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 wonder why TRP isn't simply merging this fund into its retail Africa & Middle East fund, converting TRIAX shares into the institutional class shares PRAMX of the latter fund. Same manager, effectively clones.
TRIAX page: https://www.trowepr…
Corporate money market accounts used to be more common, but many shut down a few years ago. GE Interest Plus was one such account.
Dominion Energy is a holding company rated BBB and these unsecured notes are junior to all notes and other liabil…
"This is why when volatility increases, such as the last 3 years, their funds lag."
Volatility decreased for DODFX and in foreign markets.
Std dev Jan 2014 - Jan 2017
DODFX: 14.81%
EFV: 12.97% (iShares MSCI EAFE Value, used as proxy for foreign la…
"Taking into account bad performance of non-US stocks ..."
Local performance or converted back to dollars? VMVFX "seek[s] to hedge away most of the currency exposure resulting from its foreign stock holdings."
I didn't go back to check, but I'm…
I'm not sure that I've imported the daily figures correctly from Yahoo (website change among other uncertainties), and I think that daily returns tend to have too much noise (which is one reason why std dev of funds is typically calculated on monthl…
Just like Social Security retirement age, the government has defined two different end points for savings bonds:
SS: full retirement age (65-67 depending on date of birth)
Savings Bonds: original maturity (20 years)
SS: Maximum delayed retirement …
Media might be overdrive/panicking and overkill. Think we may have more patients die annual from flu
Patients less 60 years old usually recover 99%
Meaning that 1% of patients under 60 don't recover - a euphemism for "die". Of course fatalit…
The Aggregate Bond Fund, like its benchmark, is higher grade, investing in virtually no junk bonds. Even among investment grade bonds, it takes more risk, holding a lower percentage of government bonds and a higher percentage of BBB bonds.
It's t…
fido not so much, depending on your definition of skimpI had debated about mentioning that Fidelity's MMFs pay more, but since their top rate for sub $1M min MMFs is just 8 basis points above Schwab's, I didn't feel it was worth going into the numbe…
I would be inclined to use Schwab or Fidelity in the decumulation phase (retirement), because they charge nothing to sell TF funds. Also, they both have excellent customer service, and FWIW both have offices that you can walk into.
If you're l…
My point was that, absent this research to the contrary, one can not conclude that a fund investing based on politics is "not acting on the behalf of the shareholders." Such a strategy could actually inure to the shareholders' benefit (though the …
The paper describes political bias as just another form of systemic bias, like hometown (or home country) bias. Sometimes systemic biases can be justified. Invest in companies near you because you have better information about them (e.g. Mairs an…
"You can't beat the averages."
That's not quite what Rekenthaler wrote. Rather, echoing Sharpe, he wrote that "active funds in aggregate were destined to track their relevant indexes." Emphasis added.
It would have been more interesting had he…
Yes, but you're assuming a binary classification, while the paper classifies firms (and funds) into three categories: Democratic-leaning, Republican-leaning, and neutral. So while a Republican-leaning manager might invest 43% in Republican-leaning…
TGBAX is both a bond fund and a currency fund. Hassenstab seems to invest in bonds anywhere in the world based on how he expects those bonds to perform independent of currency movements. In that sense, one can think of the fund as a hedged inter…
If you're investing a smaller amount, you could invest in the fund via BAWAX. An extra 0.25% in annual expenses is used to offset the brokerage fee enabling you to buy it NTF.
Alternatively, if you invested $20K in BIAWX and hold for a year, you …
Don't be too impressed by these DIY investors. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI):
for 2019 as a whole – well, in a year that the S&P 500 rose more than 28%, and the Dow gained 22% (the NASDAQ was up an even better 35…
Nice piece.
A virtue of slowing the spread, even if as many as 70% of the population are ultimately infected is that the peak is lower. That lessens the strain on the healthcare system (insufficient number of doctors, labs, material, hospital …
How is Amazon going to get orders delivered if all the delivery people stay home?
Drones? According to Amazon’s consumer worldwide CEO Jeff Wilke last June: “You’re going to see it delivering packages to customers in a matter of months.”
https:/…
To stop spreading the virus China they lock down the entire city and it slows the spread somewhat. Cannot image this can be done in a democratic society of large cities in US or Europe.
