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.
"While DJT is the originator, the GOP in Congress is really responsible,
as they have abdicated their role in government and in setting tariffs, for short term political benefits."
I agree that members of Congress (broadly speaking) have abdicated…
The BLS surveys approximately 121,000 businesses and government agencies
each month for the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program.
The response rate for this program has plummeted since shortly after Covid was discovered in America.
The BLS ha…
I can access the primary M* website and view my watchlists.
However, the following message is displayed at the top of the webpage:
"Morningstar.com is experiencing some technical difficulties and we are actively working to resolve the issues. We app…
This is about the plans for a new $200M White House ballroom.
Didn't the president have more urgent matters to contemplate rather than
transforming the White House (aka People's House) into Mar-a-Lago II?
Like ending the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaz…
I've posted the following in another thread and copied it below for your viewing pleasure.
Revisions to payroll employment data are part of the routine process.
The May and June revisions in the latest release were much larger than usual.
Although…
Revisions to payroll employment data are part of the routine process.
The May and June revisions in the latest release were much larger than usual.
Although I don't know what caused these major revisions,
it's likely that BLS process improvements ca…
The quote below is from a Warren Buffett speech to MBA students.
"If you are not a professional investor; if your goal is not to manage in such a way that you
get a significantly better return than the world, then I believe in extreme diversificati…
@Mona,
I was surprised Ms. Hynes remained the sole manager of Vanguard Health Care
after being promoted to CEO in 2021.
You'd think she had plenty of other responsibilities associated with the CEO role!
FWIW, a M* analyst downgraded Vanguard Heal…
"Amazing what a 10.5% to 12.3% does over 30 years"
Minor variations in annualized returns can lead to significant differences
in terminal value when compounded over many years!
Vanguard Health Care had a 16.4% annualized return during Ed Owens'
lo…
"I share your concern about login credentials.
this is a potential issue with all "aggregators" most of which (Fidelity retrieving your Schwab accounts etc)
in the past used Yodlee."
Using data aggregators allows multiple accounts to be viewed in a…
Investors react to firing of BLS commissioner and Kugler's resignation.
https://www.reuters.com/business/view-investors-react-kuglers-resignation-firing-of-bls-commissioner-2025-08-01/
"His instinct to fire McEntarfer is the wrong knee jerk reaction to have."
Trump's base instinct is to berate, fire, or sue any individual/institution
which has opposing views or provides information he detests.
Regardless if he has a firm understa…
Tamara Keith of NPR discusses the White House renovation with Geoff Bennett of the PBS News Hour.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-look-at-trumps-effort-to-reshape-the-white-house-in-his-image
Those are quite large revisions -- 144+147 to 19&14 ( 291-thousand to 33-thousand!)
Do they just guess based on the last 3 months or something and then later collect the real numbers?
We all thought this was going to happen, maybe it's the …
The quality of U.S. economic data, long seen as the "gold standard," may be further called into question.
“The single most important piece of news today is the BLS firing. If you can’t trust the data,
I don’t know how investors make decisions,” sai…
Barry Ritholtz does a great job describing the lay of the land.
The following WSJ article provides details from today's case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-rough-day-in-court-for-t…
From January 1, 1998 through June 30, 2025, the pharmaceuticals/health products industry
spent significantly more money lobbying than any other industry.
During this period, it spent $6.47B while the "second-place" industry (insurance) spent "only" …
I planned to purchase a different Patek Philippe watch for each day of the week.
I'd then post pictures of these classic watches on the forum to impress members. ;-)
Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste...
https://www…
Jeffrey Ptak shares his views about stuffing private equity/private credit into target-date strategies.
“I’m not necessarily worried about a doomsday scenario where there’s a failure in one target-date series—
say, they get redemptions and can only…
From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
On this day in 1914, with war raging in Europe, the New York Stock Exchange closed
and stayed shut for another four and a half months to allow the chaotic market to settle.
The following excerpt is from a book titled The Humble Investor
(Chapter 6: The Private Equity Bubble) published earlier this year.
The book's author, Daniel Rasmussen, is very skeptical regarding private equity.
“Private equity makes a beautiful p…
Looking into the rear-view mirror, it's abundantly clear that SPY and QQQ
have outperformed many other investments over the last 15 years or so.
It would be really commendable if the same "geniuses" who discovered these facts could leverage
their "v…
The Fed Whisperer was also a guest on tonight's episode of the PBS News Hour.
Jerome Powell:
“If we cut rates too soon, maybe we didn't finish the job with inflation.
There's — history is dotted with examples of that.
If you cut too late, then may…
"The poison that's being injected into America is going to remain in our bloodstream for generations."
Some of this nasty poison will unfortunately be of the "blood and soil" type.
From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
On this day in 1914, stock exchanges in Berlin, Rome, and Vienna were closed
as Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Investors panicked in New York:
General Motors shares plunged 34%, and Bethlehem…
From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
On this day in 1869, the New York Stock Exchange was formed from the merger of the New York Stock
& Exchange Board with the Open Board and the Government Board, where Treasury bonds were traded.
From WABAC's link:
"The fundamental problem facing individual investors in 1960
was that there were too many mutual-fund companies¹: over 250 of them."
How quaint!
According to the SEC, there were 8.49K mutual funds and 3.75K ETFs available in the…
