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@John Chisum: I'm just the messenger, not the message.
Ted, if you don't want that angle to be misunderstood, you need to put quotes around the sentence(s) you quote from the articles you post, as has been said before, and as we all learned in juni…
Hey John - IG = investment grade, AAA-BBB credit rating, the zone that's generally more affected by rate changes, and whose prices typically run in the opposite direction from stocks.
From Barron's blog, a nice summary of YTD action in bonds - remember the talking heads predicting 'nowhere to go but up' when the 10y hit 3%?
Like expatsp said, choice of bonds depends hugely on what else is in the portfolio, and the last few days…
John, like the article says but doesn't go into detail on, there's more to the story than just a general "rising rate scenario." At the most basic level, if it's the Fed raising its key short rate, the part of the curve directly affected is the shor…
WisdomTree has a suite of hedged Japan etf's if that's of interest ... DXJ is the broad-based one.
The Matthews prospectus boilerplate language (for each of its stock funds, under "Principal Investment Risks") says this:
'While the Fund is permi…
Junkster: "To find out which open end are which you don't need to read any prospectus. You can just go to Yahoo finance and click on the historical prices of the fund in question."
Yes! I wanted to highlight this statement, 'cause at least some pro…
BG might do well starting with a low-AUM unconstrained fund, if the BOND-PTTRX history is any guide. Using essentially the same general strategy, BOND whipped PTTRX handily since inception in 2012: +15.5% vs. + 8.4% cumulative, per M* chart function…
I'd also guess cme is the exchange where the interest rate swap is held/was purchased.
Bingo! Chicago Mercantile Exchange. From the intro to the Wikipedia entry for 'CME Group':
"CME Group Inc. (Chicago Mercantile Exchange & Chicago Board of Tr…
rjb, I think "Irs Aud" is "interest rate swap, Australian dollar," which may be effectively a way to hedge the currency risk of owning Aussie debt, which PIMIX has had as a significant position for a while. Somebody correct me on that, please, if it…
Oh great. Upcoming: the financial media reports breathlessly that Ivascyn shifted his allocation from 43.1 to 43.2% mortgages last month! (Like they did every month with Gross ...)
From the article:
"Morningstar, whose star rating system is influential among wealth advisers, said that it was reviewing its ratings of all Pimco managed funds ...."
Seems to imply that the star ratings of Pimco funds are under review, and of co…
The lack of an apparent attempt to groom a new public face for the company makes me think that there was little planning for the eventuality of a Pimco without Gross.
Agreed. It sounds like it was a rebellion from within the #2 layer that precipita…
PIMCO is, and has been for a few years, MUCH more than Bill Gross. They already have, and have had, a team approach on the investment committee that sets the macro outlook for the firm's funds, a top-notch analyst staff, and a solid group of fund ma…
Agreed, Scott, about the lack of specifics on how they run PQTIX. I'd been watching the monthly Pimco portfolio disclosures before deciding to take the plunge, and they show what exposures they have in broad categories (equity, currencies, rates, co…
As several MFOers are apparently doing, buying a last chunk of GPROX tomorrow.
New positions recently:
* PQTIX, the Pimco managed futures fund that's apparently run with more of a tactical allocation strategy than the absolute return strategy of…
Scanning the article, the author - not Bernstein - seems to be supplying the "only." Without Bernstein's full text - it's hard to evaluate.
Yep, Hank, it seems to be Michael Aniero's style to overstate just about everything, plus he doesn't supply…
Here we go - quantifying the concentration risk of the FM index after the shift, from Laura Geritz's (WAFMX) quarterly commentary:
"With the UAE and Qatar gone from the MSCI Frontier Index, nearly half of the Index is made up of two dominant market…
Thanks for the more complete writeups, LLJB. From the WSJ piece, it does sound like the index reconfiguration (and piles of investor $ going into FM funds?) was the catalyst for the warning. The quote from the spokesperson, though, was about the att…
So why would FINRA issue an "alert" right now, as opposed to a month ago, six months ago, a year ago, etc.? The alert begs the question, and nothing in the very brief article gives a hint as to what the answer might be. Did they just now notice that…
Interest rate sensitive stocks down today. MLPs down as well. Concerns over rising interest rates.
VPU, the U.S. utilities etf, was hit big today too - down 1.88%.
I think one lesson of the bond market hiccup of recent days is that, despite the many months now that the Fed has clearly signaled gradual tightening, it's so NOT priced into the market that a rumor of a relatively minor shift in language produces a…
For jlev, the OP, I think the bond question depends on how you and your significant other would react to a 30%-plus drawdown in your net worth.
You could pick actively managed bond funds that at times are correlated with stocks, but fairly weakly …
MAINX is mostly EM, but not 100%. The Matthews site lists several countries in the portfolio that are either always or usually considered 'developed' - Hong Kong, Oz, Singapore, Korea (they mean South, of course), and very small holdings in NZ and J…
As several have said here over time, beware M* on their bond/cash/hybrid breakdowns within bond and allocation funds. Their analytical tools for bonds are very, very shoddy and inconsistent compared to the tools for stocks.
Looks like if you have an AIP in place, it may be okay in taxable, as they say below - assuming it's all "OR's" between the bullets. This is from the PDF hard-close announcement on the GP site:
"Retail Shareholders (Direct Shareholders Only):
• Ret…
JG upped the HY corp stake in the core fund from 2% to 5%, so not exactly a ringing endorsement. Junkster, I follow the HY spread chart on FRED, and it's now bounced up off the 3.8% level that's been a top or bottom basically every time the spread's…
CNBC is showing the direct quote below from Gundlach on the subject:
U.S. 10-year bond rates will remain between 2.2 and 2.8 percent for the rest of the year, bond guru Jeffrey Gundlach told CNBC on Tuesday.
"The low in U.S. rates was in July 201…
I bought into ARIVX and Cinnamond when it first came out because of his conservative style .... I dumped it when I saw his affinity to precious metal miner stocks. He has been caught in a value trap for years now and won't adjust.
That was my ARI…
Hey Catch, it can also be a buy ... then sell and buy something else if it doesn't work out - no shackles.
Around here it's 4%, on its way to 5 by the end of the month.
Hi Will, on the "short-term, high quality bond fund with low risk," I'm not a big fan of THOPX either, but don't you already have something like that in the Baird fund? Also, keep in mind that Fed rates have the most influence on the short end of th…
Howdy @AndyJ,
There are a few that make comments form time-to-time ... and, you are one of these.
And, in the spirit of trying to be helpful ...
Well ... How was I to know?
No problem, Skeet; thanks for the helpful attitude. But if you read the …
If I'm doing the math right, then, 50% of the total portfolio is in assets that have significant equity/credit risk (40% stock plus 10% in bond funds that are totally on the credit-risk side - EVBAX, PRHYX, BHYAX).
If you're a conservative investo…