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.
There are more generous INHERITED IRA rules for a spouse 10 years, or even younger, than the deceased.
You may be confusing the RMD rules for a regular (as opposed to inherited) IRA. Here are the rules for spousal inherited IRAs as described by C…
Is there a real thing, gift to a spouse, when they already own 1/2 of everything you do and visa-versa?
Surely you're not saying that if you have $100K in the bank on Tuesday and you get married on Wednesday, then you immediately "lose" $50K?
In C…
Nice piece as usual from Kitces. If nothing else, it goes far in conveying a sense of why one doesn't find calculators for this. A couple of the comments are also worth a mention:
- the first comment suggests including ACA subsidies (tax cred…
Insurance is a matter of shifting risk. The more risk you want to shift to the insurance the insurer, the more you have to pay.
If you are certain that you will only need tier 1 drugs, and are willing to assume the risk that you are wrong (i.e. p…
It looks like you're comparing three 2024 Medicare Advantage plans (plan IDs from URL):
Aetna Eagle Plan H5521-323-0 (no drugs)
MVP Medicare Gold Giveback with Part D H9615-019-0 (giveback = $30 credit each month)
Wellcare No Premium Open H2775-106…
A few other things to keep in mind:
1. ACA - for those "younger" (pre-65) folk, subsidies get phased out based on income. KFF.org seems to have a decent calculator for these subsidies. I haven't checked it out extensively, but IMHO KFF is one …
Some have posted in the past that Fidelity's eMoney provides some budgeting and cash flow capabilities. I haven't used any of these so I can't comment on how extensive they are.
https://www.fidelity.com/go/monitoring-your-financial-portfolio
Echoing what yogi wrote, according to M*'s analysis, JEPIX even without the options overlay holds a defensive portfolio with a beta only 0.8 of the market. For example, unlike VFIAX, it doesn't hold AAPL, NVDA, or TSLA. In broader terms, it holds …
Intuit (owner of Mint) is pushing people to its other property, Credit Karma.
Credit Karma is thrilled to invite all Minters to continue their financial journey on Credit Karma, where they will have access to Credit Karma’s suite of features, produc…
Now there's a name out of the past.
Odd that instead of combining share classes (there's still investor class shares JAMFX), the board decided to liquidate one class of shares. Based on ERs, I suspect that there are few institutional shares outst…
You're watching hot money flows (quick and easy transactions at brokerages). Savers willing to click a few more times can still find CDs with as good or better rates at internet (or even brick and mortar) banks.
Here are four fixed rate 2 year-ish…
Just want to make it clear, JHQAX doesn't short stocks. I've actually tried to find a balanced or allocation fund that returns as well, with lower or the same volatility.
HFSAX has returned nearly the same amount as JHQAX (6.54% vs 6.71% annualized…
IOW, a plan with a $300 deductible is not a high deductible plan.
By design, high deductible, HSA-eligible health plans discourage use. Aside from free (no deductible) preventive care, they may cost so much to use that they are effectively just…
How can a political candidate possibly get elected by presenting reasonable arguments if a large percentage of the population appears to be immune to reason?
Or facts. A poll by The Economist and YouGov last April reported that 80% of Democrats a…
PEOPX and DSPIX are two different funds, not two share classes of the same fund. PEOPX is projected to distribute "just" 5.7% of NAV.
Useless trivia: PEOPX ticker comes from the Dreyfus fund's old (1990s) name: People's Index Fund. (A fund for t…
Certainly she can ask HR what she can do, recognizing that HR likely had nothing to do with her initial enrollment. I have my doubts about prospects for success, but there's no harm in asking.
CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) is th…
There's no requirement that HSA contributions be made into the employer's HSA. She can open an outside HSA (say, at Fidelity) for the year. The benefits of contributing to an employer's HSA via payroll deduction are:
1. Possible employer contr…
One huge benefit of HSAs is years of buildup of funds ....If she is only going to work 2-3 more years, I wonder if it is worth her while to sign up for the HSA now and deal with unenrolling from Medicare Part A with the Social Security Administrati…
This link seems to cover a lot of the questions regarding HSA and turning 65
hsa_and_medicare
At age 65, you can use your HSA to pay for Medicare parts A, B, D and Medicare HMO premiums tax-free and penalty-free.
