@Crash raises some serious questions. Do you invest primarily (1) for the purpose of increasing your personal wealth or (2) for promoting democratic rule and social justice? Personally I invest to increase my wealth. I vote and contribute money to candidates and institutions (ie PBS) that promote democratic governance and social justice. Two different things. Why conflate the two?
I do like to consider the macro picture in making investment decisions. So, sure, politics may enter in, especially as regards issues of taxation and regulation. (The independence of the Federal Reserve might be considered under macro.) But there are many other things to consider under macro like consumer / investor sentiment indicators, relative strength of competing global economies, weather patterns and trends in the FX markets. And I’m not ignoring the increasingly chaotic state of U.S. governance (which extends beyond any single individual). Consider that too under macro. Give it due consideration. But, ISTM that is different from simply buying or selling based on your own political preference.
It is quite possible to have a terrible economy under democratic rule (like the U.S. throughout the 1930s). Conversely, it is quite possible to have a strong economy under despotic rule (like Germany in the late 30s). Do I approve of despotic rule? No. I’m just saying don’t conflate making money with politics. Not the same. I doubt you’d be wealthier today had you sold all your equities on January 20th and moved to cash. But, Oh - You’d feel so much better. :)
”Hitler achieved notable economic and diplomatic successes during the first five years of his rule. Hitler substantially revived the economy. Unemployment, so pivotal in bringing him to power, had dropped from 6 million to less than 1 million between 1933 and 1937, this at a time when the US was still wallowing in the Depression. National production and income doubled during the same period. This was partly owing to Hitler's rearmament policy, but also to more benign forms of public spending. The world's first major highway system, the autobahns, began snaking across the country, and there was talk of providing every citizen with a cheap, standardized car, the people's car, or Volkswagen.”

@yogibearbull,
Thanks for the additional info regarding Jeffrey Gundlach.
Mr. Jacobson mentioned that several bond managers attempted to get him fired over the years.
I imagine Gundlach was one of them.

Performance fees in mutual funds are called fulcrum fees. The adjustments must be symmetric (same magnitude for under- and over-performance), like a seesaw and a fulcrum. And like a seesaw (that can't drop below the ground), the maximum adjustment is limited.
Many Fidelity funds have used fulcrum fees for the past decade. As noted in the column below from 2017, they sound better in theory than in reality.
https://www.wealthmanagement.com/mutual-funds/fidelity-s-fee-fix-for-active-funds-comes-up-short-2017-10-19-1-

Morningstar calculates that performance-fee funds have generated an average alpha -- or risk-adjusted outperformance relative to the appropriate broad market index -- of 0.22 percent annually over the last 15 years through September [2017]. By comparison, active funds that charge a flat fee generated an average alpha of 0.29 percent.
...
fulcrum fees leave lots of opportunities for misalignment. They create incentives for managers to take more risk when they’re losing to the benchmark and less risk when they’re winning, regardless of whether those changes are best for investors. [Rest of paragraph contains complaints about how fulcrum fees might be abused, e.g. by picking the wrong benchmark - something neither Fidelity nor Vanguard does.]

I'm troubled by Vanguard omitting the fee adjustment formula from the SAI. Three numbers are needed: (1) the base rate; (2) the maximum fee adjustment; and (3) the rate of adjustment (how many basis points added to management fee for how many percent outperformance).
This is from FLPSX's current SAI:

For Fidelity® Dividend Growth Fund, Fidelity® Low-Priced Stock Fund, Fidelity® OTC Portfolio, and Fidelity® Value Discovery Fund, each percentage point of difference, calculated to the nearest 0.01% (up to a maximum difference of ±10.00), is multiplied by a performance adjustment rate of 0.02% [item (3) above]. The maximum annualized performance adjustment rate [item (2) above] is ±0.20% of a fund's average net assets over the performance period.

