@Sven

What is your next adventure after selling the house?

I bought a condo in FL (Palm Beach County) a few years back. Paid $35K in 2012 which was a good time to buy. It does have an HOA (that includes Cable, water, maintenance, building insurance, pools, tennis, guard house), but taxes are 1/10th of what I was paying for the house. I own the condo free and clear.
I have lowered my living expenses in half while multiplying almost every other aspect of my living conditions (especially nicer weather). Hot Humid Summers can last many months in South Florida so I plan on traveling during those months once travel normalizes.

About 1 year ago I wrote this:

USAA recently "sold" their Investment division to Charles Schwab for $1.8 Billion. That's $1,800,000,000 in cash. USAA will transfer $90 Billion in assets to Schwab sometime in May 2020. I asked how individual investors (there are 1 million) will benefit from this sale. I am still waiting for that answer. This latest move may not mean anything for the orphan investors who are leaving USAA for Schwab. Doesn't look like individual account holders will receive any of this $1.8B as a "bonus" for this asset transfer.
The 1 million investors seem due some it not all of this windfall.

Instead of sitting still and letting my assets move uncompensated I instead actively move my assets twice. Once to Merrill Edge and then again to TD Ameritrade. I received bonus transfers totaling $2,500 which neither Schwab nor USAA where willing to offer me.
I am again facing a similar scenario at TD Ameritrade:

Charles Schwab SCHW has concluded the acquisition of TD Ameritrade Holding for roughly $22 billion. This led to creation of a behemoth in online brokerage space with combined client assets of more than $6 trillion and serving nearly 28 million brokerage accounts.

That's $6,000,000,000,000 AUM. The average account balance ($6T/28M accounts) is about $272K / account. TD paid me a bonus transfer of $1,500. This will not be offered to me if I sit and wait for the "acquisition transfer" to happen between TD and Schwab.
Any good "Bonus balance transfer" offer out there?

Had I rented instead of owned, my housing costs (average $1K / month over 35 years) would have been about $350K. So maybe...just maybe... "owning" (the bank owed the home most of the 35 years) my property was a break even proposition financially.

The realtors tell the buyers the opposite. We own a simple home in a good neighborhood and schools for our kids. Not the type who wants a palace.
What is your next adventure after selling the house?

Speaking of the usual five-line monstrosities!
How about a little class? Like maybe "Increasing Disconnect".

increasing disconnect
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=116&emc=edit_pk_20201013&instance_id=23090&nl=paul-krugman&productCode=PK&regi_id=22268089&segment_id=40840&te=1&uri=nyt://newsletter/54621c24-3126-5dbb-a01f-62c39cc6cc7c

The markets were open (and way up) yesterday. But the banks were closed, which is why Fidelity wouldn't count yesterday as a business day for paying bills.

Equity markets were open but bond markets were closed. That’s weird as there’d seem to be a fine line between some types of bonds (ie: C-rated corporates & convertibles ) and equities. T. Rowe showed modest changes in at least some of their bond funds nonetheless. Makes one wonder ,,, although foreign holdings might account for some change. (Possibly FVP as well).
Here’s the story -
“The United States bond market never officially shuts down, but it observes the holiday trading schedule recommended by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).
Bond market holidays are not enforced, but merely recommended. However, the U.S. Treasury market has been closed for trading on Columbus Day dating back to the depression-era, so SIFMA again recommended it remained closed.
The reason for this is more practical than historical. Columbus Day is a bank holiday. Most banks and banking institutions are closed, as is the Federal Reserve Banks in New York and Washington. Columbus Day is also a partial federal holiday with many department and services suspending operations, including the U.S. Postal Service.
“The closing of the Fed also shuts down the Federal Reserve Wire Transfer system (Fedwire). Fedwire is the national electronic payment system to transfer funds through Federal Reserve Banks. With the Federal Reserve, the Fedwire and large money center banks all closed, the U.S. government bond market is basically forced to shut down as well. There are no bond auctions because the issuer of Federal Debt, the U.S. Treasury, is also closed.” LINK
Re @Crash’s issue - It can be frustrating to have the “lights go out” on a portfolio if contemplating a buy / sell and not being able to fit all the pieces together in terms of maintaining the proper allocation. I use M* as a “backup” to a better tracker from Apple’s app-store that I pay a small fee for. Unfortunately, the paid tracker is much less reliable than the free M* tracker (but great when it works). So, I guess Morningstar’s entitled to a bad day once in a while.

