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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.
  • Osterweis Strategic Income - OSTIX
    FWIW, Zack's summary on OSTIX, with the last excerpted statement perhaps being the most important:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ostix-strong-bond-fund-now-110011455.html
    It might be, if the text in Zacks' column preceding the excerpted conclusion had demonstrated clear thinking or basic understanding of metrics.
    OSTIX carries a beta of 0.21, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities.
    Given that the R² of OSTIX with respect to a broad market index of fixed income securities is virtually zero (0.02 as of June 30), the reported beta means nothing.
    a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal.
    Given two funds identical aside from cost, is the cheaper fund really only likely to outperform the more expensive one? Under what conditions, all things being equal, might the higher cost product outperform?
    For that matter, how do you have two funds otherwise identical (aside from cost), where all things are not equal?
    In terms of fees, OSTIX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.86% compared to the category average of 0.85%. OSTIX is actually more expensive than its peers when you consider factors like cost.
    It appears that Zacks is equating how expensive a fund is solely with its ER. Otherwise it would note that since some other funds have loads, OSTIX is less expensive than (many of) its peers, all in, when you consider operating costs (ER) and purchase costs (loads).
    Or maybe not. Zacks does allude to other factors aside from cost that affect how expensive a fund is. What could those be?
    None of this refutes (or confirms) Zacks' claim that OSTIX "looks like a somewhat average choice". I merely suggest that Zacks could use a better set of bifocals when it describes what it sees.
  • Thomas H. Atteberry, of FPA Funds, change
    As an aside, FPNIX (for some reason) is still open to new investors at Vanguard, $1500 minimum, tf status.
  • Time to sell or buy ?
    AMZN could go down a long way without it being its demise. The stock has a market cap of $1.7 trillion and a forward p/e of 56. Let’s say it fell 2/3 or 66%. That would give it a closer to normal p/e of almost 19 and a still sizable market cap of $570 billion.
  • Vanguard Wellington Fund reopens to third party financial intermediaries
    Wow. Thank you Shadow.
    That's a big deal.
    Wonder if it's because this biz cycle, since Jan 2020, it's only done OK versus peers, likely impacting AUM (but I have not checked that)?
    image
  • Anti-Ark ETF to Bet Against Cathie Wood’s Flagship Fund
    The Short ARKK ETF would seek to track the inverse performance of the $23 billion Ark Innovation ETF (ticker ARKK) -- the largest fund in Ark Investment Management’s lineup -- through swaps contracts
    The fund would trade under the ticker SARK and charge a 0.75% operating expense, in line with ARKK’s fee.
    Anti-Ark ETF
  • Time to sell or buy ?
    I see little reason to be nibbling at AMZN at this time other than it's down a bit. Nothing in the charts say that it's moving higher, in fact the opposite. I can wait.
    Agreed, technicals don't look so good right now.
    BUT...12-month price targets were only lowered mildy by some, and most are still in the 4,300 to 4,700 range, or about a 35% gain from today's close.
    As they say, bells aren't rung at market (or individual stock) tops or bottoms. While you're apparently eagerly awaiting an interim bottom, I bought an extra slice of AMZN DOWN over 8% from Wednesday's close.
  • Time to Repaper the Debt Ceiling Again
    >> What do I advocate? The immediate question and the start of this thread is whether to raise the debt ceiling. I'll give a Republican quote from the original piece: "My personal opinion is that once we have acquired the debt, we are responsible for the debt and you need to address the debt."
    Okay, which is to say ... what ? (The utterances in quotes.) Whatmeans 'address'?
    PK tweet today:
    Rs are warning that infrastructure etc spending will boost demand and cause the economy to overheat — a 180 from their former position that stimulus is ineffective. 2/
    Meanwhile Dems are arguing that things like childcare will expand the labor supply and other policies will raise productivity 3/
    Now, Rs haven't done the math (surprise). Even if purely debt-financed, the Biden plans wouldn't be all that big a stimulus. Here's potential GDP as predicted by CBO 4/
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7d4-LmXMAUXq9J?format=png&name=900x900
    Cumulative over the next decade is $295 trillion. So even a $4T plan is only slightly over 1% of pot GDP. [[This is stupidly understated.]] And largely paid for, although many of the pay-fors look like vaporware. Still, overall fiscal impulse [[he almost certainly means ‘impact’]] not big 5/
    [[ This GDP-growth graph has to be the basis for the CBO - CRFP 107% - 113% range you show. ]]
    Anyway, GOP is Keynesian when it suits them. Surprise. 6/

    Again, you gotta get a blog or your own substack in order to delve unserviceability.
