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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
  • CMS freezes Medicare pay to doctors amid shutdown, October 15, 2025 9PM, EST
    I can't remember all of them but during previous shutdowns, I am sure our practice was not paid for some of them.
    Medicare was almost as bad a payor to work with as Trump. They would always delay the late September check to push it into the next fiscal year. They were more prompt than the commercial insurances, but had the right to audit a small fraction of your chart visits ( say 10) and if they found 2 miscoded, would demand a check for 205 of those revenues paid over the last three years on the spot.
    They spent a lot of money torturing small practices over junk like this but for some reason could never catch huge practices that were billing millions fraudulently. An ophthalmologist in Florida would use 1/2 of a vial to treat one eye, and open another vial to treat the other eye, and bill Medicare for both vials. Why they couldn't catch that one I will never understand.
  • China's Rare Earth Restrictions
    FYI, here is an excerpt from an interesting article in today's The NYT on how "the Chinese government flexed its own influence over worldwide supply chains when it announced new rules clamping down on the flow of critical minerals that are used in everything from computer chips to cars to missiles":
    "Over the past three years, Washington has claimed broad power to impose global rules that bar companies anywhere in the world from sending cutting-edge computer chips or the tools needed to make them to China. American officials have argued that approach is necessary to make sure China does not gain the upper hand in the race for advanced artificial intelligence.
    But a sweeping set of restrictions announced by Beijing last week showed that two can play that game.
    The rules, which are set to take effect later this year, shocked foreign governments and businesses, which may now need to acquire licenses from Beijing to trade their products even outside China.
    With its dominance over the production of these rare earth minerals and its control of other strategic industries, China may have an even greater ability than the United States to weaponize supply chains, analysts say.
    “The U.S. now has to face up to the fact it has an adversary which can threaten substantial parts of the U.S. economy,” said Henry Farrell, a political scientist at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The United States and China are now very clearly “in a much more delicate stage of mutual interdependence,” he added.
    “China has really begun to figure out how to take a leaf from the U.S. playbook and in a certain sense play that game better than the U.S. is currently playing it,” Mr. Farrell said.
    The administration seemed caught off guard by China’s restrictions, which could cripple American industries. Mr. Trump threatened on Friday to cancel a planned meeting with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, as well as adding a 100 percent tariff. After stock markets plunged, the president posted on social media on Sunday, “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!”
    The United States and China are each leveraging a supply chain that the other has struggled for years to boost domestically. But while China has spent billions on its chip industry, spurring the growth of its own chipmakers, the United States could need years to restart rare earth production.
    “If China is able to get around the chip restrictions but it takes the U.S. longer to get around the rare earths controls, that’s going to be a big problem for the United States,” said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics."
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    Side sleeper also. That pain in the bones shoots right through you late at night or upon waking. Not any one area. Legs. Arms. Whatever. Enough to make you scream. Nearing 80. Guess that older smaller bed will have to do until figure this one out. Both shoulders been really sore for months. Arthritis I think. Had a cortisone injection in one a couple months ago. Some relief. I bought a tube of Diclofenac Gel from Amazon recently. Slopped it on both shoulders the other night and most of the pain has gone away. Seems to last a while. Quite amazing.
    @Old_Joe. No, the bed didn’t come from the pillow guy! :) Funny - the (real) wood frame of that smaller bed I’m using now was purchased about 45 years ago at a Montgomery Ward store downstate where I worked back then. Who woulda thunk it would last all those years? Outlasted “Monkey Ward” by a mile. Newer isn’t always better.
  • OK, this must be the signal that "the top is near"
    They are just testing this SEC.
    SEC has restricted ETFs to +/- 2x, but didn't restrict ETNs that can still be +/- 3x.
    Existing +/- 3x ETFs weren't affected - may be that is giving the filers hope.
    Some have already filed for +/- 3x ETFs to test, but +/- 5x may prompt SEC to act quickly on this.
    Sure ... but even that *someone* is offering such a product after the past few years is kind of telling/worrysome, at least to me.
