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.
Best guess (based on annual statement calling this GO VR with maturity 11/1/43) is CUSIP 74514L3T2. The GO means General Obligation; I'm guessing that TRP used VR to mean variable rate. It's actually a CVIS.
That's a really funky type of bond. …
BBH funds (only BBLIX and BBMIX)
Payable on Nov 7th; convert to ETFs on Nov 17th
https://www.bbhfunds.com/content/dam/bbh/external/bbhfunds/documents/fund-documents/2025/2025-BBH-Select-Series-Large-Cap-and-Select-Series-Mid-Cap-Distribution-Estimat…
M* has often been reported as being slow to update.
My problem is that M* wouldn't present a Legacy view. Just a blank area where the portfolio is supposed to be. This time I waited about 5 minutes and the legacy portfolio finally showed up.
Whoops. Should be 9/30/22 (not a Saturday).
All funds were plotted on the same graph, so the returns are correct. I only copied the end point incorrectly.
A conservative rule of thumb is to keep anything you expect to need in cash or something very close to cash, between 5 and 10 years in substantially IG bonds, and longer term in equity or near equity (e.g. HY bonds). A more modern rule of thumb is …
That's what I was in the process of doing. (I assume SWVVX should be SWVXX; for PV I substituted CASH.)
Forward looking (simulation) rather than retrospective. NRDCX is too new to include so I dropped it from the simulation. I assumed this was …
It's up to each retailer and middleman to decide. That's competition and capitalism.
What was it that Keynes said? Trump can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?
Those (inflation) numbers do not comport with my own experience. It feels greater than what the BLS has published. Some time ago I cited a replacement window identical to one purchased 7 or 8 years earlier. The price had jumped from $400 to over $70…
Our excellent Medicare Advantage plan used to have zero premiums for years, but it’s increasing to $27 next year. Still, we can see any doctor or hospital in the U.S
I'm going off on a tangent here, but private fee for service (PFFS) plans, as this…
Companies have been absorbing most of the higher costs from tariffs in the hope that they are only temporary.
Companies had passed along about 37 percent of new tariffs to consumers, forced 9 percent onto their suppliers and absorbed 51 percent th…
Memories fade. Perhaps the 25¢ comic books you are thinking about were the 80 page Giants, containing mostly reprints.
Prices for regular editions, by year and publisher:
Do you believe the numbers?
No I don't, not the numbers in the Wolf Street piece. From that writing:
Overall CPI rose by 0.31% (+3.8% annualized) in September from August. So not a benign inflation reading, but the second worst since January.
The…
It may be a long time before we see inflation at 3% again.
Y/Y trend:
April: 2.3%
May: 2.4%
June: 2.7%
July: 2.7%
Aug: 2.9%
Sept: 3.0%
Source: BLS CPI-U database https://data.bls.gov/toppicks?survey=cu
Thanks for notifying Chip & David!
Yes, thank you. I also noticed the same behaviour.
There's a tendency when one sees something to assume someone else has already seen it and acted accordingly. Something to keep in mind when things happen.…
Why don't government MM ETFs maintain a stable NAV?
I can understand prime MM ETFs not maintaining a stable NAV. They can't preclude institutions from buying shares on the secondary market and prime MMFs that are open to institutions must have …
their NAVs fluctuate a bit around $1
The actual NAVs of all OEF MMFs fluctuate a bit around $1, but retail and government MMFs are allowed to claim "a stable net asset value per share or stable price per share, by virtue of either the amortized cos…
Schwab's MMF rates:
https://www.schwab.com/money-market-funds
Merrill's (third party) MMF rates:
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/ICCRateSheet.pdf
Vanguard MMFs (usually the best rates and only a $3K min required)
http…
My reaction to the article echoes others'. My precise thought, one third of the way through reading it was: And how exactly is this news?
Actually it was Trump who said back in April: "Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dol…
Securitized AAA isn't the same as genuine AAA (only 2 companies).
There is a difference between securitized and structured.