    My first issue is whether that GDP growth constancy will come true.
  • Time to Repaper the Debt Ceiling Again
    When Krugman wrote nine years ago that all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base, he was talking about solvency. That's also the subject of this thread - raising the debt ceiling so the government doesn't default.
    Nothing about inflation (increasing money supply), nothing about whether it's the Fed financing the deficit. So the conclusion that "Fed purchases of bonds and rising M2" aren't affecting inflation says nothing about how fiscal policy is putting solvency at risk.
    In short, for the most part, references to inflation are red herrings.
    As a reminder, Krugman wrote: what matters for government solvency isn’t the absolute level of debt but its level relative to the tax base.
    As I already noted, and also as Krugman wrote: "the dollar value of G.D.P. normally grows over time, due to both growth and inflation." That's the only place where inflation enters into the equation, i.e. into the debt-to-GDP ratio.
    If that ratio continues to increase, as it has for the past half century, then it doesn't matter what inflation is, or whether interest payments are negative in real terms. They're already incorporated into that ratio.
    Blanchard argues that with low interest rates, the cost of servicing the debt is low. True enough as far as it goes. But if the debt is increasing faster than revenue because "deficits are too large", then ultimately the debt becomes unserviceable regardless of how low the nominal interest rate is.
    The tired old WW2 debt warhorse aside, debt-to-GDP has been increasing pretty steadily over the past half century. With projected $1T+ deficits as far as the eye can see, do you see that trend reversing? (Hint: your budget projection link shows debt-to-GDP rising to 140.3% in 2025 and 140.5% in 2026 before receding, but that assumes that the 2017 tax cuts will expire on schedule after 2025.)
    How much debt is too much? When the government cannot service its debt. That is, at the point of catastrophic failure. Of course it would likely be too late politically to reverse course well before that point.
    What do I advocate? The immediate question and the start of this thread is whether to raise the debt ceiling. I'll give a Republican quote from the original piece: "My personal opinion is that once we have acquired the debt, we are responsible for the debt and you need to address the debt."
  • Impromptu Webinar Video Recording [30 July]
    To support a request on the MFO Discussion Board, we will be holding an impromptu webinar tomorrow, Friday, 30 July, 11am Pacific (2pm Eastern). No charts. No need to register. Just demos of MultiSearch's ability to screen large numbers of funds, quickly. You can join us at that time by clicking here.
  • The Fed this summer will take another step in developing a digital currency
    Short summary of research note...
    Bank of America (BofA) called central bank digital currencies “a much more effective payment system than cash,” in a research paper published Wednesday.
    ...CBDCs could “replace cash completely in the (distant) future.”
    CBDCs qualified as money “by allowing store of value and being a unit of account and means of exchange,” differentiating them from cryptocurrencies that “do not meet these criteria. “Since they are traded, they could be seen as an asset class,”
    CBDCs could lessen the need for stablecoins, noting that the latter could “present a material financial stability risk during times of market stress when there may be a crypto to fiat currency run.”
    Bank of America Calls CBDCs ‘More Effective’ Than Cash in Research Note
  • Vanguard Wellington Fund reopens to third party financial intermediaries
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/105563/000168386321004334/f9360d1.htm
    497 1 f9360d1.htm VANGUARD WELLINGTON FUND 497 PS 21J 072021

    Vanguard Wellington™ Fund
    Supplement Dated July 29, 2021, to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated March 29, 2021
    Effective immediately, Vanguard Wellington Fund is re-opened to all prospective financial advisory, institutional, and intermediary clients without limitation. The Fund remains open to all other clients without limitation.