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    @hank - maybe consider stuffing some of your cash into the new mattress and see if that helps.
    I didn't have to deal with that achey bone and muscle business the first 75 years of my life but it's acting up to me now. Sucks, and I feel your pain.
  • Buying Precious Metals
    Howdy folks,
    Some of you are riding this bull and some are tempted. At this moment, for most investors, if I wanted to establish a position, I'd Dollar Cost Average. I'm a momentum investor and have been scaling in until I reach my target allocation. What your target allocation should be varies enormously from investor to investor. For years I suggested 3-7% for most, preferably in physical bullion. Yeah, that can get sticky but cripes, a roll of American Gold Eagles is slightly larger than a quarter in diameter and stands 2-3" tall. At todays prices it's worth about $90K. You can hide it in your box of oatmeal. As for silver, a 100 oz bar is worth about $5K and you can paint it black and use it as a door stop. Buy some bling for you and your spouse.
    Note: I don't trust bullion ETF funds generally as they are based upon an enormous amount of paper. I do trust Sprout. For paper investing, it's them, PRPFX and junior silver and gold miners with SILJ and SGDJ.
    Spot price is determined in the commodities market and is paper and manipulated enormously. The price you pay is spot plus the premium. The premium varies by the type of bullion you're buying. I've attached the quote sheet from my local coin dealer. It lists the premium for every type of bullion. Note that better types are more than others and that volume buying lowers the premium. Top shelf costs more than rot gut.
    https://libertycoinservice.com/daily-price-quotes/
    Right now the LBMA has come up against a shortage of physical bullion and more and more contract holders are requesting physical delivery of their contractual bullion. This has increased the demand for pure bullion ingots .999%. Couple this with the increased demand from individual investors and more particularly from various central banks around the world and you see a perfect example of artificial pricing. The spot price was around $3.00 below the 'street' price. Premiums are soaring. When the paper price is lower than the street price, one of two things occurs. The street price goes up [increased premiums] or supply dries up. "Sorry, we're all out."
    One last thing. Because London is so desperate for physical bullion, the refiners in this country are refusing to except 90% silver (old U.S. coinage pre-1964), not because it's not valuable, but because they don't have time to refine it to .999% pure. Ah, but this has resulted in the premium on 90% silver going to around zero. Best buy in town. Having a couple of rolls of quarters and dimes in the safe, doesn't sound like a horrible idea.
    and so it goes,
    peace,
    rono
  • the debasement trade
    “ Why soaring gold prices could be a warning sign for the economy”
    The flight toward gold has coincided with a depreciation in the value of the U.S. dollar. Its value against other currencies plunged about 11% over the first half of 2025, the biggest decline in more than 50 years, a Morgan Stanley report in August found.
    The decline in the U.S. dollar's value reflects a shift away from global dependence on the dollar as a global reserve currency, as investors take note of changes in U.S. economic policy and Trump's pressure campaign against the Fed, analysts said.
    "Investors are getting nervous about all the traditionally safe U.S. assets like treasury securities," Pasquariello said. "Where else will they put money? Gold."
    https://abcnews.go.com/Business/soaring-gold-prices-warning-sign-economy/story?id=126414464
  • the debasement trade

    This Gold Rush Is Ominous
    Following are edited excerpts from a current report in The Atlantic.   (This should be a free link.)
    When prices are high and global conflicts destabilize the world, some investors start looking backwards—and what’s older and more dependable than gold?
    Last week, amid widespread geopolitical turmoil and a weakening U.S. dollar, the price of gold hit a historic high of $4,000 an ounce. This year has so far been gold’s best since 1979, a moment of instability so profound that it led to recession.
    Over the past 50 years, spikes in the price of gold have typically been correlated with widespread inflation and geopolitical dysfunction. The precious metal has long been considered a safe-haven asset, because, unlike the U.S. dollar, its inherent value isn’t determined by any state government.
