The Federal Reserve has continued to unwind the buildup in its balance sheet. It accumulated a lot of Treasury debt and mortgage backed securities (MBS) during 4 separate rounds of quantitative easing (QE), and since early 2022 it has been letting those mature and roll off. That action is referred to as “quantitative tightening”, or QT.
QT is a bearish force on the stock market, because it takes liquidity out of the banking system. But QT has been getting mitigated by something else the Fed is doing. Starting in 2021, the Fed began accepting a whole lot of “reverse repurchase agreements” or RRPs. An RRP involves a bank borrowing Treasuries from the Fed, to make its balance sheet look better. That bank pledges some of its loan book as collateral for the borrowed Treasuries. The effect of this on the stock market is that RRPs lock up money in the banking system so that this money is not available to do things like help lift stock prices. You can read the NY Fed's description of the process at https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/rrp_faq

The late season strike of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton in Florida could have caused ILS prices to return again to HARD market pricing seen in the first quarter of 2023. But like Ian in 2022, the hurricane tracks turned at the last moment to make landfall away from the most property rich part of the coast (Tampa, Clearwater, and the Tampa Bay area),” the consultancy explained. “The two hurricanes caused significant, but manageable, losses for the reinsurance market and the ILS market. Prices are at neutral levels and absent any further natural catastrophes before year end, we expect them to stay neutral or soften further for January renewals.”
and,
“As of Oct 20 the implied ILS- estimate of loss caused by the two storms was $380 Mn. Allowing for modest losses earlier in the year – perhaps due to aggregate creep and loss development and rounding up for further loss development – say to $500 Mn. for the year – it is still is below expectations. Hence prices will stick in neutral, or soften, absent new Catastrophic events,” Lane Financial concludes.

For the past two months, I have been following two "Market Neutral" funds, QQMNX and VMNFX, which held up very well and provided some protection during recent market downturns. New managers have been at the helm of both funds since 2021.
As MikeM said: "I have to admit, QQMNX is a tempting alternative in this alternative field for a less bumpy ride and, so far, excellent returns."
..............QQMNX....VMNFX
YTD.........15.6%.......8.9%
3 YRS.......14.4........14.8
5 YRS.......10.3..........8.2
2022..........9.5.........13.5
Std. Dev....8.6%.......7.3%
As a retired investor who doesn't need a lot more money, preserving capital is more important to me than seeking sizeable returns on capital. While both funds have excellent risk/reward profiles, I have decided to add QQMNX to my portfolio at this time of fairly high equity valuations.

A couple other market neutral funds you can consider: BDMAX and JMNAX. BDMAX has outperformed QQMNX over the last 1 and 2 year trailing periods, and has a higher Sharpe ratio and lower standard deviation over the last 3 years according to Morningstar data. JMNAX has had lower returns, but has a smooth ride. I use a combination of BDMAX and JMNAX, but I might consider adding QQMNX. Thanks for bringing it up.

Using a combination of water testing and machine learning, a U.S. Geological Survey-led study estimated between 5 and 19 million tons of lithium reserves are located beneath southwestern Arkansas. If commercially recoverable, the amount of lithium present would meet projected 2030 world demand for lithium in car batteries nine times over.

Rick,
I would be interested in those ETFs with narrow bid ask spreads in the after hours.