Friday, June 28, 2013

06/28/13 The La-Z-Boy Portfolio

I'm switching the portfolio to auto-pilot! In my 403(b): 1/3 VTSMX (Vanguard Total US Stock Market Index Fund)> currently -4.6% off YTD highs. Expense ratio 0.17%. 1/3 VGTSX (Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund)> currently -9.4% off YTD highs. Expense ratio 0.22%. 1/3 VIPSX (Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund)> currently -8.6% off YTD highs. Expense ratio 0.2%. For the remainder of my family's accounts (which allow ETFs): 1/3 ITOT (iShares Core S&P Total US Stock Market ETF)> currently -4.6% off YTD highs. Commission-free with Fidelity! 1/3 IXUS (iShares Core MSCI Total Intl Stk ETF)> currently -10.8 off YTD highs (the difference vs -9.4% for VGTSX is due to the fact the ETF trades intraday, whereas the fund does not). Commission-free with Fidelity! 1/3 TIP (iShares Barclays TIPS Bond ETF)> currently -9.6% off YTD highs (the difference vs -8.6% for VIPSX is due to the fact the ETF trades intraday, whereas the fund does not). Commission-free with Fidelity!

46 comments:

  1. Here's my take for the short-and-long term. Short-term volatility followed by new highs into year-end.

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  2. Ah, chips and dip for the couch potatoe. Something on which to gnaw, sharpen teeth and maintain healthy gums. ;)

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  3. German elections - Wonder when the panic attack occurs?

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  4. Who changed his handle to Moochie?

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  5. 10% pop in MUX got me into the green, had to take the profit. I think miners have a swing up coming though.

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  6. FMD - I'm still trying to accumulate, but wonder how much I can influence price by selling 1k shares? I guess the computers jump it up a couple pennies, as punishment.

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    1. Okay, 1k up for sale at $1.13, closing the lid on Pandora's box...

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    2. All gone, made $10..... Now the computer will try punishing me so be prepared for a lift.

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    3. I shoot for a min of a 100$ gain, but sometimes you gotta take what you can get.

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    4. Just an celebratory experiment. Gonna buy 'em back at $1.04 Monday b/c a penny in time saves nine, smoke 'em if ya got 'em!

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    5. The strategy is working, computer is punishing me for selling 1k shares..... We've put in an LT bottom now.

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  7. I am going to test the buy and hold approach as well. I took 15K for each itot, ixus and TIP (which I wanted to buy anyway)to compare against my trading port results.

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    1. I will try to update the results as we go forward.

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    2. I use VEU and VTI in other B&H accounts.

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  8. hey 2nd - good luck with that strategy. i think it works over time. one suggestion i would have is maybe going in over time. after getting shaken out of SNE because i put the bulk of my $$ in too high, i've learned to buy in chunks over time. worked well for me on YRCW and CECO and hopefully will work well with FMD and others i'm looking at.

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    1. I pretty much always average in and out as well. Nothing worse than going all in just before a plunge and missing a great buying opp.

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  9. PKX - This puppy's been whistlin' dixie the whole way down, now at lower BB of weekly.

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  10. Fellas - on FMD, look at the chart closer. Prior highs were $1.07 to $1.09. the stock seems to be bouncing off of that level for the past week or so. I still don't think that low print of $1.04 on 6/21 was legit because i was watching it that day and there was never a bid/ask close to it. So maybe this is just one big backtest of prior highs? will be interesting to see how it trades going forward.

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    1. "backtest of prior highs"

      I agree, back-testing. Pill filled his bid @ $1.04 so it did trade there. Still $0.01 above my price objective.

      I let those 1k shares go cheap as a sacrifice to the gods of profit taking (or something like that).

