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.
It's all Biden's fault.
Yeah. I thought about pointing out that Biden never had a month where the number of jobs dropped. But it wouldn't be fair to mention that without giving Trump some credit.
Trump handed Biden an economy with so few people…
President Donald J. Trump’s firing of the commissioner of labor statistics ... for announcing that job growth has slowed dramatically
It turns out that he was right. After the firing Trump got what he wanted - another June job growth revision. …
The screener includes filters on (3 year) standard deviation and 3 year Sharpe ratio so that you can prune high volatility funds before you even start reviewing and sorting the search results.
The filters allow you to set any min and max you want b…
Its odd to me that mutual funds would include private equity investments if mutual funds calculate a daily NAV.
We've seen this question before in a different context. Fair value pricing was also questioned by many people (including people here II…
Where are you with illegal redistricting?
Any specific illegal redistricting you have in mind here?
Generally speaking, mid-decade redistricting is not illegal. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006). Redistric…
As a retired investor, "I dislike volatility!", to quote keppelbay. Especially in the current uncertain market and political environment, preserving capital is more important to me than chasing returns on capital. I prefer to err on the side of cau…
Regarding the infrastructure fund, this could be reflective of infrastructure moving into another phase. With all the political noise (e.g. FEMA not funding disaster reconstruction, alternative energy projects cancelled, bridge construction threat…
There's a theory that so long as this "each wronged person must sue individually" rule holds, Trump won't appeal losses.
That's because only the few people, or at most few states, that win in court will have their rights vindicated. So long as h…
If you have the same after-tax starting value at $78K, then a percentage-based tax is a linear operator. It doesn't matter if you double the money first and then apply the tax, or apply the tax and then double the money.
Correct. This addresses t…
I'm currently trying to help a friend plan investments and cash flows for the next decade, when they will go from retirement pre-SS, to retirement w/SS, to retirement w/SS and RMDs. They also have two inherited IRAs, one traditional, one Roth.
How…
Trump v CASA - this is birthright citizenship case. The SC said that while plaintiffs can sue for citizenship, federal courts are not allowed to issue a nationwide injunction to cover all people born in the US. Rather, people born in the US will h…
firmly establishing the four eBay factors would also be necessary
Agreed. Though the Circuit Court seems to be saying that before considering whether an injunction is appropriate here, we must first ask whether the remedy of an injunction is even…
Contrast this with Fido which doesn’t even identify (or have a way of contacting them) a named rep on your account page.
Maybe you just don't rate :-)
On most of my pages, including summary, positions, activity, balances, docs is a little box in t…
Some unconventional thoughts on your allocation/drawdown plans, FWIW:
1. If all the money in your (future) RMDs will be taxed at the same rate, and if your RMDs will (along with other income including SS) will be less than your cash flow needs, th…
Appeals Court seems to have implicitly reprimanded CIT for not directly addressing the four (listed) eBay factors in its original ruling as well as, apparently, not doing so comprehensively in the follow up response.
Here we have another instance o…
Federal judges have lifetime appointments. They cannot be fired. They can only be impeached and convicted - a political process.
Count me among the skeptics about Trump firing federal judges. Attempting, sure. But firing, no way.
Still, it…
If you are thinking about a longer term CD (say a year or more), you might consider streamlining an IRA transfer by using a 60 day rollover (once per year is the limit).
You could withdraw the IRA money into your taxable Schwab account and on the s…
Thats interesting history. You motivated me to look a little further. American Beacon's acquisition of Sound Point Floating Rate Fund was a true fund adoption. The acquiring fund was "newly created" for this purpose.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives…
This case might be summed up simply as the government claiming that "IEEPA [statute] provid[es]ing the President power to impose unlimited tariffs" and the court responding, no it doesn't, not here. The concurrence went further and said in effect, …
Bonds did great during the dot com bust.
Year S&P 500 10 year Treasuries Baa Corporates
2000 -9.03% 16.66% 9.39%
2001 -11.85% 5.57% 8.54%
2002 -21.97% 15.12% 12.14%
https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histr…
In the SEC order:
Respondent [Vanguard] shall distribute from the Fair Fund to each client that enrolled in PAS during the Relevant Period an amount representing that client’s pro rata share of advisory fees paid, plus reasonable interest from any r…
Don't believe everything you read on the internet. A link to the full court ruling is below. "We are not deciding" is not to be found. People, please provide links when you give quotes. It's darn hard to find a quote that doesn't exist.
