@hondo. Same boat here. My wife has no interest in this stuff and I think more and more about a vastly simplified portfolio going forward. As my CD’s and treasuries mature it might be time to build a position in Wellesley or some such thing. At least in the IRA accounts. That and sell the boat

My house is about 50 years old, and I am having to spend more and more each year on ACs, Hot Water heaters, plumbing, and a number of "surprises" outside of my house. I am starting to question whether we need to "sell the house" and buy smaller and newer house that requires less maintenance. My wife wants to stay in the house, and so I do have to manage our investments to keep up with the demands of owning an old home--liquidity has to be taken into account with my taxable account for these surprises.

I’ve been loading up on CDs and treasuries, with ladders extending out five years in my IRAs and three years in taxable savings. I don’t care if interest rates rise further as I’m happy to be earning better than 5% on all these cash investments. I’ve got plenty of CDs, money markets and Treasuries on the short end, in case I need cash. If rates rise further, I’ll simply buy more CDs or Treasuries as individual issues mature. I’m holding more cash than ever in my accounts because we haven’t had interest rates this high in many, many years and I don’t know how long it will last.

@larryB, that was my suggestion or, at least I threw out the idea. There is nothing wrong with 5.5% on a CD for the next 5 years. If it's called, oh well. Those conditions, falling rates, that make a bank call on that CD should open up other opportunities, like bond funds.

Timing for debt downgrade is never ideal. While odd, Fitch had the US on negative outlook and may have deliberately avoided the period around the debt-ceiling fiasco, a mistake that the S&P/McGraw Hill made on 2011.
Only 2 US nonfinancial companies, JNJ & MSFT, are rated AAA. These aren't related to the US debt rating.
But in 2011, all US financials were downgraded to AA+ or lower on the theory that no US financial could have debt rating higher than the US. This when only the S&P did the downgrade. IMO, some US financial could easily be AAA, if not for this artificial ceiling.
There was a temporary hit to stocks in 2011 after the S&P downgrade, but McGraw-Hill suffered more. Basically, it disappeared as a public company, and today, there are public S&P Global/SPGI (in the meantime, it also gobbled up all of the Dow Jones indices) and only private McGraw-Hill Education.
For years, people said that 2 out of 3 major ratings counted, so the US remained AAA/Aaa even after the S&P downgrade.
But now, with Fitch (owned by Hearst; also publishes Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, etc) joining S&P, 2 out of 3 becomes AA+.
Moody's/MCO (with 13.45% owned by Warren Buffett/BRK) remains at Aaa.
The SEC recognizes 10 NRSROs - Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, but so far, the big 3 count. Note that DBRS is now owned by M*; Kroll is the old Duff & Phelps. www.sec.gov/about/divisions-offices/office-credit-ratings/current-nrsros
Edit/Add. There was a Fido alert last night of an event in my brokerage account. It was on the downgrade of my Treasury holdings. Schwab & Vanguard haven't sent similar alerts yet.

Years ago (2011), the S&P did the same. Only Moody's remains at Aaa.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/01/fitch-downgrades-us-long-term-ratings-to-aa-from-aaa.html

I have read about ARTTX, a concentrated fund, here a few years ago but I have not seen any activity related to it recently. Do any forum members still own it?

It used to be that munis had less credit risk than taxable bonds with equivalent credit ratings. That is, a BBB muni was as safe an A-rated taxable bond. This all changed a dozen years ago when muni ratings were "recalibrated". Now, the risk of an A rated muni is similar to the risk of an A rated corporate.
This recalibration may have been more significant for investment grade munis, but some HY securities were affected as well.
Fitch: https://www.fitchratings.com/research/us-public-finance/fitch-announces-recalibration-of-us-municipal-bond-ratings-25-03-2010
Moody's: https://investorrelations.hawaii.gov/dhhl/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2014/02/Moody_Rating_Implementation_Guidance.pdf

MRFOX, which I profiled in Feb. 2019 I believe. +3% LT vs. SP500, 3.3% 5yr; .9% 3yr; 4.0% 1yr. No down years in its 7.5 year history. YTD +9.20%. Mid-cap growth.

Motherlovers!

Years ago someone in law enforcement told me that when they followed through on identity theft complaints, they found 80-90% of this crap was originating in Russia. (No idea if still true.)

Would be no surprise. Anne Garrels' book, "Putin Country," was a revelation. Russia's government is not a government; it's a mafia-style-ocracy. A gang-ocracy. Extortion, intimidation, graft, theft, rape, all sorts of violence and blackmail. And the "government," as we already know, is the sponsor for such criminal junk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Garrels

What's your point?
I’ve watched the fund several years (and owned it in better days) and suspect it will rebound if and when the markets nose-dive. The fund invests in income producing stocks and tries to play defense (hedge) in the options market. It has been burned over the past year. Some missteps obviously. . But looking back at all the negative sentiment a year ago, those missteps are understandable.
I cannot comment on your recommendation @fred495 as I haven’t owned or followed that fund. But, you are free to suggest any hedges you want (reason I started the thread). And I’ll have a closer look at JHQAX and see if it might serve my purpose. The main thing I look for in a hedge is the ability to run opposite the markets (ie go up when the S&P goes down). I suppose some funds do only go up. That would be even better!
Thanks. Enjoyed your comment.

Motherlovers!

Years ago someone in law enforcement told me that when they followed through on identity theft complaints, they found 80-90% of this crap was originating in Russia. (No idea if still true.)