The FLPSX prospectus says that its base rate is not more than 0.67% [item (1) above]
The supplements to the Vanguard prospectuses don't provide any of this information. For all we know, the current ER change for VPMAX from 0.29% to 0.27% is due not to a reduction in the base rate, but from a negative performance adjustment (underperforming the S&P 500 for the past three years).
That is, 0.27% could equal 0.29% (base) - 0.02% (performance penalty).
Or the base rate might actually have been reduced to 0.27% with a performance penalty of less than 1 basis point. Who knows?
IMHO - the new Vanguard performance adjustments are publicity, little more. How many people were even aware of Fidelity's adjustments? And of those who were, how many really cared? The adjustment is usually noise.
One exception: BRAGX. Unlike performance adjustments for most funds that are capped at small amounts, Bridgeway allows large adjustments, both positive and negative.
From Kiplinger, Jan 31, 2011

The fund’s record is now [YE 2010] so bad that it is paying customers to invest. This isn’t a joke. The expense structure of Aggressive Investors 1, as well as other Bridgeway funds, calls for higher management fees when the fund beats its benchmark and lower fees when it trails. Based on the formula, Bridgeway’s sponsor is now paying into Aggressive Investors 1 at an annual rate of 0.51% of assets.

I have a lot of funds in my watch list at M*, and almost all of them outperform RSP over all the time periods of a year, or more, M* tracks. That includes active and index funds. Of course I don't put too many dogs on the list.
If I look at funds that have been around for fifteen years the under-performers are mostly low-volatility funds that loss less than RSP, or actually gained, in 2022. Many of those go on to beat RSP over shorter M* periods.
And it's not just growth funds, VEIRX, VVOIX, and RWL all beat RSP across the M* time frames of a year, or more.

Eric JACOBSEN is VERY INFLUENTIAL at Morningstar.
Those familiar with history may remember that after a leak/tip to him about 2009 about Jeffrey Gundlach firing from TCW, he forced a REVOTE of 2009 Bond Manager of the Year and the result was changed from initial GUNDLACH to FUSS.
Jacobson then covered the new DoubleLine funds and rated some as unratable for years. I see that DLTNX / DBLTX (AUM $31 billion), for example, now shows Brian MORIARTY as the analyst. M* Analyst Archives don't go beyond 12/2022 and don't even show the analyst names. But the history lives in the Internet.
DoubleLine (AUM $50.57 billion) is what it is today due to Gundlach's determination and Howard MARK's initial funding and support for DoubleLine (of course, he got paid handsomely for his equity stake).

Maybe time to consider an ETF like RSP (S&P 500 Equal Weight)?

The S&P 500 without its top ten companies would have likely delivered lower returns in recent years but has historically demonstrated strong, and often superior, long-term performance compared to the highly concentrated, market-cap-weighted index.

Article:
more-equal-than-others-20-years-of-the-sp-500-equal-weight-index.pdf
In a slightly different direction...
This looked like a delicious side dish of information (link below) to bring to this S&P 500 discussion table:
https://visualcapitalist.com/sp-500-annual-returns-since-1874/

From Markets A.M. newsletter by Spencer Jakab.
On this day in 1990, the Shanghai Securities Exchange was re-established in China,
41 years after it was closed by the new Communist regime.

Ben Carlson included the following table in a blog post.

"There are companies that can stay in the top 10 for a very long time.
IBM was in there until 1990.
They were at the top of the heap all the way back in the 1960s.
Exxon was in the top 10 from 1980 to 2015 before finally dropping out."
"The other pattern is there is plenty of turnover at the top.
This table covers the top 10 every 5 years going back to 1980 so that’s 100 slots.
I count 42 different companies in total.
So on average there are roughly four new companies that enter the top 10 every 5 years."

