Our rebalancing process has evolved over time that include the business cycle. In our core bucket, we rebalanced it about 4 times a year. The tactical bucket where we invested in individual stocks, ETFs, commodities, and OEFs, is more actively managed, especially in the last several years where the market conditions rapidly change. Our goal is loss less than the market average while having a respectable gain and staying a bit ahead of inflation. For us that is good enough.

Sold out of MGGIX the other day as part of early tax loss harvesting for 2022. It was acting too much like a concentrated tech fund and that's not what I wanted when I bought into it.
Their 2021 Annual Report came today. Call me spoiled or misguided after years of the informative, descriptive, reflective personal multi-page discussions in the annual letters from Giroux, Capital, Vanguard, and other funds, but when fund management's commentary for an annual report is only one page, unsigned, and doesn't even say 'thank you for investing in our fund' (*) it just suggests to me they don't really care about building a relationship with shareholders.
(*) I refer to the manager of the fund itself, not the Chairman's introduction note on behalf of the fund manager's firm.
I noticed a similarly annoying thing an a recent report from Blackrock. They (Blackrock) were the investment advisor, yet they kept saying "the Investment Advisor...." as if to rhetorically distance themselves for some reason. And it was only 1 or 2 of their funds doing that, the rest were more first-person in tone. Weird, but noticeable.
Edit: Interesting too that the majority of MGGIX directors come from Perkins-Cole. One would think there would be greater diversification there.

I posted a pissed off thread about MGGPX recently, but held on. Good thing I did. Guess, you gotta trust a good manager. Doesn't have the jitters during rough times. He killed it during covid. Let's hope he pulls through on all this.

Here's the page from which @bee's except was taken:
https://www.deepcapture.com/the-story-of-deep-capture-by-mark-mitchell/
naked shorters ... (it's flatly illegal goes the argument
Is naked shorting flatly illegal, or is that just one side's argument?
Naked shorting is not unconditionally illegal, just as going long without having the money to cover it on the trade date is not unconditionally illegal.
Is it illegal to buy a security and then talk it up? It depends.
"[A]busive 'naked' short selling as part of a manipulative scheme is always illegal under the general antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, including Rule 10b-5".
SEC Rule 10b-21 https://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2008/34-58774.pdf
Absent fraud, naked shorts can be legal, so long as they comply with other SEC regs. "'Naked' short selling is not necessarily a violation of the federal securities laws or the [Security and Exchange] Commission’s rules. Indeed, in certain circumstances, 'naked' short selling contributes to market liquidity."
https://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/regsho.htm
Apparently naked shorting is not flatly illegal, goes the official argument. The DTCC agrees, saying that "there is some legal naked short selling.
With respect to Overstock, "In 2004, Cohodes, a partner at a hedge fund called Rocker Partners, and David Rocker, the fund’s founder, shorted Overstock after concluding that Byrne was making untenable promises about its financial performance. "
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/14/a-tycoons-deep-state-conspiracy-dive
That's 18, not 15 years ago. This matters because Regulation SHO became effective January 2005, and Rule 10b-21 became effective Oct 2008.
For a very different, expansive perspective of the alleged conspiracies, here's Joe Nocera's business column from Feb 2006:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/business/overstocks-campaign-of-menace.html
To bring this back to the Reuters piece - put options were purchased. That's a way to gain the same exposure as with a short, but there's no failure to deliver; no security lending is involved. As the CEO of Farmland stated, ""This is not about shorting. This is about securities fraud."

Well, large distributions may also be forced by significant outflows (a negative for the fund) and manager changes (just housecleaning to start fresh, at best neutral). So, portfolio outperforming is not the only reason for large distributions although that is common in good market years (but may also be in disastrous years). M* publishes Potential CG Exposures and for many funds that may remain forever, or not. Culprit here is constant inflows/outflows from mutual funds/OEFs.

Mortgage credit in the port now at zero; it was by far my largest allocation in recent years. Last to go was EIXIX. AlphaCentric and Regan's entries in the category have been ~ 75% ROC recently, thus with a pitiful income yield. The category was flat early in the big 2022 selloff, weakening lately, and just not a whole lot of upside left in the tank. This is my obituary for the great debt trade of the last decade-plus. (I might buy in again on a true selloff and signs of recovery.)
I'm probably more cautious than a lot of posters, given no pension and adequate but not massive savings/investment $. #1 position now is cash, #2 is PQTAX, with some ETFs mainly in trading mode. Capital preservation is the main objective at this point.

