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
We invested with Andrew Foster when he managed Matthew Asia Growth & Income fund and followed him to Seafarer funds. SIVLX has a sizable exposure to smaller cap stocks. Really like their stock picking process. David has a real nice write up on…
Having money is good, but your health condition determines your lifestyle after retirement. We stay active when we were young. So far so good as our kids leave the house and return during holidays. Since last year we re-emerge post-COVID to trave…
Happy holidays to everyone! It is rainy and cold here in Pacific Northwest. Hopefully it will have a good snowpack in the mountains and ready for another dry year in 2024. We wish everyone to have another prosperous year.
@Observant1, at this point of our lives, we are keenly aware of EM’s risk, especially with respect to geopolitical ones. We stay with experienced management teams such as Seafarer funds, SIGIX and SFVLX, FMIJX, and ARTKX (closed to new investors) an…
@MikwM, the institutional shares, RSIIX, is on NTF platform at Vanguard, whereas it is on Transaction Fee platform at Fidelity. The minimum investment was lowered to $5K, and I have been adding. YTD total return is over 9% with 30 days SEC yield 9…
We invest with both OSTIX and RSIIX and happy to have them in our portfolio. Although both name use “strategic income” on their names, their approaches are not the same as it reflected in their ups and downs. We invest with Carl Kraufman for over 10…
@yogibb, thank you for sharing your insights on AII Sentiment.
Except for small rebalancing, I have not bought or sold anything significant in last two months. In volatile periods, I tend to sit back and watch.
Cash is building up now as CDs …
The states of Michigan and Minnesota have failed to pass the same vote. We shall see how far this goes.
The US Supreme Court now have a hot issue on their hands with DOJ Special Council Jack Smith request ruling on the absolute immunity question…
Cars are like clothing and there are many opinions depending the individual’s experience. I am cheap and thus lean toward cars in the order of being fuel efficient, reliable, large carrying capacity, and personal comfort. Believe or not, a Honda …
The misconduct also included false reports on headrest impact tests and test speeds for some models. The investigation found cases of misconduct were particularly prevalent after 2014 and, for one already-discontinued Daihatsu vehicle, went back as…
We are making small changes as part of our rebalancing:
1. Increase bond % and duration (short to intermediate and some long duration). Prefer investment grade. Funded from stocks, CDs, and T bill.
2. Increase oversea bond exposure both via index…
@Mark, think you are spot on. It was “risk on” and now is “risk off” situation in addition to a rate cut in 2024. 10 years treasury yield have fallen to 4%, and bonds took off too.
I am cautiously optimistic that we will have a decent year.
Here is my takeaways and I comments in square bracket:
1. Giroux shows his contrarian and opportunistic investment style again. His 5 year perspective on stock selection helps to buy tech stocks at “GARPy” prices as he terms it, and trimming them …
Our families are very lucky to drive Toyota and Honda. The newest car is 12 years old with over 150,000 miles. We do take care of them with their maintenance schedule.
What happen to those European cars? They used to be excellent cars.
Not everyone is rational when it comes to fear. And I believe they project that into many things including grocery and food deliveries. There is no free lunch with the monthly subscription fees to all these services on top of high inflation.
JPM team is seasoned while TRP team (a single manager) is relatively green.
I prefer wait a bit to see how it tracks against JHQAX. Still I prefer to hire an experienced manager(s).
PHEFX is available at Vanguard but not at Fidelity yet. Likel…
@MikeM and @Tarwheel, thanks for the info. I am late to RE. Hopefully there are more room to grow as mortgage rate is coming down. I like your idea of buying a basket of builder stocks. The chart looks very positive.
Since I already own PRWCX,…
@crash, I am considering buying home builder stocks instead of REITs. My pick on REIT funds have not done well in the past.
@hank, I agree that bonds are having a great day. Probably the best in recent years.
@Tarwheel, do you have more infor…
Asset allocation funds are having a great day this month. The bond sleeves are rocking as the FED holds the rate hike unchanged for the rest of the year. 10 year treasury dropped again today! For example, VWINX having more long bonds is doing well…
Hate to have AI used in my doctor’s office for diagnosis instead of highly trained doctors. I can see it is coming to speed up the search based on the results, but the human factor still holds the key.
Everything is up today! Quietly I think the pivot point is nearly here. Extending bond duration has worked out nicely for us. Still November’s CPI at 3.1 is far from the 2% FED target.
@davfor, thanks for the link. Good to see that the top 10 holdings are not dominated by the magnificent seven stocks. Professor Snowball’s article, particularly the table of GMO mutual fund ( not this ETF) is very compelling when compared to other…
For taxable account, we use mostly USFR and some money market for liquidity purpose. Having 6 months worth T bill ladder maturing ensure a constant cash flow.
For tax defer accounts, there are many more options including those mentioned here.
@yogibb said,
Well, tables were turned soon on Ramsey as many on Twitter showed that with Ramsey's advice, anyone who started in 01/2000 would have already run out of money by now, forget about 30-40 years. So, fool was Ramsey. He didn't offer a …
Since we are the older demographic, our doctors recommend the above vaccination. Face mask is still required in doctor and dentist offices, and we are glad they are still taking the necessary precaution.
@Old_Joe, it has been very hard for our family socially as well. Through careful practice (mask and hygiene), our college kids manage not to get inflected, while many of their colleagues were not as fortunate. We return to work since then but stay…
@Crash, there is a long history going back before WWI of how Swiss banks gotten very very rich. As shown in a number of NPR articles. There are reasons to maintaining “neutrality” for Switzerland.
https://npr.org/search/?query=Swiss%20banks%20Nai…
Really think that is only the tip of an iceberg. Swiss banks are well known for their secrecy to hide the identities of depositors, and thus avoid reporting asset to IRS. Some Caribbean banks also share the same practices.
Get off your ass and lose that 15 lbs. Take a walk or bike ride or swim. Toss a few dumbbells around a couple times a week. Get some fresh air, breathe deeply.
Have been doing for quite awhile. Goal is watch your diet, especially during the holid…
The intermediate term, 5-7 years, is the sweet spot. Those who bought long bonds when they were down double digits, they have since been rewarded handsomely. Ironically junk bonds are out-performing treasuries so far. If and when the economy turns d…
@Charles, I apologize for all the confusion. I figured it out that my browser was struck on a bad link, and I repeated the same error. Once I clear the cache and reload a fresh page, everything work like a charm. Once again, please accept my apolog…
It is the bond portion that I am concerned about PRCFX. Historically, Giruox has well over 10% in floating rate/bank loan bonds in PRWCX. His fund has another manager besides Giroux, presumably he will manage the bond portion of the fund. Is there…
