One can choose of not following the crowd. Market fell this week even with good earning from Nivida.
Thought I saw market.broadening, but it was a mirage. Wonder if the market will reacts poorly if the Fed plays it safe and cut 25 bps instead of 50 bps.
CME has 30.5% probability of 25 bps cut.
https://cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

According to filings, the lock-up period is scheduled to expire for Trump on September 25, but it could come even earlier.
The lock-up would lift if Trump Media’s share price equals or exceeds $12 for any 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period starting on August 22. As long as the stock doesn’t keep plunging, this would translate to the restrictions lifting as soon as September 20.

Despite the recent flood of criticism, I've been using 2 covered call funds for a number of years and feel they serve their function quite well within my portfolio. I do prefer funds which write calls to a nominal portion of the portfolio. DIVO (a Great Owl) and QQQX offer a 4.46 and 6.79% distribution respectively, which I do not reinvest.

The criticism is interesting considering some of the other things that are popular, and touted, around here.

Well, everyone has to do what they’re comfortable with. If I would show my top 5 holdings, folks here would think I’m nuts.

:)

Matthews Asia Dividend Active ETF
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923184/000119312524209931/d817337d497.htm
MATTHEWS ASIAN GROWTH AND INCOME FUND
MATTHEWS ASIA DIVIDEND FUND
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923184/000119312524209927/d814315d497.htm

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923184/000119312524209917/d812678d497.htm
497 1 d812678d497.htm FORM 497
MATTHEWS INTERNATIONAL FUNDS
dba MATTHEWS ASIA FUNDS
Supplement dated August 29, 2024
to the Prospectus dated April 29, 2024, as supplemented
For all existing and prospective shareholders of the Matthews Asian Growth and Income Fund – Institutional Class (MICSX) and Investor Class (MACSX):
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Matthews Asia Funds (the “Trust” or the “Funds”) has approved the tax-free reorganization (the “Reorganization”) of the Matthews Asian Growth and Income Fund, a series of the Trust (the “Target Fund”), into the Matthews Emerging Markets Equity Fund, a series of the Trust (the “Acquiring Fund”). The Reorganization does not require the approval of the shareholders of the Target Fund or the Acquiring Fund.
The Target Fund’s investment adviser, Matthews International Capital Management, LLC (“Matthews”), proposed that the Target Fund be reorganized into the Acquiring Fund because approximately 80% of the companies comprising the emerging markets equity investment universe (as represented by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index) is located in Asia, and therefore there is an increasing overlap between an investment strategy focused on emerging market equity securities and one focused on growth and income-generating securities in the Asian region. Further, Matthews noted that the broader emerging markets universe in which the Acquiring Fund operates should benefit shareholders of the Target Fund and will have the potential to improve long-term performance for those shareholders. Matthews further believes that it is in the best interests of the Target Fund to combine the Target Fund’s assets with a fund with a lower overall expense structure and generally better performance, recognizing that the Acquiring Fund has a shorter operating history. Matthews also believes that the Acquiring Fund’s investment objective and strategies make it a compatible fund within the Trust for a reorganization with the Target Fund. Matthews believes that continuing to operate the Target Fund as currently constituted is not in the long-term best interests of the Target Fund. Matthews also believes that both Funds may benefit from potential operating efficiencies and economies of scale that may be achieved by combining the Funds’ assets in the Reorganization. As a result, Matthews determined it prudent to recommend the Reorganization to the Board of Trustees of the Trust.
The Acquiring Fund and the Target Fund have compatible investment objectives. The Target Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation, with a secondary investment objective to seek income. The Acquiring Fund’s current investment objective is to seek long-term capital appreciation; effective upon completion of the Reorganization, the Acquiring Fund will adopt, as part of its principal investment strategies, a policy to invest at least 20% of the Acquiring Fund’s net assets in income-producing securities.
