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.
Well, we got our reduced virus check by direct deposit today. It partially paid for our quarterly tax which also got withdrawn today by the IRS.
Would that be your first quarter estimate (which is due second), or your second quarter estimate (which …
The tendency of some people to want to work less as the net hourly rate offered goes down.
If you're anxious to work an extra hour (if you can) for $14/hr, but less inclined to do so for $12 (after taxes), then you'll be even less inclined to work …
There is an inherent conflict between economically efficient service and universal service.
Once upon a time, the United States felt that it was important to provide universal access (at affordable rates) regardless of the additional cost. For…
Here's an economics pop quiz:
Your job pays you $10 per hour. Today you get the great news that your boss is bumping your wage up to $14 per hour. (Congratulations!) At the new wage, do you want to work more hours or fewer hours each week?
If you …
There are two rules (that I know of) in CARES regarding $100K distributions from traditional IRAs. If one could combine them, one would have a fantastic loophole on Roth conversions. I don't think it works, though.
First, the basics. As catch…
FXAIX didn't perform better because it didn't have a lower ER all these years. The main difference between me and others is that I supply numbers and not just narrative;-)
It would be very time consuming to find ER for previous years but from mem…
Anyway, let me add that FXAIX does not outperform either Vanguard SP500 product if you go back to their spring 1988 origin, only more recently.
Nothing to do with insecurity, trying to be accurate. FXAIX didn't perform better because it didn't hav…
Rarely have I seen such ineptitude from public servants. The Navy Secretary (acting) is gone.
IMHO such ineptitude tends to come more from self servants than from public servants.
Speaking of facts which are not in evidence (at least to my knowledge…
From the timeline (see timeline page for embedded links/citations):
March 26: TR begins testing entire crew for COVID-19. In Washington, Acting Navy Secretary Modly and other Navy officials say the carrier will pull into port in Guam, fulfilling pl…
I've got a minority, and more cynical, view of Modly's "recant".
Modly's remark (for which he flew at least 4,000 miles - the distance from Hawaii to Guam - to deliver in person), was that either Captain Crozier was stupid to think that his lett…
"On Saturday, President Trump weighed in, saying, “I thought it was terrible what he did.”What exactly is it that he did that you found terrible? Please do go on ...
"To write a letter? I mean, this isn’t a class on literature."
I'm sorry, I'm st…
That was some time ago. As I recall, I tried without great success to match the performance of the bond portion of the portfolio with various other DoubleLine funds. There wasn't a good match unless one took it piecemeal, finding it similar to a…
In the early days of gold mining, doing laundry was outsourced to China, because outsourcing was less expensive. Plus ça change.In order to wash your own clothes in San Francisco, you had to buy water, paying 25 cents for two buckets’ worth. Then, …
Nuance? GARP and value investing are more than subtly different.
M* offers FCNTX and ANEFX as prominent examples of GARP funds. Investopedia says that "GARP investing was popularized by legendary Fidelity manager Peter Lynch." That would be t…
Clipped from Stars and Stripes
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/captain-crozier-captain-crozier-videos-show-sailors-sending-off-ousted-uss-roosevelt-commander-with-cheers-1.624732
Do you think this guy missed the cutoff then? It seems the bill just went into effect:
https://jacksonlewis.com/publication/new-employer-obligations-under-slightly-revised-families-first-coronavirus-act-hr-6201Possibly. The article does mention th…
MSF Interesting details, thanks. Do you know if other states are following suit? Also, I wonder if some insurers won't file lawsuits contesting this ruling down the road?I can't believe I missed this, but Congress passed a bill, signed into law on M…
I'm not sure how much flexibility the federal and state governments have, but they do have some power under their ability to regulate insurers. For example, if the USPSTF were to add a procedure (such as COVID-19 screening) to its list of preventi…
I also would have guessed currency (but Lewis beat me to the punch).
I ran FMIJX, TBGVX (mostly hedged), VEU (unhedged reference), and HEFA (hedged EAFE) through Portfolio Visualizer. While the hedged funds have somewhat better correlation betwe…
If the southern border constituted a significant health threat, then Trump failed us. It took him seven weeks after restricting travel from China (Jan 31) to restrict travel from Mexico (March 21).
