The Research Triangle Park Bogleheads®, North Carolina Local Chapter held three meetings in 2016. Bogleheads forum member Steve Thorpe recaps these meetings in this guest article.
RTP, NC Chapter Meeting 9:30 AM Sat April 23, 2016
Bull City Coworking
We had another fun local chapter meeting yesterday at Bull City Coworking. Special thanks to Robert Petrusz for kindly allowing us to use the BCC space, and to Ed Tower for our OJ supply!
Some topics of discussion included:
- Fidelity advisors – are they worth it? Probably not if you’re a Boglehead.
- Seeking returns through dividends vs. capital appreciation
- “When should I sell?” is something that should be written down in your Investment Policy Statement
- Financial intermediaries often take advantage of the end customer
- Alternative investments
- Jack Bogle’s preference for domestically based stocks — in his view explicit International allocation isn’t needed since many profits of domestic companies come from international.
- Various Boglehead authors including:
- Jason Zweig
- Dan Ariely
- Jack Bogle
- Bill Bernstein
Thanks everyone for attending yesterday!!
RTP, NC Chapter Meeting 11:11 AM Sat Aug 27, 2016
Bull City Burger and Brewery
We had an especially nice turnout for yesterday’s local chapter meeting at Durham’s Bull City Burger and Brewery, I didn’t get an exact count but based on the size of the room we filled up I think there were at least 20 of us. Including a number of Duke professor Ed Tower’s students and visitors from Columbia, SC.
I didn’t take a lot of notes but will share a few items from memory:
Ed shared some highlights from a draft paper he’s co-authoring with Yang Wang: “Do Chinese Investors Get What They Don’t Pay For? Expense Ratios, Loads, and the Returns to China’s Open End Mutual Funds“. Turns out the Chinese mutual fund market hasn’t yet had much price competition… the majority of the funds there have expense ratios of 1.5%(!). I hope one of Ed’s students can become the future Jack Bogle of China to change that depressing statistic!
Other topics of discussion included:
- Reversion to the mean
- Future expected returns being lower than previously
- Value added taxes vs. corporate income taxes
- Are current investment circumstances unprecedented, and if so how might things unravel?
- Vanguard vs. Fidelity vs. Edward Jones etc.
Sadly the late August weather was extremely hot and humid, so we wound up sitting inside where the acoustics were far from ideal. Henry told me about a separate room in Satisfaction’s Restaurant over in Brightleaf Square that can be especially nice for group meetings, so I may investigate that for one of our future get-togethers. It would definitely have been nicer for us yesterday without all that loud music!
Thank you to everyone who attended – it was great to see you as always!
RTP, NC Chapter Meeting 11:00 AM Sat Dec 3, 2016
Satisfaction Restaurant
Meeting 25 of the Research Triangle Park Bogleheads® was held at Durham’s Satisfaction Restaurant.
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