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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.
  • Texas pulls $8.5 billion from BlackRock funds, and in related news ...
    @msf
    Thanks for the Parnassus stuff.
    I don't think most individuals spend much time analysing the funds they own, other than maybe reading the title, or following the advice of an advisor.
    The prospectuses of the "ESG" funds I have read are usually so vague as to meaningless. At least some of the older "social impact" funds specifically said they would not invest in guns, nuclear power, etc. Then at least you sorta knew what you were getting.
    Even funds labeled "climate change" have such variety it is impossible predict what they will consist of. Fidelity's "Climate Action" fund FCAEX is 36% pure tech, mostly chip companies (so green they are) and the big Seven. Vanguard's new fund VEOIX is much more focused on industrial firms that are working on grid development, solar, wind power etc.
    But Fido is up 23% since the VEOIX start date in November. VEOIX is up 2%. Guess who is going to get the dollars?
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    GRID is great!.... 20% Utilities. Tracks an opaque index NASDAQ OMX Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure QGRD, which has beaten global equities recently
    https://cleanedge.com/data-dive-charts/Smart-Grid-Infrastructure-vs-Nasdaq-Global-0
    NLR "nuclear power" is 50% Utilities based on another opaque index MVIS® Global Uranium & Nuclear Energy Index. Supposedly these companies have to get 50% of revenue from nuclear power related activities, but I think they fudge it saying "expected to get"
    Uranium is on fire in the last year or so
    Of course now it has hit the headlines, it will all fall apart
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-centers-power/
    Has anyone looked to see if any active mangers missed Utilities with significant exposure to wildfires?
    I read the pole that started the fire in Texas was so rotten it had a sign on it that said "Do not Climb" Utilities will have to get a lot quicker a in repairing their stuff, or smarter in turning off the power with high winds. A switch that cuts power automatically with high winds or when line falls would be a great idea
  • Emerging Markets Anyone?
    I don’t particularly like the arbitrariness of defining what is an emerging or a developed market. Wouldn’t it make more sense for money managers simply to go where they think the best opportunities are. But slicing and dicing is a fact of life, and is to some degree necessary. Owning all US equity, or avoiding EM, is indeed a “slice and dice” decision in itself.
    Having said that, I think EM funds can be useful at certain times. Right now (as exemplified in this discussion) there is antipathy for EM investments. And yet, China has recently started up the world’s first Gen-IV nuclear reactor, and designed a battery that lasts 50 years. They also expect to launch a revolutionary space-based telescope next year to make discoveries concerning dark energy and dark matter, and they’ve invented a pair of eyeglasses that allows blind people to navigate their way around. Yeah I know about the political risks and communist party, but I still don’t think this is your grandparents’ China.
    Just an example.
  • This is a prime example. Why do I hate the Mag7? (Apple, this time.) news link.
    Semi-relatedly, AMZN just bought a nuclear-powered data center in PA to power some of its AWS farm...
    https://electrek.co/2024/03/05/amazon-just-bought-a-100-nuclear-powered-data-center/
    ... and GOOG is saying its data center water consumption is proprietary data, asking government to inform them about any public information requests.
    https://www.postandcourier.com/business/charleston-google-data-center-public-records-oregon-portland/article_c5f00fd8-d6f9-11ee-b3c1-f3f5e0012225.html
    The latter is not surprising, but goes to show how far big companies will go to conceal its activities from the general public while also exploiting the same resources available to the general public.
  • "Green Investors Have New Room to Grow"
    Why is that? It does with nuclear power plants- true, some of the water would be lost to evaporation, but surely not all??
  • Lithium Mining - Prospectors in a US Caldera strike "Lith"... (Gold)!
    Good questions, Andy, and that's kind of my point: There are a lot of moving parts here; as well as multiple considerations being conflated. First of all, there are benign energy stores on Earth; whose energy is only accessed through burning. Though already present, these energy stores do not present any concerns. Burning them, however, introduces concerns; not the least of which is increased CO2 emission and heat release into the environment.
