I taught FPU for a good while and after working with people for those good number of years, I feel confident in saying that car payments might be the #1 wealth killer for middle class americans. and I made that declaration 7-8 years ago! Today it seems even worse.
I would routinely run into peoples who's total car/toy payments were 2X what they paid in rent/mortgage. mind boggling.

A firm I read believes that if DJT fires Powell, and forces the fed rate down to 1.5, ALL deficit funding will be short term with disastrous consequences for LT debt. While there will be a surge in economic activity, inflation will soon blow up, stocks crater and only Gold and hard assets will out preform
" The Bond Market will Riot"

That's ok, Donnie will just declare the US is bankrupt and reset his ledger to zero. You know, like he did in most of his (failed) business ventures over the years. He 'loves' bankruptcy, remember.

Like others here, we hold and drive our vehicles for many years. Generally, proper maintenance keeps trouble away, barring manufacturer problems; of which, there have been many in recent years.
Current monthly auto payment and lease
For an auto loan, the average monthly payment in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2025 was $745 for new cars and $521 for used cars. For a new lease, the average monthly payment was $595. These figures can vary significantly depending on several factors, including your credit score, the loan amount, interest rate, and the loan or lease term.
Here's a breakdown of average auto payments and leases by credit score range (Q1 2025 data from Experian):
Superprime (781-850):
New car payment: $727
New lease payment: $595
Prime (661-780):
New car payment: $753
New lease payment: $590
Nonprime (601-660):
New car payment: $784
New lease payment: $610
Subprime (501-600):
New car payment: $762
New lease payment: (Data unavailable for this specific range and category)
Deep Subprime (300-500):
New car payment: $736
New lease payment: (Data unavailable for this specific range and category)

my guess is the move from defined benefit to defined contributions have tremendously hurt the PE world.
I read that 88% of pensions invest in PE at an average allocation of about 14%. and the amount of assets available to pensions has been cut in half as a percentage of the market over the past 30 years or so.

Biden”s 8 years of massive inflation wrecked our country.
Thank goodness we have new policy so that Prices will finally go down after we punish countries with massive tariffs.

These software use geometric averaging of returns. So, if period returns (daily, weekly, monthly) are d1, d2, d3,....,dn, then total-return (TR) is,
TR = (d1*d2*d3*......*dn)^(1/n).
For 30 years, with monthly returns, n = 30*12 = 360 only, for daily returns, n = 30*252 = 7,560.
Daily data are more prone to errors due to ex-div date errors and rounding.
So, I am OK with TR, CAGR being close enough.
I would be more concerned about tiny differences among the software that use monthly data (MFO, PV, M*), but there could be minor discrepancies in TR, CAGR with those that use daily data (TestFol. Stock Rover).
BIG differences for SD, Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio, Drawdowns have already been explained.
I mentioned in my post on 8/3/25 that weekly data would be a good compromise (n = 30*52 = 1,560) but that's isn't used by many (StockCharts has Daily, Weekly and Monthly (paid version) views and so are the related data, but that's a charting software, so it wasn't included in my review).
I can predict that all these FREE software will use us, the users, to debug and then flip to subscription software. Morningstar is doing that, PV and StockCharts already charge arm-&-leg for their paid versions.

I don't think it can be done so early. As you have noted, there is no pattern seen from past history. Many funds with high % of retirement a/c don't manage the fund at all for CGs - Fido, etc. As the funds are allowed to close books for the year at October-end, November is the earliest this info is available or may be modelled.
If a fund has high UNREALIZED gain and/or high turnover, it's a potential candidate for high REALIZED CGs. Market down years when there can be lot of redemptions can lead to high realized CGs.
One thing is certain - ETFs have no/low realized CGs.