The Target Fund currently operates with two fundamental restrictions that the Acquiring Fund has not adopted: (A) the Target Fund is prohibited from owning more than 10% of outstanding voting securities of any one issuer; and (B) the Target Fund is prohibited from investing more than 5% of its assets in companies that are under three years old. Effective upon completion of the Reorganization, the Acquiring Fund will adopt these fundamental restrictions, such that the fundamental investment restrictions of the Target Fund and the Acquiring Fund will be the same following the Reorganization.
To effectuate the Reorganization, the Target Fund will transfer its assets to the Acquiring Fund. The Acquiring Fund will assume all of the liabilities of the Target Fund and will issue shares to the Target Fund in an amount equal to the aggregate net asset value of the outstanding shares of the Target Fund. Immediately thereafter, the Target Fund will distribute these shares of the Acquiring Fund to its shareholders. After distributing these shares, the Target Fund will be terminated as a series of the Trust.
When the Reorganization is complete, the Target Fund’s shareholders will hold the same class of shares of the Acquiring Fund as they currently hold of the Target Fund. The aggregate net asset value of the Acquiring Fund shares received in the Reorganization will equal the aggregate net asset value of the Target Fund shares held by Target Fund shareholders immediately prior to the Reorganization. The Reorganization is expected to be completed on or about November 8, 2024.
Effective after the close of business on October 25, 2024, shares of the Target Fund will no longer be offered to new shareholders, and shareholders holding shares of any other series of the Trust will not be able to exchange their shares for shares of the Target Fund.
While the portfolio managers of the Acquiring Fund anticipate retaining a portion of the Target Fund’s holdings following the closing of the Reorganization, they do anticipate selling a material portion of the holdings of the Target Fund in preparation for the Reorganization. The extent of these sales is primarily because certain of the current holdings of the Target Fund are deemed not to be appropriate for the Acquiring Fund. Matthews anticipates that the proceeds from such sales will be reinvested in assets that are consistent with the Acquiring Fund’s investment process before and after the closing of the Reorganization. During this period, the Target Fund may deviate from its principal investment strategies.
Matthews has agreed to pay 30% of the expenses incurred in connection with the preparation and distribution of the Prospectus/Information Statement to be sent to shareholders, including all direct and indirect expenses and out-of-pocket costs other than any transaction costs relating to the sale of the Target Fund’s portfolio securities prior to or after the closing of the Reorganization. The remaining expenses will be shared by the Target Fund and Acquiring Fund in proportion to each Fund’s net assets, subject to applicable expense limitations.
If you do not want to participate in the Reorganization, you may redeem your shares of the Target Fund in the ordinary course until the last business day before the closing. Redemption requests received after that time will be treated as redemption requests for shares of the Acquiring Fund received in connection with the Reorganization.
In connection with the Reorganization, a registration statement on Form N-14 will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The registration statement may be amended or withdrawn and the information statement/prospectus it contains will not be distributed to Target Fund shareholders until the registration statement is effective. Investors are urged to read the materials and any other relevant documents when they become available because they will contain important information about the Reorganization. After they are filed, free copies of the materials will be available on the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov.
This communication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale. No offer of securities will be made except pursuant to a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.
Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, fees and expenses of the Funds.
Please retain this Supplement for future reference.
Emerging Markets Equity Fund (investment changes) :
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923184/000119312524209922/d812678d497.htm

