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.
True, TIAA has SOME products for general public. But it keeps dropping many - LTCI, life insurance, etc. Some of its IRAs require TIAA-eligibility - some connection with TIAA due to current/prior job by self or close family members.
Likewise, there…
TIAA Brokerage is via Pershing/BK. So, things are clunky.
Nonretirement stuff at TIAA is only for those with retirement accounts that WANT to stick around for consolidation of accounts. TIAA hasn't made serious efforts to attract general investors.…
ETF.com duration numbers are NOT correct.
First, for securities that reset weekly, duration should be just 1 week.
Second, even if it calculated duration ignoring the weekly resets, a portfolio of 2-yr FRNs should have duration around 1 year. Ther…
In investments, not everything is long-term. Some opportunities are just transient. From tipsters, these can be scams. But the FRNs indeed present a good/genuine transient opportunity now - UNTIL the rates start to go down (late-2024? 2025?).
I wil…
Long-term performance of FRN ETFs is meaningless; during much of the ZIRP regime, they had negative spreads but spreads have been positive since mid-2022. FRNs have done well since 2022 because of the ZIRP regime being gone (first the expectations, …
Current rates:
Government M-mkt funds (7-day yield) VMFXX 5.26%, SPAXX 4.97%, SNVXX 5.04%
3-mo T-Bills 5.56%, 8/17/23
FRN yield = T-Bill yield + spread (2023 range 12-20 bps).
So, one has to decide if extra 40-75 bps over m-mkt funds with FRNs …
While Fido website doesn't recognize D&C funds or tickers, through an open web search, I found Fido links to several D&C I class funds (TF). It could be that Fido and D&C are negotiating new terms for Fido platform listings (NTF, TF). Sc…
Not a bad idea to get off the FR/BL train soon. When rates stop going up, these act just as short-term HY from low-rated companies that cannot access the normal bond market. There is a recession risk too, but the is consensus that it has been cancel…
PBI tracks down people & verifies if they are dead or alive without being obvious about it. So, it isn't a matter of - why they didn't just call me?
You may have heard of stories about people defrauding insurance & annuity co & retireme…
That is a common problem with bonds.
Most bonds don't trade often and funds are forced to use matrix-pricing, i.e. the prices of something else with similar quality and duration that traded. It is more pronounced for lower-rated bonds.
Only Treasu…
Thanks for clarification that FidSafe wasn't hacked. I am aware of similar digital-lock-boxes for important personal documents/data but I haven't use any. Looks like glorified Dropbox or OneDrive - I use both.
But Fido retirement plans were hit by …
And Howard Marks & a group left TCW before that (1995; founded Oaktree)). In fact, Howard Marks helped Jeffrey Gundlach a LOT (2009) by providing most of the the initial costs to set up DoubleLine (new fund registrations, new office, some basic …
USPS Informed Delivery is usually the same day, or the next day, or after 7-10 days (if mail misdelivered & hopefully returned to Post Office/mail-person).
Complaint is useless. I have complained about delated deliveries of Certified mail (not…
To the list I should add media owned/run by billionaires. Several look like vanity plays.
Benioff - Time (US)
Bloomberg - Bloomberg (already mentioned)
Bezos - Washington Post
Laurene Jobs - Atlantic
Musk - Twitter (social-media, nonprint)
Masa Son…
Major media is owned by big corporations.
Comcast/CMCSA - NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Sky News (UK)
Disney/DIS - ABC
Fox Corp/FOX - Fox News; Fox Corp is run by Murdoch clan that runs News Corp/NWS
News Corp/NWS - WSJ, Barron's, Sun (UK), Times (UK)
Paramoun…
From 2003-08, Neuberger & Berman was owned by Lehman. Luckily, it was one of the bright stars in otherwise sinking Lehman portfolio and came out OK in 2009 post-Lehman spinoff.
A program isn't a fiduciary. The RIAs (Registered Investment Advisors) are fiduciaries.