    We already have energy supplied 'in house', so to speak; as a result of nuclear decay in the core. That's there regardless of what we do or don't do, and the Earth gains in thermal energy every minute of the day as a result.
    We also gain in thermal energy, minute by minute, as a result of insolation. We can tap into that energy and use it for our own purposes through the use of solar cells, but making those cells requires energy to mine, refine, and manufacture. Either way, we end up adding to the heat content of the Earth.
    As yogi noted, recycling reduces the stuff we have to relegate to trash; which is an entirely different concern. Recycling helps to reduce trash... But, you extract energy from lithium by binding the lithium atoms and releasing energy. Recycling takes that same amount of energy and adds it to unbind the lithium atoms. How do you produce that energy, and what does that 'cost' you (in terms of energy)?
    Finally, you mentioned recycling as an "alternative" to "mining new metals", but the fact is that this isn't an alternative; it's in addition to. We're going to mine and refine regardless; ostensibly for convenience and reducing carbon footprint by reducing 'burning'. Does it? I confess I don't know the answer after everything is considered. What I DO know is that it is likely to add to the heat content of the Earth. The only question in my mind is whether it exceeds what we'd normally garner from insolation itself.
    And of course, there is monetary 'cost' which is yet another consideration. Does it promote or reduce jobs? Raise prices? Produce more trash? Pollute? Generate GHG? Promote global warming (note on this last: if we absorb external energy and use it; however that is done, or burn stuff to produce energy, or cause more energy to be absorbed from the Sun; this is a certainty)?
  • Retiring FLPSX Tillinghast on M* The Long View
    @yogi great story to read today given the recent runup in stocks that pose an existential threat equal to nuclear war.
  • Do You Have Gun Stocks in your Funds?
    The cite given in the article, gunfreefunds.org, is under the As You Sow Invest Your Values umbrella that I've suggested before.
    In calling out Lockheed Martin (LMT), it seems the writer is conflating two different though related issues: military weapons manufacturing and civilian firearms manufacturing. If your concern is about companies involved with the leading cause of death of children in the US, then look at the list of gun free funds.
    According to Money Magazine, there are only two publicly traded US companies that manufacture (civilian guns): Smith & Wesson (SWBI) and Sturm, Ruger & Co. (RGR), though American Outdoor Brands (AOUT) is the parent company of Smith & Wesson.
    https://money.com/avoid-gun-stocks-investing-advice/
    There are many other gun manufacturers, but they tend to be private. Here's a list of the top 25 firearm manufacturers. It includes familiar names like Colt (Colt CZ Group SE, traded on the Prague stock exchange), Beretta (privately owned, Italian parent), and Glock Ges.m.b.H (privately owned).
    https://orchidadvisors.com/top-25-largest-firearm-manufacturers-of-2021/
    GunFreeFunds takes ownership a step further (as noted in the Kiplinger piece) by considering parent companies of privately owned manufacturers. For example, it looks out for ownership of Colt CZ Groupe SE (CZG). Here's its whole list of companies it looks for:
    https://gunfreefunds.org/how-it-works
    M* has an article similar to Kiplingers.
    https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1133372/how-to-find-gun-stocks-in-your-fund-portfolios
    It offers its own sampling of gun free funds
    image
    If you're interested in avoiding companies involved in weapons of war (military contractors, munitions manufacturers, nuclear arms manufacturers, etc.), Invest Your Values provides the site weaponsfreefunds.org.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Portfolio is at 57 stocks. 34 bonds 6 cash 3 other.
    Just added a tiny bit to SCHP. TIPs and BHB. (BHB recent report: EPS beat, but revenue missed. I'm still going to hang onto this one. It will be a long-term hold, unless the bottom falls out and the planet vaporizes by nuclear attack or else the sun becomes a supernova prematurely.)
  • Precious metals are breaking out
    So much depends on your perspective. These types of investments aren’t intended for everyone. Think of gold as “a hedge against the unexpected.” Almost by definition, “the unexpected” is that which is very unlikely to occur (political chaos, hyperinflation, asteroid strike, nuclear war).