Despite the recent flood of criticism, I've been using 2 covered call funds for a number of years and feel they serve their function quite well within my portfolio. I do prefer funds which write calls to a nominal portion of the portfolio. DIVO (a Great Owl) and QQQX offer a 4.46 and 6.79% distribution respectively, which I do not reinvest.

The criticism is interesting considering some of the other things that are popular, and touted, around here.

Well, everyone has to do what they’re comfortable with. If I would show my top 5 holdings, folks here would think I’m nuts.

Apparently, most but not all of the initial shares are still locked up. On Aug 22, a few execs sold between 3,467 and 84,941 shares @$22.70. Not enough to move the market, but the rats may be lining up to jump ship.
Here's the EDGAR search result for insider trading
Devin Nunes, CEO, 27,846
Juhan Phillip, CFO, 84,941
Glabe Scott, General Counsel, 4,083
Northwall Andrew, COO, 3,467
Novachki Vladimir, CTO, 7,801

Another view.
https://hedgefollow.com/stocks/DJT/insider-trading

Bill Wilby, former portfolio manager for Oppenheimer Global Fund, is the featured guest this week.
He's concerned about "unknown unknowns."
Specifically, his major areas of concern are Private Equity (PE) and Private Credit.
S&P 500 leverage ratio is 1.6 while PE leverage ratio may be 5 or 6 (difficult to discern).
PE returns may decline significantly in the next 3 or 4 years.
Backward-looking endowments/pension funds will probably decide to pull back if this happens.
Wilby doesn't think this is a 2007/2008 caliber problem but doesn't know for certain since data is lacking.
Consuelo asked Mr. Wilby how investing has changed over the past 20 years.
Much more money is being run in quantitative strategies.
The public market has shrunk relative to the private market.
US debt to GDP ratio was probably 50% or 60% but is now at 120%.
The Fed balance sheet has grown 10 times during the past 20 years!
Not surprisingly, the market cap of gold (hedge against debasement?) has gone up 10 times as well.
Wilby owns individual stocks and cash (~70%/30% mix) while avoiding bonds in his personal portfolio.
His one investment for a diversified portfolio is AMSL which he also recommended last year.
I really enjoyed this episode.
https://wealthtrack.com/great-investors-retirement-portfolio/

If he currently owns 115M shares of DJT, and the daily average volume is under 8M........it will take a lot of third-party assistance to prop this beauty up next month.
That's assuming he gets away with selling a big chunk of his restricted holdings. Not a given, but a perp is gonna try to find a way.

In reality, the prognosticators just guess as to what causes daily stock market performance.
No one knows absolutely for sure...
Barron's provided the following plausible explanation - I'm paraphrasing here.
Good economic news seemed to drive the market early.
There were upward revisions for second-quarter GDP while the PCE index slowed from 2.6% to 2.5%.
Weekly jobless claims were also lower.
Later on in the trading session some investors sold tech shares after the Nasdaq's rise.
https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-082924

The previous posting, from my "Charles Schlob" thread:
Tried again on Schwab's chat. I was directed away from chat to TALK on the phone to CRSS. (Alphabet soup junk-ola.) They told me that in this particular case, (because ET is an LP) the dividend would be posted rather quickly. (It was.) But reinvested shares would ALSO show up later on the same day --- unlike most situations. Most times, reinvested shares are purchased the FOLLOWING day.
*********************
(Adding this:) It's still not clear to me whether the automatically reinvested shares were bought later, on the same day as the dividend was posted, or on the next day. Over on the Stocktwits website, I've had a back-and-forth with someone else who tells me this: "The DRIP price was $15.79.....the reinvestment price was open market purchase on Monday (same day as the original posting of the dividend, then) at noon for 16.40." I don't quite understand that.
*******************
I got run-around "explanations" on the phone. "Sometimes, a weighted average price is what you'll see." So I was told at one point. And of course, she made a point to say "it's in the contract with our clients." As usual, there's never a direct answer to a direct question. ... No satisfaction. The solution is simply not to trust uncle Chucky with this task, and to accept dividends as cash, and then reinvest the money at the moment and price-point of my own choosing. ...Frikkin' GAMES. Thank you, @BaluBalu

Guess who made the new highs today? DJIA and equal-weight SP500 RSP. The AI/growth area was hit with NVDA woes. StockCharts from 10/28/23.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=$INDU&compare=$COMPQ,$SPX,RSP&id=p99878632038

Apparently, most but not all of the initial shares are still locked up. On Aug 22, a few execs sold between 3,467 and 84,941 shares @$22.70. Not enough to move the market, but the rats may be lining up to jump ship.
Here's the EDGAR search result for insider trading
Devin Nunes, CEO, 27,846
Juhan Phillip, CFO, 84,941
Glabe Scott, General Counsel, 4,083
Northwall Andrew, COO, 3,467
Novachki Vladimir, CTO, 7,801

fun race to $0 especially for those huge shareholders w/ $0 cost basis ...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnists/2024/08/21/what-is-wrong-with-donald-trump/74855577007/

Posters familiar with options know what they are doing.
But my concerns are the investors who have poor/no knowledge of options but are buying options-based funds thinking that they are all-weather income funds.
Call-writing (-selling or -shorting) funds are a bull market phenomenon. They turn capital gains (CGs) into options income, but don't protect the downside. They have grown like weeds in this bull market due to lots of marketing hype.
Moreover, the traditional application of call-writing uses boring but steadily growing (mature?) stocks that don't move around much. So, investors holding those boring stocks can write calls and boost income some with the call premiums. Call-writing on volatile things like QQQ, on the other hand, is nontraditional and counts on rising markets that trigger written calls again and again to transform possible LT-CGs into ST options income. You may want to hold these in tax-deferred/free accounts.
It isn't as if JPM has found some secret sauce for JEPI (AUM $34.8 billion, inception May 2020) and JEPQ (AUM $15.7 billion, inception May 2022). Granddaddy of options-based fund is GATEX / GTEYX that has been around since December 1977 (soon after options started trading in the US) and in those 46+ years, it has gathered an AUM of $6.6 billion. FWIW, it never impressed me much. Gateway is now a neglected part of French Natixis that also owns some more visible boutiques - Oakmark/Harris, Loomis Sayles.
Natixis https://www.im.natixis.com/en-us/home

