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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.
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Hi @Mark Thanks for the info links. I was looking at Chamber of Commerce data last night.
    As to C.O.C. : Positions taken. Politically, the US Chamber of Commerce is considered to be on the political right, but is known to take positions that many Republicans, particularly populists, do not support. The US Chamber is often associated with the establishment wing of the Republican Party. I can't imagine they fiddle with data too much and are in line with B.L.S. data.
    With the U.S. population at about 335 million, @Baseball_Fan presents a 100 million unemployed number that is well, hard to believe. I'm sure we'll receive a valid data point link from him regarding this 100 million number.
    I know of about 45,000 at Michigan State University who are of employment age and not working, as most of them are busy otherwise. :)
    Remain curious,
    Catch
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/5/23
    AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/5/23
    Bullish remained the top sentiment (48.4%; high) & bearish remained the bottom sentiment (24.5%; below average); neutral remained the middle sentiment (29.1%; below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +23.9% (above average). Investor concerns: Inflation (moderating but high); economy; the Fed; dollar; crypto regulations; market volatility (VIX, VXN, MOVE); Russia-Ukraine war (71+ weeks, 2/24/22- ); geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks were up, bonds down, oil up, gold up, dollar up. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1100/thread
  • Changes involving Stuart Rigby and Grandeur Peak Global Advisors
    Ok, here's a question. I've owned GPGOX since inception, close to 12 years. The last few years are not stellar, but over all I've always thought of it as a buy-and-hold fund and no need to be concerned. The M* ratings don't really agree with my view. The fund is 5* for 10 years, 4* for 5 and 3* over the past 3 years, indicating maybe the best years are behind it.
    So, my question, is there a better global small-mid cap management house or specific S/M global fund than Gradeur Peak? Wasatch maybe? I've been loyal to this team from the start, but I don't want to be married through thick and thin. The last few years have been rocky.
  • CD Renewals
    I'm uncertain as to how to read WABAC's post. Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity.
    I read WABAC as saying that he has tried holding short-term CDs, but didn't like that. No indication that he tried to sell them prior to maturity.
    Left undefined in all of this is what exactly is the definition of "short term CD" as being used here.
    While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person.
    "Stillers, if I interpret him correctly, seems to have understood it as WABAC having sold, or tried to sell, short term CDs before maturity."
    Did I say that? No, I did not. I made general comments about holding CDs to maturity that YOU misinterpreted. Go back and re-read my post and show me EXACTLY where I said what you THINK I said.
    --------------------------------------
    "While I agree with Stillers regarding the correct way to use CDs, I really don't appreciate his condescending style- apparently he's attempting to emulate a certain FD person."
    C'mom man! Are you serious?
    TRY to take my post to FD at face value. His self-aggrandizing post about trading bond OEFs has NOTHING to do with this topic, and any poster worth his salt tries to STOP the BS that he daily spews. Well, not daily on BB as FD's been banned there for about two more months.
    I (as do many poster who have borne witness to FD for 10-15 years) know that FD can't be stopped. I simply do my part to TRY to control him.
    ----------------------------------------
    On the latter, FWIW, AFTER I made my post to FD I received a PM from a very reputable poster who appreciated my on-going containment efforts. So please STOP with BS accusations. Saying that I am "attempting to to emulate...FD" sounds a wee bit, well, nuts.
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Electric cars are increasingly popular in the only U.S. State which is located in Polynesia. Before the pandemic, gas was $3.25. For a period of time, it was over $5, and is by now down a bit to about $4.69---- which is still totally nuts.
    We shop at Costco, which saves some money------ per unit. But it's always an adventure to find room in the fridge and the cupboards just to PUT stuff away. It does not hurt much to give to our church's food drive for the starving students at the university. They can't get federal money for their food bank because they serve a particular population.
    Despite dreadful inflation, we count ourselves very lucky. Wife works way too many hours, but she wants it that way. And that's why we're sitting pretty. We do not yet need the dividends and capital gains which our portfolio produces.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    @FD. I agree that folks with pensions and those who don’t are facing entirely different retirements. But I disagree with your second statement. If I had a pension ( and I don’t) I would have less reason to have “ a higher % in stocks.” Given a substantial pension and low expenses I would be very happy to ignore the markets as I did when i was a young man with nothing to invest. The markets don’t bring me great joy but have often given me indigestion.
    Someone with a bigger pension CAN(not MUST) have a higher % in stocks. It's a personal choice.
    I hate losing more than 3-5% and why I'm a bond trader. We don't have any pension but I would still invest this way because I did very well. BTW, I'm invested for several weeks at 99+% in just 2 bond funds.
