Some interesting comments here https://www.robeco.com/files/docm/docu-robeco-guide-to-factor-investing-global.pdf as I putter around looking at quality screens with MFO Premium

A key concern with generic quality strategies is that they use poor definitions, which are
sometimes even blended with other factors. For example, quality is often measured by
financial leverage or earnings stability, which are actually more related to the low volatility
factor. Other quality definitions – such as growth in profitability or earnings growth, but
also an oft-used measure like return on equity (ROE) – have weak or no predictive power for
future returns.
As shown in Figure 7, our research 9 also shows that measures based on academic studies
(blue bars) outperform industry-based measures (magenta bars) in global markets.
‘Academic’ measures are accruals, gross profitability and net stock issues, while ‘industry’
measures include ROE, margins, ROE growth, leverage, and earnings variability.

@JD…. You are so right. As an older retiree I spend too much time with the financial and political news. Went out to lunch with adult daughter yesterday to a somewhat pricey establishment. It was jumping with folks who did not look the least bit uncertain,,,, Funny thing was the bar had a big screen with news (not the government channel) but no one noticed. Lots of smiling faces but that might have been the Margs. As the Beetles said in 1968,,,,,,,, Life Goes on!

Following are excerpts from a current report in The Wall Street Journal:
The highest-earning 10% of Americans have increased their spending far beyond inflation. Everyone else hasn’t.

Many Americans are pinching pennies, exhausted by high prices and stubborn inflation. The well-off are spending with abandon. The top 10% of earners—households making about $250,000 a year or more—are splurging on everything from vacations to designer handbags, buoyed by big gains in stocks, real estate and other assets.
Those consumers now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%. All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on rich Americans continuing to shell out. Moody’s Analytics has estimated that spending by the top 10% alone accounted for almost one-third of gross domestic product.
Between September 2023 and September 2024, the high earners increased their spending by 12%. Spending by working-class and middle-class households, meanwhile, dropped over the same period.
Taken together, well-off people have increased their spending far beyond inflation, while everyone else hasn’t. The bottom 80% of earners spent 25% more than they did four years earlier, barely outpacing price increases of 21% over that period. The top 10% spent 58% more.
The buying power of the richest Americans, who tend to be older and more educated, stems in part from the swelling values of homes and the stock market over the past several years. Rising asset prices are widening the gap between those who own property and stocks, and those who don’t.
During the pandemic, Americans across the spectrum saved at record levels. Then inflation struck, and prices rose sharply. Most Americans turned to their extra savings to keep up with their rising bills. But the top 10% of earners kept most of what they had saved up.

And with respect to that 90% who most likely are not MFO readers-
Following are excerpts, severely edited for brevity, from a current report in The Wall Street Journal:

President Trump cautioned lawmakers earlier this month about making cuts to Medicaid. But just after Trump left the room, one budget hawk remarked: “We could get $2.5 trillion if we cut Medicaid.”
House Republicans are deeply divided on Medicaid, split between spending hard-liners who want big savings and pragmatists who warn against angering voters. Steve Bannon recently warned about the dangers of cutting Medicaid. “A lot of MAGAs on Medicaid,” he said. “Just can’t take a meat ax to it, although I would love to.”
House Freedom Caucus members and other budget hawks successfully pressed for an amendment that directly ties $2 trillion in spending reductions over 10 years to the party’s tax-cut effort. Under that provision, the more the GOP pulls from Medicaid and other programs, the more financial room Republicans have.
States help fund and manage the program, which provides health insurance for roughly 72 million people, or about one in five Americans, including children and people with low incomes or disabilities. The federal government spends about $600 billion annually on Medicaid.
Republicans aren’t allowed to touch Social Security in the fast-track legislative process they are using, and Trump has said he opposes reducing Medicare benefits, leaving Medicaid as one of the remaining ways to significantly shrink spending. Within a 24-hour period, Trump stated that Medicaid shouldn’t be touched but also posted on X that he backs the House-led package that is likely to rely on cuts to Medicaid to meet its targets.
White House spokesman Kush Desai said that the Trump administration is “committed to protecting Medicaid while slashing the waste, fraud, and abuse within the program—reforms that will increase efficiency and improve care for beneficiaries.”
Some House Republicans say keeping Medicaid intact is essential if they want to hold the House majority in 2026. Some are privately warning party leadership that there are scores of members—including some in safe GOP districts—who oppose deep cuts. Rep. David Valadao (R., Calif.) argues that the Trump coalition now includes many Medicaid recipients.
The program is popular. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found nearly 80% of respondents—and 65% of Republicans—think the federal government spends about the right amount or not enough on Medicaid. But budget hawks believe now is their best chance to address deepening federal deficits, which have ballooned the U.S. debt to $34 trillion.

