Apparently, M* does not rely on its traditional users for income. It has been driving away users for years. I used to visit M* daily, and now I rarely ever use the site. No love lost from my viewpoint.

Price gouging !! I just posted about huge increase in monthly, average, natural gas bill.
Derf

Well, you call it price-gouging. But that seems to be popular behavior with every industry these days. -- Airline fares. Agriculture/food. its impossible to go through a burger drive-through without paying +$10/person, for crap 'food' (it may be Solyent Green). My landlord raised the rent 12%. Housing prices are up outrageous sums since the helicopter money was dropped by Jay "Top Gun" Powell.
The employer I happen to work for has raised its prices on all of its product lines +100% since 2019. --- And we keep having more customers showing up at our door asking for more product.. (i.e. no loss of volumes due to the high prices).
When everyone is "price-gouging", its not price-gouging. its inflation. Inflation is every where and at every time a monetary phenomenon (M. Friedman). Our govt (including Jay "Monopoly Money" Powell) has done this to us.
Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?

I have been a Schwab customers for many years. Yesterday, for the first time I learned in my taxable account that I can not place a sell order for SWVXX and immediately place a buy order for a mutual fund from another fund family. (Strangely, about a month ago I transferred cash from my bank to Schwab and parked the cash in SWVXX to later buy a mutual fund. Evidently, the $200K I have in SWVXX gives me a margin buying power of $30K to buy another mutual fund before SWVXX sale is settled - very strange.) I called the Schwab rep and he said Schwab changed their policy a year ago and now you have to wait for the mutual fund sold to settle before you can place a buy order (SWVXX is treated as a mutual fund). When I showed him that recently I had no problem switching mutual funds on the same day in my IRA, like I always did, he said the new rule applies only to taxable account. W/r/t my taxable account, I asked him to clarify and after two days he still has not gotten back to me with answers to (1) why I am not allowed to use immediately 90% of the potential sale proceeds of SWVXX (or any mutual fund) to buy another fund? and (2) why I am not allowed to use the exchange feature to sell and buy funds from the same non-Schwab fund family? I no longer own any mutual funds in my taxable account to test if (2) is correct, except that is what the rep said.
It is already punitive that Schwab does not provide a MM fund as a sweep account like Vanguard and Fidelity do. Schwab wants to discourage using their MM funds and force liquid funds into zero interest cash account if immediate liquidity is desired. Schwab has gotten so used to paying no interest on cash in its bank and brokerage accounts that it does not want to pay any yield now, even when FF rate continues to go up.
I am surprised it is legal for Schwab not to give its customers access to any non-Schwab money market funds. I could not find this access on their website and the Schwab Rep said that is the case.
More likely I will be moving the cash from Schwab to (Fidelity or Vanguard) where I can get a better yield in the sweep account than in SWVXX.

I am considering exchanging some positions I have in some conservative allocation funds for some dividend ETF's. I have looked at some which have better 1 years returns, such as PEY, DVY, GCOW, SPYD, CDC, CDL, and DHS. Looking forward does it make sense to move from the 30-50% stock portfolio of conservative allocation funds to the ETF's? I already have a position in SCHD.
The dollars now invested in the CA funds probably would not be needed for 3-4 years. Any opinions on the move or the ETF'S being considered. PMEFX is the only CA Allocation fund I have that has held up well. It is now yielding 4.49% (according to Morningstar) and is about 15.5% of my total portfolio. If I was to move the other CA Allocation funds into it, the position would be 27% and I am not sure I am comfortable with that much in one position. Thank you for any comments.

Before Morningstar there was the Wiesenberger annual yearbook, "Investment Companies." First published about 1941, it tailed off about 2000.
Readers of John Bogle may recognize the name: his historical compilations drew on Wiesenberger, especially the 30-year returns study he mounted in preparation for launching the S&P 500 index fund.
I've been picking up copies on the used book market (only the 1943 volume is free to read on books.google.com). I have pretty good spacing, enough for my needs, from 1943 through 1966. (Goal is to assemble historical returns for funds no longer in M*; Wiesenberger gives trailing ten year returns, so I only need a volume every N years).
My university library has all the volumes after 1952, but it is a couple hundreds of miles away and an overnight stay to access. That trip would cost me some hundreds of dollars plus the discomforts of travel, and I'd inevitably forget to copy something. Meh.
It occurred to me that members of this forum might have older copies no longer of use, which would save me that trip.
I would like to buy anything prior to 1946 (excepting 1943), and also, anything from 1971 to 1977.
If interested, please message me. I paid $30 to $40 each for the older volumes, would expect to pay more for the fatter volumes published in the 1970s. If you want it to be a donation to MFO instead, that's fine too. (I'll donate for scans of key pages, even, if you are the fortunate person who owns a complete set of Wiesenberger.)
I'm not a reseller, BTW; these will sit on my shelf next to old copies of Moody's, old copies of the SBBI, old copies of Poor's Railroad Manuals, etc.
Its good to be retired with discretionary income to spend on hobbies :-)

