A few years back & I was happy to get 3% on a two year CD. I see 3 year notes are on the firing line & will put forth a few $$'s that way.
Have a good weekend, Derf

@Baseball_Fan, excellent points on the portfolios of many "ESG" funds. They're shaky on the E, and often cra crummy on the S and G.
Sure, BIAWX had a good year. But you're paying 79 cents for the same old stuff that has created a good year for lots of funds, some of which charge less. And many of the green funds charge a lot more.
Been trying for years to get my wife to cut the Amazon cord.

James Mackintosh, who has always been adamantly skeptical of ESG/SRI/green investing (though less loudly opposed to anti-woke/red investing, perhaps because it's so marginal), offered a nice analysis today (WSJ, 12/06/23, B1)of the year's ESG crumple and its prospects going forward.
"Invest according to your political views," he begins, "and you're unlikely to make money." One might point out that ESG investing isn't merely a political gesture (the "G" in ESG, especially, is predictive of corporate performance), but he's never been interested in nuance. And, heck, why bother pointing out that the Equal Weight ESG 500 has higher returns over the past year than the Equal Weight 500 (1.2% vs 0.7%, as of 12/6/2023). Or even that the ESG-screened 500 has outperformed the basic 500 over the same time period (15.7% vs 14.0%). And, by the way, the same is true over the past five years. It's much more fun to highlight the implosion of a few clean energy stocks and declare, "point made!"
The point that makes me less irked with him is "investors who bought green stocks probably didn't think they were making a leveraged bet on Treasuries, but that is what they ended up with." He argues that rising interest rates impact renewable energy stocks (for which he uses the synonym "green stocks") two ways. First, renewable energy projects are 80% debt-funded, and debt is increasingly expensive and hard to acquire. Second, consumers making personal investments in "green" products - heat pumps, solar, electric cars - also use debt, whether credit cards, HELOCs or second mortgages, to finance them. Higher borrowing costs lead to lower demand for those products.

High costs shift people's attention from the long-term - the need for renewables and global heating - to the short term - the need to cover the bill.

He also argues that much, though not all, of the "greenium" has been squeezed out of the market. Valuations on renewables are way down, if not deeply discounted. That makes that more economically rational purchases now than they were two years ago.
My sole green holding, which I've discussed in each of my annual portfolio disclosures, is Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth. It's up 32.4% YTD and has eked out 16% APR since I first bought it. Which is to say, I'm not sure that Mr. Mackintosh's analysis is quite so clear and profound as might be warranted by inclusion in the world's premier business paper.

Thanks @yogibearbull. Sounds like a treacherous area. Rowan’s (house view) argument is that for many investors “liquidity” is being oversold (and is costly). His “sell” is that most of us need perhaps 10% of our invested assets at any one time (ie in the next 3 years). Even to me that sounds like a difficult argument to make (and losing half your money doesn’t sound like a great idea).
If folks are inclined, perhaps the scope here could be broadened to discuss valuations in both the public & private markets. Despite many nay-sayers at the start of ‘23, the public markets - especially the S&P - have plowed ahead. Always trying to learn more here - to go beyond simply looking at a fund’s 10 year track record and assuming it’s a relatively profitable / safe / predictable investment.

If you're interested in them, maybe consider one of the ETFs or CEFs that hold BDCs. I'm sure at some point these things will be included in them.
As for me, i have no interest in those specific names, but am considering BIZD for exposure to the finance sector and play on interest rates over the next few years. (I still have a very hard time buying bank stocks.)

Pretty much the same experience here. A good friend, also also a retired doctor, started letting down his guard about a year ago. Started going back to the SF Symphony, and eating out with others.
Now he has Long Covid, with loss of taste.
My wife and I had season tickets to the SF Symphony for almost thirty years, but haven't been to any entertainment venue since the start of all this. Really miss the Symphony, the SF Jazz Center, and a jazz restaurant that we went to for over 20 years. Almost all of the jazz groups that appeared at that restaurant no longer appear there either. This whole thing is a real bummer.

