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.
I currently buy insurance on the exchange. So, for each plan, everyone living in my zip code, my gender and my age will pay the same premium - individual prior history has no relevance
Unless they smoke.
The Affordable Care Act allows insurers to c…
I believe one can claim $300 on standard form. I"m probably wrong as I haven't done my Taxes in the last 7 or 8 years. I realize $300 isn't going to help much, but to some people every little bit saved is a plus.
Unfortunately, that "above the line"…
It is unlikely at Merrill that a TRP fund being open would determine whether shares could be converted. If being open were what mattered, then one could convert PRNHX shares to PRJIX shares, since New Horizons is open.
As a general rule, if a fund…
As a general rule, with Medicare Advantage PPO plans you can go to any provider who takes Medicare. Same as with Medicare Supplemental (Medigap) plans.
However, while out of network providers will still be covered with the PPO. your copay/coins…
PRWCX vs (TCAF+PRCFX)
If you can't own PRWCX, maybe consider owning a combination of TCAF/PRCFX.
Using a percentage of the eft TCAF in combination with a percentage of PRCFX one can approximate the same portfolio as PRWCX.
PRWCX allocation change…
There's a fine distinction between feeder funds and share classes, and a not so fine distinction between those and clones.
The distinction between feeder funds and share classes is one that only wonks would appreciate. Multiple share classes of a…
Are there AA-AAA rated companies that would do seller financed purchases, with or without life estate (i.e., lease back)? If not, I would think there is a lucrative market for this product.
I'm having trouble making sense of some of this.
"Do s…
There's no sale involved in a reverse mortgage (who would the buyer be?). You may be conflating Yogi's two paragraphs. One is about reverse mortgages where you gradually borrow money against the value of your home. The other is about seller finan…
If workable, legally sell the house to a relative or trusted friend & live on mortgage payments. Terms could be mutually beneficial.
Except for the mortgage payment part, this sounds like the deal Harlan Crow made to buy Clarance Thomas' mother…
We had to max the autos to get an umbrella policy.
My experience is that they typically require 250/500 or 300/300. It doesn't matter whether your auto insurer offers higher limits or not, you just buy the min required. Admittedly, that amount i…
Lawsuit are always in Million$+
A plaintiff can sue for almost any dollar amount, but if it doesn't bear some relationship to the harm done, it's a meaningless number. As far as actual awards go, though multimillion dollar settlements get the hea…
Uninsured motorist bodily injury covers not only the driver (covered by Medicare and presumably Medigap, else potential losses are unlimited) but also other passengers who might have high deductibles. It also covers pain and suffering. Whether the…
If it seemed like I was pushing you to bank at a brokerage, I apologize. I was responding to a statement that banking should be left to banks. Since some brokerages capably provide most banking services, then if one's brokerage is convenient and …
Fidelity has had bill pay/checking in its "regular" brokerage accounts for decades, so there weren't many reasons to move to, or add, a CMA account when Fidelity introduced that.
Though the CMA account does have a few unique or different features: …
"Why not use a brokerage for banking services?"
Actually, we do. Schwab Bank is very convenient as an adjunct to Schwab Brokerage. ...
What I had in mind was skipping the bank altogether and just using the brokerage. One less account to worry abo…
Use banks or CU for banking services. Use brokerages for brokerage banking services.
Why not use a brokerage for banking services?
In 1977, Merrill Lynch took a gamble with a concept known as a CMA (cash management account). This blending of banki…
A couple of brief notes regarding credit unions:
- There is a shared network of brick and mortar CUs so that you can conduct some transactions in many locations (if your CU participates) even though individual CUs tend to have small footprints.
ht…
You may have seen the news that the 39th President Jimmy Carter passed away after about 2 years under home hospice care.
