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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.
  • Do You Have A Long-Term Plan If The Coronavirus Bear Market Continues?
    I think a second significant peak is inevitable and this equity bounce will crash. The behavior of people last weekend is clear evidence that most covididiots will get infected and soon. There are already rising case and hospitalization rates in many states, mostly in the south and midwest where people seem deluded by Drump.
    If Missouri is lucky and escaped the massive infections NYC suffered because they did not commute by subway, the people in Lake of the Ozarks just took a long NYC subway ride without protection. What do they think will happen? A church in Germany just had dozens of cases despite social distancing.
    AS the second wave hits, it will be at least a year and probably two before people are comfortable going back out in force, and consequently at least two and maybe longer before our consumer driven economy is back to where it was in 2019, and I suspect at least 20% of those businesses will not return.
    If we had massive testing and aggressive robust contact tracing we might cut isolated outbreaks off quickly but when many governors and a large number of people do not believe this is real I don't see this happening. The politicians in Georgia Florida and Texas are already trying to cover up the true case numbers and death rates
    Consequently, I would not have any money in stocks that you need for the next five years. There will be buying opportunities along the way.
    My cash allocation is 50% conservative bond funds 30% and equity 20% I am buying small positions in what seem to be safe dividend equities with some long shots in energy.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Using your "good until it wasn't" Pimco bond fund PONAX, one sees that DSEEX's performance since April 30th was roughly the sum of CAPE's and PONAX's. (Remember that DSEEX is leveraged for 200% exposure: 100% CAPE, 100% bond.)
    See graph here. (Graph only shows CAPE through 5/21; it closed up 0.24% on 5/22)
    The graph does show fairly clearly that the bond portion of DSEEX is not, however, mimicking PONAX. If it were, the spread between DSEEX and CAPE would have been microscopic until a week ago (since PONAX was roughly flat for the first couple of weeks in May).
    DSEEX: +1.86%
    PONAX: +1.20%
    CAPE: +0.35% + 0.24% (Friday)
    Total: +1.79%
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Starting end April DSEEX pulled ahead of CAPE and then a week or so ago ahead of SP500. Maybe the bond sauce has been reformulated. (Some of the Pimco gogo vehicles have perked up also.)
  • What The Hell Is The Stock Market Doing? Cullen Roche
    Not seeing many bullish investment advisors / pundits across the media landscape. Droning Mohamed El-Erian drives me nuts on Bloomberg TV mornings. Makes you sorry you got out of bed some days. Stan Druckenmiller is one I’ve always respected. Smart investor. Serious bear now. Bill Fleckenstein’s been bearish on equities for long as I can remember - but likes gold. Barron’s is a mixed bag - but articles lean toward the bearish side now.
    What’s the opposite of “pump and dump ”? Maybe “dump and pump ”? Or “dump and jump”? Might be some of that going on.
  • Low risk vanguard retirement portfolio
    Oh, another one (@bee): SPY/TLT 50/50 and forget about it.
    Why does anyone ever choose SPY over VOO?
    For me TLT would be too jumpy for what I want a bond ETF for, but it sure does majorly outperform VGIT, and even BND.
    I'm slowly deciding on 55-45 VONG (maybe w some CAPE) and VGIT (maybe w some BND) --- or so I claim today, anyway.
  • Bounce Back ... MFO Ratings Updated Through April 2020
    Thanks to @davidrmoran, just added ability to screen for ETNs, as a separate asset class, in MulitSearch. A lot are commodities-based trading only vehicles, many leveraged. But some are pretty sweet, like CAPE.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Since Feb 23, the start, CAPE has tracked VOO w only slight lag and at close today appears likely to match it, so by my read it is the bond sauce chiefly which has detracted. I too am holding though may go in part directly to CAPE.
  • Leuthold: good news, bad news
    Yesterday's new "Major Trend Analysis" from the Leuthold Group was accompanied by good news and bad news.