A bond trader doesn't care what happened, only how to make money in the future.
Examples
PIMIX made 8-10% for several years with low SD.
IOFIX fell 45% in 03/2020, but after that it exploded 40-50%.
Cat bonds did not make much in previous years but did well in 2023 with a very low SD.
HY munis made several times 3+% during 2022-23 and much more in Nov 2023.
Woohoo.

As a member of the Alaska Airlines million mile club I am opposed to this merger. Hawaiian Airlines has lost money in 14 of the last 15 quarters. When Alaska bought Virgin they were stuck with a bunch of crummy Airbus planes that were non compatible with their Boeing fleet. It took about 3 years to fix. Why not let them fail?

CNBC: "Hawaiian’s stock nearly tripled on Monday to $14.22 a share, though still below the proposed purchase price. Alaska’s shares lost 14.2% to end the day at $34.08."
I'm still not planning to ever invest in any airline. That's a change from years ago, for me. For those so inclined, here's a major dip in ALK shares. Have at it. :)

Remember the old quote "how do you become a millionaire? Become a billionaire and then buy an airline." :)
Or in modern parlance, be like Elon Musk and keep making super-jenius acquisitions.

CNBC: "Hawaiian’s stock nearly tripled on Monday to $14.22 a share, though still below the proposed purchase price. Alaska’s shares lost 14.2% to end the day at $34.08."
I'm still not planning to ever invest in any airline. That's a change from years ago, for me. For those so inclined, here's a major dip in ALK shares. Have at it. :)

@msf,
Need clarification on two sentences from the posts above:
"I just spoke with a Fidelity private client rep who said that this is a fee that Fidelity merely passes through to the brokerage."
Based on the context, I think you meant "fund' where it says "brokerage." I agree with you that Fidelity Rep is BSing. In fact Fidelity Reps also told me that the transaction fees on TF classes are also passed on to the fund companies. All fees collected from us by a fund needs to be disclosed in the prospectus. Does not matter if they are collecting directly from us (e.g., ER) or through an agent (e.g., brokerage). If it is not disclosed by the fund, the brokerage keeps the brokerage commission. I may have mentioned before that in the last couple of years I have found Reps at all brokerages I do business with have given me misinformation one time or the other, some even in writing. I think brokerages expect us to train their Reps! I usually ask them to point to a document or page on their (or a) website if I do not think their answer makes sense. More often than not the Reps insist their wrong answers are correct, even when the official answers clearly show the Reps are wrong. With the long telephone waits and the sub par customer service from Reps, I call the brokerages less and less and try to figure out answers without their assistance.
(In my last encounter with a TD Rep, I asked him to point me to a SEC webpage or document that states what he was espousing. He gave me an URL to a 400 page document. After confirming with him I have the correct document, I asked him to point to the page where he was getting his answer from. He said page 19 which had nothing to do with the topic of conversation. So, I put him on hold and looked at the document and figured out that it is a proposed (not final) SEC regulation document, with the first 300+ pages being preamble (SEC discussion) to the proposed regulation. I politely told the Rep what he is doing and asked him not to assume his clients are idiots. I asked him to transfer my call to his supervisor and he dropped the call. I have been with TD for over 20 years and they were one of the best for customer service but this was new.)
"I asked Fidelity to confirm that there was no fee for buying back shares shortly after selling."
Fidelity does not charge a fees for buying into an NTF fund class. If there is a frequent trading violation, one can be banned from buying back into the fund permanently or temporarily but fees to buy back? I do not have a recent experience with short term trading of NTF funds but you can ask some of the fund traders in this forum to confirm. May be I am not understanding the question you are exploring.

