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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.
  • 3 month T bill purchase today
    Buying T bills at auction through Schwab brokerage has no fee just like buying brokered CDs. There is a set schedule at the Treasury while CDs are not. https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/221/Tentative-Auction-Schedule.pdf
    Newly issued short term T bills, 13 week and 26 week have their auction every Monday. It would be good idea to place your order on Sunday night and the order will be filled by end of Monday. Longer term T bills and notes have their schedule. Personally I buy 13 week, 26 week and 52 week T bills to construct ladders.
    Several advantages of T bills over CDs:
    1. after tax return since T bills are state tax-exempt.
    2. Liquidity. Easy to sell before maturity in secondary market.
    3. Large $ amount can be purchase at auction.
    Last year MFO have had several treads on T bills that provide additional details.
  • 3 month T bill purchase today
    T-Bill CUSIP Numbers - Matching

    Because of 13-wk, 26-wk, 52-wk T-Bill issuances, some maturing dates for 13-wk T-Bills will coincide with those for 26-wk and 52-wk T-Bills. Similar for 26-wk and 52-wk T-Bills.
    When the T-Bill maturity dates are the same, and the coupon rates are all 0% (because T-Bills are sold at discounts), Treasury uses the same CUSIP# for them. Treasury doesn't call these reopening, nor marks them as such in the Treasury Auction Schedule - in fact, Treasury says that T-Bills don't have reopening.
    So, how does one figure out what is going on?
    1. Matching T-Bill CUSIP# is one way but that is tedious, even with Treasury site CUSIP search. For example, a search on CUSIP# 912796ZD4 shows that related 13-wk, 26-wk, 52-wk have maturity dates of 11/30/23 (see this link by @msf).
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/auction-query/?cusip=912796ZD4
    2. Comparing T-Bill Original Issue Dates with actual Issue Dates is another way, but that information is lost in the Treasury Auction Results data fields as there are other more important data for rates, spreads of bids, etc. However, the Treasury Auction Announcements have the Auction Date, Original Issue Date, actual Issue Date, and Maturity Date.
    13-wk Auction Announcement for 8/28/23 (Maturity 11/30/23)
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/A_20230824_3.pdf
    (Note that Original Issue Date and actual Issue Date don't match)
    52-wk Auction Announcement for 11/29/22 (Maturity 11/30/23)
    https://treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2022/A_20221123_3.pdf
    (Note that Original Issue Date and actual Issue Date match)
    One can also verify the the CUSIP# in these 13-wk and 52-wk Auction Announcements match.
  • 3 month T bill purchase today
    Today's auction shows the price for a 13 week T-bill (CUSIP 912796ZD4), maturing 11/30/23 was $98.650167. That seems to exactly match what you wrote you bought.
    Auction result:
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/R_20230828_3.pdf
    Announcement (original issue date 12/1/22):
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/A_20230824_3.pdf
    This security was auctioned off three times: originally as a 52 week T-bill (issued 12/1/22), then as a 26 week T-bill (issued 6/1/23), and now as a 13 week T-bill (to be issued 8/31/23).
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/auctions/auction-query/?cusip=912796ZD4
  • 3 month T bill purchase today
    I just returned from VG & did the math. From what it cost me to purchase the T Bill I multiplied by 5.5% then divided by 4 , the 3 months of interest for which I will receive. I then I subtracted the cost from what it will pay when it matures & came within a buck/ Close enough for me.
    Sorry I brought this up again, Derf
    P.S. That still leaves the question, Why the dating issue ?
  • 3 month T bill purchase today
    I made sure I punched at auction & received back what appears to be a one year T bill with 3 months left.
    Security: U S TREASURY BILL 0% 11/30/23 12/01/22 Price was $98.65
    The T bill dated 12/01/22 shows 4.49 - 4.66 Bank discount & Coupon equivalent
    That is the daily rate on the secondary market quotation on most recent auction of T-bills.
    From conversation June 8 added below. Why was this a secondary purchase & not the first time it has happen.
    I believe YBB gave me a follow up link for whom to contact.
    Derf
    June 8 in Other Investing Flag
    Announcement 6/6, Auction 6/7 bought on 6/6 I received message today of purchased which showed 08/08/23 - 04/11/23. That appears to be a T-bill bought at market. Called VG today & rep said it was an auction purchase. I'll be calling tomorrow , bright & early to see if I can get a reason as to why this happened. If that T-bill was sold out, the order shouldn't have been filled. Maybe no fill or kill at VG ?
