FYI: Apple’s announcement on Wednesday that it will repatriate most of the estimated $274 billion that it holds in offshore earnings is great news for the United States. Uncle Sam will get a one-time $38 billion tax payment. The company promises to add 20,000 jobs to its U.S. work force, a 24 percent increase, and build a new campus. Another $5 billion will go toward a fund for advanced manufacturing in America.
C’mon. What’s with the long face?
In December this column warned that hysterical opposition to the Republican tax bill was a fool’s game for Democrats that could only help Donald Trump. Yes, there were things to dislike in the legislation, from both a liberal and a conservative perspective.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/opinion/clueless-versus-trump.html

I used WellsTrade a long time ago to buy FT Advisor shares. Then years ago they severely limited the funds you could buy, going from one of the most open platforms to one of the more limited ones. They also overhauled their website, making it difficult if not impossible to even figure out what was available. And they imposed the highest exit fee I've seen (I think it was $95). Nevertheless I left.
The only off brand brokerage that I think I was happy with was Scudder. For a brief time, 1998-1999 (and with a sufficiently high balance) they provided free trades on all the funds they sold, and as I only vaguely recall, fine service. "Preferred Investment Plus" for taxable accounts, "Retirement Plus" for retirement accounts. Then Zurich/Kemper/Scudder moved the whole operation to DLJDirect, effectively closing it down.

It looks like the chart @Ted mentioned is at the start of this link...
http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/2018/01/future-u-s-equity-returns-a-best-case-upper-limit/

Thanks. Funds that I'd looked at in the past for friends and relatives included Bernstein Short Duration funds (Calif., NY), which were also marketed under Alliance Bernstein (now AB). The AB Advisor shares had similar costs to the Bernstein offerings, while the AB load classes had higher ERs.
I must not have checked these out for awhile, as they were liquidated about nine months ago. (You probably posted this and I missed it.)
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/832808/000119312517021341/d331564d497.htm
My experience with all second (or third) tier brokerages is that their service isn't the greatest. When I use any of them, it's for a limited purpose (such as access to lower cost shares).
Firstrade has an interesting background starting out as a neighborhood brokerage in Flushing, Queens, NYC - with a large Chinese community (somewhat analogous to the Richmond district in San Francisco).
2007 Press Release
Invetopedia review/background

FYI: The following chart shows the distribution of future return assumptions that state and local pension funds were using to value their liabilities as of February 2017:
The average expected return was around 7.5%. How can any large fund, much less a pension fund with a conservative mandate, expect to generate such a high return in the current environment? Where exactly would the return come from? Certainly not from anything in the fixed income universe:
Regards,
Ted

Thanks. I am interested in investing there but I don't want to duplicate (increase) investments in stocks that are already in other mutual funds in which I am a shareholder. I guess I'll just wait a while until they make the holdings public. What is interesting in the top 10 is how very different it is from the top 10 in the new Global Wellesley Fund.

Maurice, have you been able to discover the holdings in VGWAX? The Vanguard website shows the 10 largest, which is 14.5% of total. But if one digs for more details Vanguard tells you that this fund has no holdings of bonds or of stocks! Or of cash reserves either.

Indeed, it seems you might need to recruit a new canoe crew if they continue to falter as a team. Perhaps, a new team leader might be the first step.

Old_skeet, 2 different investment concepts working in opposing directions is not a team. It is a bet on average. One will work while the other does not. You either fail to accept or fail to understand my analogy, which of course was a play on yours. Investing in the top performing sector ETF (momentum) and at the same time to invest in the worst performing ETF (under valued) is just a plan to be right on 1 of 2 bets. One of them has to work. And being the opposite investment theory, one won't. Your team is not rowing together. Given what you said, your canoe is drifting with the current, or should I say the market.
I know you won't accept any of what I said, so I'll leave it at that.

