Lots of good examples. I agree he could have listed a few, but with ETFs it is very easy yo buy energy, industrial firms etc.
Look at INFL it is 25% gold and basic materials but also lots of energy and financial firms

Please clarify any findings (you may discover) about this post or the information below, as to the fully credible nature and/or any modification of the terms or wording. I/we need this to be accurate reporting and not contrary to the below. Thank you.
--- This evening, October 15, 2025, 9pm, EST

Medicare has temporarily paused payments to doctors, community health centers, and ground ambulance providers due to the federal government shutdown. This hold applies to services provided since October 1, 2025, and payments will not be released until Congress acts to fund the government and reauthorize expired programs. This situation is separate from the annual Medicare physician payment cuts and the 2025 reduction that is still in effect.
Why payments are paused
Federal government shutdown: The shutdown that began on October 1, 2025, has triggered the pause in payments because certain Medicare payment programs, such as those for telehealth, have not been reauthorized by Congress.
Expired provisions: The expiration of legislative provisions passed under the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 has put a hold on payments for services delivered on or after October 1, 2025.
Claims are still being submitted: Providers can continue to submit claims, but the payments will remain on hold until the situation is resolved.
What this means for patients
Potential delays in care: The pause in payments could create delays in accessing care, as doctors and clinics face financial strain.
Impact on specific services: The hold specifically affects services paid under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, ground ambulance transport claims, and claims from Federally Qualified Health Centers.
Resumption of services: Once Congress acts to fund the government and reauthorize the programs, the hold will be lifted, and claims will be processed.
What this means for doctors
Payment delays: Doctors are experiencing a delay in receiving Medicare payments for services rendered since October 1, 2025.
Impact on clinics: This could create significant financial challenges for physician practices, especially those that rely heavily on Medicare reimbursements.
Need for congressional action: Physicians are waiting for Congress to pass legislation to reopen the government and reauthorize the programs to get paid for their services.
Ongoing payment cuts: This is separate from the 2.8% Medicare physician payment cut that took effect on January 1, 2025, and remains in effect.
What to do if you have questions
Contact your doctor: If you have questions or concerns, contact your doctor's office for information about how this may affect your care or billing.
Contact CMS: For specific questions about your Medicare benefits or claims, you can contact the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the most up-to-date information.

Interesting there hasn’t been any mention of Friday’s massive crypto losses here - or I might have missed it. The best article I’ve seen is on Bloomberg. I’ve been told these BB gifted links are intrusive / loaded with tracking cookies. So use care. I know nothing about crypto. But the article suggests that hedging tactics in play by betters investors may have backfired - possibly relevant to hedging tactics being used in other markets.
Bloomberg Link - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-11/crypto-s-record-selloff-sparks-intrigue-over-who-got-wiped-out?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2MDI4OTA0MSwiZXhwIjoxNzYwODkzODQxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUM1o3V0pHUEwzWFUwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCNUZDNUE4OTZGNzg0N0E2QjIzMDdFQjNBRDFENUQxQiJ9.prD9HpxWPoLLTS6PAujOedSW7ZfqkDxl81hE5inq_ow
No opinion of the role Mr. Trump’s messaging or tariffs played in Friday’s action. If you build a tall enough house of cards it doesn’t take a lot to topple it. My reference is to high valuations, leveraged bets & speculation. Interesting too that the federal grand jury indictment of FOMC member Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud hasn’t been cited by folks as a contributor to Friday’s action. ISTM that’s a big financial news story capable of moving markets. Whether Cook’s guilty or innocent, the Fed is becoming something of a punching bag for those who want to alter monetary policy.
Thanks @Junkster for the insights. I’m not even playing with middling investment grade corporates currently based on the narrow premiums over AAA.

BDC and REITs may have similarities for investors
Isn't the point of publishing ERs in a prospectus to inform investors?
but they have different business structure, so they have different treatments by SEC.

They usually do not fall under the Investment Company Act of 1940 because of what they hold, not because of their structure. (If they hold enough securities, they will be subject to the Act.)
https://www.troutman.com/insights/reits-investment-structures-and-investment-company-status/
In any case, this says how REIT fees come to be excluded from AFFEs (acquired fund fee expenses). But it doesn't justify their exclusion. If there's a rationale for REIT fees to be excluded, the same rationale would seem to apply to BDCs. Conversely, if Zweig or others believe that BDC expenses should be included, that same belief would seem to apply to REITs.
==============================
Warning - the remainder is legal gobbledegook of interest primarily to geeks.
BDCs are RICs (registered investment companies) under 1940 ICA (Invest company Act).

