The VIX was created by the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE)
and now is at 47.65 at 11:45 PM
I follow the VIX + many other indexes/ETF during the day at Yahoo which is accurate too (VIX)

Hi Guys, Today is Tuesday 4/21 (around 7:50am) and it is not looking to start well with the stock futures down across the board. The VIX has climbed back towards the 40's reading after being down in the mid 30's. In addition, the money feed, in the barometer, moved from 63 to 50 which indicates that some investors are now booking profit from the recent stock market's upward run. I have the big stock Index (S&P 500) pulling back yesterday just short of 2% (1.8%) leaving it with about a 26% gain above it's 52 week low.
I did a little selling yesterday and reduced my equity allocation from the 49% to the 47% range. My next sell step, in my rebalance process should the Index continue its descent, is around the 2685 mark. Otherwise, my next calendar sell step will come sometime during the first part of May. After my next sell step I plan to hold, for a while, at an asset allocation of about 15% cash, 40% income and 45% equity. From this asset allocation, I will either move towards a 10/45/45 or 20/40/40. At the moment I'm in flux as I ponder how much cash to hold and I could wind up at 15/45/40 as cash is paying very little in the form of yield.
I'm still with my thoughts that the Index will settle into a trading range bewteen 2500 to 2700 ranges. However, please know it can move above, or below, these numbers based upon news of events and happenings.
For now, I sit and watch.
Thanks for stopping by and reading ... be careful ... stay safe ... and, I wish all ... "Good Investing."

I have a question about what happens in an index when a significant number of companies in an index go bankrupt. (Gee - guess what sector I might be talking about :-/) So, the value of the company's stock goes to zero, and the index falls accordingly. When a new entity gets picked to replace it, how does the value of that company get reinserted into the index?
For example, let's say there's a simple index that consists of A, B, C, and D, each stock sells for $10 and all the market caps are the same, so the index starts out at $100. A.B. and C stay at $10, and D goes bankrupt, so the index falls to $75. A new entity E is introduced whose stock is $10.
My guess is that the NAV of the index is redesigned such that the new entities, A, B, C, and E, split the $75 NAV at the time of D's bankruptcy. A, B, and C have a smaller representation in each share; each index investor's basis reflects the progress of all 5 entities including the demise of D.
Would this procedure be in the SIA for the various index funds and ETF's? I'll have to read through some.

"...I can say that if you are not a buy and hold forever (Bogle style) then you are not an investor...."
I come here to learn. Reading many of the interchanges between others here and FD1000, it's clear that he/she has an unreasonable need to win all the time. Reminds me of conversations with my nephew. Reminds me of the Orange Abortion in the White House.
....... When I was a younger man and doing comunity organizing, our leader reminded us very early about a Cardinal Rule: if you control the terminology and definitions and can get the ones on the other side of the issue to start believing and using your definitions and terminology, then you've all but WON the issue.
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I'm not interested in embroidery nor competition in here. You've got info worth sharing? Share it, by all means.

My main point is that you can't make your assumption on others. If an investor meets their goals then it's that simple. I know a guy that sold his company for millions of dollars years ago and wants low volatility and invested over 90% in Munis and it worked great for him over 20 years. Another one retired with a pension + his SS covers his expenses and all his money is in stocks. Another guy uses only CEFs and trade them with good results. They all met their needs, there is no right or wrong answer, the problem is trying to put someone in a box that you don't like.
Over the years I shared my thoughts and actually helped hundreds who contacted me privately. I never tell them to use my style, never, I helped them using their style. This is what many can't grasp.
Example: An older relative retired around 2001-2 and told me he saw several financial advisors and thinks that 1% is too high and he really doesn't trust them while markets got volatile and he wants a stable LT simple portfolio and all his money is at Vanguard. Based on his portfolio, he needed about 3-3.5% yearly withdrawal. I told him he can be in just 35-40% stocks and the rest bonds and to invest in just 2 funds VWIAX+VSCGX. Every 2-3 years this guy calls me and thank me how I saved him so much money and how it works.
I knew VWIAX would be better but I wanted to diversify a bit more. Below are the results(link)

Looks like today, Monday April 20th, will be "Take Back Monday" as the stock futures are down across the board. This should be expected as stocks have had a strong run coming off their 52 week low by a little better than 28%. Time, for me, to book some profit and start my rebalance process. Have a great day ... be safe ... and, I wish all ... "Good Investing."

