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.
Lousier day for funds that held large positions in TWTR.
PRSCX can't seem to catch a break this year. Not sure many here would hold a fund like this after the dot com meltdown experience.
@hank, I agree with your thinking with a small twist.
Can't draw pictures like @bee but visualize the price volatility line of a fund in a graph in two parts, the volatity of the underlying asset class and the wiggles around that line from the man…
@jlev, your portfolio strategy looks very odd to me. You seem to be controlling for volatility in the "core" parts by increasing or decreasing diversification rather than by controlling allocation level and beta exposure into a diversified portfolio…
@cman:
1. What are some of the "sky is falling fund" choices out there? I'm not familiar with these. Can you name a handful of them?
As @scott put it, it is different for different people depending on what you want to do in that situation. Treas…
Did I miss it or there are no specific mutual fund or ETF names mentioned in this article?
The funds mentioned in the article are all in an image embedded in the middle of the document. Your browser may not have displayed the image for whatever reas…
Yes, real estate funds can provide diversification benefits with lower correlation to other equities. Just stay away from specialized real estate funds such as mREITs and buy a good broad fund well diversified in this class.
As to sky is falling fu…
@rjb112, you are absolutely correct about the complexity of annuities.
The trick is to find the right annuity (if one exists) for one's specific circumstances. You cannot say one is better than another in vacuum. SPIA, for example, isn't for every…
@hank, no disagreement on definitions.
The volatility of a fund is a combination of asset class volatility and manager strategy (focused, capital protection, etc) induced volatility. Asset class volatility is managed by buying different asset clas…
Not so fast there. If that's what Catch said, I missed it. The only reason I can think of for owning two (ostensibly similar) funds is to dampen volatility within a portfolio.
You dampen volatility only if two funds are uncorrelated. Two simila…
It’s not necessarily so. Gambling need not be a negative game, and investing is not always a positive game.
Look up the definition of expected value and understand it.
Expected value of a 1000 coin tosses is 50% heads. Doesnt mean it will be s…
Considering the response from @old_skeet as well that was posted in the wrong thread, there are a couple of different concepts being mixed up here.
First, there are two funds A & B. Should you buy just one of them or both? Forget the indexing a…
Mathematically speaking, gambling is any activity where the expected risk adjusted return is zero or negative and you hope you are lucky enough to get positive returns. Investing is any activity where the expected risk adjusted return is positive an…
@catch22, your example is not a valid rebuttal to the points made earlier.
The point isn't that choosing 3 or 4 of the ones you listed is no better than choosing any one of them especially when they may not be all fully correlated but rather that …
Funds/strategies like this are so outside the needs/experiences of typical retail investors as may be represented here that a discussion can only be generic as posted so far in which everybody is right but all miss the point.
There are a number of …
Putting that 16% in all caps doesn't make it more meaningful. This is the same type of silly argument made with marginal tax rates. It isn't worth getting a million more because you will pay almost half of it in taxes. I don't know any millionaires …
I am not sure what he means by guaranteed. Annuities are like mattresses. They vary a lot from one to another. But their main tag line is that they provide a guaranteed flow of income according to the term. That guarantee may come at a big cost, of …
The case is in hindsight only. If someone had suggested buying long dated bonds at the beginning of the year, they would have been put in a padded cell.
Even the Moose call switched to EDV after a rise of 12% or so this year close to its 52 week hi…
There will be no change on this issue until a new President is elected that favors the pipeline. Warren wants the railroads to handle the oil and that's that.
I am confused. Are you talking about moving Canadian oil to the Gulf in which case which …
I have been currently 2x short in Gold via GLL for a couple of weeks in play money portfolio. It is a momentum trade. Don't hold any Gold in core portfolio because the volatility is too high and it behaves more like a hedge than an investment.
But…
They keep using the same flawed average statistics over ALL funds to cast this same debate in different ways. I am not arguing the opposite of their conclusions but that the conclusions don't follow from their methodology unless they address the fla…
Good discussion here.
It is all a cost/reward issue. Rail cars can be made safe to carry higher volatile oil so even derailment will not cause an explosion. We have lots of dangerous stuff being carried on our roadways including radioactive stuff b…
One significant contribution of the Internet is that it allows large groups of people to create their own virtual parallel worlds and live in them.
Reality is what one believes it to be. In that world, there is no need for education, logic or crit…
Be careful. Copy and paste of all or substantial part of an article is a violation of copyright. You don't want this site getting DMCA take down notices.
The more I read about this the more I'm convinced the only thing that's really being debated or discussed is how best to get elected again rather than what's best for the country.
Not sure which is the chicken and which the egg. The two sides don'…
HY bond funds are difficult to compare because they vary so much in credit and duration spread not to mention other "gimmicks" such as hedging, preferred/convertibles, etc.
This gives a wide spectrum of risk/reward combinations in these funds which…
I am waiting for the 99 factor model which takes into account factors such as
Liquidity: returns provided in exchange for restricted liquidity
Size of investment: returns provided by an investment large enough to change the fundamentals in the indu…
As a list of people that significantly influenced business/industry, had broader impact than their own companies/domain, and reshaped one or more industries/domains in one way or the other (not just they were good at their jobs) anytime during the …
@mark, I am not disagreeing with anything you have said. I have no position on this. It was meant to promote discussion with introspection not trying to challenge your decision.
I have always believed you can get higher returns with a basket of han…
The changing attitudes towards stocks vis-à-vis mutual funds is interesting. The case for mutual funds has always been one of diversification that an individual investor cannot realistically achieve. This reduces total returns or dividends relative …
These discussions about Obamacare, US debt, US deficit are like debating which music is best to play as the Titanic sinks. The major decisions for the USA have been made and we will no have to live with them. I'm just hoping to die before the ship…
Note in the article's pie chart which asset allocation from conservative to aggressive had the best returns over time.
Do you seriously need a chart to realize that? :-)
The "over time" is a problem when one is dealing with probabilistic end of l…
"Family risk" depends on the family.
Structurally, each fund in a family is independent with a custodian. So, neither the family ownership nor a fund manager can harm across the family directly. I consider a single fund risk to limit my investment …
To further Hank's suggestion, check out
goodrx.com
for checking local prices. They also have their own group agreements with local pharmacies. Interesting how much variation exists since prices are not advertised.
Using their coupons may be chea…
And you have completely missed the logical flaw pointed out it seems.
Don’t you believe they have an investment impact? If these guys don’t impact the market, no writer does.
Did you miss where I said almost everything that is about the market aff…