@guilhermes

Junkster
10:05AM
guilhermes said:
I have an account with Scottrade - I have confirmed that as part of the transfer to TDA the transaction fees for mutual funds will remain $17.
@Junkster Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully this is applicable to all Scottrade clients and not just those in their advisor program.

I brought over most of my assets to TD from Scottrade last March but still have a residual amount remaining at Scottrade. I only pay $17 for TF funds at TD to buy or sell, and I'm not in their advisor program.

I am about 85% invested, nearly all of which is in reinvesting equities -- which is fine by me. :)
My remaining cash, while annoying to hold, is helpful in being opportunistic when things turn south ... and I'm ok with that (mild) annoyance.

@rforno: I hope you are fully invested. Opportunities to make enhanced returns ,more than 8%, don't come very often
Regards,
Ted :)

Well, there are always lots of peddlers of "whatever" to get-rich-now schemes; and unless Ray Dalio has been and is one of the greatest flim-flam folks of all time, I do pay attention to his writings and words. He surely doesn't need more money (estimated wealth at $16 billion). I do believe he is sincere with his thoughts about cash on the sidelines for the near future investments, as well as other social, political and investment thinking he passes along. Mr. Dalio also notes a possible negative equity market effect "if" interest rates jump to +1% from current levels.
Below is a link from Mr. Dalio and 4 books he feels are worth reading. I am familiar with 2, Joseph Campbell and the Durants, and a 3rd subject matter(TM), as I have been a TM'er since 1974.
I highly recommend anything by Joseph Campbell and the Durants, and to add that some of Joseph Campbell's works were produced to video series.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/4-books-that-billionaire-ray-dalio-thinks-everyone-should-read.html
Take care,
Catch

@LLJB: is a Grandeur Peak US small cap fund a pleasant personal idea or is it something you know has been discussed and planned by Grandeur Peak?

@Ben, this from David's commentary roughly 6 months before Global Micro Cap and the Stalwarts funds were being launched, which was September/October 2015.
"Funds in Registration
This month our research associate David Welsch tracked down 14 no-load retail funds in registration, which represents our core interest. By far the most interest was stirred by the announcement of three new Grandeur Peak funds:
Global Micro Cap
International Stalwarts
Global Stalwarts
The launch of Global Micro Cap has been anticipated for a long time. Grandeur Peak announced two things early on: (1) that they had a firm wide strategy capacity of around $3 billion, and (2) they had seven funds in the works, including Global Micro, which were each allocated a set part of that capacity. Two of the seven projected funds (US Opportunities and Global Value) remain on the drawing board(emphasis mine). President Eric Huefner remarks that “Remaining nimble is critical for a small/micro cap manager to be world-class,” hence “we are terribly passionate about asset capping across the firm.”"
There was another discussion in David's commentary or in a fund review earlier than that and it discussed their plans for funds and their strategy in far more depth but I wasn't able to find that again easily or I just wasn't willing to keep trying once I found the above. Most likely its the latter.
I don't believe I've ever seen this information anywhere else but I have exchanged emails with the leadership at Grandeur Peak a handful of times over the years with questions about when we might see these and other funds. They've never said anything to make me question the validity of these intentions and their answer about when was that they wanted to get their teams comfortable with the funds they had already started and their process before they expanded further. It seems to me that goal should have been accomplished by now and the real reason is that they're waiting for a time they consider more opportune to launch the other funds they had planned and that's what I'm looking forward to.

@Ted The questions to me are do we expect the S&P 500 to deliver 16.08% annualized over the next five years and do long-short funds do what they're supposed to do in a downturn? I don't think it's fair to compare their returns to the S&P in a raging bull market. It would be better to look at risk adjusted returns, alpha, Sharpe, beta and downside capture. By that take, I would still agree with you that most long-short funds aren't worth the price of admission. Their fees tend to be too high and they don't always protect on the downside as much as they should. But there are a handful that are worthwhile.