    Anyone have any ideas ? Rep also mention it maybe a RO bill, reopened. If that is the case, wouldn't it show on the pre- schedule ?
    Thanks, Derf
  • Rupal Bhansali is leaving Ariel to launch her own firm
    Ms Bhansali steps down as manager of Ariel Global and Ariel International on August 31. Between that, the funds have over $800 million in assets. Bhansali will remain as a consultant until February.
    She will be succeeded by Henry Mallari-D’Auria, who joined the firm from AllianceBernstein in April, bringing along five associates. He was the head of emerging markets for Ariel until the announcement of Bhansali's departure, at which point he became head of global and international equities for them He was CIO for EM Equity Value to AllianceBernstein from 2002-2023.
    Ariel Global is a four-star fund. Ariel International is vastly larger, and has earned three stars. Given that Morningstar doesn't track growth and value separately, and Bhansali is a distinctly contrarian, value investor, the star ratings might be a bit misleading. MFO Premium tracks Global against Lipper's Global Multi-Cap Value peer group. Global has average returns (it trails the group by 0.2% APR) but substantially lower volatility and substantially higher risk-adjusted returns (Sharpe Ratio is 0.62 since inception, versus the peer group's 0.50). International tracks the International Large Core group where is substantially trails its peers in returns, has substantially lower volatility, and comparable risk-adjusted performance.
    Mr. Mallari-D'Auria ran an Europe-based EM hedge fund (Next 50) for AllianceBernstein. He manages two SMA strategies for Ariel (EM Value and EM ex-China Value). He also ran AB Emerging Markets Value Equity, which also appears to be a quarter-billion dollar SMA strategy. That strategy earned three stars from Morningstar. Like the Ariel funds, it's a value strategy which substantially trails its (non-value) peer group since inception. The gap is about 200 bps. But it's not evident that he's ever run a mutual fund before.
    I've reached out to her via LinkedIn to see if she'll chat, now or after September 1, about her plans.
  • FED's. Harker on rates. News link from Yahoo.
    Fair use ration:
    PATRICK HARKER: Yeah. We need to see clear signs we're moving toward 2%. Now our view is we're going to get under four this year, under three next year and in 2025, we'll hit two. It's going to take some time. And, I think, we just need to be ready for that. It's going to take some time.
    Good news for those rolling CD's,T-Bills, and whatnot?
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    @Old_Joe. Two ideas can both be right. While “silence is akin to acquiesce “ engagement with them gives them legitimacy. Which they don’t deserve. We live in mixed neighborhood. Several of them live near me. You can tell who they are because they leave their oversized American flags up 24/7, 365 and add many small ones on holidays. I ignore them as if they don’t exist. They have no legitimacy as neighbors or as fellow citizens.
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    @FD1000,
    Your GE, Lucent experience resonates with me...I was a young buck in 87' when the schmeissing occured in the markets...the 50-something year old engineers were walking around shell shocked in the office with that far away gaze....looking back at the aftermath of 01'....was in many business meetings with said 50-something year olds who retired due to the run up in the stonk market in the mid-late 90's...I have no idea why they were hired back, they weren't into it, stilll were thinking of the golf course and what happened...then recently with the Covid bullshit....guys were walking around like someone ran their dog over...work buddy came back from a week in Vegas right before everything shut down, portfolio down -10%...in a week...guys lost a third of their portfolio in a month...now they are walking around with no care in the world, wonder if they done learnt anything from their experiences....
    What is the most concerning is that when you look behind the bullshit numbers that the govt and their media shills put out you would have no idea that inflation could easily get even worse, many layoffs starting to happen, many companies going bankrupt, crime is out of control....I think we are headed towards a Germany kind of investing climate...folks there have very little in the markets, maybe the average portfolio is 10-15% exposed to stocks...a lot of insurance type of products (Allianz etc)...rental property if you are a baller....
    Just buy Nivida though right?
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    Sometimes you just get lucky. I wouldn't have known about the Internal Revenue rule except that it was in the news just last month. The NASDAQ 100 was "rebalanced" ostensibly to be more diversified. Since this was triggered by large holdings approaching 50% of the total value, I checked into what was magical about 50%.
    See also John Rekenthaler's piece, Why the Nasdaq-100 is Not an Index
    https://www.morningstar.com/funds/nasdaq-100-is-not-an-index
  • New formula for evaluating funds? The PEP Ratio.