    © 2021 The Vanguard Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
    Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.PS 21J 072021
  • Osterweis Strategic Income - OSTIX
    FWIW, Zack's summary on OSTIX, with the last excerpted statement perhaps being the most important:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ostix-strong-bond-fund-now-110011455.html
    Excerpt:
    Bottom Line
    Overall, The Osterweis Strategic Income Fund ( OSTIX ) has a neutral Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively similar performance, average downside risk, and higher fees, this fund looks like a somewhat average choice for investors right now.
    Don't stop here for your research...
  • Time to Repaper the Debt Ceiling Again
    >> it would help if you could explain what in the piece you found relevant to budget deficits.
    Well, of course this, an interesting way of looking at it:
    And the Fed has indeed bought a lot of government debt. But is the Fed really financing the budget deficit? ... and the following paras.
    >> It's really hard to see how the US is meeting Krugman's assumption that deficits aren't too large.
    ... while there are plenty of reasons to worry about what’s going on in the U.S. economy, Fed purchases of bonds and rising M2 aren’t on the list.
    Rather than being reactionary or putting it in personal / one-man terms ('Krugman's assumption'), it would be good to know what you actually think. Deficits are now too large? Or recently so, passing some threshold? At what point? Whatmeans concretely --- what would you advise?
    In this more recent piece by what's-his-name
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/opinion/government-spending-deficits-infrastructure.html
    is a link to the famous 2yo Blanchard paper on public debt in times of low interest rates
    https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/public-debt-and-low-interest-rates
    plus a link to the latest whitehouse chart apparently indicating that budget proposals' real interest payment are negative:
    https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/budget_fy22.pdf#page=42
    So ... do you argue (or feel) that things in August 2021 have become sufficiently direr, or whatever it is, that the preceding 'shrugman' conclusions do not obtain as much? What does msf advocate?
  • Time to Repaper the Debt Ceiling Again
    The Krug quote was from 9y ago, as noted, just making the general point, and over long spans. ...
    Agreed. Blips over short periods, say one year or even five years, can be the result of so many one-off events that they should generally be disregarded.
    click the 5y and 1y graphs to see the decline and leveling from a year ago.
    Uh huh.
    more-recent thinking is here:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/opinion/money-federal-reserve-deficit.html

    That's a piece about monetary policy; this thread is about fiscal policy. While they're not unrelated, it would help if you could explain what in the piece you found relevant to budget deficits.
    What I read is an argument that if the Fed increases the money supply, that doesn't necessarily cause inflation because agents "stash[] away huge amounts of currency — probably mostly $100 bills" rather than put them into circulation.
    [A minor observation: while Krugman says it is mostly about the Benjamins, he writes about "green pieces of paper bearing portraits of dead presidents"]
    If Fed borrowing doesn't necessarily cause inflation, then we can dismiss one of the ways I'd mentioned for debt to grow more slowly than gdp - inflation.
    Since the Fed was brought into the conversation, we can consider this quote from Powell:
    “The idea that deficits don’t matter for countries that can borrow in their own currency I think is just wrong.”
    https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/26/fed-chief-says-economic-theory-of-unlimited-borrowing-supported-by-ocasio-cortez-is-just-wrong.html
    Which gets us back to the basic point that debt growing faster than gdp, i.e. the debt:gdp ratio increasing, is unsustainable. And that is what Krugman effectively reiterated in 2019 when he wrote: "But what matters for government solvency isn’t the absolute level of debt but its level relative to the tax base, which in turn basically corresponds to the size of the economy."
    He goes on to state:
    And the dollar value of G.D.P. normally grows over time, due to both growth and inflation. Other things equal, this gradually melts the [debt] snowball: even if debt is rising in dollar terms, it will shrink as a percentage of G.D.P. if deficits aren’t too large.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/melting-snowballs-and-the-winter-of-debt.html
    "Other things being equal" seems like little more than wishful thinking by Krugman if we look over long spans. Debt as a fraction of GDP has grown from 40% in 1966 to well over 100% now.
