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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.
  • Golden Dragon China PGJ
    CW is not someone I want to invest with. I prefer Warren Buffet’s steady approach. Sold most of my EM positions last year and had a decent gain. Reallocated to developed market lately, but they got hammered hard lately. Not too many safe options left and they change rapidly this year.
    @sma3 mentioned the Chinese vaccines are not so effective, 52% compared to 90+% from the mRNA based vaccines. There is a new variant, Deltacron recently found which is highly contagious but the virulence effect is unknown. I will be ready when the booster is available in the fall.
  • Golden Dragon China PGJ
    “What concerns me is China is undergo lockdown in several large cities with several thousands cases of COVID.”
    Yes. Agree. They’ve taken a different approach to Covid and not great results. Short sellers (hedge funds and the like) have huge impact on markets today. When the tide turns, they rush in to cover their shorts as the market rises. I suspect that’s Cathie Wood’s problem. Some day ARKK may “blast off” in similar fashion - though I’m not making any bets.
    DODEX gained 8.5% today. Good for my prior holding - but not so good for the additional 20% I added today.
    PS - Speaking of ARKK, +10.4% today. Happy for those who ride own it.
  • FOMC Statement, 3/16/22
    Keep in mind that Powell is not confirmed yet. First, the announcement of his reappointment was delayed to only few weeks before his term expiry (early-February 2022). Now it is stuck in the Senate on a deadlock that was eliminated just yesterday. For now he is Fed Chair-Pro-Tempore.
    https://community.morningstar.com/s/question/0D53o00005rWm2pCAC/more-fed-nominations
  • Golden Dragon China PGJ
    Why is the Chinese stock market up today?
    I don’t ever remember any market moving 30% in a single day - though I suspect it’s happened. The Dow fell about 25% one day in ‘87.
    I think to some extent it’s a relief rally. EM - especially Europe & China - has been brutally pummeled for a year. Accelerated past few months. I suspect short sellers have been at work and now having to cover their shorts - but have no knowledge of that.
    Apparently the Chinese govt. made some remarks or monetary changes favorable to investors. And they seem to be somewhat receptive to staying out of the Russian Ukraine matter. And there were some signs of progress in the Ukraine / Russian talks, though I don’t think they materialized.
  • FOMC Statement, 3/16/22
    From Washing Post this morning,
    signaled far more rate hikes, a total of seven for this year, marking a big first step in the Fed’s precarious fight to rein in the highest inflation in 40 years.
    If 25 bps per hike, 7x0.25 = 1.75% by year end. Fed missed the boat completely to combat inflation last year. The “transitory” term should be long gone.
  • FOMC Statement, 3/16/22
    Notes after press conference 
    Low probability of recession this or next year. Inflation should start to come down in 2022/H2 - some delay is due to the Russia-Ukraine war; supply-chain issues should lessen, base-effwcts should be past. Rate hikes may be 25 bps at every FOMC meeting in 2022 & 50 bps hike is not ruled out - this will depend on data. The balance sheet reduction will cause further tightening. Talk-effect has led to some tightening already. Negative rates for a while still would mean easy monetary policy.
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/538/thread
  • U.S. inflation rate climbs again to 7.9%, CPI shows / MarketWatch Article
    A 14-point thread about frontloading of inflation expectations, longterm prospects and maturities, and construction timing:
    https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1504158983669616642
  • FOMC Statement, 3/16/22
    Press conference upcoming. May move markets.
    After the FOMC announcement equities did a U-turn. Dow fell about 200-300 points over a few minutes to about flat at present. Had been strong earlier in day. Gold ticked up $5, but is still off $15 for the day at near $1900. P/M iminers are off 2% as of 2:30.
    If I heard right, the fed is predicting a return to their target 2% inflation within the next few years.
    (But didn’t offer to sell anyone a bridge).
  • Have you ever wondered?
    Whether carousel or roulette wheel, time is finite for all of us.
    Where we land when our time runs out puts unique risk on our net worth as individual investors. I try to do a mental exercise where I knock 30-50% off of my Equity/Bond investments value to get a sense of what that would mean to my comfort level with the downside volatility of these assets.
    Jerry Jeff - Wheel
    "The wheel, though, keeps spinning 'round."

  • Benchmarking my portfolio
    At close on 3/15: Thought I'd update progress on some of these benchmarks. Over all I'm at about -6.5% YTD with about 45% in equities. My total is spilt between the hands-off robo, Schwab Intelligent Portfolio, -6.0%, and my self-managed, -7.1%. It appears I'm not as intelligent as Schwab. Go figure...
    FWIW, TRP retirement funds YTD 3/15:
    TRRIX 38% stock = -7.0%
    TBLPX 41% stock = -7.3
    TBLQX 45% stock = -7.8
    TBLSX 48% stock = -8.2
    TSBAX 52% stock = -8.6
    TBLVX 60% stock = -9.6
    VTWAX vanguard total world stock index -12.9%
  • OIL
    Lets try it this way: If an investor believed WTI would rally 30% over the next year, what vehicle would you use? No individual options. No K-1's. No leverage ETF's.
