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.
Federal and state tax laws are different and not always in sync. HSA isn't the only area. 529s have similar issues when some federal-qualified expenses aren't state-qualified expenses.
A huge example is that SECURE 2.0 allows rollover of some exces…
In general, mutual funds don't preannounce distributions except for the yearend distributions. It's just their practice.
But ETFs, CEFs and stocks preannounce them. And some investors play around with those but that is just noise. As things flow thr…
My latest cards don't even have a spot to sign.
I don't like flat cards. They tend to stick together, and if I am not careful, another card comes out with it. This doesn't happen with embossed cards. So, embossing was good after all, beyond the car…
On 6/13/24, market-cap ranks were AAPL, NVDA, MSFT. Would MSFT get the knife? One more day of this silly drama driven by weird XLK rebalancing rules.
6/14/24 close will determine the order, but rebalancing will happen a week later on 6/21/24.
With this AAPL rally, the market-cap ranks on 6/12/24 are: AAPL, MSFT, NVDA. If NVDA remains at 3rd place by Friday close, NOTHING unusual would happen on XLK rebalancing.
Post-Conference Notes by YBB
Rates are maintained - fed funds 5.25-5.50%, bank reserves rate 5.4%, discount rate 5.5%. Inflation target remains +2% average. Base-effects have caused a slight bump in recent inflation data. Confidence in progress on …
FWIW, DepositAccounts has A+ on "Texas Rating" for Morgan Stanley/MS. That alone should be relevant for safety of CDs from MS, not the overall rating.
There is of course FDIC coverage. But the idea is not to chase top rates in CDs but watch bank ra…
For retirement plan classes (K at Fido, R1-R6 elsewhere), minimums would apply to plans, but plans may have no minimum for participants. This is because typical purchases are from regular salary payments. These retirement classes cannot be transferr…
Not all funds are supported at Fido even when it has a deal with iShares on many funds.
iShares ST-TIPS:
BAIPX https://digital.fidelity.com/search/main?q=BAIPX
BIIPX is TF & $2 million min https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/summ…
The nature of free/competitive market is that NOTHING stays at top forever. Well, maybe, Fido HSA that has ranked #1 in over a half-dozen years that I have been watching.
Brokerages have their pros and cons. I can say this because I have accounts a…
Costco gold bars/biscuits, 1 oz, are in very limited supply. They are gone as soon as the new supply is loaded. Maybe the store signs alert to the current availability.
There used to be a limit of 2 per membership, but in the current order screen, …
USFR is ultra-ST, RPHIX is ST-HY with magic sauce from Sherman (who posts here).
My high-risk assets include LC-growth and cryptos, so my "cash" is plain vanilla m-mkt funds, ultra-ST (USFR, ICSH, FCNVX), etc. No more rolling of T-Bills - USFR almo…
@Mona, both being "government" m-mkt funds are equally safe - but VG has to put boilerplate language about all m-mkt losing money. Neither has gates and/or redemption fee.
VG doesn't link m-mkt funds (like Fido), so, if you are in VMRXX, you would …
VMRXX is the old VG Prime M-Mkt. When 2014/16 m-mkt reforms happened, VG tried to get an exception because VMRXX was in retail-prime category. When exception wasn't allowed, its name was changed to VG Cash Reserves Federal & it adjusted objectiv…
@Mark, it's all about platform fees.
Schwab NTF has the highest platform fees.
Then, Schwab TF has 2 tiers - those who pay some platform fee and Schwab charges $49.99 for their funds, and those that pay zilch and Schwab charges $74.95 for their fu…
With 6/24/21 inception, the new kid on the block MCTOX / MCTDX is just hitting some 3-yr screens; both classes have the same ER. It did avoid hits in 2022. Its prospectus mentions day-trading and long-short strategies in ETFs, CEFs, stocks, so turno…
This will be in TOMORROW's Barron's. Article is available online already.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/tactical-allocation-funds-beat-market-95a77628?refsec=funds&mod=topics_funds
While the distinction between the government and retail-prime m-mkt funds is going away, Schwab retail-prime yields are comparable to others' government funds.
