I know some here on the MFO Board are invested with Charles Schwab. Seems Robo Advisors is under investigation by the SEC.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwab-200-million-charge-sec-102339884.html

+1

Trimmed FANG holding a little yesterday when it briefly topped $100/share. It's had a great run since last fall when it was purchased. And, the near term potential for its Permian Basin acreage still looks promising. But it's share price is approaching historic peaks.

If you are interested, I would encourage you to read Harley Bassman's "Convexity Maven" blog. Even if you do not agree with his concerns about inflation, he is wicked smart and worth listening to. He also has a model portfolio in December with some very interesting ideas, and has been referenced frequently in Barrons, for example.
He designed PFIX as "fire insurance" against the damage the rising interest rates can do to financial commitments that are interest rate sensitive, ie Intermediate and Long Term Bonds, or an adjustable rate mortgage for example.
https://www.convexitymaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/convexity-maven-fire-insurance.pdf
He sees this a a $50,000 insurance premium against a $1,000,000 portfolio of intermediate bonds, that will pay off if interest rates shot up. If you believe inflation is truly "transitory" then you do not need this insurance. Some of us remember the 70's, however.
I think this represents the biggest tug of war going on now: Will inflation truly be transient, and all of the price increases are only the result of Covid disruptions to supply chains et. The "no increased rate or inflation" view is best summarized by Lacy Hunt at Hoisington Management, who believes Treasuries will continue to rally.
But he thinks this will happen because the feds are sucking all available capital out of the system to pay for the deficit. This does not bode well for the economy either.
Of course we might get both: Collapsing growth and higher rates ie stagflation.

John said: “Increase buy enery maybe good idea
Added more Vde yesterday”
Yes - Buying after something’s price has rocked up 150%+ is always a good idea. Why buy a home for $200,000 when you can wait a year and get it for $500,000? Why pay $50 for a new shirt if you can have the same shirt for $150 in a year? That new car you’re looking at for $40,000 will definitely be a better buy when the price tops $100,000.
“Chop-logic” (as one of Shakespeare’s players put it).
Note: The chart does not reflect today’s oil price at over $75. But it does show that oil ended 2020:at around $50 after briefly falling below 0 that spring.

+1 Just the name: Simplify Interest Rate Hedge! Probably should have used a term like strategic, quantitative, analytical, research, quantum. Near a 52 week low for this fund, which probably means nothing, since the fund managers don't know anything either !

You mean like the Quadratic Interest Rate Vltly and Infltn Hdg ETF which was Vltl-as-F recently and not the smooth portfolio 'ballast' that many expected it would be?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/02/oil-prices-analysts-on-the-outlook-for-crude-after-strong-first-half.html?__source=iosappshare|ph.telegra.Telegraph.Share
$100 oil? Analysts share their price forecasts after a strong rally in the first half of 2021
PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 2 20211:43 AM EDTUPDATED FRI, JUL 2 20213:02 AM EDT
Sam Meredith
KEY POINTS
Analysts on Wall Street believe there is potential for crude markets to climb even higher in the coming months, although not everyone is convinced that's the case.
It comes as all three of the world's main forecasting agencies — OPEC, the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration — expect a demand-led recovery to pick up speed in the second half of 2021.
Martijn Rats, chief oil analyst at Morgan Stanley, said crude markets were effectively searching for the price of oil that would start to destroy demand growth.
Increase buy enery maybe good idea
Added more Vde yesterday

Noted in the July commentary:

Chip and I will spend much of the month of July in New York, starting with her son’s wedding in mid-July and our retreat to the Finger Lakes region (I’m already working on Wine Trail priorities) in the second half of the month. Our original plan was to place the Observer on hiatus for a month but we already have a half dozen stories in the pipeline, from a profile of the best international small-cap fund around to the impending launch of a whole new series of funds from T. Rowe Price. With your kind support, I suspect that we’ll share a lite issue with you on August 1st.

While I have not received an electronic or paper ballot; I am voting that the two of you "take a vacation". Many here are all too familiar with a "working vacation". Traditional work and vacation time combined are fully opposed word meanings, in the sense of mental health.
Full attention, by you and Chip, needs to be directed towards wine bouquet and palate sensations; without traditional work outside influences.
An August commentary skip? I vote YES.
Have a vacation.
Respectfully,
Catch

LOL ok I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and buy 1 share today !

+1 Just the name: Simplify Interest Rate Hedge! Probably should have used a term like strategic, quantitative, analytical, research, quantum. Near a 52 week low for this fund, which probably means nothing, since the fund managers don't know anything either !

1 year average discount 5.04 %, 1 month average discount 2.58%, so maybe a better buy when current discount reaches 6% ?

HYI: High Yield, No Leverage, Term Structure Fund Worth A Look
Jul. 01, 2021 3:29 AM ETWestern Asset High Yield Defined Opportunity Fund (HYI)COMM, DISH, EHT...6 Comments9 Likes
https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4437372-hyi-cef-high-yield-no-leverage-term-structure-fund-worth-a-look
Summary
We regularly cover HYI as it is one of the solid choices in the high yield space that also don't utilize leverage.
For CEFs, funds that don't operate with leverage can be seen as relatively more attractive for more conservative investors.
However, keep in mind that it is still a high yield fund - so that does entail risks on its own.

