Healthcare and some related sectors have provided conservative 'cover' when other equity areas have been funky. In recent months, that trend has disappeared. Legislation regarding Medicaid and now Pharma, has placed a lot of pressure on various companies in this space.....hospitals, insurance companies, service vendors and manufacturers.
We've already off-loaded some of FHLC (Fido health). Looks like there will be more to come.
Healthcare is included in many broad funds, too. Add with the sloppy market today, healthcare and pharma losses will have added to the down mode. Globally, healthcare and related sectors were down -2.5 through -3%.
Anyway, our 25% of total portfolio in healthcare, is now a much smaller number today.
--- On July 31, 2025, President Donald Trump sent letters to the CEOs of 17 major pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Merck, demanding they take steps to reduce drug prices in the U.S. within 60 days. These letters follow an executive order signed by Trump in May 2025 aimed at implementing a "most-favored-nation" (MFN) drug pricing policy.
The letters called on the companies to:
Provide their full portfolio of existing medicines to Medicaid patients at the lowest prices offered in other developed nations (the MFN price).
Guarantee that newly launched drugs will be offered at MFN prices to Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial payers.
Negotiate harder with foreign nations to raise prices internationally, and repatriate increased revenues abroad to lower drug prices for Americans.
Adopt models that sell medicines directly to consumers or businesses at MFN prices, effectively eliminating middlemen.
The letters state that if the companies refuse to comply, the administration will "deploy every tool in our arsenal to protect American families from continued abusive drug pricing practices". The deadline for a binding commitment to these terms is September 29, 2025.
Drug manufacturers have largely resisted the MFN policy in the past, arguing it could stifle innovation and hurt the industry's ability to develop new therapies. Some companies responded to the latest demands by stating they are willing to work with the administration to improve access and affordability. The industry's largest trade group, PhRMA, took a stronger stance against the proposed changes, arguing that "importing foreign price controls would undermine American leadership, hurting patients and workers".

Three straight losing days despite a flurry of tariff announcements. There is a July jobs report that is expected to be rather grim, and expectations of fewer rate cuts as the year progresses. It looks like the salad days are over!
I may consider some equity sales. Watching carefully.
UPS and whirlpool down 16% in 5 days. Other companies reporting how badly tariffs will hurt their businesses.https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/stanley-black-decker-conagra-trump-tariffs-cost-increases.html?&qsearchterm=black and decker
"Those pressures extend throughout the auto industry. General Motors
said earnings before interest and taxes in the latest quarter suffered a $1.1 billion hit that the Detroit-based automaker chalked up to the net effect of tariffs."
"Also on Tuesday, Proctor & Gamble gave 2026 financial guidance showing $1 billion in higher pretax costs as a result of tariffs on goods from China, Canada and the rest of the world."
There are a lot more where that comes from, just a sampling.

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 8/1/25
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
Restricted RC 5.25%, RA 5.00%
Flexible RCP 4.50%, SRA 4.25%, IRA-101110+ 4.25%
TSP G Fund 4.375% (previous 4.25%).
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
#StableValue #401k #403b #TIAA #TSP
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/2122/thread

I have been posting about investing in US LC tilting growth since 2010 in several sites.
Earlier in 2025 I posted that VGK (Europe), value and CEFs(PDI) are where you want to be.
Then I sold everything. In mid April I posted.. time to go back in...to US LC tilting growth.

A look at the S&P 500, Fed rates, and a review of the author's ETF, CWS, that he manages.
https://crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2025/07/cws-market-review-july-29-2025.html

AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/30/25
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (40.3%, above average) & neutral remained the bottom sentiment (26.7%, below average); bearish remained the middle sentiment (33.0%, above average); Bull-Bear Spread was +7.3% (above average). Investor concerns: Tariffs, budget, jobs, inflation, recession, Fed, debt, dollar, geopolitical, Russia-Ukraine (179+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (67+18 weeks). For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks mixed, bonds mixed, oil UP, gold down, dollar up. NYSE %Above 50-dMA 62.69% (positive). Fed held rates at 4.25-4.50%. Tariff deadline of 8/1/25 is tomorrow although major countries have been covered. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
Sentiments are CONTRARIAN indicators.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/2120/thread

I was shocked by a Fox reporter who asked
“Does the wait and see on inflation give cover for companies to raise prices? Powell said in 2018 washer tariffs but no dryer tariffs, but companies raised prices on both. Companies walk the street together, alluding to fact that companies follow each, especially when raising prices.
Why would a Fox reporter question virtue of corporations, did he think he was working for Mother Jones? I remember on the WSJ comments last few years on stories about companies raising prices above input costs and 95% of comments stated that is was impossible for companies to be greedy because then other companies would undercut them. They also made up fantasy alleging that if companies were being greedy during inflationary times, why aren’t they greedy all the time.