Comment: So here we have yet another disconnect: the majority of voters are not in that lucky top 10%, and many within the Trump party that they voted for would cut their Medicaid so as to transfer even more wealth from the 90% to that top 10%.
Note: Text emphasis was added to the above WSJ reports.

@Charles - You took the words right out of my mouth. My first sentence in the OP: ”Doing so would defy good investment practice as I understand it. There’s a common school of thought that you should select 5 -10 good “horses” (funds) and ride them. That over diversification (labeled worsification by some) is bad.”
So you have no real argument from me. However, if everyone took your sage advice and split their portfolios 50/50 between DODIX & DODGX nearly the entire financial / fund industry would have to close their doors. - Musk on steroids. :)

.

While I thought at one time that I was smart enough to do that successfully I learned that it takes a lot of time and more financial skills and knowledge than I had. I also spent a lot of time second guessing my choices. I now let the folks at Avantis take care of that for me using AVGE. I do hold certain CEF's, BDC's and dividend paying bluechips but they're more for the income produced than any other reason.

@Mark - To the extent I’ve attempted this in the past (under the guise of ”speculation”) it quickly became very time consuming. Got to the point where it wasn’t worth the time and effort.

While I thought at one time that I was smart enough to do that successfully I learned that it takes a lot of time and more financial skills and knowledge than I had. I also spent a lot of time second guessing my choices.
I now let the folks at Avantis take care of that for me using AVGE. I do hold certain CEF's, BDC's and dividend paying bluechips but they're more for the income produced than any other reason.

Feb 22nd Episode:

Social Security guru Mary Beth Franklin discusses the program’s financial challenges and outlook, plus individual strategies to maximize its benefits.

https://youtu.be/A3DmGfXgDgg

"...in a country where people are facing systematically higher financial and job insecurity, the people are, on average, less likely to save...."
This is a rather odd conclusion involving multiple uses of the word "saving". It does not come from the study cited in the linked webpage. That study shows, as one would expect, that if one has a fixed amount of money to save and/or invest, the higher the sense of risk the less one is inclined to take on more additional risk by investing.
The linked article's author notes that this higher savings rate (and lower investing rate) results in lower total assets over time. This combination of savings, investing, and growth they then rename "savings". Thus "savings" is used two different ways.

this study shows that if more people are in a financially precarious position ... the more they will stay away from investing in risky assets .... and instead remain invested in bonds and savings accounts. But as we know, this means that over time, these people can save less

But "as we know", the more uncertain people feel about the future, the more they save. Rather than allocate a fixed amount of money (as in the cited study) between savings and investing, people increase the size of the pot - save more - when they are worried.

Policymakers and academics have linked the increase in savings to higher economic uncertainty often pointing to ... increases the volatility of expected future income, while at the same time lowering the level. Both of these effects may induce people to save more ...

Juelsrud, Ragnar E. & Wold, Ella Getz, 2020. "The Saving and Employment Effects of Higher Job Loss Risk"
dont like gov stats , such as on inflation?
The Politico piece doesn't say that there's anything wrong with the statistics, just how they're analyzed and presented. Which is why, rather than stopping at U-3, I gave U-4 and a cite to other government "filterings" of the statistics. Think that some of the 80,000 different items in the CPI should get different weightings? Then do your own arithmetic. The raw data and how it's collected is published. At least for now.
its just the media has suddenly stopped assigning political blame for egg, car, and house prices.
Say what?
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5154415-trump-moves-hamper-bird-flu-response-as-egg-prices-spike/
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/19/cars/trumps-autos-tariffs-prices/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-administration-slash-hud-workers-tackling-housing-crisis-119046960

(sorry, no diet preferences in 'this most important overview' thread)
the politico article seems like pretentious nothingburger to get the rightwing agitated.
dont like gov stats , such as on inflation? do some work, there have been independent trackers around for a long time, and what's more, they dont hide behind opaque proprietary nonsense. (which frankly, should be a source of shame from someone trying to brand as 'Ludwig'...austrians rolling over)
there are signs that gov stats will become more opaque, or going away all together, so i guess there is that.
finally, the author lost a lot of credibility claiming there was some miraculous insight on the economy from voters pre-election. the same voters now poll the trump economy is great, even though there hasnt been enough time for much change.
its just the media has suddenly stopped assigning political blame for egg, car, and house prices.
the simplest story is that income inequality has been getting worse for >2 decades, and the masses somehow think this will improve under corrupt billionaires despite results under trump 1.0
the longterm impact of the highest accelerating wealthgap ever seen :
"...in a country where people are facing systematically higher financial and job insecurity, the people are, on average, less likely to save. This widens the current account deficit of that country (the current account essentially indicates the savings preferences vs. investments of a country). I know, I am going out on a limb here and I am not going to point my fingers at specific countries with low job and financial security, but if you are running a country with a massive current account deficit, maybe one way to improve the current account deficit would be to increase financial security and reduce financial stress in your society, rather than engage in mercantilist economics."
https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/ambiguity-is-worse-than-risk

Beware that preferred "stocks" are really debt of very long or indefinite maturities
That's a good practical description, i.e. from the investor's perspective preferred stocks are debt. Though for most tax purposes they are treated as dividend-paying equity as Mark noted.
However, from an accounting perspective they may be treated as equity depending on a whole lot of complex rules.

