Search found 1090 matches

by Avo
Sun Apr 01, 2018 1:12 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Basis step-up for assets in living trust after grantor death
Replies: 5
Views: 1002

Basis step-up for assets in living trust after grantor death

My father-in-law Abe recently passed. His assets, including various mutual funds, were in a living trust, with Abe as grantor and his daughter Becky as trustee. Becky wants to sell the mutual funds now, and deposit the cash into a bank account in the name of the trust, for later distribution to Abe's heirs.

Question: would the step-up in basis apply in this situation?

Or do the mutual funds have to be distributed to heirs "in kind", and then sold, in order to get the step-up?

I've not found a clear answer to this in my searches, thanks for any help.

Avo
by Avo
Tue Aug 15, 2017 11:54 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Victor Mcclure, Financial Advisor in the Dallas Area
Replies: 6
Views: 1677

Re: Victor Mcclure, Financial Advisor in the Dallas Area

Nope, but his web site has some statements I would regard as giant red flags:

"At McClure Capital, we hold informational seminars and insurance sales presentations for our clients and the greater community that feature information on various retirement topics."

"Guarantees provided by insurance products are backed by the claims paying ability of the issuing carrier."
by Avo
Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:02 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: 30,000 in Checking Account
Replies: 136
Views: 28129

Re: 30,000 in Checking Account

GridironGems wrote: Mon Aug 14, 2017 9:52 pmI work for the state and their plan is terrible, so not interested 4% rate of return is what I get
By "rate of return", do you mean the state matches your contributions up to 4% of salary?

If so, that is likely still worth participating in, even if the plan is not the best.
by Avo
Sun Aug 13, 2017 5:11 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: My (general) contacts with Treasury Direct re loss & liability
Replies: 51
Views: 14719

Re: My (general) contacts with Treasury Direct re loss & liability

beardsworth wrote: Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:47 amTreasury Direct itself does not issue any direct account communications to the customer (no purchase or redemption confirmations, no periodic statements, no year–end tax forms)
I receive an email from them whenever one of my EE bonds matures.
by Avo
Wed Aug 09, 2017 7:30 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: 1-Million Dollar Question [Investing during retirement, leave to heirs]
Replies: 33
Views: 6161

Re: The GOALS are...

Would this strategy give income of 4% + in dividends to cover the RMD (which my dad will give to his 4 kids) Probably not. But most here think that it is a mistake to try to earn enough in dividends to cover RMDs, rather than be willing to have a higher-growth portfolio in which capital gains may also be used. Here is Vanguard's solution, the Target Retirement Income Fund: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=0308 Another possibility is Wellesley Income; actively managed, but low expense, and with a long track record: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0527&FundIntExt=INT And here is an old thread on dividend vs total return investing: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.p...
by Avo
Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:38 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Muni Bonds and Taxes.
Replies: 24
Views: 3399

Re: Muni Bonds and Taxes.

Yes, if you have gains (you might have a loss).
by Avo
Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:54 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Help with my new Rollover IRA
Replies: 3
Views: 449

Re: Help with my new Rollover IRA

Welcome to the forum!

Please write out the names of the funds, few here bother to memorize ticker symbols.

89% equities is very aggressive. If they go down in value 50% tomorrow, what do you think you will do?
by Avo
Mon Aug 07, 2017 3:30 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Does the trend toward index funds mute any bear market?
Replies: 17
Views: 2963

Re: Does the trend toward index funds mute any bear market?

Those who buy and hold do not influence the share price after the purchase.

Consider: there are 100 shares (total) of a particular stock. You own 99 and plan to hold. I own one. I bought it for $100, and that was the last price. So your shares are worth $100 each. I now decide to sell, and put out an ask price of $100. No one bids. I drop my price, and drop, and drop, until someone bids (say) $50, and I take that. The price of your 99 shares is now $50 each. It doesn't matter that you held a lot of them and I only had one.

Of course the real world is more complicated than this, but this illustrates the basic idea.
by Avo
Mon Aug 07, 2017 2:58 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

I was assuming deployment of cash across the entire portfolio equally, rather than putting it all in bonds.