"For roughly 40 years, PRIMECAP was paid a simple, asset-based fee: a set percentage of each fund’s assets, billed quarterly. In the six months ending in March 2025—the most recent data available—
Vanguard paid PRIMECAP Management nearly $113 million to run PRIMECAP (VPMCX),
PRIMECAP Core (VPCCX) and Capital Opportunity (VHCOX).
Annualized, that’s roughly $225 million in fees."
"Big numbers, yes—but on a base of roughly $110 billion in assets, it works out to about 0.20%—
a reasonable price for access to one of the industry’s most successful stock-picking teams."
"From now on, though, PRIMECAP will be paid differently: a base fee plus or minus a performance adjustment.
In English, PRIMECAP will earn more when it beats its benchmark and less when it lags it."
https://www.independentvanguardadviser.com/weekly-brief-perspective-precision-and-primecap/?ref=the-independent-vanguard-adviser-newsletter
Edit: PRIMECAP fund ticker corrected.

Following are excerpts from a current report in The Wall Street Journal:

The chief executive of Robinhood Markets took the stage at the online brokerage’s annual summit in Las Vegas this fall decked out in a race-car driver’s jumpsuit and customized Nikes.
Vlad Tenev told the hundreds of cheering traders in the audience that they had chosen “one of the most intense lifestyles out there.” He compared trading to driving a race car. “A finely tuned machine can make all the difference,” he said, “and that’s the role we feel Robinhood plays for our active investors.”
Risk-taking is back for individual investors, and few people have done more to stoke those spirits than the 38-year-old Tenev. Robinhood’s trading app makes it easy not just to buy and sell ordinary stocks, but to invest in options, cryptocurrencies and other exotic financial products, even to make sports bets and play the prediction markets.
The company’s critics liken the environment to a casino, but its fans credit Robinhood with democratizing the lucrative world of sophisticated investments.
“He’s almost building a cult,” said Aaron Cook, a 28-year-old plumber who was in the audience in Las Vegas. Cook said he had used his profits from trading stocks, options and memecoins to buy a Jeep Wrangler and a $60,000 home.
A host of new products have entered retail-investment markets in recent years and worked their way into the mainstream. Investors are wagering on the price of bitcoin and piling into ultrarisky types of options, such as the “zero-day” variety that expire rapidly and require perfect timing. They are buying futures contracts tied to all sorts of events, betting on whether a Taylor Swift album will top the Spotify charts or whether the Green Bay Packers will beat the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day.

Comments:
• Gambling from your own home! What can possibly go wrong?
    (Other than maybe losing the home?)
• A $60,000 home?     Say what???

Hi @hank et al
I recall others here, over the years writing about similar restrictions at other organizations, too, regarding restrictions; trading mutual funds (OEF's).
This is a general Fidelity overview, believed to be accurate. Full legal details are available at their web site, regarding trading restrictions.
--- Fidelity has strict rules regarding trading its own funds to discourage excessive, short-term trading. These include a "roundtrip" policy that blocks future purchases for 85 days after a second roundtrip is made within 90 days or the fourth across all Fidelity funds in a 12-month period.
Other rules include specific trading restrictions for different account types, such as pattern day trading restrictions for margin accounts, and restrictions for "good faith" and "free riding" violations in cash accounts. 
Excessive trading policy Roundtrip limit: A roundtrip is defined as a purchase and then a sale or exchange sell of a mutual fund within 30 days.
Second roundtrip: A second roundtrip in a single fund within 90 days results in an 85-day block on purchases and exchanges for that fund.
Four roundtrips: Making four roundtrips across all Fidelity funds within 12 months will trigger an 85-day block on purchases and exchanges for all accounts linked to the same Social Security number.
Exemptions: These rules generally do not apply to amounts under \(\$25,000\), Fidelity Money Market Funds, dividend/capital gains reinvestments sold within 30 days, or through automatic investments/withdrawals. 
Account-specific restrictions Margin accounts: Day trading is defined as buying and selling the same security on the same day. Pattern day traders must maintain a minimum equity of \(\$25,000\).
Cash accounts: "Good faith" violations can occur by selling a security purchased with unsettled funds before it settles. A "free riding" violation occurs when you sell a security without ever having paid for it.
Consequences: Three good faith violations or one free riding violation in a 12-month period will result in a 90-day restriction requiring you to trade only with settled funds.
Day trade calls: For margin accounts, a day trade call is generated when opening trades exceed your day trade buying power and are closed the same day.
Meeting calls: You have five business days to meet a day trade call.
Restrictions: Three day trade liquidations (selling an existing position to meet a day trade call) within a 12-month period will result in a restricted status. 
Other trading rules 
Day trading: A "pattern day trader" is generally defined as someone who executes four or more day trades within a 12-month period.
Good faith violations: Selling a security that was purchased with unsettled funds before the funds have settled is a "good faith" violation.
Free riding violations: This occurs when you sell a security without ever having paid for it.
Restrictions: Violations can lead to trading restrictions, such as the 90-day restriction to only use settled funds. 

