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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.
  • Fixed income outlook from Schwab
    It seems if you go short PDI and long on PCI for the same notional amount, you are guaranteed to make 1.5% (not annualized) in three weeks.
  • Fixed income outlook from Schwab
    There are discussions on the merger of PKO and PCI into PDI at other sites. This has been a long convergence theme with the merger finally effective on December 10, 2021 (about 3 weeks). https://community.morningstar.com/s/feed/0D53o00005UznTdCAJ
  • Small-caps at all?
    Sorry... I didn't complete my sentence. Was interrupted. Ignore my comment on reversion. Cursory glance at life perf. of some of the SC was interesting but not meaningful given variable time periods of life.
    CSMVX +13.09
    FCPGX +13.71
    BRUSX +13.74
    MSSMX +13.83
    MSCFX: +15.38 and the lowest ER of the list.
  • Retirement Spend Down Discussion
    @davidmoran, I find it interesting that "B" is still a small cap value company. A little history:
    Wallace Barnes began working for both his father Alphonso and grandfather Thomas in the family hotel and general store. The general store specialized in clocks, but it also sold drugs and general merchandise. Wallace eventually became skilled as a druggist. Partly because he and his father did not get along, however, he left to start his own druggist shop in a nearby town. Lackluster returns from that venture prompted him to try his hand at a new business, clockmaking. Wallace started out contracting to supply cut glass, doors, and parts to different clockmakers who were part of the bustling clock trade that had developed in Bristol; in fact, Bristol was known as the clockmaking capital of the United States at the time. Unfortunately, the local clock industry fell on hard times when the Panic of 1857 caused a severe depression.
    At the time of the Panic, Wallace was working for clockmaker A.S. Platt. Platt, for whom Wallace had been working at the rate of $1.25 per day, became unable to pay him for his services. Instead of cash, Barnes accepted some hoop-skirt wire as compensation. In a move that demonstrated his dealmaking savvy, Wallace hauled the wire in a wagon to nearby Albany. There, he traded the wire for a financially troubled haberdashery store. Rather than stay to run the store himself, Wallace turned around and traded it for a Missouri farm that he had never seen. Upon returning to Bristol, he managed to trade the farm for a blacksmith shop, which he sold for the handsome sum of $1,600. Incredibly, Wallace used the money to purchase the troubled A.S. Platt, the company that had given him the wire in the first place.
    https://company-histories.com/Barnes-Group-Inc-Company-History.html
  • Retirement Spend Down Discussion
    150 years ago, the park system in our local town was bestowed to the city and its residence by the wealthy industrialists whose success was due in large part to its local workforce.
    https://connecticuthistory.org/mr-mrs-rockwells-park/
    Small world.
    I'm originally from Central CT and lived near Bristol.
  • Retirement Spend Down Discussion
    It seems so much good could come from all of this excess wealth, yet if such good exists, it appears under reported.
    A little off topic from this thread, but on the topic of what to do with excess wealth...
    150 years ago, the park system in our local town was bestowed to the city and its residence by the wealthy industrialists whose success was due in large part to its local workforce.
    https://connecticuthistory.org/mr-mrs-rockwells-park/
    I'm sure this happened throughout the country at the time.
    A generation later the factory work went overseas, the three family homes that once housed factory workers now are filled with section 8 housing recipients.Those less fortunate dwell in these same parks.
    We really have lost our way.
  • Retirement Spend Down Discussion
    Thanks @Junkster,
    Interesting discussion on his website through many of his video interviews...here's one:
    His site:
    https://diewithzerobook.com/welcome

    Thanks bee, actually listened to it. On a somewhat related note, one topic I never see discussed is the cruelty of the constant compounding of our capital over time. Meaning, because of the compound effect the older we get the more money we have. At some point that increasing wealth gets meaningless as we are less likely and able to enjoy our nest egg, That has never been apropos than since 2008 as the markets have steadily marched higher and higher.
  • Retirement Spend Down Discussion
    Thanks @Junkster,
    Interesting discussion on his website through many of his video interviews...here's one:
    His site:
    https://diewithzerobook.com/welcome

  • OEFs and ETFs capturing Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
    Alerian Energy Infrastructure (ENFR)? Hard to think of a $62M ETF that's focused on just a slice of infrastructure (energy MLPs) as a main ETF.
    Investopedia's piece seems a bit confused on some details. Its title says that it is about the the best ETFs going forward (best for Q1 2022), but its text says that it is discussing the three ETFs with the best past performance.
    It says that there are eight non-leveraged, non-inverse infrastructure funds with AUM over $50M. US News does indeed identify eight ETFs north of $50M: IFRA, TOLZ, PAVE, NFRA, GII, IGF, VPN, and SIMS. ENFR isn't among these eight. Is Investopedia's count wrong or it is mistaken in viewing ENFR as an infrastructure ETF?
    From the piece's citations, it seems the writer merely ran this screen on etfdb and picked the three equity ETFs with the best one year returns. In doing so, he missed a better performing ETF.
