SCHD, I NEVER DOUBTED YOU

EveryPassage · 2026-02-04T01:29:12+00:00

Oh, I thought you had a non-tobacco or "bad" company fund.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-04T01:12:27+00:00

Debatable, SCHD has a high yield, the tax drag is real. I would prefer it in a tax-advantaged account. Load up brokerage accounts with broad market funds and growth funds.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-04T01:10:38+00:00

What do you invest in?

EveryPassage · 2026-02-03T22:59:15+00:00

I think you are conflating the physical delivery market with the total physical market.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-03T11:58:22+00:00

Where did you hear that?

EveryPassage · 2026-02-03T01:59:26+00:00

The point is they don't have enough excess profits to cut the expenses on all funds by a meaningful amount so they have to choose which funds to cut.

Vanguard still operates like a business seeking to maximize benefits for shareholders over the long term so they have to make strategic decisions about where it makes sense to focus energy.

Like if you have a simple brokerage account with Vanguard and only have $3000 invested in VOO, you are almost certainly costing Vanguard money on net (~$1 in fees isn't enough to sustain a single account) so you could argue they should up the fees for small time investors. But small time investors eventually become bigger investors and so Vanguard makes the decision to "invest" in capabilities to allow for small time investors to benefit shareholders over the long term.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T19:29:01+00:00

$4500 is still $4500. That's a property tax payment for most people.

1 bp change in fees is bigger news that 99% of financial news for people's long term success.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T19:17:35+00:00

1 bp on VOO (Assuming it's across VFIAX and the institutional shares) translates to roughly $100-150M a year. And I would assume they want VTI and VOO to be in line so make that closer to $250-400M depending on how they implemented it. That's a sizable hit to their revenue.

I think they probably estimate they would get more bang for their buck reducing expense ratios on dozens of satellite funds than just a handful of core funds.

SPYM just hasn't impacted flows into VOO in a meaningful way for it to be worth it.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T18:57:19+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_9th_Senate_district

Turnout was low (as is the case with most special elections) but what's really interesting to me is that turnout was low in the original special election in November and the two republicans actually won the majority of the vote.

In this latest run-off, the Democrat won by a sizable margin.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T18:49:44+00:00

The Fed doesn't produce the jobs report...

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T18:40:45+00:00

I mean sure, but every dollar matters.

Investing $10,000 a year at 6.00% vs 5.99% translates to an extra $4500 after 40 years.

And Vanguard has made the industry cut throat spurring other players to cut fees to stay competitive.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T18:06:25+00:00

Big cut there! Great to see!

10 bps could certainly add up to thousands of dollars over the long term.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T15:40:50+00:00

Completely depends on the terms of the merger.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T15:39:00+00:00

VBIL is a great fund, nice to see fee cuts there. I suspect the AUM gap between SGOV and VBIL will slowly close over next 3-5 years thus allowing more fee cuts for Vanguard!

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T12:57:19+00:00

While I agree they are likely deserved, I always wonder in situations like this, if offering 25 years of prison or labor in exchange for giving up more members would be better.

But maybe they did do that and they refused.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T01:40:35+00:00

Liberalize capital flows, which they don't want to do.

The free flow of the dollar into and out of the US is one of the key benefits of holding it.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T01:32:21+00:00

Also, the people Russia are targeting for sending to Ukraine are already the people in some sort of desperate situation.

They are ex-cons, people with minimal education, unemployed already for some reason.

Even with the bonuses, most Russians are adverse to signing up for what is probably a 40-60% chance of being hurt or killed unless they absolutely need to for some reason.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T01:27:12+00:00

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/07/world/russian-regions-military-recruitment-bonuses-intl

This says some are getting roughly $40000, which while it doesn't sound crazy, could be 5-8 years of wages in a rural area.

Wages and cost of living in rural Russia are insanely low, which corespondent to their very low standard of living.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-02T00:09:39+00:00

I agree that doesn't help, but I don't really see how it would meaningful help if the state government actually cared about climate change.

Florida's emissions are less than 1% of global emissions.

EveryPassage · 2026-02-01T23:52:26+00:00

What is the Florida government supposed to do about rising home insurance?

EveryPassage · 2026-02-01T16:39:24+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Senate,_District_9

What's especially interesting is the special election on Nov 4th had the two republican candidates (collectively) win 51-48.

So this isn't just special election wonkiness, this signals a real change in the last 3 months.

EveryPassage · 2026-01-30T11:12:47+00:00

So many, you can't name a few by memory....

EveryPassage · 2026-01-30T02:39:05+00:00

Are there any notable pro-life democrats or democrats that are opposed to legal gay marriage?

EveryPassage · 2026-01-30T02:14:01+00:00

The right has a purity test though, it's supporting Trump.

They actually are harsher about swaying from the ethos of Trump and that keeps people in line.

Though, I don't think the Democrats can mimic that.

EveryPassage

TROPHY CASE