@stillers, Thanks for your posts.
Do you mind clueing us in for why you exited NEAGX? I see the negative momentum with - 1% and -5%, respectively of 3 and 1 month returns. But what is your expectation going forward that caused you to throw in the towel? Just getting rid of the super high beta within the high beta fare?
Do you mind sharing, after today’s trades, your overall portfolio allocation between equity and fixed income. For this purpose, if you do not mind, please include all money market, CDs, and Treasuries, if any, into fixed income.
Thanks again.

My portfolio is taxable and is primarily buy and hold. High yield stock and utility stock sleeves were added to it in 2020 and were funded during 2020 and the first part of 2021. Most of the dividends earned are released for personal use. Fido says the portfolio is currently 73% invested in stocks. It is overweight in REITs, Financials, Energy, and Utilities (the Financial and Energy sector investments include BDCs and LPs). The portfolio's YTD total returns have averaged between perhaps 40% and 75% of the SP500 with the direction of its trend line in general corresponding with the trend line of the SP500. The portfolio fares better on a relative basis when the bond market focuses on the prospect the Fed may begin to cut interest rates sooner rather than later (or "never"). It will probably benefit more on a relative basis if the Fed actually does begin to cut interest rates as the REIT sector will likely stop being shunned.

the scale of russia-affiliated cybercrime is speculated far below pre-ukraine war trajectory.
u.s. and allies presumably have used the war to coordinate offensive attacks on a massive scale, knowing cybercrime's role in compensating for sanctions.
for attribution impact, governments dont much like this kind of publicity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/us/politics/hacking-russian-intelligence-routers.html

Baird has several good muni bond funds.
Although 30 bps is not the lowest expense ratio, it is quite reasonable.
Morningstar indicates 0.30% falls within the least expensive fee quintile
in the US National Intermediate-Term Muni Bond category.
The category median expense ratio is 0.49%.
Several Baird muni funds have performed well even after considering the associated "extra costs."
BMNIX vs. VWIUX vs. MUB
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=4qwLtot4btyXIM0kQgAIqW
BMNIX vs. VWIUX vs. BSNIX vs. MUB
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=1HFhIxDHpoJLGoiYFM2fd7
BMNIX vs. VWIUX vs. BMQIX vs. MUB
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=5iJEIzG7j2YRfu2eB8XERf

@MikeM
A bit over five years ago. He was a one man investment firm. I am sure he charged the usual 1.25% of assets or so and may have still used mutual funds with sig fees

”He was a nice enough guy but I didn't see why my investment dollars had to pay for the frequent all expense paid luxury trips he was always going on to American Fund events.”
About 15-20 years ago I followed a fella off a plane at Key West airport. Dressed to kill & carrying a briefcase labeled “T. Rowe Price” with a blinking red or green light on it. Looked like it was getting ready to blow. And the attire was definitely out of sync with the atmosphere & climate there … :)

Really tough right now. Middle of the road income funds haven’t produced this year the way I would have expected. I hold FKIQX and CVSIX for income. Neither is “shooting the lights out.”
Hard to believe the mess RPSIX (mentioned by @PopTart) has become in recent years. TRP seems to have somehow shot that one in the leg. A couple etfs worth a look are PYLD / BINC. Probably decent longer term holds. Trying to generate income via CEFs can be very productive but has a “wild west” feel to it. 20-25% losses in 2022 were common even for those CEFs that profess to be income oriented.
No recommendations. But you’ve remind me of the time I tried to motivate my parents to invest in a money market fund back when they paid 20%. I seeded the account with $500. But they fled in a month or so. Grew up in the Depression. Only trusted the local bank.

for baird :
how can they justify triple the ER when solid quasi-active bond fund\etfs from vanguard do just as well on most/all long term metrics? (and have looked deeply into muni)
they have very low I-shares minimums for all bond funds, but is there any benefit for becoming a large (50k,100k,250k) fundholder?

