One of my friends that works for a very profitable (50k+ employees) co reports that there is a hiring freeze of sorts and the salary raises are in line with what they were last year. I think this is quite a typical picture across many industries.
@shawbridge I am a part owner of a partnership. As such, I am self employed. Company offers health insurance (and covers a portion of the costs for employees). Partners all pay 100% of their own premiums. We do get above the line tax deductions for that. Premium costs got out of hand 7-8 years ago. Going to a high deductible plan helped briefly though the trend still continued. And that is a one trick pony in that you can only go there once to help reduce premium costs. Back when costs where getting out of hand, I looked at getting my own policy. Would have been cheaper back then. However, its my understanding that if medical coverage is offered and you do not take it, you do not get a deduction for buying your own. If we didnāt offer it (which is something I have suggested for partners), we could deduct the premiums we paid on our own policy. When I ran the numbers, the cost difference worked out to be about what the tax benefit lost would be from losing the deduction. Not surprisingly so, the insurance company knows how to price its policies.
Of course reducing the corporate tax rates wonāt lead to higher wages. Wages are not set based on how much money businesses can afford. For the past 10 years or so, borrowing costs have been at or near record lows. So businesses (and individuals) have been able to reduce their borrowing costs. Using the reasoning given for the tax reductions, you would have expected wages to increase but they didnāt. Because again, that isnāt how wages are set. And issues with wages are more complex than tax cuts.
Basic economics education in the US would have to get significantly better for it to just suck. We should be embarrassed by it. I think there are many reasons for it but a big one is many adults have a horrible economics understanding and end up passing it on to their kids. And people are often embarrassed at making mistakes and do not want to seek help. There should be a requirement for basic economics K-12. And ongoing thereafter.
Side benefit would be much of what you hear in capitol buildings around the country and in ads from various businesses fall away because people wonāt fall for it anymore (or at least far fewer would).
Ixnay, you just made my day. My mom bought Prime Cap for son 25-30 years ago. Now I want to research it better.
Thereās an article today (behind a pay wall) in WSJ on advisers at discount brokers win bonuses to push higher priced products including managed accounts. The 3 three featured are Fidelity, TDAmeritrade and Schwab. Anytime an adviser recommends a product or refer you to an independent planner, you should ask what his incentive pay is.
Funny, I got an email today from a āCentral Relationship Managerā at Fidelity who wants to meet with me, probably because they want to push me into a managed account.
They are not getting rich off of 0.04%, though.
0.04% here, 0.04% thereā¦ at least the car payment is secured. 
Iāve been really happy with Primecap. I have 60% of my 401K in it, and was worried about being very heavily weighted into that one fund. But Iām not worried anymore, the fund has proved itself over the years.
Thatās awesome that she did that. Itās probably worth a boatload. And I believe itās a closed end fund, he might be able to buy more, but people who arenāt already in it, canāt get in.
The fund is closed to new investors (a closed end fund is different, but I know what you meant). Even those of us grandfathered in can only add $25k per account per year.
Fidelityās Contrafund also up 32% in 2017 after a couple years of misses. Over 15 years, it still beat S&P 12.06% vs 9.75%.
Anybody in Bitcoin? Rather volatile as a retirement investment! I didnāt know if it had been discussed yet or not, but all the talk on returns made me toss it out there.
Maybe it depends upon other factors, what program you are in or the group, or institutional investors. There is no limit for us, and Iāve moved over 80K into Primecap from other funds within the last year. It is āPrimecap Fund Admiralā
One of my Vanguard funds is up 40% for the year. Eeek. Too bad this is a new 401(k) for me!
Wow, thatās amazing! What fund is it?
Some technology holdingsā¦ forgot the name. But check these out:
Smells like dot com bubble to me!!!
Yeah, kinda does.
Yeah, I remember those times well. I was watching Black Monday 1987, tech crash of 2000 and 2008. Just sit tight and hang on folks!!
Sometimes, an institution buys from Vanguard and sells it to its own clients. To Vanguard, their client is the institution, not an individual. Limts and restrictions may differ. We had that through a bank once. BD you may not be owning PrimeCap directly through Vanguard.
PrimeCap is mostly large cap. To compare its performance, one should look at how the large cap index fund did, not S&P. Just checked against Vanguard Large Cap Index Fund VLCAX. Over max period the index fund wins, over 2 years PrimeCap wins over 1 year the index fund wins. Not any clear winner. If you add tax cost to that, PrimeCap may even be a loser since you will be paying more tax for getting greater capital gains in an active fund. I wouldnāt say PrimeCap is a winner over an index fund. Large caps in general were doing better than overall market.
I agree with @Iglooo. PRIMECAP is a very concentrated fund, long on tech. I am happy that itās a significant part of our portfolio, but I would not āgo all in.ā
It is a large percentage of DSās taxable account, but he is still at 0% tax on capital gains . . . for the time being.
Iām sure itās institutional. We donāt have an option to buy large cap funds in our 401K, but PrimeCap has been the clear winner for the limited options that we have.
We donāt need to consider what has greater or lesser capital gains no matter what we buy. Itās in a 401K. The Roth 401K wonāt be taxed and the non-Roth 401K will all be taxed at withdrawal, so it doesnāt really matter what kind of fund it is.
Iām jealous. You guys are making a lot more in the market than I am. But I do sleep well at night.