Yes, Eaton Vance. Since everyone's tax situation is different take a look at last years distributions/share and see how you may be affected. The distributions were all either long-term capital gains or income.
ETV

Sold out of MGGIX the other day as part of early tax loss harvesting for 2022. It was acting too much like a concentrated tech fund and that's not what I wanted when I bought into it.
Their 2021 Annual Report came today. Call me spoiled or misguided after years of the informative, descriptive, reflective personal multi-page discussions in the annual letters from Giroux, Capital, Vanguard, and other funds, but when fund management's commentary for an annual report is only one page, unsigned, and doesn't even say 'thank you for investing in our fund' (*) it just suggests to me they don't really care about building a relationship with shareholders.
(*) I refer to the manager of the fund itself, not the Chairman's introduction note on behalf of the fund manager's firm.
I noticed a similarly annoying thing an a recent report from Blackrock. They (Blackrock) were the investment advisor, yet they kept saying "the Investment Advisor...." as if to rhetorically distance themselves for some reason. And it was only 1 or 2 of their funds doing that, the rest were more first-person in tone. Weird, but noticeable.
Edit: Interesting too that the majority of MGGIX directors come from Perkins-Cole. One would think there would be greater diversification there.

would expect a ruling before this issue becomes a class action law suit
The suit was filed as a class action lawsuit. The cited piece reads: "The plaintiffs ... seek compensation for the alleged harm on behalf of a class of similarly situated investors nationwide."
What is the problem with that? This seems to be exactly the type of suit for which class actions were created - large number of plaintiffs, similarly situated, a common transaction, and not worth most people's time and money to sue on their own.
Assuming the court finds that some duty was breached by Vanguard, calculating damages will be interesting, since tax liabilities would seem to be more a matter of when a taxpayer owes taxes (i.e. when a taxpayer recognizes gain) than if a taxpayer owes the taxes. It could be a question of time value of money, not added tax liability.
The duty question: Vanguard has tax-managed funds. These were not promoted as such. Did Vanguard have any duty to consider tax implications?
Tax recognition timing: a plaintiff might argue that the recognition of gain was not certain - the fund shares could be bequeathed or donated to charities. So the damages should be the full amount of taxes due. OTOH, these are funds marketed as retirement funds, i.e. funds expected to be sold down during retirement. Arguably while other dispositions are possible, they might be considered speculative while gradual disinvestment would be considered the norm.
If it does come down to a question of timing (recognizing gain now rather than say, from age 65 to 95, then the damages might be just the time value of the taxes paid now rather than over those 30 years. Current discount rate (even with the 0.25% fed hike) is pretty low.
Lowering the institutional series' minimum was a stupid thing for Vanguard to do, given that it was going to merge the institutional and retail series of funds a few months later. But stupid and negligent are not the same, and in any case, the tax bills would have come due sooner or later.
See also
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/15/vanguard-hit-with-class-action-suit-over-target-date-fund-tax-bills/

FWIIW, the Providence Journal was a staple in our household when I was a kid. Utilities buy-outs can work well for the investor if the stars align. A few years back, M* signaled that ICT, the electric transmission company, was a possible target. Sure enough, the ICT sign outside a station in my current town, reads “A Fortis Company.” The ICT shareholders, and moi aussi, got a decent premium. Never mind the false leads I followed, OK?

Sold out of PTIAX. Preserve profit. Pay off the furniture we bought at zero interest.
The rest will go into the sweep account until I consider my options. A chance to grow cash. Never managed to do that, in all these years. Dry powder is good to have around.

From Washing Post this morning,

signaled far more rate hikes, a total of seven for this year, marking a big first step in the Fed’s precarious fight to rein in the highest inflation in 40 years.

If 25 bps per hike, 7x0.25 = 1.75% by year end. Fed missed the boat completely to combat inflation last year. The “transitory” term should be long gone.

Press conference upcoming. May move markets.
After the FOMC announcement equities did a U-turn. Dow fell about 200-300 points over a few minutes to about flat at present. Had been strong earlier in day. Gold ticked up $5, but is still off $15 for the day at near $1900. P/M iminers are off 2% as of 2:30.
If I heard right, the fed is predicting a return to their target 2% inflation within the next few years.
(But didn’t offer to sell anyone a bridge).

Romick also runs FPACX which is a sorta go anywhere moderate allocation fund that used to have stellar results with low risk. ( I think David has a chunk in his IRA, but I could be wrong. At one point it was closed although Schwab had special shares they sold somehow. It has done better than SOR in the last few years, but you would have to get really down in the weeds to figure out why.

@Bobpa, do you remember the kiddie-ride at the amusement park where a little kid would sit in a little car and go around in a circle? Kids would turn that little steering wheel frantically pretending they were controlling the direction of that little car. Towards the end of the ride they would usually just sit back in the seat and enjoy the ride with a somewhat bored look on their face. That's at times how I've felt about investing over the years.

