Hi @yogibearbull Thank you for the list and updates. The Secure Act 2 for 529's has been discussed here. We've pushed this plan to others for years. And we've recently taken advantage of the Roth rollover twice. This provision is a very nice bump to a young person's retirement program.

@Old_Joe, i firmly believe that refining rare earth metals can be done in US on commercial scale without changing the existing environment regulations. There are established processes to treat waste created responsibly. Here is where government subsidies can help to defer the manufacturing cost while producing these metal domestically. For national security, this manufacturing capability should be on top of the agenda, not tariffs.
This is exactly what China did 20 years ago in order to grow their own manufacturing capability on multiple fronts.

It will take several years of sustained government funding to build this refining capability in an industrial scale (not lab scale). This will take gut if this country want to re-shore manufacturing here.

The only crypto I would touch is Bitcoin and maybe Ether. IMO everything else is junk.
I have a few hundred in BTC that I mess with now and then, but after the Crypto Winter a few years ago (which I escaped from early with all my earnings/winnings, thankfully) I am not rushing to get back into it anytime soon.

@lynnbolin. I have been watching Global Wellesley but have not pulled the trigger because of the almost six year duration of the substantial bond portfolio. With all the uncertainty surrounding the bond market that seems an issue. Your thoughts?

@larryB. In general, estimates of inflation from the Federal Reserve and OECD are that inflation will be above 3% this year and falling slightly next year, while The Conference Board has lower inflation this year and rising next year. Duration risk is a legitimate concern, but it matches the benchmark of 6 years. Secondly, Global Wellesley keeps about 52% invested in corporate bonds which may add a little risk compared to the category. The budget proposal adds to the national debt which is a risk for longer-term US rates. Most of the fixed income that I manage for the intermediate term is in short-term bonds including investment grade.
What I like about Global Wellesley is that only 39% is invested in the US with much of the rest in Europe. 14.4% of the credit is invested in the US government. I bought Global Wellesley for its conservative global exposure.
Here are some associated articles:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vgyax/quote
https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/profile/vgyax#portfolio-composition
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-outlook-volume-2025-issue-1_83363382-en.html?adestraproject=Economics Department News&utm_campaign=EO-June2025&utm_content=june-eo-chart&utm_term=eco&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Adestra

We seem to be writing at cross purposes.
You were "looking for earnings-weighted ETFs and found them". I'm looking for reasons to seek out such ETFs, and how well the ETFs you found meet those objectives.
In particular, I'm concerned with the effects of anomalous transient spikes in individual company's earnings. Like "pops" on a vinyl record. Here's a basic description of how a simple low pass filter can help smooth spikes like this:

into signals like this:

https://www.eetimes.com/the-math-of-dsp-part-3-filters/ (See example 1)
Shiller's PE10 does P/E average over 10 years
Shiller looks at diversified markets (e.g. S&P 500) and at sectors, not at individual companies. Merely by using market (or sector) averages he is already smoothing out individual company "pops". He uses 10 (and 20¹) year averaging is to smooth data over full business cycles (10 years serving as a proxy for a business cycle). Different focus, apples and oranges.
https://indices.cib.barclays/dms/Public marketing/Shiller10_brochure.pdf
I agree with your original statement that using earnings exclusively takes valuations out of the picture. I'm still trying to understand why one would want that.
¹ This is the first time I noticed Shiller's use of 10 and 20 year averages. My mind immediately jumped to the Nyquist-Shannon theorem (sampling must be done at at least twice the frequency of a signal being sampled, see 44.1kHz audio sampling). Just an instantaneous pattern recognition; I've given it no thought as to whether it makes sense in this context. Shiller averages PE10 ratios over 20 years to serve as a baseline.

Some observations after going through MFO, June 1, 2025.
@lynnbolin2021: A few years ago, I moved from Wellesley VWINX / VWIAX and VGWIX / VGYAX to Wellington VWELX / VWENX and VGWLX / VGWAX. I used ST- or ultra-ST- bond fund to make appropriate allocation adjustments. Maybe, with higher interest rates, it's time to take another look at Wellesley.

