@Edmond … in response to your points
1. Scientists around the globe are concerned about climate change. It is not a conspiracy, but based on analyses of facts and measurements. I spent much of my career in air quality. I have personally observed and measured how small concentrations of air pollution can affect the environment and people’s health. Much of the opposition to climate change is funded by fossil fuel companies with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
2. This is true but context is important. Where I live, conservatives have consistently opposed land use controls to limit development in floodplains, coastal areas. Trump is also cutting funds for the US Forest Service and FEMA. National forests are located all over the US, not just California. I believe we will be experiencing more wildfires in many areas outside the West. Several years ago, we had an exceptionally dry year in North Carolina, and wildfires were occurring across the state.
3. Many areas flooded by hurricanes in North Carolina were well outside floodplains, even 500-year zones. This was true in hurricanes Fran, Floyd, Matthew, Helene and others.

Tar, I respect your opinion. Moreover, I respect your civil discourse. A rarity for some reason on MFO these days, where most threads are begun by parties who wish to turn this place into a political board.
1. I did not use the term 'conspiracy'. Do fossil fuel companies use lobbying to further their interests? Sure. Is the use of money to influence outcomes in the climate issue unique to one side? I doubt it. I suspect money is a corrupting issue on both sides. (and on most issues). I simply do not believe the science outcomes are pure as the driven snow.
2. Human lifetimes are short. I doubt any of us, from our personal experience has a large enough data set to infer larger truths from our anecdotal experiences. In 2021 the entire state of TX suffered a severe month-long freeze. Worse than anything in my lifetime. Do I infer a new Ice Age is at hand? No. It was a one-off.
3 By definition then, perhaps the human-defined "flood plain" was not accurately understood. Human knowledge in all realms of science is incomplete and imperfect. We know more today than we did 200 years ago. Our understanding in 200 years will be more accurate still. We don't 'know it all' now. We should acknowledge the shortcomings of our knowledge. There is no sin to admitting we don't know it all.

For those interested in saving time about Trump Tariff updates, here is a source -
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/05/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-says-its-ready-to-fight-any-type-of-war-us-wants-till-the-end.html
Do not worry about how the weblink reads; it is not a single story link.

M* looks at structural differences between SPY (UIT) and VOO. SSGA later introduced SPLG that is similar to VOO and IVV in structure.
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/spy-vs-voo-which-sp-500-etf-should-you-own

@Edmond … in response to your points
1. Scientists around the globe are concerned about climate change. It is not a conspiracy, but based on analyses of facts and measurements. I spent much of my career in air quality. I have personally observed and measured how small concentrations of air pollution can affect the environment and people’s health. Much of the opposition to climate change is funded by fossil fuel companies with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
2. This is true but context is important. Where I live, conservatives have consistently opposed land use controls to limit development in floodplains, coastal areas. Trump is also cutting funds for the US Forest Service and FEMA. National forests are located all over the US, not just California. I believe we will be experiencing more wildfires in many areas outside the West. Several years ago, we had an exceptionally dry year in North Carolina, and wildfires were occurring across the state.
3. Many areas flooded by hurricanes in North Carolina were well outside floodplains, even 500-year zones. This was true in hurricanes Fran, Floyd, Matthew, Helene and others.

Trump is a traitorous wrecking ball. He's driving twin agendas: Project 2025 and Moscow's. There can be no denying it by now, except by willful ignorance.

+1
The Big 3 auto companies put pressure on Dump to kick the auto tariffs for both CA and MX another month out.
Dump said "da".

Trump is clearly owned by uncle Vlad. Did you think he would just come right out and tell us so? As for Israel:
Israel has controlled US foreign policy in the Mideast for decades. Concerned about foreign influence. End AIPAC and ban dual citizenship among US govt employees and office-holders...
Truth, there.
As for Market behavior: Markets respond to whichever news item they might latch onto. And Markets ALWAYS overreact, whether up or down, on a day to day basis. I've been saying so for years. And years.
Trump is a traitorous wrecking ball. He's driving twin agendas: Project 2025 and Moscow's. There can be no denying it by now, except by willful ignorance.

On Wednesday 3/5/2025, Wall Street digested POTUS's speech to Congress the night before, and sent stocks shooting higher...
So is Wall Street schizophrenic or is the Washington Post report who wrote that article is a partisan Trump-hater, or an idiot. Or both?
Why is there psychological need to attribute causality to the day to day changes on Wall Street? -- CNBC does this, but they at least are paid to make up stories so people keep watching them.
In the Stone Age, ignorant cave-dwellers assigned divine wrath when a terrible storm hit. That didn't make them too bright, even though they were certain the "gods were angry".
Seems like for the WaPo writer, and perhaps others, Trump is the 'angry sky-god' who is to blame for all of one's ills.

Another 'if you don't agree with me, you are (dumb) or (dogmatic). Well, at least there was no accusation of being a Russian bot...
1. A lot of science is funded by govt. Scientists are quite good at math, and understand if they do not provide the desired conclusion -- that being "Omigod, its Global Warming" their future fundings may be cut off. Scientists are human. They have families to raise. They want the gravy train to continue, and know what they need to do, to keep the funding coming. Simple, human motivations.
2. In the past 40 years, a large plurality of new homes/condos have been built very close to the coasts. Commercial developments follow the people. If you put a lot more structures on the coast, you are going to get more hurricane damage. In the arid western US, if the govts refuse to engage in forestry management, the fuel for the fires accumulate until a spark sets the unmanaged flora ablaze. CA is infamous for not engaging in sound forestry management. The Santa Anas blow every year. Bad govt policy is what drove the scale of the disaster.
3. If neighborhoods are allowed to build on a flood plain, they should expect to, well, get flooded. NOLA, famously, is below sea level. And we are shocked that occasionally NOLA gets hit?
The simple expansion of human settlements/cities/exurbsover the past 50 years assures that there will be more incidents of natural disasters. That is simple probability.
Do billions in losses from natural disasters effect the economy? Of course they do. It creates GDP, as incremental spending occurs to rebuild. -- One reason why GDP is a lousy measure of how a country is doing, economically.
Certainly, if NOAA is meritorious, George Soros, Jeremy Grantham and Bill Gates are welcome to fund it with their private donations.

