Albeit a bit delayed by what seemed like a pretty routine respiratory infection about which my doctor, a generally delightful young practitioner, decided to get all apocalyptic. Missed three days of classes, which is a 41-year record for me, but I'm chugging along just fine.
Highlights of the issue are Lynn Bolin's ongoing attempts to help us think clearly in turbulent times, most particularly about the possibility that fixed-income funds are actually more attractive in their environment than growth funds.
Quick Launch Alert on the latest member of TRP's Capital Appreciation suite, Premium Equity Income. My reading is PRWCX with an options overlay.
Profile of Dynamic Alpha Macro, which mates a low-cost equity ETF sleeve with a macro hedge fund. More correctly, the futures trading sleeve is advised by the manager of a hedge fund which also, and separately, embodies the strategy. Though Dynamic understandably doesn't talk about the hedge fund with appears to have returns north of 10% APR over 10+ years, with a correlation to the S&P 500 of -0.1.
Updates on Chaos-Resistant portfolios, including a tip of the hat to Lewis Braham's fine essay on the subject.
Charles has added functionality to MFO Premium (daily fund flows?) and The Shadow continues to highlight the industry's activities, including what seems to be an impulse to convert funds to ETFs rather than liquidate them.
For what joy that all brings!
David

Very interesting trend. Since there are more opportunities in bonds than that of stocks, it is no surprise that PIMIX to have considerable gain AUM. High valuation and uncertain political policy certainly contributed to the shift.
Would be nice to see the AUM split between index funds vs active managed funds for the last 10 years, for example?

PRWCX has been closed for years. AUM $64.1 billion.

Yes. Of course. But I believe money has until recently continued to flow in from existing shareholders ballooning the total AUM. Also, ISTM there are still some avenues for entry. There have been threads in the past that mentioned “gifting” a share to others. And ISTM someone mentioned that with a very high initial investment it was recently made accessible? Might be wrong.
Don’t mean to divert the discussion away from the excellent M* piece linked by @Observant1. My initial post looks at several aspects of the M* piece. I don’t think PRWCX was even mentioned in the article.

PRWCX has been closed for years. AUM $64.1 billion.
T Rowe Price has introduced similar funds that are open. FLOW data below from MFOP.
Etf TCAF with 100% equity: inflows for 10 months $4.0 billion, for 3 months $1.0 billion. AUM $4.2 billion.
More conservative PRCFX: inflows for 10 months $92.8 million, for 3 months $31.7 million. AUM $270.6 million.

Thanks @Charles. Nice charts.
After today PRWCX is off about 3.5% YTD. Truly insignificant following consecutive years of +18%. and +24%. The fact some $$ has flowed dribbled out does not surprise. I’d have expected more.

WABC. good knowledge. Actually I enjoy 13 and traffic,as they refer to themselves on San Francisco Bay, because I like to listen to the professionals.

I spent 25 years on 10.
I was trained by an old Coastie. Don't talk like a trucker. Don't talk like a cop. Don't talk like you're in the army. Never raise your voice because the mike doesn't work that way, develop a presence, etc.

I too found Price in 1989, and Buffett in 1999.
I had heard of Buffett years before but assumed the price of the A shares was too high, just because it was a large number.
My mistake was not buying more

"A portfolio constructed for long-term resilience will be well served by a high-quality government-bond allocation,
in particular one with US Treasuries and agency mortgages.
The 2022 experience—as well as 2025 thus far—also illustrates the virtue of cash in a balanced portfolio,
particularly for investors who are retired and actively drawing upon their portfolios for living expenses.
While cash might not earn much over inflation over long periods of time, a modest allocation can provide
both safety and liquidity when stocks and bonds fall simultaneously."
https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/diversification-stocks-cash-has-made-good-case-itself

M* said similar stuff 10-15 years ago about "a high-quality government-bond allocation,
in particular one with US Treasuries and agency mortgages"
BND(US Tot bond index) made 1.5% average annually for 10 years and 2.3% for 15 years.
Now, after bonds didn't work in 2022, Benz says, use cash.
Soon, she is going to say, use common sense; when the Fed tells you it's going to raise rates rapidly in 2022, you should be out for months.

