”Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed Monday to pay $15 million to settle regulatory claims that it obscured the cost of derivatives that clients purchased to bet on or against an index of overseas stocks. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Monday that Goldman in 2015 and 2016 didn’t tell clients that it priced swaps in a way that put them in a disadvantageous position. The swaps contracts were tied to an index of stocks from Japan, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, the CFTC said. Clients that traded with Goldman on those terms either bought the index at an above-market level or sold at a below-market level, which put them ‘underwater’ at the start of the trade …
“Swaps are financial contracts in which traders agree to exchange payments based on, say, changes in the price of a stock, index or other asset. Buyers can purchase them from a bank such as Goldman, typically paying a fee, expressed as an interest rate, when they enter the trade … Goldman traders set the initial price of the swap using the MSCI Europe Australasia and Far East Index’s value on the same day the parties agreed to the trade, regulators said. Such trades are typically priced on the following day’s value of the index, in order to reduce the risk that banks with more information about the underlying markets could gain an advantage in how the swaps are priced … Goldman benefited when it found a client that would agree to same-day swaps because it could enter into related trades that quickly netted a profit …
“Goldman tended to target the trade at clients who understood less about how the underlying markets of the swaps worked, the regulator said. ‘Communications show that Goldman personnel believed that the less the clients understood about the economics of the same-day swaps, the more profit Goldman could make,’ the settlement order said.”
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal / April 11, 2023 (Attribution to Reuters ) Byline - Dave Michaels
Here’s a Link - You’ll probably need wsj subscription to access full story
“If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.”
― Warren Buffett

@BenWP It is certainly an interesting fund for those who want exposure to the Artisan team. But the more I look at ARDBX, the more I think it is truly a different animal from ARTKX. Not just small-caps, but highly concentrated in just 34 stocks. I would expect significantly more volatility. My thinking is it could be a good satellite international position, but not a core one, a way to get exposure to this talented management team, but not ARTKX's particular portfolio or style. ARTKX is also concentrated in 53 stocks, but those are big blue chips, less risky. I think the decision comes down to whether an investor wants a stylistic clone to ARTKX--that is not ARDBX--or exposure to ARTKX's managers/analysts--that is ARDBX.

@Sven, thanks for pointing that out You used an important phrase: "out-performing their respective index". The WSJ didn't compare all 1,257 "qualified" (over $50M AUM, 3 year record) actively managed domestic equity funds to their respective indexes, but compared them all to the S&P 500.
Providing a quick bit of context, VFIAX returned -7.77% (April 2022 - March 2023), while its sibling VTSAX returned -8.78%. (Data from M*, 1 year performance as of last quarter.) Based on that figure it looks like active managers have acquitted themselves pretty well over the past 12 months.
Of course, I'm fudging figures too, because I'm not looking at how many large cap vs. small and medium cap funds there are. For example, if 99% of funds were large cap, then we should indeed be comparing the average fund return to the S&P 500.
The point is that the WSJ piece didn't look at any of this. It just went: oooh, look at how few funds made money last year. That would sound a lot different if it had been expressed as: isn't it a shame that only 27 actively managed funds managed to beat the S&P 500 by more than 7.7%?

@Jim0445. That sounds very strange. The fund is supposed to be open to additional purchases for existing shareholders. You could call a different brokerage and ask that if you transferred your account would they allow you to add to your shares. Heck I'd be interested in buying a few shares :) :)... Been wanting to get into TRAIX for years...

30% VYM + 70% OSTIX = CAGR 6.05% and SD 6.89% and Sharpe 0.74
100% VWINX = CAGR 6.02% and SD 6.91% and Sharpe 0.74
since 12/2006 to present. VWINX is 38% equity last I checked.

