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’m afraid some of us wouldn’t appear much better in the public eye if held under a 24-hour magnifying glass."
If you picked the wrong 24 minutes I wouldn't look so hot.
How did you know I had you in mind? What better testament? :)
:) Hi Catch. I’ve nothing against perversions. Sailing’s certainly within bounds. What I would dislike is disparaging remarks about personal lives of well known public figures - including Bezos. As Nick remarks in The Great Gatsby “I’m inclined t…
Today is the 32nd anniversary of my purchase of DODGX. It was neck and neck with SPY up until the dot com bust. From then on, SPY never caught up. What happened the last 1-3-5-10-15-20 years doesn't make any difference.
Congratulations!
Most D&a…
”Half a loaf is better than none at all”. :) Thanks @msf. Wow. I didn’t know Sony had such a product earlier. Of course, Barnes and Noble tried to compete against Amazon with their own e-reader but finally gave up. Remotely related - ISTM that …
“A surprising conclusion is that investor-returns and fund-returns are the closest for allocation/balanced funds, and the reason is that these fund holders stick longer with the funds and don't trade like funds in other categories (leading to laggin…
Any average statistics about how retail investors who move in and out of these funds based on their own analysis of the macro picture perform?
- Do they beat the funds that don’t beat the market?
- Or are they beaten by the funds that are beat…
I've lost tract of when that was @hank. Definitely Fund Alarm days. I think I started watching FA around 2006-7 or so so probably around that time. PMs and Asia EM were the hot sectors. Harry Brown's permanent portfolio was also talked about a lot. …
”Goes back to your Asia and the Miners days ...”
When the **** was that? Back in the 90s? Some here weren’t born yet. Agree - it’s great to see @rono chiming in.
Recently sold small spec stake in a silver miner (a case of the kitchen gettin…
@Sven and @LouisBraham - Thanks for your knowledgeable comments. I agree with you both to the point of saying that absolutist views on financial matters can be counterproductive and destructive of wealth and that they may blind one to potential o…
Sorry for the tax mess. Thanks for posting. Picked up a couple collectible U.S. coins several years ago. Have appreciated nicely. Assumed long term cap gains would apply. But if the tax hit is 28% (sounds like it), am better off hanging on.
Fortuna…
Should bonds owned within a fund like PRWCX or VWENX be viewed differently?
Likely, that’s a rhetorical question. But, to set the record straight, I’ve always held some bond funds - and always will. Is that the same as owning bonds directly? Of c…
@MikeM- thanks for the suggestion, but I really don't like bond funds because I have no control over the duration or market value at any point. At our ages I just use CDs or TBills, and hold to maturity.
I rarely cite Bill Fleckenstein here. His dai…
It's been so long since I used a MMF with Merrill …
It’s been a long time since I remember folks getting excited about money market funds. About 40 years. The 80s as I recall. :)
BTW - If anybody missed it, this week’s Barron’s notes that municip…
”Jeremy Grantham had a long piece years ago, predicting dramatic increases in price of food and agricultural products for a number of reasons.”
Yep - I’ve been thinking that way. But most of this stuff has really run up in price the past several ye…
Thanks for all the ideas. Big help. @sma3 - Nice write up. I was slow in noticing the ETFs you tossed out, but picked them up on second look. RTM has certainly been hot. Some resource funds do include consumers staples - to buffer the volatility fr…
I don't think it's any easier today for a fund to corral heads of steer than it was in 2006 :-)
Good point. You’d need some pretty high boots I suppose. :)
Casks of single malt wouldn’t appear too hard to store. Price and quality increase with a…
Thanks Yogi. Can’t confirm - but I get the impression Forsyth enjoys time away from that duty. It’s a demanding role. Must take a toll on one over time.
PS - The (alleged) comments Serwer attributes to NYC real estate magnates comparing their pr…
Interesting “Up & Down Wall Street” column this week written by Andy Serwer (whom I can’t recall ever reading before). Writes with a nice flair.