@AndyJ: What do we call yours, apple picking ?
Regards,
Ted :)
The Average L/S Equity Fund Returns:
YTD: 4.06%
1yr. 14.98%
3yr. 5.41%
5yr. 6.45%
----------
S&P 500 TR:
YTD: 6.05%
1yr. 27.23%
3yr. 13.50%
5yr. 16.08%

Hey Ted, since you opened the door to cherry-picking data points, how about this one from 2015:
SPX +1.38
QLENX +16.79
The 15%+ difference was a lot of money!
This isn't a bad point for a retail or any other investor to be looking for hedged equity exposure, depending on circumstances. (For example, not everybody is a fed retiree, and capital conservation can be a very reasonable objective for those with crummy or non-existent pensions.)

@MFO Members: Objectives be dammed, your a retail investor ,not a trader or institutional investor. Here's just one example: The almost 13% difference between CPLSX and the Haystack is a lot of money.
Regards,
Ted
CPLSX: 2017 8.89%
S&P 500 TR: 2017 21.83%

"Click below to review the documents associated with Click below to review the documents associated with your account when it transitions to TD Ameritrade. to TD Ameritrade."
TDA did a poor job of documenting changes. Look at the info it gives for bank transition: "Scottrade Bank was acquired by TD Bank, N.A. and moving forward all bank services will be provided by TD Bank, N.A. ... There are no changes you need to worry about."
This is dead wrong, and I've never seen a bank acquisition that did not say clearly and explicitly that you need to worry about exceeding FDIC limits, because now there's only one bank where you may have deposits, not two (in case you were also a TDA customer).
So in the case of conflicting statements (here's your account handbook, and your fees won't change), I'd ask rather than hope for the best.
----
Here's the best indication I've been able to find that TF fees will remain the same ($17). It's in the notice to RIAs using Scottrade:
"Commission rates will remain the same for your current Scottrade® Advisor Services accounts. All accounts that transition to TD Ameritrade Institutional will receive the same equity, option, and transaction fee mutual fund commission rates"
Here's the Scottrade® Advisor Services fee schedule, including $17 for TF funds.
----
FWIW, here's a TDA PR statement from a year ago: "With our pending acquisition of Scottrade on the horizon, we have a unique opportunity to enhance that experience even further with lower pricing for all of our clients."
That's when TDA announced that it was lowering its equitypricing to $6.95/trade, matching Scottrade's. This is the way I read their transition page verbiage - that they'd already sync'd the commissions (as much as they were going to), and so Scottrade customers would continue to benefit from low commissions, the equity commissions. TDA also lowered its option prices at the same time, to almost match Scottrade's. The same $6.95, but 75c/contract as opposed to 70c/contract at Scottrade.

@msf. Yes, I saw that from 2012 but on the TD Ameritrade website could find nothing about any fees on selling a transaction fee fund. I guess I will just contact an office and ask them about the fees. My Scottrade brokers haven’t been of any help. I can’t handle $49.99 on both purchases and sales unless I make some type of adjustment in my trading methodology. Then again been adjusting continually since my INVESCO and Strong days. Back then you could literally buy and sell their in house funds day after day if you wanted and zero commissions and without fear of being banned. Albeit eventually Strong banned me from datelining of their international funds.
They say luck is a big element in the success equation. Part of the reason my account is seven figures to the better over the past 25 years of buy and hold in the S@P was I lucked upon those two brokerage firms at just the right time in the 90s. I am a big believer in the Luck Factor!

Also according to the Scottrade to Ameritrade transition hub - https://welcome.tdameritrade.com/ The fees for transaction fee mutual fund purchases will remain the same.

I read that page a little differently. Under FAQ there's this Q&A:

What are your plans for pricing or trade commissions?
As always, our goal is to deliver great value to all of our clients. Right now, that means no changes to low commission rates. Clients will continue to benefit from our $6.95 base commission rate for online equities. Any clients with negotiated commission rates will be honored at conversion.