As a technical matter, BDCs are not registered investment companies. However, they elect to be subject to many of the regulations applicable to registered investment companies.

https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins/publicly-traded-business-development-companies-bdcs-investor-bulletin
This election applies to tax regulations, not expense reporting regulations:

Most BDCs elect to be treated as a regulated investment company (RIC), which provides for pass-through tax treatment of net income. BDC dividend payments to shareholders are not subject to entity-level tax on distributed income. In this manner, a BDC operates like a real estate investment trust (REIT) or master limited partnership (MLP) that offers access to the ownership of real estate assets and energy assets, respectively, and passes through investment income.

https://www.blueowlcapitalcorporation.com/about-blue-owl-capital-corp/what-is-a-bdc
See also: 12 USC § 1820a(d)(6) (registered investment company), Westlaw Glossary (RIC - regulated investment company), 26 USC § 851(a) (tax code definition of regulated investment company, BDC special clause).
SEC Final Rule 33-8713 (2006) p. 40 is what creates the AFFE requirement. It applies to all investment companies, not just ones registered under the '40 Act.

“Acquired Fund” means any company in which the Fund invests or has invested during the relevant fiscal period that ... is an investment company ...

Form N-1A instruction 3(f)(i)
So what's an investment company?

“investment company” means any issuer which—
(A)is or holds itself out as being engaged primarily, or proposes to engage primarily, in the business of investing, reinvesting, or trading in securities;
(B)is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of issuing face-amount certificates of the installment type, or has been engaged in such business and has any such certificate outstanding; or
(C)is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding, or trading in securities, and owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40 per centum of the value of such issuer’s total assets (exclusive of Government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis.

15 U.S. Code § 80a-3(a)(1)
BDCs fit this definition even though they're not registered investment companies. But then, so can SPACs (pre-acquisition). Yet their costs aren't counted in AFFEs.

The principal regulation for investment funds in the United States is the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“ICA”). It applies to any company that is “engaged primarily” in the business of investing in securities. Because SPACs invest 100% of their assets in securities prior to their acquisitions, many of them qualify as investment companies under this definition.

Robert Jackson and Joh Morely, SPACs as Investment Funds, Wharton (July 14, 2022)
SEC position on SPACs as subject to '40 Act ("it depends")
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/03/05/final-rules-on-spac-ipos-and-de-spacs/
REITs, BDCs, SPACs. From an investor perspective, what's the difference? And fundamentally, should any indirect costs be explicitly reported, especially if they aren't included (except implicitly) in financial reports?

I'm happy to discuss what expenses should be counted as fund expenses. But we can do without the rhetoric, especially in the passive voice: "There is concern that" (which comes from the cited article).
The second line of Zweig's piece reads: "A bill passed by the House and pending in the Senate would authorize portfolios often used in retirement accounts to skip reporting the expenses of certain funds they may invest in." There is nothing in the bill that is specific to retirement accounts; this was thrown in to agitate not to enlighten.
On to the main question: what should be counted as fund expenses?
I think most people agree that direct expenses incurred by the fund should be counted. Manager salaries, paying to keep the lights on, brokerage fees (not currently counted), borrowing costs regardless of use (including borrowing costs to short securities).
Most people seem to feel that some indirect fees should not be counted. Such as Warren Buffet's salary (if a fund owns BRK), even though people may view the company as a conglomerate or holding company. How about Fernando Fernandez's compensation at Unilever?
Moving on to BDCs, Zweig writes that "Being regulated as funds gives BDCs special tax privileges". Just like REITs. Zweig is concerned that BDC expenses might not be counted with mutual fund acquired expenses. Just like REITs today. And just like REITs their special tax privileges extend to being treated as pass-through entities.
While the current bill proposal deals only with BDCs, it's still curious that he didn't say anything about how it would merely harmonize BDCs with REITs. Especially since OBBB just made the "special tax privileges" of BDCs even closer to REITs' by giving them the same 20% deduction (Section 199A) that REITs have.
https://www.akingump.com/en/insights/tax-insights/tax-bills-section-199a-expansion-would-boost-bdcs
If one is going to count some indirect (acquired securities) expenses as fund costs, then where and why does one draw the line? Why don't we include REITs? Conversely, why should we count any indirect costs? They're explicitly excluded from the financial statements precisely because their impact is already reflected in the portfolio's performance.
Yogi suggests that many investors don't read even summary prospectuses. If we go down that path to the lowest common denominator, then why worry about this at all? Many people just look at performance, d**n the expenses. In which case this whole discussion is moot.

Many people vowed they would not invest in Janus funds after its participation in the early 2000s market timing scandal. But there were a lot of changes made at the top of Janus. Heartland was and is at the other end of the spectrum. So I haven't taken a good look at the Heartland funds in decades.

