By Jennifer Warren at SeekingAlpha
Summary
° Oil markets are responding to crisis as they do, with volatility. Other commodities follow this type of market reaction.
° U.S. citizens will be further disadvantaged as U.S. producers have less incentive to produce here. This is why the majors largely left U.S. fields for global ones pre-shale.
° Whose windfall would this be? Not Americans, not the rest of the world. Maybe Putin’s.
ARTICLE

@Crash - This used to be a popular thread / topic. Not sure why it lost interest.
I’ve made a lot more moves than I typically do this year for several reasons:
(1) Having moved to Fido from TRP last year has opened up a rich universe of funds (especially ETFs) I never knew existed. As I’ve investigated the much wider menu of offerings, I’ve moved into some - usually from former TRP funds. The change also opened the door for owning specific stocks, though they’re limited to about 10% of total investments.
(2) The world of investing is shifting with the uptick in interest rates. I think it’s a long term trend. So, I’ve lightened up on bond heavy funds (like PRSIX / PSMM) and opted in favor of more “go anywhere” & alternative types.
(3) Late in 2021 I became alarmed at valuations. That caused me to allocate about 9-10% to a defensive sleeve that typically rises when equities fall. I think some of the overvaluation has been removed, but equities are still rich. So that defensive position remains largely intact.

+1. @davfor
I was sticking to my knitting, following my pre-planned Order of Battle, shifting into bonds, earlier, and reached my 60% bonds goal in the portfolio. Ballast, reduce volatility..... Along came changing realities: rising rates, war, inflation, supply issues..... I still own a big hunk of bonds. But I just exchanged a mouthful of them for TRP Financial Services, PRISX.
After cashing-out PTIAX, that $$$ will go to the sweep account until I decide on a fitting destination for the money. My ENIC has been a true dawg--- until 3 days ago. I'm liking the action there. Limit order is in for $1.60.
Something else I've uncovered: ATGFF. AltaGas. Lots of US customers, but HQ in Calgary. Nice dividend. Would love to get it a bit below Fair Value.

Sold out of MGGIX the other day as part of early tax loss harvesting for 2022. It was acting too much like a concentrated tech fund and that's not what I wanted when I bought into it.
Their 2021 Annual Report came today. Call me spoiled or misguided after years of the informative, descriptive, reflective personal multi-page discussions in the annual letters from Giroux, Capital, Vanguard, and other funds, but when fund management's commentary for an annual report is only one page, unsigned, and doesn't even say 'thank you for investing in our fund' (*) it just suggests to me they don't really care about building a relationship with shareholders.
(*) I refer to the manager of the fund itself, not the Chairman's introduction note on behalf of the fund manager's firm.
I noticed a similarly annoying thing an a recent report from Blackrock. They (Blackrock) were the investment advisor, yet they kept saying "the Investment Advisor...." as if to rhetorically distance themselves for some reason. And it was only 1 or 2 of their funds doing that, the rest were more first-person in tone. Weird, but noticeable.
Edit: Interesting too that the majority of MGGIX directors come from Perkins-Cole. One would think there would be greater diversification there.

and the more hawkish view
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/17/larry-summers-fed-interest-rates-inflation/

more detail for the intellectually and economically curious
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1504516423439298564

