https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nixon-reshaped-the-world-economy-50-years-ago-is-crypto-on-the-brink-of-doing-the-same-now-11628893012?siteid=yhoof2
Crypto is reshaping the world economy, 50 years after Nixon ended the dollar’s peg to gold. Here’s how some are playing itLast Updated: Aug. 14, 2021 at 10:52 a.m. ETFirst Published: Aug. 14, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. ET
Mark DeCambre
 
A Bretton Woods for the digital-currency era? Will we see more global coordination on digital assets?
Cryptos to the moon?

A year that has rewarded those who have simply enjoyed the ride.....

The gains are smaller, befitting a less hysterical year. When the S&P 500 Index has risen in 2021, the daily increase has been half what it was in 2020. But in terms of persistent, day-after-day gains, these seven months in the U.S. stock market have few historical precedents.
Over the last century, there has been just one other year when the benchmark set more high-water marks by this point in the summer -- in 1964.

Slow Slog
Plus, an optimistic view going forward:

What’s keeping stocks aloft? As usual, the answer is corporate America’s earnings machine.
...the equity market is not the economy. If you compare the two, the equity market has massive technology in it, a lot less small-caps. Those earnings are super defensive to a no-GDP-growth scenario.”
In the eyes of analysts who follow individual companies, profit growth is set to slow, but at roughly 10% in each of the next two years, that would still top the historic rate of 6% annually.
Profit margins, which just reached a record high, are expected to increase over the next years, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show.
To Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold, this boom cycle is just starting.

S&P 500 Snubbing Dire View

50 years ago, on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon shocked the financial world by ending the convertibility of the dollar to gold, upending the monetary and currency exchange system that had been in place since 1944. This week Nick Sargen, author of Global Shocks, joins us for a WEALTHTRACK podcast to explain the consequences of that momentous decision which are still being felt today.

I've also migrated much of my portfolio to ETFs. Each year I start a new spreadsheet with the expected distributions. The mutual funds is a big guess, but I look at the past few years for a ballpark number.
As the year goes by and taxable money comes in, I replace my guesses with the actual numbers. I still guess between qualified and regular dividends.
By the end of the year, thanks to the kind folks here at MFO, I find out what the fund companies are estimating.
I might sell at gains during the year, but it is starting in November when I make my final plans on what I sell. Seems to work for me.

I taken that you don't invest with Matthews Asia funds or have high opinon of their outlook? Though I agree that Matthews Asia funds have not excel with the exiting of several experienced managers.

Yes, quite--- re: Matthews. I was going to create a separate thread about this. The Matthews funds I track are MAPIX and MAINX. (The latter will finally be 10 yrears old at the start of Nov, 2021, if I'm not mistaken.) Seems that for a few years, at least, they have just sucked, performance-wise.

Value oriented shops such as Oakmark has turned around this year after many years of lagging behind their growth counterparts. Let's hope the trend continues.

Unfortunately, Grantham has been wrong for over 10 years. But he is not alone, Arnott (PAUIX) and Hussman were too.
See one source(link)
He was so off on US LC(SP500) and EM stocks.

yeah I still like listening to him. He is a great story teller. But yeah, he hasn't been correct for awhile.

TMSRX had a decent 2019-20 and terrible 2021 and why you need to trade these funds. I pretty much gave up on alternative funds. Their performance is uneven and unreliable over the years.

Unfortunately, Grantham has been wrong for over 10 years. But he is not alone, Arnott (PAUIX) and Hussman were too.
See one source(link)
He was so off on US LC(SP500) and EM stocks.

I have read Jeremy Grantham's stuff for years and have also read all of the analysis of his so far, far from perfect track record. He does have good data and arguments, and I thought I couldn't learn anything new from him.
However, this analysis of his of the macro and political issues in the markets today is fascinating and worth hearing. He also has a very perceptive comparison between 1929 1972 2008 and now.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xH5m4fGf4G2bsnrqXSShd

@Ben For me, one reason to have all/most holdings concentrated in one brokerage account is to make things simpler for whomever cleans up after me.
When I was Executor for my Dad's estate a few years ago, every financial account that he had was one more thing for me to handle with phone calls, letters, etc.
He had a small DRIP account with Kellogg -- I think because he liked Cornflakes -- which required several communications (and a death certificate) to close.
Most his positions had been moved to TD Ameritade, who (like most firms) wouldn't communicate by email -- many communications over a period of time.
His credit card accounts had to be handled one by one.
Life insurance -- yep.
Magazine subscriptions likewise.
Something I would not have expected -- contact the Syracuse Alumni Association to say your faithful alum has passed and don't bother sending any more newsletter or Alumni magazines. Ditto for professional associations.
You get the picture.
So every extra entity to deal with will make life tougher for my wife and whoever is helping her (although I hope this doesn't happen very soon).
David

The Garrett Planning Network is a national network of hourly-based, fee-only financial planners.
Garrett
The following articles are a few years old but should still be useful.
Note: The SEC adopted Regulation Best Interest in 2019.
The 19 Questions to Ask Your Financial Adviser
Find the Right Financial Help
Disclaimer: I have not used financial planning services from NAPFA or Garrett.

