I’ve looked at annuities in the past and the pay-out looked so bleak compared to what one can reasonably expect to make in the markets than I ran away. That was at substantially lower Fed/10-year rates than today. Does anyone know if annuities now offer better payouts than a couple years ago or - better yet - whether their attractiveness will continue to improve now that interest rates are finally rising?

The thrill of gathering assets at hedge fund expense ratios. Gotham averages 2.5% er. Half charge more than 3%. But Gotham's been winning since launch. 20 of 21 funds have handsomely beaten their peers. This year, however, they have generally followed the market down, drawdowns at end of March from -3 to -8%, averaging -5%. c

Here's a review by someone who got a response to some of his questions from Beam, though they were mostly "nonanswers". He also got a live account and describes how it works. To quote from his page: "Spoiler alert: it’s not good."
https://www.getrichquickish.net/2017/07/beam-high-interest-rate-bank-account.html
I've been around Silicon Valley and startups enough to recognize some patterns. Not awful, just stuff you get used to.
The idea that we can do better than anyone else because ... well, just because. Think of all the silly companies built during the dot com boom.
It will be better because we'll apply TECHNOLOGY. Look at Oscar Insurance - a startup Obamacare company, a darling of VCs (unlike most startups). This excerpt about it from Politico could easily apply to Beam:

Health insurance is a relatively staid business. ... Oscar wasn’t revolutionizing the model and the cliche about the “Uber of health care” ignored the fact that health insurance is one of the most- regulated markets in the country while Uber capitalized on regulatory loopholes.
Oscar’s bet, indeed its raison d'etre, is that its superior technology will keep its patients healthier or provide them with less expensive medical interventions when they do become ill.

It's very common not to say much about business models, especially when there aren't high barriers to entry. From a customer perspective it doesn't matter much unless it's illegal, or you would be hurt if the company went out of business. It's different for investors, and startups do share their business plans under NDAs to potential investors.
Here's all I can find on their backing and staff:
https://angel.co/meetbeam
Statups try to generate buzz. They'll puff up whatever connections they have. So on the home page you see "TRUSTED BY OUR ADVOCATES". Not advocates so much as just publications where their launch was reported (like the Forbes article).
What you don't see here is a list of partners or investors. (Even those can be greatly exaggerated, where partnership could mean just a normal transactional relationship.)
A hype campaign, an effort to build a customer base quickly. Pushing customers to network with their friends. Attracting people by making it seem exclusive. Even Google did that with gmail:

The aura of exclusivity and experimentation stuck to mail long after it did grow huge. Google kept increasing the number of invites each user could issue, but it didn’t open up the service to all comers until Valentine’s Day, 2007. And Gmail wore its Beta label like a badge of honor until July of 2009.

http://time.com/43263/gmail-10th-anniversary/
To reiterate: nothing out of the ordinary with any of this. It could succeed, though I have my doubts. I don't see any rush to move a modest amount of money in right now, just to get a quarter percent more interest on it. If I wait a year (at an after tax opportunity cost of about $30 on $15,000), I'll survive.

R

But how is it able to do that? Very little info on what its invested in on M*.
Incidently their "hedged market opportunity" fund is down 12% ytd. So there.
And their tactical allocation "asset rotation" fund is also sucking wind against category.
I also worry because they have fund exclusively devoted to "Robotics & Automation". I immediately think of "Pictet Global Water" fund when I see that, a fund before its time.
I guess IOFAX is unique...maybe time to dabble at little

Please don’t. We have been talking about this fund for a year now here and there and now you suddenly want to dabble???

FYI: Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz interviews Joel Greenblatt, co-founder of Formula Investing LLC and managing principal, co-chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Gotham Short Strategies and Gotham Asset Management LLC. He has also been a director of Pzena Investment Management Inc. since October 2007. An adjunct professor at Columbia Business School since 1996, he teaches classes on value and special situation investing. He is the author of “You Can Be A Stock Market Genius,” “The Little Book That Beats the Market,” “The Little Book That Still Beats the Market” and “The Big Secret for the Small Investor.”
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2018-04-20/joel-greenblatt-discusses-the-thrill-of-investing
Transcript:
http://ritholtz.com/2018/04/transcript-joel-greenblatt/
M*: Gotham Family Of Funds: (Investment Minimum $250,000) - (Investor Class $2,500 (GNNDX))
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/fundfamily/gotham/0C000091OF/fund-list.aspx
Gotham Funds Website:
https://www.gothamfunds.com/strategy.aspx

@Crash- That's why I posted the article re the "Dark Grey Swan". When that area starts falling apart what are the odds that it will take the whole offshore shebang down with it, at least temporarily, as everyone runs for the exits?

There’s so many potential black (or gray) swans out there that I stopped counting.
(Specifically, I stopped November 8, 2016.)

@VintageFreak,
The 2016 drop can be better observed by creating a 2016 -2018 chart shown here.

Here's a link to the Forbes article. Hard to believe this type of business model will succeed, and they share very little about the business model...all very vague and feel good.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurengensler/2017/09/18/high-yield-online-savings-account-beam/#680354443531

Hello,
Last week Old_Skeet's market barometer finished the week with a reading of 155 indicating the the S&P 500 Index was undervalued. Not much has changed as this week as it finished at 154. However, there was a big move in the US 10 YR Treasury which has moved over the past four weeks from a yield of 2.74% to 2.96%. For me to be a buyer in equities I'll need to see a reading of around 160 on the barometer's scale and perhaps a little higher. I'm thinking the reason for rise in yield is due to our Govenment's spending was greater than its tax receipts. Thus the need to print money which is inflationary.
Some of the things that performed well, for me, last week were my large cap growth funds, my commodity strategy fund and my regional bank fund pick. In addition, my convertible securities fund was up about 0.50%.
Wishing all ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

FYI: We have just learned that the median salary of employees at Amazon.com Inc. is $28,446, excluding its chief executive officer and founder, Jeff Bezos. That pitiful number raises an intriguing question: Is Amazon a high-paying tech company or a low-wage retailer?
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-20/amazon-bezos-net-worth-may-be-100-billion-times-that-of-workers
Amazon Subscribers Worldwide:
http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-20-at-12.53.17-PM.png

crash, look at the history; it is wild, but many are willing to 'overpay' for skill (duh)
some say as long as under 10% not to overworry (how's that for equivocation?)