What this isn't saying is that they will honor Scottrade's standard commission schedule for funds.
Take a look at page 5 of the Account Handbook that's linked to on the welcome page:

Funds   			Price
No-Transaction-Fee Funds	No commission
No-Load Transaction Fee Funds	$49.99
Load Funds			No commission†

You're correct that TDA doesn't have an extra short term trading fee for TF funds. But it charges $49.95 to buy and $49.95 to sell, making its round trips more expensive than Scottrade even with its extra short term trading fee.
This is somewhat old (2012) but I think still accurate, from Forbes:
"But because Schwab now only charges investors a transaction fee when they buy a fee-fund, Schwab is actually cheaper ‘round-trip’ than TD Ameritrade, for example. TD Ameritrade has a $49.95 transaction fee, but because it charges investors on both the buy and the sell, the ‘round-trip’ cost of buying and selling a fee fund is nearly $100."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2012/03/05/fund-trading-costs-the-abcs-of-transaction-fees/
With Fidelity charging $49.95 to buy most TF funds, no short term trading fee on TF funds and no charge to sell, Fidelity's short term round trips are even cheaper than at Schwab ($76 to buy) or Scottrade.
https://www.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/all-mutual-funds/fees

Does anyone know of a good stable "preferred" stock fund, especially in the Vanguard family.?

I would be very careful about preferred funds. Preferreds live in the space between senior debt (traditional corporate bonds) and common stock. Traditional preferreds are $25 par value stocks, while there are some hybrid preferreds that are $1000 par value.
European banks are pulling out of the $25 par market after recent legislation. So the supply of those offerings are shrinking.
Meanwhile, all the indexes tracked by the passive ETFs (and mutual funds) are concentrated in the $25 par market. And these ETFs have seen a pretty substantial inflow of funds as investors seek yield.
As a result, the $25 par preferreds are getting very expensive. Supply is shrinking, and demand from the passive index tracking funds increases as funds flow in.
To give you an idea of the effect of the passive $25 par funds + shrinking supply at that level, the average value of each Cohen & Steers holding is over $30M.
To compound matters, the passive index tracking funds do not lend their preferred holdings out for shorting. As a result, it’s very expensive to short these preferred stocks because they are very hard to borrow. So there is not a lot of short interest.
This serves to increase the downside risk should ETF/ mutual fund flows reverse out of preferreds. The index trackers will be forced to sell. Not only will buyers be scarce, but there won’t even be demand from short sellers looking to cover their shorts and take profits.
It’s a recipe for disaster in the next bear market.
I would look for actively managed preferred funds with smaller position sizes that can access the $1000 par market in addition to the $25 par market. These may not be class leading in returns, but they are much safer.

I did some research after posting my response above. Based on M* numbers, ARTKX beat OAKIX over 15 years, 10 years they are even, and OAKIX beat ARTKX over 5, 3 and 1 years. However, over all periods, ARTKX has better Alpha and Sharpe ratios for whatever it is worth. Having said that, both of them are good/great funds in opinion. ARTKX managers were trained/worked at Oakmark with Herro before going on their own with Artisan.

Sometimes brokerages' screeners/fund lists aren't easy to find without logging in. These should work:
TDA (it says that it offers 12,841 funds, 11,596 open to new investors):
https://research.tdameritrade.com/grid/public/screener/mutualfunds/screener.asp?method=new
E*Trade (9156 funds, 8581 open to new investors):
https://www.etrade.wallst.com/Research/Screener/MutualFund/
Fidelity: (12,228 funds [you have to check the "include closed fund" box], 11,001 open to new investors)
https://www.fidelity.com/fund-screener/evaluator.shtml#!&ntf=N&expand=$FundFamily
The number of funds offered doesn't matter much - lots of obscure, lousy funds inflate these figures. What matters is whether they have a solid selection of good funds and whether they carry the funds you own or want to own.
I like Fidelity, because their service is excellent, they charge nothing to sell any fund, and once you own a fund that they charge a transaction fee (TF) to buy , you can buy additional shares for just $5 per purchase (but you have to go through some tricks to do this). There are other reasons why I like Fidelity, but that's a good start.
I've used TDA (in fact, we still have $0.01 in an account there - don't ask). Until recently they had a great lineup of no-transaction-fee ETFs. A few months ago, they started charging transaction fees to trade all the Vanguard ETFs, and many of the iShare ETFs. In their place, TDA added loads of high cost, less well known ETFs. So their ETF numbers look good (hundreds of no fee ETFs now), but the actual offerings are poorer. A good example of why number of funds doesn't tell the whole story. We found TDA fine for mutual funds, but nothing special.
Often (this applies to Junkster, too) a brokerage will be able to hold a fund it doesn't offer for purchase, and you can even reinvest dividends and sell shares there. You just can't buy more. But not always - on rare occasions they'll be unable to even transfer in shares.