My personal favorite is MIEIX which has top decile performance for the 1,3, 5 and 10 year time frames…

No, but I did include a news release from the US Attorney's office Southern District of New York:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founder-and-former-chief-investment-officer-infinity-q-sentenced-15-years-prison

@Derf,
Not exactly. Since April 1 fell on a Saturday, there was no way the results would be ready on Monday. It seems to depend on when the dates fall. For example, if the first of the month was on a Tuesday, it is possible the monthly results could be ready the upcoming Monday provided there was no holidays. The WSJ used to publish a yearly calendar on when certain articles were to be published, but I have not seen the calendar for a couple of years.
Here is the mediakit page where you can find the editorial calendar page:
https://mediakit.wsjbarrons.com/p/1
Here is the editorial calendar/reports calendar for 2023:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:65e5d3c4-8bd1-3851-8704-d37d41372971

I thought I would share this hack as I have benefited greatly by doing this. If you are contemplating transferring assets to another brokerage that gives out a bonus for doing so, transfer the lowest amount for that tiers bonus and then transfer the same amount in say 60-90 days and get a 2nd bonus. Not all brokerages allow this but my new one did. Example: If a transfer of 100-250K gets a $300 bonus do a first transfer of 100k and a 2nd transfer of the same when allowed ,for a second bonus instead of transferring the 200k at one time. You will have to do the research to find out which brokerages will allow this. Having a financial advisor at the new brokerage can make this easier also. I will hold back on which one I have done this with so not to have it backfire on me. In the past 120 days I have tripled my bonuses by doing this. Happy Transferring!!

@Old_Joe, if bond funds have already suffered the FEDs rate hikes, might they be a better alternative 2+ years down the road. I do understand trying to lock in a safe 5%+, but according to the yield curves that may not be feasible.

Consider thinking outside the box, or in this case, outside of Schwab and brokerages in general.
Hyperion Bank CDs (new money, available online, taxable accounts only):
- 19 mo CD, 5.35% rate, 5.50% APY
- 13 mo CD, 5.12% rate, 5.25% APY
https://www.hyperionbank.com/ContentDocumentHandler.ashx?documentId=76584
If you're looking for flexibility but still want to lock in a good rate, there are no penalty CDs.
CIT Bank 11 mo CD, 4.80% APY
https://www.cit.com/cit-bank/no-penalty-cd-direct
If you're interested in a CD that floats above the cash rate, Merchant Bank of Indiana has flexible rate CDs, for periods of 12, 24, and 36 months. They all pay prime minus 2.75%, but not less than zero. Currently, that's 5.39% APY (5.25% rate).
https://www.merchantsbankofindiana.com/certificates-of-deposit/

Ignoring past history (as the rate environment was different), I am thinking of using ultra-ST bonds as an alternative for manual- or auto- rolls of T-Bills.
Fido OEF: FCNVX ER 0.25% (no trading restrictions at Fido)
ETFs with lower ERs:GSY, ICSH, JPST, ULST, VUSB (my preference is ICSH but I searched for others)
Fido m-mkt funds may be fine too, but core/settlement SPAXX is so-so, and many attractive ones have high/institutional minimums. Vanguard VMFXX is OK.
Note that this ultra-ST bond category post-GFC is investment-grade, unlike the pre-GFC disasters that used ST-HY or FR/BL. In fact, for a short while after the GFC, the ultra-ST bond category disappeared temporarily.

Thought that I'd ask for MFO community input before buying at Schwab. The best that I see there, non-callable, is:
• US Treasury | 04/30/2024 | YTM: 4.594
• CD: 4.85% | 04/25/2024 | Charles Schwab Bank TX
• CD: 4.90% | 04/16/2024 | Wells Fargo Bank, Nt SD
Thanks for any info you might have.

