Let's say you have a money manager with a $100 million fund that goes up, say, 200% in one year. Say, $10 billion of new money pours into the fund as a result. The hedge fund manager charges a 2% expense ratio. The next year the fund is down 50%. By the end of the year say he has $3 billion as some investors have redeemed their shares. He still made well over $6 million in fees that year. The thing about funds is they're essentially toll roads and managers get paid whether they do well or poorly. Why am I posting this here? Because today's investment "genius," may be tomorrow's fool, yet he'll still be a billionaire at the end of the day. The genius is getting people to believe in his toll road, not in the accuracy of his predictions. The problem is some extremely wealthy managers start to believe their own hype. Worse, they think their narrow expertise extends beyond securities markets to other realms such as politics.

+1
otoh, some smart diving into the dynamics:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/upshot/markets-work-but-untangling-global-supply-chains-takes-time.html

This summer NW Oregon is experiencing an unprecedented heat dome. Last summer we lived through historic forest fires. Things are strange around here. A quote from a WP article this morning:

“As there is no previous occurrence of the event we’re experiencing in the local climatological record, it’s somewhat disconcerting to have no analogy to work with,” the National Weather Service’s Seattle office wrote in an area forecast discussion. “Temperature records will fall in impressive fashion.”

Perhaps applying that quote to current stock market behavior makes some sense. Change the input variables enough and the history based models no longer provide a reliable guide.

fomo is the most powerful of social forces:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/28/stock-market-record-wilshire-5000/

Here is the recent filing:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1089951/000119312521201935/d196797d485apos.htm

Schwab has $100 minimum on many funds, but the minimum holding period is 90 days to avoid trading fees.

Fido allows partial purchases of their own mutual funds. You can start with $1 and add $1 per day if you want.

Hello
Do you folks know any firm/broker that allow trading/ buying only partial of the funds instead of at minimal 1-2.5k to get in...or it depends on the manager and fund house rules that allow you to buy few hundreds dollars (exclude 401k brokerages)?

I think most investors should disregard it and most other "expert" opinions. Most should know their goals and risk tolerance and invest accordingly with min trading based on that. Most should stick to stocks+bonds and if you want to go crazy use 10%(maybe 20%) for other categories.
Lastly, even if you make changes, do it based on what happened lately. As a trader, I never make decisions based on prediction, I let the market tell me what has been going.
How many times did you hear, stocks are over value, rates can only go up, inverted yield is..., PE+PE10 is too high, bonds will lose money (hint: not all bonds are treasuries) and the new thing, inflation panic/warning for months.
So, what have I done with my portfolio differently and especially based on inflation? nada.

+1 Lewis Appreciate your humorous and informative responses in this thread !

@Jojo26

It may be wage-related for some, but how about those living paycheck to paycheck (or close to it), but they still have iPhones, iPads, go out to eat and drink regularly, and basically just spend frivolously 100% of the time

Are you with every American living paycheck to paycheck 100% of the time? Or are you just monitoring all of them from your Orwellian control tower at Fox News? Also, do you think it's possible for any young American to hold down a job and perhaps juggle their family responsibilities today without a cellphone?
Regarding who are the primary owners of iPhones, I would suggest reading this: https://nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24771/w24771.pdf

The brand most predictive of top income in 1992 is Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. By 2004,the brand most indicative of the rich is Land O’Lakes butter, followed by Kikkoman soy sauce. By the end of the sample, ownership of Apple products (iPhone and iPad) tops the list. Knowing whether someone owns an iPad in 2016 allows us to guess correctly whether the person is in the top or bottom income quartile 69 percent of the time. Across all years in our data, no individual brand is as predictive of being high-income as owning an Apple iPhone in 2016.

While I know some poor people probably do buy an iPhone--for the same reason poor people used to want high-end Nike and Addidas sneakers--to pretend to be rich, most people buying these phones are middle-class or wealthy.

https://www.lordabbett.com/en/perspectives/economicinsights/2021-midyear-investment-outlook.html?ite=3076&ito=2067&itq=c52ab8f8-d9c4-4874-b389-888060e46474&itx[idio]=3427736&et_cid=84176034&[email protected]&et_fc=&cid=
2021 Midyear Investment Outlook
June 24, 2021
Lord Abbett’s investment leaders share their thoughts on key economic and investment issues that could shape the investment landscape in the second half of the year.
Slow as a turtle but we may get there someday

Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.

Not even close. See how folks in Portland are handling 115 degree weather today. Now Imagine ten or twenty degrees hotter in places that have no electricity. Imagine living for generations by a river that suddenly dries up or floods so badly your village is washed away. Or an ocean devoid of edible fish.
Also, financial literacy is pointless if employees aren’t paid enough wages to have anything left over to save at the end of the month. About half of America lives paycheck to paycheck. I know—“personal responsibility.” Let them live on top ramen and gruel.