Crypto advocates point out that Bitcoin has fallen by more than 50% eight times since its 2009 launch, and three times since 2018, and it’s recovered every time. And it’s been a top-performing asset class with better than 35% annualized returns over the last three and five-year periods and 80% annualized returns over ten years. In addition, an entire crypto industry has developed, which is expanding rapidly and being widely accepted by Wall Street, businesses, and some governments.
This week’s guest is a believer. He is Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer and former Global Head of Research at Bitwise Asset Management, a cryptocurrency asset manager founded in 2017.
I began the interview by asking Hougan about the role crypto assets play in a portfolio, considering they act like stocks.

I can also confirm that old M* Chart pages are gone now - they generate message, "The report is no longer supported". It was good while it lasted (for 2-3 years).

Same with the other old pages that I'd continued to use - Performance and Ratings & Risk. Gone with the wind.

I can also confirm that old M* Chart pages are gone now - they generate message, "The report is no longer supported". It was good while it lasted (for 2-3 years).

Don't like to jump around, but losing my confidence in Int'l fund managers. Hold VWILX and MGGPX. Thinking of reducing positions and adding to VTSAX, a smoother ride. These guys did weather 2020 pretty well, but are getting beat up now. Stay the course? Thoughts needed!! Thanks!

I've owned VWILX for several years.
The fund has experienced significant losses YTD (-31.11%) and over the trailing 12 months (-34.31%).
I don't have any plans to sell VWILX in the short-term.
Guess I'm a glutton for punishment!

Yogi, thanks. I am so disgusted with much going on. I do own PRILX for many years. It has been the worst year 2022 for much of what i have. At age 88 I want to avoid anything that makes 2022 so bad.

Fixed annuity yields are finally back to being significantly higher than CDs. They are another option to consider - for IRAs, for savers over 59½, for people who will be at least that old when the contract penalty period expires.
For example, instead of going out 10 years to get a CD yielding 4%, one can buy a 5 year fixed annuity ($10K min) from Reliance Standard (AM Best A++) yielding 4.05%.
Reliance Standard 5 year annuity
Unlike a CD that at best lets you withdraw interest w/o penalty, some fixed annuities like this one also permit annual withdrawals of up to 10% of the balance. And unlike a multi-year CD, there's no phantom income - the interest is tax deferred until withdrawn. Though there is a potential 10% IRS tax penalty if you don't satisfy an exception (e.g. over age 59½).
A broker selling you an annuity takes a cut just as a broker does when selling you a CD. At maturity you get your full principal and promised interest. With either product.
On the short end, Treasuries are looking good compared with CDs. Similar nominal rates plus exemption from state income tax.
Current rates (CDs, Treasuries, and more) at Vanguard

New funds do seem to draw a significant amount of attention. What else makes TOTR attractive?
Looking for a short term bounce? It's down a bit more than average YTD for its category (13% vs 11½%), but not enough to call it out.
Dividends? If one is looking for a bounce, wouldn't it be better to keep the money in the fund than to take the div distributions? (Disclaimer: My personal preference is to focus on total return: what does it profit a man if he should gain the income but lose his shirt?)
High turnover per se doesn't spook me in bond funds, though it probably should. Intermediate bond funds seem to be either sedate or frenetic. There are many Intermediate core/core-plus funds with turnovers above 200%. Some topping 400% include funds from Blackrock (BCBAX, MDHQX), MetWest (MWTRX), TCW (TGFNX, TGMNX), even Vanguard (VCOBX).
I don't put much stock in M*'s analyst ratings, and even less in their computer-generated ones. FWIW, there are other rating services (which might not be any better). FactSet focuses on ETFs, and gives TOTR a 'C' rating (on an A-F scale). Recognia does technical analysis and rates TOTR weak in the short term and neutral in the intermediate and long term. (A security may be rated weak, neutral, or strong.)
To the extent that TOTR is a clone of PTKIX, one could look at that fund's ratings (3* for the past three years).
Here's a piece written a year ago by the fund managers (plus the manager of TRBUX) entitled Navigating the Challenge of Rising Rates. Given the slightly longer than average duration of TOTR, it is interesting to read:

While intermediate- and longer-maturity Treasury yields have been increasing, it is important to keep in mind that our flexible multi-sector approach to managing the Total Return and Ultra Short-Term Bond Funds has allowed us to shorten relative duration and take advantage of relative value among sectors to help offset some of the negative price effects of rising rates

https://www.troweprice.com/content/dam/trp-ecl/global/en/ipc/assets/us-retail-intermediary/2021/april/navigating-the-challenge-of-rising-rates-id0004166/Navigating-the-Challenge-of-Rising-Rates.pdf

Hank, What is the name of the app you are using. Link doesn't work for me and a search on the Apple app store brings up a few to many.