Passive ETFs require daily holding disclosures
A common conception but the rule is actually the opposite. Based on the premise that investors already have a very good if not exact idea of what's in a fund that passively tracks an index, disclosure of such a fund's daily holdings is generally not required.
From NASDAQ, under passive ETF listing requirements is this requirement, applicable only to leveraged ETFs. "Regular" passive ETFs need not comply.

Passive ETFs which seek a return based upon a multiple (positive or inverse) of the underlying index performance, must disclose the following information regarding the portfolio on their website daily:
• The identity and number of shares held of each specific equity security
• The identity and amount held for each specific fixed income security
• The specific types of financial instruments and characteristics of such financial instruments
• Cash equivalents and the amount of cash held in the portfolio

https://listingcenter.nasdaq.com/assets/ETP_Listing_Guide.pdf
It's true that the vast majority of passively managed non-leveraged ETFs disclose portfolios daily. Vanguard is the notorious exception that proves the rule.
While it discloses daily the holdings of its standalone ETFs, it discloses only monthly holdings of those ETFs that are share classes of its OEFs. For example, VYM (a share class of VHYAX) currently shows holdings as of July 31.

Each Vanguard fund relying on Rule 6c-11 under the 1940 Act (e.g., standalone ETFs) generally will seek to disclose complete portfolio holdings, including other investment positions, at the beginning of each business day. These portfolio holdings, including other investment positions, will be disclosed online at vanguard.com. ... Each Vanguard index fund, other than those Vanguard index funds relying on Rule 6c-11 under the 1940 Act (e.g., standalone ETFs), generally will seek to disclose the fund’s complete portfolio holdings as of the end of the most recent month online at vanguard.com, 15 calendar days after the end of the month.

Vanguard SAI supplement, July 19, 2024

@BaluBalu

If you are OK disclosing, what function do these funds serve within your portfolio?
Why do you own the covered call strategy on QQQ in a CEF? In your experience, what portion (in a range) of the portfolio does the manager write the calls on?

Simply put, I use both items simply as contributors to fully fund my annual spending via their distributions.
Why a CEF? I've owned QQQX for several years, and frankly, option overlays in an ETF wrapper weren't widely available at the time. There may be better options available currently, but this works for me and I'm comfortable with its longer track record and balance between distributions/asset growth.
As for portfolio coverage, Nuveen states: "During the quarter, the core
option overwrite level varied between 41% and 66% of the equity portfolio's value with an average level of 56%". Their option strategy is discussed in the attached link, which I found interesting.
https://documents.nuveen.com/Documents/Nuveen/Default.aspx?uniqueId=378e5e6a-448d-49f8-b723-f56fc1f5876c

AAII Sentiment Survey, 8/28/24
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (51.2%, high) & neutral became the bottom sentiment (21.9%, low); bearish became the middle sentiment (27.0%, below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +24.2% (high). Investor concerns: Elections, budget, inflation, economy, the Fed, dollar, Russia-Ukraine (131+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (46+ weeks), geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks mixed (growth down, cyclicals up), bonds down, oil up, gold down, dollar down. NYSE %Above 50-dMA 70.11% (overbought, barely). Stock rally is broadening & equal-weight RSP had a new high. Est PCE +2.6%, core +2.7%. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1629/thread

Well, I guess that MERDX doesn't mean what I thought at first. :)

It was a Kiplinger top 25 back in the days under Rick Aster. IIRC they were based in Marin County.

and super micro being looked at sideways...any chicanery going on there?

They have a history.
They were just another vendor advertising in The Computer Weekly in the Bay Area before the internet. Always wondered why people got so excited about them lately.
At least they're blowing up in the S&P 500 and not in XMHQ.

Latest favorite of Hindenburg -- short seller.
Edit: SCMI has also reported delaying filing of 10-K. I am guessing the Hindenburg report must have spooked the auditors. In a year when Hindenburg took down the Adani and Carl Icahn empires, any auditor should get nervous.