Extended excerpt: “To my mind, Dimon is essentially making the point that no amount of regulation …
@hank, only the precious metal funds may own physical commodities.
Thanks. Guessing it’s a SEC limitation? I hadn’t thought about it, but any I’ve ever owned were based on derivatives. And I remember riding one into the ground at Oppenheimer dur…
Yes, pulling up the holdings in RAAX looks promising. Nicely diversified using sector ETFs. That it was pretty much flat in 2022 is a plus. Not looking for hottest thing on the block. I wonder what the real % in precious metals is. Shows 8% in a g…
Thanks guys. Actually, for my needs, GRES looks attractive with a .30% management fee. But I’ve tried a number of their other low cost “IQ” funds (New York Life Investments) and they’ve proven utter losers - yet they look so good on paper. :) I d…
Thanks for commenting @Observant1 - I appreciate links so much more when folks add a personal comment. Generally, the only time I’ll watch a linked video is if the poster has commented on it.
Benz’s “Buckets” conjure up an image of somebody in a B…
Does sentiment have anything to do with the extent to which cable networks like Bloomberg cover the markets? More and more Bloomberg’s evening programing consists of taped interviews or hour-long paid commercials. Sometimes that’s the major portio…
@hank, REMIX is like every other alternative fund I've ever encountered, it's good till it ain't. The minute one of these funds have done well enough to get a lot of press here at MFO it is the time to sell, not buy. Just another learning experience…
Of course if you are going to buy one thing you have to sell something else. I've been selling the alternative fund REMIX as I buy gold. That I did not make money on.
I’ll have to look at REMIX some time. Your point rings true. A month ago I “boug…
@yogibearbull -
I don’t dispute your historical data on gold or gold miners. (Silver actually peaked sometime in the 70s at double where it is today.) However, in the context of the broader markets, gold’s surge in 2020 wasn’t as remarkable / not…
Yes, a good time to add a bit more IAU? I think so.
@MikeM - I can’t comment on that. I know you’ve held some precious metals and nearly asked you in another thread if you’d made any money on them. :)
They can be fun and exciting, but can also…
As they say it’s “a market of stocks” rather than a “stock market”. Always opportunity somewhere if you can find it. There’s an important jobs report out tomorrow which is Good Friday. The stock market will be closed so traders will need to wait un…
”Certainly a lot of talk and excitement for this ETF, but do we know when it is scheduled to come to market?”
I’m hearing July 4 to coincide with fireworks displays nationwide. Plans are for a brilliant laser light show featuring Giroux’s larger-…
+1
In fairness, I don’t anticipate TRP doing that. What I see is investors chasing performance and the fund has been hot and attracting interest / money for a long time now. And Giroux, for better or worse, has claimed a lofty perch next to Gabe…
Reality check - How many of your current holdings (aside from cash) did you possess …
- 20 years ago?
- 25 years ago?
- 30 years ago?
None of mine date back 25 years (1998 or earlier). But three go back over 20 years. Two are multi-a…
Nice exchange. Thanks gentlemen. I’ve mostly avoided TIPs because I find them difficult to understand / analyze. Thats’s admittedly a stain on me rather than the product or its proponents. However, I have two possibly related thoughts: (1) Any inve…
Good read. Don’t bet the farm on any particular point. Conventional wisdom. Wish the 10-year would get back up above 4% where I’d plunk a portion of cash back into GNMA. Just a hunch that that’s a more profitable (in & out) trade than at the …
I’ve always considered Mutual Fund Observer a place where intelligent minds shared thoughts and ideas in a civil manner - a place that’s a cut above the name calling, baiting of opposition and trash-talk that permeates so much other online space. …
It’s a serious matter. My hope would be that everybody - red / blue alike - can try to be as objective / restrained as possible. Let the laws and courts proceed. It’s ironic, to say the least, that even several judges he appointed have ruled agai…