But thinking of the cash as replacing a short-term bond position is probably more reasonable. And now that cash interest rates are up from zero, the drag is considerably less.
by Avo
Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:00 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Schwab's doesn't charge for their robo-advisor service. Fees for funds average about 17 basis points. They also unlike most robo-advisors have a pronounced value tilt. They give this sample portfolio of a 2/3rds stock 1/3rd bond http://i64.tinypic.com/s4mk4w.png I'm trying to think through the effective cost of the cash position. If the rest of the porfolio goes up by p% in one year, and the cash goes up by c%, then the gain of the complete portfolio lags a no-cash equivalent by (fraction in cash)*(p-c)%. So if p=6%, c=1%, and fraction in cash = 0.09, the lag is 0.45%. This could be thought of as an additional effective expense ratio, one that varies from year to year depending on p-c. On the other hand, you c...
by Avo
Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:46 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones
Replies: 77
Views: 10745

Re: Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones

I bought a pair of Etymotic ER4S when they first came out in 1993 and used them for many years. Clarity and noise isolation is excellent, but they have an emphasis in the highs that I never liked. See these comments on them by famed speaker designer Sigfried Linkwitz: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reference_earphones.htm (This is an informative discussion of headphones in general.) I then switched to a series of less expensive in-ears that had (to me) a subjectively better frequency balance, if not the absolute clarity of the ER4S. My favorites were some $60 phones from Nuforce. But all the in-ears have the annoyance of ear pieces that get ear wax on them (at least in my ears) and then need to be clearned or replaced (at a not insignificant co...
by Avo
Sun Aug 06, 2017 3:12 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: What criteria warrants a need for Living Revocable Trust?
Replies: 67
Views: 10185

Re: What criteria warrants a need for Living Revocable Trust?

Having had to take over for someone who became unable to manage their affairs, I found the living trust they set up to be a God send. The assets that were not in the trust became a nightmare since no company, NOT A SINGLE ONE, would accept a perfectly valid durable power of attorney. Assets that were already in the trust were easy. Once I proved I was the named cotrustee there were no problems. Fortunately, I got involved while the beneficiary was still able to transfer money out of the accounts held as an individual and into the trust. Unless you are somehow certain you will never face a period of incapacity, and I cannot imagine how anyone could know this, a living trust is crucial. That advantage alone is well worth whatever the up fron...
by Avo
Sat Aug 05, 2017 5:54 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

You sure write a lot.

M* chose that 60/40 stock/bond index for MDLOX, not me.

It matches the current allocation of MDLOX, which is 39.96% bonds and cash, 60.04% stock and "other" (according to M*).
by Avo
Sat Aug 05, 2017 2:31 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Vanguard Puts Rivals on Notice: Fee Wars Will Only Heat Up
Replies: 62
Views: 8714

Re: Vanguard Puts Rivals on Notice: Fee Wars Will Only Heat Up

Fee wars are bad for Vanguard. They are already heavily reliant on indexed products. Their rivals makes tons of money on active management. Already we hear many complaints about Vanguard customer service compared to rivals. Fee wars won't help this situation.
by Avo
Sat Aug 05, 2017 12:36 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

I don't know how you can say you weren't disputing MPT, " MPT is 65 years old. Where are the mutual funds that have out-performed by running an MPT strategy for the past, say, 20 years? " Either you believe MPT is false or obviously mutual funds using MPT have out-performed. My claim is that there are no such funds . MDLOX, your example, isn't one: it uses all sorts of stuff, including a big dose of human judgment: "Seasoned team of 50+ professionals have navigated diverse markets for over 28 years"; "the importance of differentiating between securities within an index has become more meaningful"; blah blah. They're not just choosing index funds in different asset classes according to an MPT correlation matrix...
by Avo
Sat Aug 05, 2017 11:28 am
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Larry Swedroe: Fundamentals v. Price
Replies: 4
Views: 962

Re: Larry Swedroe: Fundamentals v. Price

I always skip to the end of these sorts of articles to see if there is anything I can do to take advantage of the insights in my own investments. The (vague) answer is: buy an AQR multistyle fund.
by Avo
Sat Aug 05, 2017 10:58 am
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Roth, Taxes and Mistakes
Replies: 41
Views: 5767

Re: Roth, Taxes and Mistakes

Can you file amended returns to change to joint filing? There is a 3-year deadline to claim a refund with an amended return, but I'm not sure if this applies if you owe additional tax.

