(sorry, no diet preferences in 'this most important overview' thread)
the politico article seems like pretentious nothingburger to get the rightwing agitated.
dont like gov stats , such as on inflation? do some work, there have been independent trackers around for a long time, and what's more, they dont hide behind opaque proprietary nonsense. (which frankly, should be a source of shame from someone trying to brand as 'Ludwig'...austrians rolling over)
there are signs that gov stats will become more opaque, or going away all together, so i guess there is that.
finally, the author lost a lot of credibility claiming there was some miraculous insight on the economy from voters pre-election. the same voters now poll the trump economy is great, even though there hasnt been enough time for much change.
its just the media has suddenly stopped assigning political blame for egg, car, and house prices.
the simplest story is that income inequality has been getting worse for >2 decades, and the masses somehow think this will improve under corrupt billionaires despite results under trump 1.0
the longterm impact of the highest accelerating wealthgap ever seen :
"...in a country where people are facing systematically higher financial and job insecurity, the people are, on average, less likely to save. This widens the current account deficit of that country (the current account essentially indicates the savings preferences vs. investments of a country). I know, I am going out on a limb here and I am not going to point my fingers at specific countries with low job and financial security, but if you are running a country with a massive current account deficit, maybe one way to improve the current account deficit would be to increase financial security and reduce financial stress in your society, rather than engage in mercantilist economics."
https://klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/ambiguity-is-worse-than-risk

Beware that preferred "stocks" are really debt of very long or indefinite maturities
That's a good practical description, i.e. from the investor's perspective preferred stocks are debt. Though for most tax purposes they are treated as dividend-paying equity as Mark noted.
However, from an accounting perspective they may be treated as equity depending on a whole lot of complex rules.

This is from PwC: Classification of Preferred Stock
The FGs refer to other figures (flow charts) on that page giving more details.
ASCs refer to GAAP rules. "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification® (Codification or ASC) is the single source of authoritative nongovernmental U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP)."
https://asc.fasb.org/Home
IMHO this is way more than non-CPAs should care about.
Apparently in Canada, "For non-financial corporates, preferred shares are classified as 50% debt and 50% equity on a corporation’s balance sheet." Much simpler :-)
RBC, A guide to preferred shares