This is from PwC: Classification of Preferred Stock
The FGs refer to other figures (flow charts) on that page giving more details.
ASCs refer to GAAP rules. "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification® (Codification or ASC) is the single source of authoritative nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP)."
https://asc.fasb.org/Home
IMHO this is way more than non-CPAs should care about.
Apparently in Canada, "For non-financial corporates, preferred shares are classified as 50% debt and 50% equity on a corporation’s balance sheet." Much simpler :-)
RBC, A guide to preferred shares

Thank you for posting that article @hank. No expert here but I do own a handful of preferred securities in my taxable account offered by CHS, a global agribusiness cooperative, intentionally for the qualified dividends. I don't own financial preferred's because many, if not all, are noncumulative.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1047712/000119312525030708/d835373d497.htm
497 1 d835373d497.htm UNDISCOVERED MANAGERS FUNDS
UNDISCOVERED MANAGERS FUNDS
Undiscovered Managers Behavioral Value Fund
(the “Fund”)
(All Share Classes)
Supplement dated February 20, 2025
to the Current Prospectuses, Summary Prospectuses and Statements of Additional
Information, as supplemented
Effective as of the close of business on April 1, 2025 (the “Closing Date”), the Fund is offered on a limited basis and investors are not eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, except as described below. In addition, both before and after the Closing Date, the Fund may from time to time, in its sole discretion based on the Fund’s net asset levels and other factors, limit new purchases into the Fund or otherwise modify the closure policy at any time on a case-by-case basis.
The following groups will be permitted to continue to purchase Fund shares. Except as otherwise described below, shareholders of record are permitted to continue to purchase shares; if the shareholder of record is an omnibus account, beneficial owners in that account as of the applicable closing date are permitted to continue to purchase:
•Shareholders of record of the Fund as of the Closing Date are able to continue to purchase additional shares in their existing Fund accounts and may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions from shares owned in the Fund;
•Shareholders of record of the Fund as of the Closing Date are able to add to their existing Fund accounts through exchanges from other J.P. Morgan Funds;
•Group Retirement Plans (as defined in the glossary) (and their successor, related and affiliated plans), which have the Fund available to participants on or before the Closing Date may continue to open accounts for new participants and can purchase additional shares in existing participant accounts. A new Group Retirement Plan may establish a new account with the Fund only if the Group Retirement Plan has been accepted for investment by the Fund and its distributor by May 1, 2025 and the plan’s account with the Fund must be either funded by the plan or available to participant directed investments by October 31, 2025. The funding date for plans approved by May 1st may be extended with approval by the Fund and its distributor;
•Fully discretionary fee-based advisory programs, where investment discretion (fund and investment allocations) solely reside with the Financial Intermediary’s home office and where the Financial Intermediary’s home office has full authority to make investment changes without approval from the shareholder, may continue to utilize the Fund for new and existing program accounts. This includes affiliated platforms that have approval from the Fund and its distributor. These programs must be accepted for continued investment by the Fund and its distributor by the Closing Date. Additionally, after the Closing Date, new fully discretionary fee-based advisory programs may utilize the Fund for program accounts only with the approval by the Fund and its distributor;
•Registered Investment Advisory firms who have included the Fund in their discretionary models by the closing date and utilize an approved clearing platform may continue to make Fund shares available to new and existing accounts. These particular firms must be accepted for continued investment by the Fund and its distributor on or before the Closing Date;
•Other fee-based advisory programs (including Rep as Advisor and Portfolio Manager programs) may continue to utilize the Fund for existing program accounts, but will not be able to open new program accounts after the Closing Date;
•Model portfolios directed by J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. (“JPMIM”), and J.P. Morgan Funds that are permitted to invest in other J.P. Morgan Funds, may purchase shares of the Fund; and
•Named investment professionals listed in the Fund’s prospectus may utilize the Fund for both new accounts and existing Fund accounts.
INVESTORS SHOULD RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT WITH THE
PROSPECTUSES, SUMMARY PROSPECTUSES AND
STATEMENTS OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

We can quibble about interpretation all that we want to, but it does nothing to change the fact that the government was telling the voters that all was OK, but the voters weren't buying it.
For many months prior to the elections Judy Woodruff of the PBS Newshour conducted focus groups across the United States. Some groups agreed with certain aspects and issues of the coming election, others disagreed.
However: every group felt that the financial condition of the United States that they saw bore little resemblance to any information being produced by the government.
Bottom Line: Donald Trump.

