https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/slideshows/the-best-bank-stocks-to-buy-this-year?src=usn_invested_nl
10 of the Best Bank Stocks to Buy for 2020
The best financial stocks to buy for 2020 have had a tough year but are faring better than the sector.
Anyone buying adding to bank stocks/etf. VHF

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1006415/000110465920063503/tm2019943-2_497.htm
may 19, 2020
SUPPLEMENT TO THE FOLLOWING PROSPECTUSES:
THE HARTFORD TOTAL RETURN BOND FUND SUMMARY PROSPECTUS
DATED FEBRUARY 28, 2020, AS RESTATED MAY 7, 2020
AND
HARTFORD FIXED INCOME FUNDS PROSPECTUS
DATED FEBRUARY 28, 2020, AS SUPPLEMENTED THROUGH MAY 7, 2020
This Supplement contains new and additional information regarding The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund and should be read in connection with your Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus.
Effective as of the opening of business on June 5, 2020, Class I shares of The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund will no longer be closed to new investors and will be available for purchase by all eligible investors. Accordingly, the following changes are being made to the above referenced Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus effective June 5, 2020:
(1) The paragraph above the share class and ticker table on the front cover page of the above referenced Summary Prospectus is deleted and replaced with the following:
Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in this summary prospectus.
(2) The footnote next to The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund on the front cover page of the above referenced Statutory Prospectus is deleted and replaced with the following:
* Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in this Prospectus.
(3) Under the heading “Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in the above referenced Summary Prospectus and the heading “The Hartford Total Return Bond Fund Summary Section – Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares” in the above referenced Statutory Prospectus, the first paragraph is deleted and replaced with the following:
Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as follows: (i) purchases by shareholders of record of the Fund as of March 29, 2019 to add to their existing Fund accounts through subsequent purchases, or through exchanges from other Hartford mutual funds; (ii) purchases through reinvestment of dividends or capital gains distributions; (iii) purchases by certain financial institutions or financial intermediary firms that have been approved by Hartford Funds Distributors, LLC to purchase shares of the Fund on behalf of their client; and (iv) purchases, including through reinvestment of dividends or capital gains distributions, by any shareholder who receives shares of the Fund as part of a reorganization. Please see the section entitled “Classes of Shares” in the Fund’s statutory prospectus for more information. Not all share classes are available for all investors. Minimum investment amounts may be waived for certain accounts. Certain financial intermediaries may impose different restrictions than those described below.
(4) Under the heading “Classes of Shares” in the above referenced Statutory Prospectus, the footnote next to Total Return Bond Fund in the share class table is deleted and replaced with the following:
(1) Class C shares of the Fund are closed to new investors. No purchases of a closed share class are allowed, other than as described in the Summary Section. Investors should contact their financial professional to determine whether they are eligible to purchase shares of the Fund. If you believe you are eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, you may be required to provide appropriate proof of eligibility. The Fund reserves the right to: (i) reject any purchase order if it believes that acceptance of such order would interfere with its ability to be effectively managed; (ii) reopen a share class of the Fund to new investors at a future date; (iii) issue shares in connection with a reorganization; and (iv) make additional exceptions, limit the above exceptions, or otherwise modify the foregoing closure policy for any reason. You may obtain additional information by calling Hartford Funds at: 1-888-843-7824.
This Supplement should be retained with your Summary Prospectus and Statutory Prospectus for future reference.
HV-7536
May 2020

Yes, color me suspicious. Though in general, any press release put out by a company or organization must be regarded as an advocacy piece, aka "spin". Likewise for third party reporting based upon PRs.
The ASA news release on their website (linked to, above), cites approvingly a letter sent by five "Senior members of the House Financial Services Committee". The news release points to it as calling on the SEC to remove personally identifiable info from the CAT database.
Actually, the letter praises the SEC for saying that it would not require SSNs or various other personally identifiable info to go in the CAT database. What these five GOP House members praised ultimately became the exemption order that ASA is petitioning to set aside. So outside of complaining about reporting in general, what is the point of the ASA petition?
The letter from these Congressmen begins:

