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.
  • NHYDY. Inspector Clouseau would say.....
    Is this the SA piece you're talking about ("Norway's WHT is 15%.")?
    https://seekingalpha.com/article/4633977-we-expect-lower-earnings-from-aluminium-giant-norsk-hydro
    From the company's own website:
    The withholding tax of 25 percent may be lower pursuant to tax treaties between Norway and the country in which the shareholder is resident. The Treaty rate is generally 15 percent. [The treaty rate w/US is 15%.] The Treaty withholding tax rate will generally apply to dividends paid on shares held directly by U.S. holders that are residents of the United States within the meaning of the Treaty.
    https://www.hydro.com/en-US/investors/information-for-shareholders/taxation-guide/
    Perhaps you are ineligible for the lower rate because you hold the company indirectly via an ADR? I don't know. If you are eligible, it seems that you have to file some paperwork to get the 15% rate. Continuing from the company's website:
    all foreign shareholders must document their identity and tax status in order to receive a reduced (or zero) withholding tax. This is done by filing an application to the Central Office for Foreign Tax Affairs for getting a permission to resume or start using a reduced withholding tax rate. Please contact Norsk Hydro’s account operator at [email protected] for assistance.
    I imagine that you may be eligible for a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal taxes (foreign tax credit) up to your tax rate. But this is not something I delve into too deeply.
    I ran across this page that does a pretty good job of going through the issues above. Coincidentally, it uses a German company (SAP SE) as an example.
    https://einvestingforbeginners.com/adr-dividend-tax/
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    “Tongue in cheek” from me earlier. Like the kids saying “Are we there yet?”
    I’m optimistic for the simple reason that nothing was spared today. A bit unusual to see commodities, miners, utilities, energy, growth stocks, consumers staples, bonds etc. all dive in unison. Oh - JP Morgan put out a “buy” on DKNG today, now that the stock has doubled or tripled from where it began the year.
    FWIW - One of my trackers has 16 holdings (mostly funds) I follow - but don’t own. 15 were in the red today. None gained. TMSRX broke even - “outperforming” the 15 others. (BAMBX lost only a penny.)
    For the Giroux affectionados, TCAF fell 1.59% today to $24.76, putting it about a quarter below where it opened earlier in the year.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    It took the threat of a govt shutdown to get us off the recent highs? The 1 red flag for me has been the recent complacency in the equities market. That being said, I'd be shocked to see stocks make any major downward moves (i.e. -20% off highs = Bear).
    Buying these dips, cause why not. Hopefully better opps ahead. Need some solid volatility.
    Making ~5% in MMkt Funds is acceptable at some level. But lets face it - it's also boring.
  • NHYDY. Inspector Clouseau would say.....
    "...The mystery is solv-ed."
    I saw, upon receipt of the scheduled NHYDY dividend some time ago, that 25% of that dividend was "withheld at the source." (And there was also a "depositary service fee" I got dinged for, which was just $7.28.)
    ....Then just the other day, I bumped into a Seeking Alpha article re: NHYDY asserting that the Norwegian withholding tax was 15%. ... So, I sent a message, asking my broker (TRP) about it.
    Come to find out: NON-NORWEGIANS are subject to 25% withholding. (From the company's own website---so TRP informs me.) That fact sucks mountains of mud. But life is full of stinky surprises. "Life sucks, and then you die." What the hell, right? The stock has been falling along with the rest of the Market. Yet now that I finally have clarity about the withholding issue, I believe I will stick with it. Aluminum and green energy. And lately, I just read that the company has joined with the Norwegian Church Fund to create a solar power company.
    That might sound strange. But I understand, for example, that Germans pay taxes to support the churches, whether or not they belong or attend. Must be something similar.
    And that's all I have to say about that. ----Forrest Gump. :)
  • Government shutdown
    The government shutdown is inevitable and there is 5 days less. This is like a train wreck in slow motion.
    https://npr.org/2023/09/26/1201557143/government-shutdown-house-republicans
    US debts will face another round of possible downgrade from Moody? Will this impact the long bond yield and the stock market?
    https://reuters.com/markets/us/moodys-warns-us-government-shutdown-would-be-credit-negative-2023-09-25/
    What are your plans?
  • Tax-Loss/Gain Harvesting
    The bond market will close two hours early (2PM EST) on Dec 29th. Just in case you're looking to dump Treasuries as rates continue to rise. (That's a lighthearted statement, not a prediction.)
