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.
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Sven
Lynn,
Thank you so much. I am planning on a 3-year ladder since I am a year away from retirement. Lots of spreadsheet work to calculate the income replacement needed. This ladder will create a steady income stream. So thank you for all your help.
I moved back to high quality bond funds this year. Some of which you covered in the SA article. For now, I will stay with agency bonds to the bond ladder. I will pick active managers for corporate bonds.
Sven
The book is a classic. I still have the 7th edition of that book and it was a reading assignment for my business class. In addition, Vanguard has a number of good articles under News & Perspective.
@JoJo26, I hope you noticed that during 2007-2008 crisis vast majority of active managed funds did not offered any downside protection. Only a handful did not lost as much by holding large % of cash. Many did even worse than their respective index…
If the figure above is representative of US general population, we are in trouble unless the they have a healthy social security and generous pension. Over the past 20 years define pension plans have largely been replaced by define contribution pla…
I really like to see the endowment funds from all the major universities and how they compare to target-date funds, say 2000 till 2016.
Even among the target-date funds, some are better than the others just like 529 college saving plan.
Stable value funds are generally available in 401(K) in large companies. It provides a slightly higher yield than money market with a fixed NAV of $1. I used it in the past to park my cash position and the one available has low ER.
For retail inv…
Thank you. Good reading.
Investors need to realize how real estate sector in particularly REITs is quite sensitive to interest rate. At present VNQ yields about 4% vs 2% with BND, and that attract many income oriented investors. At higher inte…
Vanguard balanced index fund is returning 6.3% as of Sept 16th - about the same as S&P500 index. Unless rates go up rapidly and more several times a year which I doubt, I think the 60/40 will do ok...
Like MSF I used a terminal networked to the university main frame computer. That was before word processing, excel spreadsheet, and Powerpoint software, let alone internet. How things have changed... So I do appreciate the all the new tools and ho…
Saw a car caught on fire because the driver's Samsung phone exploded. Sloppy engineering or what? I always thought Li ion battery packs have dual safety electronic control within the pack, at least that how laptop batteries are built.
Samsung actually helped when their Notes 7 catches on fire - couldn't be the worst timing. Sale figure of iPhone 7 shot up as Samsung's product recall was announced. Christmas is only 3 1/2 months away.
There are actually more people moving to credit unions for the same reasons many posters talked about here. And it is getting the banks notice such that they want the credit unions to live under the same rules, as the banks are subjected to, i.e. L…
@Hank,
Here is an article from Rick Steve, author to the show Rick Steve's Europe. He does a better job in explaining chip embedded credit card than I can.
https://ricksteves.com/travel-tips/money/chip-pin-cards
@Hank, we live in Pacific Nothwest, so British Columbia is one of our favorite place to visit. Vancourer has all metropolitan attractions to offer (kids friendly), beautiful landscape, and diverse culture and food. US dollar is strong relative to …
@Derf, Your Visa card provider is corrected for your protection. Only last year all Visa and Master cards finally switched from magnetic tape based to chip-based. In the meantime, my old credit card was compromised at Target. Europe and Japan ha…
@Derf: My banking relationship has soured when the lending service was combined with investment service as a consequence of repeal of the Glass–Steagall. The profit from serving small depositors is very small relative to the hefty fees generated f…
We used to accounts with another large US bank, Bank of America. They sent us all sort of debit cards, but we prefer credit cards. When BOA tried to charge us late fee (20% interest) on our monthly credit card bill while it was paid electronically…
Overall the change has been good and very predictable. The capital gain has reduced significantly and the dividend distribution is manageable, ~2% for S&P 500 index funds, for example. We have a national-based muni fund, thus we pay only state…
When the Fed raised 25 base point earlier in the year, the market reacted poorly and they held off until now. Foreign markets fell another % more than the broader US market. If the labor market and other indicators are improving (no matter how sma…
Awhile back we decided to use index funds and ETFs in our taxable accounts to minimize year end distribution. Sometime active managed funds paid out sizable distribution even in bad years.
The story has all the twists and turns...
wsj.com/articles/u-s-regulator-bans-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-from-operating-labs-for-two-years-1467956064
This "continuing resolution" has been in place for a number of years. If Congress does not pass 2017 budget then there will be a government shutdown as in 2013. All the saber rattling means little when either candidate has to face reality/looming …
I have been following this biotech story for awhile. Operating without transparency among their scientists is disturbing to say the least. The more I read the more it sounds like smoke and mirror, then came the FDA knocking on the door.
In our taxable accounts, we only invested in index funds and EFFs. Several times we were surprised by the large year end distribution and paying sizable tax.
Moving to VIMAX would be very tax efficient while the ER is at 0.08%!
What a change from 2015 when MSCI index was down 15.4%. So taking the long term view and staying the course would help to invest in this volatile asset class.
WisdomTree is considered one of the better ETF shop. Lately many of their new ETFs are are essentially slice and dice of some index. Wonder what the average holding period of ETFs in general comparing to index funds? Rapid trading is not investin…
Like Ed's comment too on cash, but I see it as opportunities to repositioning the portfolio at the right time. Little did I know that emerging market is the leading asset class this year and Andrew Foster came through again.
Barron's would do its customers a greater service if they also included a scorecard for each of the team's members past forecasts accuracy. That just might be a little embarrassing, although very educational
Agree, but Barron's would have harder tim…
Artisan's management fee has consistently above average among actively managed funds. Many did mind as long as their performance is good. Some of their strategies over the last several years have been lagging badly. For example, Artisan Sm Cap Va…
As Birinyl pointed out,the timing to add REIT when it is at its height couldn't be worst. Also only 28 companies will be added and it is far short of VNQ and SHH which both have over 100 companies.
More details on Seafarer Oversea Value fund is available on Seafarer website. Their thesis of value investing is new and unproven in a highly volatile and risky area. For now I will stay with Growth and Income fund until the new fund has been runn…