The following excerpt is from a book titled The Humble Investor
(Chapter 6: The Private Equity Bubble) published earlier this year.
The book's author, Daniel Rasmussen, is very skeptical regarding private equity.
“Private equity makes a beautiful pitch: high returns, low risk, stock-picking, operational improvement,
a superior form of capitalism. But studying the rise of private equity—and understanding its pitfalls—
shows just how hollow so many of these promises are. By ignoring the marketing, and instead,
focusing on what we know about these companies, we come to a very different conclusion.
Who, after all, wants to put 40% of their portfolio in highly leveraged, low-margin micro-cap stocks
that trade at valuations in excess of the S&P 500 with 10-12 year lock-ups at 2% and 20% fees?
Yet that is what most of the top university endowments are doing today.”

Thanks for taking the time to reply @Level5

Looking into the rear-view mirror, it's abundantly clear that SPY and QQQ
have outperformed many other investments over the last 15 years or so.
It would be really commendable if the same "geniuses" who discovered these facts could leverage
their "vast expertise" to accurately predict which investments will outperform during the next 10 or 15 years!
I'm not holding my breath waiting for their definitive predictions...

@Level5 Any reason you didn't roll all or part of maturing T's back?

I’m not going to listen, but I’ll say this:
Swedroe makes some good generic points — the same ones (B&B) Bogle and Buffett made decades ago… and then he doesn’t. I also read his articles for years.
At the end of the day, Swedroe is a financial adviser — he has to sell something. After all, everyone needs to make a living.
For years, he heavily promoted value and small-cap strategies.
But the reality? SPY and QQQ have outperformed those approaches for the past 15 years.
My go-to stock tip for decades has been simple:
If US LC stocks are doing well, ignore everything else.
If it’s not, then start diversifying — look at value, small caps, and international, which is exactly what I did in 2000-2010.
BTW, is the S&P 500 truly diversified?
Buffett and Bogle certainly thought so — and many forget that it includes companies with operations all around the world.

@Observant1, thank much.
From the best that I can tell, Alan Bond, a frequent guest on Wall Street Week, was last on the show for episode number 2922 broadcasted on 11-26-1999.
"On December 16, 1999, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued New York pension fund manager Alan B. Bond for fraudulently receiving over $6.9 million in kickbacks from brokerage firms..."
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-16394
"On June 10, 2002, former money manager Alan Bond (Bond) was convicted of six counts of federal criminal investment adviser fraud and wire fraud. Bond's conviction related to a "cherry picking" scheme in which Bond illegally allocated profitable trades to his own personal account and allocated the vast majority of unprofitable trades into client accounts that he managed through his money management firm, Albriond Capital Management, LLC (Albriond)"
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-17560
"On February 11, 2003, United States District Court Judge Leonard Sand sentenced investment adviser Alan Brian Bond (Bond) to a prison term of 12 years, 7 months and ordered him to pay $6.6 million in restitution, with possible additional restitution, for his role in both a kickback scheme and a trade allocation or "cherry picking" scheme..."
https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releases/lr-18018

Fund Allocations (Cumulative), 6/30/25
Noticeable shifts into stock funds. The changes for OEFs + ETFs were based on a total AUM of about $39.89 trillion in the previous month, so +/- 1% change was about +/- $398.9 billion. Also note that these changes were from both fund inflows/outflows & price changes. #ICI #Funds #OEFs #ETFs
OEFs & ETFs: Stocks 61.34%, Hybrids 4.14%, Bonds 17.47%, M-Mkt 17.05%
(Stock % approaching those in 10/2024 & 11/2024)
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/2119/thread