    Less often practiced, but potentially useful, is tax-gain harvesting. It can be advantageous to generate cap gains and ordinary income in different years. In that way, one can take advantage of lower cap gains rates (e.g. 0% bracket) without getting pushed out by the presence of ordinary income.
    Instead of recognizing some gains and some income (e.g. from Roth conversions) each year, one can recognize more gains (fill the 0% bracket) in year 1, and do more conversions in year 2 to compensate. Just watch for all the gotchas - pushing into the next ordinary income tax bracket, exceeding ACA subsidy limits, IRMAA, SS taxation brackets, etc.
    It's not unusual to find advice about aggregating tax deductions (property taxes, charitable contributions, etc.) into every other year. It's less common to see similar advice about harvesting cap gains this way. (I believe Kitces' discussion about the interplay between cap gains and ordinary income does have such a suggestion.)
    Hypothetical example (MFJ), using same rates/brackets for 2024 as 2023. By keeping all the cap gains in the first year and all the conversions (extra ordinary income) in the second year, nearly all the cap gains get taxed at 0%, vs. 15% in the second year. Even with the "penalty" for lumping ordinary income into year 2 (some is taxed at 22%) one may come out ahead.
    This is very income and bracket specific.
    			2023			2024
    Other ordinary income: $70,000 $70,000
    Roth conversion: $ 0 $60,000
    Less std deduction: ($27,700) ($27,700)
    Taxable ord income: $42,300 $102,300
    Cap gains: $50,000 $ 0
    Ordinary income tax: 10% x $22,000+ 10% x $22,000+
    12% x $20,300 12% x $67,450 +
    22% x (102300-89450)
    =$4,876 =$13,121
    Cap gains tax: 15% x
    ($92,300 - $89,250)
    =$457.50 =$ 0
    --------- ---------
    Total tax: $5,123.50 $13,121
    With evenly split income/conversions
    2023 2024
    Other ordinary income: $70,000 $70,000
    Roth conversion: $30,000 $30,000
    Less std deduction: ($27,700) ($27,700)
    Taxable ord income: $72,300 $72,300
    Cap gains: $25,000 $25,000
    Ordinary income tax: 10% x $22,000+ 10% x $22,000+
    12% x $50,300 12% x $50,300
    =$8,236 =$8,236
    Cap gains tax: 15% x 15% x
    ($97,300 - $89,250) ($97,300 - $89,250)
    =$1,207.50 =$1,207.50
    --------- ---------
    Total tax: $9,443.50 $9,443.50

  • How to see pre-2000s mutual fund documents?
    for many funds, the documents only go back to 2007 even if the fund is much older (example: Ariel Fund).

    That's not entirely correct. You may not be able to find them, but generally the SEC has fund docs going back to 1994 or 1995, including Ariel Fund docs. Back then it was the Ariel Growth Fund.
    Here's the folder with Ariel fund family filings. In any given folder, you'll want to open the NNNN-YY-NNNN-index.html file.
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/798365
    The only 1994 files are the annual and semi-annual reports in machine-readable format.
    The 1995 prospectus for the Ariel (Growth) Fund and the Ariel Appreciation Fund (including the Oct 1, 1995 supplement reopening the Growth fund) is here:
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/798365/0000950131-95-002729.txt
    There's also the 1995 prospectus for the Ariel Premier Bond Fund (including the Nov 6, 1995 supplement allowing investors to buy into institutional class shares when they buy in at the ground floor):
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/798365/0000950131-95-002376.txt
    What appears to be the earliest human-readable annual report (Sept 30, 1995) is here:
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/798365/0000950131-95-003393.txt
    Happy rummaging.
    Thanks!!
  • 3M T-Bill Observations
    9/25/23 3m T-Bill Auction was at a discounted price of 98.652694.
    So, finally some changes after the 2nd decimal place. Looks like the short end of the yield-curve is anchored/stable and the long end is pivoting about the short end.
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2023/R_20230925_1.pdf
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    +1
    More than expected. Much appreciated @msf. Guilty as charged to reacting to short term movements. My question was provoked after spending considerable time digesting a quarterly summary late last night of a long / short CEF I own. It appears to have a 24% short position on SPX. You can play those kinds of games when using leverage.
    As Earnie Harwell used to say, “Hang on to your Strohs … “
    That’s an interesting list of holdings for FCNTX. I owned BRK for about a year. Let it go recently.
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    Have robos gotten their clients out of the cap weighted S&P 500 - or at least reduced exposure this year?
