Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

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.
  • The Last Ten Days Have Been the Hottest in a While (2023 Market Observations)
    ”Too many George Santos impersonators have infiltrated some of these forums.”

    Hi Gary. I don’t know whether your reference was to me or not. But inasmuch as I’d earlier alluded to some profitable personal investments and inasmuch as others might construe your remark in that way I’ve edited my original post, deleting all references to my own investments or personally favored assets / asset classes. I also deleted references to investment newsletters I may subscribe to.
    The question of poster integrity is a critical one that surely affects
    mfo and similar forums. You are right to raise the issue. Short of submitting to board sponsors authentic documentation to substantiate investor claims (which I know you to have done on at least one occasion) there is no way for readers to know for certain whether poster claims of success are truthful - or even if they’ve owned the funds / assets they claim to. I should add here that I have been most impressed with the caliber of the posters on this forum and do not get the sense, as you appear to, that there are a significant number of “George Soros” posts occurring - at least on regular basis. But I could be wrong.
    One here whom I greatly respect, Mark Freeland (@msf), has always astutely avoided identifying or acknowledging any stocks or funds he may own. I can’t speak for Mark, but the reasons he has stated in the past made good sense to me. I will follow in his footsteps and refrain in the future from identifying any funds, stocks or other assets I may own or may have owned in the past. I will also avoid mention of asset classes I may favor or invest in. At first blush I considered going back and similarity editing all such past references made in other threads. But doing so would be grossly unfair to those who responded / participated in the threads with their own thoughtful or helpful remarks.
    Thanks for responding to my post. Enjoy the long hike.
    @Hank, heavens no. You are as honest as the day is long. One of the most valued members here from long ago. It’s the posters who have masterfully crafted a make believe trading/investment background/ persona with all sorts of bells and whistles to gain attention. I have pretty much gotten off Facebook too. A bit different reason but tired of seeing the irrelevant go to such lengths to become relevant. That obviously applies to only a select few as I do understand the value/appeal of FB. Let’s just say I am more than a bit old fashioned and a bit of a Luddite and not a social media fan. Please take me back to the 80s. Better yet the 50s. If it weren’t for the fact of having a long time lady friend here in Mayberry, I would be living off the grid somewhere in the mountains.
    I do believe though there are lots of George Santos in all walks of life. How he pulled off that scam is beyond me. Did his opponent never think about checking out his claimed credentials? Lots of blame all around on that one.
  • Rare earth minerals: BIG find. Sweden.
    LKAB says it plans to apply for an exploitation concession this year but added that it would be at least 10 to 15 years before it could begin mining the deposit and shipping to markets.
    The approval for new mines in Sweden is a lengthy process in which the risk to water resources and biodiversity is considered.
    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/12/sweden-discovers-europes-largest-rare-earth-mine
  • Exxon Mobil accurately predicted warming since 1970s, study finds
    https://nbcnews.com/science/environment/exxon-mobil-accurately-predicted-warming-1970s-study-finds-rcna65583
    Will it affect its stock? It should, but it probably won't unless there's some sort of class action suit or government prosecution. An article excerpt:
    Exxon Mobil’s scientists were remarkably accurate in their predictions about global warming, even as the company made public statements that contradicted its own scientists’ conclusions, a new study says.
    The study in the journal Science Thursday looked at research that Exxon funded that didn’t just confirm what climate scientists were saying, but used more than a dozen different computer models that forecast the coming warming with precision equal to or better than government and academic scientists.
    This was during the same time that the oil giant publicly doubted that warming was real and dismissed climate models’ accuracy. Exxon said its understanding of climate change evolved over the years and that critics are misunderstanding its earlier research.
    Scientists, governments, activists and news sites, including Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, several years ago reported that “Exxon knew” about the science of climate change since about 1977 all while publicly casting doubt. What the new study does is detail how accurate Exxon funded research was. From 63% to 83% of those projections fit strict standards for accuracy and generally predicted correctly that the globe would warm about .36 degrees (.2 degrees Celsius) a decade.
    The Exxon-funded science was “actually astonishing” in its precision and accuracy, said study co-author Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard science history professor. But she added so was the “hypocrisy because so much of the Exxon Mobil disinformation for so many years ... was the claim that climate models weren’t reliable.”
    Study lead author Geoffrey Supran, who started the work at Harvard and now is a environmental science professor at the University of Miami, said this is different than what was previously found in documents about the oil company.
