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.
The infectious disease physician from local hospital states
[...]what would you do if you have a patient with Covid 19 and there are no known treatments out there???*
So uncle trumpo may know something we dont. Little more knowledge than sleepy …
For 30% of mortgage holders it may be true. The WP article says that forbearance under the CARES act is only available to those with federally backed mortgages. That's70% of the market. The other 30% of homeowners may still have some protection…
he is responsible for the deaths of those people in Arizona that ate fish food
Don't forget the Nigerians. "three people in the country overdosed on the drug, in the wake of President Trump's comments about using it to treat coronavirus." This …
Y shares and I shares have the same ER, and Y shares have not been closed. So in a sense, this is a non-issue. See, e.g. this Fidelity comparison, showing Y open and I closed, with the same $2500 min (at Fidelity).
OTOH, if you're using a broker…
There's an alternate explanation. We may never know which, if either, is correct.
Trump may have gotten so rattled by the idea that he was exposed to people testing positive that he decided to swig the stuff. With doctor's permission.
They dis…
Yes, color me suspicious. Though in general, any press release put out by a company or organization must be regarded as an advocacy piece, aka "spin". Likewise for third party reporting based upon PRs.
The ASA news release on their website (lin…
The SEC exemption order being appealed provides a mechanism for the SEC to separate out personally identifiable information (PII) from its Consolatidated Audit Trail (CAT) database. As near as I can tell (I'm not inclined to dig too deeply into th…
It’s likely that the rich don’t even worry about RMDs because their wealth is not tied up in tax-deferred accounts
Well, some of the well to do. Then there are others ...
Romney’s personal financial summary, disclosed last August under federal e…
Why not basketball courts? Basketball involves close contact.
That's why De Blasio closed the NYC playgrounds. Too many people were unclear on the concept that "contact sport" involves contact.
Fidelity has an interesting operational thought. If your RMDs are taken automatically, then don't turn them off. You'd just have to turn them on again next year. Instead, keep the automatic system enabled, but set the RMD amount for 2020 to $0…
A minor point perhaps, but NYC beaches remain closed - Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, etc. The beach pictures shown are of New Jersey beaches.
Detailed NYC COVID-19 data and graphs:
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
Keep in m…
I can't believe it never dawned on me that GEnworth had been part of GE.
I believe they were the last LTC provider to sell policies that you could completely pay for over a fixed number of years. More costly up front to do this, but it protected …
what's interesting is to not use longest time frame but to set the start date to 2007, so you're going into retirement at a very bad time. i did it w PRWCX. started with 1 mil and at the end of 2019 you had 780k with a max drawdown of 55%, at the …
https://www.barrons.com/articles/ge-stock-drops-to-another-new-low-51589490158
I know a lot of people don't have the subscription to read so I added some lines from the article below
The article isn't paywalled, at least for now.
Most of the column is clear and informative, but Dr. Wen starts out by collapsing steps (just as most everyone else has). "Have we formally retreated from a goal of containing covid-19 to one of harm reduction?"
She goes on to explain that between…
I've got another deep value fund that I've been wataching as well (TEQIX).
A Star From the Previous Bear Market Is Struggling in This One, Kinnel (Morningstar), May 5
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/982332/a-star-from-the-previous-bear-market-…
The fund is closing, not shutting down. Normally it's not surprising to see a fine performing small cap fund close. However, a fund with just $13M AUM (and a corresponding ER a bit south of 3%) would be more likely to shut down than to close.
P…
Full immunity is just a hope. Which, IMHO calls the into question the efficacy of vaccines once they are available. Longer trials will be needed to test that.
'No Evidence' Yet That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says, NPR, April 2…
The rule for taxing T-IRA distributions shouldn't sound too convoluted. It just requires you to do things proportionately.
Say that your total T-IRA value at the end of 2019 was $100K ($5K post-tax, $95K pre-tax contributions and earnings). The…
If I understand you correctly, there were a couple of years in which you had compensation allowing you to contribute to an IRA. But on your tax form, after taking deductions, exemptions, etc., you had little or no taxable income left against which…
If I invest in HY it's only for trade. HY is a hybrid product that usually doesn't justify itself.
We each have our own set of preferences.