"However, SEC mandated reforms were implemented at the time which further restrict the type of investments the retail funds can make. Many (most?) became government-backed money market funds. These changes made the retail funds much less profitable."
Brokerages and mutual fund companies seem to have done their best to confuse matters. They certainly made it appear as though people were being forced to accept lower returns.
If you were already investing in a US Treasury fund (e.g. PRTXX) or a US government fund (T. Rowe Price did not have one), nothing changed. If you were invested in a prime fund (i.e. one that could invest in corporate paper and other non-US government securities), things may have changed.
Financial institutions were reluctant (perhaps prohibited, I'm not sure) to allow you to use a fund that could freeze redemptions as your core/transaction/checking account. So they had two choices - convert their "core" fund offerings from prime to government, or require you to pick a different fund (a government fund) as your core account. They went with door number 1.
TRP changed Prime Reserve to Government MM (PRRXX), Fidelity changed Cash Reserves to Government Cash Reserves (FDRXX), etc. But T. Rowe Price also did something else. It took its high minimum (higher yielding) retail prime fund, Summit Cash Reserves, lowered its min to $2500 (dropping the "Summit" high min part), and renamed it Cash Reserves (TSCXX). So one still had a prime fund available; arguably a better one than Prime Reserve.
Here's T. Rowe Price's description of the changes required and what it did:
https://www4.troweprice.com/mmr/content/dam/money-market/articles/MMF Reform_US_04-12-2016_Update_v2.pdf
TSCXX wasn't forced to change anything. Here are the portfolio compositions as given in the April 2014 and October 2017 reports.

   Security Type     2014    2017
Commercial Paper      53%     52%
Muni Obligations      28%     23%
Foreign CDs (USD)      7%      5%
Treasury Notes         6%      9%
Domestic CDs           5%      3%
US Treasury Bills      1%      4%
Other (net)            0%      4%

Back in the old days - like the 1950s through the 1980s - one of the best if not best leading indicators of the stock market was the action of the Dow Jones Utilities Index. Two of the more prominent examples were the peaking of the Utilities in November 1972 and January 1987. I quit following this indicator after 2000 and have no ideal if it still has validity. However, with sentiment indicators at extremes not seen in generations, I would be wary of the stock market.

@Crash: I was wondering if you were still holding on to PNM after regulators rejected the increase. I've got solar panels, so I don't help you much. I pay about $150 per year to them for all my electricity. With sun 300+ days per year, it works nicely :)

I note that my single-stock utility, PNM has "slud" downward badly in 2018, as Dizzy Dean might have expressed it. Before the end of 2017, the company raised its dividend. Third or 4th time since I got in, in Sept. of 2015. The NM regulatory body was not being helpful to shareholders, preferring to adjust a rate agreement already signed-onto by the parties concerned, including the environmentalists. Last 2 days, the stock rose nicely. We've already removed some of our stake with a decent profit, for traveling purposes. I sent them another check 2 days ago. PNM's yield is NOT among the high-fliers in the utility sector. But we are still ahead of the game. I initiated at $25 and change. Today, it's at $37.00.

Hello, @Catch22: The three I've zeroed-in on are: PTIAX, TUHYX and RPIHX, though the latter is "global," not strictly domestic. ...PTIAX is mostly MBS. ... TUHYX is corporate junk. ...RPIHX is corporates, with just a bit of bank loans. What they spit-out and distribute to shareholders right now is considerably higher than the monthly div. from PRSNX.
I bought (EM) PREMX in 2010, late for the 2009 go-go-full steam ahead party in EM bonds. I bought initially at $13.26, and have never seen PREMX at $13.26 again. But I've reinvested everything, and along the way, I pulled a huge chunk out to re-deploy into a more normal diversified portfolio. PREMX has made serious money for me, despite the share price remaining below my initial purchase-price. I added a bit to it after end-of-year 2017 cap gains and dividends in my other TRP funds. And PREMX has not disastrously imploded on account of the Venezuela holdings.
...When share price sinks, yield rises, I understand. I see that PRSNX holds bonds in many cases in places like DEVELOPED Europe, where bonds are yielding less than 1%. I'd like to get more than PRSNX is offering. My timing might be all wrong, but timing the market is a thing I never tried to do. I started investing in 2003, and do not play around much with my portfolio--- though the current portf. is quite different from the way it looked 15 years ago.
Yield:
RPIHX 5.78
TUHYX 4.75 (30-day)
PTIAX 5.51
PRSNX 3.41
I'm not worried at all about finding a bond fund to replace PRSNX which is of a similar sort.

