I saw the real OJ buying Orange Juice in a grocery store near my folks house in Buffalo years ago. This was well before he divorced his first wife.
I should asked him to autograph my Orange Juice carton, but respected his privacy!

Unfortunately, bond ladders also have a duration. A 10-yr bond ladder may have a duration around 4-5 years.
So, the ETF PLW has duration 10.80 (M* Portfolio tab below) and SD 9.07 (M* Risk tab) - plenty volatile!
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/plw/portfolio
But if you had a private/DIY ladder, you would let each bond in the ladder mature at par, so the duration effect will be only if you have to liquidate ladder prematurely, not otherwise.
Just because a fund uses the term "ladder" doesn't mean that it will act as private/DIY ladder. Some DIY stuff you really have to do yourself and cannot farm it out to funds.

I have never invested directly in a treasury fund because this category has a high correlation to rates and rates are unpredictable short term. PLW did poorly YTD. See a YTD chart of VGIT(inter Gov/treasury) + DODIX(good generic higher rated bond fund) + PLW(has a longer duration > 10 years). (https://schrts.co/AEsZUCwD)
You can see that DODIX has the best performance + the lowest volatility. PLW has the worse performance + the highest volatility of 7.5+%.(peak to trough).

According to several web sources, Treasury simply uses this formula for Coupon-Equivalent Yield of T-Bills,
Coupon-Equivalent Yield = 100*[(Par Value - Purchase Price)/Purchase Price]* 360/d, where d = days to maturity.

Which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the web. (In all fairness, the second post in the Bogleheads thread correctly says that 365 days are used and references the same Treasury sources I'm relying on below. Except it misses an added complication for T-bills maturing in more than six months.)
According to the Treasury (the authoritative source), the above formula is not what is used for Coupon Equivalent Yield of T-bills. It is almost correct for T-bills maturing in six months or less, except that the correct formula uses 365 or 366 day years. For T-bills with longer maturities (still under a year), a quadratic equation must be solved.
Some people may not be clear about what Coupon Equivalent Yield represents.

The Coupon Equivalent, also called the Bond Equivalent, or the Investment Yield, is the bill's yield based on the purchase price, discount, and a 365- or 366-day year. The Coupon Equivalent can be used to compare the yield on a discount bill to the yield on a nominal coupon security that pays semiannual interest with the same maturity date.

https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_bill_rates&field_tdr_date_value_month=202209
In plain English, if you have a bond with a 4% coupon purchased at par ($100), then every six months it pays $2. To compute the annualized rate of return one assumes that the coupons are reinvested at the original rate. So after one year, one would have:
$100 x (1 + 2%) x (1 + 2%) = $100 x 1.0404 = $104.04. That's an annual yield of 4.04%.
T-bills don't have coupons, but if they did, this particular T-bill would pay coupons at an annual rate of 5.351%. That is, a six month coupon would pay half of that, or 2.6755%.
When one applies the same compounding as above (though reducing the second coupon by 2 days simple interest), one finds that the government figures are correct:

Rate (i)		5.351%
Price per $100		$94.883778
Days in 2024 (y)	366
1/2 year coupon		2.6755%		(1/2 X 5.351%)
Total days to maturity	364
2nd half frac of year	0.494535519	(364 - 366/2) / 366
2nd half coupon		2.6463%		(0.494... x 5.351%)

Compounding the coupons as before (except the second coupon isn't for a complete half year):
(1 + 2.6755%) x (1 + 2.6463%) = 105.3926%.
As in the OP, 5.392% is the actual total return. It is higher than the six month (coupon equivalent) yield, because coupons compound.
This is important. New issue T-bills have APYs greater than their coupon equivalent yields.
If a new six month T-bill has a 5.0% "coupon equivalent yield" it will pay 2.5% (half of 5%) after six months by definition. That would compound to 5.06¼% APY if reinvested at the same rate for another six months. That beats a six month CD with a 5.0% APY, paying just 2.47% at its six month maturity.
Treasury page with coupon equivalent yield formulae, examples
Treasury Regulation (Code of Federal Regulations) rules on calculating T-bill discount rates.
Note that the 360 day calendar is used when calculating the bank discount rate, but a 365 or 366 day calendar is used when calculating the "true discount" rate.

I was a relatively early investor in the original Fasciano Fund. I made a modest initial investment and received a hand-written letter of thanks from Mike Fasciano. I was impressed. A few years later I sold my shares when enough changes had occurred that I could no longer tell for sure who owned the fund or what its name was. Today reading the updated story I am finding some oddities. I am reading that the launch of ASAFX was in December of 2009 and its dissolution occurred two months earlier in October 2009. This is a typo or an anachronistic anomaly, or... ? And after reading the entire article I'm not sure if Michael Fasciano is retired or has returned to managing a fund. I think this may be because there are elements in the article from 2010 that were accurate at the time.

August 12,2023 Episode:

Investing can be simple and accessible to the average person, says financial thought leader and economist Burton Malkiel. Malkiel, author of the investment classic “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” has 50 years of research to back up his claim.