Securitized debt is debt created when a financial institution pools multiple loans together and issues its own debt instrum…
The news appears credible. Further, private insurers (Medicare Advantage) may be stuck paying covered medical expenses even if they don't receive payments from the government.
MA plans directly reimburse providers for care in accordance with contr…
Soon to be Abel's Berkshire.
Under an environmental compliance strategy spearheaded by Greg Abel, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the company’s utilities have repeatedly and successfully resisted calls to install SCR scrub…
Surely you understand that figure
Reference points are most effective when people have incorporated an intuitive sense of them. Manhattan is barely two miles from side to side, while San Francisco is seven miles wide. (I've walked both.) This di…
Right now, China produces more air pollution than the rest of the world combined
What's the definition of "air polution"? For example, China is responsible for "only" 30.1% of all global greenhouse gas emissions (2023 data; see Table 1 on p. 10 o…
I agree that the cap on I bond purchases limits their usefulness as a major portion of one's portfolio. But since you were looking only at I bonds purchased in 2021 (when the caps were in place) you might replace those I bonds with new, better (hi…
Curiously, one of those more attractive options is ... I bonds.
Swapping your current 0% (fixed rate) I-bond for a new one paying 1.1% will cover the early withdrawal penalty (3 months interest) in about 8 months (3.98% vs 2.86%). After that, you'…
BDC and REITs may have similarities for investors
Isn't the point of publishing ERs in a prospectus to inform investors?
but they have different business structure, so they have different treatments by SEC.
They usually do not fall under the Inve…
I'm happy to discuss what expenses should be counted as fund expenses. But we can do without the rhetoric, especially in the passive voice: "There is concern that" (which comes from the cited article).
The second line of Zweig's piece reads: "A …
Speaking of underpayment - what’s the verdict if you pay quarterly some amount but then take an IRA withdrawal in December and up your estimated in December & March accordingly? I’ll research.
Research shows - General rule: You can avoid an un…
It's about time they separated out MBS funds (e.g. VFIIX). Lipper has had separate GNMA and US Mortgage categories for quite awhile. And separating out securitized bond funds from general bond funds is also helpful.
As for all the private securi…
Yes I did realize that. But it was still worth commenting on. Especially since I generally feel that companies can be redeemed. Heartland is almost alone in how it stands by its man. And a 44% drop in a short term fund! Even Schwab Yield Plus …
Many people vowed they would not invest in Janus funds after its participation in the early 2000s market timing scandal. But there were a lot of changes made at the top of Janus. Heartland was and is at the other end of the spectrum. So I haven't…
Perhaps this is overstating things a bit, but I view the pricing of funds like these as Madoff-light. Like Madoff's portfolios, funds like these can make the ride look smoother than it is. When done with a light touch, it is legal. Business judg…
their continued service revenue for installed products
Well, for some of their installed products. They have a Korean subsidiary that manufactured our building's elevator. A few years ago our property manager was looking for a company to service …
That's exactly how ETFs are designed to work. Only Authorized Participants can redeem shares "in very large aggregations [creation units] worth millions of dollars". Retail investors "buy and sell [] ETF shares in the secondary market [on exchan…
There may be a way around that. Mins are typically reduced when one goes through third parties. Though as yogi mentioned, that likely means working with an advisor.
For example, Schwab shows a $1 min. But if you try to place an order, it says:
…
If a fund manager invests in a fund, it is possibly because they have confidence in their work. (If you want something done right, do it yourself.) Perhaps, or perhaps they overestimate their skills. Or perhaps they view investing in their fund …
With no price discovery, what else would you call a price but a guess? Perhaps an educated guess or a best guess?
Swedroe cites to this Investopedia piece on Level 3 valuations:
asset values based on models and unobservable inputs. Assumptions fro…
It's not just that CCLFX is an interval fund. It's also that the supposed lack of volatility of the NAV is due to the somewhat fictitious fair value pricing of a mostly illiquid portfolio (typical of interval funds).
The Fund calculates its NAV o…
He’ll probably correct something I said here.
Is that a challenge? :-)
I suppose sometimes I nitpick, but I usually just respond to things that, as I wrote, seem "weird".