Or, more precisely, a sensible decision made by Morningstar 20 years ago.
Mark Hulbert's latest WSJ piece, "Momentum investing has struggled for two decades. Here's why." was published today. It reports on some new research that points that (some manifestations of) momentum investing essentially stopped working about two decades ago. Pre 2002, a strategy that loaded up on the preceding year's 10% of highest returning stocks and shorted the 10% of lowest returners, crushed the broad market average. In the year's since, the same strategy lost money annually in the face of rising markets.
The researchers blame Morningstar. Or, at the very least, attribute the collapse of momentum to a change they made. Prior to 2002, all stock funds were benchmarked against each other; you got to be a five-star SCV fund by outperforming large caps and midcaps and small caps. After 2002, funds were benchmarked against their style peers (you got to be a five star SCV fund by outperforming other SCV funds). The researchers note that money flows to five star funds, so pre-2002 money disproportionately flowed to whatever funds - in the entire universe - were hottest. That fed the momentum already shown by the stocks in those funds.
After 2002, the effect became greatly diluted since there were five-star funds scattered all over the investing universe with some of them qualifying as no more than "the best of a bad lot."
John Rekenthaler is, understandably, skeptical because ... you know, Rekenthaler. His argument is that fund flows represent just a fraction of all stock investment flows, so even if Morningstar influenced that subset of investors, a far larger set would have been unaffected. The researchers recognize that fact, but point to the undenied effect over ratings on new fund flows.
For what interest it holds. David

The intermediate term, 5-7 years, is the sweet spot. Those who bought long bonds when they were down double digits, they have since been rewarded handsomely. Ironically junk bonds are out-performing treasuries so far. If and when the economy turns downward, this trend will reverse quickly.
Another surprise is that the dollar-hedged BNDX and global bond funds are way ahead of BND this year.
Edits. I went back to read @davidsherman’ “No Fat Pitches” as a reality check. Thus I move slow and incrementally.

I can't wait to get rid of it.
It was originally focused on companies that have a good work place. At that time it was the Endeavor fund. It morphed into a value fund as Dodson plotted his departure.
PRBLX has also experienced some serious style drift in my opinion.
Parnassus funds do have the virtue of being among the least expensive in the ESG space. But take a close look at what they are up to now, instead of what they were doing a few years ago. If the shoe fits . . .

We are enjoying the best cash flow of our lives due to the rates on MM funds and the house being paid for. Thus we can leave the IRA's alone for a few years. My wife is picking up grant-based consulting work. That reduces the need to spend from the MM's. So we can DCA a bit into equities for the long term.
We're on the right side of what Wilkins McCawber would describe as the key to a happy life.

I started a huge position several months ago in CBYYX and emailed someone on this thread. Finder did an excellent job presenting this data already. I found https://www.artemis.bm/ as well and used it as my guide. On that site, you can find an explanation of most of the holdings. Example: Stabilitas is CBYYX biggest holding see this=https://www.artemis.bm/deal-directory/stabilitas-re-ltd-series-2023-1/
There were 2 other great funds I found and I have played with 2 out of 3.
There is no fun in posting about bonds, trades, and what I see anymore because of several posters as I have done for years. For more see (link).
Example from 2020 (https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/55299/bond-mutual-funds-analysis-act-2/p2). You can see when I sold and bought.
Never in my life, have I bought CDs or treasuries because trading bond funds is a lot better and this year it was great too.
BTW, trading HY munis funds since 2022 made me a lot of money. I also explained how I did it (hint: a simple T/A is one of my major signals).
As usual, a trader always sits by the exit because market conditions keep changing.

Eclipse mints, winterfrost, are my go-tos, fwiw saying. An ex turned me onto them years ago and they've been a staple in the office and in the car for nearly 2 decades .. plus it's a handy tin. :)
(Sorbitol, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Magnesium Stearate, Acesulfame K, Sucralose, Lactic Acid, Calcium Lactate, Blue 2 Lake.)

Yes, November has been a good month for everything including bonds. I mentioned about reinvestment risk earlier this year as we extended bond duration to intermediate term bonds. Additionally, we took more risk in investment grade and some junk bonds. These bonds went up in November ~3-4% total return. Some are in double digits gain for the year. As @junkster mentioned bonds are having one of the very solid gain in many years.
Also other interest rate sensitive sectors such as financial and REITs are moving up nicely. It is encouraging to see the market starts to broaden out beyond the large tech stocks.

At what moment? He never said that there would be an imminent collapse, which is what I wrote would have IMHO a hack prediction. Even then, just a hack prediction, not necessarily the writing of a hack. What he demonstrated was that admissions of error are difficult to make; that's not bias.
Hacks often start with preconceived notions, cherry pick data, and disregard what that data represents or even the data itself. There's a difference between a well reasoned position piece and a hack writing.