Said already several times. The main reason I use lower yield, "safer" MM with no gates because
1) The extra 0.2-0.3% (or a bit more) is *negligible on an annual basis.
2) I also have more than enough and can stay in MM for years but I'm using mostly bond funds. When I'm in the market, I invest at 99+% which is guaranteed by MM with no gates.
*I meant to write negligible.

Not much to add to the "health" discussion. After I retired about 10 years ago, I started focusing on bond oefs, and I did well with them, with limited stress until 2018. Starting in 2018, bond oefs became much less predictable for me, and I went through several very stressful periods, and was faced with having to trade much more often, and not always very successfully. I got through the period of 2018 through March 2022, made modest profits each year, but with increasing stress that I had to manage. When I started investing in CDs in 2022, I was able to make decent investing returns, but with virtually no stress. I don't know how long CD investing will continue to be financially rewarding, but I enjoy the lack of stress, I sleep better, and I can focus on other things in life that bring my wife and I great joy in our remaining years. It is hard to put a price on how valuable that is to me and my wife.

MOVEit Data Transfer Breach
MOVEit data transfer is used institutionally & they found that it had a hackable access/trap door that some bad people used to access data being transferred. This breach has affected many firms - banks, brokers, several government organizations (including Social Security), but I haven't heard anything from anyone else EXCEPT from PBI on behalf of TIAA.
We got letters from PBI (with ID numbers) about the TIAA breach & we both signed up with Kroll for 2 years of free credit monitoring. Signup requires providing DOB, Social Security number, etc & answering a short Q&A based on some personal credit history - the most common answer was N/A but not for all.
Kroll is the old Duff & Phelps. The old Duff & Phelps bought Kroll & renamed the whole thing Kroll. So, it is a very old company that you may not have heard of (1932- ).
Has anyone gotten info/letters on this breach from other institutions?
Those with access to M* or Facebook may also follow details there.
Edit/Add. From MFO Search, I found this for TD Ameritrade/Schwab, https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/165831/#Comment_165831
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_MOVEit_data_breach
https://securityintelligence.com/news/the-moveit-breach-impact-and-fallout-how-can-you-respond/
https://www.pionline.com/courts/retired-teacher-sues-tiaa-over-moveit-data-breach
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/612K-Medicare-beneficiaries-affected-MoveIt-data-breach/689346/

The consumer price index rose just 0.2% last month, and 3.2% year over year. Shelter costs, which rely on lagging data, are still showing up in the inflation numbers. What do more timely measures say?

Elizabeth Trovall -   Aug 10, 2023
The July Consumer Price Index out Thursday shows inflation ticking up — almost wholly due to shelter inflation. But how the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates the price people pay for housing includes some lagging data. So, while shelter inflation is still at 7.7% year-on-year, economists are incorporating new, more timely data into their forecasts that shows a cooling of housing prices.
The thing about the rental data the government uses to calculate the Consumer Price Index is that, as San Francisco Federal Reserve economist John Mondragon told us, “It can be really sticky. If you’re renting an apartment, you signed, say, typically a one year lease, your rent is going to be fixed for that year.”
So if you’ve been in your apartment for ten years, your rent could be much lower than a new renter’s. Which is why Mondragon also likes to look at other data to see , “People who are moving today, what are they paying?”
Zillow is one place to look for asking rents, said Kitty Richards with the Groundwork Collaborative.
“Housing costs inflation has actually been cooling since last summer, and is already down to pre-pandemic levels,” Richards said.
During the pandemic, lagging shelter inflation data failed to capture the sudden increase in rents, said Harvard University lecturer Judd Cramer.
“So what people are hoping is that now the pattern sort of reverses itself. Shelter inflation works itself back down to 2%, 3%, even 0%,” Cramer said.
Cramer said the BLS is looking at experimental measures to help track real-time rent inflation data.
Problems with affordable housing aren’t going away, said economist Robert Dietz with the National Association of Home Builders.
“We’ve got the tightest housing market for more than 40 years,” Dietz said.
The more policymakers can increase the supply of houses, he said, the more the price of housing will cool.
Elizabeth Trovall reported this story from Houston.

Note: The above is a combination of the MARKETPLACE newsletter and their on-line publication.

@davidmoran
So what's the overall message of the article (hiiden behind paywall etc)?
Noting that Kraft-Heinz and Kellog's prices have risen by 25-30% over the past two years....you might scoff at this but I can tell you that cost increase inputs continue...I haven't seen any cost reductions at the grocery store....
Baseball Fan

- did you try privacy / incognito browser sessions using various browsers?
- I see many price drops. Costco meats, MarketBasket (big NE discount chain) cereals, milk everywhere, fresh produce (corn locally picked; blueberries)

I don't bet rate cuts are coming anytime soon, nor in 2024, either. With the inverted yield curve, short-term stuff makes sense, without getting fancy about it. I prefer OEF bond funds. Let the Fund Managers play it the way they know how. The cost of buying an individual bond is normally prohibitive for individuals. Although, I recall Massachusetts issued "mini-bonds" for $100 each, many years ago. That sort of thing COULD be done.

