it's getting good, funneling of dark foreign moneys, forget inflated real estate
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/republican-party-national-rifle-association-trump-russia.html
really good
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/andrew-sullivan-why-trump-has-such-a-soft-spot-for-russia.html
doomed we are
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/07/20/reaction-of-trumps-base-to-helsinki-is-a-forecast-of-things-to-come/
bingo
https://apple.news/AAsiMdKxYSwiAbir0eY52HQ
I trust this will qualify as one of those posts full of links and no comment, or whatever the complaint was.

I looked at GE. Then I remebered another old DOW paticipant, Kodak. Will GE also follow the bankrupcy path or will they take the innitial steps and have to sell off the only assets that that still make money? I think it's at least 50:50 on bankrupcy.

@MFO Members: Sticking with the funds I brought to the dance, MSOPX, TRBCX, IVV, QQQ, and PONCX. Why wouldn't I, TRBCX, MSOPX, QQQ are up over 15% YTD.
Regards,
Ted

I did very well owning an individual "zero" many years ago. If I recall correctly, I bought in '93 and it matured in '03. Good rate, over 5%. My initial purchase price almost doubled. Not quite. My own ethical filters just won't allow me to buy from the same source again.

FYI: ( If link doesn't work, Google article title.)
When Gary Greenberg graduated from business school in 1985, he had idealistic views about how investors could help open doors for progress in developing markets and beyond. “The only issue was finding anyone who would actually pay me to do that,” says Greenberg, who is 65.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/alibaba-tencent-and-sustainable-investing-1531939543?mod=hp_highlight_3
M* Snapshot CVMAX:
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/CVMAX/quote.html

So much depends on housing there. If you've owned your home for many years, you've got no mortgage and likely a tax bill of just a few $K/year courtesy of Prop 13, so you're likely well able to afford that $5 gallon of milk. (If you've got the $4M portfolio mentioned in the article, you could even afford milk baths.)
Under the old tax laws, you could have even downsized, say moving from Palo Alto to SF "for free". That is, back when you could transfer your basis rather than paying cap gains on appreciation over $250K/$500K, swapping homes in general wasn't a problem. And California still gives a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to retirees to transfer their low tax base to their new home when downsizing.
There's even a new ballot proposition that would extend this tax break to older homeowners who want to trade up rather than down.
NYMag: California Ballot Initiative to Expand Property Tax Breaks for Wealthy Seniors Could Be Another Boon to GOP
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/ca-property-tax-initiative-could-be-another-boon-to-gop.html

FYI: Economic predictions are wonderfully useful...after the fact. A fund manager sent back to 1973 and stripped of his investment memories, save for knowing that inflation and commodity prices would soar for many years before subsiding, would thrash his rivals over the ensuing decades. He would be long commodities and short bonds, before switching to stocks in the early 1980s. Toss him a second tidbit--the 2008 housing collapse--and his victory would be complete. His fund would have the best 35-year track record in the business.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/873681/are-economic-predictions-ever-useful.html

FYI: "It’s no secret that the City by the Bay is one of the most expensive places to live in America," said Kimberly Foss, founder and president of Empyrion Wealth Management in Roseville, Calif.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/retire-in-san-francisco--here-s-the-minimum-portfolio-a-client-would-need-39835.html?print

