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 agree that it's a bit superficial. And more (or is that less?).
It talks about how bonds fall into three broad categories: government, corporate, and securitized debt. It goes on to say that different funds tilt toward one or another sector.…
I had to laugh at one of the visuals - Park Avenue (0:47) - what else would one expect?
I have a couple of relatives with similar experiences. One had back surgery and received additional bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fortunately …
Two points about the Glendale Schools Credit Union: It is insured by ASI, a private company, not by NCUA. "Membership is available to: employees, students and their parents of public, private and parochial schools within the greater Glendale Uni…
DODFX is a volatile fund that can have multi-year streaks of good or bad performance. I was going to say that despite that, it's not a white knuckle fund - with performances in, say, the top 2% or bottom 2% - until I checked. It came in at the 98…
The Section 199A income shows up in box 5 of your 1099-DIV. Add these all up, take 20%, and enter it in 1040 line 9 as the qualified business deduction (QBI).
There are worksheets for doing this calculation, but if all your QBI is from REITs, tha…
That would enter into a discussion of whether index funds are really transparent (many track proprietary indexes), whether this matters, etc. See, e.g. M*, The Most Over- and Undersold Benefits of ETFs, and Swedroe, The Problems with Index Funds.
…
DSENX seems like a pretty straightforward fund. It has 200% exposure to "the market", or if you prefer, 100% exposure to the US equity market and 100% exposure to the bond market.
IMHO the major risk is that it is effectively 100% leveraged. Ho…
Decades ago, Congress started out with virtually no laws on retirement (including no SS). It gradually put laws into place with multiple objectives: helping people save for and live in retirement, doing that somewhat equally across the population, …
My instinctive reaction was that this is not much different from alpha. Since capture ratios (upside capture ratio and downside capture ratio) are just betas over restricted regions (upside and downside), one would expect alpha to be around zero i…
I believe all Fidelity's index funds, new and old, are managed by Geode. That company was created by Fidelity and later spun off - a fact not mentioned on its history page.
WSJ, Aug 5, 2003: "Fidelity Investments said it spun off an in-house inve…
I'm usually a bit hesitant to consider two funds clones unless they have the same managers and their portfolios have very similar attributes and holdings. Puritan not only has just a single manager while Balanced has ten, Puritan's manager isn't e…
I believe that 401(k) withdrawals have to be initiated on the 401(k) side, unlike IRA transfers/conversions. Often a 401(k) holding is a security that cannot be transferred in kind so liquidation is mandatory. Between having to liquidate holding…
Edit: I should have read further in the Schwab agreement. It is not supposed to charge for cash of any sort.
With respect to the pro-rata billing, Schwab says that it will do that unless you indicate a single account for all bills.
Here are t…
" For retirees who rely on their investments for retirement income, [the time at which one starts drawing on investments] is also one of the riskiest, if not the riskiest, time in an investor’s life."
If you agree with that (I do), then it must fol…
Either the columns were briefly mislabeled or you misread them. They currently show a 2018 return of minus 9.46% and a YTD (as of 12/31/2019) of 17.07%.
As of 12/31/19, the year was 2019, so the YTD return was the return for 2019.
According to t…
Very likely. These three funds (and many others) are being acquired by other existing funds. In the case of five-star OUSGX, that's being absorbed by three-star STBAX.
With apologies to Shadow, who likely already posted this SEC filing, here's …
In NYS your tax bracket won't be that much lower in retirement - the first dollar of taxable income is taxed at 4%, and it doesn't take much ($23K for couples) to see that go up to 5.25% or even 5.9% (at $28K).
Of course NYS doesn't tax SS, so l…
An adviser's personal hand holding probably helps most people avoid bailing out at market bottoms but it needs to be personal. I doubt most people who talk to a CPA at Vanguard once a year will listen when he or she says sit tight. In my experie…
I agree with you, especially for people caught between raising families, paying off student debt and caring for elderly parents.
That's the point. It's not the typical middle class wage earner who is constrained by contribution limits. Growing …
YES. (But you need to first read Peter Lynch’s books): “... Gov. Romney’s IRA account success was a result of him investing in what he knew.”
https://sdirahandbook.com/self-directed-ira-news/how-to-have-a-20-million-ira-like-mitt-romney-self-direct…
The median personal income in the United States according to the St. Louis Fed was $33,706 in 2018. Such a person could contribute 17.8% of their income annually (more if over age 50) while staying below IRA contribution limits.
