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.
  • FPA customer service?
    In the past 6 months I’ve had to phone Fido only 2 or 3 times. (d) So their website is incredibly sophisticated and able to anticipate 90%+ of your needs. But phone support is very good too. Today the Fido phone reps set a new record. Their website system flagged a sell order of a fund I thought should be fee-waived. The woman who picked up promptly answered my query & approved the pending sale in approximately 60 seconds. And was nice about it. Wow!
    Back in my “dark” days at TRP I was often “hanging” on hold for 15-30 minutes. And they got the problem solved correctly roughly 40% of the time. 400 is a good average if you’re batting in the majors, but not for client service reps.
    Sounds like @Ben is frustrated at FPA . I’m a bit confused because he appears to be dealing with one particular fund house here and perhaps looking to move to a different one. Not a bad plan. However, IMHO a full service brokerage is a lot nicer.
    PS - Can’t help wondering if TRP’s client service (disservice) has anything to do with their stock’s dismal performance this year, compared against just about any other of their peers. I’ll note than a lot of their formerly stalwart funds have also suffered - for whatever reason.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    JNK Etf hy-bonds or bonds etf fbnd appears with very attractive prices.
    Personally I think UST could be too high and has records gains past 10 month/prices maybe too high...... If long time horizontal maybe jnk bonds could be little better
  • Vanguard Problems
    This is an interim report on mutual fund to brokerage transitions (4 IRAs, 1 Trust).
    The IRAs transferred easily and automatically for my wife and I. Both T-IRA and R-IRA transitioned together. All personal info transferred except one secondary phone number that I added later. Beneficiaries also transferred, and so did the bank links (I was surprised by that).
    As others have noted here or elsewhere, VG created a new VMFXX (settlement) although we already had VMFXX. To avoid possible confusion, I moved all of the old VMFXX onto the new VMFXX (settlement).
    Trust a/c transition is still pending. It required more papers - upload of copies of some trust pages, more Trust related questions. I had to call an indicated number as the auto-process got stuck and was I surprised to get through quickly - it could be a special number for account processing. Apparently, some manual processing is also required at Vanguard's end, so this is still pending. I will follow up on it mid next week if not done by then.
    I didn't sign up for electronic delivery - that option was offered but I skipped. I know I have to do that too by the month end.
    I give B+ for the process.
    Finally, the VG Trust a/c converted to brokerage too. It just took longer. I did e-mail/call 2x to follow up and was told to just wait as the trust a/c transition required manual processing by a specialist.
  • What’s a Pig Butchering Scam? Here’s How to Avoid Falling Victim to One.
    everything can be spoofed these days. my 92-year-old mother got a call from someone sounding just like my son, begging for money for bail from a mexican jail. they used his name. it was a 100 percent scam. i'm glad she did not get fooled. "Jessica" could be a burmese old, fat guy with a beard and a beer belly. Soul-less spooge-lickers. Filth. Scum.
  • Timely charts: Liz Ann Sonders
    https://twitter.com/lizannsonders/status/1572320149646053379?s=21&t=-XmIjVxzB_STi9om3ZXD7w
    There are a number of folks posting on Twitter with insightful and timely data…Helene Meisler is another.
  • 2-Yr, 10-Yr & Fed Funds (UL)
    2-yr yield is well correlated with the fed fund rates (shown is the upper-limit) but it has sprinted far ahead. Bond market controls the 10-yr yield. This chart will have a different look on refresh tomorrow afternoon.
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TVcz
    Image link https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=TVcz
    image
  • What’s a Pig Butchering Scam? Here’s How to Avoid Falling Victim to One.
    What is so awful here is both the victims and the victimizers are abused. An excerpt from the longer article:
    .Fan’s descent into forced labor began, as human trafficking often does, with what seemed like a bona fide opportunity. He had been a prep cook at his sister’s restaurant in China’s Fujian province until it closed, then he delivered meals for an app-based service. In March 2021, Fan was offered a marketing position with what purported to be a well-known food delivery company in Cambodia. The proposed salary, $1,000 a month, was enticing by local standards, and the company offered to fly him in. Fan was so excited that he told his older brother, who already worked in Cambodia, about the opportunity. Fan’s brother quit his job and joined him. By the time they realized the offer was a sham, it was too late. Their new bosses wouldn’t let them leave the compound where they had been put to work.
    Unlike the countless people trafficked before them who were forced to perform sex work or labor for commercial shrimping operations, the two brothers ended up in a new occupation for trafficking victims: playing roles in financial scams that have swindled people across the globe, including in the United States.
    Tens of thousands of people from China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere in the region have been similarly tricked. Phony job ads lure them into working in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, where Chinese criminal syndicates have set up cyberfraud operations …..
    ….About 8,000 miles from Cambodia, an American who lives near San Francisco got a WhatsApp message on Oct. 7, 2021, from a stranger calling herself Jessica. She seemed to have reached him by mistake. Jessica asked the man, whose middle name is Yuen, if they knew each other; she said she had found his number on her phone and didn’t know why. Yuen responded that he didn’t know her. But Jessica was chatty and friendly, and her photo was alluring, so they kept talking….
    At the moment Jessica initiated contact, Yuen was vulnerable. His father was in a hospital, dying from a lung disease. He had entrusted Yuen, the youngest of four siblings, with the power to decide whether to cut off his life support. It would also be up to Yuen to plan his father’s funeral and distribute his estate.