So, a RIA handling PAS (or other financial stuff) will be a fiduciary. The RIAs need Series 65, or Series 7 + 66, exam(s).
A call center employee (needing onl…
Many may not be following these details. But using the formula in Treasury LINK provided by @msf, I was able to verify the data for the recent 52-wk Auction.
In the recent 52-week Auction example in the OP, TR = 5.392% (calculated) and i = 5.351%, …
@CLAY62, brokers have higher fee incentives to pitch SMAs or advisory accounts. But ask them for multiyear, after-fee performance records. The posted data elsewhere for advisory programs don't indicate superior performance than good retail funds ava…
Unfortunately, bond ladders also have a duration. A 10-yr bond ladder may have a duration around 4-5 years.
So, the ETF PLW has duration 10.80 (M* Portfolio tab below) and SD 9.07 (M* Risk tab) - plenty volatile!
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xn…
@msf, thanks for Treasury and CFR links. I will go over them.
Interesting that calculations are different for < 6 months (an approximation) and 6-12 months (exact calculations).
There are 4 examples presented in the Treasury link. The first tw…
An actionable take from OJ was that funds within the T-IRA and 401k/403b cannot be touched, period, except by their owners. Even OJ's lawyer who were stiffed for their fees at some point (well, OJ was in jail) couldn't access OJ's retirement funds -…
For check writing, one should use only government m-mkt funds. Checks can remain outstanding and valid up to 6 months and some bounced checks can quickly run up NSF fees and related headaches.
Note that Fido and Vanguard use only government m-mkt …
Just be aware of the differences between government m-mkt funds and higher yielding prime-retail m-mkt funds. May be use both, the former for critical needs and check writing, and the latter for less critical needs.
Short-term rates are peaking, but it would still be hard to call the absolute top. It is now? Or, 1-2 +25 bps hikes? But that should be it.
Long-term rates are now a puzzle. When people were expecting a recession, they were calling for long-rates t…
Ally was in the 3rd category - outlook changed to negative.
Category 1 - Downgraded now
Category 2 - Under review, for potential downgrade soon
Category 3 - Outlook negative, meaning that those may be downgraded at some point in the future (or not)…
The Fed is stressing capital requirements. But that hasn't been the real problem.
The problem of unstable deposits in this smartphone & Internet-rumors era is not really quantifiable. Bank runs now develop in hours/days, not months.
One can g…
While Moody's rates credit unions, I haven't seen reports of similar downgrades.
Credit unions have simpler models - take deposits, offer CDs, provide auto and home leans, park excess in Treasuries. They don't have CRE exposures. Their membership m…
Moody's downgraded 10 banks (M&T, etc), placed 6 under review (Northern Trust, BoNY/Mellon, etc), and changed the outlook to negative for 11 banks (Capital One is in this category; others are PNC, Ally, etc).
Moody's concerns are real estate/CR…
NVDA shorts have been killed. But Wall Street made money either way because there are both long NVDL and short NVDS ETFs.
Reverse-splits are BAD news. They are attempts to bury mistakes; some ETFs may eventually be shut.
Single stock ETFs are also …
I have a relative in bank compliance business.
Only reason to use off-bank platform, and use encrypted WhatsApp/Signal, etc, is to hide something. It's a well known NO-NO, but even the employees from big banks are caught doing this.
Weekly 13-wk and 26-wk Auction was on Monday/YESTERDAY.
Once a month 52-wk Auction is TODAY. I have an order in.
Save/bookmark Auction schedule, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/221/Tentative-Auction-Schedule.pdf
Regional bank KRE is showing some damage in the pre-market (-2.7%). It has been rebounding from the May lows.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=KRE&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p21145977994
Rest of the Story
M*, Yahoo Finance and Nasdaq are still showing Schnitzer Steel/SCHN.
Change to Radius Recycling/RDUS is supposed to be official in September 2023; RDUS ticker isn't yet recognized. Some sites may be jumping the gun on the name ch…