@yogibearbull: You may be interested in the following articles. I have reduced my stock to bond allocation from 67% to 50% over the past nine months or so. Last month, I reduced risk by trading equity funds for the Vanguard Global Wellesley and helped family and friends do the same.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/consider-flipping-your-60-40-portfolio-to-40-60-as-bonds-become-more-attractive-than-stocks-2f0ce96b
https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/vemo/bonds-remain-favor-time-varying-model-portfolio.html

Some people let politics influence their investing decisions.
For years, I’ve said the same thing: ignore the noise and stay focused on the market.

But when the Chief Executive is a childish, oblivious, reckless, crazy-ass saboteur? Ignore him at the risk of instantly losing everything. We are in a political moment without precedent, as Catch just stated. If any of this unhinged nonsense had ever been seen before, that would be rather different.

Some people let politics influence their investing decisions.
For years, I’ve said the same thing: ignore the noise and stay focused on the market.

Here's the term sheet: https://www.farmcreditfunding.com/ffcb_live/termsheet/3133ETDT1.pdf
and the complete (64 page) offering circular including risk factors:
https://www.farmcreditfunding.com/ffcb_live/pdfs/offcirc/BondAndDNOfferingCircular2024.pdf
I'm guessing that you're expecting these to get called in a month since (a) you write about parking cash, and (b) 50 basis points is the spread between 4.3% 1 month T-bills and this 4.8% bond. (Fidelity reports the spread to Treasuries (4 years) as 0.855%.) So one risk you may be facing is the possibility of being "stuck" with these bonds for a few years or selling at a loss.
The issuer has an interesting structure. It is a corporation formed by the issuing banks in order to issue bonds. Should some underlying banks fail (and the other banks be unable to service the bonds), these bonds would be junior to bonds issued by the banks individually.
The banks in turn have an interesting structure. They are ultimately owned by cooperatives of borrowers (think farms borrowing from these banks). "The [Farm Credit] System’s mission is to support rural communities and agriculture with reliable, consistent credit and financial services."
This in turn suggests a sector concentration risk that could be aggravated by government policy. This is not a tangential political statement. Rather it is written into the offering circular:

These risks depend on a number of factors, including financial, economic and political events, over which the Banks have no control, including trade policy agenda, such as retaliatory actions by other countries.

When issuers are under financial stress, they often are unable to refinance higher interest debt at market rates. Consequently, even without defaulting, stress increases the likelihood that they don't call their outstanding debt as you expect.
Do I think that all of this to blow up within a month or so (to first call date)? Probably not. Will the bonds get called "on schedule"? Don't know. Not trying to scare you here. Just taking a quick look at the risks stated in the circular.

WisdomTree/WT earnings-weighted ETFs do use several screening criteria to narrow the list - market-cap (to separate LC, MC, SC), profitability, etc, but in the last weighting step, it applies earnings-weights using 4 quarters of earnings data and does annual rebalancing. Because of this, the summaries of the process used by these ETFs may be misleading at other sites.
WT uses its own indexes, so it also saves licensing fees. Self-indexing is a controversial issue.
Of course, flaws can be pointed out. But Shiller's PE10 does P/E average over 10 years and that hasn't worked in years - but that idea is appealing and sells, so remains popular.
Revenue-weights can have its own issues - profitability and market-cap vary a lot across sectors and industries, e.g. IT vs retailers. Top 5 US companies by revenue are WMT, AMZN, AAPL, UNH, BRK.
Equal-weight may generates high turnovers.
A more sensible approach would be fundamental-weighting with multiple factors as RAFI indexes do and are used by Pimco, Schwab, etc.
But as I indicated in the OP, I was looking for earnings-weighted ETFs and found them - LC EPS, MC EZM, SC EES.
And now, anyone looking for them at MFO will also find them.