    Some investors see gold as a standard way to diversify their portfolio. Others, stereotypically known as goldbugs, tend to be broadly skeptical about contemporary monetary policy. Just as investors in bitcoin, so-called digital gold, have historically skewed libertarian and anti-institutional, the most extreme goldbugs are betting against the system, doubtful that the Federal Reserve is capable of keeping the U.S. dollar strong.
    Gold prices have already risen more than 50 percent this year and are showing no signs of stopping. The story of today’s gold boom began in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine and Western governments decided to sanction the Russian central bank by freezing its foreign-exchange reserves. The scale of these sanctions was a reminder of why countries might want to own assets that can’t be easily frozen. Especially in emerging markets, central banks around the world “realized that the truly only safe asset” is gold.
    The other main driver of this price spike is less abstract. Some Wall Streeters are concerned that the value of the U.S. dollar will continue to erode as the national debt climbs and the Federal Reserve loses its grip on the currency. They’re making what’s become known as the “Debasement Trade,” shifting money away from the weakening U.S. dollar and into harder, more independent assets such as gold and bitcoin. Shrinkflation, stagflation, good-old-fashioned inflation—all of it means that your paycheck doesn’t go as far as it once did, and all of it is good for gold.
    The mystery of the current gold rally is that the S&P 500 is also up. The stock-market index reached an all-time high earlier this month, which would seem to suggest that the American economy isn’t quite as close to the brink as the price of gold might indicate.
    But the reality probably has to do with a bifurcated market. Vanguard’s global chief economist told The New York Times on Saturday that this rare case of gold and stocks moving in a parallel upward trend has to do with “dramatically different” investor perspectives: The optimists are going with equities, and the pessimists are going with gold. In today’s economy, there’s room enough for both.
  • TIPS Watch
    I agree that the cap on I bond purchases limits their usefulness as a major portion of one's portfolio. But since you were looking only at I bonds purchased in 2021 (when the caps were in place) you might replace those I bonds with new, better (higher yielding) bonds, one-for-one.
    That doesn't help increase your holdings though. It also doesn't help replace the value of those 2021 I-bonds because they've appreciated (four years interest).
    Also, and I'm being pedantic here, the $5K purchase allowed with tax returns was per tax return. A couple could buy $10K with their tax refunds only if they filed separately. Regardless, that refund purchase went the way of the dodo when paper bonds were discontinued.
    The three month penalty technically doesn't reduce liquidity. Though I appreciate the hesitance to incur that penalty. In that sense the penalty is doing its job of reducing outflows.
    One often sees suggestions to invest in longer term CDs for the short term if their yield after early withdrawal penalty is better than a shorter term CD held to maturity. With this in mind, I tend to give less weight to small (3 month) penalties than other people. Each person's take on withdrawal penalties is a little different.
    Finally, inflation is determined (set?) by BLS. And that is not an independent agency like the Fed but a part of the Department of Labor. Which may be even more disconcerting. The September CPI figure has already been delayed from Oct 15th to Oct 24th. This figure affects I-bond rates and SS COLA. And is it being released despite a government shutdown. All of those factors make the figure suspect.
    I'm about as far as one can get from a conspiracy theorist, but one has to wonder about a figure produced by a department that recently fired its head (Erika McEntarfer) and couldn't get a hack appointment (E.J. Antoni) confirmed. A department that furloughed its employees only to call them back to produce this number.
    I suspect that like most government employees, they're not being paid. Though I'll bet they know how much they're owed, down to the penny. :-)
  • I guess he didn’t learn from liberation day!
    @hank Yeah, BTC swooned like 15% for a while and a *ton* of the crappy 'alt-coins' (AKA 'shit-coins') got devastated. If anything, it should reinforce the notion that only BTC and ETH are acceptable crypto 'investments' ... the alt-coins are kiddie gambling at best. (I bought some more BTC yesterday, actually)
    The crypto reddit forums are awash with newbies who got into crypto alt-coins in the past 1-2 years freaking out, questioning crypto, etc, etc. I shake my head at their idiocy.
