FYI: It looks like the hedge-fund equivalent of a hostage video.
James Cordier, in a dark suit, cuff links and expensive-looking watch, sits in a brown leather chair and stares into a camera, his hands folded in front of him.
Then he delivers the bad news.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/hedge-fund-s-accounts-liquidated-amid-energy-market-volatility

By chart it looks to be <1% loss for a month. Still up year to date.
Derf

Here are the VG funds in registration for the Admiral class:
Vanguard High Dividend Yield Index Fund
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1004655/000093247118007445/merged.htm
Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US Small-Cap Index Fund
Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/857489/000093247118007443/merged.htm
Vanguard Long-Term Bond Index Fund
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/794105/000093247118007444/lt_bondindexmerge.htm
Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/52848/000093247118007442/worldmarvel485a.htm

FYI: With the S&P 500 falling 9.08% QTD, it has been the sixth-worst start to the fourth quarter in the history of the S&P 500. The only worse Q4s (through 37 trading days) came during some of the worst years for the stock market (1929, the 1930s, 1973, 1987, and 2008).
Below is a table showing the worst starts to Q4 for the S&P 500 through 37 trading days. Any drop of more than 2% at this point in the quarter made the list. As shown in the table, the average change for the S&P for the remainder of these years has been a gain of 2.77% with positive returns 78.26% of the time. For all other Q4s in the S&P’s history, the average change for the remainder of the year has been +1.61%.
Of course, it’s not all good news. If you look at the window of Q4s that were down between 8% and 12% like we are this year, the S&P actually declined for the remainder of those four years.
And in case you don’t remember, at this point in Q4 2008, the S&P was down 35.5%! In that year, the S&P ended up rallying 20% for the remainder of the year before plummeting to new lows again in the first quarter of 2009.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/a-historically-bad-q4-so-far/

Do the number of shares remain the same? That depends on the price of the investor shares and the admiral shares. There's some well defined dollar value of your fund holding (number of shares x investor share price). You're going to end up with the same value after conversion. Obviously if the admiral share price is higher you can't get as many shares as you had before, else you'd be making a profit on the conversion.
You only get the same number of shares if the prices of the two share classes are the same. I've done a few conversions; only once have I lucked out like that.
For example, VBMFX and VBLTX are trading at the same price. So you'd have the same number of shares after conversion.
But VTSMX is trading at $60.96 while VTSAX is trading at $60.99. If you had 100 shares of VTSMX (worth $6,096), don't expect to get upgraded to 100.000 shares of VTSAX (worth $6,099). Expect to get about 0.049 shares less (that makes up the $3 difference). At least if I've kept track of my decimal places correctly.
It's not a big deal. If you paid $5,000 for the investor shares, then the total cost of your admiral shares after conversion is still $5,000. If you sell all your shares, you declare your cost basis as $5,000 regardless of how many admiral shares that is.
In the end, regardless of what Vanguard or any other financial institution reports to the IRS, it's your responsibility, not theirs, to get the numbers right. If you think Vanguard has erred, the IRS has a box where you can say so and put down your figure.
----
You're suggesting two completely different buy/sell sequences:
1) Buy admiral shares (doubling your exposure), wait one month (presumably to avoid wash sale rule), and then sell investor shares
2) Sell investor shares before distribution (bringing your exposure to zero), wait until ex-div date, and then buy admiral shares
If you have gains, then #2 might make some sense. Though you're be recognizing all the gain. In contrast, if you do a direct conversion, you'll have the divs to deal with (they're usually qualified), but that should be relatively small compared to the cap gains you'd be deferring by doing the conversion.
Still, if you're adamant on keeping your records simplified, it has some merit. (You'd only be deferring taxes on the cap gains by doing the conversion, not eliminating them permanently.)

Okay so it is easy to convert to Admiral shares? Like one button click and everything converts? Or do I have to call?
Asking because one option is just to wait till April 2019...
And I hope this is not going to mess up tax basis calculations. The ONE issue I have with Vanguard is they don't know how to do rounding. And I mean it by any stretch of imagination. What they report as cost expense is significantly different than what I track with Quicken. Schwab, Fidelity, etc. no issue. Vanguard is impossible.
Now if we convert to admiral shares I hope the number of shares will stay the same. If not I have a good mind to by admiral shares wait a month and then sell existing shares. Especially if fund is not closed, sell before distribution and by admiral shares after distribution.

Some of that $1.8 B was mine!