    FWIW, etfdb does not consider funds like ENFR to be infrastructure funds. Nor do M* and Lipper. Here's etfdb's list of infrastructure ETFs. If one is going to consider such funds (I'm not opining one way or the other), then ISTM that one would be writing about Global X MLP and Energy Infrastructure (MLPX) rather than ENFR.
    MLPX is a real player (the same size as IFRA), it's in the same energy MLP space as ENFR (having the same top 11 holdings in common), it outperformed ENFR over the chosen one year period by about 1½%; it has better long term risk adjusted performance (4* vs 3* for ENFR), and its bid/ask spread is about 1/5 that of ENFR (from Fidelity pages).
    If one is investing based on the just signed infrastructure bill, then it might make sense to focus on domestic funds. If one is investing longer term or seeking greater diversification, then some global funds though not recent standouts might merit a second look.
    Here's a recent Kiplinger piece discussing two global infrastructure ETFs along with PAVE.
    https://www.kiplinger.com/investing/etfs/602631/infrastructure-etfs-trillions-spending
    And a US News piece (via WTOP) giving nice one paragraph summaries about what distinguishes each of seven infrastructure funds. It includes MLPX. It also includes SPDR S&P Transportation (XTN). If one is going to consider an ETF (or two) focused on energy infrastructure, then I suppose why not consider an ETF focused on transportation.
    https://wtop.com/news/2021/09/7-infrastructure-etfs-to-cash-in-on-1-trillion-bill/
    P.S. For a totally contrarian (pure foreign), high risk (China focused), dare I say wacko option, there's OBOR - One Belt, One Road. And yet, it's a five star fund, and a lot less volatile than PAVE.
  • Small-caps at all?
    I own WAMCX and MSSMX ... the latter can be much more volatile and has had a tough year. I wasn't aware of CSMVX but @gk3105gklm keeps mentioning interesting funds to me. To your question... it depends on if you can stomach the volatility in SC for the increase in returns over the SPY. It probably wouldn't be a "main" component but I understood your question to be ... any percentage. Yes would be my answer. A smaller percentage. Separate note: when evaluating many "top performing" SC funds, the mean reversion 10+ years
  • Barron's
    @MikeM -
    Personally I don’t care for online editions of various publications like Barron’s or the WP. Not sure why - but they seem to be laid out more like a website - “links on top of links.” In addition, I had a bad experience many years ago getting one publisher to stop charging my card after I cancelled the subscription..
    Amazon pioneered the Kindle reader(s) and sells subscriptions to most anything, although tracking them down on Amazon’s site is sometimes difficult. These Kindle subscriptions read more like a regular newspaper or magazine (front page to end). Essentially, you keep “turning” pages. In addition, there’s an easy to pull down index accessible from anywhere you might be.
    Prices for subscriptions are often a bit higher, One nice feature is you can go to your Amazon account and cancel anytime. And they refund the remaining balance same day. One drawback, I suppose, is the Kindle publications don’t update throughout the day. OK with me. And some readers complain about missing charts - particularly with IBD. No - I’m not a Kindle or Amazon salesman! Just trying to be helpful. The type of subscription format is really a matter of user preference.
    Devices? The Kindle app is supported by virtually any device. I have the app installed on my ipad. Works fine. Still - being the “finicky” type, I feel I get a superior reading experience from my dedicated (Amazon) Fire 8-9” tablet. The refurbished ones are cheap and quite nice - like new.
    -
    Since they’re a bit hard to track down on Amazon, here are direct links to a few financial publications available in Kindle format.
    WSJ
    Financial Times
    Barron’s
    IBD
    The Economist
  • Barron's
    What you said about your Kindle subscription is interesting to me @hank. When I noticed the weekly paper was $5 I sent Barron's an email asking why I pay $30/month. The $30 does include paper delivered each Saturday morning and a site web account. Maybe my web-link is what you call the Kindle edition(?) I threatened to cancel my subscription if they couldn't reduce my cost. Well, they pretty much just said "we hope you reconsider and they believe they supply good value".
    That was an empty threat on my part, I didn't intend to cancel, but now the cost makes sense to me. I'm paying for the hard copy paper and an extra $10 for the internet access. Not sure why they just didn't tell me that in response to my email.
  • Closed-end fund IRL
    The ICI has a somewhat provincial perspective when it comes to fund history. Though its fund timeline does start with Adriaan van Ketwich's 1774 pooled investment vehicle the Eendragt Maakt Magt ("unity creates strength") trust, the ICI can't seem to acknowledge that this was a CEF. Rather, it gives the 1868 creation of the Foreign and Colonial Government Trust as the precursor to the US fund model.
    https://www.icifactbook.org/21_fb_app_b.html
    While this was the first fund in an Anglo-Saxon country, the Dutch fund came nearly a century earlier.
    K. Geert Rouwenhorst (Yale School of Management), The Origin of Mutual Funds
    In footnote 6, that paper adds that there was an even earlier (1773) plan for a similar vehicle, but it's not known whether it was ever actually launched.
