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Just a few thoughts about EM with a few fund suggestions. (I own MEGMX and TRECX in that area.) From the article:

Emerging Markets remain one of the best positioned areas of the market from a risk-return perspective.
EM debt and EM equity are likely gaining traction with investors from the falling dollar and large variance in valuation between them and the US.
Within EM debt, the analysis and decision making is much more difficult as currency choices need to be made.
What am I buying in EM equity?
Artisan Developing World Investor (ARTYX)
Emerging Markets Internet & E-Commerce ETD (EMQQ)
Templeton Emerging Markets (EMF)
What am I buying in EM debt?
MFS Emerging Markets Debt A (MEDAX)
Vanguard EM Bond (VEMBX)
TCW Emerging Markets (TGEIX)
Morgan Stanley EM Debt (MSD)

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4396512-updating-thesis-on-emerging-markets

davfor December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Fidelity Disruptors Fund - FGDFX

https://institutional.fidelity.com/app/proxy/content?literatureURL=/9898959.PDF
Using the above link, on pages 17 and 18 Fidelity explains the investment process and the portfolio construction parameters of their Disruptive Funds.
...
It also states that FGDFX has "equal weight exposure to the five five Disruptive Funds
Nice find!

LMFAO

JoJo26 December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Am I reading this right ... ?

DODBX was shorting the S&P500 as of September 2020 ?
Or, was that a pure hedge...
D.S.

Shostakovich December 2020 in Fund Discussions

FAIRX - blast from the past

I held FAIRX with 2 other funds (OAKBX,SGENX) for about 8-9 years from 2000 to 2010. I held FAIRX for about 8 years and OAKBX,SGENX about 9 years. It's part of my system of finding good risk/reward funds until they don't keep up and sell them.
Similar case to PIMIX, held it from 2011 to 01/2018 and since then maybe just a for a short trade but not for moths. PIMIX is a still a good fund but not the way I do it. See my bond thread(link)

FD1000 December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Resolute Investment Managers, Inc. exercising option in ARK ETF TRUST

@Mav123: I also looked at that jibberish of a sentence and wondered if the English language has a future. String as many nouns (5 here) together as you can find and blast them out into cyberspace in hopes that no one will notice that you are being deceitful. « Tranche » is a favorite of today’s dissemblers. George Orwell is applauding in his grave.

BenWP December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Investing at the All Time Highs In VFINX

The S&P 500 through the lens of Presidencies:
stock-market-by-president
If you need to spend your money within the next 3-5 years... keep it in cash (or ST Treasury Bonds).
@davidmoran, If you can avoid the powerful persuasions of fear and greed over the middle term (3 -10 years) by following rules...we all need personal investment rules...then equities over the long term looks promising.
The 10 year rolling average of an index such as the S&P 500 is pretty impressive.
In Percentage Change (last update 2016):

Source:
https://bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/rolling-1-2-3-5-10-and-20-year-sp-500-performance/
In Percentage Returns (10 year rolling average):

There are two major takeaways from the chart below:
1. Historically, once the long-term mean has been breached on the up-side, annualized returns have remained elevated above the mean for an average of almost 18 years.
2. Historically, once the long-term mean has been breached on the down-side, annualized returns have remained subdued below the mean for an average of almost 10 years. This is significantly lower relative to the time-frame on above mean returns.

Source:
https://credentwealth.com/blog/10-year-annualized-rolling-returns

bee December 2020 in Fund Discussions

"IVOL might be an option for some"

Per their material: "IVOL is a first-of-its-kind ETF which is designed to hedge the risk of an increase in fixed income volatility and/or an increase in inflation expectations. It also seeks to profit from a steepening of the yield curve, whether that occurs via rising long-term interest rates or falling short term interest rates, which are historically associated with large equity market declines....What makes IVOL unique is that it is long interest rate volatility via its access to the OTC fixed income options market. No other active or passive ETF has provided its investors access to this market before."
I think the 'secret sauce' is their options stuff and access to OTC stuff that we don't have - but you could probablt replicate much of fairly easily. That said, I suspect the majority of its performance is probably from SCHP and you could stick with SCHP if you wanted to.
Bogleheads has a lengthy thread on it, which is where I stumbled across it and decided to take a flyer on -- so far it's done fine. https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=324165

rforno December 2020 in Fund Discussions

FPA Capital meeting postponed until 12/16/2020

FPA Capital still needs more votes to ratify the fund merger. Meeting was adjourned to January 27, 2021.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/99188/000110465920139878/tm2039435d1_defa14a.htm

TheShadow December 2020 in Fund Discussions

The Making of Biden's Superfast Push for Clean Electricity

15 years is a long time. 15 years before we landed on the moon we didn't even have an orbital flight. It seems like a short time but a lot can happen in 15 years, more so with an optimistic outlook. I'm sure in 1954 there were people who said there is no freakin way we'll ever land a man on the moon in 15 years, that's crazy talk.

royal4 December 2020 in Other Investing

The Making of Biden's Superfast Push for Clean Electricity

I always liked this flow chart. It shows the magnitude of the task to change the country’s energy sources. According to this, solar supplies a tiny amount of electrical generation and a minuscule (1%) of the total consumption. I’m not saying don’t change, just pointing out what a heavy lift it will be.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-americas-energy-use-in-one-giant-chart/
Original source: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov

Rbrt December 2020 in Other Investing

"IVOL might be an option for some"

In the "Alternatives to Low Yielding Bond Funds"" thread @rforno said

IVOL might be an option for some. I'm using that as my cash alternative at the moment.

