The Week in Charts (08/08/25)
The State of the Markets, including...
00:00 Intro
00:32 Stocks
13:00 Bonds/Fed
20:55 Real Estate/Housing
27:29 Commodities
29:29 Currencies
31:58 Crypto
34:28 Intermarket
37:45 Economy
Video
Blog

Keeping with the general FWIW theme, my two main MM funds look to have been holding fairly steady, though WMPXX has been drifting down a bit...
IMRXX ($1,000 min)
May 30: 4.36%
July 14: 4.35% (decrease)
Aug 5 : 4.35% (no change)
Aug 7 : 4.34% (decrease)
Aug 8 : 4.35% (increase)
WMPXX
May 30: 4.36%
July 14: 4.33% (decrease)
Aug 5 : 4.34% (increase)
Aug 7 : 4.33% (decrease)
Aug 8 : 4.33% (no change)
Also, here is what I am seeing for Fidelity funds:
FIGXX
May 30: 4.18%
July 14: 4.19% (increase)
Aug 5 : 4.21% (increase)
Aug 7 : 4.20% (decrease)
Aug 8 : 4.20% (no change)
FNSXX
May 30: 4.28%
July 14: 4.28% (no change)
Aug 5 : 4.29% (increase)
Aug 7 : 4.29% (no change)
Aug 8 : 4.29% (no change)

Let’s say Fed Reserve cuts 75 bp this year. Will MM rates drop to 3.5% range?

A quick check of SWVXX: offering 4.13% yield. Just before midnight Eastern Time on Friday, 08 Aug, '25.

As the economy unravels, we will hear a lot more of "It had to be done". As if making us economically weaker accomplishes anything. Ot that they are fighting the "good fight". No proof will ever be forthcoming.

President Trump says US court ruling against tariff authority 'would be 1929 all over again'. If tariffs are overturned, $100B would have to be returned, which means more T bill sales. I think this was a warning to Appeals Court and Supreme Court that a depression will occur and the courts will be to blame. My guess is that 60% chance appeals court rules against tariffs, but 95% chance Supreme Court rules court has no authority.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-us-court-ruling-against-tariff-authority-would-be-1929-all-over-again-173011058.html

A firm I read believes that if DJT fires Powell, and forces the fed rate down to 1.5, ALL deficit funding will be short term with disastrous consequences for LT debt. While there will be a surge in economic activity, inflation will soon blow up, stocks crater and only Gold and hard assets will out preform
" The Bond Market will Riot"

But do we have proof that long term rates will go up? TNX has mostly sat under 4% for 20 years. If employers don’t raise prices, but stop hiring, maybe little inflation and long rates stay same? Tariffs could be used to encourage bond buying?

Hank,
Thanks for detailed breakdown, never had enough time to research CEFs, seemed opaque. The affable billionaire Mario seems to have done ok last few years. But seems to trade like a convertible fund. But correlation with SPY is low, so a good metric:
* 1-Year Correlation: 0.28
* 3-Year Correlation: 0.41
* 5-Year Correlation: 0.46

Yugo,
Sallie Mae has directly on their website CD rate
15 months
4.40% APY
https://www.salliemae.com/banking/certificates-of-deposit/

A great example of lying with numbers.
12b-1 distribution 0.25%. Other 0.19% = 0.44%
Acquired fund fees 2.86% (Magical accounting used to ignore these fees.)
TOTAL 3.30%

Ditto!
The FOFs I’ve used in the past (T Rowe Price / Cambrea) did not tack on a 12b-1 distribution fee or an additional management fee. That would be a turn-off. When I had money at Oppenheimer they did have a bunch of FOFs (multi-asset funds) that did add a management fee. They called it a “allocation fee” if I remember. Possibly those have migrated to Invesco? So, you were better off owning the components individually than as part of a FOF.