Mark the day, for I am agreeing with FD on something.
Most of this kind of analysis is rearwards-looking anyway and generated by folks who feel you need to have your money 'somewhere' that is earning 'something' or else you're failing as an investor.
I've never been a big bond person but for years I've had dry powder stored in idle cash earning nothing or in something uber-short-term like SGOV if I'm in one of my "f-you Schwab policies" moods.
IMO sometimes just having a fat chunk of cash sitting in an interest-free MM/sweep account or in t-bills is more SWAN-ny than trying to play asset allocations amongst fixed income instruments. (While I like making money, I don't feel the need to eek every last red cent out of the markets, and SWAN-ny reserves, while perhaps annoying to see at times, provided reassurance.)

"A portfolio constructed for long-term resilience will be well served by a high-quality government-bond allocation,
in particular one with US Treasuries and agency mortgages.
The 2022 experience—as well as 2025 thus far—also illustrates the virtue of cash in a balanced portfolio,
particularly for investors who are retired and actively drawing upon their portfolios for living expenses.
While cash might not earn much over inflation over long periods of time, a modest allocation can provide
both safety and liquidity when stocks and bonds fall simultaneously."
https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/diversification-stocks-cash-has-made-good-case-itself

M* said similar stuff 10-15 years ago about "a high-quality government-bond allocation,
in particular one with US Treasuries and agency mortgages"
BND(US Tot bond index) made 1.5% average annually for 10 years and 2.3% for 15 years.
Now, after bonds didn't work in 2022, Benz says, use cash.
Soon, she is going to say, use common sense; when the Fed tells you it's going to raise rates rapidly in 2022, you should be out for months.

"To help investors keep level heads and perform their due diligence on these often opaque, arcane, and more costly vehicles, Morningstar has launched the Morningstar Medalist Rating for Semiliquid Funds, a forward-looking assessment of semiliquid strategies’ performance potential versus relevant peers and traditional mutual and exchange-traded funds. We expect to launch initial ratings on a set of interval funds in the third quarter of 2025, which will be displayed on Morningstar.com..."
"Our ratings will shed light on the potential benefits as well as the true costs, risks, and limitations of a wide range of vehicles, including interval funds, tender-offer funds, nontraded business development companies, and nontraded real estate investment trusts in the United States, as well as certain European long-term investment funds, United Kingdom long-term asset funds, and certain Australia-domiciled managed investment schemes."
"Over the years, firms have offered various liquid alternatives approaches—like long-short, market-neutral, merger arbitrage, and others—intended to bring hedge-fund-like strategies to the masses. They’ve all had plausible rationales, and some have proved to be enduring investments, but they are also fraught with risk and hard to use well. Investors still lack awareness of these funds’ challenges and risks, and often fail to form realistic expectations for them."
 
https://www.morningstar.com/alternative-investments/introducing-morningstar-medalist-rating-methodology-semiliquid-funds