A 10 year global projection for deployment of additional renewable capacity for electricity:

Solar output is expected to lead a surge in renewable power supply in the next decade, the International Energy Agency said, with renewables seen accounting for 80% of growth in global electricity generation under current conditions.
In its annual World Energy Outlook on Tuesday, the IEA said in its central scenario - which reflects policy intentions and targets already announced - renewables are expected to overtake coal as the primary means of producing electricity by 2025.
The combined share of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind in global generation will rise to almost 30% in 2030 from 8% in 2019, it said, with solar PV capacity growing by an average 12% a year.

https://reuters.com/article/us-iea-energy-renewables-idUSKBN26Y0E7

But if the statistic really is the biggest drop during any period of time it will not matter if you pick the last 12 months, the first six months of the year or the exact time the market crashed ( Stocks 2/19 to 3/20) Bonds (3/6 to 3/25)

Maybe I am missing something, but when I calculate the change in either value or NAV of most of the bond funds listed in Charles Bolin's Seeking Alpha article I get far higher drops then the MFO statistics show.
Example VCOBX, MFO lists a DD over last year or during Covid crash of minus 0.8, but the NAV dropped from $21.48 (3/6/2020) to $20.20 ( 3/19), a drop of 6%
There were no dividends paid during this time, and even adding back in a proportion of the dividend of $0.04430 paid 3/31, you still get a drop of 5.8%.
Even the drop on a monthly basis for March is 0.8%.
Morningstar listed the Maximum Drawdown over all time periods as 2.7% from 2017 to 2018.
The definition of Maximal Drawdown MFO uses is " The percentage of greatest reduction in fund value below its previous maximum over period evaluated".

U.S. Wind and Solar Installations-Trend May Not Last-I doubt that. Trillion $ companies are trying to become carbon neutral in 15-20 years. They don't rely on subsidies. Electric cars for the masses (Million Mile Battery) & new kid on the block Hydrogen - will be another one to watch for.

Don't sink too much into lithium. Or batteries. Or Tesla.
https://www.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html

@WABAC PNW is expanding it solar footprint. But, yes, Arizona regulators appear to be committed to centralized projects. Per M*'s writeup on PNW:

They certainly used to spend enough money to elect the regulators they wanted.
We shall see what the Arizona Corporate Commission looks like after this election.
We get our power from SRP, which is "government owned."

U.S. Wind and Solar Installations-Trend May Not Last-I doubt that. Trillion $ companies are trying to become carbon neutral in 15-20 years. They don't rely on subsidies. Electric cars for the masses (Million Mile Battery) & new kid on the block Hydrogen - will be another one to watch for.

https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/inflation-adjusted-housing-prices/
Advantages of Buying a House: (Number 1 is the most important)
1. A house is like a forced savings plan for people who normally aren’t in the habit of saving or investing.
2. It uses “leverage” i.e. other people’s money to get more than you could afford by yourself so when home prices do go up you benefit much more. House leverage is much greater than it used to be with Government programs allowing you to borrow 95% of the value of the house. So if you put 5% down and the house goes up 5% you have doubled your money. Where if you had to put 100% down you would have only made 5%.
3. You can build “sweat equity” by improving the house through your own labor (untaxed).
4. Since you are paying it off over time you are using “cheaper dollars” due to inflation to pay off the mortgage.
5. Houses are real assets (not paper) so their value tends to keep up with inflation.

Disadvantages of Buying a House:
1. Incidental costs can add up- Taxes, Insurance, Maintenance, HOA fees, etc.
2. Leverage can work against you when house prices go down as they did in 2008 the devastation is much worse than if you owned the house outright.
3. In times of deflation, you are paying your mortgage with “more expensive dollars” and the value of your house in dollars may be going down.
4. Houses are not “liquid” it may take time to sell if you need to move.
5. You lose a significant chunk of value (10-20%) when you sell due to transaction costs i.e. Real Estate agent commissions, inspections, government agency fees etc.
============
FD: the above is the main reason I never bought RE as an investment. All our investments are in the market. I studied and practiced RE (I was a real estate appraiser) and came to a conclusion it is not for me. Too many complications(liquidity, tenants, moving parts) compared to mutual funds.

https://medium.com/@ronaldviatori/technical-analysis-is-bullshit-b7ffce78425e

BS or not, I have been using T/A successfully for about 20 years. T/A is only one part of my system. I never held a losing fund too long and since retirement in 2018 I didn't lose more than 1% from any last top. T/A just help me to be a better consistent discipline trader.