Ditto what @msf said above about “near cash” funds. One big mistake several years ago was keeping a taxable account in TRBUX (ultra-short) as a cash reserve for one year and reinvesting the dividends. Come tax time I had dozens and dozens of my own buys and sells at fluctuating NAVs as well as the monthly dividends that reinvested at varying prices. A nightmare to sort out.

Fido put trading restrictions on my account for a time for reasons they wouldn’t share with me (although I had an inkling). There was no ETA for when they would be lifted nor was there any information I could provide to allay their concerns. The restrictions were eventually lifted. I was glad I had accounts with Chuck if I needed to make some market moves.

Sorry to hear. I had trading restrictions big time at Fido right after transferring to them. Sucks. So you make a great point about spreading risk around. To view restrictions click on “Balances” at the top first. Then scroll down to near bottom of page.
ISTM a trading restriction prevents your using the proceeds from a sale (unsettled funds) immediately for some other purchase. That was a bigger problem before they cut settlement time back from 2 days to 1. The easiest way (but not the only way) to incur a restriction is to buy something with unsettled funds and then turn right around and sell it before the funds used to buy it have settled.
In addition I found Fidelity had some unusually strict rules regarding trading their own funds that are different from dealing with other providers. So be sure to check those if own any. It’s one reason I hardly ever own their own funds.
Support? As I noted elsewhere, I think the phone support at Fido has slipped since I transferred in 5-6 years ago.

The very unusual situation of poor sentiments and indicators near market highs has been noted in the media and at MFO. The K-economy explanation sounds reasonable.
AAII Sentiment is survey based (and so is the UM sentiment - not included here), but other indicators are measurement based and that is concerning.
How to use this information depends on the readers. It has been tracked here and elsewhere for years - every Thursday morning like clockwork!
Personally, I don't sell when sentiments and indicators are very negative. I don't time and always have market exposure suitable for my comfortable sleep level.
As a corollary, I won't buy when sentiments and indicators are very positive.
Should one buy here? There seem selected opportunities - lots of stuff is lagging in this narrowly led market. But beware that the lagging stuff would also be hit hard in any market selloff.

@yogobearbull. Keep posting here. Your sentiment posts are appreciated. We just saw what occurs when sentiment gets near bearish extremes and in some sentiment indicators near all time historical extremes.

The very unusual situation of poor sentiments and indicators near market highs has been noted in the media and at MFO. The K-economy explanation sounds reasonable.
AAII Sentiment is survey based (and so is the UM sentiment - not included here), but other indicators are measurement based and that is concerning.
How to use this information depends on the readers. It has been tracked here and elsewhere for years - every Thursday morning like clockwork!
Personally, I don't sell when sentiments and indicators are very negative. I don't time and always have market exposure suitable for my comfortable sleep level.
As a corollary, I won't buy when sentiments and indicators are very positive.
Should one buy here? There seem selected opportunities - lots of stuff is lagging in this narrowly led market. But beware that the lagging stuff would also be hit hard in any market selloff.