In a broad sense, it doesn't matter why the cancellation went through. The fact that any order can be cancelled is enough to disprove the assertion that no orders can be cancelled.
To address your speculation, I just cancelled another order 1/4 hour after submitting it. Anticipating additional theories, the first cancellation was done while the market was closed, the latter done while the market was open. We could go on guessing about this change in policy, but it is clearly real. Things change.
Reps go beyond what I was responding to - criticisms about the website. Vanguard's website is certainly less feature rich than the websites of many other brokerages. It's not a good match for active stock traders. Isn't that what one expect of a Vanguard site? :-)
To touch on reps and offices briefly ... Fidelity assigned me a rep years ago even though I told them I was not interested. They've since rotated me through a few reps. Without notice. When I upload material to Fidelity, it's personally tracked by whomever I speak with. And they get back to me. I never deal with my rep, though occasionally I do work with his "team".
When I need a medallion guarantee, I can walk into my local Fidelity office and have it handled on the spot. I tried that at my local Schwab office (much more convenient, just four blocks away), and they offered to send it internally to another office somewhere to stamp the documents and then return them to me. Of course Vanguard has no local offices (or really, any retail offices at all, or do they?).

I wonder if you were able to cancel fund order because you did it in a few seconds. The last time I tried to cancel an order, even before the market was open, Vanguard rep told me NOT ALLOWED.
The entire website at Vanguard is clunky and inefficient. Fidelity has far better stock trading screen and graphs. Vanguard won't download trades to Quicken for three days, but Fido and Schwab do it at least at end of day one.
My biggest complaint about Vanguard is that even for Flagship and up customers, ie folks with substantial assets, they have eliminated a personal contact. I assume if you pay their fee you get one but I don't want to pay for something as simple as having someone to call for issues about checks and transfers.
Even when they used to provide them, they switched them off frequently, and just as soon as you got used to one person, they were gone.
Schwab has provided us with the same rep for years, and he is in an office you can visit if you want. We have their direct line and even though the web page says mail stuff to central office, our rep says no mail it to me and I will facilitate it.
Fidelity keeps insisting we need to sign up with a rep, but we haven't felt we needed one there yet.

Trying to keep track of this. Please add your readings.
Here's one from WSJ (Embedded Video Accessible w/o subscription):

The bipartisan infrastructure bill is unlikely to have a big impact on growth in the next few years, economists say. Longer term, though, investments in highways, ports and broadband could make the economy more efficient and productive.

articles/infrastructure-bills-boost-to-economy-is-likely-to-be-limited

I think we're largely in agreement, that "their website could be improved". It's adequate for the essential stuff (buying/selling funds) but there are significant areas for improvement on the nice-to-haves. I certainly wouldn't use it as my primary brokerage. Remember too that Vanguard only ever offered cash management services (Vanguard Advantage) to its Voyager Select and above customers. Even that it eliminated two years ago.
Still, it has gotten better in some ways. BobC was emphatic in his criticism of Pershing as a clearing house, and there seemed to be nearly universal acclaim when VBS went to self-clearing. And one is able to buy Vanguard mutual funds through its brokerage, something that was formerly unsupported. Now if Vanguard would only let you do that through the same interface as for non-Vanguard funds.
Half a cake is better than none?

That IS a good song, Crash; haven't heard it before. Naturally, that was THE racquet back in the day (along with the Dunlop Maxply Fort). Semi-replaced by the Wilson Prostaff/Prostaff II and the Bancroft (Winner?). Owned them all for many years; good times!

I might be letting my imagination run away with me here, but a sudden announcement regarding a person getting along in years does NOT sound encouraging from a health pov. I would tend to suspect that he is unable to continue rather than unwilling.

Morningstar must still be asleep this morning...

Yep. And they joined the ranks of Vanguard.

Morningguard? Vangstar?

For years I have used Yodlee on Vanguard to aggregate my Schwab account. Worked great. For the past few months, I can't get it to refresh and update. It seems that 2FA is the problem. I can't even get Vanguard to acknowledge that there is a problem, although they can clearly see that my refresh failed! They are too busy paying their employees $1,000 each to get vaccinated instead of concentrating on their clients needs.

Hi @Ben
Do you have an investment account at Fidelity and/or have experience with their inclusive brokerage feature?
Thank you.

Hi catch 22,
No I have had no dealings with Fidelity. Nothing against them, it just never happened. I have never used a brokerage for mutual funds except in assisting my wife with her 401k before she retired. Over the years there were several brokerages used, all of which were clumsy and difficult to use but which were positively ELEGANT compared to the Vanguard brokerage.