Even better-FXF issues a 1099-not a K1 tax form. Unfortunately, UUP , an etf I was interested in years ago, issues a K1 !

Hindenburg specializes in blowing-up companies. TMK there’s usually a factual basis for their claims. But be aware they’re biased against the stocks they short. Did a real number on DKNG about 2 years ago (not that the stock needed any help skidding).

@msf I appreciate your remarks. No argument here. The original reference I made to Vietnamese workers were native Vietnamese, living and working in Vietnam, not Saipan. The way I heard the story, the already-finished product--- the blue jeans--- were shipped from Vietnam to Saipan simply to have the US flag and logo sewn onto them. So, even if the manufacturer could not in good faith claim that the jeans were American-made, the company was certainly communicating that impression.
That does indeed sound plausible to me. For-profit companies everywhere, since forever, are always looking for ways to circumvent regulations. If the particular details I offered are incorrect, then I do indeed stand corrected.
Yes, the CNMI were not subject to the laws and regulations that the States must obey, some several years ago. That's been corrected, for the sake of those foreign workers. That same sort of worker exploitation is just par for the course, a reality taken for granted--- still--- in many countries. Think of Qatar, on the run-up to the FIFA games. Also, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Saudi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and elsewhere. I personally have cousins (through marriage) who are OFW workers. One fellow who works as an OFW in Macau has not seen his young son for 4 years--- until just recently. Their passports are taken from them!!! And from the other direction: rather than to work to create a more prosperous, legitimate business regime, the gov't of the Philippines just feeds the beast: offering to give orientation meetings and setting up an entire system by which their own people can find such employment overseas--- providing, of course, that they are willing to sign away their rights in order to do so. To say nothing of the fees and graft and built-in corruption which is normalized in that country.

From the show: 2023 is best start to the year for CCC rated debt since 2003. Twenty years. Nevertheless, I think out of a sense of professional prudence, they like IG better. The point was made, however, that the quality of junk bond companies is stronger, better situated than in past years.

+1 I think capitalism in the US became too used to free/low cost labor based on the prevalence of slavery, indentured servants and convict leasing-and thus American capitalism doesn't value labor.

Exploiting Overseas Foreign Workers still goes on today. Perfectly legal in many places. Permitted, acknowledged, expected. But if the economy turns south and there's a cut-back in hours, those workers, under contract, are slaves, tied to that location. Bed and food provided. But when they don't make much money? Well, they simply don't make much money. It was happening under the U.S. flag in Saipan until the GWB years, when the gummint put a stop to it--- in THAT particular place. No cheap labor? Then we'll go elsewhere, said the clothing companies.
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A related story: US law permits manufacturers to claim a garment was American made if just one step in the process is done on US soil. So, one famous maker of blue jeans hired Vietnamese workers because they could be paid in peanuts. The jeans were manufactured, finished, ready to wear. Then they were shipped to Saipan, where a flag and logo was sewn onto the back pocket. The slogan said: "Made in the USA." As the French would say: "Merd."

From Barron's:
By Alex Eule Friday, January 27
"The January Effect. Stocks closed out another strong week, with the Nasdaq Composite, in particular, benefiting from the 2023 rebound. The tech-heavy index rose another 1% today, pushing its weekly gain to 4.3%. It's the Nasdaq's fourth-straight week in positive territory.
The S&P 500 rose 0.25% on the day and 2.5% on the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was essentially flat on the day but still up 1.8% this week.
As investors look toward an end to rate hikes, growth-focused tech stocks have been the primary beneficiary. The Nasdaq is closing in on its best January in more than 20 years. With two trading days to go, the index is up 11% on the month, its best January since a 12.2% gain in January 2001.
For a lot of folks, the '01 callback will come with bad memories. At the time, the market was still dealing with the dot-com crash. After the strong January, the Nasdaq went on to fall 30% through the rest of 2001. Ultimately, the Nasdaq didn't find its bottom until October 2002."

>> Yes. "Woke" has just gone way too far. It's to the point where any recognizable standard of behavior or academic touchstone has become the enemy. That's just wrong.
Sorry, is this sarcasm? If not, examples? Not clear what you're talking about.
**************
Not sarcasm. A bit of hyperbole, I suppose. The Woke thing in general has just become a ridiculous free-for-all by which we are just supposed to assent to anything, anywhere, anyway, anyhow. Hairstyle legislation? Gimme a break. Reparations to be paid for what happened hundreds of years ago? C'mon. ... And I'm supposed to address this one person standing in front of me as "they?" Silliness. But a big chunk of our society is buying into it all. We are doomed. Common sense and any sort of recognition for the very need for standards of any sort are gone. The victim-card is just de rigueur now.
De Santis is a jerk. REQUIRING that a thing must NOT be taught? I can't fart loud enough to express how utterly stoopid that is. (In his case, Critical Race Theory. But that doesn't mean I buy-into CRT, lock, stock and barrel. ) Just how guilty and privileged am I supposed to feel? Bushwah.

