shares of the Acquired Fund will receive, following the transfer, on a tax-free basis for federal income tax purposes, a number of full and fractional shares of the corresponding class of shares of the Acquiring Fund having an aggregate net asset value equal to the aggregate net asset value of the shares of the Acquired Fund held by that shareholder as of the close of business of the New York Stock Exchange, usually 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, on the closing day of the merger. The merger, if approved by shareholders, is expected to close after the close of business on May 4, 2018 or on another date as the parties to the transaction shall agree.
    SUP-TAIO-1117
    The foregoing is not an offer to sell, nor a solicitation of an offer to buy, shares of the Funds, nor is it a solicitation of any proxy. The Proxy Statement/Prospectus will be available for free on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website (www.sec.gov), once it is available. Please read the Proxy Statement/Prospectus (when available) carefully before making any decision to invest in the Funds or when considering the merger. For additional information relating to each Fund, please refer to the Fund’s prospectus, which is available by visiting www.jpmorganfunds.com or by calling 1-800-480-4111.
    INVESTORS SHOULD RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT
    WITH THE SUMMARY PROSPECTUSES, PROSPECTUSES AND
    STATEMENTS OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    The $5 is for each investment, not reinvestment. Automatic reinvestments at Fidelity, as at most brokerages, are provided as a free service. (I've recently seen a brokerage where ETF reinvestments cost money, so there is a reason for this clarification.)
    Fidelity requires you to have an existing position to use their automated $5 investment service. But Fidelity doesn't require you to plunk down $75 to create that initial position, so long as you come up with the shares in your account. I believe you're already set up to bootstrap a new position for twenty bucks using existing accounts.
    At the risk of repeating myself, only you can say whether paying $20 while not expanding the institutions you use (e.g. not going to Vanguard) is too high a cost for you. You have already made it clear that holding the shares at no monetary cost directly with D&C is too high an operational cost for you.
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    Fido says $75 TF to plunk down for DODIX, $5 each reinvestment if auto, for small outperformance (and depending on time period) at twice the size and way less turnover. Right, for some aspects anyone can research preferability.
  • New Vanguard Fund and ETFs in registration
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/105563/000093247117005685/mergefinal.htm
    Vanguard U.S. Multifactor Fund Admiral Shares
    &
    Vanguard U.S. Liquidity Factor ETF Shares
    Vanguard U.S. Minimum Volatility ETF Shares
    Vanguard U.S. Momentum Factor ETF Shares
    Vanguard U.S. Multifactor ETF Shares
    Vanguard U.S. Quality Factor ETF Shares
    Vanguard U.S. Value Factor ETF Shares
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    This is a thread about DODIX. If you want to talk about another fund in a different context, i.e. that fund's performance/investment strategy without comparing it to DODIX's, that is irrelevant to DODIX. There's always the option of starting another thread.
    At least in this last post, you got back to asking about why one would prefer DODIX over fund X.
    What you wrote was not bald preferring, it was preferring within a context unstated at that point - that you won't plunk down $5 to get a comparably performing (superior on a risk-adjusted basis) fund, or complicate life by simply buying (not even holding) something "for free" elsewhere (outside of Fidelity). Unless that elsewhere is ML.
    You make tradeoffs between simplification, costs, and performance that are personal to you. You're the only one who can address those.
    I don't want a fund that is required to keep its duration on a leash. Not simply by using its benchmark as a starting point to inform (i.e. as "guidance"), but by keeping it close ("similar"). I'll repeat that this isn't just my interpretation but M*'s as well. However, M* also misread the prospectus - a fact I missed the first time.
    The analyst wrote: "Ford O'Neil and the management team aim to keep duration close to their bogy, the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index. They avoid duration bets ..." The prospectus does name the Aggregate Bond Index as one of two fund benchmarks (as reflected in its average annual returns table), the other being the U.S. Universal Bond Index. It is the latter, not the former, to which the fund must keep duration close ("similar").
    For a variety of reasons, including its relative duration inflexibility, FTBFX isn't a fund high up on my list to research (it's lower than most of the other 2016 M* fixed income manager finalists).
    That said, bond portfolio management isn't rocket science. There are lots of different attributes that one can adjust. For instance, even a cursory look at FTBFX's portfolio reveals how it is playing the yield curve while keeping its duration within its required window of similarity. Whether that particular decision has helped or hurt the fund (or had no effect), you can research yourself. Same with average credit quality and credit distribution among holdings, sector selection, etc.
    All deviate from the US Universal Bond Index. At least some of them must accounti for the fund's higher risk relative to DODIX, without adding to performance. As the saying goes, past performance does not guarantee future results.
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    A nod for High Yield in a Rising rate environment:
    https://invesco.com/pdf/HYBRR-FLY-1.pdf
    Where's @Junkster when you need him...probably kneeing up a High Yield mountain trail.