    “We’ve dug into not just to the language, the rhetoric in these documents, but also the data. And I’d say in that sense, our analysis really seals the deal on ‘Exxon knew’,” Supran said. It “gives us airtight evidence that Exxon Mobil accurately predicted global warming years before, then turned around and attacked the science underlying it.”

  • The Last Ten Days Have Been the Hottest in a While (2023 Market Observations)
    Jeffrey Hirsch (son of late Yale Hirsch; founder of Stock Trader's Almanac) posted a table at Twitter LINK with data from 1950 on:
    SC Rally (late-Dec Santa Claus rally)
    FFD (first 5 days of the year)
    JB (Jan barometer)
    Subsequent
    Feb
    Last 11 Mo (Feb-Dec)
    Full Year (Jan-Dec)
    Instead of a single pointer, when all 3 are positive (SC Rally, FFD, JB), the year is good.
    image
    And from Carson Research if you add if the previous year was down - as was 2022 - to the above equation ( nine occurrences) you have an average 27.1% annual return the following year
  • The Last Ten Days Have Been the Hottest in a While (2023 Market Observations)
    Jeffrey Hirsch (son of late Yale Hirsch; founder of Stock Trader's Almanac) posted a table at Twitter LINK with data from 1950 on:
    SC Rally (late-Dec Santa Claus rally)
    FFD (first 5 days of the year)
    JB (Jan barometer)
    Subsequent
    Feb
    Last 11 Mo (Feb-Dec)
    Full Year (Jan-Dec)
    Instead of a single pointer, when all 3 are positive (SC Rally, FFD, JB), the year is good.
    image
  • The Last Ten Days Have Been the Hottest in a While (2023 Market Observations)
    Popularized by Marty Zweig the last ten trading days dating back to 12/29 will generate ( unless there is some massive decline into the close) one of the rarest and most powerful bullish momentum indicators. That is the total 10 day NYSE advances over declines ratio greater than 2. Has only occurred 20 times since 1945. The last two were January 9, 2019 and June 3, 2020. There were multiple signals in 2009. Walter Deemer has a similar breakaway momentum indicator but for some reason uses 1.97.
    Numerous hallowed momentum indicators kicked in but failed last year so will shall see if this rarer and more powerful indicator is officially it for the bears. Most of the traders out there have already been long YTD so this should give them more confidence this is not another fake out rally.
    Hopefully can spend most of my time hiking and away from the investing and trading forums, Too many George Santos impersonators have infiltrated some of these forums.
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    @catch22 - Thanks for correction and additional digging.
    @Level5 - Thank you for the kind words.
  • The Last Ten Days Have Been the Hottest in a While (2023 Market Observations)
    Looks like everything except the kitchen sink is scortching hot to start the new year. Feel free to add any charts, etc. … Industrial metals / mining have been hot most of 2022 … Rio Tinto (RIO) shows a 6 month gain of 33% on the Google chart today. Looks like gold will soon break above $900 if it hasn’t already, Miners are up 1-2% today. As @MikeM noted in another thread recently, PRPFX … is a tamer way to play the metals - and held up relatively well last year. And some REIT funds bounced around 4% yesterday.
    Lagging are some of the consumer staples stocks viewed as more of a defensive play - but still enjoying the ride. One defensive fund some here own, CCOR, has been struggling a bit lately. Off about 0.50% at the moment - but tends to be highly volatile on an hour-by-hour and day-to-day basis … If you own anything denominated in non-dollar currencies you’ll likely have a good day. In particular the Japanese yen is doing very well today …
    (Paragraph deleted)
    … GNMA funds have been hot this year … Daily gains around a half-percent common. Some up 0.75% today alone. Have to believe many other investment grade bond funds are enjoying the ride. The first 10 trading days of 2023 seem a mirror image of 2022 when both stocks and bonds tumbled together.
    Other market observations?
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    @Level5 Yes for taxes with MMKT. Treasury items not taxed at a local level may also apply, if a municipality/city requires tax filing. Our FZDXX (4.27%) is within IRA and taxable accounts. But, taxes are important to 'total return'. We're/I'm too lazy to purchase Treasury items in taxable account, and are satisfied with the current yield.
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    @hank
    I changed the ticker, as I did a typo. Should be FZDXX. $10,000 in IRA. The $100,000 is taxable account. One has to do an actual purchase for FZDXX, not unlike buying a mutual fund. So, you could use another MMKT/core account (example: SPAXX or FDRXX) monies to purchase When logged in to Fido, select your 'positions', then select the 'dividends tab for current yield; and you can enter FZDXX into the search for yield info there, although it may be dated by one week old, but at this time is close to the previous week yield.