    The answer to that is NONE.
    Commodities that are hard to handle (e.g. oil) or perishable (grains, meats) can be bought only through futures, and those diverge a lot from spot prices. Just think, if you bought barrels of crude oil on the spot market, where would you put it? Only dealers and refiners can handle spot crude. So, as imperfect as futures may be, that is all investors have to play with.
    Precious metals are exceptions because you can buy and store physical gold/silver/platinum, etc and store in home safe or bank locker. There may be small friction in buying and selling (5-15%). And you can buy precious metal futures too. So, there is dual way to handle precious metals.
  • US Gasoline Prices at Pump
    Agree it’s a “hot-button” issue. Critics will milk it for all its worth. Such is today’s world of politics and eyeball obsessed media.
    My Hybrid Accord holds about 12.5 gallons. Goes over 500 miles on that. Very little “pain at the pump.” I never fully understood the fascination by many with big 4 & 6 passenger pickup trucks and SUVs for everyday use. A “life-style” choice for those who never have to haul cargo, tow a heavy trailer or go “off road.” But - yuppers - it has to hurt to drive something getting 15 mpg today.
  • OIL
    What does "better" mean? You asked for the vehicle that most closely correlates to WTI oil price. Closest and better performing are not the same. Nor do I suspect that any of the 1099 funds would track that closely, because they're likely to use futures or other derivatives. They don't necessarily track the actual (spot) price of commodities. Notice that the spot price never dropped below zero; only the futures did.
    image
    https://etfdb.com/etfs/commodity/crude-oil/#etfs__holdings&sort_name=assets_under_management&sort_order=desc&page=1
    You can check out whichever ones interest you.
    As an example, DBO returned -5x as much as OILK over the past three years (60%+ vs -12%+). On a point-to-point basis (March 14, 2019 to March 14, 2022) WTI nearly doubled, from around $56 to around $100. Neither of these came close to that.
    https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rwtcD.htm
    https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#WTI-Crude
  • Plummeting commodity prices and inflation?
    Seems many are positioned for rising inflation in their fund holdings. I am no chartist but see tops galore in commodities - either exhaustion tops or just plain old fashioned tops. And lumber shows a classic triple top. Some commodities with exhaustion tops are down 20% to 25% (and more if you include palladium) in a very short period of time. I am a bear on equities (like just about everyone else) In January I had alluded to the 73/74 period with prices unfolding far worse than many bears are currently expecting - much deeper and longer. And the bond market looks broken beyond repair. But I am beginning to wonder if we are all being fooled by the headline news of uncertainty over Ukraine, interest rates, inflation, and the pandemic The stock market is a counterintuitive creature and even more so at bottoms. Logic just doesn’t cut it. I don’t want my bearish bias to influence me and will be closely watching for one or two humongous momentum days that come out of the blue (upside over downside volume) and then go from there. In other words, let the market tell me what to do and not my opinion. Meanwhile, If anyone can explain what is going on with the plummeting commodity prices I am all ears.
    +1. Thoughts well worth keeping in mind!
  • Tough Day in Bond Land
    @Charles, I used to buy T-Bills when rates were higher. Elsewhere, I had a thread on their upcoming new issue dates.
    https://community.morningstar.com/s/feed/0D53o00005E8ZAtCAN
  • Tough Day in Bond Land
    Does anyone here buy individual corporate bonds or TBills?
    I know you can do latter through TreasuryDirect, as well as broker.
    Examples:
    Dish, B- (hmmm), 1 year, 5%
    Ford, BB+, 1 year, callable (lol), 3.7%
    Alibaba, A+, 1 year, 3%
    US TBill, 1 year, 1.5%
  • TRP CEFs
    Traditionally, indexed ETFs were not required to disclose holdings on a daily basis. The rules were changed in the past few years; in 2015 the WSJ wrote:
    here’s what many ETF investors probably don’t know: Passively managed ETFs—those that seek to track an index—actually aren't required to disclose all of their portfolio holdings daily.
    Many fund sponsors voluntarily provide that information. But at least one major ETF sponsor, Vanguard Group, doesn’t.
    Index funds do have to make available to so-called "authorized participants"—typically large institutional organizations, such as large securities firms—what's known as a "creation basket" daily. That list of securities typically [but not always] mirrors an ETF’s holdings or is a representative sample. Authorized participants who assemble and deliver that specified basket of securities receive ETF shares in its place.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-TOTALB-2415
    My point here is just that IMHO transparency is overrated. Vanguard ETFs worked well for many years without it. So long as the arbitrage mechanism with authorized participants and portfolio composition files (creation basket/redemption basket) works well to keep market price close to NAV, daily transparency isn't essential.
    As Sven noted, mutual funds generally take their full 30 days plus to disclose portfolios and investors are okay with that.
    Surely no list of offbeat active ETFs that voluntarily release holdings on a daily basis would be complete without mentioning ARKK's daily disclosure.