http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/US/etfs/performance.asp?YYY622_G33B++xjN5AzUc4z1D4ErazCbDBLcGXIWzlyYCETzzYLmgzyAfnbo2oYm86Tdu3i
A pundit I watch mentioned PFIX (Lipper score card above) as a potential buy 3-4 weeks ago. So I’ve been tracking it, just as I sometimes track funds folks here mention or buy.
The idea behind this fund makes sense. Profit from the increase in interest rates everybody and his brother (or sister) expect to be coming by shorting longer dated bonds. This fund attempts to do that. I haven’t studied the mechanics. And don’t own it. Judging by the dismal 4 week results it must be using some leverage.
Since inception (May 10, 2021): -18.9%
Last 4 weeks: -13%
Not to flagellate a fund (or anyone who might have thought it a good idea). But might be sobering, possibly instructive, for all of us to consider the difficulty “calling” interest rates. Just because everybody agrees they’re going to rise doesn’t mean they will - at least anytime soon.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/krispy-kreme-pops-in-2nd-ipo-as-ceo-sees-transformed-company-171630256.html?.tsrc=fin-notif
Stay Kool, Derf

CV19 caused tightness in the toilet paper supply chain in my supermarket last spring/summer. One package per customer. Hoarding and furloughed tree fellers in the PNW's forests contributed to rationing. Not sure if this affected timber prices. Either way I was too late, like when oil went negative $30 per barrel. As for fossil fuels versus renewable energy, here's a report on hydrogen: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1hsk

A little more about hydrogen...
A Gigafactory for Hydrogen Could Be a Game-Changer

How in the world can anyone short anything in this market ...
You might as well ask how in the world anyone can underweight anything in this market. Easy, because some securities perform better than others. Shorting just takes underweighting a step further. Do you remember 130/30 funds?

The rationale for the concept had a degree of logic. A 130/30 fund combines a gross long position of 130 per cent with a short position of 30 per cent, meaning it still has the same 100 per cent net exposure to the market as a traditional long-only fund.
However, long-only managers can only underweight, not short, stocks they do not like. This leaves little room to generate outperformance from these stocks, particularly if they are say, only 0.1 per cent of the index.

https://www.ft.com/content/fdbf6284-b724-11e2-841e-00144feabdc0
It doesn't matter whether the shorted stocks go up or down. What matters is that they don't do as well as the stocks purchased with the proceeds from shorting them.
That article goes on to note:

"The problem came when many asset managers discovered they did not have the necessary skills to short,” says Amin Rajan, chief executive of Create Research, a consultancy. “It’s a very specialised skill. It’s more a psychological than academic discipline.”

If one uses shorting to time the market rather than to magnify the impact of stock picking skills, it's easy to get burned:

While some mainstream fund managers periodically have shorted stocks - Mario Gabelli of the Gabelli funds and CGM's Kenneth Heebner come to mind - most have shied away from it.
The late 1990s story of manager Jim Crabbe and his Crabbe-Huson Special fund illustrates why. Crabbe-Huson Special (eventually sold to Liberty Funds Distributors, now part of FleetBoston Financial) adopted shorting provisions in the mid-1990s to guard against a downturn. But Crabbe got bearish early, going short on technology stocks just as they rocketed to new heights. From 1995 through 1999, the fund lost more than 20 percent, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index was up roughly 200 percent; years of gains in the fund were wiped out.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2002-10-13-0210120267-story.html

Will be interesting to see how this one performs;expense ratio of 1.75% for investor shares is competitive for this market segment.

“ … with investors defying pessimistic projections .. and pushing past concerns of rising inflation and potential rate hikes. The Dow Jones industrial average advanced more than 210.22 points …The S&P 500 … chalked up its 34th record finish of the year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 24.38 points.
“A day earlier, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq set all-time highs,highlighting Wall Street’s optimism for economic recovery —reinvigorated by widespread vaccinations, businesses ramping up operations and consumers eager to spend …
“Kristina Hooper, the chief global market strategist at Invesco, emphasized the dramatic changes … which have help (sic) fuel an economic comeback. Wall Street also has been bolstered by significant spending from Congress and aggressive monetary policy … “
Good write-up for those who like their financial news served hot.
Strong Verbs … “Weak verbs can tell your reader what’s happening, but only strong verbs can catapult them right into the action.”
Does the WP have a stockpile of negatively connotative verbs stored somewhere for those occasional bad market days?
Maybe something like this:
Stunned traders raced for the exits as major indexes plunged more than 20% in the first few minutes of frantic trading Friday. Bloodied, but determined, one shocked investor vowed to “go all in”, even as as his legs began to tremble and panic permeated the air …

Can't find the cited WaPo article on 2019 withdrawal option changes. Here's a reasonable alternative piece
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tsp/2019/09/new-tsp-withdrawal-options-are-live-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
Regarding the claim that one cannot specify which fund money is to come from, that's true in a narrow literal sense, but not in the broader sense of investment allocations.
While it's true that the cash will come proportionately from all funds, it seems you can simultaneously reallocate investments via IFT to achieve the same effect.
http://money.federaltimes.com/2017/01/11/ift-for-retirees/
For example, suppose you have $200 in G, $90 in C, and $60 in I and want to draw $30 from C and $40 from I. That's a withdrawal of 20%. So you execute the following two transactions in order:
1. Withdraw $70 (20%), after which you have:
$160 in G ($40 less than before)
$72 in C ($18 less)
$48 in I ($12 less)
2. Exchange:
Reduce C to $60 by moving $12 to G
Reduce I to $20 by moving $28 to G
G now has $160 + $40 = $200
Sure it's a little work, but achieves the desired effect. And if you're keeping money in multiple funds instead of using the L fund, you've essentially committed yourself to periodic rebalancing anyway. So step #2 should be a piece of cake.