Liz Ann Sonders
* 02/2019: Market may be ignoring risks of an earnings slowdown (https://www.kbzk.com/cnn-business-consumer/2019/02/13/market-may-be-ignoring-risks-of-an-earnings-slowdown/)
Reality: the SP500 made 31.2%
=============
06/2020: In her 2020 Mid-Year Outlook, Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab offers a word of caution for the short-term but strikes an optimistic tone for long-term economic progress.
It is safe to expect elevated volatility through the remainder of the year as economic numbers remain depressed while the newly kickstarted economy may sputter with a second wave of coronavirus outbreak.
However, this pessimism is balanced with potential economic surprises and continued advances in treatments and vaccines for the virus. (link).
Reality: The SP500 made 24% during 06-12 of 2020.
=================
03/2022 (link)
Actions in stocks: The actions: Particularly during times of uncertainty, diversification across—and within—asset classes and sectors is of paramount importance. Given the expectation of continued bouts of volatility, especially at the sector level, resist the temptation to try to predict sector leadership and instead focus on shoring up your stock portfolio’s quality characteristics.
Actions in bonds: As central banks adopt tighter policies and yields move higher, consider looking for potential opportunities to add to your intermediate- and long-term bond holdings.
In particular, a bond ladder—in which you buy bonds with staggered maturities and reinvest the proceeds in new bonds as each one comes due—can be an effective way to increase the yields in your portfolio over time.
Reality: She missed it all. Bonds had one of the worst year in decades and stocks were in bear market.
=================
12/2022 (https://www.businessinsider.com/charles-schwab-liz-ann-sonders-invest-markets-stocks-recession-book-2022-12)
Reality: Her narratives were pretty weak. You didn't have to do anything special. The SP500 made 26.2% in 2023.
===================
12/2023: The stock market probably has an okay year if we get more stability and less uncertainty with regard to monetary policy and, in turn, inflation and interest rates.
(link).
Reality: The SP500 made more than OK, 24.9%
===================
I can summarize her narrative over the past several years like this:
Valuations are high
Markets carry risk
Stick with good companies
I have no idea what the market will do, but it’ll be fine
(After all, since 1980, the S&P 500 has been positive about 80% of the time.)
I'm a Chief Investment Strategist, but since I’m an economist, I’ll mostly focus on the economy — even though it doesn’t have a strong correlation to how stocks or asset categories perform over the next 3, 6, or 9 months… which is exactly what most investors care about..

Post-FOMC Notes
Rates: Fed funds held at 4.25-4.50%, bank reserves rate at 4.40% (generous), discount rate at 4.50%. Treasury QT continued -$5 billion/mo, MBS QT at -$35 billion/mo. Vote was 9 yes, 2 no (Bowman, Waller), 0 abstain, 1 absent (Kugler).
The economy is solid & growing moderately - H1 growth smooths out variations in Q1 & Q2. Tariff impacts on GDP so far have been through the import/export data.
Job market is good. Unemployment is low, but the pool of labor is also shrinking. Wage growth is moderate.
Inflation remains above +2% average target. Goods inflation is up, services inflation down. Tariff effects are small so far as some tariffs have been absorbed by manufacturers/producers & intermediaries. Insurance premiums have been catching up with prior inflation.
Housing is weak. But mortgage rates move with long-term rates. There is also a national housing shortage.
Uncertainties from government policies, tariffs & trade deals remain. Expectations are that inflationary effects of tariffs may be one-time effects.
Independent central bank is a feature of modern developed economies & is desirable so long as it serves the public well.
He passed on commenting in detail on fiscal policy (that's for Congress), dollar (that's for Treasury), cuts in federal budget for economic data services (but that good data is good for everybody), Fed HQ renovations (it's a long-term project that also includes historical preservation of the Fed buildings), & whether he will stay on as Governor (his term as Fed Chair to 05/2026, as Fed Governor to 01/2028; this may affect whether the new Fed Chair is from within the Fed or external).
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/2118/thread

Thanks! Always a “must watch.” For a year or two (mid-90s) it was broadcast about an hour apart by 2 different PBS stations. I usually watched it twice. I imagine you could learn just as much today about investing from these old shows as when they first aired.
In the mid 90s Lou celebrated 25 years on the air. A real treat with his lovely daughters there with him and 3 really big names in finance. Henry Kaufman was one. John Templeton another. The 3rd escapes me at the moment, as it’s been a while. Possibly Lynch?

Copper down 19.5% on the news! Ouch. One of the main uses is in new construction / homes (for wiring).

FOMC Statement, 7/30/25
https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20250730a.htm
Video to follow https://www.youtube.com/@federalreserve

I came across the following archive of many (but not all) episodes of Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser.
W$W Archive