Ever try constructing your own “fund of funds”? I suspect all of us on the board, followers of David and MFO, me since 2011 and before that with Fund Alarm, look to build our own FOFs.
David publishes his periodically.
In recent years, the proliferation of model portfolios, do essentially provide FOFs.
Ditto most FAs or RIAs, either those they download from their platforms, likely sponsored, or those they create on their own ... the more independent and thoughtful ones, perhaps.
Target Retirement Funds are essentially FOFs too.
At quick search on MFOP shows there are presently 1719 FOFs offered in the US: 1276 are Mixed-Asset, nearly all "actively managed," including 386 Insurance Funds.
Focusing just on actively managed OEFs and ETFs, Federated Hermes Global Allocation (FSTBX) is the oldest at 65 years. And, not surprisingly, Vanguard Target Retirement funds are the largest, followed by American Funds Target Date Retirement funds.
Social Security WEP & GPO
CNBC: State by State breakdown of tariff hits based on import/export numbers Well. I can give up my dreams of becoming a headline writer.
The article looks at individual state's imports and exports to China, Canada, and Mexico.
Dinky linky. The article is partly based on research by Lending Tree:
YADL.
More on CNBC's methodology:
To look at the impact of both the Trump tariffs on North American partners and the retaliatory tariffs Trump has planned for other global trading partners, CNBC analyzed data on imports and exports of all 50 states and the District of Columbia provided by LendingTree. ImportGenius provided additional granular data on the products. Using Customs code analysis, each state’s exports and imports with China, Canada, and Mexico were aggregated to specific products. This specificity granularity can show a state’s economic risk exposure which could affect jobs and economic prosperity.
Specificity granularity? Wasn't there an old Star Trek episode about a specificity granularity in the warp drives?
Pull quote:
Consider Montana, which tops the list of states importing from China, Canada and Mexico, with 94% of the state’s total imports coming from these three nations.
Lots of chewy numbers and details at the links. The CNBC article is behind an ad wall, you'll have to turn off your ad blockers to see it.
The Week in Charts | Charlie Bilello The Week in Charts (02/25/25) The most important charts and themes in markets and investing, including:
00:00 Intro
00:20 Free Wealth Path Analysis
00:
51 Topics
01:36 The Cruelest Tax
04:4
5 Rising Credit Card Delinquencies
07:43 Buffett Raising More Cash
10:
52 Delaying the American Dream
13:46 The Other Side of Mania
18:22 Show Us the Receipts
22:27 The New King of Retail
24:44 Record 401(k) Participation
VideoBlog
Ever try constructing your own “fund of funds”? What's the difference between constructing your own "Fund of Funds" and being told by some MFOers that having too many funds is inefficient, wasteful, and self-defeating, as we've all heard here so many times over the years?
d - My response has always been: Give me 10 funds as good as PRWCX. The combined return should be the same.
I consolidated down from 1
5-20 funds to just 6 (+ cash) over the past couple of years. FD was one of the posters that I listened to. I found that with fewer funds you tend to concentrate more on the quality of each fund (management / goals / methodology, holdings, etc.). There’s a lot more money riding on each selection so you are pushed to do more due diligence. All good.
It does create a bit of a headache should you decide to exit a fund in favor of another, as you are moving a much larger sum of $$. I actually had trouble selling all my shares of a Cambrea etf the other day because it is so thinly traded. Took several sell orders over about 10-1
5 minutes to fully exit.
I explained earlier my thinking in creating a
fund-of-funds with the proceeds from one of those 6 major positions. I want to learn whether I can take advantage of the volatility of CEFs by actively trading them - mostly within the group of 7. Don’t know. Seems like a reasonable exercise for someone who follows markets closely. I can report back in a year whether the experiment was successful.
Re “Funds of Funds” & fees. Most do not add an additional layer of fees, but some do. TRRIX from T. Rowe is an example of a
fund-of-funds. With an equity target of 40% the fund (
Silver at M*) has returned better than 6% annually since inception (2002). The 0.49% ER reflects the aggregate of fees from the underlying funds.
Bank Safety in the post CFPB and FDIC protection era It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that the robust protection afforded to small investors and depositors by the federal government are so 2024. To those of us who feasted on 5+% CD’s that are maturing now and in the near future bank ratings that might have been overlooked in light of FDIC protection can no longer be overlooked. Anyone have knowledge of the bank safety rating agency who is a HARD GRADER? You know what I mean,,,, like the opposite of life insurance rater A. M Best. Taking this further,,, would a “too big to fail bank” with a C- Weiss rating be safer that a Main Street Bank of Podunk Red State with a higher rating?