Schwab lags when like comparisons are made - between government funds, and between retai…
SEC loses in court to hedge funds.
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/06/05/sec-hedge-fund-fee-disclosure-rule-struck-down-by-u-s-court/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Strong dollar hurts foreign funds held by the US investors and also the US multinationals' earnings.
There are global mega-cap ETFs like IOO; note post GFC divergence.
https://tinyurl.com/495xv6yj
Using Savings Bonds for education has many restrictions.
https://treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/tax-information-ee-i-bonds/using-bonds-for-higher-education/
We bought some DECADES ago, and when these "new" rules came along, our bonds didn't qual…
529 Rollovers into Roth IRA & State Incentive Clawbacks
Check your State 529 rules if these rollover withdrawals would be qualified (good) or nonqualified (bad) & whether state clawbacks would apply. IL 529 just changed rules to make them qu…
Great new data!
I noticed that once on CATFLOWS, CATFLOWSP or CATTNA tabs, most other tabs become inactive, i.e. unclickable. This isn't a big issue because multiple old tabs remain open and I could easily go to them. Don't know if this was intenti…
The 3/25/24 reverse-split problem for BERZ & FNGD noted above has been fixed. Thanks whoever! We still don't know anything about the company or the developer.
What is the outlook for dollar?
Dollar bottomed in 2008-11 around 72. Now it is 104.66, so +45.36% of the cumulative US fund outperformance in the last dozen years is just due to the currency factor.
Many diversified funds (including TDFs) may hav…
Oh, forget it, they all buckled on revenue-sharing.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/fidelity-wont-levy-proposed-fees-purchases-boutique-etf-firms-sources-say-2024-05-30/
There seems to be an ISSUE with how TestFol handled the 3/25/24 reverse-split for BERZ & FNGD. So, there is a huge spike on 3/25/24 & then things are back to normal. Unfortunately, that kills the MaxDD for the period.
https://ybbpersonalfina…
IShares IBIT has no income, so what's the point in having it in "strategic" income funds? It may make more sense in multi-asset funds that do include derivatives - and iShares has those too. But BlackRock may just be testing the investor reaction by…
DRI (Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, etc) sold Red Lobster years ago. It's now a private company owned by Asian Thai Union Group and others. If it doesn't trade, it cannot become a meme stock.
@Mona, nothing wrong with that. Most people do just that - i.e. take appropriate RMDs from each tax-deferred account. They can do that themselves, or let the institution(s) do it for them.
But the IRS provided additional flexibility to aggregate RM…
@Mona, if you add up all T-IRA balances, apply the RMD divisor, and then round the results, there are some cases when you could be short a few cents for some RMD.
So, it is safer to calculate each RMD, round to 2 decimal places, and then add them u…
BTW, I don't use RMD services at funds/brokerages. But I do subscribe to some for information only, not execution.
I calculate my own RMDs and take them as regular withdrawals. When RMDs apply, the 1st withdrawals from T-IRA or 401k/403b are assumed…
Rollover IRA is just a label for convenience. It's a T-IRA.
With multiple T-IRAs:
1. Find yearend balance for T-IRA#1, calculate the RMD#1, roundup;
2. Repeat for T-IRA#2, T-IRA#3, etc;
3. Add them up (RMD#1 + RMD#2 + RMD#3 + ), and that's the…
Today is the day for T+1!
Stock trading in 1920s was T+1. Then, the volume rose and it was too much to handle manually. So, it became T+5. But with computers around for 60 years, it became T+3, then T+2, and now, finally, T+1 again.
When will be T+…
From Barron's May 6, 2024,
Frequent changes in the RMD rules are confusing. For tax-deferred accounts (T-IRA, 401k, 403b), the RMD age is 73 now (was 72 in 2023, 70.5 in 2020) and it will remain so until 2033. The RMD amount depends on the yearend …
@Observant1, no response (yet) to my email about 4 hours ago to PV/SRL Global support.
After you posted about access, I checked it too and it works.
OK, the reply just came:
From: Analytics Support
Sent: Monday, May 27, 2024 10:37 AM
To: xxx; An…