From @Sven's link:

Nonetheless, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are set to collectively sink around $400 billion on AI this year, mostly for funding data centers. Some of the companies are set to devote about 50% of their current cash flow to data center construction.
Or to put it another way: every iPhone user on earth would have to pay more than $250 to pay for that amount of spending. "That's not going to happen," Kedrosky said.

One reason it won't happen is because Apple is not investing in AI the way the other companies are. https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/apple-s-12-7b-ai-bet-defies-big-tech-s-capex-arms-race.
OTOH, they do have a history of making big announcements to placate politicians. This article at Forbes is paywalled, but I got in for free, you might too.

When I asked Andy Thurai, VP and principal analyst at Constellation Research, what he thought about Apple’s latest announcement to invest all that money in the United States, he said “Apple is known to navigate the political scenes smartly but never follow through with it.” That’s not what you’d expect to hear, especially when you consider the sheer size of this multibillion dollar investment — but Thurai’s answer is steeped in history.
For example, he said, right after former U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Apple pledged to spend $430 billion and add 20,000 jobs over five years and that never materialized. “They also pledged during Trump’s first term that they would directly contribute to the U.S. economy in the order of $350 billion over the next five years and create 20,000 jobs, which they didn’t follow through either,” Thurai added.

Thanks for sharing @Old_Joe. Someone said this AI-mania ended worse, much worse than that of the dot-com bubble.
Here is a piece I read from NPR (there are many others i come across). Short excerpt:

There is reason to be skeptical. A growing body of research indicates most firms are not seeing chatbots affect their bottom lines, and just 3% of people pay for AI, according to one analysis.
"These models are being hyped up, and we're investing more than we should," said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at MIT, who was awarded the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Bubbling questions about the limits of the AI revolution
CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR
Bubbling questions about the limits of the AI revolution
"I have no doubt that there will be AI technologies that will come out in the next ten years that will add real value and add to productivity, but much of what we hear from the industry now is exaggeration," he said.
Nonetheless, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft are set to collectively sink around $400 billion on AI this year, mostly for funding data centers. Some of the companies are set to devote about 50% of their current cash flow to data center construction.
Or to put it another way: every iPhone user on earth would have to pay more than $250 to pay for that amount of spending. "That's not going to happen," Kedrosky said.
To avoid burning up too much of its cash on hand, big Silicon Valley companies, like Meta and Oracle, are tapping private equity and debt to finance the industry's data center building spree.

https://npr.org/2025/11/23/nx-s1-5615410/ai-bubble-nvidia-openai-revenue-bust-data-centers

I use Vanguard only for brokerage services. Have no issues with them and use my local bank to transfer money back and fourth with Vanguard with no problems in the last 10+ years.

I have accounts at Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard. Schwab imo is the best one stop shop solution because it has a real bank vs. the other two. So you get Zelle for example. A real bank also makes it easier to wire in/out vs. the convoluted nonsense at Fidelity.
The biggest downside of Schwab is that the MMF cannot be used as a core fund, there's always manual MMF trading required when one is buying/selling investments. I have never stepped into the offices of any brokerage in 25+ years.
Schwab has excellent customer service, better than Fidelity or Vanguard by a long stretch. Fidelity has a solid website. Vanguard lowest ER's for sure but sub-par website and customer service.
The 500K SIPC limit reason for splitting across multiple brokerages and accounts makes intuitive sense but at some point it becomes unwieldy to manage. Honestly, if any of these three brokerages melt down, it will pretty much be beans and bunker time so I wouldn't worry about the 500K thingy.

@gman57 "Haven't been to a brick and mortar bank/brokerage in 20, maybe 30,40 years that I can remember."
Are you printing your cash needs?

Joined a credit union back in the early 80's, everything done by mail back then, internet now.
Cash == ATM's that have been around forever at local business like grocery store, gas station once every 6 months or so, even less now. I guess you could call an ATM at 7-11 or Lowe's Food a bank.