Vanguard Research put out a 16 page report last June:
Junk or jewel? Assessing the role of high-yield b…
One need not go further than his first bullet item, confirmation bias, to see an example of his confirmation bias.
A reluctance towards establishing a common ground is already widespread in America. According to a 2019 survey, 70% of Democrats belie…
Kinda tough placing a standard HY fund against FAGIX for a compare. Over the period of FAGIX existence, the fund usually has an equity exposure of 15-20%. A unique HY fund.
Unusual but not unique. WHGHX "has a neutral allocation of 80% of its tota…
hopefully, vf will weigh in more exactly on what he's doing.
I thought he did by specifically calling out the name of his trades:
I can now proudly said it's called the Vertical Put Credit Spread. I feel so smart :-)
The difference in ERs between institutional class shares and A shares at PIMCO is on the order of 0.3% - 0.4%. So just subtract that from the performance figures. Admittedly, these are larger difference than the 0.25% 12b-1 fee difference one fi…
There are various strategies for asset allocation that seem to work out about the same. Consequently, I honestly think the choice comes down more to what feels right than to a real difference in outcome or even overall risk.
To the extent that I …
In 2015, 10 year treasuries yielded 2.14%, in 2016 it was 1.84%, then 2.33% (2017), 2.91% (2018), 2.14% (2019), and 1.17% (annualized) so far this year. So just looking at yield, one might have hoped for a tad north of 2%/year.
https://www.macrotr…
I would rather not have to set up another account, especially a retirement account to buy Marcus CDs. While FDIC guarantees work ( I lost two CDS during the 1980s housing crisis) it does take some time to get your money back so there is some opport…
But, the govt. does not give something to you for nothing. My RMD factor will be higher on my 2021 distribution than my 2020 because as you age the factor increases.Hope springs eternal. Last fall, the IRS proposed new life expectancy figures tha…
I think it is difficult to be invested in a bond fund that is supposed to be "ballast" to your equities and then see it drop 13%
A "Core " Bond fund IMHO should diversify and provide some income but not reach for yield, etc. With treasury yields …
M* analysis dated March 30, 2020: "Despite its burgeoning asset base of over $19 billion as of December 2019, the portfolio’s characteristics have not strayed. The fund closed to new investors at $9 billion in assets in May 2010, so it’s unlikely to…
To be rated above average, a fund must be in the top 32.5% of its category (but not in the top 10%).
PRIDX came close to above average performance, but didn't make it over 3 years (38th percentile) or 10 years (33rd percentile). Shift that 10 …
IMHO it's not that people took on more risk than they thought but rather that people do not appreciate what risk is. Stuff happens. Risk generally is rewarded, but the ride can be jarring.
The average 10 year returns for multisector and for inte…
Just another way of saying that it was goosing returns by investing too much ("many of the securities the Fund holds") in high risk sectors of the market that no one would want when the market turned south.
Barron's, March 23: The $2.3 billion mort…
The name is new, the daily management is new, the global allocation objective is new. Only the family (AMG) is unchanged. I would treat it as any other new fund - check into the managers, the management company (now GW&K, was Chicago Equity …
This looks like a pretty standard core plus bond fund. The statutory prospectus says that "The fund may invest in debt securities of any maturity or duration."
My impression of Capital Research and Management (American Funds) is that it's gen…
It's got at least 21 different tickers (share classes). Class F-1 is MIAWX. ER is 0.90%
Here's the prospectus with all the tickers.
Haven't looked too closely yet. At least some of the managers are picked from other American Funds, so that…
The share classes of USAA (now Victory) funds resemble those of American Century funds:Noload retail: USAA "Fund Share" (e.g. USTEX) and American Century "Investor" (e.g. TWCUX).
Class A adds load, 12b-1 fee; often load waived w/ fee-based advisor, …
It was a merger of Charter and Time Warner Cable. Before the merger, they were ranked 2nd worst and worst respectively. I don't remember the source of that ranking.
https://ir.charter.com/news-releases/news-release-details/charter-communication…
Schwab sells Victory Class A funds NTF to its retail investors. It doesn't seem likely that it would turn around and charge the load only to its newly acquired USAA clients.
Schwab bought USAA management for its client base, both 1.5 million curr…