    Sometimes I browse Advisor perspectives. Today I ran into this piece by Nir Kaissar of Bloomber News.
    The writer starts off with a reminder of the good old days, when Peter Lynch could figure out the PEG ratio on the back of a napkin, add a few billion simoleans, and call it a day.
    These days most people are invested in stock funds. So Kaisar suggests a new way to evaluate them:
    My fair-use ration:
    There’s an investment case for both groups — buying cheap stocks has been a winning strategy historically, and so has buying shares of highly profitable companies. Still, differences in valuation and profitability make stock funds difficult to compare. One way to solve that is with a variation of Lynch’s PEG ratio that substitutes profitability for growth. This PEP ratio, let’s call it, compares funds’ P/E ratio with their profitability, and like the PEG ratio, the lower the PEP ratio, the better.
    Invesco tells me the P/E for SPGP is 15.21, and the ROE is 42.08 for a PEP ratio of .361. Given SPGP's thesis, the final number isn't too surprising.
    Something called Market Chameleon (MC) tells me that TDV is at 21.39 P/E and ROE at 24.9, for a PEP of .85.
    And SPY comes in at 23.72 and 17.9 for 1.325. If Kaissar is eating his own cooking, he's not buying the 500.
    I don't recommend this as a way to pick and choose funds. But stuff like this amuses me the way baseballreference.com's player similarity scores do--not to mention WAR.
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    TRBCX has 7.49% of its assets invested in Alphabet stock (6.192% in class C, 1.297% in class A).
    This matters because in order to be taxed as a passthrough entity (i.e. the fund itself doesn't pay taxes), it must limit the size of its positions in companies (not share classes). Add up all the companies where it has more than 5% invested and this must total not more than 50% of the fund's assets.
    https://www.faegredrinker.com/en/insights/publications/2020/3/asset-diversification-test-a-timely-refresher
    TRBCX comes fairly close:
    13.998% (Microsoft) + 11.298% (Apple) + 7.695% (Amazon) + 7.489% (Alphabet) + 5.917% (Nvidia) = 46.497%.
    https://individual.troweprice.com/staticFiles/gcFiles/pdf/phbcgq2.pdf
    Meta is at 4.961%. If it goes over 5% (so that it is added in) and these other percentages don't shift, TRBCX might be in violation of the 50% limit (depending on how it got there).
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    @Roy, both of your examples are for LC-growth.
    A problem with this category is that the LC-growth index has become nondiversified. Fund companies are handling this in two ways: i) ignore the index and be diversified as per ICA 1940. Active funds can do this. ii) File with the SEC to reclassify the fund as nondiversified. This is what MANY active and passive LC-growth funds are doing.
    DIVERSIFICATION 75-5-10 rule (ICA 1940) refers to the requirement that 75% of the fund assets have less than 5% of fund assets in each holding and less than 10% of the outstanding shares of any holding.
    https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/59731/many-lc-growth-funds-are-nondiversified
  • What is the highest percentage you’d ever allocate to a single stock?
    This is interesting given that the aforementioned fund companies (Fidelity and TRP) allow some of their fund managers to hold more than 5% positions in companies.
    As an example for a couple of widely held funds from these investment shops;
    Fidelity Blue Chip Growth, FBGRX
    Apple, 10.03, NVIDIA, 9.68, Microsoft, 9.13, Amazon, 7.54, Alphabet, 5.37
    TRP Blue Chip Growth, TRBCX
    Microsoft, 14.00, Apple, 11.3, Amazon, 7.69, Alphabet, 6.19, NVIDIA, 5.92
    Portfolio info from M*.
  • PRWCX/TRAIX Semi Annual Report
    See October 2022 press release from the SEC requiring "concise and visually engaging" fund reports. Of course, the SEC formal documents on the right panel is only 350 pages! There is an 18-month transition period but funds can do this earlier.
    Mutual funds/OEFs must still provide paper copies; others can just sent a link on the website.
    https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-193
  • PRWCX/TRAIX Semi Annual Report
    Here's the link to the latest semi annual report for TRP Capital Appreciation, with a twist.
    https://prospectus-express.broadridge.com/summary.asp?doctype=semi&clientid=trowepll&fundid=77954M303
    The SEC adopted new rules in January evidently, that requires fund companies to transition to a new format, thus TRP will no longer be including the optional 6 month semi-annual fund letter. That's disappointing. The new format is called "Tailored Shareholder Report". This is required to be instituted by mid-2024.