I'm 15% in healthcare, but it's all through funds. Over the years, I've seen that my ethical filters just don't work, because at every turn, I'm battling the behemoth called (conscience-less) Capitalism. It sickens me, but what's a mother to do?

Similar story to @Crash / Warnings started popping up a year ago on my ipad that “Your device is infected by a virus.” Ignored them at first. After a few weeks I could see signs they had ripped into my DejaOffice files on the device and had been trying to export the contents. Will never know how much, if any, they made off with. This is having a modern device updated regularly with Apple’s latest IOS. First known episode in over 20 years using both Apple products and the DejaOffice app. (You can store an awful lot of personal / financial data over that time.)
Anyway, eventually I paid for a basic Norton anti-virus package. No more problems. But the issue did cause me to have to delete all the contents of my ipad and start over. Fortunately, had saved copies of older uncorrupted DejaOffice files I was able to reload - though somewhat out of date.
Footnote: This wasn’t too long after moving from cellular based wi-fi (slow) at home to Starlink’s broad-band service (much faster). I’m thinking the faster internet connection made me more vulnerable to being hacked. Just a guess.
No problems since all that.
Well … a few months later I received a notice from IdentityGuard that someone had tried unsuccessfully to change the password on my account with them. It failed because the person’s identity couldn’t be confirmed. Had the attempt succeeded, they’d have gained access to all my credit reports / files.

these middlemen / brokers have been buying up the insurance companies that cover prescription drugs. One they bought is Optum RX
The corporate structure is a bit more muddled than that. The major presecription benefit managers (PBMs) are owned by insurance companies or their parents. United Health Group (parent of United Healthcare) owns Optum Inc. (including OptumRx), CVS acquired Caremark (now branded CVS Caremark) a few years ago (and acquited Aetna more recently), and Cigna owns ExpressScripts.
One interesting facet about these PBM subsidiaries alluded to in the PBS piece is that since they're not insurers, they "can have a higher profit margin than the 15 to 20 percent that's regulated. Insurers are mandated [by the ACA] to spend 80 to 85 percent on medical costs."
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/secret-weapon-unitedhealths-optum-business-laying-waste-old-notions-about-how-payers-make-money
While Optum services hundreds of insurance companies, 2/3 of its revenue comes from United Healthcare - suggesting that PBMs are largely arms of insurance companies rather than independent third party service providers.

DuckDuckGo was founded in 2008 and has offered a search engine since then.
The company recently released a web browser for Windows (available in public beta).
Link
@Old_Joe,
Like you, I've been using Firefox, the DuckDuckGo search engine, and uBlock for years.
I sometimes use Chrome or Edge for specific situations.

Hi guys,
Thanks for the posts. It seems to me these Pharma companies will not win as sma3 said. It will turn everything upside down and cause chaos for years to come. I mean someone has to set prices for drugs.....so why not the biggest user, Medicare? They seem to have the right since they pay the most bills in the country. All you see on TV nowadays are commercials about drugs. So I think everybody is making money. And with elections coming, this should get lots of playtime all over the country. But if I remember.....they were only going to start with the 10 to 12 most widely used drugs first, and add some every year. So this will take time. This story could go on for years.
So, coming back.....I'm not sure what to do. Have owned these funds for years. Maybe hold tight for awhile and see how things go. All the talking heads are recommending it.....lol.
God bless
the Pudd
p.s.,
Crash +1

DuckDuckGo offers a search engine which provides substantially more privacy than Google.
They now also have their own web browser.
I'm not familiar with the browser but have used their search engine for years.
Their homepage provides additional details.
DuckDuckGo

Morningstar Legacy Portf. Mngr:
I can still see it. I got it back after trying a couple of steps, a week or so ago. As was mentioned here at MFO, apparently, M* was doing something internally, and I was involuntarily logged out. On a logged-out basis, the default switched to the "Investor" flavor. I much prefer Legacy to the "new and improved" "Investor" version.
But bear in mind, everyone: numbers at M* get updated when they feel like doing it. And it must be asked, whether or not the updates are even accurate.
Example:
In X-Ray, I'm looking at some ridiculous discrepancies, when compared to the chart display:
X-Ray says BHB is down YTD by -25.16%. The chart shows -15.54.
NHYDY X-Ray = down -16.41. Chart shows -15.37.
ET on X-Ray: +13%. But the chart shows +11.63.
PSTL on X-Ray: +4.1. Chart says +3.23.
When M* actually offers ACCURATE info, it is extremely useful. But it's a hit or miss proposition.
And I did not check to compare FUNDS in the same way.

There are many imperfections/flaws that have existed for years and years with M*. Their "evaluations", star ratings, categorization, etc. became virtually useless to me. About the only things I found useful were their data on funds, and their portfolio watchlists, where I could compare selected funds using selected data measures. I focused on TR performance measures, and risk management measures. I was only interested funds that met my "momentum" criteria, with a risk adjusted measure I chose. When M* quits allowing the free access to the watchlists and data components, it appers I will be forced to consider paying them a subscription fee, which I have NOT done in years--I have not decided i I think it is worth paying them a subscription fee with the many warts that exist with M*.

”2023 to be a tough year: IMF” The Fat Lady hasn't warmed up yet! In other words , the years isn't over yet.

It's interesting that this fund is becoming a topic again after so many years. It was on my list, and I noticed it moving well a couple weeks back; so I took a flyer on it. Needless to say, I've been happy with the results. Pure luck, but good timing. Did ANYONE else actually BUY any; other than me, that is?