@Mark then asked

What's the catch? IVOL is roughly 90% made up of another ETF SCHP.

SCHP is a Schwab US TIPS ETF, and IVOL seems to be something called "Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility and Inflation Hedge ETF "
No one has really picked up on discussing either of these funds, and I'd really appreciate input from anyone having knowledge in this area. With respect to the current market conditions, would this be a reasonable time to consider TIPS vehicles?
Thanks to anyone who can help on this.

Old_Joe December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Investing at the All Time Highs In VFINX

Such success at 'calling' the dips --- look at those notional shifts into T-bills. Surely he must be at least as rich as Buffett.
If only he also offered a fund 50-50 VONE and BND.

davidrmoran December 2020 in Fund Discussions

FAIRX - blast from the past

What could go wrong? Half the FAIRX portfolio, St Joe, bought almost 13y ago and up >140% ytd, is
... one of Florida's largest landowners, with about 573,000 owned acres, of which 70% is located within 15 miles of the Gulf of Mexico. Holdings are concentrated in Walton, Bay, Gulf, Franklin, and countries, in the northwest corner of the state. It also owns a few thousand acres in other counties. It has secured entitlement for development on roughly 30,600 of these acres, to include about 16,300 residential units and 10.3 million square feet of commercial space. Several thousand of its entitled acres won't be developed for decades.

davidrmoran December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Dodge & Cox Emerging Markets Stock Fund update

Update:
Looks like the offering has been pushed back until January 8.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/29440/000168386320015329/f7601d1.htm

TheShadow December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Alternatives to Low Yielding Bond Funds

I'm assuming that @Crash means that PTIAX's R² calculated relative to Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index is substantially higher than the category's R² calculated relative to that same index.
While 39% is certainly higher than 16%, the numbers are so low as to provide little insight. At best (i.e. assuming that the linear regressions are even meaningful), it says that 2/5 of PTIAX's gains/losses can be explained by movements in the "bond market".
Multisector bond funds don't resemble the bond market and so comparing performance with the broad market doesn't offer much insight. M* doesn't even benchmark the category against this index. Instead it uses Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Universal Bond Index. (See the footnotes under the Risk and Volatility Measures table cited.)
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/864498/a-more-complete-bond-index-fund
FWIW, the index that M* finds to be the best fit to the fund is a 65/35 blend of Barclays High Grade and Barclays High Yield indexes. Which isn't all that surprising given that the fund has about 10% BB or below and another 8% unrated. That's less junk than the category average (40% BB or below and 5% unrated), which also explains its higher but still small correlation with the (investment grade) aggregate bond index.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/ratings-risk.action?t=PTIAX
Compare this with a multisector fund like TSIIX which comes close to category average allocations: 36% BB or below and 4% unrated). With more junk, its R² relative to the investment grade aggregate bond index of 15.30% is nearly the same as the category average 16%.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/ratings-risk.action?t=TSIIX

msf December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Alternatives to Low Yielding Bond Funds

Thanks, Crash and Starchild, for your suggestions.
PTIAX, another multisector bond fund, looks good and I'll add it to my watchlist to monitor its risk/reward performance.
Fred: M* link to 3-5-10 year risk/reward profile:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/ptiax/risk
I'm seeing a relatively high R-squared compared to its category.

Crash December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Alternatives to Low Yielding Bond Funds

Where do you see 59% of portfolio in B and BB bonds?
PMEFX Inception 7/31/20.
As of 9/30/20: 25.7% equity and 74.3% bonds. Of the 74.3% bonds: 22.7% AAA, 6.1% BBB, 27.2% BB, 22.6% B, 3.9% CCC and 17.5% convertibles. Not enough time to see how the portfolio construction settles. Limit 40% equity exposure.

shipwreckedandalone December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Alternatives to Low Yielding Bond Funds

PMEFX 59 % bb-b bonds (fixed income)
Stay safe, Derf

Derf December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Wealthtrack - Weekly Investment Show - with Consuelo Mack

December 22nd Episode:

bee December 2020 in Fund Discussions

Investing at the All Time Highs In VFINX

Yes, thanks; my chart criticism was misguided. I am kneejerk about reinvesting.
I picked a longlived mfund, FFIDX, and as usual went to:
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart.action?t=ffidx
M* always includes "S&P 500 TR USD", which is often (not always) slightly unmatched by the performance of actual SP500 mfunds. That aside, the $10k value of S&P 500 TR USD as of 1/11/73 returned to $10k (with reinvestment), indeed had broken even and then gone above, by 7/2/76. Which is earlier than I wrote.
This abovewater state continued for a while.
I don't know what a fair fund example would be for SP500 for that period. FFIDX, fwiw, was itself back to breakeven by the middle of June of the Centennial, ~3.5y later.

davidrmoran December 2020 in Fund Discussions

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