Does anyone have a method for estimating fund capital gain distributions this
early in the year? I need to keep my income below a certain level for 2025
and have a few mutual funds that sometimes throw a big surprise at
the ends of the year. Normally this is not a problem :-)
What drives distributions? I figure it would be some function of turnover, NAV,
fund inflows and outflows, and of course fund policy.
Any ideas? Also where I might be able to see more timely
turnover and inflow outflow data - funds and Morningstar seems to report it only at
year end.
An an example, I looked up 5 years of data for RYPNX (Royce Small Cap
Opportunity) and plotted turnover vs change # of shares vs the CG distribution for 5 years.
[I tried to post an image, didn't work.]
Not much of a pattern, they have reported 35% turnover for the past three years.
The 2021 distribution was a whopper, about 25% of NAV, turnover was 69%.
But the 2020 distribution was 0 even though turnover was 53%. Q1 2020 was the pandemic big correction
and then the fund had a big spike in Q2-3 2021, even though the asset unders management was
still nearly double a YE 21 vs 20.
Maybe I should calculate the upside volatility of my funds and pay attention to that.
Or I could use volume of a similar ETF as a proxy. So far, this year, RYPNX has been meh,
so I don't expect a big distribution for 2025.
The cool part if that Microsoft Copilot seems to want to work with me on this:
Q: "What us a useful model for predicting mutual fund capital gain distributions in advance?"
A: [edited]: "Would you like help building a predictive model using historical fund data?
I can assist with data sourcing, feature selection, and model development."

JPMorgan and Bank of America stocks drop as Trump warns of payback for ‘bad’ treatment
Trump confirms plans for an executive order to punish banks for what he said was discrimination against conservatives. Meanwhile, banks praise efforts to overhaul regulations.
Do we really have to deal with another 3.4 years of this? Its disgusting.

I used to have a big position in D (as a Northern VA resident) but sold it years ago when management embarked on a strategic review, cut the dividend, pledged to restore it, and never did. Part of me is inclined to retake a position in it precisely b/c of the # of data centers popping up around here, but I still haven't pulled the trigger .... I'm already into a bunch of utes as it is.
(and D apparently still isn't earning its dividend, per M* and other places reporting of its payout ratio)

From @msf - “It's a pleasure reading so many knowledgeable comments on how these statistics and statistics in general work.”
Ditto.
My initial post was largely “tongue-in-cheek”. The idea that investors would welcome “cooked numbers” is facetious! (I used the British spelling “Labour” in that post as a clue.) But always, I look for ways to incorporate breaking stories like this into investment decision making. As I also said, Mr. Trump’s decision to fire the head of BLS was wrong. Period.
Putting the obviously political spin aside, some who should know have questioned the importance of the BLS numbers, noting a drop in respondents to BLS surveys from 60% a few years ago to around 50% now. BOA’s head, Daniel Moynihan, recently spoke to the issue:
CNBC
Saying of the BLS surveys, “frankly just aren’t that effective anymore.”
Adding, “They can get this data, I think, other ways, and I think that’s where the focus ought to be,” he said Sunday on CBS News.
“How do we get the data and be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable?”
Here’s a link to the Moynihan’s recent CBS interview .
And his remarks: “It's 2025 and the data should be able to be— they use surveys and things like that, which, frankly, just aren't as effective anymore. So if you look at the rate of people who respond to their surveys, it's down from 60% level to 50% level. You know, we don't use surveys (unintelligible) we do. We watch what consumers really do. We watch what businesses really do. They can get this data, I think, other ways and I think that's where the focus ought to be. How do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable.”
I’ll refrain from further comment. Political discussions can get ugly and personal. Not my cup of tea.
Regards All

To align survey workload with resource levels [budget cuts], BLS suspended data collection for portions of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) sample in select areas across the country starting in April. In April, BLS suspended CPI data collection entirely in Lincoln, NE and Provo, UT. In June, BLS suspended collection entirely in Buffalo, NY.  Roughly 15 percent of the sample in the other 72 areas also was suspended from collection, on average.

https://www.bls.gov/cpi/notices/2025/more-information-collection-reduction.htm
It's a pleasure reading so many knowledgeable comments on how these statistics and statistics in general work. What @DrVenture wrote about speed vs. accuracy ("pick your poison") is textbook Information Science. For example, "breaking news" stories are immediate and often inaccurate or incomplete. Follow-ups in ensuing days are better, but of little help if first responders are needed immediately. And it's through the lens of history (years or decades) that one gets a more robust picture of events.