I think there is a bit of a balancing act here... It may be wage-related for some, but how about those living paycheck to paycheck (or close to it), but they still have iPhones, iPads, go out to eat and drink regularly, and basically just spend frivolously 100% of the time.... People still have to live within their means.

Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.

Not even close. See how folks in Portland are handling 115 degree weather today. Now Imagine ten or twenty degrees hotter in places that have no electricity. Imagine living for generations by a river that suddenly dries up or floods so badly your village is washed away. Or an ocean devoid of edible fish.
Also, financial literacy is pointless if employees aren’t paid enough wages to have anything left over to save at the end of the month. About half of America lives paycheck to paycheck. I know—“personal responsibility.” Let them live on top ramen and gruel.

The average employee has trouble often understanding how a 401k works in many cases let alone cryptocurrency. I find the "personal responsibility" argument to be a hackneyed one I often hear emerging from libertarians. One response I have to that--as you can make a similar argument for almost any dangerous product--what is the personal responsibility of the drug dealer to the drug taker? Why is it always the consumer of the product that is blamed with that personal responsibility mantra? If you offer a faulty dangerous product and sell it to consumers, you should be blamed. And yes, offering crypto will be a magnet for lawsuits. 401ks are a common target for lawsuits as they work well in class action suits and the laws about what are suitable investments for retirement plans are strict.

Financial literacy... The world's most serious issue.

There’s 2 ways prices of these securities (fund, etf, stock) can fall back to a more reasonable valuation.
1) Prices of the underlying assets can fall over time. (Already evident with lumber.)
2) Nominal prices can remain high as inflation rises. In this case you’d be able to purchase those assets with cheaper dollars at some future time.
Above not limited to the inflation sensitive sectors. Any overvalued asset should either eventually experience a price decline or will eventually lose value in real dollar terms.
Note: The initial comment of mine (reposted here by others) in from June 9. In the 3 weeks since prices seem to have stabilized. Some have pulled back. I’d never vacate the inflation hedged sectors completely. Was just cautioning against initiating new positions at elevated prices. I’ve pulled back a bit. Rotated to some of the less expensive areas.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/28/el-erian-says-the-fed-is-behind-on-inflation-and-risks-another-recession-if-it-is-forced-to-catch-up.html?__source=iosappshare|ph.telegra.Telegraph.Share
Related regards
I do read El- Erian commentary

Hank said ; Good grief. This stuff is complicated!
So complicated that the Fidelity rep got it wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. Recently in passing I commented to a rep that QCDs are available once one is 70½. He immediately "corrected" me, saying that the rule had recently been changed (to age 72). That was wrong, and upon my insistence he retracted that.
The reason why I suggested asking Fidelity about their "FIFO" rule on its brokerage (not fund) short term trading fee is not that you'd get the right answer. Rather, if Fidelity did subsequently charge you a fee you'd have grounds to have them waive it. Insurance against another "expensive lesson".
Sounds like the two $100 charges were maybe something imposed by the funds themselves?
That would have to be disclosed in the funds' prospectuses: Calamos Market Neutral Income and Lazard Global Infrastructure. It would also be a remarkable coincidence if those two funds each imposed the identical $100 fee.
I think you got it right the first time: it appears that had I sold the funds online the commission would have been $50 each instead of $100.

@Mav123: Thanks, I'll check out McMillan and Lee. From a quick look, Lee seems to spend some effort on crypto, not something I'm into.
H'eye has a bunch of different packages, and they've changed them around quite a bit in the past. Pro is for other advisors, very much TMI for individuals. They are at the point of ramping up the cost every year, so I may not stick with them forever. What I have is pretty simple; last renewal was $200, easily made up by going selectively with their etf/asset class longs and shorts and trading ranges, updated weekly, or more often when they make a significant change.
A lot depends on exactly what you want, how specific the advice is that you're looking for, how actively you like to manage your investments, and what you think is worth paying for. For example, I wouldn't pay for just macro.

To clarify. The statement read only “commission.” I added the “deferred sales” (words) to help clarify, but ultimately sewed confusion.
Sounds like the two $100 charges were maybe something imposed by the funds themselves? Or possibly related to my “free ride” or liquidity crunch? Like I said, they’re erased unless I can dig up an old screen-shot I might have taken.
“Fidelity charges a short-term trading fee each time you sell or exchange shares of a FundsNetwork NTF fund held less than 60 days.” Yep - I read that quite early in my “Fiducation””. And I asked a fido phone rep about it. He adamantly denied it and turned it back to the fee on Fido’s own funds. Than he added a “however” and went into some *** about how some other charges could apply on some funds.
That’s not to say or claim that he was correct - or that I got it straight. But it’s what I thought he said.
I feel possibly some in the mfo community might benefit from my experience, even though I escaped relatively intact, I know we’re all wealthy here. But a couple hundred dollars is nothing to sneeze at. Especially if tax-deferred money, making it worth even more. And the multi-year compounding capability is taken out.
Hank said ; Good grief. This stuff is complicated!