This …
Completion of the proposed Transaction, often called a “fund adoption,” is subject to, among other things, approval by the shareholders of the Fund.
This does not appear to be a typical fund adoption.
(WSJ article from a dozen years ago, subscripti…
Oh. goodie... lots more fun!
That about sums it up. Now waiting for a suit against the entire Federal Circuit Court as having made a "direct assault on the President’s ability to" conduct foreign affairs.
Analogous to the suit against the Mar…
Someone (apologies for forgetting who yugo) mentioned Sallie Mae Bank. It currently has a a top rate of 4.40% APY for a 15 month CD. It also has 4% CDs out to 3 and 5 years,
These are direct from Sallie herself.
https://www.salliemae.com/banki…
Top ten holdings are reported monthly on the website. The most recent ones reported are as of July 31. Though TRP massages its data in producing that list. So it might not be what you're expecting.
This "Top Ten" (for June 30th) excludes MMFs…
What a fund's "top positions" are depends on how one defines them. For your purpose (flight to safety), the number is actually higher than 14%.
The fund's second largest holding according to the fund's webpage is TRP Government Reserve Fund, at 8.…
The "cause" alleged is having "'falsified bank documents and property records' in an effort to gain more favorable loan terms and lower interest rates."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/us/politics/trump-lisa-cook-fed-mortgage-fraud.html
Gosh tha…
Merrill is okay for a one-off purchase and I've considered it, but there's a TF on both buys and sells. Also, Merrill doesn't sell DODEX or DODLX, at least in DIY accounts.
Some alternatives:
Buy D&C at Merrill and do a partial account ACAT t…
I respectfully submit that which national guards (or regular army) occupy areas is irrelevant.
As to the economic impact on the only state occupied so far (California), by federalized units of the California national guard, here's what the governme…
With securitized debt borrowers typically have some control over payment schedules. See "prepayment risk" and "extension risk" in prospectuses. The bottom line is that this affects convexity, often leading to negative convexity (especially for lon…
@JD_co observed that ground beef prices are shooting up (our "high end" store just raised its price 10%) and suggested we might have to resort to tofu on the barbie. That would certainly help out the soybean farmers.
[Our dinner plan for tonight …
Fidelity sells 111 distinct Vanguard funds. 115 share classes in all, as it offers two share classes of four funds: {VCPAX / VCPIX}, {VZICX / VWICX}, {VMNIX ($5M min) / VMNFX}, {VPMAX / VPMCX}
Vanguard funds at Fidelity
In its fund screener (see …
Global Wellington (VGWLX/ VGWAX) or Wellesley (VGWIX / VGYAX)?
I agree that one will rarely go wildly wrong with Wellington management. I think it is difficult to go with one fund, or even three, if one expects to have asset allocations change as…
There seem to be a few different thoughts floating around here.
- Bid/ask spread. A concern for thinly traded securities. Limit orders between bid and ask (or lower depending on price trend) addresses this. IMHO not an issue for most ETFs, at le…
Thanks for the comments. Personally I don't generally take flyers. Even if I did, I'd be buying in the expectation of making money (i.e. price rising). So I'm disinclined to try yogi's suggestion of bidding a few pennies below current ask price.…
Cost of an import/export license in the US
You generally don’t need to pay any fees to get an import/export license in the US.
The procedure for obtaining a trade permit depends on the agency you are dealing with. For imports, most PGAs only requi…
I'm using M*'s chart page (a tab found on any fund/ETF page) such as:
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fltr/chart
Set the Frequency to Daily and the Data Type to "Growth w/Dividend". That gives you total return and scales each fund charted co…
One has to be comfortable with a large amount of hi-yield fare in RPHIX. I ended up with CBUDX instead. Information on the composition of the funds is near the bottom of the links. Two funds near their range of M* standard deviation would be JPST an…
It may also be considered as an export tax.
Yes. If it walks like a duck and squaks like a duck …
Then it's an unconstitutional duck.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 5:
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
https://consti…