I am in the final stages of selling a home that I have lived in for almost 35 years. Purchase price was $67K. Hoping to close at $277K, but those numbers are not the whole story.
Home improvements (landscaping, additions, remodels, and replacement of original components have cost close to $100K plus interest over those years. Recent costs (getting the home ready for sale) were close to $25K. Property taxes collected by my town over 35 years were close to $150K. Insurance costs close to $30K. Mortgage interest (financed and refinance the property) costs totaled $100K.
Had I rented instead of owned, my housing costs (average $1.2K / month over 35 years) would have been about $500K. So maybe...just maybe... "owning" (the bank owed the home most of the 35 years) my property was a break even proposition financially.
Had I put $10K into VFINX 35 years ago (a portion of the 20% down payment on the $67K sale price I had to come up with) that investment would be worth $436K. If I had invested in the entire 20% ($14,400) it would have grown to $628K.
https://portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio#analysisResults
Interesting.
Here's a conversation on the topic (at the 5 minute mark):

For most people, your house is your biggest asset and also your biggest liability. So it’s understandable to think about the financial implications of the most significant purchase you’re ever going to make. But a home is about more than what you buy it for and what you think it will be worth in ten years.

Lipper categories with low risk and moderate to high yields are listed. Top-ranked funds within the categories are listed.
Over a thousand funds are ranked using Mutual Fund Observer Screens based on risk, risk-adjusted returns, quality, momentum and yield.
Top-ranked funds from Charles Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard are listed as well as other mutual fund families, exchange traded funds and closed end funds.
Funds with low risk and yields above 2% are highlighted.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4378592-seeking-yield-safety

Of course, language is a constantly evolving mode of expression. This list might be of help in understanding VF’s communications.
25 of the Most Popular Internet Acronyms
AKA Also Known As
BTW By the Way
CYS Check Your Settings
EOD End of Discussion
TLGO The List Goes On
LOL Laughing Out Loud
HF Have Fun
ROTFL Rolling on the Floor Laughing
YMMD You Made My Day
OT Off Topic
YAM Yet Another Meeting
LNT Leave No Trace
DTP Disturbing The Peace
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid, Did Not Attend, Does Not Apply
KIG Keep It Gangsta
AYT Are You There?
WYM Watch Your Mouth, What You Mean?
LMK Let Me Know
LI Laughing Inside
WDYWFM What Do You Want From Me?
NGU Never Give Up
HBY How About You?
IMMD It Made My Day
LBNL Last But Not Least
LYLT Love You Long Time
Source: https://blog.talk.edu/learn-english/25-popular-internet-acronyms/
Not on list - But I took AFAIC to mean “as far as I’m concerned.”
I haven’t had time to look at Bonds (the non-investable one) but will be sure to do so. Just uncovered a trove of old JB movies OADSOITG.

Broadly speaking, value funds can be put into two different categories: absolute value and relative value. Absolute value funds look at individual stocks, estimate their intrinsic value (how much the company should be worth based on assets, projected earnings, etc.) and buys stocks of "undervalued" companies. Relative value funds look at individual stocks and rather than comparing them with an "absolute" sense of value, compare them to how the rest of the market is priced. They buy stocks of companies that are "relatively" cheap.
DSENX differs in two ways. First, it looks at entire sectors, not individual stocks. More importantly, it compares a given sector with its own prior valuations. It could look at a sector that is usually in the ionosphere (very high growth), note that it is now "merely" in the stratosphere, and thus a good "value". It's a different way of trying to buy low, sell high - where "low" means low relative to past pricing of the sector, as opposed to low relative to the current price of the market.
I wouldn't expect it to give one a lot of exposure to stocks that are cheap on an absolute basis (because it can buy high flying sectors), so in that sense it could satisfy your interest in not going all in on deep value. OTOH, I'm not sure how much it would lean toward value for the same reason. It's a slow motion market timing (sector rotation) fund that rotates based on a sector valuation standard. Might work in a market rotating toward value (in the traditional stock by stock sense), can't say. It could also rotate away from traditional value sectors as they appreciate (in a market move toward value).
Also, keep in mind that this is effectively a leveraged fund. For every dollar you invest, you get $1 worth of exposure to the underlying index plus $1 worth of exposure to the bond market. Works well if both are going up (or even if the bond portion is fairly flat).

@Mark I was considering BEP, TERP, & HASI last fall. The depth and breadth of BEP interested me the most. (I also have an investment in BIPC (formerly BIP) and am comfortable with Brookfield.) But, BEP had rallied ~15% in the prior quarter and TERP had fallen ~15% (at least in part due to market reaction to a share offering). It just looked like a better entry point for TERP. And, in this case, it led me where I really wanted to wind up anyway. (Interesting note. BEPC is up 50% since it was created and BEP is "only" up 25% in that time per StockCharts. Is that simply the market's "no K-1" premium for that space?! Will it endure?)