Your accountant needs to fix this at no cost to you. Roth requirements is basic stuff. Because she changed back to joint filing in 2015 without telling you why, it is reasonable to question her honesty as well as her competence.

But I would get another accountant to review whatever her plan is. And if she does not agree to make you whole, I would consult an attorney.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:30 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Backtesting some robo-advisers asset allocations
Replies: 109
Views: 16702

Re: Backtesting some robo-advisers asset allocations

Ethelred wrote:Almost all of the under-performance between Betterment and SIP plus the two tilted portfolios happens in the period 2000 to 2006. What is driving that?
More MCV and SCV, and a big does of Health Care.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:25 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Backtesting some robo-advisers asset allocations
Replies: 109
Views: 16702

Re: Backtesting some robo-advisers asset allocations

I would like to see the results with a "classic" bogleheads tilt: equal parts TSM, SCV, Total Int'l, and Int'l Small for equities (which is implementable with Vanguard index funds/ETS) and TBM for bonds.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 8:28 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

jbolden1517 wrote:over the last 29 years (the life of the Blackrock fund)
Way too long. The fund outperformed spectacularly early on, with low assets. Over the past ten years, though, it significantly trails the plain-vanilla M* 60/40 global index, CAGR 4.8% for MDLOX vs 5.7% for the index.

This is a common phenomenon in actively managed funds.

I don't dispute the basic point of MPT, that adding uncorrelated assets reduces portfolio volatility. What I dispute is that additional active management of the sort that you champion is worth the cost and complexity.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:50 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: switching to vanguard from a financial advisor
Replies: 6
Views: 1133

Re: switching to vanguard from a financial advisor

I believe Vanguard will take them "in kind", and allow you to sell them (partially or completely, with a fee for each sale, as mentioned), but not to buy them or add to them.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:20 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

As of today, MDLOX (Blackrock Global Allocation, A Shares) has slightly underperformed VSMGX (Vanguard LIfe Strategy Moderate Growth, a classic 60/40 split, currently 40% intl stocks) over the past 10 years, and that's before the 5.25% load on MDLOX. Volatility looks a little higher on the Vanguard fund, and it did worse in the crash (-36% from 8/4/07 to the bottom vs -25%).

MDLOX is not something I would pay ongoing fees for.
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:00 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

jbolden1517 wrote:That being said if you believe in MPT (which has a lot of evidence) the Vanguard portfolio underperforms most of these robos by way more than 35 basis points.
MPT is 65 years old. Where are the mutual funds that have out-performed by running an MPT strategy for the past, say, 20 years?
by Avo
Fri Aug 04, 2017 12:38 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: What we know about robo advisors
Replies: 156
Views: 36620

Re: What we know about robo advisors

Depends on the fees of the advisor, and what "so-so" means in practice.

If Ed's advisor is Vanguard, and guides Ed into tax-efficient asset location, and after a few years Ed figures out he can do all this himself (because it's really not that hard to implement a Vanguard portfolio yourself) and stops paying the advisor fees for the next 30 years ...

While Carl's asset location is tax inefficient, and Carl is getting very different portfolios from his four different robos and worries that some of them are bad, and feels confused as to whether his overall strategy is right or not, and really wishes he had someone he could talk it over with, but doesn't, and the market looks frothy, so maybe he should go all cash now ...
by Avo
Thu Aug 03, 2017 9:08 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Are value stocks safer or more risky?
Replies: 49
Views: 6406

Re: Are value stocks safer or more risky?

knpstr wrote:The academic theory is incorrect.
When do you go to Stockholm?
by Avo
Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:20 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Good time to transfer Beneficiary IRA to Vanguard?
Replies: 8
Views: 1025

Re: Good time to transfer Beneficiary IRA to Vanguard?