    @Jan is correct. Long term, gold shouldn’t perform as well as investments in solid growth companies. That said, precious metals tend to run to the extremes on both the up-side and down-side. As fertile ground for speculators they might be attractive if you have the stomach. If you are unable to find even a 3%-5% spot in your portfolio for that kind of hedge or speculative gambit, no problem. Life goes on.
    Yes, I agree, there are obstacles to owning / trading physical gold. I’d not want that hassle. But there are, as I’m sure you are aware, funds that invest in it in various ways. Just $50 on a grocery store visit? I rarely escape for under $150. A halfway decent bottle of single malt runs $40-50 alone.
    BTW - The OP was by @rono who has tracked the precious metals forever. Rono’s forgotten more about the metals than most of us ever knew. I tend to agree with his point of view. However, making such predictions about gold involves looking at the technical charts as well as trying to anticipate correctly things like geopolitics, inflation, Federal Reserve policies and how other asset classes that vie for assets will perform going forward. And, Oh I almost forgot …. the herd instincts and behavior of investors.
  • Debt ceiling jitters lift US credit default swaps to highest since 2011
    I do think the debt ceiling’s worthy of discussion and I recall a rather lengthy discussion of it earlier this year. But I wonder if from an investor’s perspective it falls into the fat-tail category of an unlikely but extreme risk completely outside our control.
    About the best you can do if you think a default is probable is go to gold, foreign currency or cash. There is something people can do from a political perspective—vote, canvass, call your representatives, organize and protest to make sure these kinds of financial terrorists don’t remain in power or ever get elected again. In some respects, finding an investment solution to this problem for your portfolio is like asking how to prep your portfolio for a nuclear war. We’ve always known the nuclear warheads are there as the ultimate fat tail, but what can you really do to insulate yourself from that risk? The only solution is a mass political one not an individual investment one— throw the bums out of office.
  • 30-year Tips Article by William Bernstein
    Mr. Braham:
    Thanks for your insightful comments.
    You are quite correct that nothing in life is riskless, least of all in investing.
    "Riskless" is a financial term of art that can mean several things, most commonly that if these vehicles fail to deliver, which they well might, then you've got far bigger problems than your investment portfolio. In other words, financial economists use the term in the same way that a physicist might use the term "spherical cow." Trust me, the AdvisorPerspectives audience well understands these usages, and I doubt that any of them regard any human operation, investing or otherwise, as "riskless" as defined by the OED or Merriam Webster.
    As long as you've got me going: Yes, my backgound is in the sciences, but I view investing as half math and half Shakespeare, and if you only master the former, the latter will surely get you. (See "Long-Term Capital Management.")
    I'm also fond of pointing out that if we take the half-millennium survival of the Roman Empire as a starting point, that gives the average person about a one in six (Russian Roulette) chance of falling victim to such an event during their lifetime.
    And that's before we consider that several times in the past half century mankind came withing a hair's breadth of nuclear annihilation.
    Not to pile on here, but I don't write that much about the sciences, and David might tell you that I have been known to write about history.
    So, just to reassure you, I don't view any investment activity, or even tying my own shoelaces, as "riskless" in the literal sense you're using it.
    Take care,
    William Bernstein
  • AAII Sentiment Survey, 2/22/23
    For the week ending on 2/22/23, neutral remained the top sentiment (39.8%; high) & bullish became the bottom sentiment (21.6%; very low); bearish became the middle sentiment (38.6%; above average); Bull-Bear Spread collapsed to -17.0% (very low). Investor concerns: Inflation (moderating but high); economy; the Fed; dollar; cryptos; market volatility (VIX, VXN, MOVE); Russia-Ukraine war (52+ weeks, 2/24/22- ); geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks were down sharply, bonds down, oil down sharply, gold down, dollar up. BIDEN visited Ukraine; PUTIN withdrew from SALT nuclear treaty. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
    https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/942
  • Seafarer Funds’ China Analysis
    In emerging markets--really any market--there are all sorts of country risks. If a fund doesn't invest in China or is light China, it will likely overweight India instead. With India, one of the big risks is an escalation with Pakistan, which has been ongoing for decades. India-Pakistan is viewed as one of the most likely regions for a nuclear war to occur. Of course, developed markets like our own are facing our own crises.