Often when a fund sponsor (e.g. AQR) offers a fund of fund, it does not charge a second level of management fees. No drag there, and if it eats the FoF's "other" fees, there may be no difference between the FoF and owning the underlying funds separately.
I say "may be" no difference because Vanguard's FoFs hold the more expensive Investor class shares of underlying funds. For example, VSCGX owns Vanguard Total Market Investor shares VTSMX (ER 0.14%) instead of Admiral Shares VTSAX ($3K min, ER 0.04%).
Acquired fund expenses are prorated when calculating the total acquired fund fees. QDSNX's acquired fund fees are so high because the underlying funds short securities, a costly strategy.
From the summary prospectus: "Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses include 1.79% related to fees and expenses associated with certain underlying funds' dividends on short sales and interest expense."

FWIW, the SUTXX US Treasury Mmkt at Schwab slowly declined from 4.12% on 5/30 to 4.01% on 7/14; and then increased from there to 4.13% currently.
fwiw, FIGXX 7d is back to 4.2%
Fidelity MMFs tended not to waver much in yield over the past few months. For FIGXX, all I can find is:
July 25: 4.18%
June 7: 4.19%
May 2, 2025: 4.22%
I can provide more precise info on SPAXX, a different Fidelity MMF (and retail vs. institutional), but one managed by the same managers with roughly the same breakdown of assets. For the dates OJ gave:
May 30: 3.94%
July 14: 3.95% (no decline)
Aug 5: 3.97% (de minimis increase on date of OP)
Aug 7: 3.96% current
And for a Fidelity fund that's similar to SUTXX, there's FSIXX:
May 30: 4.15%
July 14: 4.16% (no decline)
Aug 5: 4.16% (no change)
Aug 7: 4.16% (no change)
This may say more about Fidelity vs. Schwab than about trends in the short term market.

There is a White House clarification (re gold tariffs) in the process of being issued. So don’t do anything rash!

Oh no! I was just driving to a dozen Costcos to pick up my bars…

Hope you have a big enough pickup to haul it all. :)

Unfortunately my wallet can’t handle more than a few 1 ounce “bars”.

in the dark here. we have numbers. new numbers. bigly numbers that have never been used by lesser presidents before.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lvtlagok5t2x
will pictures help a man unable to do simple math, ever?
and yes, discarding the red+white+blue chart means he hates america.

A great example of lying with numbers.
12b-1 distribution 0.25%. Other 0.19% = 0.44%
Acquired fund fees 2.86% (Magical accounting used to ignore these fees.)
TOTAL 3.30%

Hi @Anna and @DrVenture
How about this electronic b-kiss version shown on Colbert last night?

QDSNX a fund-of-funds. From Prospectus,
Top-level management fee 0%
12b-1 distribution 0.25%
Other 0.19%
Acquired fund fees 2.86%
TOTAL 3.30%

FD1000,
I said crypto is very risky, probably 5-10% max in portfolio. Just pointing out like you implied that politics should not factor into investing decision. Many people have missed out on biggest gains of last year because (maybe in part at least) they don’t like politics of people in the space (crypto, Palantir, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac).
I have advocated more than 12 years ago that Treasury should take very small amount from bond sales and put into S&P 500 - very radical at the time but President just this year is talking about setting up a sovereign wealth fund.

There is a White House clarification (re gold tariffs) in the process of being issued.
So don’t do anything rash!

Don't worry at all!
The gold tariff is an incredibly thoughtful policy created by one of the smartest people on the planet.
It just needs to be tweaked since markets were getting a bit "yippy."
The administration will soon clarify all the "misinformation" reported by the mainstream media.

There is a White House clarification (re gold tariffs) in the process of being issued. So don’t do anything rash!

Oh no! I was just driving to a dozen Costcos to pick up my bars…

Hope you have a big enough pickup to haul it all. :)

There is a White House clarification (re gold tariffs) in the process of being issued. So don’t do anything rash!

Oh no! I was just driving to a dozen Costcos to pick up my bars…