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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.
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    Gripe to the SEC (How to Read A Mutual Fund Shareholder Report):
    Performance Table. Underneath the line graph is a table showing the fund’s annualized (or average annual) returns for 1-, 5-, and 10-year (or for the life of the fund, if shorter) periods.

  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    Somewhere I've still got M-W's 2nd unabridged, on onion skin (from my parents). The last edition before they started including slang. If I can find it (not likely), I'll see what it says.
    If one insists that average means (no pun intended) arithmetic mean: What was the average annual return of a fund that produced 50% and -50% returns over the past two years? 0% or -13%? Sure it's still a mean, but it's not the "usual" mean.
    As for me, I'm still bothered by flammable. I get inflamed whenever I hear it :-)
    I hate when people us the term "average annual return" in place of "annualized return." The two are nowhere near synonymous.
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?

    Defined pensions are a thing of the past. Only about 5% of workers have them and 50% of those work for gov't.

    Speaking of fuzzy statistics, this number sounds way off. Pensions are declining, but not nearly that fast. As of 2011, 18% of private sector workers had traditional pensions, and 78% of government workers had pensions. (I've no doubt the figures have dropped in the past five years, but not by 3/4).
    You are correct. I was thinking of union members.
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    Somewhere I've still got M-W's 2nd unabridged, on onion skin (from my parents). The last edition before they started including slang. If I can find it (not likely), I'll see what it says.
    If one insists that average means (no pun intended) arithmetic mean: What was the average annual return of a fund that produced 50% and -50% returns over the past two years? 0% or -13%? Sure it's still a mean, but it's not the "usual" mean.
    As for me, I'm still bothered by flammable. I get inflamed whenever I hear it :-)
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?

    Defined pensions are a thing of the past. Only about 5% of workers have them and 50% of those work for gov't.
    Speaking of fuzzy statistics, this number sounds way off. Pensions are declining, but not nearly that fast. As of 2011, 18% of private sector workers had traditional pensions, and 78% of government workers had pensions. (I've no doubt the figures have dropped in the past five years, but not by 3/4).
    http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/12/art1full.pdf

    The only way I see people surviving with such small net worth is,social security, food stamps etc and living hand to mouth. 46 million use food stamps.
    This should give those of us with substantial net worth, SS and pensions pause to appreciate what we have.
    That's a more accurate statistic. It's even worse that it looks when you consider that several millions of those people need food stamps while working. I agree with the sentiment - though IMHO it is better to try to give a hand up (however one feels that is best done) than to simply be thankful for one's own situation.
  • AB Conservative Wealth Strategy to reorganize
    Reorganization:
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/812015/000119312516718214/d174387d497.htm
    497 1 d174387d497.htm THE AB PORTFOLIOS - CONSERVATIVE WEALTH STRATEGY
    SUP-0106-0916I
    LOGO
    THE AB PORTFOLIOS
    -AB Conservative Wealth Strategy
    Supplement dated September 22, 2016 to the Summary Prospectus and Prospectus (the “Prospectuses”) dated December 31, 2015 for AB Conservative Wealth Strategy (the “Portfolio”).
    At a meeting held on September 21, 2016, the Board of Trustees of The AB Portfolios approved the following actions:
    Agreement and Plan of Acquisition and Liquidation
    The Portfolio’s Board of Trustees approved, and recommended to shareholders for their approval, a proposal for the assets and liabilities of the Portfolio to be acquired by AB All Market Income Portfolio, a series of AB Cap Fund, Inc. (the “Acquiring Portfolio”, and together with the Portfolio, the “Portfolios”). The Portfolios pursue similar investment objectives and strategies.
    If the Portfolio’s shareholders approve the acquisition, all of the Portfolio’s assets and liabilities will be transferred to the Acquiring Portfolio, and shareholders of the Portfolio will receive shares of the same class of the Acquiring Portfolio, except that Class B shareholders of the Portfolio will receive Class A shares of the Acquiring Portfolio, in exchange for their shares of the Portfolio.
    The Portfolio will distribute to shareholders of record information about the proposed acquisition of the Portfolio by the Acquiring Portfolio and request their consent for the proposal. If approved by shareholders, the acquisition is expected to be completed in February 2017.