One Web site, FundAlarm.com, has been running what it calls a Whiston Watch, or a tally of how long Mr. Whiston has declined to explain "his role in the Janus market timing scandal, including what he knew and when he knew it." Mr. Whiston's departure means "another ghost of the past is gone," said Robert A. Olstein, whose Olstein Financial Alert fund has been buying Janus stock. "It shows me they are moving in the right direction."

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2004/04/21/chief-executive-janus-capital-steps/28801376007/
As I recall, only HRTVX impressed. And there are enough other fish in that sea.

Re: Josh Brown
I started listening to Animal Spirits with his colleagues in 2018. I started listening to the Compound when it began in 2020. I feel like they are one of the best financial podcast groups out there. its always interesting. they interview everyone, stay very topical to whats going on and seem to have a solid grasp of most of these concepts.
They are a growing wealth management firm. I believe they opened an office in Chicago last year and are opening one in Charlotte next year. So of course growing AUM is important. what I appreciate about this group is they are largely "active strategy while being more index forward" advisors, which helps a person not pay double "AUM" if you will (compounding 1% ER with 1% AUM can be quite a portfolio drag).
the Ritholtz team are great interviewers IMO. it is funny that they will often be like "I'm going to talk for an hour about why you should invest in target date funds...that hour is brought to you by INNOVATOR BUFFER 3X TSLA ETFS"

Not sure there is a clear understanding in some of these comments about what services financial managers provide, which is of course OK. It's not just about investment returns; it includes tax, insurance, legacy & estate planning.

I understand that China is highly complicit in the ongoing use of coal as an energy source for electricity generation. But it is also true that they are indisputably the world leaders in research, production, and installation of clean energy generation. They basically own solar generation, and are also an important provider of wind generation technology.
The United States government, on the other hand, is attempting to terminate the installation of wind generation projects which are already near 80 or 90 percent of completion. Installation of additional wind and solar generation is being actively suppressed, while coal and oil based generation is being strongly promoted.
And the financial genius of one man is responsible for that.

@hank : Just a guess, thinking for long term holders?
P.S. I didn't read the article.

Not sure reading the article would help much with my question. I’m interested in what happens to these types of stocks if the markets enter a steep downturn? Barron’s does not address that.. There was a thread here about TROW (with a caption like ”Buy TROW instead of its funds?”) 5-6 years ago. How’d that go?
@Derf raises an interesting secondary question. When you buy a stock, how long do you intend to hold it? Buffett might say forever. Doubt many of us have that degree of patience. I only buy individual stocks when the price is already depressed. But if it turns south early on I’m likely to sell. That would have been the right thing to do with TROW 5 years ago.
(TROW stock price: - 27.4% over 5 years)
PS - Here’s an interesting discussion I ran across today.

That's pretty interesting. Looking ahead, let's propose that the bugs get worked out of AI, and a basically reliable information source becomes widely available to almost anyone. What sort of impact would that have on financial markets?

OJ, I always thought that once the average person had access to the WWW, they would become more formidable intellectually.
We have all seen how that turned out.

That's pretty interesting. Looking ahead, let's propose that the bugs get worked out of AI, and a basically reliable information source becomes widely available to almost anyone. What sort of impact would that have on financial markets?

"18 U.S. Code § 208" They would love to get rid of that!
18 U.S. Code § 208 prohibits government employees from participating in matters where they have a financial interest, unless they disclose and receive written ...

The nice thing about financial information sources is that there are so many different results to choose from. :)

And if not, ChatGPT can always make some up....!

The nice thing about financial information sources is that there are so many different results to choose from. :)

During ZIRP, a number of corporations offered (uninsured) accounts similar to savings or checking accounts backed by the corporation but with higher yields. One that might ring a faint bell was GMAC Demand Notes, later Ally Demand Notes (still uninsured). That, like most, went the way of the dodo.
https://lifetimeplanning.com/hot-off-the-press/demand-notes-from-gmac-to-ally-to-you-now-what
I was able to find one that still exists, though I don't recommend it. GM Financial Right Notes.
https://www.rightnotes.com/en-us/home.html
Last week it was yielding 4.5%, this week, 4.25% IMHO not enough to compensate for the risk, even for a liquid investment.

Following are excerpts from today's commentary by Matt Levine. It strikes me as a pretty good summary of the current Private Equity situation.