    Check here for more info regarding FZDXX and what may be do with monies in this fund. msf provided an excellent write.
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    Sounds like @Level5 has his act together. Nice approach me thinks.
    Can’t emphasize enough the relevance of age & situation to this whole topic. As one nears 80, unless there’s some extenuating circumstance (growing portfolio for heirs, having money to burn, being really desperate for return, etc.) it’s best to stay on a tight leash. Don’t get too far out on the ledge. Time ceases to be on your side at some point. Indeed, some who are north of 75 elect to move to cash only or safer funds like VWINX. I’d say: Be slow to criticize whatever conservative path these folks (self included) elect to pursue. :)
    @Catch22. Thanks for the mm info. Looks like FDZXX has a $100,000 minimum investment.
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    @Level5
    but our VG money market funds seem just as competitive at the moment (am I missing something here?).
    Your VG MMKT are in line with Fidelity MMKT's. SPAXX (3.9%)and FDRXX (3.93%) are standard MMKT core accounts with yield about 3.88%. While an additional MMKT we use, FZDXX is at 4.27%.
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    We’ve (DW & I) been at the conservative end with a target equity of 35% and 22% to TIAA’s Traditional account “guaranteeing” 3+%/yr. I’m grateful to have only taken a 7% hit this past year, between the 28% bond funds and 10% cash. Instead of investing the RMDs these last few years and not needing half of them for living expenses, we’d stashed the cash in 2020-21.
    Now that the market has dropped, we’ve been investing back into equities (VTI, VIG, SCHD, VPU). We’d started to purchase short-term treasuries (3 and 6-month) at auction, but our VG money market funds seem just as competitive at the moment (am I missing something here?).
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    @catch
    Yes sir very little buys. No more cash
    Property tax due 3 weeks
    Added shares Tsla last 3 4 weeks so cheap hold 10 yrs
    401k still 90%stocks 10% distributions every two wks
    Did bought add Ally bond corps mature 2027 for mama portfolio 2d ago Bbb, owned by 40 etf and mmutual funds (only mama acct has cash)
    Personally I think China emergent markets, tech, growth, clouds business will do very well for 5 7 yrs... Keep dca in qqqm snow sp500 IWM small amount after feb
    More EDC YINN
    Kind regards
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 1/11/23
    For the week ending on 1/11/23, bearish remained the top sentiment (39.9%; above average) & bullish remained the bottom sentiment (24.0%; low); neutral remained the middle sentiment (36.0%; above average); Bull-Bear Spread was -15.9% (very low). Investor concerns: Inflation (moderating but high; CPI due today); supply-chain disruptions; recession (2023?); the Fed (higher rates longer); dollar; crypto ice-age (some crypto banks tapped the FLHB); market volatility (VIX, VXN, MOVE); Russia-Ukraine war (46+ weeks); geopolitical. For the Survey week (Thursday-Wednesday), stocks were up sharply, bonds up, oil up sharply, gold up, dollar down. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/141/aaii-sentiment-survey-weekly?page=8&scrollTo=896
  • moningstar again. charts are dead tonight.
    Why don't you use schwab or webull... Very good experiences for me
    Google finance yahoo finance free also very good imho
    So much descriptions w webull though, 10d MA 50 d MA, 200 d MA, Bollinger bands, rsi, ROC, MACD, etc
  • Rebalancing your portfolio
    @hank et al
    Correction, the JD A model is two cylinder. There was a single cylinder motor (moveable) for other uses at the farm.
    Hank, the IDLE sound you recall (145-190 rpms, typical).
    Now, I won't further pervert this decent thread.
  • TRP Global Technology PRGTX Upcoming Manager Change
    IIRC, back when I held it, Josh Spencer ran the fund fairly aggressively, too ... but he managed it quite well. I always liked PRGTX but think it got a bit reckless and IMO became addicted to Hopium(tm) in recent years (like Cathie Wood), so perhaps the manager change is deserved.
    A 55% loss is inexcusable, in my view. Growth was rapidly falling out of favor as rates rose, yet I guess Tu stuck to his plan and rode it all the way down instead of trimming or moving more into safer holdings and/or cash. Reminds me of DODFX sticking to financial stocks during the GFC because it was "the plan" ... or Arnott holding a 20% short S&P position in his fund during years of a bull market because it was "his model."