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    2. you know my take on this business...any mention of new lending partners or re-entry into the securitization market and flipping for pennies will be regretted. hopefully this happens in our lifetimes!

      i'll just leave you with two quotes:

      1.) "Before turning the call over to Ken, let me say a few words about the capital markets. We believe that the private student loan asset-backed securities markets appears healthier now than at any point since 2007. In both primary and secondary markets, bonds are being placed and traded with increased certainty. In our last call, we discussed 2 of the key metrics which determined the economics of a securitization, funding costs and a required capital.

      Funding cost have continued to improve due to both the growth of the investor base, as well as the quality of the collateral being financed in the market today. From the capital side, this quarter saw an important development as the benchmark issuer placed a new single-lay rated subordinate bond, the first such bond in the private student loan space since 2008. The market responded extremely favorably as significant investor oversubscription allowed the bond to price well inside initial guidance. The result was in a lower all-in cost of funds for the benchmark issuer compared to its prior transaction in October 2012, which did not include a subordinated bond. The inclusion of the subordinated bond increased the amount of funds raised as a percentage of student loans financed from 78% to 84%, reducing the capital requirement of the issuer. As we have stated in the past, the return of the subordinated bond market is a linchpin for market accessibility and that this transaction signals the continuing normalization of the private student loan ABS market. We will monitor developments in the capital markets relative to our other funding sources, remaining opportunistic in the use of the company's equity capital."

      2.) "Ann H. Heffron - Zacks Investment Research Inc.

      Okay. Are you having any more luck on getting more into...
      Daniel Maxwell Meyers - Co-Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, President and Member of Award Committee

      Well, that's a forward-looking statement, Ann. But I will tell you that we have found that the pipeline conversations have been extraordinarily active of late."

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    3. "hopefully this happens in our lifetimes!"

      "Well, that's a forward-looking statement, Ann."

      Everything's always hindsight or forward looking, LOL!

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  11. Here's one that you can buy and hold. I plan to sell in a couple of years for hopefully a double. It has generally outperformed the S&P 500 on stock and asset growth basis for many years and is still cheap. Goes back to our discussion about doing research and finding the things people don't dig into.

    Old Republic (ORI) is now a top 5 holding for me. Previously I bought it at $8.81 and it's been going straight up, so adding here on this pullback at $12.82.

    The reason it is still a good buy is it pretty much always trades in a group with a bunch of other insurers, the most similar being CINF. ORI has been hurt the last few years as it owns a mortgage insurer, making their numbers look bad. But this is separately incorporated, so can't affect ORI, but must be consolidated from an accounting perspective. Once people realize this (or the mortgage insurer may turn a profit in 2014), people should move this back to a similar valuation with about 50% upside. The other good thing about it is that it pays a 5.8% yield, has increased this for 30 years straight and is financially in good shape to continue doing so. People are chasing stocks like this nowadays.

    The other good thing is even though it has a $3 billion market cap, they only have 1 analyst following it, so potential for upgrades / coverage.


    BY the way, I also sold my Amdocs (DOX) to fund this. Reviewed their latest investor presentation and they're not in as good a spot as I thought. Plus with companies like Accenture warning and ORCL saying they are going after the telco space, think it will be tougher upside. I will be pissed though if ORCL buys DOX in the nearterm!

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    1. ORI...very interesting...

      another two buy and holds: GRPN and CAKE

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  12. Wow - just saw the move in the miners today - GDXJ up 10%!

    But really, unless you bought this week, you lost money. You were down over 50% YTD...

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  13. Re going all-in versus averaging in, I read this last November and the conclusion stuck with me:

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/putting-a-lump-sum-of-money-into-stocks-pays-off-2012-11-02?pagenumber=1

    'Why does the all-in strategy have an edge? “Markets historically have gone up more than they have gone down,” said Vanguard principal Daniel Wallick.'

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    1. for averaging in, i guess i am referring more to individual stocks which tend to fluctuate wildly. but this makes perfect sense in your case. great article.