I must admit that I think it will be good for some of the people born before civil rights to be gone. I grew up in MS Delta. The ratio of black to white even in the 50s was higher than average. The economy was such that all but the poorest whites could afford a private in-house employee that provided both cleaning and day care. Many whites resented welfare without realizing that welfare payments subsidized the affordability of their life style. A woman with children could qualify for welfare if their income was small enough. The welfare payment was too small so it created a need to subsidize her income. She was often employed in a private residence with an income paid under-the-table. The income was much, much less than minimum wage. In short, the welfare payment was also subsidizing the white employer. This is only one of the things that was lost with civil rights. My dad became furious when he was asked for minimum wage, payment to Social Security, etc. by people seeking private home jobs. He found his standard of living substantially lowered when he decided he could no longer afford a maid.
The "white" schools were integrated resulting in the establishment of "church" schools outside of town in the counties. Many whites moved to the "suburbs" along with the experienced teachers as the poor were left in the city. A private school was established inside the city with tuition high enough to exclude the poor. This expense exasperated the lowering of the white life style. The "white" school system became predominately black, without sufficient funding as many areas of the city became poorer and began to deteriorate.
During my last year living there (1970; I was 19) a young girl from a very poor family saw me walking down the street. She ran to catch up with me. She was in elementary school and an exceptional student. Her father was a drunk and her mother an invalid. The older kids and their wives and children lived with them. Somehow they survived. I asked the girl what her plans for the future were. As she turned and pointed back to her house, she told me that she didn't have any plans because she knew that no matter what she did she would end up "just like them". She was white; her family hated and looked down on minorities more than anyone I knew. During civil rights my friends and I found it remarkable that this need to feel someone else was less than oneself was a major factor in keeping all groups divided and powerless.

If you have access to M* premium and look at the holding data (premium), you can see how the top 100 holdings did. (You'll have to do this within the next dozen hours give or take, before M* updates the daily changes for Friday).
If you export this into Excel (with a slight bit of tweaking to separate the day change/pct into two columns), you can sort by day's change to see what the big movers were.
FWIW, top winners by pct were:
Danaher Corp DHR (healthcare, LCB), up 4.47% (2.92% of fund)
Thermo Fisher Scientific TMO (healthcare, LCG) 2.20% (1.02% of fund)
PerkinElmer PKI (healthcare, MCG) 2% (2.39%)
Waste Connections WCN (industrials, LCG) 1.70% (1.06%)
Enterprise Products EPD (energy, LCV) 1.50% (0.66%)
Aramark ARMK (consumer cycl, MCB) 1.33% (1.6%)
DTE Energy DTE (utilities, LCV) 1.24% (1.49%)
Eversource Energy ES (utilities, LCV) 1.09% (1.36%)
NiSource NI (utilities, MCV), 0.97%, (1.21%)
The table doesn't give day change info on the bond holdings, but generally bonds did well yesterday, e.g. PTTFX was up 0.21%. So that had to help as well. That's consistent with utilities being near the top of the list above (for reference, VUIAX was up 0.96%). As Swen noted, the fund is overweighted in utilities (8% vs. 3% for category/benchmark).
The fund is even more overweighted in healthcare (21% vs. around 11% category/benchmark). Three of those stocks are at the very top of the list above. PRHSX was up minimally (0.03%) on the day, though VHCIX was down 0.40% and VGHCX was down 0.29%, suggesting that healthcare subsectors are not all the same. The second largest holding of PRHSX is BDX, which was up 0.34%, and represents 2.72% of PRWCX.

Since the February 2018 lows FSUTX is up 15%. I'm not sure that FSUTX is a poxy for PRWCX's holding in utilities, but it points out that portfolio components, especially defensive components are what separate out successful funds and fund managers.
Manager bets are often quite different.
His WealthTrack interview is re-linked here:
HOW DAVID GIROUX DELIVERS STOCK MARKET PERFORMANCE WITH MUCH LESS RISK