    Possibly, some of you have more information on this?
  • Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show
    Aug 25th Episode:
    Discover insights from renowned investor Steven Romick, Co-Portfolio Manager of the FPA Crescent Fund, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Unlike most funds, FPA Crescent has not only survived but thrived for three decades, delivering almost 10% annualized returns with lower volatility than the S&P 500.


  • screw 2% as an inflation goal
    You far-right hard-liners love to complain about “the "crazy political rantings that have infested every thread on here”, "mostly the commie liberal snowflake variety". That's a direct quote.
    Yet it is manifestly true and factual that the great majority of those rants are initiated by right-wing ideologues such as yourself, as evidenced by this very thread.
    You people start this crap, then whine when someone responds with factual information.
    rsorden and Baseball_Fan, 8/23/23.
  • Fund & Income Stories From Barron's, 8/28/23
    Part 1
    OPTIONS. Suggested is putting 80-90% in bonds and 10-20% in selling puts on the blue-chips one would like to own. Any put assignments would be financed from the bond portion. Risk is if the 10-yr keeps rising (now 4.25%).
    Part 2
    FUNDS. Some funds are using AI for portfolio management – there are 11 AI-based ETFs such as DIP, QRFT, etc. But it is unlikely that AI will replace the managers of active or passive funds, and instead, may become another tool in managers’ toolbox. (By @lewisbraham at MFO)
    FUNDS. Marty FLANAGAN, Outgoing CEO, Invesco/IVZ; Trustee SMU; Chairman, Engage Capital. He is stepping down as CEO of IVZ but will continue as an Advisor until 2024. The new CEO and President is Andrew SCHLOSSBERG. During Flanagan’s tenure, IVZ grew into AUM $1.54 trillion powerhouse. He expanded hugely into ETFs (PowerShares, 2006) and Asia (a joint-venture in China). He thinks that the US and China will find some common grounds on business. The recent US investment bans in China were defined quite narrowly; the Secretaries of State BLINKEN and Treasury YELLEN have visited China – these are positive signs despite some tough talk. The fund industry trend towards lower fees has benefitted retail investors. ACTIVE ETFs are a natural development. Key for ETFs is marketing and distribution (an interesting insight into exchange traded products). Interest rates have normalized and fixed-income has become attractive in a very long time. Technological changes happen in stair-steps, and we are seeing one in AI and generative AI.
    EXTRA. FUNDS. BlackRock/BLK has supported only a few ESG proposals this year. It said that many were overreaching or redundant. In reality, FINK/BLK has gone quiet from being overly pushy on ESG. BLK was starting to get backlash in its businesses. The new trend is to follow ESG quietly.
    INCOME. CREDIT QUALITY issues may show up first in low-rated leveraged FR/BL, then in HY (spreads now are too low), then in investment-grade, and may finally spillover into the equity market. Investors and savers are enjoying high interest RATES, but the flip side for the borrowers isn’t pretty. Many small/medium-size companies that rely on low-rates are facing high variable rates (the traditional fixed-rate bond market is out of their reach). BANKRUPTCY filings are rising, 400 YTD (!), such as Party City, Bed Bath & Beyond, Yellow. It will take just one major, well-known company bankruptcy to change the sentiment. DEFAULT rate for low-rated debt has risen to 3.8% (to 5.8% in 2024/Q1?; even that is low for recessions). But it’s early in the credit cycle and problems may surface in 2024-25. The FED may still raise rates and will keep them higher for longer. Don’t chase returns, be cautious and take some chips off the table. (There are now also investment-grade FR and top-quality Treasury FRNs).
    OTHER VOICES. Eugene STEUERLE, Urban Institute (DC think tank) and Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Interest RATES are at 16-yr high, and they will affect people, businesses and the government. The impact on the government will be mixed – increases in deficits and payouts, but reduction in the value of outstanding debt. Savers will benefit from inflation and higher rates, but lenders will see lesser values for their loans; those on fixed income will also suffer. With the end of the cheap money era, hopefully, the allocation decisions will become more rational. Keep in mind the real rates (TIPS rates) vs nominal rates (T-Bills/Notes/Bonds); positive real rates, as now, are restrictive for the economy. There will also be a reckoning for the government when its debt-servicing costs will keep rising.