by awalker » Tue May 04, 2010 08:58 pm
hello, If a child (16 years old) is entitled to an insurance policy and he does not have an administrator when can he get actual control of the life insurance policy?
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 01:32 am Post Subject:
You seem to like American Funds. AFTEX
1/1/2005-12/31/2009
$10,000 “grew” to $9848. Is my answer still wrong?
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 07:11 am Post Subject:
Yes, I think American Funds are generally well managed.
Is your answer still wrong? Well let's see just how wrong it is.
Why not tell the whole story about AFTEX, instead of citing unsourced data for a selected 5 year period. 1-3-5-10-lifetime is 10.73%, 3.30%, 3.58%, 5.05%, 6.98% (as of 4-30-2010). Total returns for your selected years are 3.4%, 4.8%, 1.7%, -7.1%, 15.2%. No way $10,000 goes to $9,848, even with a one-time 3.75% maximum sales charge in 2005. (Aside from 2008's -7.1%, the fund has only had two other negative years in the last 20: 1994 -4.8% and 1999 -2.3%. Very similar to their CA Tax Free fund.)
And "the hypothetical $10,000 investment" from inception in 1990 to 4-30-2010 grew to $30,752 with distributions reinvested.
And are you overlooking all of the income the fund returned in those five years or are you merely looking at the change in NAV (from $12.51 to $11.82) during those 5 years and doing your own math? Because the charts tell a different story. There were positive income distributions in each of those five years 2005-2009 ($0.60, $0.39, $0.20, $0.35, $0.29 = $1.83/share) [even after adjusting for realized/unrealized net losses on securities], which, if reinvested, would mean owning more shares, and despite a -5.6% change in NAV (which reflects both the value of the underlying bonds and distributions of income), an investor would not have lost money in those five years, even if they took the income instead of reinvesting.
You also cannot ignore the fact that the fund's assets also DOUBLED in the same period from $3.5 billion to $7.1 billion, so plenty of other folks seem to like it, too.
So I stand by my analysis of your statement that "the preceding 4 years was negative" is still not proved by your selection of this fund, and I doubt, as I have previously said, that you could find any bond fund that performed as you purport in the years surrounding 2008.
All data cited above (and in previous posts) is from the most recent prospectus available as filed with the SEC.
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 10:03 am Post Subject:
Max,
Oops. I made one mistake in my post. I'm talking about 4 years. My numbers are for 1/1/2005-12/31/2008.
My source for the "unsourced" data is the American Funds advisor website. I have nothing against the fund. I'm just pointing out that putting short term money into a tax exempt bond fund can result in the loss of money.
I'm not overlooking anything.
I don't care about 5 year, 10 year, life time return. These all make for a nice a mirror of the past. This conversation started talking about putting money away for a 16 year old before they could take possession of the money. You recommended putting money into a tax exempt bond fund. If this recommendation was part of a diversified investment strategy, I would be fine with it.
I'm doing nothing more than pointing out the reality that this can lose money and therefore, it isn't appropriate for someone who wants to avoid investment losses. (You can certainly make a credible argument that one shouldn't be simply trying to avoid investment losses.)
Run a hypo from their site. You'll see that my statement about a loss over a 4 year period is correct. We can have arguments all day long over opinions, but we're talking about factual information.
Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 12:23 am Post Subject:
I'm bumping this so that Max can repent from telling me how wrong I am. Run the 4 year hypo, and you'll see that I'm right or ignore it if you are one of those people who struggle to admit when they are wrong.
Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 03:49 am Post Subject:
I don't care about 5 year, 10 year, life time return.
So why should I care about your selected 4-year return?
Fine. 1-2005 to 12-2008 results in a $152 loss. Big deal.
Your statement bears some truth. But run the numbers through 12-2009 and tell us all what the answer is. Or move the 4 year slider to 1-2006 to 12-2009, if you're stuck on a four year return, and tell us what the answer is.
Your rant is unjustified. Anyone can make any numbers look as good or as bad as they want. I can claim a 100% gain if I have a penny in my pocket and find another penny on the street. Or I can have a 100% loss if I develop a hole in my pocket and lose the penny. If I double my pennies every day for a month, I become a millionaire.
That's precisely why it IS important to care about 1-3-5-10 and lifetime returns.
We used to be able to say that there has never been a 10-year period of the Dow 30 that resulted in a net loss. Until a couple of years ago. One ten year period out of 120+ similar periods makes a statement but fails to tell the story from 1896 to the present day.
Enough said.
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 12:19 am Post Subject:
You should care because you are going on and on about how wrong I am when the reality is that I'm correct.
For the vast majority of 4 year returns, the results will be positive. So what? It doesn't change my point that taking one's short term money and putting it in a muni-bond fund carries risk.
I'm not trying to make muni bond funds look bad. I have no issues with them. 1
1-3-5-10 and lifetime returns don't matter if someone is making a short term investment. If someone is going to invest for a period of a few years, it might make sense to look at every 3 year period, but looking at just the last 3 years does almost nothing.
What I want from you is that when you tell me that I'm wrong about a factual matter, you need to be correct. The problem is that you make factual mistakes.
Posted: Thu May 20, 2010 09:15 am Post Subject:
I also want ask it
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