FYI: Stocks are getting massacred. Absolutely slaughtered. Pounded into submission. Markets are in turmoil. Investors are panicked, shellshocked and dare I say, jittery.
These are some of the words and phrases you hear bandied about when stocks are in the midst of a freefall.
Fun times.
Let’s take a look at the numbers to see how bad things have been in various segments of the stock market this year to get a sense of the damage inflicted.
Regards,
Ted
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/11/surveying-the-damage-in-stocks/

M*: Vanguard Minimum Investment Cuts Overdue
https://www.morningstar.com/videos/901729/vanguard-minimum-investment-cuts-overdue.html

Glaser: ... Is this a competitive response to, say, the Fidelity zero funds? Is it just Vanguard passing on the benefit of its size to smaller investors? What do you thinks happening here?
Johnson: I think it's a little bit of all of these things, but first and foremost I would say that it's a competitive response to what we've seen in terms of similar moves that had been made previously by not just Fidelity, but also Charles Schwab

FYI: Healthcare/biotechnology sector funds (including both mutual funds and ETFs) took in $1.8 billion of net new money for Lipper’s fund-flows week ended Wednesday, November 14, 2018. It was the group’s second largest weekly net inflows ever (Lipper began tracking fund-flows data in 1992) and its largest since the fund-flows week ended November 16, 2016, when it had net inflows of $2.7 billion.
Regards,
Ted
https://lipperalpha.financial.thomsonreuters.com/2018/11/healthcare-biotechnology-sector-funds-post-near-historic-net-inflows/?utm_source=Eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=00008DM_NewsletterLipperAlphaInsightFundInsightsWeekly_Other&utm_content=Newsletter_FundsWeekly_19Nov2018&elqTrackId=441CF6581E15C42DA196BE9FA1A29F04&elq=dda1f42a06064de190e2f7259012eb63&elqaid=37609&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=166

FYI: For the second month in a row investors were net redeemers of mutual fund assets, withdrawing $28.7 billion from the conventional funds (ex-ETFs) business for October. Rising interest rates and fears of slowing global growth weighed on flows into long-term funds. For the first month in eight the fixed income funds macro-group witnessed net outflows, handing back $20.4 billion for the month. And for the sixth consecutive month stock & mixed-asset funds witnessed net outflows (-$42.1 billion for October, their largest monthly net outflows since November 2016), while money market funds (+$33.8 billion, for their third month of inflows in four) witnessed the only net inflows.
Regards,
Ted
https://lipperalpha.financial.thomsonreuters.com/reports/2018/11/slowing-growth-and-interest-rate-fears-weigh-on-fund-and-etf-investors-in-october/?utm_source=Eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=00008DM_NewsletterLipperAlphaInsightFundInsightsWeekly_Other&utm_content=Newsletter_FundsWeekly_19Nov2018&elqTrackId=FA1D32DF8BF9A4CA8B6B65DDB0A4DC06&elq=dda1f42a06064de190e2f7259012eb63&elqaid=37609&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=166

FYI: The booming loan market for highly indebted companies has faced a lot of scrutiny in recent months. The IMF has repeatedly aired its grievances. Multiple central banks, as well as the banker of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, have chimed in with their concerns as well. And last week, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren called for tighter regulation on what she believes is “a significant risk to the financial system and the American economy.”
Beyond deteriorating protections for lenders, critics have grown wary of just who is buying these loans. In recent years, it has increasingly been retail investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/11/20/1542706123000/Who-s-buying-leveraged-loans-anyways-/

Here's another current article from the San Francisco Chronicle regarding PG&E's possible future:
Can PG&E survive the Camp Fire?

Handy, factual article. Can't help thinking this is among the first of what eventually will be many similar unnatural disaster/financial fiascos.

"Didn't bother to get briefed on exactly what was going on, complete incuriosity, and no hesitation in expounding whatever silly conclusions he came to by some bizarre form of reasoning."
No need to be so picky. Don't forget that this man represents some 40% of your fellow citizens who presumably operate exactly the same way.

Now you're just sounding like Senator Roman Hruska, who in defending the nomination of Judge G . Harrold Carswell for the Supreme Court said:

Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers, and they are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that.

(Carswell had also supported white supremacy, though perhaps not at the time he was nominated.)
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4732341

Hi @Ted
Thank you, and I'm did see your original post.
I'm not a Podcast subscriber.
This is what I'm referring to:
--- On Monday, November 19, Bloomberg Opinion's Barry Ritholtz will be joined by Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates for a special live broadcast of Barry’s Masters in Business podcast. The event will be airing live on Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch the livestream on Twitter and Facebook at 10:30 am Eastern.

Here's another current article from the San Francisco Chronicle regarding PG&E's possible future:
Can PG&E survive the Camp Fire?