We write in strong support of your recent comments indicating that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) will significantly limit its collection of retail investors' personally identifiable information (PII) as pait of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). We welcome your statement that the Commission will not require retail investors' Social Security numbers to be collected and stored in the CAT. We appreciate the Commission's ongoing work on the CAT and agree that it is important for regulators to be able to oversee the capital markets on a consolidated basis. However, we strongly believe that the CAT can, and should, fulfill its intended purpose without collecting Main Street investors' PII.

https://d1d329da-dbb0-4cc9-b461-d7bd4ad09b4e.usrfiles.com/ugd/d1d329_13b9948593544d9d8d73e17185af1591.pdf

Nah...just pumping and dumping going on...be careful out there.
Why does it seem that every Joe that's involved with going on TV to enlighten us re the virus has a vested financial interest...why do they not disclose this?
Baseball fan

Interview with Harvard’s Reinhart and Rogoff.
Some excerpts:

The biggest positive productivity shock we’ve had over the last 40 years has been globalization together with technology. And I think if you take away the globalization, you probably take away some of the technology.
...you probably need a debt moratorium that’s fairly widespread for emerging markets and developing economies. As an analogy, the IMF or Chapter 11 bankruptcy is very good at dealing with a couple of countries or a couple of firms at a time. But just as the hospitals can’t handle all the Covid-19 patients showing up in the same week, neither can our bankruptcy system and neither can the international financial institutions
I indeed hope it is the G-20 and not just the G-19. China needs to be on board with debt relief. That’s a big issue. The largest official creditor by far is China. If China is not fully on board on granting debt relief, then the initiative is going to offer little or no relief. If the savings are just going to be used to repay debts to China, well, that would be a tragedy.
Do you see an inflationary surge at some point?
KR: We don’t know where we will come out. So the probability is, for the foreseeable future, we’ll have deflation. But at the end of this, I think we’re going to have experienced an extremely negative productivity shock with deglobalization. In terms of growth and productivity, they will be lasting negative shocks, and demand may come back. And then you have the many forces that have led to very low inflation maybe going into reverse, either because of deglobalization or because workers will strengthen their rights. The market sees essentially zero chance of ever having inflation again. And I think that’s very wrong.
BM: And what scars are left on economies once the pandemic passes?
CR: Some of the scars are on supply chains. I don’t think we’ll return to their precrisis normal. We’re going to see a lot of risk aversion. We’ll be more inward-looking, self-sufficient in medical supplies, self-sufficient in food.

Harvard’s Reinhart and Rogoff Say This Time Really Is Different:
harvard-s-financial-crisis-experts-this-time-really-is-different

It’s likely that the rich don’t even worry about RMDs because their wealth is not tied up in tax-deferred accounts
Well, some of the well to do. Then there are others ...

Romney’s personal financial summary, disclosed last August under federal election rules, shows that his IRA holds his most lucrative investments, which are stakes in partnerships run by Bain Capital. ...
Romney’s IRA produced income of $1.5 million to $8.5 million over 2010 and through August 12, 2011, according to his financial summary.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-campaign-romney-ira/how-did-romneys-ira-grow-so-big-idUSTRE80N04E20120124

I can't believe it never dawned on me that GEnworth had been part of GE.
I believe they were the last LTC provider to sell policies that you could completely pay for over a fixed number of years. More costly up front to do this, but it protected you from large premium increases once paid off. As carew388 noted, the industry was discovering that it had mispriced policies, so all insurers were implementing massive premium hikes.
GE spun off Genworth in 2004. However, it was stuck with reinsurance liabilities of at least $15B. Today it still owns legacy reinsurance companies carrying these liabilities.
The partial divestiture of GE Capital that I'm more familiar with came after the GFC. As part of Dodd Frank, the Financial Stability Oversight Council designated AIG, Prudential, MetLife, and GE Capital systemically important financial institutions. Like TBTF banks, that meant more regulation.
"In April 2015, GE announced that it intended to sell most of GE Capital over the next 18 months to 24 months in an effort, in part, to no longer be designated as systemically important."
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42150.pdf
People surely know of Synchrony Bank, formerly GE Capital Retail Bank, and Marcus (Goldman Sachs) Bank, formerly GE Capital Bank. These were some of the institutions that GE Capital sold off. What's left of GE Capital is still owned by GE. It just ain't what it used to be.

GE sold off the financial unit many years ago I believe.