If you read this, it sounds like the crisis in the bond market was just a blip and now that the Fed’s stepped in everything’s hunky dory: https://google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/bonds-fed-rescue-investors.amp.html
Now read this to understand how problematic bond funds can be and have been recently: https://google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/bond-etfs-not-mispricing-mutual-120000952.html

Let's look at a story of 2 International funds. If we look at total return, the growth of $10,000 invested on 1/1/2011, we have these results:
Both funds A and B start with a $10,000 investment on 1/1/2011.
on 12/31/2011, fund A had $8609 / fund B had $9823
on 12/31/2012, fund A had $10124 / fund B had $11608
on 12/31/2013, fund A had $12391 / fund B had $14969
on 12/31/2014, fund A had $11489 / fund B had $15138
on 12/31/2015, fund A had $11459 / fund B had $15625
on 12/31/2016, fund A had $11018 / fund B had $17188
on 12/31/2017, fund A had $13360 / fund B had $19843
on 12/31/2018, fund A had $11876 / fund B had $17966
on 12/31/2019, fund A had $15456 / fund B had $21034
At the end of 9 years of return history, fund B has returned 36% more than fund A.
on 4/1/2020, fund A had $12663 / fund B had $15693
Even after a misstep in the 1st qtr of 2020 (which every manager goes though) Fund B has still returned ~20% more than fund A for long term investors.
Also:
Fund A's managers have been on board for 3 years, fund B management since inception. Fund A's volatility as measured by STD is 13.5, fund A has been less volatile at 11.3.
Fund A has an expense ration of 1.15%, you'll pay less for fund B, 0.9%.
If you are a long term investor, which fund would you have been happier investing if on 1/1/2011? If you are a long term investor, why would you throw out fund B and replace it with find A? Is there a crystal ball that tells you fund A is immune to manager missteps?
of course:
Fund A = CWVGX
Fund B = FMIJX

Yes selling OTM puts can lead to regular income and I think they fall under friendly 1256 tax rules but I don't really remember... but if you're smart you will have them cash-secured, meaning if the market or stock symbol tanks and you're suddenly forced to buy the shares you can do it w/o going into a margin call.
HOWEVER - these days I would not be selling puts unless I wanted to own the underlying stock for a long term position, as there is the great likelihood that things will go south again quickly and blow out my short put positions. If volatility makes *very*very* OTM puts attractive I'd consider them for a trade, but unless you're looking to either trade them or accumulate stock, selling puts is NOT recommended during periods of market volatility even if the volatility makes puts 'attractive' because of the increased IV.
Conversely you could write covered calls on ETFs or stocks you own - such as quality dividend stocks. That way you can collect *something* more than MM rates, and you have some downside protection to exit your position before losses kick in. If the stock goes up, whoop-de-doo, you make a profit.
Index futures options (/ES) or index options (OEX, SPX) also have trading nuances such as wide bid-ask spreads, goofy settlement schedules, and depending on the vehicle, limited liquidity.

@msf - I started another thread on using options to generate income instead. Marcus and Amex Personal Savings are FDIC insured and yielding around 1.5%. Vanguard Prime is yielding around 0.6, Treasury MM little lower. There was as a Time Prime was yielding more than the FDIC insured accounts which is why I had parked my cash there - cash I need to pay college tuitions.
Right now, I'm thinking of moving it to one of the above two FDIC insured Bank MMs. Unless I hear what I want to hear in my other thread and want to try and eke out a bit more return with as low a risk as possible.

So Vanguard Prime Money Market is yielding 0.6. All other "Safer" money markets are yielding even less. This when just a couple of months back Prime was yielding more than what you could get in an FDIC insured MM account with a bank. While Bank MMs have also dropped their interest rates, Mutual MM fund yields have basically collapsed.
All of the above to simply explain I'm looking at selling OTM Puts to generate Income and wanted to know tax treatment. I learnt gains / losses from options are capital gains, all short term unless options are actually held over a year (and even here there are some exceptions). More curious was the fact index/bond/futures options get a more favorable treatment of 60/40 long term/short term tax rates. So now I have one question for those might be doing what I'm about to try, or otherwise use options regularly in their portfolios.
If I sell options on SPY - ETF that invests in the S&P 500 index - will I qualify for the favorable 60/40 tax treatment? I'm thinking not and only institutions that can actually sell options directly on the index may be able to do that. However, thought I would ask.