Thank you for posting that article @hank. No expert here but I do own a handful of preferred securities in my taxable account offered by CHS, a global agribusiness cooperative, intentionally for the qualified dividends. I don't own financial preferred's because many, if not all, are noncumulative.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1047712/000119312525030708/d835373d497.htm
497 1 d835373d497.htm UNDISCOVERED MANAGERS FUNDS
UNDISCOVERED MANAGERS FUNDS
Undiscovered Managers Behavioral Value Fund
(the “Fund”)
(All Share Classes)
Supplement dated February 20, 2025
to the Current Prospectuses, Summary Prospectuses and Statements of Additional
Information, as supplemented
Effective as of the close of business on April 1, 2025 (the “Closing Date”), the Fund is offered on a limited basis and investors are not eligible to purchase shares of the Fund, except as described below. In addition, both before and after the Closing Date, the Fund may from time to time, in its sole discretion based on the Fund’s net asset levels and other factors, limit new purchases into the Fund or otherwise modify the closure policy at any time on a case-by-case basis.
The following groups will be permitted to continue to purchase Fund shares. Except as otherwise described below, shareholders of record are permitted to continue to purchase shares; if the shareholder of record is an omnibus account, beneficial owners in that account as of the applicable closing date are permitted to continue to purchase:
•Shareholders of record of the Fund as of the Closing Date are able to continue to purchase additional shares in their existing Fund accounts and may continue to reinvest dividends or capital gains distributions from shares owned in the Fund;
•Shareholders of record of the Fund as of the Closing Date are able to add to their existing Fund accounts through exchanges from other J.P. Morgan Funds;
•Group Retirement Plans (as defined in the glossary) (and their successor, related and affiliated plans), which have the Fund available to participants on or before the Closing Date may continue to open accounts for new participants and can purchase additional shares in existing participant accounts. A new Group Retirement Plan may establish a new account with the Fund only if the Group Retirement Plan has been accepted for investment by the Fund and its distributor by May 1, 2025 and the plan’s account with the Fund must be either funded by the plan or available to participant directed investments by October 31, 2025. The funding date for plans approved by May 1st may be extended with approval by the Fund and its distributor;
•Fully discretionary fee-based advisory programs, where investment discretion (fund and investment allocations) solely reside with the Financial Intermediary’s home office and where the Financial Intermediary’s home office has full authority to make investment changes without approval from the shareholder, may continue to utilize the Fund for new and existing program accounts. This includes affiliated platforms that have approval from the Fund and its distributor. These programs must be accepted for continued investment by the Fund and its distributor by the Closing Date. Additionally, after the Closing Date, new fully discretionary fee-based advisory programs may utilize the Fund for program accounts only with the approval by the Fund and its distributor;
•Registered Investment Advisory firms who have included the Fund in their discretionary models by the closing date and utilize an approved clearing platform may continue to make Fund shares available to new and existing accounts. These particular firms must be accepted for continued investment by the Fund and its distributor on or before the Closing Date;
•Other fee-based advisory programs (including Rep as Advisor and Portfolio Manager programs) may continue to utilize the Fund for existing program accounts, but will not be able to open new program accounts after the Closing Date;
•Model portfolios directed by J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. (“JPMIM”), and J.P. Morgan Funds that are permitted to invest in other J.P. Morgan Funds, may purchase shares of the Fund; and
•Named investment professionals listed in the Fund’s prospectus may utilize the Fund for both new accounts and existing Fund accounts.
INVESTORS SHOULD RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT WITH THE
PROSPECTUSES, SUMMARY PROSPECTUSES AND
STATEMENTS OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

We can quibble about interpretation all that we want to, but it does nothing to change the fact that the government was telling the voters that all was OK, but the voters weren't buying it.
For many months prior to the elections Judy Woodruff of the PBS Newshour conducted focus groups across the United States. Some groups agreed with certain aspects and issues of the coming election, others disagreed.
However: every group felt that the financial condition of the United States that they saw bore little resemblance to any information being produced by the government.
Bottom Line: Donald Trump.

One final point regarding governmental statistical reporting: such reporting is presumably of value to reflect the real financial environment of the citizens and voters of the United States.
From the recent election results is is evident that those citizens and voters are in strong disagreement with the financial picture presented by those reports. That disagreement is a major factor in the present national disaster of the current administration.

@BaluBalu- I have no idea why you are accusing Mark of "abuse".
First of all, he does not "have two threads to discuss the same thing". Mark chose to post his thread in the Off-Topic section, and because I felt that it was of legitimate financial interest I posted this thread to channel readers to it.
You are welcome to your opinion regarding Mark's thread, but to accuse the report's author of intellectual dishonesty is unsubstantiated and abusive. Just because someone has a differing financial perspective certainly does not equal "dishonesty". Personally, I feel that the author of the report in question is correct, and that the statistics used by the government fail to accurately represent the existing financial conditions for the average American.
I fail to see where Mark has attempted to "force other people"to do anything at all, and I also fail to understand your evident animus towards his postings.

@bee “These articles focus on workplace employment statistics, yet ignore the very important non-paying and non-workplace work many of us do for our loved ones and how these hard choices impact the workplace.”
I think this is a valuable insight. I imagine the financial pressure (not to mention the emotional/psychological impact) would be experienced very differently.

Good read.
The opening sentence in the second paragraph has wrong information.
I thought you can not open a new financial account if your credit is frozen. The article says otherwise. At least that was my experience with Bank of America even though I already have accounts with them.
I shall let others proof out the article.