    When the situation changes, what would you do?
  • TRP Global Technology PRGTX Upcoming Manager Change
    I don't own the fund, but just noticed this on the M* website. This is a copy & paste from part of their fund analysis. The fund has had very good years in up markets under the past several managers, but was down -55.5% in 2022. After 2022 the fund's 5 year average return is barely positive, .32% as of 1/10/23. Current manager is being replaced after only managing the fund for 3 years. Sounds as though there were some differences of opinion regarding portfolio construction and risk management between TRP management and the fund manager.
    An unexpected manager swap and investment process pivot lead to a downgrade of T. Rowe Price Global Technology’s Morningstar Analyst Rating to Neutral from Silver.
    Manager Alan Tu’s pending departure from this strategy raises a variety of questions that will take time to answer. Consistent with his predecessor, Tu managed the strategy in an aggressive fashion, posting strong results during bull markets in 2019 and 2020, but a tremendous drawdown of over 50% in 2022 led T. Rowe to make changes. Disagreements around Tu’s portfolio construction and risk management amid the tumult led the firm to conclude that analyst Dom Rizzo would be a better fit at the helm. Rizzo became comanager on Dec. 1, 2022, and will assume sole control on April 1, 2023. Rizzo is a reasonable match for the role but has just seven years of industry experience. Rizzo started his career covering small- and mid-cap tech hardware stocks in the United States, then moved to London to pick up coverage of European technology, including a handful of Asia-based companies. He does not have prior portfolio management experience.
    Rizzo will manage the fund according to a different mandate. The new approach emphasizes greater diversification across secular themes and individual stocks. Rizzo’s goal is for the strategy to enjoy good—although perhaps less exceptional—performance in up markets, with more manageable downside during drawdowns. His investment guideposts are to invest in companies in secular growth industries with products that are mission-critical for customers, ideally at a time when business momentum is trending upward, and valuations are reasonable. Rizzo says he will rely on these pillars to create a portfolio capable of performing well in a variety of market environments, guided by his outlook over the next 18 months.
    While the strategy’s new design seems reasonable on paper, its implementation hasn’t been tested. Further, the transition comes after a period of very weak performance and introduces the risk that the more-conservative portfolio may not make up lost ground in a strong rally as quickly as it would have under its previous iteration. The strategy still benefits from a deep team of capable analysts, and it’s possible Rizzo will be able to successfully steer the fund to success, but the picture is cloudy at the moment.
    This strategy has historically been aggressive and highly differentiated from common technology benchmarks, but it will become tamer under its new structure. Manager Alan Tu and his predecessor Josh Spencer kept a relatively concentrated portfolio of stocks with large weightings in fast-growing companies with big potential—and a high level of volatility. Incoming manager Dom Rizzo will ply a modified approach that seeks to smooth out the strategy’s historically lumpy returns by including more-mature companies such as Apple AAPL and Microsoft MSFT, greater industry diversification, and smaller weights in stocks with a wider dispersion of outcomes.
    Rizzo targets an 18-month time horizon in his process, which emphasizes buying companies in secular growth industries with products that are mission-critical for customers, ideally at a time when business momentum is trending upward and valuations are reasonable.
    Rizzo’s framework is reasonable, but whether he can execute it well is yet to be seen.
    This portfolio will undergo changes as it transitions from current manager Alan Tu to successor Dom Rizzo on April 1, 2023. Because of its mandate shift, investors should expect more prominent positions in more-mature mega-caps such as Apple AAPL and Microsoft MSFT. Rizzo believes these companies can still offer good risk/reward despite their size and the alternative of younger companies with faster growth. Rizzo also suggested that the number of stocks held will likely increase somewhat. Under Tu, the portfolio has held 40-60 stocks.
    Rizzo indicated that he won’t shun companies with high upside and volatility but is likely to be more particular about when he owns them and at what position size. Tu was highly attuned toward a stock’s upside and was willing to hold large stakes in companies in which he saw the greatest potential. That included a rough stretch in 2022 when many of his holdings saw large share price declines amid slowing growth.
    Rizzo will work with Tu to methodically transition the portfolio to its desired state over the following months to April 2023.
  • moningstar again. charts are dead tonight.
    Of note, Morningstar, Inc. (MORN) is currently selling for $238.14 on NASDAQ, with a market cap of $10.108 billion, annual revenues of $1.85 billion.
    They're making a ton of money, but I'm not really sure from who. Frankly, I don't trust their ratings, let alone their website.