You can use an HSA to pay for Me…
Unlike Mr. Sherman, I assumed the OP was talking about 3 yr stddev, because OSTIX's 5.46% is close to the target 5.20%. The latter is just enough lower to make it worth looking at a fund that is at least that much "better". In contrast, OSTIX's 10…
This looks like Price Equity Index 500 PORTFOLIO that is offered via insurance products. AUM is $26.8 million only and ER is 39 bps.
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/summary?s=0P00003DWI
https://www.troweprice.com/financial-intermediary/…
Not too surprising. Given its relatively high ER (currently 0.20%), the only raison d'être I could ever see for this fund was as a convenience for T. Rowe Price investors.
Some may not have wanted to open an account elsewhere for a cheaper S&am…
I haven't been looking at Off-Topic threads, so I missed this. Saw your post in CD vs. MM rates. Great to hear that you're doing well. We've missed your posts.
RPHYX / RPHIX has reopened, so that's another option that's available to you. Sho…
I'm not sure I'd call a related distributor (a la Fidelity, Vanguard, etc.) a third party, as that term often suggests independence. Rather, a distributor is a separate legal entity (whether independent or a subsidiary), perhaps a distinction witho…
I was looking at the historical performance of a large-cap blend mutual fund yesterday (a good fund -- rated "Gold" and "five stars") and couldn't help but notice that 100% of its outperfomance over the past decade went straight to operating expense…
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-23/nobody-wants-mutual-funds-now
The page contains five pieces. Though four of them are unrelated to the title of the page. The actual title of the copied piece is: Barbell Strategy
Omitted in t…
How odd. An SEC search for FLPSX annual report docs prior to 20060101 turns up CSRs for 2003, 2004, and 2005. For example, the 2003 CSR is:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/81205/000075119903000008/main.htm
Perhaps you're looking in the …
when I put DODBX into the search box everything came up as in the past
Yes, but. That's all that works.
When you put in a ticker for any non-D&C fund, it autocompletes (if the ticker isn't five chars). In any case, it shows you the full nam…
Have they determined that the health benefit outweighs any long-term problems? I remember the hype about amphetamines in the 50s.
From the same NYTimes piece:
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, an influential nonprofit group, asked abou…
New diabetes/obesity drug prices per month (image below should open), https://twitter.com/Jason/status/1692641465363493146
Only injectables, no oral tabs yet.
Most insurance cover them only for diabetes, not obesity.
The key word in the graphic…
The five year CD might have a penalty of a year (it would almost certainly have at least a six month penalty) for early withdrawal. That could still make this a good move.
But if you bought the CD from a brokerage it would be little different fro…
I believe D&C is changing their funds to institutional shares and they need to be registered with SEC. They are still sold through Fidelity Retail brokerage, but it has not been completed yet.
That's an interesting theory, but the new filings…
I’ve long held a slug in international bonds thru an etf. Seriously considering shifting that into an etf that’s about 70% U.S. & 30% foreign. ISTM that with the 10 year near 5% U.S. bonds are the better choice now. What am I missing?
FWIW, tha…
What's the connection? Is the cheapest quintile requirement intended to bias the selection toward Vanguard, American Funds, D&C (not one of the three firms totaling 18 funds on the list), and Baird? If so, is it also intended to bias against …
Below is the complete response received from Fidelity. There's really little else Fidelity could say.
Thank you for your email that we received on October 6, 2023, regarding SEC rule 2a-7. As your concerns are important to us, your email was forwar…
Some fund companies will allow you to do a direct rollover into a closed fund even if you have to liquidate your employer-sponsored plan assets to do a rollover. (Having to liquidate for a rollover is not unusual.)
Try calling TRP and asking if th…
My approximation for the closed PRWCX is a mix of TCAF + PYLD + USFR.
PRWCX - often imitated, never duplicated.
It varies its equity sleeve between 56% and 72% of its assets (per M* analysis report). That's going to be hard to mirror, let alone…
@Old Joe . My guess is the CMS just pulls numbers out of some data banks which are not accurate.
Enough with the guessing, please. Not when two minutes of searching can turn up the actual practices one is interested in.
BLS data collectors visit (…
Vanguard has two different cash sweep programs. They both use the same banks. For reasons described below not having to do with safety, I wouldn't be inclined to keep much money in either sweep account.
Vanguard Cash Deposit uses the FDIC-insured…
We go through the same ritual every year - anecdotes about how prices of some class of items or another has shot up. Then a leap from that to inferring that the average increase in prices nationwide can't possibly be what the BLS is reporting.
Th…