”We've heard over and over, do not let the political environment sway your investing decisions.”
@Crash - That’s probably great advice for 80-90% of investors - mostly younger and employed - who research shows are usually better off letting it ride. I’d still give that advice to a 25 year old just starting out with maybe 40 years to retirement.
But take a look at the “Buy Sell” thread. ”Set-it- and-forget-it” ? Huh? ISTM most who frequent financial forums like this one do alter their investments quite a bit year-to-year. So, of course, political climate affects their decision making and is worth discussing.

Right. Dare I assert that most of us here are NOT spring chickens anymore? I'm having repeat surgery coming up in March.... As Leonard Cohen said: "I ache in the places where I used to play." (Tower Of Song.)
**********
Skip right to 0:20. (LOUD start!)
Crescent Street mural, Montreal:

”We've heard over and over, do not let the political environment sway your investing decisions.”
@Crash - That’s probably great advice for 80-90% of investors - mostly younger and employed - who research shows are usually better off letting it ride. I’d still give that advice to a 25 year old just starting out with maybe 40 years to retirement.
But take a look at the “Buy Sell” thread. ”Set-it- and-forget-it” ? Huh? Not to pick on the thread … but ISTM most who frequent financial forums like this one do alter their investments quite a bit year-to-year. So, of course, political climate affects their decision making along with a myriad of other considerations / assessments and may be worth discussion.

I agree with @msf (different thread) that ”Many people find government pronouncements and actions relevant to investing.”
- There’s a thread along that line offered up by @Soupkitchen January 28 in the OT section - mostly buried now by the avalanche of anti-Trump posts & comments. Worth a second look. Where America is Heading and your Investments.
Like everyone else I’m looking for clues. From the two financial blogs / newsletters I subscribe to, here’s what I’ve gleaned …
- On February 3 Bill Fleckenstein wrote: ”Lastly, on the subject of Trump tape bombs, while we should expect them to be a feature of his term, they may become less frequent, and we may get a better handle on what they individually mean. Even so, I think they mandate carrying a little bit more cash or being slightly less aggressive than one might ordinarily be because they can literally come out of nowhere and gaming whether Trump is serious or not will be hard to do in real time.” https://www.fleckensteincapital.com/dailyrap.aspx?rapdate=02-03-2025
- James Stack (InvestTech) actually raised his recommended “Net-Long” market exposure a few percentage points from around 55% to 58% about the time Trump took office (but didn’t connect the two). Stack has been extremely cautious for a couple years. The remainder, he advises, should be in T-Bills or money market funds. https://www.investech.com/
- And Barron’s this week features several Trump related articles - not all complementary. One, titled ”11 Tariff-Proof Dividend Stocks”, mentions consumer staples, financials and energy as among the better plays on that theme. Another article, ”The Markets Trust Trump. How to Trade It”, focuses on options plays. A third article notes that there has been a sharp uptick in very wealthy investors moving wealth abroad, some out of fear of a weaker dollar, but in some cases from fear of retribution by the party they opposed.
It should go without saying that other investment ideas / suggestions are appreciated. Nobody really knows at this point. But risk is inherent in most investing. If it were safe or easy the rewards would be small.

Feb 15th Episode:

“Rethinking Investing” is legendary financial consultant Charley Ellis’ “eureka” moment when all his investment wisdom and experience came together in one short volume.
ONE INVESTMENT
ELLIS: LONG, LONG RUN INVESTMENT
Buy a low cost index fund or ETF of your choice
Slight tax benefit to ETFs

