August Financial Challenge Thread

[jcc]

The e-maxis slim seems very new as most of the funds are less than a year or just 1 year old whereas the ETF's seem to have been in the market for a few years.

Yes, I get the impression that with the advent of iDeCo there's been an increased interest in mutual funds in general and a lot more competition. Several of the other funds also decreased their management costs significantly.

The eMaxis slim series is basically mufg's reaction to this, their maxis series index funds were just not competitive in price so they pushed out a new series.

Other than the cost I'm not sure what is different, but I suspect they somewhat limit their tracking(so it won't be perfect) to reduce trading costs and keep the price down. It's worth noting 1550 is also an mufg product and it's part of that older series(Maxis)

[Akatani]

I was happy with 1550 and 1348 (for Japan) but after checking out the eMaxis slim line, I am going to be switching everything over.

I made the exact same mistake. It's not a huge difference, so I left my NISA stuff as is because I don't want to lose that tax-free slot. Moved everything else over though

I just want to say that I noticed this quite recently thanks to a post on this forum! I had looked at the eMaxis slim before but hadn't been impressed at the time. Maybe the fees went down, or maybe I was focused on etfs. I do like etfs for timing the market. Nothing serious, but when I have some money to invest I just keep an eye on the prices, and when there's a dip I buy. It's sort of fun in a harmless way. With mutual funds I'm not sure when to buy - I know I should just buy it whenever but...with all that's going on with Trump, waiting for some big news to make the markets dip seems like a sure thing ha ha. The November elections should get some reaction from the market. or not.

[jcc]

If markets really dip, they will stay dipped at the end of the day when the funds are sold

But yeah, maybe you can buy the etf's at a discount to their net asset value. I found it difficult to find data on whether they're selling above or below so that was another factor in my moving to funds

[Akatani]

Are mutual funds really bought at the day's end? It usually takes 4 to 5 days before I get the purchased message.