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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

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  • Yes, you got the correct. Remember that Giroux uses this fund for his bond allocation (the largest position). PRWCX is doing well without holding other investment grade bonds.
  • PRPFX stayed +/- 1.0% YTD so far through April 5, 2022. Duration is about 12 months withSEC yield 3%. Core bond funds have done worse, down ~7% YTD.
  • A bit confusing there, but you don’t need to go the Google account. Just select your answers directly below and submit. I completed my poll using Safari browser.
  • Chip just fix it. Thank you, Chip.
  • Bond market got spook by hawkish Fed statement. https://fidelity.com/news/article/top-news/202204051009RTRSNEWSCOMBINED_KCN2LX1BZ-OUSBS_1 VG total bond index, VBTLX, -0.09, -0.86% VG total international bond index, VTABX, -0.12%, -0.57% Pimco Incom…
  • Have been building defensive positions on utility, consumer staples, value stocks, and commodity futures after selling most of bonds early this year. Still have cash to deploy. Most unusual year for sure.
  • @bee, thank you again to all your WealthTeack posting.
  • As you'd expect from BG, high volatility, high beta, M* high risk. Not doing well this year, again as one would expect. Concur with @msf assessment. BPESX is down over 10% per M* while the top 10 (global) holdings constitute 54% of the fund, a con…
  • I often see the “free” TurboTax tax filing from Fidelity and on TV, but it looks too good to be true. They always include a disclaimer that the offer is for simple tax cases. I suspect many of these filers may have few items to report to IRS such…
  • Another question, how will the bond market reacts when Fed starts to reduce the $4T treasury and MBS slowly?
  • At the moment, the market is not reacting rationally. There is little positive news to drive the market upward given high inflation, Ukraine war and COVID in China. Think some $ came from bonds as they are not doing well from the rising rates. Cor…
    in "The Market" Comment by Sven March 2022
  • @hank and @Mike M, please see @lynnbolin2021’s Seeking Alpha article - lots of good info. MikeM has made good move to COM. I too have invested small allocation in commodity futures via funds and ETFs since last year as my bonds lagged. They have m…
  • Thanks @pudd, we should respect the copyright of Economist’s publications. Thus, posing the entire article may not be the best. Another way to share the information with the board is to post a summary of the article in bullet points as @yogibb has d…
  • Oil pulled back due to China’s lockdown on Shanghai - worst outbreak in the last two years. It is severe enough to affect export production and oil consumption in that city. They are starting to use Pfizer vaccine which is considerable more effectiv…
  • Specific criteria and weighing factors were not mentioned in the ranking process. Customer support, on-line and/or live person, are essential to many investors. Thus the article appeared to be incomplete.
  • Many merchants these days prefer credit cards to ensure they get paid. Also they pass on the 3% transaction fee to the customers. American Express charges even higher fee at 5%. Several firms I worked for want their employees to use AE. Some sh…
    in Credit cards Comment by Sven March 2022
  • Good to know that many funds now not listing 12-b-1 fee, but instead include them as other fees. One can consider institutional shares if the minimum is reasonable instead of $1M.
  • Thanks to Ned Johnson Fidelity and Schwab were the early pioneers in discount brokerages that benefit many small investors. Prior to them, full service brokerages were the only option. How time have change. Fidelity was my first brokerage and they …
  • WB understands insurance business well since Berkshire Hathaway owns several insurance companies including Geico. It is challenging for someone to overcome this acquisition with over $11B in cash. I too read Barron’s but often fail to follow up o…
  • Congratulation on your pick! Unless someone who can offer higher bid than Warren Buffet, Y will be part of Berkshire Hathaway after 25 days. He is known not to out-bid other competitors. Also he is buying the entire company, not just taking a ma…
  • Many core bond funds are down 4-5%. Short duration bonds loss less. Nevertheless, the 2.5 month loss is much less than those of stock fund loss in a single day. We put some $ into I bond since last year. Unfortunately, it is limited to $10K per p…
  • @Obserant1, good reminder to check out our library too. @yogibb, thank you.
  • @Devo, would you please link your previous article on drawdown? I seem to difficulty locating it. @Obserant1, are you subscribing to M* in order to have access to their X-ray tool ? T. Rowe Price is now enable this tool when the investors reach c…
  • Basically, yes. Banks can raise lending rates and regional banks benefit from higher mortgage rates in today’s housing market. Two ETFs were mentioned by Ms. Mack on energy: Energy Select Sector SPDR, XLE and Vanguard Energy, VDE. Energy is the…
  • @LB, thank you for an excellent article about Micheal Price.
  • Our rebalancing process has evolved over time that include the business cycle. In our core bucket, we rebalanced it about 4 times a year. The tactical bucket where we invested in individual stocks, ETFs, commodities, and OEFs, is more actively mana…
  • Thank you. Good to know.
  • My deepest condolence to his family. Micheal Price exemplified the very best value investors and I have learned much from his funds. In the early 90's, I invested with Mutual Beacon and Discovery and have had solid results with below average risk…
  • Geopolitical risk readily translates into financial risk. If the question of is Russia investible was posted a year ago. Most likely it would be yes due to the oil and the tie to global economy. Today, it is the opposite. China posts a differe…
  • Petraeus gave 4 possibilities on how this war may end. This war remind me of the Chechnya war back in 1994 and left Chechnya in ruin along with thousands of death on both sides. Putin did not care and the Russian citizens were powerless at that t…
  • David Petraeus (former CIA director) was interviewed by CNN (Peter Bergen) and provided further insights on the Russian invasion and why they got bogged down. Quite revealing coming from a former commanded US forces in the Iraq and Afghanistan. In s…
  • The yields among 3, 4, 5, and 10 year treasuries are flattening. Will watch if this tread continues. Will yield curve flattening follow by “inversion” ?
  • Few Russian drones flew across into Poland boarder and got shot down quickly. Are the Russian testing the NATO boarder as they have done so near Finland and Norway ? Other NATO countries including Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland shou…
    in The war Comment by Sven March 2022
  • CW is not someone I want to invest with. I prefer Warren Buffet’s steady approach. Sold most of my EM positions last year and had a decent gain. Reallocated to developed market lately, but they got hammered hard lately. Not too many safe options le…
  • Really appreciate your assessment. Wild day for emerging market. Will rebalance more once things settle a bit. What concerns me is China is undergo lockdown in several large cities with several thousands cases of COVID. One is the city equivalent …
  • @Mark, On the contrary I believe COVID has significant ramifications on the economy including work stoppage, labor shortage, supply chain challenges and let alone the human toll across the globe. Just as COVID situation stabilized somewhat, the Ukra…
  • Why is the Chinese stock market up today?
  • From Washing Post this morning, signaled far more rate hikes, a total of seven for this year, marking a big first step in the Fed’s precarious fight to rein in the highest inflation in 40 years. If 25 bps per hike, 7x0.25 = 1.75% by year end. Fed…
  • Should be grateful that you don’t own Russian bonds today. They have been a whole lot more than few pennies per share.
  • For retirees who depend on bond yield, this is not a friendly environment. Today the yield on 2 and 10 year treasuries went down a bit today after the 10 Y went over 2.0% on Monday. Fed meets on Wednesday, March 16th and will decide to hike the …