Weightings based on company earnings makes some sense. It's an intriguing way to build an index.
Weights based on earnings per share (which is not what these ETFs do) would make about as much sense as the DJIA being share price weighted. If a Dow component has a 2 for 1 split, its weight in the index is (approximately) halved. Likewise, EPS is cut in half if a company has a 2 for 1 split.
it removes valuation from the picture.
Almost. It limits its universe to the 500 largest U.S. companies by market cap. From that point on, weightings are substantially independent of valuation. (They must also have a P/E of at least 2, a very low bar if profitable).
I might prefer an index that did a little more smoothing of earnings to avoid whipsawing. It looks only at earnings over the past four quarters. Some companies have relatively steady earnings, while others may be cyclical, running deficits for years (investing for the future) before making profits. (See nimble dividend.) I need to give it more thought.
I haven't delved too deeply into whether nonrecurring expenses (or revenue) are incorporated into the calculation of earnings¹. These could likewise whipsaw a company's weighting, decreasing (or increasing) its earnings weight for one year only.
¹ See, e.g. https://accountinginsights.org/what-are-non-recurring-charges-and-how-do-they-work/

@Derf ...common holdings ranked by dollar volume between accounts include: FNMA, CLDX, T, JPST, SCHD, EVT, UTF, and PTA. As you can see, some are highly speculative, and many throw off significant distributions.
I don't add or subtract very often. That will change (hopefully) if AVGO gets a bump at earnings this week. It may rise higher over the next 2 years or so, but I'll be cashing in to fund a half dozen different long term positions when the market inevitably tanks in the near future.
By the way...I've found that buying high quality individual stocks when on sale is one of the best ways to generate income and capital gains within an account. But you must be very patient. Same with CEFs.
It's not magic, but it works for me. FYI, Schwab has me +14.91% YTD,

Not a single copy of After Yorktown in the public libraries of Maricopa County. I guess I'll have to buy one. :)
Have to agree that PRBLX lost its way. It used to be a steady low volatility fund. Sad to see Amazon in the top five holdings.

Total returns as of yesterday
1 year...VOO 13.7%....PRBLX 12.6%
3 year...VOO 48.7%....PRBLX 43.6%
5 year...VOO 119%....PRBLX 109%
Simpler: 5-year average annual performance... VOO 15.9%...PRBLX 14.9%.
Why did PRBLX lose its way?
I don't see it yet. When the SP500 is strong as per the last 5 years, it's harder to beat it.
I don't question my managers' selections; either you trust them or not.

Some observations after going through MFO, June 1, 2025.
@David_Snowball: My TIAA 403b does include some non-TIAA funds, but the only Pimco fund available is PIMIX. When my plan changed about 4 years ago, some options were frozen - so, I could keep CREF Social Choice / QCSCIX, sell it, but cannot get back in. For now, I am sticking with it. Will keep an eye on Pimco multi-asset PIRMX (REITs, precious-metals, commodities and lots of TIPS).
@lynnbolin2021: A few years ago, I moved from Wellesley VWINX / VWIAX and VGWIX / VGYAX to Wellington VWELX / VWENX and VGWLX / VGWAX. I used ST- or ultra-ST- bond fund to make appropriate allocation adjustments. Maybe, with higher interest rates, it's time to take another look at Wellesley.
@dong or @Don_Glickstein (guessing MFO handle): Great launch article. But one caution about Upside/Downside Capture Ratio (U/D CR).
U/D CR works best when at least 1 bull and 1 bear cycles are included in the period. Similarly, Upside CR should have at least 1 bull cycle, and Downside CR should have at least 1 bear cycle. Otherwise, the values can mislead.
Since-inception does catch various market cycles. But 18 months isn't sufficient for definitive conclusions. IMO, the period considered should include at least 2022 (so, 3 yrs), maybe even 2020 (5 yrs). Note that CBLDX has existed since 01/2018-, but CBLVX only since 10/2024- .
Anyway, those are minor details. I thoroughly enjoyed your piece.

"Staying home has worked for US investors for years but now may be time to think GLOBAL with 15-20% exposure (average now is 12%)."
So is (was) this a trade for 2025, or is this a new long-term shift in investing attitude?
US equities are no longer the safe bet, according to "expert" advise. Gosh, I wonder what changed.

Grantham had a fairly insightful comment for his critics...
In the major crises\recessions, he never met any serious manager that regretted being several years early (for large equity underweight), not based on whether they were able to keep their job but on the result for their shareholders.