    Good news: while bull rallies occur in bear markets, it's almost unheard of for a bull rally to exceed 30% gains and then pull back into a bear. Typical "trap rallies" are in the 20% range. The only (admittedly uncomfortable) other occurrence of 30% rallies that collapsed were during the 85% skyrocket early in the Great Depression.
    Bad news: "The blue chips’ bounce has driven their valuations back to levels that exceed all but the March 2000 and February 2020 market tops. If our S&P 500 metrics were to eventually retreat to 'only' the new-era valuation low that accompanied the mild recession of 2001, losses from here would be on the order of 30-35%."
    Today's Shiller 10-year CAPE is 26.88, with "normal" being about 16; a sort of mid-point between the average and median values. The 10-year CAPE hit 27 in early 1929, then not again until mid-1996. It stayed at or above 27 for about a decade, declined to the low 20s after the GFC then worked steadily back up. The recent unpleasantness whacked about six points off the average.
    David
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    @Bitzer, it ain't been a plus, obvs, but as someone who also holds PONAX and PDVAX (and MINT and GSY, fer krissake, also VCSH, and PCI and PDI in the recent past), I am not seeing that Gundlach's recent work and decisions are any worse. This even though I think he's a putz politically and in other ways.
    Others smarter here have delved the various gogo bond areas each of these funds works in. Regardless, I am willing to believe that CAPE will do as well as / better than DSE_X in the near term and perhaps beyond, and am looking forward to getting out of my Pimco holdings when back to breakeven and into less gogo.
    @BenWP, ty for VONG mention, was looking at that, had been thinking that in retirement I would just stick with the varsity, but will continue to, or perhaps resume is better, mull and reconsider. Some days I remain in poky mode.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Roger all points; you just seemed focused on moderate and incremental outperformance and added value, and it is impossible to find any period in which VOOG has not outperformed since its inception. I understand about passivity vs various degrees of process and selection action (which might include the monthly auto-churning of CAPE).
    I have been heeding the 'growth has got to end at some point' arg for over 40 years and have 'sacrificed' mucho dollars investing prudently in value funds, all the best ones.
    Could hardly care less about pricing and spreads unless egregious.
    DSE_X has suffered from the bond discombobulation, yes. I would not advise anyone to bail out of it tho unless they were simply going to shift to CAPE, which gives many investors fits, for extraneous reasons.
    If you want to hold the equities and are eyeing VTI, don't forget about considering RSP.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    @davidmoran: I understand that a fund such as VOOG could outperform, especially in a growth atmosphere as @expatsp pointed out. MOAT is not an index fund. It’s stocks are chosen according to a methodology, which includes the determination of the moat the company enjoys as well as a valuation metric that determines whether a stock is trading above or below its worth. Turnover is north of 50%, so it’s actively managed. With 47 stocks now, MOAT can be considered high-conviction. The Barron’s 400, the GAARP EFT (BFOR) has an identifiable stock-picking system, but it’s performance has been quite disappointing. It debuted at the same time as MOAT making a comparison valid since both funds have operated in the same bull market. I could still see CAPE as a trading holding, but it is tough to get good pricing. MOAT, however, trades in a very orderly fashion, with very small spreads. FWIIW, I don’t own any index funds in my accounts, even though I recognize that over time I probably won’t come out ahead of a passive portfolio.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    For a while now growth has outperformed value or blend. If that continues, which is very possible, then sure, VOOG (1/3 tech) will outperform. If it doesn't, MOAT is more balanced, and CAPE (or DSENX) should maybe benefit when currently undervalued (or less richly valued) sectors make up for lost time?
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Except for the last few days, VOOG has outperformed MOAT, going way back, so why not VOOG instead? (>5x as many holdings, fwiw.) That's what I'm replacing DSEEX with, along w CAPE.