As far as construction of the wall for reasons …
Here's the original letter by Captain Crozier:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6821571/TR-COVID-19-Assistance-Request.pdf
I tend to latch onto numbers. Here are a couple that jumped out at me:
From the Chron article:[Chief of Naval Op…
While two days is not a trend, does this give you any sense that muni money market funds are stabilizing? It seems the answer is it depends on the daily net shareholder cash flows.
Certainly that's a part of it. However, ⅔ of these funds are in …
In fact, Muni MM and prime MM can have the following: "The fund may impose a fee upon sale of your shares or may temporarily suspend your ability to sell shares if the fund's liquidity falls below required minimums because of market conditions or o…
"I'm fairly certain Dr. Fauchi will find employment in any endeavor with half a brain cell"
Assuming he wants that after working since 1968 as a civil servant in the National Institutes of Health. David Rubenstein, the billionaire head of the Car…
Regarding Boeing, it's quite possible that the company is just using the virus as a cover for eliminating its dividend. Sure, it put on a brave face in January ("Boeing CEO says it will keep paying its dividend despite Max crisis").
But it di…
§2201 of CARES reads in part:
“(c) Limitation based on adjusted gross income.—The amount of the credit allowed by subsection (a) (determined without regard to this subsection and subsection (e)) shall be reduced (but not below zero) by 5 percent of …
You said that specific funds (not ALL) were not managed, period. And yet they are managed, but you knew that.
More from the WSJ: "Vanguard's bond index funds will continue tilting toward corporate bonds instead of Treasurys, to take advantage of…
" Lots of people have written to me to ask about all the “pork” that Democrats demanded in this bill ..."
Further down, her writing reveals that "pork" is literally in the bill: "There was money for the ... Agriculture Department to grade beef and …
DODIX, FTBFX, BOND are managed bond funds while AGG,BND and VBTLX follow the US Total bond index and why they are very close long term.
Usually, but not always. Index funds, especially bond index funds, are also managed, though perhaps not in th…
Certainly that's possible.
Suppose in 2019 someone had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $99K, including a $24K RMD. And withholdings/estimates were just enough to cover taxes owed. At $99K AGI the individual would receive no advance credit.…
Probably not. This Congressional Research Service paper says you won't have to pay back the excess:If, when taxpayers file their 2020 income tax returns in 2021, they find that the advanced credit is greater than the actual credit, they would not …
It's a refundable credit, meaning that you get the money even if you don't owe any tax against which to apply the credit.
Here's Grassley's FAQ on the bill:
https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/cares-act-recovery-check-faq
Even individual…
Upon rereading the text for the umpteenth time, I have come around to believing that one might get an additional refund if one's 2020 AGI implies a bigger credit than one's 2019 (or 2018) AGI.
The text seems to read that the credit is given on t…
Four Republican senators wrongly stated that the bill effectively encouraged people to quit their jobs. If the people charged with voting on the bill misrepresent it, I wouldn't put too much trust in any of rushed quotes or reports.
Senators Tim …
I guess I shouldn't use so much hypertext (embedded links). They can be hard to spot in the text. Here's the link to the fund's NAVs:
https://www.schwabfunds.com/public/csim/home/products/mutual_funds/current_nav.html?symbol=SWKXX
msf, could Vanguard prop up or support (I am not certain what this mean) VMSXX so that it does not deviate by more than a cent from $1.00, thus not have the need to re-price its shares to something other than $1.00 (breaking the buck), resulting in …
@Sven - Just that the muni bond market is in chaos. Keeping in mind that average maturities of MMFs tend to run in the 60 day range, we have this from Bloomberg (via Yahoo):
Take a note issued by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority th…
Different people have different expectations and risk can mean different things to them.
There's a difference between expectations and certainties. Stocks had a dismal decade in the 2000s. "Investors would have been better off investing in pret…
In this crash, it [RPHYX] has underperformed both vanilla bond funds like MWTRX and Vanguard's bond index fund, VBMFX ...
It was supposed to offer minimal downside. As it turns out, in this stress situation, it has offered more downside than a tot…