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/822977/000119312525026998/d919923d497.htm
497 1 d919923d497.htm GOLDMAN SACHS TRUST
GOLDMAN SACHS TRUST
Class A, Class C, Institutional, Investor, Class R6 and Class P Shares of the
Goldman Sachs Global Real Estate Securities Fund
Supplement dated February 14, 2025 to the
Prospectuses, Summary Prospectuses and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”),
each dated April 29, 2024, each as supplemented to date
At a meeting held on February 11-12, 2025, upon the recommendation of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P., the Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Goldman Sachs Trust (the “Trust”) approved a proposal to liquidate the Goldman Sachs Global Real Estate Securities Fund (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust. After careful consideration of a number of factors, the Board concluded that it is advisable and in the best interest of the Fund and its shareholders to liquidate the Fund. The Fund is expected to be liquidated on or about April 14, 2025 (the “Liquidation Date”), pursuant to a Plan of Liquidation approved by the Board. The Liquidation Date may be changed without notice at the discretion of the Trust’s officers.
Suspension of Sales. Shares of the Fund will no longer be available for purchase as of the close of business on March 14, 2025, except that existing shareholders of the Fund may continue to purchase shares of the Fund until March 28, 2025. To the extent there are any dividend or distribution payments made prior to the Liquidation Date with respect to the Fund, they will continue to be paid either in cash, in additional shares of the Fund, or in shares of other Goldman Sachs Funds, depending on each shareholder’s current election, as disclosed in the Prospectuses.
Liquidation of Assets. Effective immediately, the Fund may depart from its stated investment objective and policies as it prepares to liquidate and distribute its assets to shareholders. It is anticipated that the Fund’s portfolio will be positioned into cash, cash equivalents or other liquid assets on or prior to the Liquidation Date. In connection with the liquidation, all outstanding shares of the Fund on the Liquidation Date will be automatically redeemed by the Fund. Each shareholder of record of the Fund on the Liquidation Date will receive proceeds of the automatic redemptions equal to the shareholder’s proportionate interest in the Fund’s net assets plus accrued and unpaid earnings of the Fund at the time of liquidation. Shares held in custodial IRA accounts directly with the Fund’s transfer agent on the Liquidation Date will be exchanged for the equivalent share class of the Goldman Sachs Financial Square Government Fund, a registered money market fund, unless an alternative direction is provided prior to the Liquidation Date. The liquidation of the Fund’s portfolio will result in increased transaction costs, which must be borne by the Fund and its shareholders and may result in higher capital gains for taxable shareholders. Shareholders should contact their tax advisers concerning the tax consequences of the liquidation.
Other Alternatives. At any time prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may redeem their shares of the Fund and receive the net asset value thereof in cash or in-kind, as provided in the Prospectuses. Shareholders may also exchange their shares for shares of the same class of another Goldman Sachs Fund at net asset value without imposition of an initial sales charge or a contingent deferred sales charge. Redemption of shares by current shareholders between February 14, 2025 and the Liquidation Date will not be subject to any applicable contingent deferred sales charge.
Certain shareholders may redeem all or a portion of their shares of the Fund before the Liquidation Date, and as a result the Fund and its remaining shareholders may experience adverse effects. These shareholder redemptions may also negatively impact a Fund’s net asset value per share.
This Supplement should be retained with your Prospectuses, Summary Prospectuses and SAI for future reference.
RESLIQSTK 02-25

Let me guess.
Dems=great. GOP=Terrible. Until the next election we will see daily articles like thism
The only problem is that great Dems used to be Kennedy and Clinton. Something to ponder.

Instead of posting this poppycock, as difficult as it is for you, try explaining how Americans benefit by the sudden closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Show us where anybody has written that the "Dems = great", or anything to that effect. You can't.
Taking away protections removes stability in the markets and in society. The end result is not desirable. How does this MAGA? It doesn't - it's mainly political, and likely for the self-enrichment of a select few at the top of the chain. The dark side of the finance sector - i.e. con men (not naming any in particular) also gain an advantage.
Consumers are left exposed.
As @davidmoran summarized...." the best way to explain the sudden closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.... is as part of an effort to make predatory finance great again."

Gosh, why would Dump want to remove consumer protections????
https://www.thedailybeast.com/more-than-800k-have-lost-2b-on-trumps-meme-coin/
"President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency, called $Trump, has cost investors billions. Trump announced the launch of his meme coin—a type of cryptocurrency that features Internet memes or celebrity mascots—just three days before his inauguration. [... ]Meanwhile, the Trumps have raked in over $100 million in trading fees as Trump makes moves to curb government efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies.
“The president is participating in shady crypto schemes that harm investors while at the same time appointing financial regulators who will roll back protections for victims and who may insulate him and his family from enforcement,” Corey Frayer, who recently left his job as a crypto adviser to the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the New York Times."