Nice marketing move by Vanguard, but it seems a little hard to rationalize on a cost basis. That is, if it costs virtually the same amount per dollar invested to administer a small index fund account as a large index fund account, doesn't it also cost virtually the same amount to administer a small active fund account as a large active fund account?
We're not talking about the cost of buying and selling shares here - that's covered by early redemption fees and in rare cases purchase fees (not loads). But we're looking at the servicing costs of small accounts. IMHO there isn't any difference between servicing a small index fund account and a small active fund account. Vanguard sends out the same annual prospectuses, handle similar size transactions, send out the same monthly/quarterly statements, etc.
So why cut the fees on small index funds accounts but not on small active fund accounts? Could it be that Vanguard is facing competition on the former but not the latter? That's not exactly pricing according to cost (Vanguard's mantra), but pricing according to market forces.
From the PR that Ted linked to: "Admiral Shares were introduced by Vanguard in November 2000 to pass along the cost savings associated with large and long-tenured accounts". Now those large and long-tenured accounts will no longer get a break.
Here's a "hidden in plain sight" gotcha: "It is anticipated that all of the outstanding Investor Shares will be automatically converted to Admiral Shares beginning in April 2019, with the exception of those held by Vanguard funds"
So the Life Strategy (fixed allocation) and Target Date (glide path allocation) funds will continue to skim 10+ basis points as they continue to own Investor class shares of their underlying index funds (VFINX ER = 0.14%, VFIAX ER = 0.04%).
Fidelity's explicit management fee of 0.10% (0.08% with waiver) per prospectus on FFNOX begins to look more and more respectable. It's not hiding this fee by using high priced underlying funds (the average ER of the underlying funds is 0.03%).
More from Vanguard's PR piece: "The firm was also an early proponent of ETFs as a means to broaden the availability of passive strategies"
Yeah, sure, whatever.

BUMP. @Catch22 mentions this thread in his response to my “Anybody Buying” thread. I thought I should bump it over to the Discussions+ area.
Yeah - 40% (equity) sounds pretty close to where we are. I’ve got a toe in so many specialty / alternative funds it’s a bit hard to get an exact bearing. (However, 40% happens to be my benchmark for balanced funds ... if that sheds any light.) Since I don’t maintain a separate cash reserve in addition to normal investments the way most do, I’m happy to have (1) bought a new car in June and (2) moved my anticipated ‘19 withdrawals into cash a couple months ago.

@MFO: From the Vanguard Website.
Regards,
Ted
https://pressroom.vanguard.com/news/Press-Release-Vanguard-Lowers-Investment-Minimum-of-Admiral-Shares-111918.html

Once logged into Vanguard, this message appeared:
Converting to Admiral Shares
-------------------------
You can now own lower-cost Admiral™ Shares for almost 40 of our index mutual funds for a minimum of just $3,000 each.
If higher minimums were keeping you from converting, select Yes below to find out if you can start saving money today.
-------------------------
When you convert from Investor Shares to Admiral Shares, you're still invested in the same mutual fund but you keep more of your investment returns thanks to lower expense ratios.
For example, would you rather invest $50,000 in:
•Investor Shares, which would cost an average of $90 a year? Or...
•Admiral Shares, which would cost an average of $55 a year?*
A $35 difference may not seem like much, but imagine how that might add up over time. Consider this hypothetical example:
Assume you invest $50,000 and hold onto it for 10 years (no additions, no withdrawals). The investment earns an average annual return of 6%, and the $35 annual expense ratio difference holds true the entire time. After 10 years, your Admiral Shares investment could be worth about $600 more than if it were in Investor Shares. (This doesn’t represent any particular investment; your actual savings could be higher or lower. The rate of return is not guaranteed.)
Admiral Shares minimum investment requirements
Minimums are assessed per fund, per account:
•Most index funds start at $3,000.
•Most actively managed funds start at $50,000.
•Some sector-specific index funds start at $100,000.
Fund-specific minimums can be found in each fund's profile.
After the conversion
You'll pay no taxes or fees on the conversion because you're simply moving money within the same fund.
But if you're invested in an actively managed fund or any other fund that offers both Admiral and Investor Shares, we may reclassify you back to Investor Shares if your investment drops below the Admiral Shares minimum.
Learn how converted shares are priced
Do you want to convert to Admiral Shares now?
*Vanguard Investor Shares average expense ratio: 0.18%. Vanguard Admiral Shares average expense ratio: 0.11%. All averages are asset-weighted. Source: Vanguard, as of December 31, 2017.