    It's really hard to see how the US is meeting Krugman's assumption that deficits aren't too large. Here are debt:gdp projections from March (i.e. before the latest proposed expenditures are included)
    image
    https://www.crfb.org/blogs/new-budget-projections-show-record-deficits-and-debt
  • WCM International Small Cap Growth Fund (I class) to close to third party intermediaries
    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318342/000139834421014946/fp0067545_497.htm
    WCM International Small Cap Growth Fund
    (Institutional Class Shares - Ticker Symbol: WCMSX)
    A series of Investment Managers Series Trust
    Supplement dated July 28, 2021 to the
    Prospectus, Statement of Additional Information and
    Summary Prospectus, each dated September 1, 2020, as amended.
    As previously communicated in a Supplement dated May 20, 2021, effective as of the close of business on June 18, 2021, the Fund is publicly offered on a limited basis to only certain investors. Effective as of the close of business on September 1, 2021, existing registered investment advisors, bank trust firms and broker dealers or other financial intermediaries that have an investment allocation to the Fund in a fee-based, wrap or advisory account will no longer be permitted to invest in the Fund on behalf of new clients. Accordingly, effective as of the close of business on September 1, 2021, this Supplement will replace the Supplement dated May 20, 2021 to the Fund’s Prospectus, Statement of Additional Information and Summary Prospectus.
    IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING PURCHASE OF FUND SHARES
    Effective as of the close of business on June 18, 2021 (the “Closing Date”), the WCM International Small Cap Growth Fund (the “Fund”) is publicly offered on a limited basis.
    Only certain investors are eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, as described below (the “closure policy”). In addition, the Fund may from time to time, in its sole discretion based on the Fund’s net asset levels and other factors, limit the types of investors permitted to open new accounts, limit new purchases into the Fund or otherwise modify the closure policy on a case-by-case basis.
    The following groups are permitted to continue to purchase Fund shares:
    1.Shareholders of record of the Fund as of the Closing Date may continue to purchase additional shares in their existing Fund accounts either directly from the Fund or through a financial intermediary, and they may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions from Fund shares.
    2.New shareholders may open Fund accounts and purchase shares directly from the Fund (i.e., not through a financial intermediary).
    3.Group employer benefit plans, including 401(k), 403(b), 457 plans, and health savings account programs (and their successor, related and affiliated plans) (collectively, “Employer Benefit Plans”), which made the Fund available to participants on or before the Closing Date, may continue to open accounts for new participants with the Fund and purchase additional shares in existing participant accounts. New Employer Benefit Plans may also establish new accounts with the Fund, provided the new Employer Benefit Plan approved and selected the Fund as an investment option by the Closing Date and the Employer Benefit Plan was accepted for investment by the Fund by the Closing Date.
    4.Members of the Fund’s Board of Trustees, persons affiliated with WCM Investment Management, LLC, the Fund’s advisor, and their immediate families may continue to purchase shares of the Fund and establish new accounts.
    In general, the Fund will rely on a financial intermediary to prevent a new account from being opened within an omnibus account established at that financial intermediary if the account would not otherwise satisfy the conditions outlined above. The Fund’s ability to monitor new accounts that are opened through omnibus accounts or other nominee accounts is limited, and the ability to limit a new account to those that meet the above criteria with respect to financial intermediaries may vary, depending upon the capabilities of those financial intermediaries. Investors may be asked to verify that they meet one of the exceptions above prior to opening a new account with the Fund. The Fund may permit you to open a new account if the Fund reasonably believes that you are eligible. The Fund also may decline to permit you to open a new account if the Fund believes that doing so would be in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders, even if you would be eligible to open a new account under these exceptions. If all shares of the Fund in an existing account are redeemed, the shareholder’s account will be closed. Such former shareholders will not be able to buy additional shares of the Fund or reopen their account.
    Please file this Supplement with your records.
  • screening large numbers of funds
    Other metrics now in MultiSearch Results table:
    Tax Cost Ratios, both Pre and Post Liquidation, 1, 5, 10 years.
    Fee Waivers, Waiver Type, Waiver Date, Waiver Limit.
    30 Day SEC Yields, with and without subsidy.
    Adviser and Subadviser fees.
    Definitions page updated as well, which now includes all the new preset screens.