Interesting call on BRK.B Maurice. It may not be a mutual fund but it is concentrated and it's hard to argue with it's success. I'm not sure that I'd buy it here but I'd look hard at it during a market correction. One negative if you can call it that would be manager succession once Mr's Buffett and Munger decide to step away.
If you can forgive them for their Valeant sins SEQUX, the Sequioa Fund, might also be worth looking at. They only have 25-30 holdings generally and BRK A&B are a large part of them.

May be a good time to invest in value, seeing all the capitulations to growth: looking hard at RPG, PRDGX an "obvious" choice within the TRP house, etc.
If you've ever used "mean regression" as a mantra, how does that apply here? I agree with hank that "a decade is a pretty short period".
RPG and RPV go back barely a decade. Using VIVAX and VIGRX instead (going back to 1992), here are their last 10 year cumulative returns, their their previous 10 year cumulative returns, the cumulative returns for those 20 years, and their lifetime cumulative returns (11/2/1992 through 1/22/2018).
last 10 yr:    196.29% (growth) vs. 141.12% (value)
prev 10 yr:    44.05% (growth) vs.  76.08% (value)
last 20 yr: ;   326.80% (growth) vs. 324.55% (value) - a virtual dead heat
lifetime:        983.07% (growth) vs. 991.05% (value) - a virtual dead heat
You can get these figures from M*'s chart here (just tweak the date ranges).
Annualized, the first three are:
last 10 yr:  11.47% (growth) vs. 9.20% (value)
prev 10 yr:  3.72% (growth) vs. 5.82% (value)
last 20 yr:   6.10% (growth) vs. 6.06% (value)

Hi Davidrmoran,
Timeframes for the correlation coefficients don't matter. The ever changing and random character of the correlation coefficient and returns data demonstrate the futility in making market projections. It just can't be done with any accuracy or consistency. Change happens. That's why just being in the markets over long timeframes is a winning strategy.
The referenced data sets serve to reinforce the diversification concept in a very general sense. Given the overall market uncertainties, precision is simply not possible. Asset allocation mathematical programs that promise some optimum return at minimum volatility don't holdup over time. They fail because of change. Nothing more than a very general asset allocation is possible with some infrequent adjustments to follow a general, generic plan.
Thanks for your question. Sorry but I don't practice a tight discipline. When investing, there are few math derived "rules" that work all the time. Again, change happens!!
Best Wishes
After posting, I remembered a bit of wisdom from a Norm Augustine book that I own: "90 percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect. The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.” He made a ton of similar observations in his superior book with wisdom on every page. The book is titled "Augustine's Laws". The law quoted is number 37 from the 52 provided in the text. It took some serious hunting, but I finally found the book.

I am a 77 year old retiree and not a sophisticated investor. Had my selfdirected IRA for many years with Scottrade and it will transferred to TDA on February 23, 2018. TDA has “hundreds” while E*trade offers “thousands” of funds, but without an account in either company I cannot find out which ones they are. TDA charges $50.- for a transaction fee funds while I paid $17.- at Scottrade and don’t know what other fees may apply. I wonder if I would be best off with Vanguard which is known for low fees. I already have 3 Vanguard Funds and one Vanguard ETF. I also have one fund each from Fidelity, T Rowe Price, Oakmark, Mairs&Power and a James Fund. I am grateful for any advice I can get.

@MFO Members: The proof is in the pudding.
Regards,
Ted
YTD: RPG 8.24%
YTD: RPV 6.04%
1yr. RPG 33.68%
1yr. RPV 24.52%
3yr. RPG 13.03%
3yr. RPV 12.28%
5yr. RPG 17.59%
5yr. RPV 16.16%
10yr. RPG 13.68%
10yr. RPV 11.91%
(Source M*)