U.S. stock exchanges will close on Thursday, January 9 in observation of a national day of mourning in honor of former U.S. Pres…
FWIW, the culprit is TUHYX. Since most of these funds are from T. Rowe Price, and TRP seems to have provided data for all of them on the same date (M* reports portfolios as of Oct 31), I'm at a loss to explain why M* can't fully analyze this one f…
Which percentage table are you looking at? If it's the world exposure table on the X-ray overview page, that's showing percentage of total stock. I ask in part because that would explain the apparent discrepancy, and in part because I'm having tr…
I made one switch on Friday: exited BHB in favor of BLX..... BHB was 5.9% of my total. Now, X-Ray tells me, suddenly, that I'm holding 16.49% of total portfolio in Latin America.
To clarify your numbers: what was your Latin American holding percent…
M* has what looks like an absolute risk scale (1-100) for funds. Unlike its category risk scale (low, below average, ..., high), funds are not measured against their peers.
The methodology talks about target allocation benchmarks, but from what …
Historical precedent imo does not hold much value.
Others beg to differ. They look at how a fund performed in specific economic environments (such as the 2008 GFC you mention) and/or over full economic cycles to get a sense of how the fund might b…
I would trust AAA rated corporates over AAA rated securitized stuff.
There are lots of assumptions built into AAA rated tranche of structured credits that may have only A or BBB rated underlying portfolios. So, I won't take AAA CLO at face value, …
First line in Examiner story: "Taxpayers spend at least $182 billion a year on illegal immigration, the cost of providing services to an estimated $15.5 million immigrants."
Interesting Freudian slip. The last time dollar values were placed on hu…
Regarding annuities, I had a bad experience in the 1980s, when my company retirement program was negatively impacted by bankruptcy of a major annuity provider--the Baldwin Company.
Ah, the piano company. They were making loans to buyers (good pia…
Regarding CLOs, what is conveniently not mentioned is like most everything else in Bondland they melted down too during the Covid meltdown. Investment grade CLOs from AAA to BBB had drawdowns from 10% to 30% while below investment grade drawdowns …
If the mass deportation were done well (something I consider an oxymoron), with the housing thoughtfully planned, decentralized, supported with improved infrastructure, and coordinated with local governments, it could serve as a source of desperatel…
All true, which is why one is usually better off sticking with vanilla annuities. However, page count is a somewhat misleading metric.
Fixed annuity contracts are self-contained. Unlike mutual fund documentation, they are not broken into multip…
Even intermediate duration bond funds (like SNIDX) normally keep average portfolio duration at 10 years or less.
It's easy to mix up duration and maturity. A 10 year bond with 5% coupon has a duration under seven years.
SNIDX "seeks to mainta…
I haven't thoroughly thought through the ramifications, but a battle over SALT deductions may be looming.
NBC News: Republicans clash over 'SALT' deductions as they seek to extend Trump's tax law
If a cap is maintained, even if raised say to $20K, …
I accidentally snorted out whisky at reading half of these ... I was only trying to find the quote that no one has yet devised, concocted, imagined, or plausibly advocated a use case
https://www.cryptoaltruism.org/blog/15-quotes-about-the-potentia…
I made a lengthy post this morning regarding callable CDs. If anyone is interested in responding to that, I would appreciate it.
Hey, it takes time to compose :-) Done.
At Schwab, major banks are offering long term callable CDs (18 month, 2 year, …
An insurer can "fail" without ever being insolvent.
Never underestimate the ignorance of the investing public.
In 1991, Executive Life Insurance Company of New York (ELNY), the stressed but solvent subsidiary of its insolvent parent, Executive L…
If the only guarantee is from their credit rating, why not look at their or other corporate bonds as well or do annuity products come with some other credit enhancement features that make them better?
I wrote:
In the case of an insurer (the issuer…
Fixed rate deferred annuities, if used as savings vehicles (and not annuitized) are very much like CDs. Like CDs, and unlike funds, stocks, etc., their value cannot go down.
https://www.blueprintincome.com/fixed-annuities-cd-comparison
There is th…
Another observation. Do Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard have their own Dow Jones funds? No, they don't. Do they have the SP500? YES.
Years ago, back when Vanguard was providing free financial plans, my mother had them work up a plan. Several years…