Welcome to the forum! No matter what is happening with the market, the best time to stop paying high fees is always now . The only question is whether it would be cheaper to sell at Wells Fargo, or transfer "in kind" and sell at Vanguard. You would need to ask both WF and Vanguard for the total costs of selling everything to be sure. You are paying for VPAS advice. I would take it. Here at bogleheads, we will argue endlessly about things like whether int'l bonds are needed or not, but this is a very minor issue. Just take the VPAS advice and don't look back. If you want to continue to learn more and ultimately DIY, that's fine too, of course, and a little cheaper. But for now, you seem like you would be better off using the servic...
by Avo
Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:15 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Why is it hard to beat the market?
Replies: 45
Views: 5660

Re: Why is it hard to beat the market?

Looks very different on a log plot. It did do a bit better than the S&P coming off the bottom in 2009, but since 1/1/2010 it's been essentially the same as VFINX; look at a plot on M*.
by Avo
Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:06 pm
Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
Topic: Why is it hard to beat the market?
Replies: 45
Views: 5660

Re: Why is it hard to beat the market?

Oakmark select beat the SP500 for 19 years by an average of 4.6% Oakmark Equity income beat the SP500 total return index by 1.2% Oakmark Global beat MSCI world by 5.6% Oakmark Global Select beat MSCI world by 3.2% Oakmark International beat MSCI ex-USA by 3.8% Oakmark Small international beat MSCI international small cap by 2.9% Funny how their flagship fund, Oakmark, is not on your list. After a spectacular first few years in the early 90s, and much attention from the popular financial press, it crashed and burned in 1999. The manager (I forgot his name) was fired, and replaced by Bill Nygren (who was running the more focused Oakmark Select). Nygren then did very well to avoid the dotcom crash (though he also did dumb things like ride Was...
by Avo
Tue Aug 01, 2017 4:50 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Buckingham Strategic Wealth Advisers- virtual or local?
Replies: 7
Views: 1254

Re: Buckingham Strategic Wealth Advisers- virtual or local?

peigner wrote:I trust that he has fully vetted the advisers that I would be working with
Have you asked him about this?
by Avo
Tue Aug 01, 2017 1:46 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Shall I just leave my investment alone?
Replies: 10
Views: 1431

Re: Shall I just leave my investment alone?

If you have enough to establish your own foundation, then you have high ability and also (according to what you write) high willingness to take risk, coupled with a low need to take risk. So, basically, you can have any AA you want, and it will be fine.
by Avo
Tue Aug 01, 2017 10:32 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: What to do with this fund - KIFAX
Replies: 9
Views: 1069

Re: What to do with this fund - KIFAX

Yes, just sell.

Here's one way to think about it: suppose you had been given this fund as a gift (or inheritance, or lottery winning). You would just sell it, right? In that case there would be no worries about "getting back to even".

But your actual situation is the same: you own it now, what happened in the past is not relevant. (Except that you actually get a bonus tax deduction!)
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 6:02 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Say Bye Bye To Wells Fargo Advisors?
Replies: 30
Views: 6736

Re: Say Bye Bye To Wells Fargo Advisors?

My current thought process is to liquidate the current holdings at WF, move the cash to Vanguard, and buy their funds - but that brings even more questions. Will there be a tax liability? What fund(s) do I put the $ for each account into? And so on. There may be a tax liability in the brokerage account, but not in the Roths. It may be cheaper to transfer everything "in kind" to Vanguard, and sell there, rather than sell at WF. If you're not paying an "assets under management" fee at WF, their sales charges may be quite high. For the Roths, I would put everything into the appropriate Target Date Retirement Fund at Vanguard. Then you can read up more & decide if you want to change. The taxable account requires more th...
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:41 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...
Replies: 51
Views: 7556

Re: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...

Yeah, well I didn't need to read 23 pages of blather from Howard Marks to figure that out.
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:17 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...
Replies: 51
Views: 7556

Re: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...

Sorry, but I don't understand that either.