    Changes to Principal Investment Strategies
    The Portfolio’s Board of Trustees approved changes to the principal strategies of the Portfolio, which are anticipated to take effect on or about January 26, 2017 and remain in effect until the acquisition (or indefinitely if the acquisition does not occur).
    The Portfolio will no longer seek to achieve its objective by investing in a combination of underlying mutual funds managed by AllianceBernstein L.P. (“Underlying Portfolios”), the investment adviser to the Portfolio. Instead, the Portfolio will seek to achieve its objective by investing primarily directly in securities and other investments, while continuing to invest a portion of its assets in certain Underlying Portfolios, in accordance with its targeted percentages in certain asset classes and investment styles.
    This Supplement should be read in conjunction with the Prospectuses for the Portfolio.
    You should retain this Supplement with your Prospectuses for future reference.
    The [A/B] Logo is a service mark of AllianceBernstein and AllianceBernstein® is a registered trademark used by permission of the owner, AllianceBernstein L.P.
    SUP-0106-0916I
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    The article is misleading because it omits "human capital"- the present value of all future income earned from labor". For most young people, human capital far exceeds their actual capital. Even for many seniors, human capital is not zero- some seniors are still working in their seventies and even eighties.
    Human capital is not a part of one's net worth... Regardless, if accurate, these numbers are embarrassing...
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    I know you know this Hank but these values (medians) are not averages, they are just the middle.
    A look at the word “average”, American Mathematical Society Blogs (May 12, 2012):
    Average "has three mathematical meanings: it could be mean, mode, or median. This suggests that confusion, intentionally or not, is likely to happen when the word is used."
    Indubitably.
  • Americans' Median Net Worth by Age -- How Do You Compare?
    If the figure above is representative of US general population, we are in trouble unless the they have a healthy social security and generous pension.
    Defined pensions are a thing of the past. Only about 5% of workers have them and 50% of those work for gov't.
    The only way I see people surviving with such small net worth is,social security, food stamps etc and living hand to mouth. 46 million use food stamps.
    This should give those of us with substantial net worth, SS and pensions pause to appreciate what we have.
  • M*: Why Target-Date Funds Don’t Resemble University Endowment Funds
    Great article. Many of the investments in the endowment are quite complex and very difficult for smaller investors to own (assuming they would want them). Minimums tend to be high and there's lots of legal restrictions imposed by IRS or SEC which impede liquidity and add tax liabilities for small investors.
    If (for the above reasons) these investments are not in a financial assets manager's basket of offerings to begin with, it's difficult for the manager to add them to a target date fund.
    Article suggests that a target fund dated 30 years in the future is comperable to a college endowment in investment horizon. I'm not sure that's true. However, assuming it is ... what percentage of small investors in that age group (say 20-35 years of age) actually elect to invest through target date funds? Is there a sizable market there to make such a diversified offering profitable for the financial services provider?
    ---
    More thoughts after sleeping on this one: A big difference (which I think the M* article largely ignores) is that humans age - and that this life-long transition must be taken into account over one's ever changing investment horizon. That's where target date glide-slopes come into play. Most rational advisors wouldn't allocate an individual's money as aggressively at age 60 as the would at age 30-40. However, with a university endowment there would seem to be no need for such a glide-slope. Assuming the university continues to grow and prosper, it's endowment investment horizon should remain constant - allowing an aggressive broadly diversified approach for many decades - even centuries. Do I have it right? Or am I missing something in highlighting this difference?
  • M*: Why Target-Date Funds Don’t Resemble University Endowment Funds
    I really like to see the endowment funds from all the major universities and how they compare to target-date funds, say 2000 till 2016.
    Even among the target-date funds, some are better than the others just like 529 college saving plan.
  • AB Conservative Wealth Strategy to reorganize
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/812015/000119312516716895/d174387d497.htm
    497 1 d174387d497.htm THE AB PORTFOLIOS - CONSERVATIVE WEALTH STRATEGY
    SUP-0106-0916I
    LOGO
    THE AB PORTFOLIOS
    -AB Conservative Wealth Strategy
    Supplement dated September 22, 2016 to the Summary Prospectus and Prospectus (the “Prospectuses”) dated December 31, 2015 for AB Conservative Wealth Strategy (the “Portfolio”).