would expect a ruling before this issue becomes a class action law suit
The suit was filed as a class action lawsuit. The cited piece reads: "The plaintiffs ... seek compensation for the alleged harm on behalf of a class of similarly situated investors nationwide."
What is the problem with that? This seems to be exactly the type of suit for which class actions were created - large number of plaintiffs, similarly situated, a common transaction, and not worth most people's time and money to sue on their own.
Assuming the court finds that some duty was breached by Vanguard, calculating damages will be interesting, since tax liabilities would seem to be more a matter of when a taxpayer owes taxes (i.e. when a taxpayer recognizes gain) than if a taxpayer owes the taxes. It could be a question of time value of money, not added tax liability.
The duty question: Vanguard has tax-managed funds. These were not promoted as such. Did Vanguard have any duty to consider tax implications?
Tax recognition timing: a plaintiff might argue that the recognition of gain was not certain - the fund shares could be bequeathed or donated to charities. So the damages should be the full amount of taxes due. OTOH, these are funds marketed as retirement funds, i.e. funds expected to be sold down during retirement. Arguably while other dispositions are possible, they might be considered speculative while gradual disinvestment would be considered the norm.
If it does come down to a question of timing (recognizing gain now rather than say, from age 65 to 95, then the damages might be just the time value of the taxes paid now rather than over those 30 years. Current discount rate (even with the 0.25% fed hike) is pretty low.
Lowering the institutional series' minimum was a stupid thing for Vanguard to do, given that it was going to merge the institutional and retail series of funds a few months later. But stupid and negligent are not the same, and in any case, the tax bills would have come due sooner or later.
See also
https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/03/15/vanguard-hit-with-class-action-suit-over-target-date-fund-tax-bills/

@Crash
For a fund with similar composition, I use EVT...it's now selling at discount, maintains 80-85% equity holdings, has a good track record plus a 7.15% distribution.

Since Jan. 1
New Position (Bought)
DRSK
GLDB
Y (Allegheny)
QLS
QMN
DODEX
BAMBX
Tactical Buys & Sells (Still own)
TAIL
RIO
GLDB
DRSK
Sold All
TMSRX
PSMM
AOK
PRSIX
DKNG
QED
5 Largest Positions (+ - 8%)
DODLX
PRPFX
BAMBX
QLS
ABRZX

@yogibearbull. Thank you!

+1

If it doesn't come with foie gras and gold flakes, I doubt he'd eat it.
"No matter how you slice it, this pizza is only for the 1%"

@Charles, @BaluBalu, here is some info on Treasury auctions.
General Schedule for T-Bills, T-Notes, T-Bonds, https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/quarterly-refunding/Documents/auctions.pdf
Upcoming 52-Wk T-Bills, for Tuesday 3/22/22, https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/annceresult/press/preanre/2022/A_20220317_4.pdf

Apparently, he has never tasted his own pizza:
https://thehill.com/policy/international/598251-190-papa-johns-in-russia-are-still-open-at-the-end-of-the-day-they

The Fed lag is a bit hard to look past … with CPI now at 7.9%.

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
The Queen, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Gives you an idea how long we’ve been (or had been) in this Alice in Wonderland bond bull market. In Paul Volcker’s day it was acceptable for public officials to use tobacco products openly.

The Fed lag is a bit hard to look past (chart per Wolfstreet), with CPI now at 7.9%.

how does one go about buying the 2-yr treasury bonds? By the time we go to buy, they probably go down 10 bps in yield but still will be better than any CDs.

Treasury securities can be bought at new-issue at Treasury Direct & major brokerages (Fidelity, Schwab, etc; commission-free). Treasury publishes general schedules well ahead and makes specific announcements a few days before the new issue. They can also be bought in the secondary market at brokerages.

For the week ending on 3/16/22, bearish remained the top sentiment (49.8%; very high) & bullish remained the bottom sentiment (22.5%; low); neutral remained the middle sentiment (27.8%; below average). The overall Sentiment became more bearish. In the news filled Survey week (Thursday-Wednesday), the disastrous & grinding Russia-Ukraine war dragged on for the 3rd week although there were some indications of progress in talks; the Fed started the 2nd leg of its triple-action plan by raising the fed fund rate by 25 bps or 0.25% (1st - the QE-Taper ended, 2nd - the rate hikes started, 3rd - the Fed balance sheet reduction to come soon); there was also news that some issues related to the US-listings of Chinese stocks/ADRs (using the complicated VIE mechanism) may be resolved (& Asian & EM stocks had astounding jumps); the general stock market action was a decline early & a strong rebound later, and huge declines (reversals?) in commodities after huge run ups in the previous week (commodities are very volatile). https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/539/thread

Down 3.84 as of close 3/16.

how does one go about buying the 2-yr treasury bonds? By the time we go to buy, they probably go down 10 bps in yield but still will be better than any CDs.

I'm just buying VGSH, good enough for me.