To be concrete, let's say I'm running a pension fund that's supposed to last forever, and my default allocation is 60/40 TSM/TBM. What should I do in light of "common sense"? :confused
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 3:55 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Say Bye Bye To Wells Fargo Advisors?
Replies: 30
Views: 6736

Re: Say Bye Bye To Wells Fargo Advisors?

LukeDell wrote:We're big fans of the passive buy & hold strategy for retirement and definitely want to reduce our long-term costs as much as possible.
Well then of course people here are going to recommend that you switch to Vanguard. There is no reason to believe that a WF sales rep is going to do better, after fees, than a low-cost passive portfolio. At a glance, your WF portfolios do not seem diversified, and so are much higher risk than they need to be.

Re your stock holdings, consider using total-market funds only unless you have a well-understood reason for doing otherwise.
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:42 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Will/Trust Plan Thoughts?
Replies: 56
Views: 7187

Re: Will/Trust Plan Thoughts?

The tax qualified accts have spouses as primary and the contingent is the trustee (Fidelity upon our death or incapacity) who is directed to stretch the accts. for the kids. Of course once we are incapacitated or deceased there is a fee for trustee services which may include some of the investing management or this may be a little extra. Do you have an estimate of what these trustee service fees would be over, say, ten years, as a percentage of assets in the accts? It seems to me they would be a lot. Also, what are the kids' options for dealing with this trust after your deaths? Can they take over direction of it without having to pay endless trustee fees to Fidelity? FWIW, I'm just gobsmacked by the notion that trusts have no additional c...
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:23 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Quick Question regarding tilting until retirement
Replies: 22
Views: 2380

Re: Quick Question regarding tilting until retirement

Tilting to SCV is based on the belief that, over time, SCV stocks will do better than TSM (total market). The reason for this may be (1) SCV has higher risk that TSM, or (2) it is a behavioral anomaly. Whatever the explanation is, there is no guarantee that the long-term higher return of SCV will persist into the future, or if it does, whether it will "show up" over the next decade, next 2 decades, etc. Of course it may also be that SCV will do much better than TSM. This happened over the period of the dotcom crash, and now that TSM is headed by frothy FANG stocks, maybe that will be true again. So there is no right answer to whether to tilt or not, or whether to stop tilting in retirement or not. You have to make your own judgmen...
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:16 pm
Forum: Personal Finance (Not Investing)
Topic: Trouble with Universal Life Insurance Policy
Replies: 19
Views: 3035

Re: Trouble with Universal Life Insurance Policy

What is the cash value of the policy? I don't see how it can be zero at this point.

Whatever it is, taking it would seem to be the best option. I doubt very much that a lawsuit would succeed, or be cost effective even if successful.
by Avo
Mon Jul 31, 2017 11:37 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Warning - don't invest in funds with low assets
Replies: 10
Views: 2401

Re: Warning - don't invest in funds with low assets

Alex GR wrote:May I ask a really silly question? How is that a risk? When I hold that fund don't I own the underlying stocks that are in the fund?
Yes. The risk, as stated in the OP, is that you might have to pay unexpected capital-gains taxes if your liquidated shares are worth more than you paid for them.
by Avo
Sun Jul 30, 2017 10:59 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...
Replies: 51
Views: 7556

Re: Newbie question about my stock in Amazon...

Great article To me it seems like financial porn whose only goal is to convince you that (1) you don't know enough to do this yourself, and so (2) you'd better give your money to us. Here's an excerpt from near the end (emphasis in original): Where are we today? As I said earlier, risk is high and prospective return is low, and the low prospective returns on safe investments are pushing people into taking risk – which they’re willing to do – at a time when the reward for doing so is low. Given my view of the environment, the only reason to be aggressive today is because defensive investing implies low prospective returns. But the question is whether pursuing high expected returns through aggressiveness can be counted on to be rewarded. If ...
by Avo
Fri Jul 28, 2017 8:07 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Investment Allocation help in Vanguard IRA
Replies: 1
Views: 433

Re: Investment Allocation help in Vanguard IRA

Well they're basically the same, so it's only a matter of which details matter to you.