    Interestingly, someone opened a new crypto brokerage account on Friday, put on a huge levered short BTC position shortly before Donnie's tariff tantrum. The account made like $180M intraday. Who leaked the info to whom? Was this someone inside/associated with the White House? If so, the corruption isn't even being done in smoky backrooms anymore...
  • America needs to get SERIOUS !!! about China's tech rise dominance. Cranial/Rectal inversion in D.C.
    How China Powers Its Electric Cars and High-Speed Trains
    image
    In China, the longest ultrahigh-voltage power line stretches more than 2,000 miles from the far northwest to the populous southeast — the equivalent of transmitting electricity from Idaho to New York City.
    The power line starts in a remote desert in northwest China, where vast arrays of solar panels and wind turbines generate electricity on a monumental scale. It snakes southeast, following an ancient river between mountain ranges before reaching Anhui Province near Shanghai, home to 61 million people and some of China’s most successful electric car and robot manufacturers.
    That’s a single power line. China has 41 others. Each is capable of carrying more electricity than any utility transmission line in the United States. That’s partly because China is using technology that makes its lines far more efficient than almost anywhere else in the world.
    ==================
    Beijing’s expansion of its power grid contrasts sharply with President Trump’s “Drill, baby, drill” approach of doubling down on fossil fuels and rolling back federal programs to spur greater use of clean energy.
    In July, the Energy Department terminated its commitment to provide a $4.9 billion loan guarantee for construction of the Grain Belt Express power line to take wind power from Kansas to cities in Illinois and Indiana. That 800-mile ultrahigh-voltage line, which would have covered a shorter distance than dozens of lines already built in China, ran into criticism from rural landowners and Republican lawmakers.
    Many of China’s ultrahigh-voltage lines use direct current technology, which allows them to carry electricity for long distances with barely any of the transmission losses that affect most high-power lines in other countries.
    China’s more efficient power lines have broad consequences for the global race against climate change. They will help determine how quickly China can reduce its world-leading use of coal, a stain on the country’s clean energy track record. China uses as much coal as the entire rest of the world, and emits more greenhouse gases than the United States and the European Union combined.
    ==================
    China already consumes twice as much electricity as the United States. By 2050, China plans to triple its count of ultrahigh-voltage routes. The most recent public Chinese data, from the end of 2024, showed 19 lines transmitting power at 800 kilovolts. Another 22 lines operated at 1,000 kilovolts. One of them, the behemoth terminating in Guquan, transmits enough electricity at 1,100 kilovolts to power more than seven million American households or 40 million to 50 million Chinese households.
    To put the scale of China’s power grid build out in perspective, consider that the United States has a handful of 765-kilovolt lines and a few running at 500 kilovolts or less. The 765-kilovolt lines together total about 2,000 miles — the length of a single line across China.
    Construction of the power lines has helped China reduce its emissions of toxic air pollution and greenhouse gases. A University of Chicago analysis of satellite data, released in August, found that air pollution in China had plunged 41 percent since 2014. That added almost two years to the country’s average life expectancy.
    The above is excerpted from a current report in The New York Times. (Not a free link.)
    (Text emphasis added.)
  • Buy Sell Why: ad infinitum.
    I had mentioned previously holding some ARTZX. Had rolled my SIVLX there. But as of end of market today will be completely out of ARTZX and emerging market equity funds. . Still hold emerging market debt primarily AGEYX but not sure how much longer I will linger there. There is a new area in Bondland that has lagged this year but looks appealing……..
    Off topic, but one reason for selling besides my sudden uneasiness with emerging markets was my recent 60th class reunion. What an eye opener and what an impact it had on me. I went to an all boys high school. At our 60th reunion there were over 70 of us all around 78 years old. Canes and walkers abounded. Seems many if not most had stories of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, medications I had never heard of and more. I went out and ran 8 miles the next day and thanked God all day for being blessed. There are more important things in life as we age than worrying about the size of our investment accounts and what we are going to do day by day or week by week in the markets,
  • Peter Lynch with Joshua Brown
    There’s no question that Peter Lynch was a great fund manager. Great interview.