Danielle R. Sassoon, the US attorney who prosecuted Sam Bankman-Fried for fraud involving the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, just resigned as interim head of the SDNY office. Though not because Trump didn't like her (he had just named her interim head), nor because of a lack of the "right" credentials (she had clerked for Scalia and is a member of the Federalist Society).
Rather because she refused to drop the prosecution against (soon to be former?) Mayor Adams.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/nyregion/danielle-sassoon-quit-eric-adams.html

Thanks.
FYI - if your TD account was transitioned over to Schwab, I am told by Schwab rep that both of your consolidated 1099s will appear on the 1099 Dashboard under the new Schwab account number (and not in a separate, clearly identified subsection).
My dashboard says I will receive them on Feb 28.
Has anyone received their’s.

An update. The above information is incorrect. (Now you know why I keep checking with you guys about answers I receive from brokerage Reps.)
If your TD account was transitioned over to Schwab, under the 1099 Dashboard section (in the Statements and Tax Forms tab) the TD 1099s will appear under a separate heading "TD Ameritrade Tax Forms" below the group of Schwab 1099s which would be under "Charles Schwab Brokerage Tax Forms." If you have a few accounts in the Dashboard, you may have to scroll down a bit to get to the TD Ameritrade Tax Forms sub section (right above the Statements and Documents section). (In my linked accounts, the TD Ameritrade Tax Forms sub section or heading was not there as of yesterday, which prompted me to call Schwab yesterday to find out how I would locate the TD 1099s when they become available.)
You can also get to all your tax forms by going to the Statements and Documents section (make sure the Tax Forms option is selected). However, know that this feature can be glitchy sometimes and may not display properly (like right now it shows zero documents for me but when I started drafting this post, it was fully populated). My suggestion is to use 1099 Dashboard as your primary access for 1099s.
Yesterday, when I spoke with the Rep, I suggested to him that they put all the TD tax forms in a separate subsection but he insisted it is too late for that suggestion and that for each account, TD 1099 will be labeled with TDA and placed below the Schwab 1099 (which does not have a Schwab label and that is how you know what is available). I can not imagine Schwab redesigned the webpage presentation overnight based on my suggestion - may be other customers too already made similar suggestions or the Rep I spoke with was simply wrong. I must say Schwab, as a company, has acted on more of my suggestions than all other financial institutions combined. TDA made Schwab a better company for me and I am happy with the merger /acquisition.
P.S.: my legacy Schwab account 1099 was available on Jan 24. My transitioned TD 1099 became available today. My transitioned Schwab 1099 is still pending. For the accounts I baby sit, all the legacy and transitioned 1099s became available today. I personally am not in a hurry to get the 1099s as I would rather Schwab does not have to issue Corrected forms. Only letting the forum members know that many of the previously "available 2/28/2025" tax forms already became available. So, keep checking your account if you are anxious to get your tax return going.
(Not necessarily useful information to this post - As much as I love the new Schwab, one thing I would like Schwab Reps to learn is to assess the customer's level of sophistication before opening their mouth to make the conversation productive (short and sweet) - TDA Reps were very good at this and I could till today tell which Schwab Rep is a legacy TDA Rep and which one was hired by Schwab.)