"Can’t anybody here play this game?
That quote from baseball legend Casey Stengel would apply to the job of stock-fund manager these days. Under the pressure of an uncertain stock market and banking system—and the Federal Reserve’s relentless interest-rate increases to try to tame inflation—it has been harder than ever for stock-picking fund managers to grind out gains.
A year ago, when managers closed the books at the end of the 2022 first quarter, scores of funds posted healthy gains, and all 10 that topped the list in The Wall Street Journal’s quarterly Winners’ Circle survey of outperforming funds delivered returns north of 20%. Flash forward to today, and the picture is different: The market is down for the 12 months, and of the 1,257 qualifying mutual funds in the survey, only 27 managed to eke out any kind of positive return, and only 10 posted a return north of 3%.
The average performance for the funds was minus 8.3%, trailing the S&P 500 index’s total return of minus 7.7%."
By: By Suzanne McGee Link

Fido Brokerage Bill Pay went down a few minutes ago. Just came back, but lost work I had entered shortly before it went down.
I didn't capture the first error message. The last error message was:
503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

@hank
I hoped WSKY was the ticket for single malts, and if they liquidated ( which they eventually did for lack of interest) they would pay me in liquid assets, but no.
I have spent some time looking at ETFs that are plays on the EV and climate change "revolutions" along with commodities and resources that will become more expensive with climate change. There are a lot of ETFs investing in metal futures that will be necessary for EVs, like Lithium, Copper rare earths etc. You would think they would take off like rockets, but the general decline in commodities, with increased recession fears has crushed many of them, but others like Silver are up 25% in six months.
Jeremy Grantham had a long piece years ago, predicting dramatic increases in price of food and agricultural products for a number of reasons. I started looking at commodities back then, but it was pretty early. After a bump from the war in Ukraine, agricultural commodities have been relatively flat, but not down like the metals.
It is hard for individual investors like us to make sense of this, without "inside" knowledge, and I am not sure that even the actively managed funds have this kind of expertise. Who would predict that bird flu would kill mostly egg laying chickens, rather than birds raised for meat?
I think it makes sense to own a variety of funds with different focus, in addition to a general commodity fund. COM has been mentioned here before and so far seems less volatile than most.

From the WSJ
"Stock pickers missed out on the first-quarter rally, failing to extend their recent winning streak.
Only one in three actively managed large-cap mutual funds beat their benchmarks in the first three months of the year, the worst performance since the three-month period ended December 2020, according to data from Bank of America Global Research.
That marked a shift from last year when 57% of large-cap mutual funds raced ahead of their benchmarks in a market rocked by red-hot inflation, rising interest rates and worries over a potential recession. More funds beat their benchmarks in 2022 than in other any year since 2007, when 71% of them did so, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs Group Inc."
Link

It has been down at least since yesterday (Sunday, 4/9/23). The message says:
"
[229]The service is experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later.
REQ6433f62abf7414939bb46570a9ceaa33
"
Edit/Add: Fido NetBenefits is for 401k/403b. Fido Brokerage is working fine.

I've done it twice, no problem. But, once you are presented with a TurboTax screen, it can be frustrating to navigate your way back to it. Use the bookmark function, it you are not ready to commit.
The paper bond takes a while to arrive.
Buying I-bonds, you are allowed $10,000 per person, plus $5,000 per return. So, we have purchased $25,000 in I-bonds for 2023.

ARTKX is categorized as international large cap value. I compared its metrics to a ARTGX plus a bunch of ILCV funds. What stood out was the ARTVX had a far lower Ulcer Index than its peers, so I ran a second screen for ILCV funds with an APR over 10 and an Ulcer Index under 10. I sorted those by Sharpe ratio and checked the correlation of the three most promising to ARTKX.
Franklin Templeton International Low Vol, Hi Div ETF (LVHI) - better than ARTKX in every way over the past three years except total return LVHI book 15%, ARTKX 21%. The R2 is 85.
Causeway International Value (CIVIX) - same returns, higher volatility. The R2 is 96.
Fidelity International Value (FIVLX) - lower returns (17 vs 21%), comparable Ulcer Index (7.2 vs 6.5). High correlation (98) to Artisan, which implies they're playing the same game but Artisan is playing it better.
Artisan Global Value (ARTGX) - high correlation (97) but slightly trails ARTKX in pretty much all metrics.
All are top tier since the screen started with low Ulcer / high returns.
For what interest that holds,
David