    But would he be as successful today, or over the past 5–10 years? I doubt it.
    The internet has made global data instantly accessible, and information moves at lightning speed. That makes playing the valuation game much more difficult.
    High-tech companies have dominated for years now — even though their valuations remain expensive.
    Bill Miller beat the SP500 for 15 years and then he lost most of it.
    He made so much more by investing in AMZN and bitcoins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Miller_(investor)
    Buffet said years ago "diversification is protection against ignorance," for investors who know what they are doing, the other 98% should buy the SP500.
    BTW, Peter Lynch was different; Magellan was diversified with over 1000 stocks, a stark contrast to the concentrated portfolios of investors like Warren Buffett.
    I’ve always told teenagers to find work they enjoy — but to also go where the money is.
    For example, a friend of my son loves working on cars. I told him, “Be a mechanic at a Mercedes-Benz dealership, not at Ford.”
    And being a caddy is also a great job — good pay, great connections, and valuable experience.
  • Are PM prices near their peak?
    Howdy folks,
    Thanks all, for the kind words. DavidF is correct that it's Ron Overton. Rono is a childhood nickname.
    I don't post much any more but still follow the board. Sorry. Had to come out now because this really looks like a huge bull market in the metals and I had to share. I've been 'going to the mattresses' since the election. Moved quite a bit to overseas plays - not all, of course, but a bit. This is fundamental and not rocket science. The PMs is more a momentum investor and so easy to ride.
    As for the PMs. This is my third bull run. I was finishing my degree in Econ in the late 70's when the Hunt Bros tried to corner the silver market. I financed my degree with GI bill and cashing in my silver hoard I had acquired at face value during the early part of the decade working in restaurants. Alas, I was unable to really ride it because I was poor and had no investments. When the 2nd happened in 2002, I was ready and prepared and played the snot out of it. It ran until 2011-12 but was simply marvelous.
    This looks like another. I see none of the strategic or fundamental issues changing. As Junkster pointed out, they're devaluing the dollar as fast as they can, as it the world. Trump is still President. Etc. Etc. That said, I'm a momentum investor and scale into a trend. Learned that years ago on this board from Gary Smith. I've been scaling in and am continuing to do so. Do not fight the trend.
    The last thing I really want to stress is that the leverage is still with silver. Always has been. 70's, gold went up 2-3x while silver increased 10-12x. Same thing happened in the 2nd Bull. It's happening again.
    And so it goes,
    peace,
    rono
  • Is the AI trade a speculative bubble waiting to unravel?
    I got hit on several fronts at that time. As a major player in that space, the company that I worked for (a spinoff) had issued us stock options. I also participated in the discounted ESPP. And had some company stock in my 401K, as well. The stock options evaporated, along with most of the ESPP and 401K company stock holdings.
    A lot of older folks got it worse, they kept buying more as the stock slid to 1/10 of its market high. Then came the layoffs. We went from 120K employees to about 35K IIRC. The good news was that I kept my job. Two mergers later, I am still with them. Now a multinational with over 100K employees again. It has been a wild ride!
    Oooof. Good for you!!!
    The stock options I had at the Dot Com I worked for (global DNS operator / 'center of the internet') went from a strike of $14 to a high of over $400. Having come from government, I dutifully sold whatever vested the day i could because to me it was 'found money' that I wouldn't have had otherwise....mostly as the stock kept rising. The rest, I dumped the day I left at $92 as the NASDAQ was crashing in Jan '01 which paid off a mortgage I had for all of 3 months. (Still living here!)
    If I knew then what I know now, I would've played with put options to hedge some of my paper winnings when I couldn't sell them. But while a few friends sold and made high single digit MM at the top, I certainly can't complain with what I came away with either.
    The only reason SAIC spun us off and sold us to VRSN was because our price was driving the private stock of SAIC too high, and the employee-friendly CEO always wanted the stock to be available to *anyone* in the company at a reachable price. So we were sold to VRSN for $21B. (SAIC paid 4.7M for us only 5 years earlier ... so we essentially gave that huge defense contractor several years of profits right there). The company never really recovered afterwards, though, and the name today is merely a shadow of its former self, now owned by a PE-backed web services conglomerate.