  • MOAT vs. DSEEX/DSENX
    Most of the MFOers who held the DoubleLine CAPE funds were displeased (shocked?) at their performance during market downturns, first in 2018, then this year. Almost since the inceptions of DSENX and MOAT (Morningstar Wide-Moat ETF),
    I have held both funds and I periodically owned CAPE, the ETN. Up until the past few months, performance was quite similar, with both methodologies regularly besting SPY. This is no longer the case as MOAT has shown itself to be the superior fund. As I may have previously mentioned, I have exited all CAPE strategies while maintaining my MOAT positions. I won't quibble here about whether the CAPE approach is value or blend. MOAT is LCB without argument. My finding is that wide-moat investing works and that the CAPE strategy, dependent as it is on the bond "sauce," does not work as well. FWIIW, I have not found a member of this board who owns MOAT, although I have mentioned it before. Please come out of the woodwork because it's lonely at the head of the train (LOL).
  • Coronavirus Is Likely to Become a Seasonal Infection Like the Flu, Top Chinese Scientists Warn
    The staying power of Covid-19 will impact the investing landscape until a vaccine is widely available.
    Chinese scientists say the novel coronavirus will not be eradicated, adding to a growing consensus around the world that the pathogen will likely return in waves like the flu.
    It’s unlikely the new virus will disappear the way its close cousin SARS did 17 years ago, as it infects some people without causing obvious symptoms like fever. This group of so-called asymptomatic carriers makes it hard to fully contain transmission as they can spread the virus undetected, a group of Chinese viral and medical researchers told reporters in Beijing at a briefing Monday.
    https://time.com/5828325/coronavirus-covid19-seasonal-asymptomatic-carriers/
  • When it comes to alloaction funds___
    Yeah, it's a tough time, and I think going to get tougher, more than is being priced in now.
    Since Feb 23, AOK and VWINX are about even, with the former showing bigger dip / recovery. Down over 5%, but only that. Praise the Lord.
    AOM is a bit behind them, naturally. Two brutal months.
    JABAX, FPURX, VLAAX, VWELX, and now VALIX are all bundled back around about the same point today, down 10% plus or minus, with the last one having the greatest dip and recovery over the last 2mos, the others closely tracking and less of a dip.
    Of course all have different allocation proportions, but then almost everything has swung in step during this time.
    You could conclude that you were simply going to put everything into some mix of AOK and AOM from now on, as someone recently recalled attention to, heading into a dicy future. But as msf and others have pointed out, you could probably do better with some effort and more than some luck. (Famous last words.)
    I did not have the energy tonight to plot all of these allocation funds against my bespoke combo of CAPE, VOOG, and BND, so there.
  • Dodge and Cox
    He does good research?
    @LB, to jump back onto an earlier horse, would you conclude that the reason VOOG constantly outperforms FXAIX / VOO, and RPG almost does (forget VOOV and RPV), has to do with what the nominally growth ETFs exclude?
    (and CAPE beats all, over time)
  • Advisors reimagine portfolio construction in a post-coronavirus world
    https://www.financial-planning.com/news/financial-advisors-reassess-portfolios-in-the-wake-of-coronavirus-crisis
    /What will portfolio construction look like when the threat of the coronavirus has diminished? While investment fundamentals such as asset allocation, diversification, rebalancing and risk management will remain pillars of financial advice, other areas of building portfolios are set to be reassessed in a changed economic landscape, according to financial advisors and investment professionals./
    Advisors approaches to portfolio constructions perhaps starting with hy bond/cash as potential building blocks
  • Dodge and Cox
    Interesting, and interesting to parse the various strands of value in a gross sense.
    I just graphed SP500 over 10-7-5-3-1y beating VOOV (SP500 value) and RSP (SP500 equal-weight), with the latter two overlaying much more than not. Both outperform RPV significantly and constantly; DODGX is only somewhat better than RPV.
    CAPE is better than everything until 4y and nearer, and then tracks SP500 plus or minus, showing, I guess, that its auto-churn thing is not value but growth cloaked as.
    Or maybe I have that backward.
  • Has anyone considered long/short or market neutral given where we are today?
    QQQ is the Nasdaq 100, more precisely.
    At some point I am planning on doing something quite like this, in my case 1/3 - 1/2 BND (slightly superior to AGG and the others) and the rest in CAPE and VOOG.