Apple is the only company I ever banned. This is based on
1) Steve Jobs mistreated his employees, co-workers, and family members. When Steve Jobs fired an employee, he would call other companies and tell them not to hire this person and lie about how bad this employee was, pretty vicious in my book.
2) It was Jobs's decision to charge ridiculous prices for a very high profit and Apple continues to practice it.
3) Apple doesn't offer cheaper prices, because they don't have to; their customers are a cult.
4) Apple makes it a lot more difficult to get out of its environment.
I know Apple has great products, but I don't have to participate in that.
Decades ago, the Apple laptop was about 4 times as expensive as a PC. Yes, I know it had fewer problems, but not anymore for many years. In over 20 years and using several PCs, my wife and I had only one virus, which I fixed in 5 minutes.
Apple phones are great, but we have been using Moto phones for decades at about 20% of the cost of Apple. Now we use a refurbished Pixel.
Sure, Apple is better, but I'm not going to pay 4-5 times more when Pixel is excellent.
I would not buy an expensive Samsung either, but at least they offer much cheaper phones.
A couple of years ago, I bought a refurbished business laptop for just $250K. Thinkpad with 16GB RAM, Windows 11 pro, and SSD=250 GB. This PC should be good for 95% of users.
Two weeks later I bought a refurbished Pixel 6A for $170 and both are great.
There is no reason to pay 3-4-5 times and get only 20% more, and I have plenty of money.
BTW, the service advisors at Kia and Hyundai told me that 90+% of the complaints about phone-to-vehicle services are about Apple phones.
My tracker watch costs $27.99 and it does most of the stuff Apple Tracker does that costs $300-400.
I keep replacing it every couple of years.
My current earbuds are another example: I paid just $11, half the price at Amazon. I have been using them for over a year. They are fantastic.
To get the top 5-10% of electronics, you will pay 3-5-10 times more. Remember, in 2-3 years, technology advances, so why pay so much more instead of replacing cheap electronics with a new one?
But, Apple has many obsessed/loyal customers, especially in the USA but not in the biggest growth markets of China and India.

Here we go again just like the time during COVID. There were limit on TP per customer at the checkout stands. Wonder how Walmart and Costco handle this differently now ?

It would be pretty funny if all Americans remember about Trump 20 years from now is toilet paper.
There was still plenty available today. Most people aren't thinking about tariffs on Canadian soft-wood timber at the moment. Let's hope we never have to.
I also stocked up on olive oil. But that's more to do with inflationary psychology than worries about shortages, assuming they can get the product to us from Europe in something besides Chinese built/flagged vessels.

That comports with what I've usually read about long term bonds. The additional yield that one gets on long term bonds doesn't adequately compensate for their amplified volatility. Long term bonds are more for traders (betting on interest rate changes), while medium term bonds are for investors.
I think that medium term bonds can have maturities out to 10 years. For example, from Schwab:

A bond term refers to the length of time between the date the bond was issued and when the bond matures. Bonds with terms of less than four years are considered short-term bonds. Bonds with terms of 4 to 10 years are considered intermediate-term bonds. Bonds with terms of more than 10 years are considered long-term bonds.

https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/what-are-bonds-understanding-bond-types-and-how-they-work

"If things get bad enough the very highest quality bonds will shine - and the longer the duration the better.
That was the case in ‘07-‘09 when the house nearly burned down (financially speaking)."
Medium-term and long-term Treasuries have historically provided excellent diversification for equities.
Christine Benz penned an article several years ago which showed medium-term Treasuries (5 year?)
provided similar diversification benefits to long-term Treasuries with greatly reduced interest rate risk.
These results were found to be true during the various time periods studied then.

From Morningstar's 2025 Diversification Landscape report (link in preceding article).
I haven't read the entire 50+ page report.
Key Takeaways:
• The plain-vanilla version of a 60/40 portfolio (made up of US stocks and US investment-grade bonds)
gained about 15% in 2024. Diversifying into other asset classes generally led to lower returns.
• Although broader portfolio diversification was a net positive during the 2022 bear market,
the basic 60/40 portfolio, composed of US stocks and high-quality bonds,
has been tough to beat over longer periods.
A 60/40 portfolio improved risk-adjusted returns versus an all-stock benchmark
in more than 83% of the rolling 10-year periods dating back to 1976.
• Correlations between the United States and other developed markets around the world
have remained high while non-US stocks lagged by a wide margin through 2024,
raising questions about the long-term value of international diversification.
• Over the past 20 years several asset classes—including corporate bonds, global bonds, high-yield bonds, municipal bonds, REITs, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities—have become more closely correlated
with stocks. Many of these categories have also posted losses in periods of equity market stress.
In such periods, Treasury bonds, gold, commodities, and some alternative investment strategies
have been more compelling portfolio diversifiers.
• Diversification strategies that have worked in the past may not work in the future.
In a period of rising interest rates and/or above-average inflation, Treasuries and other high-quality bonds
would likely be less reliable diversifiers, although they still have merit as core portfolio holdings.
The major shifts in US tariff policy announced in April 2025 have also added massive levels of uncertainty
to the investment landscape, potentially upending many previously established performance patterns.