@Yogibullbear
Their budgets may be axillary, and for a lot of Public Universities, football and basketball pay for all of the other athletic programs combined, but the money still comes from the students for the most part through increased room and board fees , books etc.
The other insanity is the endowments of many top universities would pay all their operating costs for years, but if they can get parents to pay , they limit the withdrawals to only the bare legal minimum.
As the students are aware of how much it costs to go to College now, and pick majors that will ( they think) allow them to make those kind of salaries
30% of the students at the Ivy League U my son attended were majoring in finance, to work on wall street. They knew teaching, social work, etc would never support their kids.

The point about the hot tubs was meant to illustrate one of the sources of rising college tuition that has nothing to do with education. In order to attract higher income students, whose parents will pay the full tuition, colleges ( including public colleges) have spent lavishly on climbing walls, luxurious dorms, saunas, locally sourced all organic expensive food that no middle class family could afford.
Any school that doesn't looses "customers" whose parents can write checks for $50,000 plus a year.
When I went to the University of Texas in the 1970s we ate enchiladas and meatloaf. Now even the kids there get kale, organic sprouts, six desert stations, all you can eat fresh midnight cookies etc.
There was one University I read about a few years ago that decided to lower their tuition to attract more applicants. In fact their applications fell dramatically because applicants thought they might not get all the services other schools were offering.
It is an arms race that has little to do with the quality of the education, but the image and amenities.

@Sma3 An anecdote about Southwest, Connecticut does not a national trend make:
https://bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-9/forty-years-of-falling-manufacturing-employment.htm This long-term loss of manufacturing jobs is only going to get worse with time due to automation.
I also don't think it helps to stereotype the younger generations as wasteful foolish ones that spend all their money on "hot tubs and locally sourced organic food." What's next, a mention of avocado toast? The truth is, Gen Z and Millennials spend more money on some things than Boomers and Xers and less on others. They probably find what we spend on our cars and houses wasteful:
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/articles/how-millennials-spend-their-money
https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-17/gen-z-has-360-billion-to-spend-trick-is-getting-them-to-buy

Two sectors where prices have grown the fastest for many years are two which IMHO should be accessible to all: education and health care.

From an 1887 letter from the Commissioner of the Department of Education, referencing Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, Query XIV:

Jefferson devised an ingenious plan whereby the boys of best talent, the sons of the people, might be discovered and sent forward, although poor, to preparatory colleges, and finally to the University of Virginia. Such a plan is now in practical operation in the, State of New York, in connection with Cornell University, which accepted the agricultural college land grant upon the condition of free education to talented graduates of local high schools and academies, and also prevails in many other States, where young men receive the benefits of the higher education, without charge for tuition, at the State universities and agricultural land-grant colleges. Natural selection and the survival of the fittest are great needs in American schools, colleges, and universities. Jefferson's ideas, if they should ever be realized throughout the country, will deliver us on the one hand from the over-education of mediocrity, and on the other from the under-education of genius. It is the duty of democracy to evolve from itself the highest talent, not only for government and administration, but for the advancement of science and the arts.

Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia (1888)
Jefferson posited that for the benefit of society, education should be available to everyone up to their ability level or further if willing to pay.
In a recently concluded college course in rhetoric, we were split into groups to debate the merits of free tuition (the topic I suggested for debate). There are valid, and many invalid, arguments on both sides. While I was assigned to the anti-free tuition group, personally I side with TJ.

Inflation bonds receive "coupon" from 2 factors: Real Yield embedded in bonds bought + CPI performance. While Real Yield is paid out in Cash, real yields have been low last several years. Negative in fact. On the other hand, CPI led coupons get accumulated as principal in the bond itself and the principal is paid to the bond holder with the CPI accumulation factors.
Now, when an ETF holds Inflation bonds, on one hand, investors in that ETF expect to be paid a coupon (since they are holding bonds). But on the other hand, the ETF issuer is not receiving much cash. Rather ETF issuer finds principal of the bonds has gone up.
None of this affects the NAV of Inflation ETFs. But it does impact how cash is paid out to ETF holders.
ETF issuers might need to actually sell some bonds to generate the cash. or they might wait on bond maturity to generate cash. Life gets complicated when it comes to determining coupon payments and definitely forecasting coupon payments.
ETF issuers have a lot of latitude in how much and when to pay out.
Since no one knows what ETF issuers will eventually decide, and since ETF issuer decides individually, projecting coupons may be hard to do.
But none of this impact NAV. ETF holder can always sell some of the Inflation ETF to generate the cash required.
Since this triggers taxes in taxable accounts, many investors and advisors prefer not to hold inflation bonds in their portfolios. Inflation bonds are not as liquid as fixed coupon treasuries.
Sometimes, such product aversion, can create useful sources of returns for investors willing to take on the risk that others dont. It helps that these are US government credit (as long as there is no default).