    At a meeting held on September 21, 2016, the Board of Trustees of The AB Portfolios approved the following actions:
    Agreement and Plan of Acquisition and Liquidation
    The Portfolio’s Board of Trustees approved, and recommended to shareholders for their approval, a proposal for the assets and liabilities of the Portfolio to be acquired by AB All Market Income Portfolio, a series of AB Bond Fund, Inc. (the “Acquiring Portfolio”, and together with the Portfolio, the “Portfolios”). The Portfolios pursue similar investment objectives and strategies.
    If the Portfolio’s shareholders approve the acquisition, all of the Portfolio’s assets and liabilities will be transferred to the Acquiring Portfolio, and shareholders of the Portfolio will receive shares of the same class of the Acquiring Portfolio, except that Class B shareholders of the Acquired Portfolio will receive Class A shares of the Acquiring Portfolio, in exchange for their shares of the Portfolio.
    The Portfolio will distribute to shareholders of record information about the proposed acquisition of the Portfolio by the Acquiring Portfolio and request their consent for the proposal. If approved by shareholders, the acquisition is expected to be completed in February 2017.
    Changes to Principal Investment Strategies
    The Portfolio’s Board of Trustees approved changes to the principal strategies of the Portfolio, which are anticipated to take effect on or about January 26, 2017 and remain in effect until the acquisition (or indefinitely if the acquisition does not occur).
    The Portfolio will no longer seek to achieve its objective by investing in a combination of underlying mutual funds managed by AllianceBernstein L.P. (“Underlying Portfolios”), the investment adviser to the Portfolio. Instead, the Portfolio will seek to achieve its objective by investing primarily directly in securities and other investments, while continuing to invest a portion of its assets in certain Underlying Portfolios, in accordance with its targeted percentages in certain asset classes and investment styles.
    This Supplement should be read in conjunction with the Prospectuses for the Portfolio.
    You should retain this Supplement with your Prospectuses for future reference.
    The [A/B] Logo is a service mark of AllianceBernstein and AllianceBernstein® is a registered trademark used by permission of the owner, AllianceBernstein L.P.
    SUP-0106-0916I
  • AB liquidates several funds
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1308576/000091957416015490/d7249294_497.htm
    497 1 d7249294_497.htm
    THE AB POOLING PORTFOLIOS
    -AB U.S. Value Portfolio
    -AB U.S. Large Cap Growth Portfolio
    -AB International Value Portfolio
    -AB International Growth Portfolio
    -AB Short Duration Bond Portfolio
    -AB Global Core Bond Portfolio
    -AB Bond Inflation Protection Portfolio
    -AB Small-Mid Cap Value Portfolio
    -AB Small-Mid Cap Growth Portfolio
    -AB Multi-Asset Real Return Portfolio
    Supplement dated September 22, 2016 to the Prospectus dated December 31, 2015 of The AB Pooling Portfolios (the "Prospectus") offering AB U.S. Value Portfolio, AB U.S. Large Cap Growth Portfolio, AB International Value Portfolio, AB International Growth Portfolio, AB Short Duration Bond Portfolio, AB Global Core Bond Portfolio, AB Bond Inflation Protection Portfolio, AB Small-Mid Cap Value Portfolio, AB Small-Mid Cap Growth Portfolio and AB Multi-Asset Real Return Portfolio (each a "Portfolio" or collectively the "Portfolios").
    * * * * *
    On September 21, 2016, at the recommendation of AllianceBernstein L.P., the investment advisor to the Portfolios, the Board of Trustees of The AB Pooling Portfolios approved the liquidation and termination of each Portfolio. The liquidation is expected to occur after the close of business on January 30, 2017 (the "Liquidation Date").
    Effective January 26, 2017, each Portfolio is closed to purchases by new shareholders and additional purchases by existing shareholders.
    Prior to the Liquidation Date, Portfolio shareholders may redeem (sell) or exchange their shares in the manner described in the Prospectus.
    This Supplement should be read in conjunction with the Prospectus for the Portfolios.
    You should retain this Supplement with your Prospectus for future reference.
    __________________
    The [A/B] Logo is a service mark of AllianceBernstein and AllianceBernstein® is a registered trademark used by permission of the owner, AllianceBernstein L.P.