Is GE, too "important" to fail even if it may not be too "big" to fail? There is still a GE "financial" right?

a financial PLANNER is now a stock market prognosticator. "I guarantee it". With what?

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-05-14/ubs-sees-muni-bond-market-facing-biggest-storm-in-modern-history
UBS Sees Muni-Bond Market Facing Biggest Storm in Modern History
By Amanda Albright and Danielle Moran
May 14, 2020, 9:30 AM EDT
States still seen as a haven, despite vast budget gaps
But once-booming high-yield niche may see ‘surge of defaults’
Caution tape block off a lakefront bike path in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, April 3, 2020. The world's workers are reeling from the initial shock of the coronavirus recession, with job losses and welfare claims around the globe already running into the millions this week.
Caution tape block off a lakefront bike path in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, April 3, 2020. The world's workers are reeling from the initial shock of the coronavirus recession, with job losses and welfare claims around the globe already running into the millions this week. Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
To the analysts at UBS Global Wealth Management, the $3.9 trillion municipal-bond market is heading into the biggest financial storm anyone has ever seen.
dropped about 9% this year, on track for their worst yearly loss since 2008, according to Bloomberg Barclays indexes.
High-yield munis have yet to rebound as much as safer assets
UBS had warned clients about the risks of investing in high-yield before the sell-off began in March and said that such debt issued for student housing projects, shopping malls and recycling factories may not recover anytime soon.
“The unprecedented monetary and fiscal support for the economy will allow most municipal bond issuers to recover, but the high yield sector is particularly exposed,” UBS said in the report.
UBS said higher education and health-care bonds pose particularly high risks. For private colleges, the economic crisis may exacerbate long-standing concerns around enrollment declines and affordability, causing default risk to rise “appreciably,” the firm said.
“We expect the severity of the current recession to result in a surge of defaults among high-yield bonds,” they wrote. “There are simply too many bonds secured by nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, and economic development projects to reach a more benign conclusion.”
To read more: Gimme-Tax-Shelter Mentality Ignores Threatening Credit Storm
—

/'Fortunes are going to be made' -- Suze Orman on investing amid the coronavirus pandemic
BY SHAWN LANGLOIS | MARKETWATCH - 05/09/2020
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/3532E59E-8D6D-11EA-AD06-F36B40BB8290
'I can guarantee you that if you stay in and you just stick with it, three years from now you will be very, very happy that you did'
Celebrity financial adviser Suze Orman isn't for everybody. She once told MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/ story/suze-ormans-fire-storm-her-advice-for-millennials-retiring-early-is-simple-but-bleak-2019-06-24
that "there are people that hate my guts. You don't even want to know the things they say."
But there's no denying that her common sense brand of money management has resonated with her devoted fanbase over the years. Lately, with many in that fanbase struggling to navigate the coronavirus pandemic, she's been hitting the media circuit to address just some of the issues.
During a CNN segment that aired on Saturday, Orman was asked by a viewer how to approach investing in the stock market in the face of the historic volatility.
Here's her answer:
In other words, she's advising those without more-pressing obligations to take a specific sum of money and invest it every month into something like the Vanguard Total Market ETF(VTI) .
"If you do it month in and month out and you have at least three five or 10 years or longer until you need the money you will be happy," she continued. "If you need money within a year it's not money that belongs in the stock market. Take it out now."
Back in late February, when the Dow Jones Industrial Averagehad dropped more than 1,000 in a single session on fears of what the coronavirus could do to the U.S. economy, Orman raised a few eyebrows when she said "I rejoice" in the face of such pullbacks.
She used the opportunity to again push her case for dollar-cost averaging (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/suze- orman-says-investors-should-rejoice-at-the-dows-more-than-1000-point-tumble-heres-why-2020-02-24).
"The higher the market goes, the shares cost more, the less shares their money buys, the less money they make, in the long run," she told CNBC. "With this dip, if it continues to go down, they should just stay the course and actually be quite happy because the market is still incredibly high."
One month and a brutal stretch of market losses later, the New York Times best-selling author returned to CNBC (https: //www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/coronavirus-suze-orman-says-no-better-time-to-start-investing.html) in late March to urge investors to stick with the plan.
"You will never, ever, know the bottom. You will never, ever, know the top," she said. "Fortunes are going to be made out of this time. So just stay calm. I can guarantee you that if you stay in and you just stick with it, three years from now you will be very, very happy that you did."
Here's Orman talking financial stability in a recent appearance on the Tamron Hall Show:
(https://www.youtube.com/embed/0Auos1d8c_8)
Orman, of course, is not alone in pushing the time-tested dollar-cost averaging approach.,/
Do you trust ms Orman?