    I am not really interested in any AI companies. There's too much hopium going around, the stocks are pumped ten ways to Sunday, and in a few years folks hopefully will see that the 'magic' of AI isn't what the hype purported it would be. The only 'AI' exposure I have is in natgas and electric utes around the world .. but even then, they were necessary even before AI came to town. The world (ex-US) is embracing renewables, and natgas is a transition fuel anyway.
  • "Core" Bond Fund Replacement
    Yes I did realize that. But it was still worth commenting on. Especially since I generally feel that companies can be redeemed. Heartland is almost alone in how it stands by its man. And a 44% drop in a short term fund! Even Schwab Yield Plus didn't lose that much ("just" 42%) and it took two years, not one day, to do that.
  • "Core" Bond Fund Replacement
    Perhaps this is overstating things a bit, but I view the pricing of funds like these as Madoff-light. Like Madoff's portfolios, funds like these can make the ride look smoother than it is. When done with a light touch, it is legal. Business judgment.
    Models and assumptions allow for a fair degree of flexibility. It seems that only when declared prices diverge too much from reality are they called into question. As with Madoff and as with Heartland years ago when it failed to reprice bonds after defaults.
    The SEC alleged that the Milwaukee-based investment firm failed to properly price the value of some bonds in the Short Duration High-Yield Municipal Fund and the High-Yield Municipal Bond Fund in 2000. The funds had invested primarily in non-rated medium- and lower-quality municipal bonds. When projects underlying some bonds held by the funds went into default and other projects were failing, Heartland didn't accurately re-price the funds to reflect the lower valuations, the SEC said. The net asset value of the high-yield fund plummeted 69.4% in one day, and the short-duration fund fell 44%.
    https://www.investmentnews.com/fixed-income/heartland-fined-39m-for-mispricing-funds/13500
    "The company and its chief executive [in 2000], William J. Nasgovitz, were fined $3.5 million."
    I will not invest in Heartland funds, at least so long there is a Nasgovitz there. William J. is Chairman of Heartland and co-manager of HRTVX, while his son William R. is CEO and also co-manages HRTVX.
  • Are PM prices near their peak?
    The first time I invested in gold and silver (CEF, IAU, and SIVR -- all in my retirement portfolios) was because I followed Rono on this Board. I've stuck with those investments for 15+years and I'm glad I did.
    THANK YOU, Rono -- for sharing your wisdom and perspective here. I'm glad to see you posting again.
  • Are PM prices near their peak?
    @DrVenture- you may not be familiar with Ron Owens ("rono") who started this post. He is one of MFO's very earliest members, and in earlier years posted quite frequently.
    rono has always been a guiding light on MFO regarding the proper place for gold and silver, both the bullion itself and associated interests such as miners, in a portfolio.
    He typically has exposure to both gold and silver, to about 10 or 15% if I recall correctly, and has frequently observed that when these are in an upward cycle (like now) as a percentage silver is likely to increase in value even more than gold.
  • Are PM prices near their peak?
    Love to hear more thoughts on this topic from others. I own no PM (or bitcoin), but the temptation is always present. Still, big run ups and high valuations spook me more than anything else.
    I am interested in any asset class that might be a place to shift equity into. These daily "new highs" make me very uneasy. I am embracing bond oef for the first time in about 5 years. And bond cefs for a couple years now.
    What else makes sense if dollar keeps declining and equities are getting toppy?
    Edit to add: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/07/ray-dalio-says-today-is-like-the-early-1970s-and-investors-should-hold-more-gold-than-usual.html
    -Ray Dalio, founder of one of the world’s largest hedge funds, believes investors should allocate as much as 15% of their portfolios to gold.
    -The precious metal surged to an all-time high above $4,000 an ounce on Tuesday.
    -Dalio said gold stands apart as a hedge in times of monetary debasement and geopolitical uncertainty