Lockdowns may not work and may even be counterproductive.…
Fund page: https://www.griffincapital.com/griffin-institutional-access-credit-fund
Prospectus for share classes A & C (including fee structure): https://www.griffincapital.com/Documents/GIACX/Marketing Materials/Sales Kit/CreditFund-Prospectus-…
If the reason why you are considering leaving PIMIX is an increase in its reported ER (0.74% in the 2018 summary prospectus, 1.05% in the 2019 summary prospectus), I respectfully suggest that you take a closer look.
The true operating costs of fund…
I wrote: CreditKarma is offering free federal and state tax filings, no income limits, with no upselling.
When you file with Credit Karma Tax®, you’ll never face unexpected charges or be asked to upgrade to a paid version. It’s always free to file …
Here's a M* chart comparing the performances of PIODX and MITTX over the lifetime of the younger fund (PIODX, starting February 10, 1928).
PIODX gained 2,911,544%, while MITTX gained a mere 241,202%. At least if I got my decimal points in the ri…
May I respectfully suggest we pay less attention to polls of the moment and more attention to cost figures with a little rigor behind them?
Regarding costs: as with investing, it's not how much you pay in taxes that matters, it's what you net afte…
Of course it's political. The mind reels at all the ways this can be used that way.
Get lots of people who don't have any cash for emergencies to place $2 bets on the stock market. Then they'll cheer for market performance that doesn't help the…
VBS is good for providing access to some third party funds with lower mins (e.g. Pimco institutional class shares @$25K), and it pays good interest on its settlement/transaction MMF (VMFXX). Also, for Flagship customers Vanguard waives the fee on …
I'm glad you mentioned that zero, because it highlights the distinction between current yield (interest payments), and yield to maturity (for individual bonds) or SEC yield (for bond funds).
That zero "yielded" zero (duh). It paid no interest. …
A few financial institutions provide free TT to those with enough assets held with them:
T. Rowe Price: Personal Services clients are provided free Turbotax Deluxe OnlineFidelity: some investors, unknown criteria (rumored to be Private Client plus s…
Schwab announced for stocks, not ETFs. I haven't got a clue why ETFs should be different or harder, or for that matter why CEFs are not included as well.
https://www.etftrends.com/core-etf-channel/how-will-schwabs-move-toward-fractional-shares-aff…
I wonder why he chose to highlight DFSVX rather than DFFVX. The latter is a bit larger cap, though still squarely within the small cap value box, and still below the category average market cap. Aside from this difference, the two funds appear p…
@joe74 posted some of what I was constructing below, though I may still be filling in a little:
"other EM debt local currency funds". Is either fund primarily invested in unhedged, locally denominated debt?
Vanguard says of its fund that "the ma…
Regarding the medal ratings - the old style analysis page of a fund still includes a list of all medalists in the same category as the fund being described. The analysis text itself seems the same as on the new version of the analysis page.
Prem…
Regarding IBM - it was a joke that displayed the contempt for AT&T's ineptitude - that it could wind up #2 by buying the computer leader and dragging it down to #2.
The first ESS, not surprisingly called 1ESS, was an analog switch. What made i…
The forced break up of AT&T by the federal government was in 1984, when the RBOCs and Bellcore were spun off. AT&T had delusions of grandeur, thinking that it was better off in the competitive computer market than in the regulated telecom …
The link that the page gives for Treasury yields is correct, but the yields it quotes for January 30, 2020 are way off on the long end.
"The current rate of the 30-year T-bond as of January 30, 2020, is 2.33%."
According to the Treasury page, the…
In terms of pure returns, I think you've got it right. Hank analogized paying off the mortgage with buying a AAA rated 4% bond, and that's a good way to think of it.
However, there are also risk factors that go beyond guessing which investment wi…
I couldn’t open Sven’s link.
Add a colon between the http and the //, or just cut and paste the link as "printed" in the post.
I agree with you about different value systems (recalling F. Scott Fitzgerald). My link works :-)
Regarding U of M, I …