Hmmm ...
I guess I don't have more to say than ...
Lightning In A Bottle

But how is it able to do that? Very little info on what its invested in on M*.
Incidently their "hedged market opportunity" fund is down 12% ytd. So there.
And their tactical allocation "asset rotation" fund is also sucking wind against category.
I also worry because they have fund exclusively devoted to "Robotics & Automation". I immediately think of "Pictet Global Water" fund when I see that, a fund before its time.
I guess IOFAX is unique...maybe time to dabble at little

I also cited drop 2016-3. That's 2 years back. Really appreciate if someone can look at the chart. It is important for me to know I'm not seeing things others aren't.

It's been covered by Forbes and by ValuePenguin, so in that sense at least it seems real.
It's probably fine as far as it goes, but I'm not enticed by "engagement" bonuses (the more you do on the app, the higher the yield). It's hard to see how a company serving as a middleman is going to compete with online only banks in the long run. Run ads, like websites? Or like that company (forgot its name) that created free ATMs - you just had to watch an ad before getting your no fee cash.
There might be a small window where your money is not insured - if Beam handles the money in transit, rather than simply "introducing" your bank to its partner bank. It's not clear how they're processing transfers; they don't seem to say explicitly that it's by ACH, though the 1-2 day wait is a good clue.
I'm not fond of hype, and Beam seems to have more than its fair share. It says that "Beam is a mobile bank account that pays 200x more than your average savings account" (I think it means 200x as much). But as noted by Forbes, according to the FDIC the average savings account paid 0.06% back in September (surely more now). 200x, 67x, either way they're meaningless numbers.
It tries to impress with jargon: "It is a Demand Deposit Account (DDA) in technical terms." Yes, but it could have said checking account. See, e.g. CFPB's page: "A demand deposit account is just a different term for a checking account." But then again, perhaps not, since it doesn't offer checking.
I had to dig to find the name of the bank partner. It's there in the blog, but not to be found in the Q&A on the home page. There you find simply that it's partnering with an unnamed FDIC-insured bank.
ValuePenguin says that in beta, you'll be limited to $15K. If you're okay with the games and the modest limit, you might also consider rewards checking accounts. They typically require you to make a certain number of debit purchases a month, and maybe some other stuff, but will give similar yields.
Since I can get 1.6% - 1.8% at online banks without any games, without caps, without a smartphone, without "engaging", I'll stick with that. YMMV.

Way too narrow a focus for my tastes. I’m in the “preservation” stage owing to both age and market perception.
But thanks for the question. If I really wanted to bet on AI, I might buy Amazon or a fund that owns it. Do you have an Echo device in your home? Even with our “horse & buggy” internet the things Echo can do seamlessly are just astounding (We got 2 named Echo and Alexa). Bezos seems to fling a lot of darts at various targets. Many of his new ideas fall flat. But occasionally he hits a grand slam (forgive the mixed metaphor). He did it with Kindle which dominates the market for e-readers and he’s doing it now with Echo.
If you don’t have an Echo ...
The App ...
- Responds by your calling its name
- Speaks in a very conversational tone with accurate pronunciation and quite a lot of human-like inflection.
- Quickly looks up information ranging from weather forecasts (1-7 days out), to Wikipedia based inquiries, to common statistics like the size and age of the universe or the flying time between NY and London.
- Can switch on lights, set the thermostat or play back music from Amazon at your command
This is incredible AI technology.
I think Amazon (1) will continue to improve the Echo device by adding new capabilities and (2) hit another home run in a few years with some new AI we’re not even thinking about today.
Valuation? Don’t know. I don’t trust the equity markets period at these levels. But that’s just me.

Thank guys. As usual, bee is pointing the way. The MAXDD since inception for GTSOX is -11.2, which occurred 9/2011. Our premium site computes risk and performance metrics for 21 display periods, including "Life" or since inception (back to 1/1960, as applicable). Most of the main site search tools only have metrics for 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 year periods. So, in the case of GTSOX, the 5-year period is longest shown, and the MAXDD over that period is more like -6%.
Here's link to screenshot of full risk/return profile for GTSOX.
The risk and performance metrics are computed from total monthly returns.
We are about to go live with a much expanded database, thanks to a new global feed from Lipper. Ratings will include CEFs, holdings data, and much more.
Hope that helps.

From the Portfolio Visualizer website (PV website), I created this graphic of GTSOX with its MAXDD highlighted:

Over a shorter timeframe (2014-2018): it appears that (-6.1%) MaxDD is correct:

I looked up GTSOX at Schwab, without logging in. They show the best and worse 3 month period for each fund. From 6/2/11-8/31/11 the fund lost 10.42% and the best gain was 13.38 starting in 10/11. So I'm not sure what MAXDD is measuring either.

FYI: hird Avenue's Martin Whitman performed the astonishing feat of beating the stock market by a wide margin over at least twenty years.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-whitman-won-1524154702
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/cetusnews?part=SJs_ErU2G