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Since 10/1, equities are off 8-14%, HY -3%, IG -1%, while IOFIX, even after yesterday’s move, is -1.0%. Hopefully [IOFIX] can get that back soon.c
IOFIX got some of that (4c) back Wednesday. If Tuesday's dump was in the mode of the usual pattern of…
Here's another current article from the San Francisco Chronicle regarding PG&E's possible future:
Can PG&E survive the Camp Fire?
Handy, factual article. Can't help thinking this is among the first of what eventually will be many similar un…
Anna, he saw some firefighters using fire rakes (not garden/leaf rakes) clearing a break near the perimeter of the fire, didn't notice the other equipment that was undoubtedly there or nearby (chainsaws and pulaskis and shovels, and if the terrain w…
Thanks, @Old_Joe. Wow, poor ratepayers, poor California. (A friend lost her home and essentially everything in the Thomas fire last year. I can't imagine the collective pain being felt in all those wildfire areas.)
And I (along with many fellow cit…
Don't utilities routinely carry insurance for outages and disasters? Or are they just trying to pay for what the insurance won't cover? Man, I'm not sure I'd want to be a PG&E ratepayer in the age of wildfire disasters. (But then I've never actu…
This is a pretty good chart talk from a guy with Cornerstone Macro, a group I've found to be pretty sound on econ and financial analysis. Note he's talking 'quality' outperforming -- sometimes a last gasp up at the end of a cycle.
Another bit of in…
JENSX, Jensen Quality Growth estimate = $2.904 =~ 5.7% long term at the current price, less than a penny short term. 12/7 ex & pay.
Wuh-woh. Updated estimate = long term $3.945, or ~ 8%.
I wonder if article was written before the correction in October. Small caps we’re outperforming through September but have faltered badly over the past few months.
It's dated Nov 1, last Thursday. Maybe the assignment goes back to before the sellof…
Hey Crash, ignore the subtext and focus on Mike's suggestion. Anytime you wonder about a fund's performance vs. the market, first order of biz is to look at individual holdings. Also, sector concentrations can sometimes help suss out the differences…
Leuthold's zeroing in on the zone several other observers have pointed to as a likely candidate for the trigger for the next big blowup -- corporates at the lower end of investment grade. (Moody's Baa is equivalent to S&P and Fitch's BBB, which …
So perhaps every quarter when you adjust your allocation to bring it to par you take money out.
2019 will be my first year at RMDs, and for right now anyway, that's the basic plan.
Funny how things change sometimes. Never thought that I'd be wishing for a return of ol' GWB instead of what we've got now.
@OJ, once in a while that thought crosses my mind too, and then I recall that it was a package deal that included Dark Lord C…
@VF: I tried to do 3 primary with different % in retirement account. I think its being a retirement account that's causing me grief./blockquote>
Several years ago, at least, that was the case at V. They wouldn't let me set up a TOD on an IRA at …
A valuable perspective from Mark Headley: he mentions pretty much all the disparate things we hear and read about China, in context and through his (newly) more independent point of view.
Have to agree with @AndyJ about the length of games. I have been taping playoff games and then fast-forwarding between pitches, pitching changes, and between innings. At one point I had David Price taking 30-40 seconds between pitches. I thought MLB…
I like the Red Sox style a lot: fundamentals, two-strike make-contact hitting, running the bases aggressively, etc., vs. the new strikeout-or-homerun offense model that's way too prevalent in the game now. There's a reason Boston had the best record…
* Bank loans and non-agency mortgages are still working, knock on wood.
* U.S. quality equity's doing okay. Health care's done great lately, but may be time for a siesta. Consumer staples have been moving in the right direction, and typically do o…
This is a fine summary of the state of play, and point 4 is worth studying in particular:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/mitch-mcconnell-medicare-social-security-bloomberg-news-entitlements-deficit.html
Excellent, concise; love the bar graph…
I use these two funds to fill in my bond portion of the portfolio along with a short-term bond fund. 30-35% total
@ Bobpa, are you saying you have 65-70% is in stocks? If so, and you're roughly retirement age like a lot of us around here, you've go…
If it's as simple a question as it sounds, then imho it's buy or hold. I've been redirecting $ to both as I've reduced CEF holdings.
Like bee, though, I'm not entirely sure why the question ... you might get more specific replies if you were more …
So, Mike and other MFO brethern, Have you hugged a Native American today?
Welcome, jonesge.
No, not today, but I will give my Cree friend a big hug, like we always do, when our book group meets at the end of the week.
My city's one of quite a few…
Caution advised; Blackrock is staking its whole argument (well, in addition to the obvious tax-equivalent yield argument, which everyone who's ever read anything about t/e munis already knows) on relatively wide discounts, which in itself shouldn't …
Apparently the audiobook ML made about the Weather Service is incorporated into the new book, The Fifth Risk. It covers the attempt to gut the NWS's mission (with limited exceptions, an attempted prohibition on public forecasts!) to boost the fortun…
Lightening up on FI CEFs, concentrating now on Pimco multisectors with significant non-agency mortgage stakes (PCI, PDI, PKO), and adding to FI credit OEFs that are working (loans, mortgages), mainly IOFIX, SEMPX, and EAFAX. Modest equity exposure n…
The article lede is a biased presentation of the Fed data. Note that the data tables also include the median figures. Apparently the not-so-sharp "samurai" got (rightly) dinged for not including the median in his "analysis" under the original header…
This phrasing in the article is prob'ly revealing: "especially those focused on muni bonds and other fixed-income investments...." Munis as a class, yes, but the author (and perhaps his sources) seem to extend the theme to CEFs in general, which isn…
If the Morgan Stanley global fund is too volatile for ya, PGIRX is another growthy, high-P.E. fund with a bit lower downside risk. It's relatively new, but appears to trail MGGPX when growthy stocks rally and beat it when they lag. (M* risk ratings …
If fairly simple tech analysis is your thing, EEM is still deep, deep, deep in death-cross land, with two head fakes since the 50d/200d cross in June. There are several MA, MACD, and/or RSI signals you could use for a buy trigger (no guarantees, of …
What would be the case for investing in SEMPX when you have IOFAX?
Here's the latest fact sheet; see holdings info on p. 2. SEMPX is also a mortgage fund, but as you can see, it's a lot more diversified than IOFIX ... which is almost entirely lega…
Of course it's the producers of commodity ag products, where exports play a big role, that are getting hurt. On the other hand, farmers who produce food for direct local/regional consumption are doing just fine.
Maybe that'll turn out to be the si…
Right, they should just pull a random sample from the morningstar.com forum and run with it ... or, they can prob'ly get all they need from the 791 (and counting) comments on the "How Tiresome ..." thread.
There's a M'star piece on the debt/capital ratio of S&P 500 corps up now.
Short FWIW version: over the past 3y, it's grown beyond the 2009 GFC peak (43% vs. 37.5%). Mid/small caps and foreign have smaller but still fairly significant ratios.
…
Possible triggers for the corp debt bubble going systemic: banks start to tighten standards for "covenant-light" loans, a single-industry cascade of defaults and maybe bankruptcies (frackers appear somewhat vulnerable to such, unless prices jump so …