Yep. There are dozens. Most are awful. Must have tried about 10 different ones over the years. I pasted the tracker’s symbol below.
Full name: “Portfolio Trader Stock Tracker”

Only runs on IOS (not windows). One cool thing is you can download the app to different IOS devices and set it to automatically sync your data across all of them.
The worst aspect is it takes a lot of time to figure out. (I use the “trial & error” method.) So it’s probably only appealing to people who take tracking / model portfolios seriously. There is, however, an embedded link to support and they got back with a helpful answer to my one submitted question in under 24 hours.
Minor issues: I haven’t figured out their symbol for Cash, so just plugged in SPAXX which works fine for me.
Edit: Real time quotes (stocks or ETFs) during trading hours? Appears “spotty” in this regard. But I do use another tracker that provides excellent real time quotes - so it’s not a game stopper for me.

The next question is how to prepare for it on your asset allocation/investment vehicles so you can survive it better. Challenges today is that the traditional bonds and equities are falling at the same time and there are few viable alternatives.

I just keep investing as usual - but tack a few extra years on to my investment “time horizon” every time I add another holding. Out to 30 years now, at which time I’ll be 105. Eat well. Keep cycling. Should make it!

Thank you for the update @dtconroe. I also buy from Schwab and what you state has been my understanding over the years. Schwab clearly states that all banks on their new issue list are covered by FDIC. Because all the banks listed are FDIC insured, how big or small the bank is or where it is located hasn't been a concern to me. I hope that is not a naïve view.

Mike, In your experience buying CDs at Schwab, have you been "docked" in any way for the "float" that Yogi is referencing?

According to research cited in this PDF, over the past 60 years only one true
soft landing occurred when the Fed hiked to/above the "neutral" rate.

A "soft landing" is possible but will be very difficult to achieve.
If the Fed hadn't waited too long to hike rates and start quantitative tightening, this outcome would be more likely. According to Larry Summers, when unemployment is below 4% and inflation is above 4%, a recession occurs within two years.

On the Schwab CD quote page, under New Issues, they organize the CDs by term (1 month, 3 month, 6 month, 9 month, 1 year, 18 months, 2 years........), and the listings are only for FDIC insured banks. For each Bank listed, they then give a clear statement of the coupon interest rate it is paying, the frequency of interest rate payments, and what the Maturity date is for the CD. Again, I discussed all of these details in conference calls with Schwab representatives, and the subject of my call was to ensure there is no difference between CDs you buy directly from a bank, compared to CDs you buy from the banks through the brokerage. I am confident that that information is correct. However, I did not do additional extensive research on each bank to determine if they are "financially shaky banks", to use your terminology. I will say that your statement above, about Brokered CDs fluctuating in value according to bid/ask is accurate, and in my conference calls with Schwab, they did not acknowledge that difference from CDs offered directly from banks. When I monitored my CDs in my account, I did see those daily values changing very frequently, and that was a surprise to me. I called my regional Schwab representative back, she acknowledged that "they could have done a better job with that aspect of the description brokerage CDs", but she then connected me with the CD office at Schwab, who assured me that those fluctuating daily values are "just paper values", and if I held those CDs to maturity, I would get all the coupon interest accurately quoted on their CD brokerage page, and on the maturity date I would have CD amount distributed back into my account cash account. I do believe that there are some differences in the penalties, for early selling of the CDs, between brokerage bought CDs and Banks, so you need to be fully aware of those penalty differences if you have any plans on doing that.

Thank you for the update @dtconroe. I also buy from Schwab and what you state has been my understanding over the years. Schwab clearly states that all banks on their new issue list are covered by FDIC. Because all the banks listed are FDIC insured, how big or small the bank is or where it is located hasn't been a concern to me. I hope that is not a naïve view.

Local CU here (Hickam FCU, Oahu) offers 0.85% interest rate on a 60-month CD. And to get that, you must tie-up $200k. That's just a bad joke. Navy FCU--- my other one--- wants you to let them hold your money for SEVEN years in order to get 3.15% from them. No, thanks.