While I have my own issues with student loan forgiveness, I can understand the perspective of Millennials and Gen Zs who think it’s hypocritical that many in the older generation were perfectly fine with two massive government taxpayer funded bailouts of financial markets in 2008-09 and 2020 in which the younger generations have little invested because in part they are laden with student debt. Not to mention the fact that in some cases I imagine they are indebted to the very banks that were bailed out with taxpayer dollars in 2009. That is on top of the bailouts “small businesses” got in 2020, which the government defines as any company with less than 500 employees—many large companies qualified.
And finally, the cost of tuition is astonishing today even at public universities, when the older generations had much more affordable educations. The average cost of attendance for a student living on campus at a public 4-year in-state institution is $25,707 per year or $102,828 over 4 years. Out-of-state students pay $43,421 per year or $173,684 over 4 years. Private, nonprofit university students pay $54,501 per year or $218,004 over 4 years. This in a country where tuition at public universities was once exceedingly low and in certain cases free. It is also true that it is extremely difficult for anyone to have a middle class life today without a college degree when this was not the case in earlier generations. Well-paying Industrial blue collar jobs that don’t require a degree have largely disappeared in 2023. So kids have to go to college and they end up in debt because of it.

Yes. "Woke" has just gone way too far. It's to the point where any recognizable standard of behavior or academic touchstone has become the enemy. That's just wrong. We live today in a society in which the overarching norm is excessive ridiculous, individual-ism: I must be permitted to do whatever I want, and be free to be ME. But who is ME? Well, I haven't figured that out yet, and don't care to be bothered to give any attention to Reality. I'll just be "me" in my own little vacuum which I foist upon everyone else, because no one has the balls to say: "wait a minute. You can't claim X or Y or Z without any kind of evidence except your own feelings.
Critical Thinking, much??????? LOGIC was a REQUIRED course when I entered college as a freshman. And at least some Philosophy courses were mandatory, as well: to expose students to challenging ideas, to investigate the nature of the way things ARE. Sad to see that Philosophy has morphed into mere word-games in more recent years. Deeper questions of Ethics and Meaning are left for someone else to worry about. What a pity.
But nevermind all that. I just want to blare this gawd-awful noise with my windows rolled down in my car, loud enough to wake the dead and shake buildings as I pass by. Because consideration for others doesn't matter to me, nor the car manufacturers who pander to brain-dead narcissists like me.

I would wager a sizable sum that Baseball_Fan has never read the 1619 Project and is merely parroting what he hears from the usual sources. Nor does he know what Marxism is. I suspect any sort of taxation to him for purposes other than the protection of his personal property he views as Marxism. Wanting, say, a public park or public schools makes you a Marxist. Meanwhile, numerous studies have shown the very capitalist stock market has performed better under “tax and spend” Democratic presidents than Republican ones.
Moreover, Biden worked for over 30 years as a senator of Delaware, the nation’s incorporation capital, helping to pass legislation highly favorable to the extremely capitalist credit card and banking industries. But somehow he’s a Marxist too for wanting poor people to eat, our roads and bridges to be repaired and children and the elderly to have healthcare.
Where do people who oppose any sort of taxpayer funded government programs think the money goes other than the private sector in the U.S.? The two work in concert in the U.S.. That is not Marxism by any means. The reason Moderna's stock has done so well is the government spent billions of dollars helping it develop vaccines and then purchased those vaccines from it. That is true for the entire healthcare sector by the way. And yes, as DavidrMoran has pointed out, such government spending stimulates the economy, creating jobs and increasing GDP. It's called the multiplier effect, not Marxism.

@LewisBraham
Thanks so much for the link to the new republic article. I am slowly digesting it and I wonder why I haven't heard much about this way out of the dilemma.
It does remind me that although we think the quality of contempory thought in previous years was much higher than now ( Federalist Papers, Gettysburg address etc) there was also an awful lot of junk similar to what we seem to be mired in now ( Hamilton and Burr's duel and extreme animosity, the attacks on Jefferson and his "black wife", Lincoln as a baboon etc)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr–Hamilton_duel

+1. I recall trying Fido years ago. There was a reason I did not stay with them.

MANY years ago, Fido converted most mutual fund a/c to brokerage a/c. But some still exist. Of course, most Fido 401k/403b a/c are mutual fund a/c but some may have brokerage windows.

@Crash: Marigolds! If what you planted are anything like the calendula* seeds I put out ~ 15 years ago, they reseed like mad and make a good cover you'll never have to replant.
* A marigold native to North America, only distantly related to some of the available ornamental marigolds. Common names can be a bit misleading ...

The ones I've got are red metamorph. I actually like the acrid aroma. And I'm using pots on the deck, we own no land.
:)

@Crash: Marigolds! If what you planted are anything like the calendula* seeds I put out ~ 15 years ago, they reseed like mad and make a good cover you'll never have to replant.
* A marigold native to North America, only distantly related to some of the available ornamental marigolds. Common names can be a bit misleading ...