    The ICI timeline goes on to give 1924 as the date of the first mutual funds in Boston. The Massachusetts Investors Trust was started in 1924. It seems that whatever other 1924 funds the ICI has in mind didn't survive, as the Putnam Investors Fund (1925) is often given as the second oldest surviving "modern" fund.
    Whether CEFs ever "caught on" is somewhat subjective, but consider:
    A "veritable epidemic of investment trusts afflicted the Nation" before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. By 1924, over $27 million had been invested in investment companies, up from less than $15 million in the prior year. In 1925, investment trusts holdings double to $150 million. Some 140 investment companies were formed between 1921 and 1926. A new investment company was being created every other day in 1928. "[B]y 1929 they were being created at the rate of almost one a day." The assets of investment companies rose to over $1 billion in 1928. Another $2.1 billion was added in 1929. Between those two years, the number of investment company shareholders increased from 55,000 to over 500,000.
    Almost all of these enterprises were "closed-end" investment companies that invested in securities rather than producing a product or service.
    Copious footnotes omitted. Jerry W. Markham, Mutual Fund Scandals - Comparative Analysis of the Role of Corporate Governance in the Regulation of Collective Investments, Hastings Business Law Journal, Volume 3, Number 1 (Fall 2006).
    Similarly, the late Harold Bierman Jr, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Management and Finance at Cornell, wrote that "By 1929, investment trusts were very popular with investors. These trusts were the 1929 version of closed-end mutual funds."
    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-1929-stock-market-crash/
  • Closed-end fund IRL
    This chapter on CEFs of the ICI Factbook shows that CEFs are a rather tiny segment of funds - there were 494 CEFs with total AUM of $279 billion only as of 12/2020. They are the oldest form of funds that have existed since late 1800s but are rather complex in structure and never caught on with the masses. About 38% are equity CEFs and 62% bond CEFs. Mutual funds (OEFs) came along in late 1920s and ETFs in early 1990s. https://www.icifactbook.org/21_fb_ch5.html
    Ireland IRL is quite concentrated, not leveraged, has a high ER of 1.96% (0.65% for management is OK but 1.31% "other" is high considering that there is no leverage), has high distribution due to managed-distribution policy (many CEFs do) but its large discount has persisted. One has to know more about Ireland, N Ireland, UK and EU to be exposed to IRL. Strong dollar also cuts into the return for the US investors.
  • Barron's
    Yogi,
    Your $5 news stand price seemed way too low. So I checked. You are correct. Just $5 an issue for the paper edition. What bargain! For me it has paid for itself many times over during the past year. (To be perfectly accurate here, I subscribe to the Kindle edition of Barron’s at around $12.50 monthly. As far as I can tell - it is pretty much the same as the print edition.)
    And - nice to hear @Sven subscribes …
  • Powell or Brainard Will Struggle to Align Hikes With Hiring Goal
    Perhaps some portion of the population that "retired" during the pandemic will stay retired long term. And, perhaps some younger people who were previously in dual worker households and who opted out of the labor force during the pandemic will remain at home long term thereby causing the the number of single worker households to increase. I suspect both of those changes in the composition of the workforce may be happening. Those issues will factor into the Fed's decision about when to start raising interest rates. That decision will also need to wrestle with the Fed's maximum employment mandate:
    Complicating the decision-making and posing a challenge for communications is the much-hailed revamping of the central bank’s strategy in August and September 2020.
    Chair Powell, Governor Brainard and colleagues agreed then it would “be appropriate” to keep borrowing costs ultra-low until maximum employment was reached, which they redefined as a “broad-based and inclusive goal.”
    One problem: The Fed’s policy framework doesn’t address how officials should balance risks between inflation and employment, an omission drawing criticism from economists such as Harvard University’s Jason Furman, who led former President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers.
    Powell or Brainard Will Struggle
  • Social Security Claiming Strategies - Claim Early & Invest
    msf said: Schwab is projecting average real returns over the next decade of around 4.5% in the stock market and negative bond returns.
    Would you please provide a link to Schwab? Thanks
    I read the figures straight off the graph; forecasted real returns: 4.5% for US large cap, 5.0% for US small cap, 4.4% for int'l large cap, -0.4% for US IG bonds.
    When I post a graph, I usually try to give the page from which it comes:
    Source page: https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/why-market-returns-may-be-lower-in-the-future
    But I did forget to give the source page for the life expectancy vs. income chart. That is:
    https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/04/for-life-expectancy-money-matters/
    After I posted that chart, similar data (different source) was presented in an economics class I'm taking.
  • Barron's
    Just as a clarification, those Barron's summaries are just pointers or extended abstracts or like TV Guide type notes for movies/shows or like CliffsNotes. To avoid copyright issues, there isn't any copy-and-paste. Only about a year's worth of summaries are populated on the website, but I have more than a decade's worth of them in my personal archives that I can quickly search.
    On articles/topics of interest, readers of course have to go to the original source (online if they have Barron's subscriptions or paper copy at local library or spend $5 at news stand). Also, many print-only subscribers may get their copy only on Monday/Tuesday.
    So, it is free online resource available to anyone on Saturday mornings.