From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
On this day in 1991 George Colony, head of Forrester Research, the prestigious firm that studies
trends in the computer business, said in an interview: "Our belief is that Microsoft has peaked.
I think Microsoft will be a big, struggling company in two years."

We do not expect any heroic efforts from the lackeys in Congress. The US is screwed for the next few years, perhaps much longer.
The markets don't seem to care right now - so what if we only publish fudged numbers going forward? That will really smooth things out just fine.
China must be loving all these new business partnerships coming their way, courtesy of Dump.

I've said this for years but what we're witnessing is the last gasp efforts of old white men to remain in power. They'll be able to do it for a while (another 5-10 years) with gerrymandering, voter suppression etc... but eventually they will lose power. They can't handle the browning of America. It's just a matter of time.

Indeed this up and down TACO "negotiating position" is forcing the rest of the world to realize that the US is no longer a trustworthy trading or defense partner. Even with DJT out of office, why would you sign a treaty or agreement, knowing with the next election it will blow up, depending on who wins. While DJT is the originator, the GOP in Congress is really responsible, as they have abdicated their role in government and in setting tariffs, for short term political benefits.

The Repugnant Party, as has repeatedly been noted, stopped being a political Party years ago. It is no longer operating in good faith with regard to the workings of government and the separation of powers. They are playing cutthroat games with no regard to decorum, procedure or ethics. A current and pressing case in point is the gerrymandering in Texas. Demublicans were forced to flee the State in order to break quorum. Seems to me that's been done before?
Yes, treaties and agreements with foreign countries are now very problematical. Repugnants have shown, especially via the Orange Criminal Felon, that everything and anything is merely temporary; there is no honoring of previous arrangements. The prestige and influence of the USA on the world stage is horribly tarnished. And foreign entities can see that about half the country votes Red/repugnant. Election results will be a toss-up, unless there is a sea change, or we finally grow a brain and work around the infernal Electoral College.

He would probably like to do something about the Institute For Supply Management after their latest report. Per Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. manufacturing contracted for a fifth straight month in July and factory employment dropped to the lowest level in five years amid tariffs that have raised prices of imported raw materials.

"Amazing what a 10.5% to 12.3% does over 30 years"
Minor variations in annualized returns can lead to significant differences
in terminal value when compounded over many years!
Vanguard Health Care had a 16.4% annualized return during Ed Owens'
long tenure (05/23/1984 - 12/31/2012) compared to the S&P 500 index's 10.7% return.
The fund's returns during Jean Hynes' tenure (ending Jan. 2025) paled in comparison.

Using testfolio, not sure how accurate it is with weekly, daily deposits because it comes back too fast.
Amazing what a 10.5% to 12.3% does over 30 years
With $10,000 initial investment.
S&P 500 $197,026.06 10.45%
VGHCX $326,539.82 12.32%

@gman57
I share your concern about login credentials. this is a potential issue with all "aggregators" most of which (Fidelity retrieving your Schwab accounts etc) in the past used Yodlee.
Schwab has enhanced it's security for Quicken and other aggregators, and when I have asked I have been told these allow data scrapping only and not transactions. So the hack would have to be of the aggregator to access your pw.
Given the option, I do not store my credentials with Quicken, but copy and past them in when I update.
A couple of times a year I have searched for instances of fraud caused by hacking into Quicken or Yodlee and have never found any reports.
This topic was explored in depth a couple of years ago here.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60398/are-the-risks-of-financial-account-aggregation-really-worth-it/p2