House are about 30% more expensive (https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor)

There's an old saying that a house is not a home. The Fed presents data on its Home Ownership Affordability Monitor. It includes "all single-family attached and detached properties combined" (quote is from the Fed site). Nowhere does the Fed use the word "house".
No time frame appears in the quote above for the 30% figure. But since a second source (Bloomberg) is offered, and that source uses time frames including Jan 2020 - Oct 2023 and Q1 2020 - Q3 2023, we can work with that.
The Fed site actually says that median existing home repeat sale prices rose from $264.00K in Jan 2020 to $374.167K in Sept 2023 (a 41.7% increase). This isn't close to 30%. The point here is not whether the actual number is greater or less than 30%. Rather it is that giving "supporting" sources that actually conflict with one's asserted numbers is something hacks do.
---------
It was suggested that the ones hurt by this 30% increase in prices (presumably since Jan 2020) are largely first-time house (sigh) buyers. Instead of relying on shock value (another hack ploy) and disregarding counterbalancing income increases, let's compare the increases in costs and income.
"The typical age of a first-time homebuyer is 33 years old"
https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/first-time-homebuyer-statistics/
Average wages rise (inflation, productivity, etc.). We've already seen that the increase in wages over this period is around 20%. So a typical individual worker aged 33 received a nominal wage 20% higher in 2023 than a typical individual worker aged 33 back in 2020. (We can use age-specific percentage increases instead if you have them.)
Now, independent of market wage increases (the 20%), individual workers' wages increase as they age - due to promotions, due to more experienced workers receiving higher wages generally. (Though above age 60, wages often decline with age.)
Let's take this step by step, starting with a typical wage earner, age 30 in 2020. That worker earned about $40,540. We know this because when we increase by 20% (the national average increase in wages since 2020), we get a typical wage of $48,650. That happens to be the typical wage earned by a 30 year old in 2023.
https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-income-by-age-percentiles/
Since 2020 this typical worker has aged three years and is now receiving the wages of a typical 33 year old: $52,650. So in nominal terms this worker's wages have increased about 29.9%, the same as housing costs have increased.
IOW, despite the increase in existing housing costs, this typical worker is no worse off than he was three years ago with respect to housing.
The age factor is something often missed in analyses. It's true that a 33 year old today is less likely to afford a home than a 33 year old three years ago. Hence statistics like the Home Opportunity Affordability Monitor show a declining rate of affordability.
But at the level of the individual, the situation is better. As people age, they are supposed to be able to afford more. Right now, they can't afford more housing than they could three years ago, but neither are they stuck affording less.
As a nation, housing costs have risen bigly. That takes some of the bloom off "the American dream". But at the individual level, people are better off with respect to some purchases and not worse off with respect to first time home buying.
Old age is a different story. To the extent that people rely on savings (as opposed to inflation-adjusted Social Security), rising housing costs (including rent, property taxes, maintenance, etc.) are not a pretty sight. And not just recently. It's a mistake to assume that people who own their homes are in good shape.

As the largest expenditure in most older households’ budgets, housing costs figure heavily into financial security in older age. Incomes decline in older age, and not just at the point of retirement: while the 2017 median income of pre-retirement households ages 50 to 64 was $71,400, it was $46,500 for households ages 65 to 79 and just $29,000 for households ages 80 and older, according to analysis of data from the American Community Survey; and author tabulations. While these numbers show a pattern across all older households, individual households frequently see declines in incomes as they age [the opposite of what happens with first-time buyers]. As a result, affordability concerns can emerge as a new problem even for those in their 80s and older.

https://generations.asaging.org/older-adults-aging-place-affordable-safe

Great write up finder. You have really immersed yourself on these co insurance funds. One thing I am not sure we talked about in the past offline is Stone Ridge Asset Management. They are the go to fund company for reinsurance funds of several varieties. Their flagship fund I believe is SHRIX which has been around for many years. Note like the two funds you mentioned how this fund has enjoyed a steady ride up in 2023 with a 20% return YTD. But also note its returns prior to this year. Nothing to write home about and make me wonder if 2023 is simply an anomaly and never again to be repeated.
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/shrix/quote