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  14. The Smartest Man in Global Capital Markets (TSMIGCM):

    http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/markets/articles/The-Smartest-Man-in-Global-Capital/6/27/2013/id/50567?page=full&refresh=1

    Three paragraphs stood out for me. Based on what I know about politics and human nature, I am inclined to believe the author's contention that the correction that began May 22 was an intentional (and necessary) 'intervention.'

    'Six plus weeks ago, Bernanke did nothing wrong in his Congressional testimony. He hesitated one or two times and suggested that QE would, by definition, have some unintended consequences if prolonged in perpetuity. This was enough. We should be thankful he did that. Money supply was going up, however, given the new and confused regulatory environment, and the financial system was unable to act as an efficient transmission mechanism to augment the velocity of money; henceforth, the likely legacy of QE could be the harmful long-term consequences it would have on savers (of all kinds), pension funds, retirees, and insurance companies. Therefore, what Bernanke was in fact doing was intentionally letting some air out of the bubble.

    'Give Bernanke and the Fed credit; they see and know all of this. They very meticulously -- almost forensically -- orchestrated a "correction" that amounted to 5% in equities, 5-10% in select US Credit Products, and 15%+ in emerging markets-related asset classes and currencies. This was necessary! Central bankers have maintained for years that they should not manipulate and manage asset prices. Today, that is exactly what they are doing. There has been no coherent US fiscal policy to assist the Fed in its quest to salvage US growth and reflate. History will prove this true.

    'I stated in my last missive that the major US brokerages had approximately 40-42% of total private banking assets invested in equity securities (versus 70% in the '80s-'90s). At mid-year 2013, some of those brokerages report aggregate equity allocations in the range of 52-58%; therefore, the "wealth effect" of higher equity prices is more prevalent now than it was six months ago. Of course, the opposite holds true as well. We need -- and we will (in my view) -- get higher equity prices by year's end.'

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    1. I sure hope Obama knows what he is doing pushing Bernanke out the door.

      He does make questionable decisions sometimes.

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    2. 2nd, I'm experiencing some degree of difficulty poking holes in your theory, let me stew on it awhile.

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  15. looks like our seller at 1.19 got a little impatient and sold lower, which dropped it for about 30 seconds...

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  16. 1.8 million share order went through on FMD at $1.18. let's hope it was a new institutional buy order...

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    1. hmmm could be i guess huh. quarter end. it's in the russell 2000 but i don't think the vol spike would be that big.

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    2. I looked back over the past several years and there was never a spike in volume on the last day of the 2nd quarter. They aren't going into or out of an index that I know of so I think this is something more.

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    3. What sucks more than anything is I receive no credit or even a thanks for causing today's rally.

      It's an impossible feat, getting a pat on the back outta' the DT crowd......

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    4. Remind me how you were able to get the market to rally today?

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    5. I'm talking about FMD's gain today, which I arranged as described earlier.

      I dunno about the broad market anymore, keeping track of news releases has gotten a little out of hand. About all I think I know is, some dribble happened where Obama said or did something unflattering concerning Bernanke.

      I'm thinking more about the effect of the FED paying interest on reserves than that misleading media flim-flam, political showboating stuff talking about who-said, she-said this and that, Obama spends taxpayer wealth to visit Mandella and take African safari vacation distractions.

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    6. Once you figure out how to rally the broad market, we'll all get filthy rich and officially change the blog name to DT.

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    7. Your choice of song for the post got me thinking...

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    8. "figure out how to rally the broad market"

      Point taken, I'll get to work on that. I really think I'm onto something so maybe I can expand on the scheme.... Man, you guys really do play rough...

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    9. Barkeep! Hit me with a margarita, and make it frozen!

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    10. Anything I can do to tie in the two blog titles, bro.

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    11. "we'll all get filthy rich and officially change the blog name to DT."

      simple solution to that would have been going all in YRCW at $6 and holding til $30 today. we'd all be passed out drunk right now.

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  17. Based on the first half, on average we should have quite a good second half year in the markets.

    http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_6414/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=JdyDvckR

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