  • Climate Change and "decarbonization"
    As with star ratings or any other magic numbers, one needs look behind the numbers to better understand what they represent.
    Somewhat like SRI funds that set very stringent de minimis thresholds on investing in "bad" companies, the sites I suggested grade on severe curves. Invest more than a little in "bad" companies, and your score goes down rapidly. It's still monotonic - the more a fund invests in "bad" companies, the worse its score. But it's a nonlinear scale.
    To take ICLN as an example - fully 1/8 (12.49%) of its portfolio is invested in utilities selling or using fossil fuels. Half of that alone (6.22%) is invested in ConEd. Seriously?
    Sure, ConEd has a "clean energy" subsidiary, ConEd Solutions. They used to offer me clean electricity as an ESCO, but that ended years ago. Now, all I can buy from ConEd as an electricity supplier is this mix (as of Dec 2020 - the latest info provided):
    Biomass <1%
    Coal 2%
    Hydro 9%
    Natural Gas 47%
    Nuclear 36%
    Oil <1%
    Renewable Biogas <1%
    Solar <1%
    Solid Waste 3%
    Wind 3%
    Emissions relative to NYS average
    SO2 113% of average
    NOx 112% of average
    CO2 113% of average
    Needless to say, I buy electricity from a third party, not ConEd.
    Carbon footprint? ICLN is off the charts, as measured by direct and indirect carbon emissions per dollar invested. You may disagree with FossilFreeFund's figure, but even MSCI's figure for the fund (also direct and indirect emissions), is still very high (nearly double that of the S&P 500 (IVV), per MSCI).
    https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/239738/ishares-global-clean-energy-etf
  • Climate Change and "decarbonization"
    Thanks for all the useful information
    @msf
    NALFX available at Schwab without a load.
    NEE has an enormous portfolio of renewable energy so it can really not be considered as fossil fuel dependent as other utilities.
    I have not found ESG calculations at M* very useful, as they are too inflexible. "G" is so widely defined almost any tech company qualifies.
    Making money on the alternative energy ETFs seems dependent on when you buy them, and the price, as always. That is one reason why I think an active fund has advantages.
    A lot of the performance of many of these funds recently is dependent on how much TSLA they own. Active management can cut back large positions like this when they price gets too extreme, but even funds without TSLA have gotten burned last year. ZGEIX for example held onto Beyond Meat as it crashed but sold it before the third quarter.
    There are other sources of information but most cost a lot. For example, "Thunder Said Energy" sends out daily emails about their extensive engineering based research, but charges $500 a report. The free charts are very useful, however. As an example, they list projected Lithium demand, or requirements to upgrade the electrical grid. This lead me to GRID, for example, which has number of positions that are critical to upgrading the power grid, many of them in other funds.
    The jury is still out on the environmental impact required to implement alternative energy infrastructure. Minerals, steel cement are all needed in much greater quantities than traditional oil and gas extraction.
    One point the people at Thundersaidenergy make over and over again, is that the "transition" to decarbonization will require A LOT of energy and fossil fuels. I think it is short sighted to eliminate all oil companies from your investments because they will do well in the near term.
    I have small positions in PWO, LIT, REMX,GMET,TAN,FXC NLR as water and minerals and nuclear power will have to assume greater roles than oil and coal in the years ahead.
  • Guggenheim partners announces the untimely and unexpected death of Scott Minerd
    The pictures are not specific but he looks like he was a big guy and maybe overweight? Certainly his job was stressful and probably contributed to his early death. He "retired " at 37 with millions but had to go back to work!