FYI: .There are no major data releases Friday.
.Market players will therefore be mostly focused on earnings, with General Electric reporting before the bell.
U.S. stock index futures pointed to a negative open on Friday, as investors awaited further earnings and digested news comments from President Donald Trump.
Regards,
Ted
U.S. : (MarketWatch)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-at-risk-of-turning-negative-for-week-as-trade-woes-overshadow-ge-microsoft-results-2018-07-20/print
U.S.: (IBD)
https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-futures-microsoft-apple-supplier-skyworks-e-trade-earnings/
U.S.: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/us-markets-focus-on-earnings.html
U.K.: (Marketwatch)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ftse-100-edges-higher-as-pound-lingers-at-multimonth-lows-2018-07-20/print
Europe: (MarketWatch)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-stocks-fall-as-trump-threatens-china-with-tariffs-on-all-500-billion-in-goods-to-us-2018-07-20/print
Europe: (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/article/europe-stocks/update-1-disappointing-earnings-trade-tensions-weigh-on-european-shares-idUSL8N1UG1NZ
Europe: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/european-marketstrump-criticizes-the-fed-earnings-continue.html
Asia: (MarketWatch)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-shares-mixed-in-wake-of-us-stock-markets-weakness-2018-07-19/print
Asia: (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/article/japan-stocks-close/japanese-stocks-slip-in-choppy-trade-as-yuan-swings-knock-sentiment-idUSL4N1UG2K8
Asia: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/asia-markets-stocks-dollar-and-trump-fed-comments-on-the-agenda.html
Bonds: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/us-treasury-yields-trump-criticized-of-the-fed.html
Currencies: (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-forex/dollar-below-one-year-highs-on-trump-comments-yuan-eyed-idUSKBN1KA02H
Oil: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/oil-markets-concerns-about-oversupply-ease.html
Gold: (CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/20/gold-markets-poised-for-sixth-session-of-losses-as-dollar-firms.html
Current Futures: Mixed
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx

The last couple days I think PCI has crossed to the premium side, per M* graph, while PDI has an alltime high premium of 10% and PTY has remained near its alltime premium high >17%, which seems astounding. So while they are not comparable in many respects PCI looked like a better bet.
I wonder what its future holds, as it has outperformed (say) FAGIX just amazingly the last 5.5y over about any interval within you choose.
But note also the smart fundalarm's post of last fall:
CEF wrapper is dependent on VIX. As volatility is subdued, CEFs trade on fundamentals (based on NAV performance) and some investor sentiment (discount/premia). With quiet VIX and outstanding NAV performance, pimco (and other) CEFs attracted more and more new investor money. When VIX spikes, the fundamentals (NAV) become less relevant, and investor psychology dominates trading and discounts widen.

@davidmoran,
larryB beat me to it. Vanguard Prime money market offers 2.05% yield. Ultra-low ER allows for higher yield.
Last time I checked PCI the discount was less than 1% - not so attractive. As I recalled from Sam Lee who was a Morningstar analyst, he recommended to buy PCI only the discount is in double digits since the CEF is 40% leveraged. Any loss will magnify the leverage.

I would say stock picking and portfolio construction are the major contributors. David Giroux's fund holds 25% bond and 5% cash whereas many balanced funds have about 40% bond. YTD bonds are a drag on balanced funds. Also he is investing in utilities as more of a defensive move since the market is expensive. His recent interview on WealthTrack provided valuable insights of his portfolio.
DODBX is more value oriented. Besides value stocks are lagging the growth counterparts in recent years.

I’ve reduced my stock allocations from about 60% to 50% over the past month, primarily due to political concerns such as the trade war and immigration crackdown. My view is that these issues will cause more inflation, leading to even more interest rate increases. I’ve also changed my fixed income allocation, shifting a higher percentage from traditional bond funds to assets that hopefully will hold up better to inflation and rates increases— such as ultrashort bond funds, floaters, CDs and stable value in 401K.

Crash,
your post #556 lead me to think wrongly that the whole post was yours.
and I thought the anger was yours. Sorry from me to you.I do not support the
president most of the time but the anger there was bad and harmful
but rono must have His own reason for it.
regards
circa33 or MAGGIE33

circa33
Crash your temper is harmful to your health. you called me a troll
some time ago and by definition maybe I am. I do not agree with
president Trump but do not hate Him or those who support Him.
I served in the army in the early to mid 50s non combat so am not all bad.
thanks Rono for your service. No hearing in one ear but I still got in.
regards circa33 now am maggie33

Put more in some ETF's, VIOG and VONG.
Put more in FOCPX, and PRHSX.
Closed out MAINX, took 1/5 out of TCMPX.
I'm trying to get simpler.

FYI: (If link doesn't work, Google article title.)
On 12/19/2011 I purchased shares of T @29.43, with a yield of 6.7%)
Weighing these two investments against each other illuminates some important issues for income investors.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/are-high-yield-bonds-better-than-at-t-shares-1531947030?mod=hp_highlight_2