    Age is also a factor, if you retired at an earlier age, losses are a lot more important than losing at age 80 because of obvious reasons.
  • Memoriam: Robert Bruce (Bruce Fund)
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47071/000158064223003441/bruce_497.htm
    497 1 bruce_497.htm 497
    Bruce Fund, Inc.
    Supplement dated July 5, 2023
    To the Prospectus and
    Statement of Additional Information (the “SAI”)
    each dated October 30, 2022
    On June 23, 2023, Mr. Robert B. Bruce, one of the Portfolio Managers of the Bruce Fund, passed away.
    Accordingly, all references to Mr. Robert B. Bruce in the Fund’s Prospectus and SAI are removed effective as of said date. R. Jeffrey Bruce will continue as Portfolio Manager.
    You should read this Supplement in conjunction with the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information, which provide information that you should know before investing in the Fund and should be retained for future reference. These documents are available upon request and without charge by calling Shareholder Services at (800) 872-7823.
    My condolences to his family and friends.
    https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/robert-bruce-obituary?id=52381905
    2011 article on the Bruce Fund:
    https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0627/money-guide-11-funds-bruce-fund-heebner-cgm-invest.html?sh=240f0c1432a7
  • quick reminder: please don't be a troll
    Hi, guys!
    July 3rd is reported to be the hottest day ever, worldwide. Please be careful outside. It might be an opportune moment to drop a note to an elected official asking the simple question, "what are you doing to help?" Even at the local level a simple building code change to encourage "green" roofs can make a lot of difference in reducing the urban heat island and supporting wildlife.
    One of the local big box churches, the folks who convert abandoned 40,000 square foot retail spaces into worship spaces (which is a fine example of upcycling), systematically encouraged members to evangelize by joining other churches, participating actively in public while in private explaining to their new friends that there's actually a much better church just across town. In consequence, the size of the religious community did not grow but a series of traditional churches were weakened by the scavengers.
    That's the "trolling" of the title. It's disrespectful, devious and destructive. Please don't do that.
    David
  • July MFO Has Been Posted
    A couple notes from Mr. P. On inside ownership of the fund:
    The GoodHaven Fund disclosed in its annual and semi-annual reports insider ownership as follows - and please note the vast majority of these shares are related to Mr. Pitkowsky and entities connected to his immediate family - "As of November 30, 2022, the members, officers, and employees of GoodHaven Capital Management, LLC, the investment advisor to the GoodHaven Fund, owned approximately 124,075 shares of the Fund. It is management’s intention to disclose such holdings (in the aggregate) in this section of the Fund’s Annual and Semi-Annual reports on an ongoing basis."
    He's also thinking about the redemption fee question, and might yet share thoughts there.
    We also talked about two misrepresentations of the fund's portfolio, which Chip will correct from the wilds of the Catskills tonight. First, I reported Morningstar's cash stake of the fund and concluded it was fully invested. It's not because the fund uses T-Bills as cash equivalents. Cash-like is around 10%, still less than half of its pre-transition average. Seond, I suggested they had too much exposure to special situations. Mr. P's take is that they had too much exposure to not-quite-special-enough situations leading to a portfolio with a lot of exposure to "the messy middle." Those were stocks that weren't super high quality or super distressed, which are his targets. They've been mostly purged. Following the transition the fund's turnover ratio has dropped 80% from an average of 15% pre-transition to around 3% now.
    For what interest that holds,
    David
  • Active Management and Superstars
    A good but incomplete history of Fidelity and its famous star managers.
    Post Tsai, a young Ned Johnson III (of course related to Johnson II) ran a private/in-house Fido fund called Magellan from 1963-71 with quite spectacular performance. Ned would have been a star manager if he just stuck to being a fund portfolio manager, but he had other and bigger ideas. After a few years, Magellan (now a listed FMAGX) was handed over to Peter Lynch (1977-90) who became even a bigger star than Ned Johnson III, and in fact, among the most famous portfolio managers ever. But to the regrets of many, Lynch decided to retire at 48 and is still with Fidelity as consultant and mentor.
    Actually, Lynch wanted to retire even earlier, but the crash of 1987 intervened. Lynch didn't want to leave the "huge" fund ($20 billion, peanuts by today's standards) that was under heavy redemption to somebody else, so he stuck around for a while until 1990. He lamented later that the management of Magellan under redemption was very different from what he was used to during its explosive growth period.
    Magellan's assets did peak at $100 billion, but has languished under managers that followed Lynch; the AUM is only $27 billion now. An ETF FMAG hasn't yet reached $50 million in 2.5 years. That is another lesson - don't count on past history or successes for the ETFs.