Back on track!
Came across this commentary from Guggenheim recently. Appears to dismiss the tight spreads. Just ”talking their book”?
Reframing Tight Spreads in Leveraged Credit

I like writing. Amazon recently invited me to become a “Vine” reviewer. You get items (to keep) for free in exchange for “your honest unbiased review.”
But wait! They report every item as income based on its normal retail price to the IRS. So, if you received a “free” $1,000 TV set, in my tax bracket you would owe 22% to the Feds and around 4.25% to my state. - $260 + in income taxes alone for a single item. (That doesn’t even take into account the 6% state sales tax you’d pay.) Stories are legion online of unfortunate participants who either did not know the rules or thought they could skate by without reporting. One reported receiving a $20,000 + tax bill from the IRS 3 years after becoming a participant. For me, it’s a no brainer. Not interested. I have some other beefs about how I’ve been treated by Amazon in the past which I won’t get into here. But the coward at the WP practices the same editorial discretion in placement of reviews.

If you ever want to know how volatile CEFs are, try putting a bunch together (in roughly equal amounts) on a pie chart and watching them jump around. Swapped out a couple from my collection of 7 today, adding TEI (EM credits) from Templeton and LGI (total global return) from Lazard. The remainder of the lineup: JEQ, CPZ, BWG, WEA, GGN. Together they comprise 17.5% of portfolio. Should be interesting.
(All inside a Roth IRA)

In IRA, re-opened small position on 3/5/25 in CTA - this is a managed-futures ETF.
Thesis: Like most investors, I have oodles of bonds & stocks. But I am under-exposed to commodities. IMO the managed-futures space is a lower-volatility means to access commodity prices. To my mind, CTA compares favorably vs OEF mgd-futures funds in terms of volatility/returns..
Other 'nibbles' during the past 2 days:
a)In Roth - Added QQQI & BITO (bitcoin futures/option income ETF).
b) In Trad-IRA added to FBTC (bitcoin), GQGPX (EM), and new position in FSCO (private credit CEF). FSCO has a history of lessened volatility and divd increases. Also added to my home-made 'stapled market-neutral fund' combining QDSNX/REMIX/JMNAX.
c. In taxable account: adding to MSFT and QQQ position. Opened small position in DFAT (DFA s/c value ETF).
edit: in taxable account, added to 'ABEV'- Brazilian beer company. Buying simply on techicals -- most EM sold off hard at year-end, many are in the process of 'springing back' to their trendlines. Beer is a pretty stable business. I've done plenty of 'research' on beer.

CME FedWatch is now showing 3 cuts in 2025. There are based on fed fund futures trading data, not surveys.
https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch-tool.html

Warren Buffet descibes Tariffs are ‘an act of war’ in his rare CNN interview.
https://cnn.com/2025/03/03/business/warren-buffett-tariffs-trump/index.html

Foreign assets spiked about the time the U.S. markets began the late day sell off. There were unconfirmed reports the Fed was eyeing more rate cuts than earlier proposed (5 thru year end I think). That would weaken the dollar, but might serve to push up U.S. equities. This is beginning to make some sense.

The S&P 500 was within 4 points or so of the 200 day simple moving average when it reversed.

The $22+B is for the 45 ports in 25 countries. Panama ports happen to be part of the portfolio BLK affiliates bought. A deal like this takes months to agree on, including on the ground extensive due diligence. I think it is a great deal for CK Hutchinson.
More likely Larry Fink is having a sense of mortality. My guess is BX passed up the deal or it was never brought to it. They tend to do go after more high margin projects than BLK does.

Deal involves BlackRock/BLK (Larry Fink; NYC), BLK subsidiary GIP (Global Infrastructure Partners; NYC-based private-equity) that it bought just last year and GIP portfolio company TIL (Terminal Invest Ltd; Switzerland-based). So, it looks like Larry Fink's deal all the way. It seems that BLK and GIP are handling the financing aspects and Swiss TIL may be the Panama Canal port operator.
An unusual deal for BlackRock. May be Blackstone/BX (Schwarzman) passed it up or had his hands full.
Anyway, HK CK Hutchison that loved its Panama Canal port operations just in January 2025 was glad to cash out of this sudden hot potato at $22.8 billion. How things changed in 6-8 weeks.
Open Links
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackrock-buys-hutchison-panama-ports-161538706.html
https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-panama-canal-beijing-hutchison-blackrock-rubio-d02a8439cc63d9e740e5154d4e0c56f6
Subscription Link https://www.barrons.com/articles/blackrock-panama-canal-ports-trump-5fbfdc5f

This country does want illegal immigrants - if they can pay them at 50% off, deny them any and all benefits and if they'll do the work no natural born citizen will do. Hell, they're crying for them as we speak. They also like rich ones apparently but mostly only from certain countries with the right colors and religious beliefs. Forget all that "bring me your tired and poor" nonsense we used to treasure. Our doors now are being watched by massive idiots and backwards values.