I'll preface by saying I've never used either option.

That said, I don't see why you'd choose the 5% upfront charge on assets model. It limits what the advisor could choose because not everything has an A share with a front end load. Also, your strategy seems to be a short term thing based on high volatility. If assets are being chosen based on high volatility, it makes sense you'd want to sell those and adjust to a different porfolio once volatility subsides. The 5% up front load only seems to make sense cost wise if you plan to hold over the long term. In that same vein, if you're unhappy with your advisor or the 5% load funds they invested in, it's harder or more costly to switch to a new advisor and plan.

We're not in a higher volatility market currently though. The market is bouncing around on tariffs and things like Quitaly a week ago but volatility is back way down. The WSJ had an article the other day about how the 'low vol' trade is back at January levels. The VIX is back down at 12 from the 30's levels when those idiots got squeezed and popped the vix up crazy high because they were in triple levered short positions against the VIX futures. Maybe it'll change soon
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Wow, the vote went through and we got nothing . seems like every time there's perfect reason for a stock to move up it dosen't .
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:-)
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Heh, yes!
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Meh.

I got in at $7. I think we see it continuing to move up in the future. There's is a possibility that other major players come into focus with legalization though. It's kind of a crapshoot but a gamble worth taking, IMO. Canopy Growth seems to value taking over smaller companies to set a monopoly type system. I like it. But set your stop losses if you've got large capital sitting there with nice gains!
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Any thoughts on Altaba (Yahoo) selling off a huge chunk of Alibaba? I think they're selling 25% of Alibaba's total shares. They're going to sell off 100 million alibaba shares and buyback 195 million of their own to decrease the gap between values. Seems like it could hurt BABA stock for a bit, dunno. Not sure I'll do anything for now.

I sold off my MTUM shares the other day and I've been thinking about grabbing the new Vanguard quant momentum fund that covers from small to large caps. I've been watching their multifactor strategic beta quant modeled funds since the launch. It seems really interesting. Most modern financial studies show that strategic beta beats the market but the issue has been at what cost. VFMF is their multifactor ETF inclusive of liquidity screen w/ Quality, value, and momentum weightings. .18% but it seems like it could easily be worth it
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Didn't know that about BABA. I made some nice money swing trading BABA over the last month. Just increased my long term position on the dip today as well. I'm bullish on BABA.

I too just sold my MTUM shares @112 this week. Made a nice profit of about 9% but looking for something else as well. I know the basics about multifactorial funds but can you elaborate on their goals/difference from regular ETFs?

Part of me wants to hedge against a market drop with an inverse play like SDOW.
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IQ is still on a hell of a run. Since buying in 2 weeks ago, it has gone up 44%.


HUYA is also rising at a similar rate.
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Yesterday was great.

IQ 6.39%
Huya 16.81%
Bili 16.83%
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I looked up SDOW out of curiosity. I don't get it ??? It's objective is to lose money and according to it's history it's done that quite well. average return of -37% last 10 years.
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It’s a 3x leveraged ETF designed for trading, not investing. You buy when the DOW is high because it’s an inverse. Meaning when the DOW goes lower, you make money. It’s used for intra day trading by many or swing trading over a few weeks. Last time the Dow was right over 25, you could have bought SDOW at 16.50. Later than week when the Dow plunged a bit below 24, you could have sold SDOW around $19. Nice 15% profit on a market downturn. It’s a short term hedge. Again, it’s all speculation related and pretty risky.

The reason it’s lost so much money is because it does the opposite of the market and since we’ve had a historic run, it’s obviously gone down in value.
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Last year when the S&P was up about 20%, I think MTUM was up in the 40%'s for me. Multi-factor is just what Vanguard is calling their funds that combine several factors that have been known to outperform over the long term. Momentum, Quality, Value, etc. They have individual versions of each factor that they released at the same time. They aren't market cap weighted so probably pretty volatile. I think it makes sense though as there are less eyeballs looking at small and mid-cap companies. Really though, it comes down to whatever "secret sauce" the Vanguard quants are using to determine the formulas for how to weight the factors. Vanguard lists the funds as part of their active management portfolio so that's a big difference from most index funds. It's not a guy directly picking stocks but guy(s) controlling the model or algorithm that makes decisions.

I'm unsure whether they'll be right and I can't wait 20 years to find out but I have put a small amount of my IRA into VFMF for now. I also, don't have the credentials to get hired as a quant at Renaissance or I'd be in their Medallion fund that returned 70% annually for two decades.
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For those of you looking for dividends here's a good list of companies that have increased their dividends every year for the last 50 years:

http://dennismccain.weebly.com/dividend-kings.html
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Good list. I never buy a stock solely for the dividend. But a good company with a good dividend is a win-win.
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Added this morning:

SOGO
HMI
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