    Another nod for High Yield:
    high yield bonds have historically not only provided investors with solid returns during periods of rising interest rates, but have also dramatically out performed its investment grade counterpart. While we do not expect to see a rapid rise in rates (again see our article from last week for our take on rates), we do believe that the high yield bond market provides a compelling fixed income opportunity for those concerned about rising rates.
    https://seekingalpha.com/article/2499395-high-yield-in-a-rising-rate-environment-a-perspective-on-historical-performance
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    @catch22,
    Thanks for the response and links. I like the dynamic visual effect "the 2326 day slider" feature provides the viewer. Cool tool.
    What are your impressions of the impact rising rates will have on this fund and other RE funds that derive income from bonds or from REIT that pay dividends?
    The Fidelity fund review page states,
    Hold securities with a low asset-weighted average credit rating and a low sensitivity to interest rate changes as defined by the fund's effective duration, both according to Morningstar's rating system.
    yet I worry about its almost 50% weighting to High Yield.
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    Shoot, I should have anticipated more hairsplitting: 'The excess return of an investment relative to the return of a benchmark index is the investment's alpha.' And more insulting, now irrelevance in addition to silliness.
    What I wrote was not bald preferring, just that it was 'hard to see' why one would want DODIX, per the article. I thought it was an interesting question given the Fido lower rating. Why do you think one would or should want D&C instead? Second, why do you suppose FTBFX outperforms IUSB? The funds' names are 'income' and 'total'. Nothing about short or intermediate durations. Money/USN notes this:
    This fund’s ability to venture into high-yield and emerging-market debt differentiates it from more typical corporate bond funds. ... [As for its index] Here, too, fund performance has bested that of the [Barclays U.S. Universal Bond] index.
    So I thought you might have more interesting things to say about this lower-rated fund. Almost 2y ago the manager was interviewed:
    https://www.barrons.com/articles/morningstar-talks-fidelitys-fixed-income-outlook-for-2016-1455898972
    Since then he was named M* FI MoY, it says.
    I guess I will see if this last-January interview of him and Pohl (DODIX) reveals anything:
    https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/01/25/meet-morningstars-best-bond-fund-and-asset-allocation-fund-managers.html
    Edit: Not all that much, except for the usual Fidelity touting of their specificity of bondpicking, more than any macro guidelines.
  • Emerging Europe anyone?
    @davidmoran: Here is the article by John Waggoner that I link on 5/1/17 by using Google Search. Most of the articles on the Investment News Website requirw a subscription.
    Regards,
    Ted
    https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+It+Time+to+Go+International+&cad=h
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    Irrelevant. You introduced it as preferable to DODIX. That's all that matters.
    "Hard to see over 10/5/3/1y why you would ever want it over FTBFX"
    Edit: I disagree that you have demonstrated alpha (the existence of which depends upon correlation and beta, neither of which you've presented).
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    Hi @bee
    As we know the markets are sometimes silly, funny and most times difficult to attempt to find proper paths for our money (adjusted for one's risk style). Since the market melt, anticipated and accepted gains have been found in many areas. This is not rocket science (at least in hind sight). :) ........ was one helluva "value" market in March, 2009, yes?.
    The following graph is one that I have constructed/viewed previous, is of interest; at least to me, as how areas have changed here and there. This graph are funds I have selected as long term real estate active managed funds for a "fair" comparison. I've also included SPY.
    In particular for me, is that the time period for this chart (Sept. 2008 to date) shows very favorable for total return of FRIFX against the other funds, including SPY. However, if one moves the "left" slider adjustment (on the day bar, showing 2,326 days) all the way left to 2003; one will see how different the return of FRIFX was from 2003-early 2009 was during this period and also, overall from 2003 to date showing FRIFX got its butt kicked by other real estate funds. Those who have held the other RE funds since or before the 2003 date are still doing okay.
    So, what happened to the other fine managers of RE funds since March, 2009 vs lonely FRIFX? Are the managers having that much difficulty sorting and trying to find where in the world of American real estate they should be invested? Two very different periods of returns, eh?

    http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?VGSIX,FRIFX,CSRSX,FRESX,SPY&n=2326&O=011000

    FRIFX fund composition has been about 50/50 equity/bonds for as long as I can remember. Although much less showy than other RE funds, this fund just chugs along as of the past 9 years, not unlike PIMIX and other funds out there, of which I am not aware.
    Composition: https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/composition/316389865?type=o-NavBar
    FRIFX remains a much different RE fund from its peers. I have not plowed through the holdings of the other funds charted here; but FRIFX has some of the same holdings as other funds, with the variance being the bond holdings. There is investment grade, mortgage and junk (a fairly big chunk) bonds.