Cool! @MikeM
And in a few years it won’t be kiddie cars. You’ll hop (crawl?) into a real car with or w/o a steering wheel and off you’ll go!
:)
Re the question. Never look back! … But of course we all do dumb things or “step right when we should’ve stepped left.”
To rephrase an old country song: “I was commodities when commodities wasn’t cool”. Lost my shirt in Oppenheimer’s now defunct commodities fund (QRAAX) back during the worst commodities bear market in history. They shut it down just as commodities showed signs of coming to life.

@Bobpa, do you remember the kiddie-ride at the amusement park where a little kid would sit in a little car and go around in a circle? Kids would turn that little steering wheel frantically pretending they were controlling the direction of that little car. Towards the end of the ride they would usually just sit back in the seat and enjoy the ride with a somewhat bored look on their face. That's at times how I've felt about investing over the years.

What does "better" mean? You asked for the vehicle that most closely correlates to WTI oil price. Closest and better performing are not the same. Nor do I suspect that any of the 1099 funds would track that closely, because they're likely to use futures or other derivatives. They don't necessarily track the actual (spot) price of commodities. Notice that the spot price never dropped below zero; only the futures did.

https://etfdb.com/etfs/commodity/crude-oil/#etfs__holdings&sort_name=assets_under_management&sort_order=desc&page=1
You can check out whichever ones interest you.
As an example, DBO returned -5x as much as OILK over the past three years (60%+ vs -12%+). On a point-to-point basis (March 14, 2019 to March 14, 2022) WTI nearly doubled, from around $56 to around $100. Neither of these came close to that.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/rwtcD.htm
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#WTI-Crude

@Charles- You might want to talk to johnN. He's been an enthusiastic buyer of individual bonds for many years.
OJ

Traditionally, indexed ETFs were not required to disclose holdings on a daily basis. The rules were changed in the past few years; in 2015 the WSJ wrote:

here’s what many ETF investors probably don’t know: Passively managed ETFs—those that seek to track an index—actually aren't required to disclose all of their portfolio holdings daily.
Many fund sponsors voluntarily provide that information. But at least one major ETF sponsor, Vanguard Group, doesn’t.
Index funds do have to make available to so-called "authorized participants"—typically large institutional organizations, such as large securities firms—what's known as a "creation basket" daily. That list of securities typically [but not always] mirrors an ETF’s holdings or is a representative sample. Authorized participants who assemble and deliver that specified basket of securities receive ETF shares in its place.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-TOTALB-2415
My point here is just that IMHO transparency is overrated. Vanguard ETFs worked well for many years without it. So long as the arbitrage mechanism with authorized participants and portfolio composition files (creation basket/redemption basket) works well to keep market price close to NAV, daily transparency isn't essential.
As Sven noted, mutual funds generally take their full 30 days plus to disclose portfolios and investors are okay with that.
Surely no list of offbeat active ETFs that voluntarily release holdings on a daily basis would be complete without mentioning ARKK's daily disclosure.

@Junkster said, “don’t want my bearish bias to influence me …”
I resemble that remark. :)
I don’t think I can time the markets. (Perhaps others can.) I almost always regret it. Raising my “alternative” sleeve from 30% to 40% is probably the best move I’ve made recently. it’s a moderate but diversified mix of various strategies and includes one equity. Some came out of growth and some out of income. Reduces neck discomfort from all the whip-saw action.
Still holding another 9-10% in hedges against equity downdrafts. About half of that in TAIL - which reduces the discomfort evident in that classic “Observer” thrill-ride photo that’s already been reposted.
Gold’s down over $45 today to just above $1900. May seem like a lot - but need to remember it got down to $1700 on 2 or more occasions in 2021. So still well above that.
EDIT: While gold is down, the p/m miners are having a decent day up nearly 1%. Looks like the industrial metals have trimmed their morning losses as well.
You can believe in inflation without giving it a name or degree: ie “transient”, “rampant”, “slight” or “just about right”. I can’t think of any other reason for those of us with gray hair (or none at all) to put a single dime at risk unless we think paper currencies will buy less in coming years than they do today.

Alex Eule, Barron's writes | Monday, March 14
"One change from the first days of the war, though, is that oil prices are now falling. That's possibly on hopes of a resolution, but more likely because China shutdowns are threatening the global demand for energy. Crude fell 5.8% on the day, to $103.01 a barrel. It's down 17% since March 8."
"For nearly two years, though, it's been the tale of two pandemics. As cases surged in the U.S. and Europe, China's "Zero-Covid" approach seemed to work. Covid waves in the West continued to crest, while China's numbers were virtually flat. Chinese factories kept going, one bright spot amid the global supply chain's problems.
But on Sunday, China reported 1,800 new cases of symptomatic Covid, its highest daily total in two years. The country put Shenzhen and its nearly 18 million residents under a new lockdown that will last at least a week. Shenzhen is home to key manufacturing facilities, including Apple iPhone assembler Foxconn. Shanghai is also dealing with new lockdowns."