    Hopefully not early this year. YTD (through Sept 22, data from M*),
    VOO (S&P 500): 13.89% (23rd percentile LCblend)
    IVOO (S&P 400): 3.92% (48th percentile, MCblend)
    DFAS:                  2.91% (50th percentile; SCblend)
    Hindsight is 20/20. Nevertheless this illustrates why trading in and out of sectors based on short term expectations may not pay off. If your question is whether robo advisors make changes more frequently than annually, I believe the answer is yes, perhaps too frequently, depending on the company and the types of investments used. (I'm surmising based on limited information.)
    (I'm not seeing any recent moves in a Vanguard managed account that uses only index funds; it was already slightly overweighted toward mid/small cap.)
    It doesn't matter whether an account is robo or human advised. The advisors are largely backed by their institution's models. Within the constraints of preferences expressed by individual investors (e.g. Sven expressed a preference to avoid EM), the advisors follow those models.
    Take a manager like Will Danoff. Here are the top ten investments of FCNTX (as of July 31):
    Meta 11.8% (way overweight relative to S&P 500),
    BRK 9% (way overweight),
    MSFT 6.5% (similar to S&P 500),
    AMZN 5.8% (overweight),
    AAPL 4.8% (underweight),
    NVDA 4.12% (overweight),
    UNH 3.89% (overweight),
    GOOGL 2.63% (slight overweight),
    GOOG 2.25% (slight overweight),
    LLY 2.21% (overweight)
    These are all in the S&P 500 top 12. Of the S&P 500's top 10, only TSLA is not in FCNTX. #10 in the S&P 500, XOM, is #15 for FCNTX.
  • Funds & Retirement Stories from Barron's
    I did find a SEC filing back from April 28, 2006 (which is as far back as I can go).
    The SEC filing does list the Fidelity Utilities Growth Fund, minus the "Select."
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320351/000088019506000036/main.htm
    There was a name change back in April 2009 based on the filing below:
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320351/000071889109000008/main.htm
    Here is a copy of that section:
    On January 16, 2009, Utilities Portfolio changed its name from Utilities Growth Portfolio to Utilities Portfolio
    Incidentally, Zacks still states the fund name is Fidelity Select Utilities Growth Portfolio:
    https://www.zacks.com/funds/mutual-fund/quote/FSUTX
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    If I had a robo I’d be yanking its strings today, asking what the 10 year going over 4.5% means and whether there’s a particularly good investment to try and profit from this. I guess the worst it might do is to suggest, “Take safe shelter immediately!” - :)
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    @Sven, age-based funds within 529s operationally work like TDFs for retirement; their glide-paths are to the college age of 18 (vs retirement date of the TDFs). One can mix age-based funds with traditional allocation funds within 529s to achieve a variety of custom glide-paths. But I don't know of a 529 that formally includes a robo-advisor fund within it.
    @hank, most performance comparisons of robo-advisors with other funds (TDFs, allocation/hybrid) are for moderate-allocation (around 60-40). There are also variations for MA - MA Aggressive, MA, MA Conservative.
    IMO, robo-advisors are nothing more than hyped-up allocation funds that are liked by the younger generation. If one is willing to spend a little time, one can achieve a similar effect with traditional allocation funds (static-allocations; Income, conservative-allocation, moderate-allocation, aggressive-allocation) or TDFs (glide-path allocation). A lot of PR has gone into promoting robo-advisors as something novel when it is just some old wine in new bottles.
  • Tax-Loss/Gain Harvesting
    Tax-loss harvesting is now split.
    It's OCTOBER for institutions as the funds are allowed to close books for the year so that they can timely announce yearend distributions in November/December for investors to plan. Some funds still follow the old practice of closing books in December, but then the distributions will be in the next year (2024) with taxes still due in the current year (2023).
    It's DECEMBER for retail investors & the market has regular hours on the last day of trading, Friday, 12/29/23.
    The last day to DOUBLE-UP & sell the old lot by the yearend is 11/28/23 in order to avoid wash-sale. With commission-free trading, this practice is less popular now. It is easily possible to sell, & simultaneously buy something SIMILAR BUT NOT IDENTICAL.
    Edit/Add. To reflect the post on tax-gain harvesting, I have changed the title.