    "Running a global firm requires extensive travel. In 2015, Minerd spent time in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and other countries. His favorite travel destination is his beachfront home in Los Angeles: “If I can get the opportunity to be at home, I look forward to it. I already have a beach house, I just don’t get to spend any time there.”
    When he is on the road, Minerd follows a detailed regimen that includes a full arsenal of supplements such as Zicam (a cold remedy) and Pedialyte to prevent dehydration during his intense travel schedule. The entire time, he keeps his must-have “football” close. While the President of the United States is always accompanied by a military aide carrying a “football” including launch codes for nuclear weapons, Minerd’s “football” comes in the form of his Bloomberg Terminal, allowing him to monitor, analyze, and trade from wherever he happens to be at the time."
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Tesla/China and China in general. First, IMHO, is credible reporting from the State controlled government.
    NOW, the Covid thing. China appears to have begun relaxing policies of locking down the 'public'. Were they truly concerned with the recent 'riots'? Perhaps. Reportedly, they have deactivated the National Covid tracking app.; and travel restrictions have been reduced.
    With these and whatever other changes have been made and will be made; is the State going to take a chance on what will become of Covid?
    And what happens to this country internally and global supplies of whatever from China???
    Because of closures of many facilities with their previous Covid lock down policies, shortages exist in many production areas. I'm sure there are many, that in some fashion affect the U.S. in supply chain issues.
    One area that is critical for the U.S. and globally, are some medical products. In Michigan, there has existed a 'get on a list' for injection products (dyes and nuclear medicine) used for body scans to detect cancer formations and related. Patient schedules have had to be adjusted until a particular hospital received their allotment. GE Health in China was and I believe is still closed for production; and shifted output increases to Ireland.
    I'd be worried by a lot more than Tesla in China. One may choose to 'watch' what becomes of Covid in China; and ramifications in many areas.
    China's large travel period celebrating the New Year is scheduled for January 22, 2023 and traditionally is for 15 days.....the country shuts down factories and such and a large portion of the citizens travel to be with family(s). What will take place in 2023???
    My 12 cents worth (inflation adjusted).
  • How are you positioned going into 23'?
    Don't forget about major recessions, jobs loss, unstable banking systems due Feds potential over corrections, lots folks won't be able to pay for houses and cars along w job loss (triple whammy).... I think Ukraine Russian issues are priced in unless nuclear arsenals are used. Oil Xle would be worst asset to hold going forward next 12 18 months due to high rates. US dollars, Ust be very careful, it's too high now w high RSI ( except ust 10 yrs or 20yrs extremely cheap).
    We are still young and don't know how to time market well. Could be stagnation for 12 24 months (look at high rates high inflation, high unemployment environments in 1990s downturns stagnation conditions for quite a long time).
    We Keep buying stocks while cheap hope hold for 15 20 yrs til retirement hopeful 3x by then 2035. Been dca into growth, techs stocks, emergent markets, US Sp500, and 401k still at 90/10 distributions.
    Unless near retirement would be in lots Corp Bonds ust cash cd and less riskier assets, maybe 40% stocks. Friend 70 yo has 70% stocks unclear why but that her monies. Mama retired portfolios 70s% fixed asset and safe vehicles, she loss about 17% last 12 months but made some back. Biggest holders: Fidelity 2015 tdf, fbnd, and lots Corp bonds
    Happy holidays
  • Uranium bulls starting??
    https://theoregongroup.com/the-uranium-bull-market-and-the-coming-of-the-second-atomic-age-the-oregon-group-special-report/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=TwitterGeneralNoSubscribe&utm_id=Uranium&twclid=2-447nm4f8viiut65oyg7lbhld2
    Uranium is at the start of a 10-year bull market, according to our new report. The Oregon Group forecasts the uranium market will be positively impacted by a large net increase in global nuclear reactors, which require uranium as fuel.***
    Many yrs bull Uranium??
    Very volatile
    Maybe looking adding more UEC URA or $Urnm maybe 0.5% of portfolio