"So the best way to explain the sudden closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
as I see it, is as part of an effort to make predatory finance great again."
This isn't surprising when we have a money-grubbing grifter par excellence in the Oval Office!

relatedly:
Springtime for Scammers
Financial predation now has friends in high places
Paul Krugman
Feb 11
Just over two years ago Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion — $1.7 billion in penalties and $2 billion in damages — to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As the New York Times report put it, the payments were
to settle claims that it engaged in an array of banking violations over the last decade that harmed millions of consumers
The Times went on to explain:
The consumer protection bureau said Wells Fargo did not record customer payments on home and auto loans properly, wrongfully repossessed some borrowers’ cars and homes and charged overdraft fees even when customers had enough money to cover purchases they made with their bank cards.
This settlement followed earlier scandals at Wells Fargo, notably the “cross-selling scandal” in which, among other things, bank employees opened as many as 2 million accounts in customers’ names without their authorization. Altogether the bank has paid $6.2 billion in penalties since 2016.
Overall, according to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who conceived of CFPB, the bureau “has returned over $21 billion to families cheated by Wall Street.”
But now the agency that won those settlements has been effectively abolished. On Monday Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025, the new director of the Office of Management and Budget and now CFPB’s acting head, sent the email above to all of the agency’s staff telling them to stay away from the office and do no work.
What’s this about? Let’s start by asking why CFPB was created.
The truth is that defending oneself against financial fraud is hard work. Do you carefully go through your bank statement every month, looking for possible unjustified fees? I know a few people who do, but most of us have too much else going on in our lives. When you take out a car loan, or invest for your retirement, do you go over the fine print with a magnifying glass, making sure you understand everything? Probably not. People have children to raise, jobs to do, lives to live. Cognitive overload is a real thing, and it’s worse the further down the income scale you go — the cognitive burden of poverty has been extensively documented.
So what we do, most of the time, is trust financial institutions to be relatively honest, if only to protect their reputations. And we expect government regulators to step in when financial players abuse that trust.
What we learned in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis was that much of this trust had been misplaced. Corporate cultures in the financial industry came to prioritize short-run profits over long-term reputation. Deregulation and lax regulation permitted widespread abuses. Most notably, the boom in subprime lending led to many families being sold financial products they didn’t understand, with lower-income borrowers receiving the worst treatment. As the late Edward Gramlich, a Federal Reserve official who tried in vain to warn his colleagues about the dangers, wrote:
Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers? The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.
But why create a new agency to limit these abuses? Don’t we already have bank regulators? Yes, but these regulators are primarily focused on securing the stability of the financial system. Protecting consumers from fraud is at best an afterthought.
Warren’s insight was that protecting consumers required creating a separate agency with its own institutional imperatives. And she was right: By any reasonable standard, CFPB has been an outstanding success story.
Why, then, rush to shutter the agency? By the way, this action, like much of what the Trump administration is doing, is almost surely illegal. It probably also won’t surprise you to learn that DOGE appears to have illegally been given access to much of the agency’s data.
Well, it’s illuminating to read the section on abolishing CFPB in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership. According to the Mandate,
the agency has been assailed by critics as a shakedown mechanism to provide unaccountable funding to leftist nonprofits
Notice the careful wording: The document doesn’t assert that CFPB actually is a “shakedown mechanism” (which might have led to a lawsuit) but merely that “critics” have made that accusation. And if you follow the footnotes, the assault by critics appears to consist solely of three opinion pieces, one in the New York Post, one in the Wall Street Journal and one in Investors’ Business Daily.
Incidentally, that Investors’ Business Daily article accuses CFPB of funneling money to “radical Acorn-style pressure groups.” Does anyone not deeply mired in the fever swamps of right-wing conspiracy theory even remember what Acorn — a political association that was disbanded in 2010 — was?
Overall, Project 2025’s attack on the CFPB bears a family resemblance to Elon Musk’s claim that USAID is a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.” It’s a bit milder, but equally absurd, and is clearly not the real reason for killing the agency.
So what is the real reason? It seems fairly obvious. CFPB was created to protect Americans from financial predation, and has done a very good job of doing so. But now we have government of, by and for financial predators. Trump has famously left behind a trail of bankruptcies and unpaid contractors, and is furiously grifting even now. Musk has faced multiple lawsuits from vendors and former employees over unpaid debts.
And let’s not forget that crypto, which has gained a lot of influence with this administration, has yet to find a real-world use case other than money laundering.
So the best way to explain the sudden closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as I see it, is as part of an effort to make predatory finance great again.