@yogibb said,
While Moody's rates credit unions, I haven't seen reports of similar downgrades.
Credit unions have simpler models - take deposits, offer CDs, provide auto and home leans, park excess in Treasuries. They don't have CRE exposures. Their membership model is also beneficial mutually.

That is the main reason we moved away from Bank of America many years ago. Our local credit union provides everything we needed.

”Income investing is a myth that has been promoted for years “
That’s a bit harsh. Such companies often have certain other characteristics making them desirable additions to a portfolio. Everybody has their own approach & comfort level. I can see where a diversified portfolio might include a category devoted to high income payers. And (perhaps balance that out) another sleeve dedicated to aggressive growth companies. Not my style. But makes sense. BTW Utilities, typically high dividend payers, are favored by David Giroux, not a ”light-weight”. You might want to get a note off to him.

Income investing is a myth that has been promoted for years. In many cases, the writer wants to sell you something. Income investing as someone's main/first criterion has no legs in reality because TR=total return (performance) is the ultimate indicator. TR includes everything and all distributions are part of it. Risk-adjusted performance is the first thing you look for, after that, you can look for high distributions.
I have been discussing HIGH INCOME since 2010.
First came ATT,VZ,IBM as a must vs SPY,QQQ. A simple chart can prove how pathetic ATT,VZ,IBM were since 2010.
Then came MLP which lost more than half.
Then came fixed income CEFs where they made a total of 6-7% in the last 5 years while SPY made over 70%.
Lastly, I'm not against high distributions, I'm against using it as someone's main criterion.

At times like this, the young people say:
"Sir, this is a Wendys."
Older folks might remember what Emily Litella used to say.

My preference is to use a local institution for checking and direct deposit.
I'm a member of a locally-based credit union with many nearby branches.
If any issues arise, I can readily speak to someone in person.
Over the years, I've found that CUs generally offer better terms for loans, credit cards,
and checking/savings accounts than many brick-and-mortar banks.
Their customer service is also superior to big banks in my experience.
My credit union provided a Medallion signature guarantee when I transferred
a Roth IRA from one institution to another.
Note: I also have an Ally online savings account.

Same here. They do banking basics very well and efficiently. They're not out to beat quarterly numbers and 'analyst estimates' or start making tons of money for themselves. I've been a member of my CU since 1995 and for the most part I remain very happy with them.

My preference is to use a local institution for checking and direct deposit.
I'm a member of a locally-based credit union with many nearby branches.
If any issues arise, I can readily speak to someone in person.
Over the years, I've found that CUs generally offer better terms for loans, credit cards,
and checking/savings accounts than many brick-and-mortar banks.
Their customer service is also superior to big banks in my experience.
My credit union provided a Medallion signature guarantee when I transferred
a Roth IRA from one institution to another.
Note: I also have an Ally online savings account.

SA article (https://seekingalpha.com/article/4625927-federal-funds-rate-is-going-down-what-about-bond-prices?mailingid=32345426&messageid=2850&serial=32345426.3245)
I can read all SA articles for free for years and never paid anything.
Quote (excerpts)
"Summary
The Federal Reserve will likely cut rates next year.
Rate cuts might impact bond prices, depending on their magnitude, and on market expectations.
Market expectations are very dovish, and more dovish than the Fed. Higher bond prices seem unlikely.
A look at federal reserve rates, expectations thereof, and their possible impact on bond prices follows.
.................................
Investor Takeaway
Investors expect significant federal reserve interest rate cuts in the coming years, and are pricing treasuries and other bonds accordingly. Due to this, small rate cuts will likely have limited impact on bond rates and prices.
Under these conditions, I would personally invest in T-bills and other short-term bonds over longer-term securities. These have higher yields and lower interest rate risk. Longer-term securities yield more, are riskier, and are pricing-in an aggressive set of fed hikes already."

Noting that Kraft-Heinz and Kellog's prices have risen by 25-30% over the past two years....you might scoff at this but I can tell you that cost increase inputs continue...I haven't seen any cost reductions at the grocery store....

I can’t say. Pretty much grab what I want / need off the store shelves or out of the cooler. Fortunate in that regard perhaps. Not to ignore the tremendous strain inflation must cause for many with low income & large families. Maybe I’m repeating something already mentioned … but there’s a glut of chicken now whereas a year ago there was a shortage. Prices of chic and pork have fallen from what I hear. Point being - Don’t read too much into these individual products that rise and fall … normal supply & demand shifts.
Corn flakes? How much of a dollar’s worth is in the corn? LOL - Probably less than a dime. Most of the cost is in labor, processing, packaging, distribution, advertising, retail, etc.
ISTM the food staples (stocks) like the ones mentioned have held up pretty well recently - though I haven’t tracked the ones mentioned. Some have run up nicely on big down days in the S&P.
(Mentioned that because this is an investing forum)

@davidmoran
So what's the overall message of the article (hiiden behind paywall etc)?
Noting that Kraft-Heinz and Kellog's prices have risen by 25-30% over the past two years....you might scoff at this but I can tell you that cost increase inputs continue...I haven't seen any cost reductions at the grocery store....
Best Regards,
Baseball Fan