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.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
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
@Old_Joe, I think you answer your own question - demand. We are facing a slowing economy as demand for services and goods are declining. In bad times consumers would find alternatives to luxury goods, beers in place of fine wines; used cars versus…
What can you do with premium wine grapes if not for wines?
The global economy is slowing considerably this year. Europe is suffering from lack of demand for their products. Tariff does not help for sure. This article is 3 months old and it poi…
In comparison, my three step CD Ladder has a current yield of 2.6%.
@Old_Skeet,
Where did you find CD ladder with 2.6% yield? Many brokerage such as Fidelity offers 5 years ladder (4 CDs) with 1.88%. A sizable reduction after Fed rate cut.
It is marketing driven effort in an attempt to gather new assets. There are simply too many ETFs just like mutual funds. There must be enough demand to keep some of them afloat for several years, then survivorship of these products takes over.
Make sense for sure. I am just happy not to survive all unnecessary ups and down. Next week there will be more to unfold now that the Chinese team left early in trade talk.
Japanese treasury has very low yield for several decades. That is one of the reason they are the largest or second largest holder of US treasury. It would be long US will follow suit as Alan Greenspan pointed out earlier this week.
I have been using PIMIX for some time, but this year it lags badly among the multi-sector bond funds. Also disappointing is that PIMCO raised all their expense ratios.
It is nuts to have mortgage rates go negative. Does that imply mortgage-back bonds will also have negative yield? For income investors what is the point to hold these bonds?
@Charles, Safari has served me well over the years just as IE, Chrome and Firefox on the Windows OS. So far Portfolio tool has been very useful while in exploring less correlated asset classes and lowering the overall risk over time.
The Recove…
@Ben, You can use the back icon to get back to the MFO Premium home page. Click Portfolios again and it brings you back to your portfolios page with all portfolios you created. Fractional % works fine. If the total % of all funds do not sum up t…
Thank you @Charles. Had lots of fun over the weekend. Portfolios is a very informative tool for visualizing changes in performance and risk parameters (Ulcer index and MFO Risk ranking) within a portfolio when low/non-correlating funds are used. …
#SharpieGate was pathetically amusing on Twitter today.
Saw that yesterday - what a scream! Yet he double-down on the error and keep insisting he is right.
That is why you work with a good brokerage so that direct roller take place between the former employer and the brokerage. In the meanwhile the customer never touch the 401(K) fund to avoid triggering several tax events.
Fidelity has helped to ma…
@davidmoran, every time I read my SS annual statement, it always stated XX% reduction on future payment. There are fewer payees than 30 years ago as the baby boomer generation are retiring today. It is good for those who are collecting SS now, bu…
@PRESSmUP and @catch22, Agree. Info on her Twitter are more concise than the longer articles she presented in Schwab.
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/market-perspective
Today the market is up (risk off) since China and US …
@msf, thank you for the excellent article.
the trust fund is projected to run out in roughly 20 years and
benefits could only be paid from current Social Security taxes – which would not actually
“end” Social Security payments at all, but merely w…
Barrons did a better job in comparing the brokerages - a more balanced view. Have to agree wth @msf on his experience. We use Fidelity and Vanguard. In the end it really boils down to what the investors need in terms of NTF mutual funds, ETFs, CE…
I believe the growth stocks in the fund that provide the volatility which should be counteract by the bond portion. Vanguard Wellesley Income with 35/65 stock/bond allocation may be of interest for those who are seeking income from traditional bala…
I worked down the cash position and let everything to recover by April. Let cash build up again in July as trade war ramped up again. This time is different as the global economy has worsen.
Good reading. We have so much to thank Facebook and other social media to magnify the cultural and political differences. The russians have learned well how to exploit these differences in order to create division and discourse of others so that i…
Here is a week old data from Schwab on their perspective.
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/market-perspective
The largest economy in Europe, Germany is on the verge of recession. UK is next as Boris Johnson pushing for no-…
The whole thing amounts to a mini-tantrum and he is angry at everybody including China who he blames them on the market and the economy on chairman Powell. The biggest mistake is the belief that lowering interest rates by 25 or 50 bp (or even 100 b…
The whole scheme is like something out of the movie, Office Space. Steal a few cents in every transaction that amounts to a big pot of money until... You need to watch this low budget but funny movie.
I wondered why he wasn't convicted of simple …
That is one reason Japan is the largest holder of US Treasury for many years. Japan government bonds have yield less than 1% since 2000.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INTGSTJPM193N
Can't imagine how their retirees depends on their government…
I will sit and wait just like Warren Buffet as things just getting interesting. If this recession takes hold it may be more painful and longer lasting than the 2008 recession. This time the Fed and others around the globe may not have much left to…
@MikeW, I have not use Fidelity's advisory service. Awhile back they want to talk with us to see if their service would be of value. We declined since they charge 1% of the total asset under management every year, and that is a lot of money. Schw…
@davidmoran and @msf, thank you for pointing out the link above. Again more tools to explore and learn. How is this MC simulation differs from that from Financial Engine?
Now you tell me, except the key is almost never. Investing is more than just absolute performance.
It is often equally important to review the loss during severe drawdown periods and the recovery duration. Take your pick during 2000-2002, 2008…