Fidelity (@15%…
What I've seen from talking with a small number of people who have asked me for help/suggestions/advice/management (of which I'll only provide the first couple) is that investment selection is not the highest priority on their list of needs.
While …
I further speculate that there's a vast majority of part-time workers out there that fall into that hole because the companies they work for only allow full-time workers access to their 401k plans. Not that part time workers have any leftover funds…
Here's a radical thought: Instead of focusing on how tax breaks for retirement ostensibly for the masses are limited, we could look at why those tax breaks exist, and who really benefits from them.
Nearly half of all families have no retirement sav…
>> pension and RMDs, both of which received favorable tax treatment specifically for retirement.
The selling point of the 457b (IRAs too) in the 1980s was that one’s retirement tax bracket was going to be lower than one’s working tax bracket.…
"While a 55-cent stamp will work, I prefer to add tracking (via priority mail). So my annual cost is $7.35. "
I'm a cheapskate: first class mail (55¢) + certified mail ($3.50) + electronic return receipt ($1.60) = $5.65. Just proof of delivery, n…
Here's a page related to the Michigan Retirement/Pension page that Hank linked to. It focuses specifically on Withholding Taxes.
At least for Michigan employers, "Every Michigan employer who is required to withhold federal income tax under the Int…
You're supposed to be able to rollover a 403(b) directly to a Roth IRA. See IRS chart.
Despite the fact that the rollover conversion is taxable, withholding is not supposed to be mandatory. You don't want taxes withheld, since it's better to…
@John - why would you stop the Roth and start a SEP-IRA?
...small business owner, tax reasons...save much more in tax long term since we contribute upward of 60s K [both of us] ...
You can have 401k /sepIRA /pensions at same time as long as we do…
I'm not clear on the income/tax situation: "If she doesn't make enough money from which to deduct IRA contributions."
So let's start with the mechanics. First, as @Gary1952 said, don't take a taxable distribution. If you're going to pay taxes,…
Yes.
Two relatively easy ways to gain access to DFA funds are through HSA accounts, e.g. HSA Bank, and noload VAs, e.g. Ameritas.
These types of investments generally have overheads, e.g. M&E fees for annuities. But if you're going to own the…
Vanguard sells ZEOIX along with all other OEFs it carries, with no transaction fee (up to 25 trades per year per SSN) to its Flagship customers. More to its Flagship Select customers.
WellsTrade does not sell ZEOIX, so grandfathered customers can…
It's not just that no broker sells it (see M* purchase page for the fund), and that it's not shown on DoubleLine's public-facing website, but that only DoubleLine itself (acting as an adviser for accredited investor clients) may buy shares. The fun…
"Something went wrong in our system processes in checks and balances that we have that should have caught this and fixed it."
No, that wasn't a comment about this software glitch. It was the JPL administrator talking about a different glitch:
Interesting how everyone is focused on Mullenburg's ouster as CEO. What about the fact that the Chairman, Calhoun, is being installed as CEO?
From the Seattle Times article on Oct. 11 reporting Mullenburg's earlier ouster as Chairman:It’s general…
Here's another way to view this, which may address people's reactions.
The IRA was created as a retirement vehicle. However, people have used IRAs for other purposes as well. That's okay so long as they're legal. But benefits that are derived …
>> pension and RMDs, both of which received favorable tax treatment specifically for retirement.
...
No matching, no taxes then, deferred to later; beyond that no special treatment.If deferring taxes on investment earnings isn't significant, t…
There seems to be little rhyme or reason as to which funds within a family are sold NTF at a given brokerage.
Fidelity displays Advisor class shares for a couple of TRP funds on its retail site. Still, they're only accessible through Fidelity®…
>>NAESX is investor class with a minimum of $3000 but it is closed.
And yet this is the share class that appears in the US News article. Makes one wonder if this is yet another column that was just phoned in.
>> So VSCPX with ER 0.0…
In 2005, Congress passed the BAPCA to provide bankruptcy protection for IRAs. Since only IRAs were involved in the case, there was no ruling on 401(k) accounts. But the same reasoning ought to apply.
The court ruled that the bankruptcy protectio…