@FD1000 ... What is your source for the VIX?
FD1000 says, my reporting is wrong and ... "In the last 2 days, the VIX is around 40"
My source is linked below. I stand by my statement and it can be postured by visiting the link below. Just hover over the VIX in the matrix and you can see that for the past couple of days the VIX has been back of the 40's and in the mid 30's. Click in it and it becomes more revealing.
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx
This now makes count two, from my perspective, that you have engaged me and I have withstood the challenge coming from you, FD1000, not once but now twice.
This person certaintly seems to enjoy striffe not only with me but others as well. Howerver, on the bright side of things, their challenges, now twice failed, have given even more credence to my postings.

(link) to VIX numbers
April 15-16 VIX > 40
another (source)
Another (source)
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BTW, I can't remember the second challenge, please remind me :-)

Several comments
1) FMIJX ranks in M* in its category for YTD and 1-3 years at 92-94 which is at the bottom 6-8%. In the last 5 years it ranked in the top 10% in 3 years but at the bottom 2 years. That should tell you its inconsistency. Up to 2016 it was a much better performer.
2) From their 3/31/2020 outlook "At this early stage, COVID-19 has hurt value investors much more than their growth counterparts. Many sectors and industries in the value camp, such as financials, energy, industrials, travel and hospitality, have been the hardest hit by the virus. Intensifying the market pressure, Saudi Arabia’s unexpected move to open the spigots has crushed the price of oil. Nearly all energy-related companies, including businesses that only have moderate energy exposure, have seen their stocks decline precipitously. Year-to-date, value has underperformed growth by 10.69%, as the MSCI EAFE Value Index has declined 8.20%,"
3) You can switch to CWVGX with better performance + risk. See PV(link)
4) I have been avoiding international for years now. The SP500 gets about 40% of its earnings from abroad and QQQ about 50%.

Hi @VintageFreak, I share your concerns. With the low yields on cash ... and, the thought that equities will run low on gas ... I hope to be at my target allocation of 10% cash, 45% income and 45% equity come the first part of summer. Within equities I'm about half in the good dividend paying value type funds with the other half being in growth.

Just found Fidelity closed three of its money market funds a couple of weeks ago (sorry if this was already posted previously):
https://www.pionline.com/investing/fidelity-closes-3-money-market-funds-new-investors
or
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/fidelity-shuts-three-money-market-funds-to-most-new-investors-2020-03-31
or
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fidelity-shuts-three-money-market-205320236.html

Vanguard says this is to preserve yield as rates on Treasury paper plummet. If there isn't a lot of money flowing in (net), the fund doesn't have to buy a lot of low yielding notes all at once. So closing is a good thing for existing investors.
Based on that, I would expect it to reopen in 3-6 months, when most of the portfolio has turned over. By then, rates should have stabilized (at 0?). So even if it has to buy more paper after reopening later, that shouldn't hurt the yield.
I could have sworn that this fund was yielding around 1.2% not long ago. It's now down do 0.63%. So one can understand Vanguard's interest in doing what it can to slow the decline.
Even now, that 0.63% is so low that I'd rather keep money in a bank account. There are several yielding 1.5% or better.

I moved money from Vanguard Prime to this fund because it would be "safer". I need to move it to high interest money market I guess. Or make some other plans.

April 17th, 2020 Episode:

I thought we would make it to month end before I'd be scribing another barometer report but with Friday's upward move and +75 point day gain in the S&P 500 Index puts Old_Skeet's market barometer into overvalue range with a reading of 143. This is a 10 point decline for the week. The overvalue reading is on the low side of the barometer's scale, from fair value, with the readings of overbought and extremely overbought following as the barometer readings decline. Generally, a lower barometer reading indicates that there is less investment value in the Index over a higher barometer reading.
For the week the Index moved upward +85 points from 2790 to 2875 for a +3.0% gain. This puts the Index up off it's recent 52 week low by +28.5% but down by -15.1% off it's 52 week high. With this, the Index remains in correction territory. The yield advantage remains with the stock Index at 2.07% vs 0.65% for the US10YrT. Short volume in the Index remains high at 69% (weekly average) while the VIX has declined to the mid 30% range. Seems, the shorts continue to bet against the rally. For the week the three best performing sectors were consumer discretionary +7.86%, health care +6.34%, and technology +4.79%.
So where does this put Old_Skeet with respect to his portfolio? As of Friday my portfolio bubbles at 13% cash, 38% income and 49% equity. My temporary rebound asset allocation is 10% cash, 45% income and 45% equity. With the FOMC & Treasury buying bonds and lending to state and municipal governemnts I'm still with my plan to continue to buy on the income side of my portfolio. I plan to soon start a rebalance process where I will be reducing my equity allocation and moving the sell procees to the income side of my portfolio. Overall, my portfolio is performing much like a conserative asset allocation fund that holds 30% to 50% equity.
For the week my three best performing funds were on the equity side of the portfolio. They were SPECX +6.42% ... KAUAX +5.89% and, AGTHX +5.83%. Year-to-date my best performing fund is CTFAX +9.59%. It is a flexible portfolio fund that adjust it's stock allocation to the movement of the S&P 500 Index. At the beginning of the stock market swoon it was 15% equity and now holds 70% equity. Sometime within the next week (or the next) I look for it to start it's rebalance process where it will begin to sell down its equity allocation, booking some profit, and increasing it's bond allocation. Based upon the S&P 500 Index's current reading of 2875 I look for it to adjust to a 35% (maybe 40%) equity allocation with the balance being in bonds and cash.
For those interested, you can learn more about CTFAX by clicking on the below link.
https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/investment-products/mutual-funds/Columbia-Thermostat-Fund/Class-A/details/?cusip=197199755&_n=1
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Take care ... be safe ... and, I wish all ... "Good Investing."
I am, Old_Skeet