A simple gloomy model you could have of private equity is:

1. Once upon a time, companies were mispriced. Lots of companies were available cheaply. Their price didn’t reflect the present value of their cash flows, or at least, it didn’t reflect the present value of the cash flows they could reasonably achieve if you added some leverage and improved their management.
2. A few ambitious risk-seeking entrepreneurs noticed this systematic mispricing and set out to fix it. They raised money from friends and family and patient investors who were willing to take risk, they bought companies at low prices, levered them up, fixed their operations and resold them after a few years at higher prices.
3. It helped, in doing this business, that interest rates were declining for decades and valuation multiples were rising. If you bought a company, did nothing to it, waited five years and sold it, you’d have a profit just from valuation tailwinds.
4. The people who started this business — private equity — made great returns for their investors and became billionaires themselves.
5. This attracted many, many more people to the business. Who wouldn’t want to become a billionaire by buying and selling companies? Who wouldn’t want to invest with them?
6. So now private equity is the default career path for smart ambitious people entering the financial industry, and private equity firms are now giant alternative asset managers with hundreds of billions of dollars under management.
7. Why would companies be mispriced?

Like: There was an arbitrage, and correcting it made people rich, and now it is corrected, so correcting it can no longer make you rich. If you want to buy a good company, lever it up, improve its operations and sell it back to the public markets:

• Other private equity firms have already bought most of the good companies;
• The companies that are left have all levered themselves up and hired consultants to improve their operations, like a private equity firm would have done, so there’s no reward to you for doing that;
• Interest rates have gone up, so borrowing money is more expensive now than it was a few years ago; and
• Other private equity firms own tons of companies that they want to sell, so you have to compete with them when you try to sell your company back to the public markets, and you won’t get a premium price.

In the golden age of private equity, private equity ownership was an exception, a way to move companies from a low-value state to a high-value state. In 2025, private equity ownership is almost the norm: Huge chunks of modern business are owned by private equity funds rather than public shareholders. It would be a little weird if those private equity funds could all sustainably get much higher returns than public shareholders.
Anyway Bloomberg’s Allison McNeely, Preeti Singh and Laura Benitez report on gloomy times for private equity:

After a half-century of meteoric growth, buyout firms are facing challenges at every step of their life cycle: Attractive takeover targets are scarcer, financing costs are up and it’s harder to cash out old investments and deliver the robust returns once promised to pension managers, endowments, foundations and wealthy individuals. Even dealmakers are frustrated — waiting to collect their share of profits known as carried interest that comes when investments are successfully wrapped up. …
“Private equity has lost its way and has to go back to what this industry — that employs the brightest and best minds — does best,” Orlando Bravo, managing partner of private equity firm Thoma Bravo, said in an interview. That’s “buying and selling companies and generating great returns for its investors.” …
“Many PE firms are dead already, they just don’t know it,” said Charles Wilson, senior vice president of investment management at industry recruiter Selby Jennings. “Survival will likely hinge on how forgiving managers find their LPs to be when they hit the fundraising trail again in coming years.”
The troubles follow a long, high-flying era. For more than a decade, rock-bottom interest rates and cheap financing helped firms scoop up businesses, re-engineer their finances and then unload them at lofty valuations. But when the Federal Reserve started hiking borrowing costs in 2022, the industry got stuck — unable to exit holdings at the prices and returns they had been touting in marketing pitches and updates to clients. …
Privately, many institutional investors concede that their expectations from private equity investments are muted for the next decade compared with the previous 10 years.

Perfect time to, uh, sell private equity to retail?

Once again, I find her communication skill and financial acumen as well as her historical knowledge well worth my time. Maybe yours, too?

So Gretchen Morgenson wound up at NBC. For many years she was a muckraking business reporter at the NYTimes. Mostly excellent, though IMHO she occasionally latched onto something so much that she went over the top. There's some of that here.
TIAA has been under pressure for a couple of decades to retain assets and improve profits. Like many employer plan providers, it began offering retirement plan advice once the Dept of Labor opened up the floodgates in 2006.
Of course TIAA's advisors steer participants into more expensive plans. An irony in the report is that it holds Vanguard out as a model of what should be done, when Vanguard just settled with the SEC for failing to "disclose to clients that its advisors had financial incentives to funnel them into certain managed accounts."
There are no white hats in this industry.
I largely agree with yogi that the article exhibits poor understanding of fixed annuity fees. But Morgenson knows better and does not lack for understanding. Her complaint here is over the top. One does not ask a bank what its expense ratios are on its CDs; the profits are built into the rates it offers. Likewise, one does not ask an insurance company what its expense ratios are on its fixed annuities.
Why not ask Vanguard what the "expense ratios" are of the underlying bonds in its MMF portfolios? Just how much does the Treasury make on its T-bills?
To nitpick, it looks like PTTRX (the only Pimco offering) and RERGX (the only American Funds offering) are only in RI's 457 plan, not the 401(a) plan that's the subject of the article.
https://www.tiaa.org/public/tcm/ri/view-all-investments