    The family had immigrated to the U.S. from Hong Kong decades earlier. Yuen, who is in his early 50s and works as an accountant for a major university, was more affluent than his siblings, who are all older than him. He felt it was his duty to take care of them in old age, much as he was caring for his father and had cared for his late mother. Jessica told him she admired his commitment to his family. She shared her own tale of having a grandfather in the hospital….
    Yuen made it clear he couldn’t afford to lose any money. If he did, he said, he’d have to kill himself. Jessica said there was no need to worry: Uncle was never wrong. Yuen owed it to his father to seize the opportunity.
    On Oct. 26, the day he had to go to the hospital to discuss his father’s end-of-life care, Yuen put money on the line for the first time. A conservative investor and lifelong saver, he’d been petrified to put even $2,000 into the brokerage. Jessica convinced him to start with $10,000 and taught him the two-step process to fund his account. First, he wired money from his bank to buy a cryptocurrency called ethereum. Then he could transfer the ethereum to a crypto wallet, whose address she provided.
    Jessica insisted that using a cryptocurrency would help Yuen minimize his tax burden. He admitted he had very little idea of what he was doing….
    Jessica didn’t seem to grasp what a hospice was. When Yuen explained that it was a care facility for the terminally ill, she perked up: “You need to make more money.” Jessica told him he should raise his account balance to $500,000 so he could cover the cost more easily.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    bunch of tramx went to tuhyx. still light on bonds, at 23 percent of total. as of tomorrow, closing out tramx and putting the proceeds into prfdx. top holdings =
    prwcx (biggest by a LOT)
    prisx
    tuhyx
    prnex
    prfdx
    Total number of holdings including 9 percent in single stocks now = 10.
  • BAMBX’s current positioning?
    Thanks FD. Yes $2500 min at Fido. And one more “fund performance site” to add to my collection and further mess with my brain.
    I decided years ago to stop using ALT funds. They are not reliable and inconsistent. I developed my own timing system(link) that worked very well for me. I started practicing it in 2013.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Submitted purchase for 26-week T-Bills (3.811% indicative yield) at tomorrow's auction.
    Good choice on the 26 week Ts. Right now my plan's to buy the 26 wk next week, after another bill matures.
  • Pessimism is deepening as bellwether companies warn of worsening economic and business conditions.
    The sell-off has been highly uneven. So those major averages may not tell the entire story or the extent of devastation in some sectors. Folks can speculate on possible reasons. 40-45% down on TRP?? OK, I realize that follows a sizzling hot 2021. But still ….
    And maybe Cathie’s long-shots will tumble 20% more before this is all over. But I’d rather buy a bit at 75% down from the recent highs than a year back.
    I think when people buy depressed stocks they’re not expecting to get rich quick. Nor do they believe that stock can’t tumble another 10, 20%. No. The reasoning is that much of the risk has been taken out. Still might loose money, but your odds of making money are far superior to what they were a while ago.
    To be up-front here. I have not / will not invest in TROW. I did, however, buy another money manager Friday and look forward to adding to the currently small position on further declines.
    Well, there’s my 2.5 cents worth.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    TIPS are finally offering positive real yields.
    The 10-Year TIPS has a 1.07% real yield in the secondary market.
    There is a 10-Year TIPS reopening auction scheduled on Sept. 22.
    The 5-Year TIPS has a 1.14% real yield in the secondary market.
    It will be interesting to see Oct. 20 auction results for 5-Year TIPS.
  • BAMBX’s current positioning?
    FARIX seems like an interesting fund, but it has a $1 million minimum investment.
    All you got to do is check it out. Fidelity and Schwab have only $2500 min.
  • Mechanics of Buying & Selling 5-Yr TIPS
    Just an FYI - on the question of commissions, most brokerages appear to charge a commission (e.g., 0.01%) in buying and selling Agency bonds. Today, Agency short term bonds were yielding nearly 50 pbs higher than Treasuries of the same maturities. If there is a wider interest in exploring Agency debt, we should open a separate thread to keep this thread on topic.
    Since we are now in the new environment where rates are rising, I think it would be great to open a separate thread on buying and selling Agency bonds instead of bond funds.
  • Pessimism is deepening as bellwether companies warn of worsening economic and business conditions.
    To feel better, look at last 3 months - NOT bad! If this continues for just 2 more weeks, the Q3 statements could be encouraging. Reason is simple - we are still a few % above the mid-June lows. Of course, things can get ugly in 2 weeks too.
    https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=$SPX&compare=$COMPQ,$INDU,$TRAN,IWM&id=p13771285746
  • Pessimism is deepening as bellwether companies warn of worsening economic and business conditions.
    Nothing definitive regarding my five--OK, really 2, maybe 1--cents, but my feeling is: 1. The selloff hasn't been that bad compared to others I've seen. 2. We haven't seen any major defaults yet from the rise in interest rates. 3. Valuations still aren't cheap by historical standards. 4. There are still perma-bulls out there saying buy. 5. Though others disagree with me, I don't think the Fed cares much about the loss of jobs that will eventually occur from defaults and reduced consumption from rising interest rates and that will drive us into a potentially severe recession. Once we enter a recession, I would imagine more bloodletting. Yet I really don't know for sure, and anyone claiming they do is lying.