An article from The Atlantic, courtesy of yahoo. Dinky linky. The headline is theirs.

The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, processes about 17 percent of everything the United States imports or exports in shipping containers. The adjoining Port of Long Beach accounts for another 14 percent. Over the years, a whole ecosystem has arisen to support the loading and unloading of the cars, clothes, electronic gadgets, and other things that people want. There are workers and warehouses, trucks and loading pads, security structures and rail lines.
Seroka estimated that cargo arrivals would soon be down 35 percent over the same time last year. At the moment, the drop in traffic seems likelier to accelerate than to reverse. The number of cargo ships canceling port calls or entire voyages is on the rise. A number of shipments now under way were instigated before Trump’s so-called Liberation Day tariff announcement, on April 2. According to Forto, a cargo-management and -tracking company, reservations for shipping products must normally be placed two weeks before a cargo vessel launches. The trip from China from California typically takes two or more additional weeks. In other words, the full effects of U.S. tariff policies on maritime traffic may not be apparent for some time.
/snip
Tariffs don’t just reduce the flow of goods coming into the country; they also cause an atrophying of the logistics system that moves products into, out of, and around the United States. “Less cargo volume, less jobs. That’s the rule here,” Mario Cordero, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, said recently, describing how one in nine jobs in the greater Los Angeles region arises directly or indirectly from its ports. “Port complexes are like your baby toe on your foot,” Peter Neffenger, the former commander of the Coast Guard sector that includes Los Angeles and Long Beach, told me. “You don’t think about it until you break it one day and realize, ‘I can’t walk.’”
Like the shipping business into and out of Los Angeles, the nationwide trucking industry is slowing down, because drivers have a lot less cargo to move. Without inventory arriving or en route, small businesses will falter; bigger industries will shrink; shelves will be empty.

Looks like a big, fat, punch in the mouth to commerce. I would expect similar drops in traffic at all the West Coast ports, with similar knock-on effects. Container ships that arrive to LA/LB often work their way up the coast before heading back to Asia from Seattle/Tacoma.
More at the link.

If target-date funds were a country’s gross domestic product, it would be the fifth-largest in the world, ranking behind the US, China, Germany, and Japan. Between inflows and market appreciation, assets have climbed at an astounding compounded rate of more than 30% annualized over the past 15 years. We explore these market trends and more in the recently released 2025 Target-Date Strategy Landscape

M* Article
https://morningstar.com/funds/target-date-funds-have-delivered-investors

KaiOS for me - just a flip phone. $2/year (T-Mobile legacy plan) to keep the line active, 10¢ per min or text, prepaid. I've got about $100 prepaid which should last me a lifetime.
My SO was gifted a high end iPad several years ago. The front of the frame has begun to separate from the body. Taped it for now. Went to an Apple store, figuring that they would best know how to repair it. Their solution? Buy and upgraded iPad. Planned obsolescence on expensive hardware? No thank you. Not getting locked into that.

Nothing but Apple here for 25 years. Never a serious problem. One hack into my DejaOffice App years ago. I learned from that to conceal passwords and not store them so conspicuously they could be stolen.
Years ago before I understood how to “clean” an ipad when through with it I attempted to smash an old one up in the driveway using a 10-12 lb long-handled sledge hammer. Impossible to destroy. It cracked, shattered and wrinkled but refused to break apart.
IPads galore. Use my 5 year old MacBook so seldom it seems unfamiliar and awkward. Best for some applications like preparing taxes or selecting theater seats. Used it to update an old Garmin recently.
What I started to say is that considering all the things that could go wrong with a device I feel pretty fortunate to have had such good luck with Apple. For subscriptions you’re generally better off dealing thru Apple, though I realize they skim profits from providers. So easy to start or cancel, whereas many providers make cancelling difficult.