Tax reform package and utility companies......I'd read through some of this article before thinking about a pure utility investment at this time. I recall that Michigan utilities had to submit their plans regarding rates and such going forward yesterday (Jan 19); as to the benefit to customers.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/01/11/utility-stocks-and-tax-reform-what-investors-need-to-know/#31c75d554d82

Two men in a canoe rowing in opposite directions goes no where. Three men rowing, 1 in one direction (value investing), 1 in the opposite (momentum investing) and the 3rd can't decide who's interpreted the compass correctly works to keep the canoe from going in circles.
In any case, I can tell you have fun with investing. It's just, at times to the reader, it all looks like a complicated all encompassing index. I think over time though you might make it all work.
Cub scout, but no further.

Howdy @Crash
Have you a yield number from a bond fund which you consider to be high enough, to suit your needs, at this point in the bond(s) investment cycle?
PRSNX indicates a current 30 day yield of 3.5% and a trailing 12 month yield of 3.41%. The yield is already increasing, yes?
If one is seeking a 20% yield increase from this fund this would = about a 4.2% yield, a 30% yield increase would = about 4.55% yield. Would these yields satisfy your yield/dividend requirements for a bond fund of this style?
With a active managed bond fund, one would hope that management would be able to keep the price decline of the fund to the minimum as bond yields increase.
This would be the trade off for a higher yield at this time, a reduction of pricing for the fund (less value to the investor, but perhaps a wash from a higher yield).
Regards,
Catch

FYI: Miller Value Partners’ Bill Miller holds the record for being the only mutual fund manager to beat the market for 15 years in a row. One way he did it is by investing in new technologies that the Wall Street establishment thought were crazy at the time – Amazon, Google, and Facebook among them. His latest “crazy” idea: Bitcoin.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthtrack.com/bill-miller-on-investing-in-disruptive-technologies-including-bitcoin/
M* Snapshot LGOAX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/LGOAX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot LOGAX:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/lgoax
LGOAX Is Ranked #43 In The (MCB) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/mid-cap-blend/miller-opportunity-trust/lgoax

FYI: More than most sectors, utility stocks have felt the sting of rising interest rates.
While the Standard & Poor’s 500 is up nearly 5% this year, the utilities in the index are down 4.5%, besting only the real estate group, which has lost 5%.
Still, utilities, which were yielding about 3.6% late last week, remain attractive to income investors. With rates so low, these stocks serve as bond proxies.
At a time of rising rates and strong economic growth, though, investors are more apt to move from the sector into riskier parts of the market. And higher bond yields pose competition.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/Don’t-Chase-High-Utility-Yields.B1tqTUeBf.html

FYI: The tremor Wall Street felt last Tuesday was caused by a letter—the annual epistle from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to CEOs of companies in which the world’s biggest institutional investor owns shares.
To paraphrase an old EF Hutton TV ad, when BlackRock talks, people listen. Behind Fink is more than $6 trillion in global assets. That’s equal to 20% of the total U.S. market value, as measured by the Russell 3000 Index.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/Did-BlackRock’s-Larry-Fink-Go-Too-Far-.SJ1c6UgBG.html

Hello.
This is Old_Skeet’s weekly barometer report for the weekending January 19, 2018.
Last week I reported that the 500 Index was extermely overbought with a barometer reading of 128. This week the reading is found to be the same at 128 and, with this, the Index remains extremely overbought as scored by the metrics found in the barometer. If the reading should drop much lower it will be off the scale. Generally, a higher barometer reading indicates there is more investment value in the Index over a lower reading.
For the week short interest for SPY is found to be 1.8 days to cover.
In review of the 500 Index compass the lead pack remains XLE (energy), XLF (financials) & XLY (consumer discretionary). Within the lead pack my spiff hound remains XLY and has for sometime as the consumer continues to spend. The bogey hound for this compass is EQL.
In review of the global compass the lead pack consists of GSP (commodities), EEM (emerging markets) & EWJ (Japan). Last week EEM had pulled back a bit but has now regained its momentum and edges out VTI (domestic stocks) for third place. Within the lead pack my spiff hound remains GSP and has for sometime as good demand for commodities continues. The bogey hound for this compass is VT.
This investment strategy was derived from a betting strategy I used years back at the dog track. The betting strategy was that I’d bet three dogs to either win, place or show during the early to mid races. This strategy provided a number of ways to have a dog (or dogs) be in the money. And, for me, this resulted in some good winnings as I had a prety good system that aided me in picking some good opportunity dogs for a wager.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
I wish all … “Good Investing.”
Old_Skeet