  • Active Management and Superstars
    An excellent article by William Bernstein, who I suspect, travels through these discussion boards often:
    https://www.barrons.com/articles/investing-pillars-superstar-portfolio-managers-trap-fa7d7fe4?mod=hp_LEAD_5
  • Larry Summers and the Crisis of Economic Orthodoxy
    Not a wage-price spiral but a profit-price spiral or "greedflation" perhaps: https://cnbc.com/2023/04/21/why-economists-are-no-longer-so-worried-about-a-wage-price-spiral.html
    Profit-price spiral
    There has also been increased discussion about how those corporate profits are contributing to inflation.
    In a recent note, economists at ING looked at Germany, where inflation is increasingly a demand-side issue. While cautioning that so-called “greedflation” cannot be proven and there are variations by sector, they wrote that there are signs companies have been hiking prices ahead of the rise in their input costs, and that “from the second half of 2021 onward, a significant share of the increase in prices can be explained by higher corporate profits.” They call this a profit-price spiral.....
    Not the 1970s
    ....Richard Portes, professor of economics at London Business School, told CNBC there is “no serious risk” of a wage-price spiral in the U.K., U.S., or major European countries, however. He also cited reduced union power in the private sector as a notable change from the 1970s.
    “If you look at core inflation in the U.S., rentals, housing, have been driving that. That’s got nothing to do with wages — with rentals, it’s more sensitive to interest rate rises,” he added.
    There is evidence — including from the IMF — that wage-price spirals aren’t common. The IMF research found very few examples in advanced economies since the 1960s of “sustained acceleration” in wages and prices, with both instead stabilizing, keeping real wage growth “broadly unchanged.” As with so much in economics, the idea that wage-price spirals even exist has also been challenged.
    For Kamil Kovar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, the scenario was always seen as a risk, not necessarily likely. But he, too, said that as time progresses it has become clear that it is not happening.
    Wages are likely to increase fairly rapidly for Europe, but there’s “so much scope for wages to catch up with prices, to get to a spiral situation we would need something totally different to happen,” he said. The ECB expects nominal wage growth, not adjusted for inflation, of around 5% this year.
    Real wages in Europe are so much lower than before the pandemic they could increase another 10% without going into a “danger zone,” Kovar said; while in the U.S. they are roughly equal but exiting the risky zone.
    When comparing the current situation to the 1970s, Kovar said there were some similarities such as an energy shock; back then it was in oil, whereas this time it is bigger and broader, impacting electricity and gas too. There has also been a more rapid drop in energy prices as this shock has subsided.
    And again, he noted the ongoing growth in corporate profits and the absence of powerful unions as yet more factors for why this time it’s different.
    “It’s an example of how we are slaves to our historical parallels,” he said. “We potentially overreact even if the underlying situation is different.”
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    I am risk adverse by nature, but without a pension ( except SS) I knew my wife and I would have to depend on our investments for living expenses, vacations weddings etc when we retired.
    Much of what I read pointed out that retiring into a multi year bear market would be a big problem, so we reduced equities after 60, and two years into retirement we are about 40%. If there is a significant pull back will increase it. After two or three years into retirement I am more comfortable knowing our basic living expenxes etc.
    @sma3 - While some esteemed posters appear to disagree with you, the expert from Schwab I linked earlier would appear to agree:
    As you put together your retirement portfolio, you also need to think about the role your savings will play in your overall income plan. For example, how much income do you expect from guaranteed sources like annuities, pensions, and Social Security? - "If these guaranteed income streams will generate enough income to cover the majority of your expenses, you might be able to maintain a more aggressive stance with your portfolio well into retirement … Conversely, if you'll rely on your portfolio for the majority of your income, you'll need to take a more balanced approach with your investments”
    https://www.schwab.com/retirement-portfolio
    Having both pension and SS, I view investments mainly as a growth asset - an enhancement to an already comfortable subsistence. If it were all I had to live on, I’d probably view them more as an income generator. Those aren’t mutually exclusive. But it does, I think, highlight two very different perspectives. The other side of the coin is that folks with pensions paid for that during their working years, whether by regular payroll deductions or by working for lower compensation than they might have received elsewhere where a pension did not exist. So it’s likely the “non-pensioners” retired with a much greater nest-egg to safeguard - provided skill-sets were similar.
    -
    PS - I’m actually somewhat more aggressive today than when I retired 25 years ago. Those 25 years didn’t go to waste. I read Fund Alarm and Mutual Fund Observer and learned immensely from those people. And, in retirement there’s time to read about and study the markets that you didn’t have while employed. I suppose to an extent the more advanced technology and “at demand” information flow has helped, although that one’s a 2-edged sword.