    The only year FRIFX was #1 in the category is 2008. The average RE fund was down about -40% and FRIFX was down -31%. Generally, the fund is always in the last 10% of the category per M*. The current 30 day SEC yield is about 3.8%, average bond duration of 2.55 years and has an annualized 10 year return of 7.34%.
    The fund is still about 10% of our total portfolio.
    Lastly, a quick look chart which includes FREL. This chart only goes back to Feb. 2015, as FREL is quite new. IYR and FREL travel together at this time.
    http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FRIFX,FREL,IYR,SPY&n=709&O=011000
    Well, anyway; I recall @Ted wondering why we weren't playing with the big dogs in the world of RE. The charts speak for themselves at this point in time. We'll see, eh?
    This time remains different, IMHO.
    I didn't proofread this.....pick my write for errors or omissions.
    Take care,
    Catch
  • China And Tech Join Forces To Make Up 2017's Top-Performing Equity ETF: (CQQQ)
    Another good way to play the growth in China's internet sector is via T. Rowe Price Emerging Markets Stock Fund (PRMSX). Almost 22.5% of its holdings are in Tencent and Alibaba.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/PRMSX/
    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/21/these-tech-stocks-are-outperforming-adding-600-billion-in-market-cap.html
  • A Bond Fund To Be Thankful For: (DODIX)
    "Supposedly both funds vary duration based on market conditions, right?; it is not written in their charters otherwise, I think."

    FTBFX prospectus
    : "The Adviser uses the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Universal Bond Index as a guide in structuring the fund and selecting its investments. The Adviser uses the index as a guide in allocating the fund's assets across the investment-grade, high yield, and emerging market asset classes. The Adviser manages the fund to have similar overall interest rate risk to the index."
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    @catch22...thanks for the "catch".
    Since you are more familiar with this fund (FRIFX), do you ever use it as a indicator of the broader Real Estate index (I'll use VGSIX...the index) . It seems FRIFX might serve as good indicator of whether the RE Index is over or under performing. Comparison over a 1 Year timeframe: VGSIX is over pereforming slightly (2%), but with substantially more volatility:
    image
    Over three years the two are in a dead heat with only two short moments where the index out performed:
    image
    Finally, a comparison of FRIFX to PIMIX (PONDX, PONAX, PONCX, Etc.) over the last 8 years. Obviously the March 2009 downturn was tough on FRIFX where it lost 40% while PIMIX only lost 5%.
    image
  • Emerging Europe anyone?
    Well, good question, and I did it myself, though to no avail thus far. In general I think of Europe (and other international) investing along the lines of the JWaggoner articles I have posted --- not worth it for a host of reasons, and since the SP500 companies are so international, all the more reason. Currency deltas are key too:
    http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20170429/FREE/170429921/is-it-time-to-go-international
    Many also point out that diversification is not that good a motive, finally.
  • Harbor Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund to liquidate
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793769/000119312517352384/d473833d497.htm
    497 1 d473833d497.htm HARBOR COMMODITY REAL RETURN STRATEGY FUND - SUPPLEMENT TO SAI
    111 South Wacker Drive, 34th Floor
    Chicago, IL 60606-4302
    harborfunds.com
    Supplement to Statement of Additional Information dated August 1, 2017
    Harbor Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund
    Harbor Funds’ Board of Trustees has determined to liquidate and dissolve the Harbor Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund. The liquidation of the Fund is expected to occur on January 26, 2018. The liquidation proceeds will be distributed to any remaining shareholders of the Fund on the liquidation date.
    Shareholders may exchange shares of the Fund for another Harbor fund, or redeem shares out of the Fund, in accordance with Harbor’s exchange and redemption policies as set forth in the Fund’s prospectus, until the date of the Fund’s liquidation.
    In order to ready the Fund for liquidation, the Fund’s portfolio of investments will be transitioned prior to the planned liquidation date to one that consists of all or substantially all cash and cash equivalents. As a result, shareholders should no longer expect that the Fund will aim to achieve its investment objective of seeking maximum real return.
    Because the Fund will be liquidating, the Fund is now closed to new investors. The Fund will no longer accept additional investments from existing shareholders beginning on December 31, 2017.
    November 27, 2017
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    Comparing 1 YR performance of IYR to a Real Estate Income Fund, such as FRIFX, reveals about a (5.7%) upside difference in performance for IYR.
    image
    Real estate stock appreciation comes with a fair amount of volatility. Be prepared for that kind of a ride. If you are looking primarily for income buy a fund like FRIFX , but even FRIFX lost 40% of it's value in March of 2009.
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    Long term it trails the index (VGSIX or VNQ) by 15%:
    image
  • Investors Are Piling Into This Hot Real Estate ETF
    4 of it's top 5 holdings, or 5 of it's top 7 pretty much sums it up. I'm not sure how a roughly 7% YTD return qualifies as hot but so it goes.