Author Archives: Charles Lynn Bolin

About Charles Lynn Bolin

Lynn Bolin retired in June 2022 and is immensely enjoying the more relaxed lifestyle. He spends his extra time with family, studying the economy and investing, at the gym, exploring the parks, and tasting the culinary pleasures at the local restaurants and Farmer’s Markets. After spending over thirteen years working internationally, he is enjoying exploring nature closer to home. Lynn graduated with an Engineering degree from New Mexico Tech and an MBA from Eastern New Mexico University. He worked as a Technical Services Manager over engineering and other functions. He enjoys building investing models in his spare time and writes articles for Seeking Alpha.

T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation PRWCX vs TCAF

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I was asked recently what I thought of T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (PRWCX) compared to T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Equity ETF (TCAF), which has gained $235 million in assets under management since its June 2023 launch. TCAF is one of two new T Rowe Price offerings that play off the unparalleled success of the PRWCX, which is closed to new investors. The other new entrant, the T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation and Income Fund, has not yet debuted.

The most striking similarities are the name and the fact that they are both managed by David R. Giroux, who has an outstanding record. From here, the similarity fades. PRWCX is a moderate to growth-oriented mixed-asset fund, while TCAF is a predominantly domestic equity fund. There are differences in how the equity sleeve of PRWCX compares to TCAF, which are explored in this article.

Let’s start with Continue reading →

Beyond The Rainbow – A Map to the Good Life in Retirement

By Charles Lynn Bolin

This is the last article in a series that describes what I learned in the year following retirement. After fifty years of working, military service, and getting two university degrees, I took the first year as “Me Time”. I once worked with an Australian who was fond of saying that he had his $100 in the bank, meaning that he was financially secure. I have reached the end of the rainbow after decades of investing and financial planning. I just signed up for Social Security, which, combined with pensions, will cover normal spending needs, plus I have my $100 in the bank. Continue reading →

Evaluating Tax-Exempt Funds

By Charles Lynn Bolin

With yields at high levels and inflation falling, I sold a poor-performing stock to buy two Tax-Exempt bond funds. In this article, I look at municipal money market and bond funds for tax-efficient accounts. I began this search by looking at funds that are available at Fidelity or Vanguard with no transaction fees. I further based the selection on both longer and shorter performance relative to peers, Fund Family Rating, Fidelity Fund Picks, and Morningstar Ratings among other factors.

This article is Continue reading →

Looking Ahead with Vanguard

By Charles Lynn Bolin

Vanguard’s clients have grown from about 20 million with $3.8 billion in assets in 2016 to 30 million now with nearly $8 billion in assets. Vanguard is the world’s largest mutual fund company with more market share of mutual funds than the next three competitors combined. For this article, I read Inside Vanguard: Leadership Secrets from the Company That Continues to Rewrite the Rules of the Investing Business by Charles D. Ellis, a longtime director of Vanguard. I want to know Continue reading →

Battle of the Titans for Portfolio Management – Fidelity vs Vanguard

By Charles Lynn Bolin

Asset Manager Titans Fidelity and Vanguard have options for portfolio management that vary allocations across asset classes over time which include assessments of long-term market trends. Fidelity has the Business Cycle Approach while Vanguard has the time-varying-asset approach based on the Vanguard Capital Markets Model (VCMM). In this article, I briefly describe Continue reading →

Is Bigger Better?

By Charles Lynn Bolin

I have often heard that smaller funds are able to outperform larger ones because they can be nimbler. This article started as a search for the best performing “core” funds over the past fifteen years, but I started over several times as I challenged my own search criteria to select only large funds. My assumption was that success builds upon success and investors invest more in funds that are doing Continue reading →

Helping a Friend Get Started with Financial Planning

By Charles Lynn Bolin

A close friend, who I will call Carol for this article, wanted to meet to discuss whether she should get a Financial Planner. Here is her situation and what she is interested in learning:

Carol and her husband were good savers and earned pensions and Social Security. He passed away a couple of years ago after a prolonged illness. Their focus had been on healthcare needs and not on financial planning. She also received an inheritance from her parents. Carol explained that she had savings scattered at multiple banks in savings accounts, Inherited IRAs, Traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs. She had questions about why she should invest when her living expenses were met Continue reading →

Recession Watch

By Charles Lynn Bolin

The Chronology of the Economic Cycle provided by Joseph Ellis in Ahead of the Curve is an interesting chart that shows the ripple effect from left to right of inflation and interest rate increases across the economy over the next six to twenty-seven months. In Figure #1, I added my subjective assessment of whether the indicator level is currently positive (blue +) or negative (red -) for the Investment Environment and the direction of change, whether it is improving (red up arrow) or softening (red down arrow). Most of the indicators are softening, but not at a level to be considered negative (contracting) for the Continue reading →

Looking Beyond the Next Recession

By Charles Lynn Bolin

The Federal Open Market Committee minutes from March state that the staff’s projection “included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years”. Participants “generally expected real GDP to grow this year at a pace well below its long-run trend rate.” In addition, the Conference Board forecasts “that economic weakness will intensify and spread more widely throughout the US economy over the coming months, leading to a recession starting in mid-2023”.

With a high probability of recession and a high return on short-term cash, Continue reading →