  • Anybody Investing in bond funds?
    My wife and I both have pensions, but they are not necessarily the great deal that some people think they are. Our pensions are with the state of North Carolina, and have no inflation adjustments. So we are totally dependent on our Republican controlled legislature for any increases to cope with inflation. Guess what, the legislature has made zero inflation adjustments since we retired 6-8 years ago, aside from a few minor one-time bonuses. So, our real income from our pensions have declined by at least 15% since we retired.
    Fortunately, we both held off starting Social Security payments, and those are adjusted for inflation. Plus, we have sizable investments in IRAs that are invested about 60% in stocks. Our IRAs are essentially functioning as in inflation adjustments for our pensions that are steadily decreasing in value. I like having the pension payments because it frees me from worrying about the stock market, but they are like having annuities with no inflation adjustments.
  • CD Renewals
    Looking forward to getting money out of short-term CD's. I tried it. Didn't like it. Will stick to money markets and floating rate T-Bills.
    I fully understand. Brokerage CDs are pretty illiquid options, that will often lose significant amounts of money, if you sell them before they mature. When MMs are paying close to 5%, that is a much more liquid option, and not that far below short duration CDs. I personally have enjoyed brokerage CDs since I started investing in them in March of 2022. I tend to focus on short term CDs, so it has not been difficult for me to hold them to maturity. If CDs start falling below 5%, I will likely not be as enamored with them. I am an older retired investor, am more interested in preservation of principal, with modest total return. At my age, maximizing my total return, for accumulation objectives, is just not that relevant to me any longer, so I am greatly enjoying this CD investment period.
  • CD Renewals

    ...
    You've done well the past year without the ups/downs that the folks in the market have, likely a little better than SPY without the drawdown, not too shabby.
    ...
    Baseball Fan
    Just curious: How has someone who has invested (pretty much exclusively, it appears) in ~5% ST CDs all year (therefore mid-year, UP about 2.5% on an annual basis) done "likely a little better than SPY" when SPY is UP ~15% YTD?
  • CD Renewals
    FD, the purpose/intent of this thread is VERY clear. It has NOTHING to do with bond OEF trading.
    ----------------
    So, a serious question:
    What purpose is your post about bond OEF trading on THIS thread other than feeding your incessant self-aggrandizing?
    Puhlease don't say you are just offering up an alternative to CDs.
    You KNOW that DT knows all about bond OEFs and he has told you countless times over the past 10-15 years that he does not trade bond OEFs. When he invests in them he does it LT.
    -----------------
    Too bad you "never in your life owned CD(s)." In the 1980s they averaged 12%.
    Oh, and good for you that you (allegedly, as always) made a few pennies on some secret sauce bond OEFS while the smart money this year was played on big tech, AI and semis. You're only trailing the S&P this year by ~10+%!
    Atta boy!
  • Changes involving Stuart Rigby and Grandeur Peak Global Advisors
    My thinking is the more concentrated a fund is in a few stocks, the more managers need a forensic accountant to go over the financial documents of their companies with a fine tooth comb looking for fraud or problematic areas. But for funds with 100 or 200 stocks as many Grandeur funds are, it seems less necessary. There is less individual company risk in a 1% position than a 5% one.
    That said, Silicon Valley Bank wasn’t a case of fraud or hidden funny numbers like Enron or Worldcom. These were risks on the balance sheet in plain sight. Maybe managers just didn’t believe rates would rise as quickly as they did and instead thought that SVB would have time to adjust and reduce its rate exposure.
  • Equal-Weight & Market-Cap Sector ETFs
    Very interesting points raised by several members. It is true that the equal weight fund does have to sell its winners down to the .2 allocation, but I understand that such rejiggering occurs only 4 times per year. Winners are pared back while stocks that have become cheaper (i.e., lost value) are on sale, so to speak. The gains from this « value proposition «  should compensate for the opportunity cost of selling gainers early.
    I did not previously own an S&P 500 index fund in my actively managed portfolio, so I am not replacing or duplicating anything by dipping my toes into RSP. I do own plenty of TIEIX, the TIAA-CREF Equity Index Fund, in my retirement account. I often hear chirping in my mind from some irritating creature named FOMO. Maybe others have been visited by this PITA. On good days, I can show him/her the door.
  • Equal-Weight & Market-Cap Sector ETFs
    One could say that equal-weight is the oldest "factor" around. It removes the large-cap bias of market-cap based ETFs.
    PV Runs are easy to link by using the "Link" click on the PV results title line. As these URLs are long, it is best to use them in MFO's Link-tool to post. Here it is since 10/2007, PV SPY RSP 10/2007-