One final point regarding governmental statistical reporting: such reporting is presumably of value to reflect the real financial environment of the citizens and voters of the United States.
From the recent election results is is evident that those citizens and voters are in strong disagreement with the financial picture presented by those reports. That disagreement is a major factor in the present national disaster of the current administration.

@BaluBalu- I have no idea why you are accusing Mark of "abuse".
First of all, he does not "have two threads to discuss the same thing". Mark chose to post his thread in the Off-Topic section, and because I felt that it was of legitimate financial interest I posted this thread to channel readers to it.
You are welcome to your opinion regarding Mark's thread, but to accuse the report's author of intellectual dishonesty is unsubstantiated and abusive. Just because someone has a differing financial perspective certainly does not equal "dishonesty". Personally, I feel that the author of the report in question is correct, and that the statistics used by the government fail to accurately represent the existing financial conditions for the average American.
I fail to see where Mark has attempted to "force other people"to do anything at all, and I also fail to understand your evident animus towards his postings.

@bee “These articles focus on workplace employment statistics, yet ignore the very important non-paying and non-workplace work many of us do for our loved ones and how these hard choices impact the workplace.”
I think this is a valuable insight. I imagine the financial pressure (not to mention the emotional/psychological impact) would be experienced very differently.

Good read.
The opening sentence in the second paragraph has wrong information.
I thought you can not open a new financial account if your credit is frozen. The article says otherwise. At least that was my experience with Bank of America even though I already have accounts with them.
I shall let others proof out the article.

”We've heard over and over, do not let the political environment sway your investing decisions.”
@Crash - That’s probably great advice for 80-90% of investors - mostly younger and employed - who research shows are usually better off letting it ride. I’d still give that advice to a 25 year old just starting out with maybe 40 years to retirement.
But take a look at the “Buy Sell” thread. ”Set-it- and-forget-it” ? Huh? ISTM most who frequent financial forums like this one do alter their investments quite a bit year-to-year. So, of course, political climate affects their decision making and is worth discussing.

Right. Dare I assert that most of us here are NOT spring chickens anymore? I'm having repeat surgery coming up in March.... As Leonard Cohen said: "I ache in the places where I used to play." (Tower Of Song.)
**********
Skip right to 0:20. (LOUD start!)
Crescent Street mural, Montreal:

”We've heard over and over, do not let the political environment sway your investing decisions.”
@Crash - That’s probably great advice for 80-90% of investors - mostly younger and employed - who research shows are usually better off letting it ride. I’d still give that advice to a 25 year old just starting out with maybe 40 years to retirement.
But take a look at the “Buy Sell” thread. ”Set-it- and-forget-it” ? Huh? Not to pick on the thread … but ISTM most who frequent financial forums like this one do alter their investments quite a bit year-to-year. So, of course, political climate affects their decision making along with a myriad of other considerations / assessments and may be worth discussion.

I agree with @msf (different thread) that ”Many people find government pronouncements and actions relevant to investing.”
- There’s a thread along that line offered up by @Soupkitchen January 28 in the OT section - mostly buried now by the avalanche of anti-Trump posts & comments. Worth a second look. Where America is Heading and your Investments.
Like everyone else I’m looking for clues. From the two financial blogs / newsletters I subscribe to, here’s what I’ve gleaned …
- On February 3 Bill Fleckenstein wrote: ”Lastly, on the subject of Trump tape bombs, while we should expect them to be a feature of his term, they may become less frequent, and we may get a better handle on what they individually mean. Even so, I think they mandate carrying a little bit more cash or being slightly less aggressive than one might ordinarily be because they can literally come out of nowhere and gaming whether Trump is serious or not will be hard to do in real time.” https://www.fleckensteincapital.com/dailyrap.aspx?rapdate=02-03-2025
- James Stack (InvestTech) actually raised his recommended “Net-Long” market exposure a few percentage points from around 55% to 58% about the time Trump took office (but didn’t connect the two). Stack has been extremely cautious for a couple years. The remainder, he advises, should be in T-Bills or money market funds. https://www.investech.com/
- And Barron’s this week features several Trump related articles - not all complementary. One, titled ”11 Tariff-Proof Dividend Stocks”, mentions consumer staples, financials and energy as among the better plays on that theme. Another article, ”The Markets Trust Trump. How to Trade It”, focuses on options plays. A third article notes that there has been a sharp uptick in very wealthy investors moving wealth abroad, some out of fear of a weaker dollar, but in some cases from fear of retribution by the party they opposed.
It should go without saying that other investment ideas / suggestions are appreciated. Nobody really knows at this point. But risk is inherent in most investing. If it were safe or easy the rewards would be small.