VSMGX holds international bonds as well as domestic. The case for international bonds has been much debated, here & elsewhere. It likely makes very little difference either way.

VSMGX has 40% of equities in international. Maybe you want a different number. The "best" ratio has been endlessly discussed. No one knows what it is. Everything from 0 to 50% has been recommended by somebody.

The 3-fund will have a slightly lower overall expense ratio, especially once you get enough invested to hold admiral-class shares of each fund.

You have to rebalance the 3-fund yourself, adding a little more time/complexity.
by Avo
Fri Jul 28, 2017 5:59 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Active vs index, etc.
Replies: 34
Views: 3758

Re: Active vs index, etc.

This ten year view shows Cresent favorable to moderate allocation benchmarks and slightly better than vanguard balanced but close nonetheless. http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/FPACX/quote.html http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/VBIAX/quote.html Obviously these comparisons change year to year. I wrote 10 years, but I think I was looking at several time periods. The last 3 or 4 year charts make VBIAX look better. I wouldn't keep Crescent, because I would bet on the high fees winning over time. The manager (forgot his name) has to do really well to overcome fees with 55% stock and 15% cash. Again, personally, I'm done with active funds in traditional spaces, but I'm still open to odder ducks like PONDX and some of the AQR stuff. But t...
by Avo
Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:53 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: Active vs index, etc.
Replies: 34
Views: 3758

Re: Active vs index, etc.

Of course the best fund managers add value (alpha). The problem is that they usually don't do it consistently, and you never know when they're going to stop, and it's hard to know who was actually good and who was just lucky. Wellington, Contrafund, and Low-Priced Stock have well rewarded their long-term shareholders. I used to own the latter two, but became an indexer some time ago. I wish I had held on, but who knew? I looked at Crescent a few years ago, I don't like it. High fees, 15% cash, and underperforming (including on the downside) Vanguard Balanaced Index over the past 10 years. Also I don't generally like balanced funds unless the manager is adding alpha by switching in and out of stocks. Very hard to do consistently. My wife sti...
by Avo
Fri Jul 28, 2017 3:26 pm
Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
Topic: TSA Pre-check for free
Replies: 75
Views: 9478

Re: TSA Pre-check for free

I am not a paid member, but like your friend I sometimes get it for free and I sometimes don't. I fly multiple airlines, a few times per year. I have not detected the pattern, if there is one to detect. My last flight I did not get it.
by Avo
Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:08 am
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: moatvalueinvesting.com - worthiness?
Replies: 2
Views: 738

Re: moatvalueinvesting.com - worthiness?

eager to learn wrote:say you had a small amount of money to invest (maybe to teach your kids about how to evaluate a company’s finances not just for investing but in recruiting the right execs for a business, a company’s or a NPO board)
How old are these kids?? :confused
by Avo
Thu Jul 27, 2017 5:09 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase
Replies: 32
Views: 3360

Re: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase

I believe they track different indices, which might have different small-cap cutoffs. Or they might use different sampling methods to replicate the index. Performance has been very close to identical; compare them on M* charts.
by Avo
Thu Jul 27, 2017 4:58 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase
Replies: 32
Views: 3360

Re: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase

Mtangler25 wrote:What about SWTSX? is that a suitable choice?
Yes! Very low 0.03% expense ratio, tracks the entire US market.
by Avo
Thu Jul 27, 2017 4:56 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase
Replies: 32
Views: 3360

Re: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase

CnC wrote:
Avo wrote:We prefer total-market funds over an S&P500 fund.
:oops:
...don't say we don't recommend s&p 500 funds
I didn't say that. I said that we prefer total market funds.

And we do!

E.g., from the wiki: "the funds that are best for a three-fund portfolio are: Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX), ..."
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
by Avo
Thu Jul 27, 2017 3:57 pm
Forum: Personal Investments
Topic: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase
Replies: 32
Views: 3360

Re: "Timing the Market" / Deciding when to make along term purchase

We don't recommend holding single stocks. We don't recommend sector funds. We prefer total-market funds over an S&P500 fund. We don't recommend market timing.