Vanguard says this is to preserve yield as rates on Treasury paper plummet. If there isn't a lot of money flowing in (net), the fund doesn't have to buy a lot of low yielding notes all at once. So closing is a good thing for existing investors.
Based on that, I would expect it to reopen in 3-6 months, when most of the portfolio has turned over. By then, rates should have stabilized (at 0?). So even if it has to buy more paper after reopening later, that shouldn't hurt the yield.
I could have sworn that this fund was yielding around 1.2% not long ago. It's now down do 0.63%. So one can understand Vanguard's interest in doing what it can to slow the decline.
Even now, that 0.63% is so low that I'd rather keep money in a bank account. There are several yielding 1.5% or better.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/891190/000168386320003566/f3655d1.htm
497 1 f3655d1.htm VANGUARD TREASURY MONEY MARKET FUND 497
Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund
Supplement Dated April 16, 2020, to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated December 20, 2019
Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (the "Fund") is closed to all new investors (with the exception of participants who invest in the Fund only through defined contribution plans that offer the Fund as an existing option).
The Fund will remain closed until further notice and there is no specific timeframe for when the Fund will reopen. During the Fund's closed period, all current shareholders may continue to purchase, exchange, or redeem shares of the Fund online, by telephone, or by mail.
The Fund may modify these transaction policies at any time and without prior notice to shareholders. You may call Vanguard for more detailed information about the Fund's transaction policies. Participants in employer-sponsored plans may call Vanguard Participant Services at 800-523-1188. Investors in nonretirement accounts and IRAs may call Vanguard's Investor Information Department at 800-662-7447.

Agree. Very nice set of papers from @sma3.
I've been going through the NEJM paper and have some clarifying questions about the oxygen support figures. From a high level perspective, this detail doesn't matter, but I do try to understand various figures.
With respect to invasive/non-invasive mechanical/non-mechanical ventilation, the NEJM study seems to characterize ventilators as invasive mechanical, and ECMOs ("similar to the heart-lung by-pass machine used in open-heart surgery") as invasive non-mechanical ventilation.
So of the total 34 patients receiving invasive ventilation, it appears that 30 were on ventilators and 4 on ECMOs. That's out of the 53 that completed the study.
The text talks about "a decrease of at least 2 points from baseline on a modified ordinal scale (as recommended by the WHO R&D Blueprint Group) ... The six-point scale consists of the following categories: 1, not hospitalized; 2, hospitalized, not requiring supplemental oxygen; 3, hospitalized, requiring supplemental oxygen; 4, hospitalized, requiring nasal high-flow oxygen therapy, noninvasive mechanical ventilation, or both; 5, hospitalized, requiring invasive mechanical ventilation, ECMO, or both; and 6, death."
Looking at Figure 1, first column (invasive oxygen support at baseline), I see "only" 16 patients (48%) dropping at least two points. So I'm puzzled by this line in the post above: "They were able to reduce their oxygen requirements by 2 steps ( from ventilator to nasal oxygen for example) in 56 % of patients which implies that they are getting much better."
The paper also describes a finer granularity of oxygen support, including "low-flow oxygen, nasal high-flow oxygen, [and] noninvasive positive pressure ventilation [NIPPV]", Perhaps sma3 is using another scale where high-flow oxygen and NIPPV are counted as separate levels. If so, it would help to see what that scale looks like.
None of this changes the generally positive results reported in the paper. I'm just trying to understand the definitions and numbers.