There are no restrictions on how you can use CVD funds. If you’re cash-strapped, you can use the money to pay bills and recontribute later (within the three-year window) when your financial situation improves. You can help out your adult kids now and recontribute later. Whatever. So, a CVD can be a useful cash-flow management tool in these troubled times.
So far, so good.
The catch: not-so-great interim tax consequences

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/taking-cash-out-of-your-ira-under-new-cares-act-rules-is-more-complicated-than-it-sounds-2020-05-04

@Puddnhead,
My take is that fund has been now positioned in a more aggressive posture. I'm thinking that this is because of recent FOMC's interest rate and easing policy. Plus, the Fed's have and will probally continue to inject money into the financial system. This no doubt will lift most all asset prices especially equities. Therefore, to caputure this anticipated uptrend the fund managers have elected to make the fund more aggressive in the coming year. Is this good? Or, Bad? It depends. I held the fund in my hybrid income sleeve because of its normal conserative risk off positioning that could load equities during a stock market pullback, For me it was a risk off ... risk on ... fund. With it's new allocation moving from a low of 10% equity to a new low allocation of 50% equity it is ... for me ... no longer a risk off ... risk on fund.
At the end of the quarter I'll be reassigning CTFAX to another investment sleeve within my portfolio. Most likely to the domestic hybrid sleeve found in the growth & income section of my portfolio.

https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/T052-S005-earn-up-to-9-on-your-money-now/index.html
/in addition to taking a vast human toll, the coronavirus pandemic has mercilessly infected virtually every corner of the investment world. As markets plunged and seized up, the Federal Reserve dropped its short-term interest rate to zero and began injecting trillions of dollars into the financial system to shore up credit markets and keep money flowing to beleaguered companies, households and local governments. Yields on 10- and 30-year Treasuries plummeted to record lows, and yields briefly turned negative on some short-term T-bills/
Couple good ideas presented
Enjoy

Some of the discussion around AKREX reminded me of this quote:

“Selling your winners and holding your losers is like cutting the flowers and watering the weeds.” – Peter Lynch.Jul 16, 2019

AKREX is a growth fund and has been for a while. If you believe it is following financials, compare it to a broad financial ETF like XLF. Akre has outperformed that financial sector ETF by 28% YTD. It's rated low risk-high return by M*. It has one of the best upside/downside capture ratios in the business and again proved it's metal in this latest selloff.
But buyers and sellers are what make a market. I add to this fund in March after selling DSENX. Fits my risk tolerance much better.

May 8th Episode:
In part II of our interview with financial thought leader, Jason Trennert

Krugman is arguing that this rally is not a bet on a V-shaped recovery, but on the Fed avoiding a financial crisis and interest rates likely near zero for near forever, precisely because the recovery won't be fast. So, relatively few bankruptcies among big companies + TINA makes the rally more or less sensible, though even he thinks it's gone a bit too far.

@sma3- I'm sure it will be little comfort, but we find ourselves to be in exactly that situation too. I'd consider sitting tight for six months or so, and hope that we get some sense of where this situation is going to take us. It seems to me that the potential for world-wide financial instability is really strong at this point. I hate that over-used "perfect storm" analogy, but...
OJ

Hi guys ... The S&P 500 Index keeps climbing and as of today's close of 2930 puts it up about 31% from its 52 week low and down 13.5% from its 52 week high. For the barometer, it keeps dropping and scores the Index as extremely overbought based upon its metrics. Can the Index keep going higher while the barometer keeps falling? Remember, this is a Fed induced rally with large amounts of money having been injected into the financial system. With this, I'm now thinking that the market can rally on. And, when the barometer starts rising again ...Well, this may be a signal for more volatility ahead. Much like the restaurants, bars & grills in the Carolinas make a last call shout out about a half an hour before closing time.