  • Is the Value Premium Disappearing?
    I say investors should try to stick with it ... as hard as that may be to do. " I think as a former dedicated value investor that it is just too hard. Buying what is performing doing well and switching when its not is probably a better strategy for most investors. the difficult of sticking with value funds which have under performed like in the last 5-7 years is just too difficult for most investors. They wind up selling out before the trends change and most the rebound.
  • MFO will be briefly off-line Saturday morning
    Dear friends,
    On Saturday, Chip and her staff are unveiling two major upgrades to MFO. The ceremony takes place about 10:30 a.m. EST, Saturday, September 24.
    We are moving to a more powerful, more secure server at a new host. While our experience with Green Geeks has been pretty positive, our current shared server is not a state-of-the-art piece of equipment and customer support is ... hmmm, clunky.
    We are changing the layout of our monthly issue. Currently, we're one, 35-page long scroll. That's an artifact of our early days where the first cover essay I wrote for FundAlarm was 2.5 pages long. The new layout will function much more like a magazine with a table of contents that has the stories laid out in a grid and a separate homepage for each author, so folks interested in scanning everything that, say, Sam has written, will be easily able to do so. We know that some folks have grown fond of the scroll, so we'll maintain that option, too. On the right-hand side, you'll see a "view as continuous page" option for each issue.
    The new style looks pretty nice and we think it will made it easier to navigate and use. With time we'll also offer a Kindle e-book version of each monthly essay as part of the ongoing effort to broaden our reach. The new layout will make that transition easier, too.
    The appearance of the discussion board is not changing. The most radical thing we're contemplating for the discussion board is slightly widening the blue and green header since, on some monitors, it's only about half the width of the screen. Likewise, the rest of the site (about us, contact, search tools) won't be touched.
    Chip and her guys intend to push the button around 10:30 a.m. Saturday, weather and the spirits of the internet permitting. Our new server will be online within 20 minutes or so. The hangup is that we need all of the backbone servers on the internet to notice that we've moved to a new I.P. (internet protocol, if you care) address. At the moment we switch servers, the team sets off a sort of cyber-flare that calls out "over here! Over here!" Some of the servers will notice us almost immediately and begin rerouting traffic to the new location; others might take a while. Folks whose "go to mutualfundobserver.com" requests get routed through those servers will see a static "we're moving, hit refresh or try back in a few minutes" sort of message.
    Our Premium Site will not be affected.
    We've been working really hard behind the scenes on this one. I hope you like.
    David
  • Is the Value Premium Disappearing?
    Thanks MJG. Been thinking about this very situation. Lots of "value" managers under-performing vs SP500 last 5-7 years. Hard to know exactly why. Some of them blame ZIRP. Others acknowledging that the value premium is something you can only count on over the long run, the length of which is also hard to specify. Ten years certainly seems like "the long run" ... indeed it is compared to holding time of most individual and even institutional investors! But, not so sure it is for any one strategy or another. Some value managers are actually pointing to the under-performance as evidence that they are on the right track! And, it's hard to knock them. And I've heard others say that some value metrics have actually performed OK. In any case, like JoJo26, I too believe the value premium will ultimately persistent. If a manager is consistently executing a startegy, and you agree with that stratetgy, I say investors should try to stick with it ... as hard as that may be to do. Hope all is well. c
  • FPAs bad children
    @VintageFreak: I follow your posts as you are a seasoned and wise investor. However, I would not pull the trigger on any of these FPA funds as there are more attractive and lower cost alternatives:
    CHART
    Kevin
  • Stable Value
    As noted in my original citation (which I've got to read more carefully), one can invest in stable value funds via 529 plans, e.g. Colorado's CollegeInvest Stable Value Plus option. The CollegeInvest option is effectively a MetLife GIC, which currently pays 2.54% (3.25% less admin fee of 0.71%).
    If you don't use the plan for college expenses, you can still get the money out by paying a 10% penalty on the earnings. That reduces the current rate to an effective 2.29% - still much better than a CD or bank account or MMF.
    Be aware that there may be some legal issues if you open a 529 plan with with no intention of using it for college expenses.
    See: http://www.justanswer.com/law/8azaf-short-term-fixed-income-investment-instruments.html