This ad-hoc feature returns after a long break - the last was in 11/2024. One reason is that except for some special issues, Barron's has reduced coverage for funds. This week has several fund stories and some more were added due to my wrong guesses yesterday (market "EXTRA").
Staying home has worked for US investors for years but now may be time to think GLOBAL with 15-20% exposure (average now is 12%).
...
Funds: DODLX, FOSFX, GLD, IEUR, INDA, MDWIX, TGVAX, TXUE, VGK
INCOME/FUNDS. Dividend-oriented funds can focus on dividend-growth (CGDG, VIG, VIGI), current-dividends (FDVV, ONEY, VYM) or dividend-blend (SCHD).
Q&A/FUNDS. Alan BERRO, AWSHX / RWMGX / WSHFX (AUM $191.6 billion; low turnover). This large-blend (near the edge of value and blend) and GARP strategy fund mostly holds dividend-paying stocks with stable dividend histories. But there can be exceptions for up to 10% of the AUM, so there are growth stocks AAPL, AMZN, AVGO, CMCSA, MSFT and turnaround situations BA, EL, GILD, NKE, SBUX. Value/cyclicals should do better in meaningful rate environments. But he avoids high-yielding value-traps.
FUNDS. Vanguard core bond VCORX is featured. Top holdings are investment-grade corporates, Treasuries/Agencies, Agency MBS with some EMs, foreign sovereigns, and HY. Fund is cautiously positioned as the probability of recession in 2025 has increased.
EXTRA, FUNDS. Following BlackRock/BLK, State Street/STT, etc, Vanguard is expanding its PROXY-VOTING program “Investor Choice” to several of its index funds. However, only a tiny % of holders eligible to vote do so. Fund companies are also expanding their related investor PR.
EXTRA, FUNDS. Tidal Trust will offer ETFs based on publicly disclosed holdings of funds by Bill ACKMAN, Stan DRUCKENMILLER, Michael BURRY, Warren BUFFETT, etc. These ETF portfolios may be stale by several months.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/841/weekly-business-digest-june-2025
Link for Weekly Features https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/board/12/market-insights

some insiders may jackpot in a technical default (e.g., budget ceiling raise known not to pass).
"...credit default swaps...The cost to insure against a default of the U.S. government in the next five years has risen to 54 basis points in recent months. This is higher than the cost of insuring against a default of Italy and almost as high as the insurance premium for Greece...."
uh, MAGA! i guess, if an insider.

By using options, one can create ("structure") financial instruments having virtually any behavior, at a cost of course. IMHO it's not much different from betting - not meant in a derogatory way. And unlike betting, when investing the deck is stacked in your favor. Over time, stocks go up and bonds pay principal and interest.
In horse racing, there are payoff odds on each horse. This is apparently more complicated than gamblers on team sports like. So there "products" are "structured" to offer even money bets. Instead of betting on which team wins with odds set accordingly, a derivative product is offered: one bets on team ± a spread.
In a similar, though more complex way, options can be used to package investment instruments. Want something guaranteed not to lose money? Package a zero coupon bond with a call option (on say, the S&P 500) so that you get some of the gain if the market goes up, and no loss if the call expires worthless.
If you're willing to give up some downside protection for a higher cap on potential gain, you can do that by using put options instead of zeros. See Schwab's description of buffered ETFs.
Income is certainly one reason why people use options such as covered calls.
Managed distribution funds (usually closed end) are something different. These are funds that, as PRESSmUP described, distribute a fairly steady stream of distributions by design. So long as those distributions are less than the total return of the fund (regardless of all is well and good.
From a black box perspective, it doesn't matter what the source of that total return is - dividends, gains (realized or unrealized), proceeds from selling options, proceeds from lending, etc. However, if the fund is distributing more than it is making, then it is eating into your capital, generally not a good thing.
QQQX runs hot and cold. 20%+ total returns in 2021, 2023, 2024. It was one of its category worst (100th percentile) performers in 2022 and YTD (per M*). Over the past five years, its NAV (and its market price) has gone up, so it hasn't been distributing more than it's made.