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    Robo investing does work given time and patience. For example, many state sponsored 529 plans employ low cost broadly diversified index funds. The state adds a smaller layer of fees as the administrator. Overall fees are still very good. Automatic shifting allocation from stocks to bonds (eventually money market fund) is available today. If started early enough, the parents have 18 years to invest for their child’s college education. We are very fortunate to use the 529 plan to put our kids through college.
  • Convertible Equity Linked Notes?
    Looking at a new ETF (INCM) from Franklin. 60% fixed income, 20% equity and 20% “convertible equity linked notes”.
    ETF page
    It helps to provide a link.
    What the page actually says is: "Convertibles/Equity-Linked Notes". Convertibles and ELNs currently comprise 20% of the fund.
    Summary Prospectus
    The fund may invest up to 30% in equity index linked notes, and up to 10% in equity linked notes (typically linked to a single stock).
    Investments in ILNs [index-linked notes] often have risks similar to securities in the underlying index, which could include management risk, market risk and, as applicable, foreign securities and currency risks. In addition, since ILNs are in note form, ILNs are also subject to certain debt securities risks, such as interest rate and credit risks. ... An investment in an ILN is also subject to counterparty risk, which is the risk that the issuer of the ILN will default or become bankrupt.
    ...
    Investments in ELNs often have risks similar to their underlying securities [and other risks as above]
    Fidelity has a description of how some structured products (equity index linked debt) work. As Yogi wrote, these are not simple investment vehicles.
    https://www.fidelity.com/fixed-income-bonds/structured-products
  • The Week in Charts | Charlie Bilello
    The Week in Charts (09/24/23)
    The most important charts and themes in markets, including...
    00:00 Intro
    00:37 Webinar Next Week (9/26 @ 1pm EST)
    01:06 Are Higher Rates Here to Stay (FOMC Meeting)
    08:52 Good Times, Bad Times (Bonds)
    17:02 Rising Rates: Good or Bad for Corporations?
    22:24 Another Debt Milestone (National Debt)
    26:29 A Minor Pullback (Equity Markets)
    28:49 Would Stock Picking Be Easy if You Knew the Future?
    31:34 Instacart IPO
    36:40 "Soft Landing"
    41:38 Slowdown in Homebuilding
    44:02 Commercial Real Estate Reset
    46:41 Real Estate Boom & Bust in China
    48:24 India's Incredible Progress
    Video
    Blog
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation
    @msf, Vanguard often written things in simple language. Many may interpret Vanguard being a plain old indexer and that is simply untrue (have equally number actively managed funds).
    As you posted the comparison between different PAS plans: Digital Advisor ($3K minimum), Personal Advisor ($50K minimum), Personal Advisor Select ($500K minimum), and Wealth Management ($5M minimum). All plans have active funds options.
    We chose Personal Advisor Select since we want need additional advice on personal financial planning and personal trust service. A dedicated advisor seems to work very effectively for us.
    As I stated earlier, Vanguard's proposal is far from being a cookie-cutter plan filled with index funds. It is built based on our risk tolerance, withdraw need with respect to time and from which tax-deferred accounts. The advisor constructed the proposal to include actively managed short and intermediate term investment grade bond funds (not just a total bond market index fund) and a total international bond index fund (we have little exposure to this asset class), plus others I mentioned above. Our advisor is well aware of the inverted yield curve and our bonds spread between short and intermediate term duration; no long duration bonds. In addition, we requested to shift more of bonds to my accounts and more stocks to my wife since they will be withdraw 5 years later.
    In the end, I believe the clients have the equal responsibility to work with their advisors in order to put together a solid asset allocation plan so to meet their future needs.
    Thank you for your "Dynamic Cash Flow" example, I am putting together a spreadsheet for our Roth conversion plan. Even though we have taken advantage of Roth 401(K) when it was available. Still we have sizable traditional IRAs to convert and the tax saving is substantial in our case.
  • Robo-Advisor Evaluation

    M* Rekenthaler mentioned exposure to international as one of the main drags on target-date retirement funds in a column this past summer.
    Just thought I'd try to show what a dragging portfolio Vanguard's recommended retired fund has been the last year or so. (If readable.)
    VTINX Target Income Composition 01/01/2023        Ticker   % portfolio
    Vanguard Total Bond Market II VTBIX 37.00%
    Vanguard Total Stock Market Institutional VSMPX 18.00%
    Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected VTAPX 16.30%
    Vanguard Total International Bond II Index Fund VTILX 16.20%
    Vanguard Total International Stock Investor Shares VGTSX 12.50%
    VTINX Portfolio 100.00%