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
@MikeW, msf provided a very detailed description of two largest brokerages - Fidelity and Schwab. Both have their pros and cons and it is really depend on what you are seeking. As you can see many opinions are offered since our individual needs and…
Same here. We have been with Fidelity for several decades along with Vanguard. Their customer support, website reliability, and stock research are second to none. They also have offices in large cities if you need to talk directly with someone (we…
msf's reported ER is corrected (per PIMCO prospects 7/31/19). It is more than double the ER from a year ago.
Look like PIMCO missed several marco calls this year and the fund is lagging its peers. When the asset is so large it is very difficult …
Congratulation, you are indeed very active at 72. Lately we have been consolidating our IRAs for ease of management and also in case of declining health in the future. TRP or Vanguard's TDFs would certainly simplify our lives.
@davidmoran, thank you for all the links. I have not follow Janus for a long time. Make sure this Janus Henderson team has a consistent track record. You may want to analyze the fund on portfoliovisualizer.com for performance and risk analysis re…
@davidmoran, I invested in PRWCX 10 years ago before it closed several years back. Today It is not possible to get in as new investors. You need to do some research to find a reasonable alternative balanced fund in the brokerage you are using. As …
I also use portfoliovisualizer.com to compare fund performance as well. Also one can obtain risk data - % drawdown and so forth. Once you register with the site, you can download the information as PDF files for additional evaluation.
@ET91, today environment is challenging for smaller cap funds. TRP is one of the few shops that close their funds in order to maintain their investment process and their expense ratios are reasonable. I invested with their Mid Cap Growth fund for…
@davidmoran, you are more experienced with CEF bonds. I have not been tracking PCI for decent entry points, i.e. discounts/premium. Sometime volatility of close-end bond funds is unnerving. What do you consider a reasonable discount on PCI? …
Royce funds has been declining in performance for some time now. Long time ago I invested with them briefly but found Royce funds to be average (at best) as active managers. Today I use TRP mid- and small cap funds, but most of them are closed to …
@davidmoran, I am thinking the same on PONAX/PIMIX as well. By the way, many PIMCO bond funds are trailing this year comparing to their peers. PONAX It is a multi-sector and mostly domestic bond fund. It also uses swaps and other instruments bas…
Tried a Samsung phone for 3 months and it got inflected with malwares downloaded from Google app store! Never trust android phones if your value your privacy, especially relating to financial matters. Got an iPhone 5 years ago and it is still runn…
Look like USAA is getting out of the business of financial services. I understand they also have sizable insurance business, presumably more profitable.
I am not a USAA investor but I would expect to have improved services from Schwab if I wish …
I stayed with Dan Fuss when Kathleen Gaffney left her fund at Eaton Vance (glad I did). Her fund has all the potential to do really well with a small asset and the experience she acquired from Dan Fuss. Sadly this did not translated anywhere near th…
In the world of ESG investing, governance means operating a business in a responsible manner for shareholders, employees and—more importantly—customers. It’s in the latter where Facebook has failed.
The list of user-data breaches and personal priva…
I'm about 10 years away from retirement so am 70% equities and about 30% in money markets.
@MIkeW, you may want to consider a multi-sector bond fund such as PIMIX to start. In my humble opinion money market funds pay very little and it should be u…
Was in grade school and watching the landing on a black & white television. Over spring break our family visited The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and saw a Lunar capsule (not sure which Apollo mission it was from). Amazing engine…
Finally reality set in - no inflation (more like deflation), no rate cut across the board. Besides how much more to cut when some European treasuries already having negative yields. Reality is the global economy has been sluggish this year, but re…
Through my university I have access to WSJ, NT Times, and Washington Post. The public library in my town also have both the printed as well the electronic version of the above plus Morningstar - great use of the property tax dollars. Used to subsc…
Today many Californian retirees cannot afford to stay in their beautiful but expensive home state. In the Pacific Northwest we have many Californians retired here with lower cost of living. No doubt California has lot to offer but only as a touris…
The good old days when airline traveling was a real treat. Food was serve with silverware even in coach class. Flying to Europe is still quite good. Hot towel was provided before each meals.
Today the market is expensive and the earnings have been deaccelerating. Money managers I follow are having difficulties finding compelling stocks to buy.
He must be smoking something when today's 10 years Treasuries is yielding 2.5%. It is highly unlikely to reach 4% higher in two years. Especially now that Trump is urging Chairman Powell to cut rates. Today the Fed will decide the rates going for…
I recalled he was fired from TCW for his alleged pornography stuff on work computer. Even if there is a fine grain of truth to this, that is just disgraceful. So should we name him the Porn King now since he so readily label someone else?
The Environment Protection Agency, EPA was created during Nixson administration due to the pollution and environmental awareness at that time. As I recalled a major river in Ohio caught on fire that brought to the nation's attention. That is how m…
I concur with @expatsp and @catch22 on this posting. Tariff has everything to do with investing and YOUR retirement. Now Fed Chairman Powell is being pressured to cut interest rates even when the inflation is below the 2% threshold. If the econom…
Excellent choice by Southwest. Example of corporate greed on behalf of Boeing. The pilot control software package is an "add-on" option. Can you imagine air bag is optional in cars sold today?
After two crashes that point to this software, Boein…