I can't agree with you, with exception to the ER. I invest in a few Baird and Vanguard municipal bond funds. Two are BMQIX and VWIUX which I consider similar. Over any time period since BMQIX has existed, it's returns have been superior to VWIUX. I have no problem paying 30 basis points for BMQIX vs 9 for VWIUX.

for baird :
how can they justify triple the ER when solid quasi-active bond fund\etfs from vanguard do just as well on most/all long term metrics? (and have looked deeply into muni)
they have very low I-shares minimums for all bond funds, but is there any benefit for becoming a large (50k,100k,250k) fundholder?
for m* :
why do they think the new screeners are better? still missing some useful old feature, such as date of most recent analyst report.
given their long&regular history with technical problems, suggest they go very carefully into adding onerous login complexity.

I waited too long and I'm a bit lazy. I like the companies I'm with now so I'll let it ride until next year. I've read most claims stay on your record for 5 years so I'll wait until I'm out of the 5 year window. I have no problems changing to a good company. I stayed with one company for many many years until I realized we're just numbers to them.

I'd be curious what Choi from Parnassus has to say - I've always liked their Equity Income Fund despite the WFC issue some years ago. I bailed out a few years ago when the fund was getting more growthy than I wanted. (Would be nice if they made an ETF of PRBLX/PRILX.) Maybe see how they're doing post their assimilation by AMG?
Interestingly, the Centre Global Infrastructure reads a *lot* like my Schwab income portfolio, though it's doing better and without the 1.57 ER, so yay me.

M* JR Defends Standard Deviation (SD)
The notion of SD is so ancient (and independent of the MPT) that many write it off too easily. M* JR offers 3 points in the defense of SD:
1. JR's own comparative study of Downside Capture and SD concluded that both provide quite similar information. But the SD is much easier to calculate.
2. Don't blame SD for missing hidden risks, black swans, etc. Only deep fundamental analysis can detect those, if at all. Anyway, TR misses that too, so what?
3. SDs moderate over long periods of time. So, 15-yr SD should be lower than 3-yr SD. This is useful in portfolio design.
So, JR seems to be saying that there are more positives than negatives for SD, so quit complaining.
Finally, JR is implicitly referring to the SD of returns, not of prices (used for Bollinger Bands, BBW, etc).
https://www.morningstar.com/columns/rekenthaler-report/standard-deviation-is-an-imperfect-measure-not-useless

Are they considering large positions and what % of total assets? I would be cautious, as an individual investor, putting a lot of money in individual stocks. Why not pick a good dividend fund, a REIT fund and maybe a bond fund like OSTIX.
I would also do a lot more digging and look for a well diversified income portfolio. Why take on the risk of individual stocks when treasuries pay 4.5 to 5% ?
BYW my parents owned PFE all the way up to 50 and now down to 28. Hard to think it will go down more but even as an MD I cannot predict what their drug pipeline will do. They used to be top of the class, but no more

Another day, another disclosure....
I saw the writing on the wall 15 years ago -- very glad I'm not in operational cybersecurity anymore!

Long term shareholder of O here and it's been a very satisfactory investment. Excellent management team. Nothing glamorous, has it's ups and downs with the share price depending on the economic cycle (read: interest rates) but through it all it keeps delivering the same steady dividends with dividend growth to boot. It's one investment I rarely ever have to look at. I add whenever it goes below $50/share because it generally doesn't stay there for long.
In the past 6 months I've considered both PFE and PSTL. I believe in the PSTL concept, just haven't pulled the trigger yet because I own other REIT's. My only issue with PFE is that I aside from ABBV I have a horrible track record in the healthcare segment. Price fluctuations are my biggest concerns.

Yup, can't log into VG 6/25/24 @ 10:15am ADD: working now 10:22am

My parents are retiring soon and want some additional income to help fund their retirement. They're considering these options: PSTL yields 7.28% and pays quarterly, O yields 5.9% and pays monthly, PFE yields 5.85% and pays quarterly.
Please let me know what board members think of these options? Any other suggestions for a fairly dependable yield?
Thanks in advance for any and all replies!!

@gman57 : Why not checkout policies for this year ? Are you short on time ?

Ouch, just got my insurance policies
auto +5%
home +28%
umbrella +3%
28%!!!! WTH!!! I did have a roofing claim a couple years ago. I had a local broker research all my policies about 5 years ago. Saved me about 1k/yr. I think next year it's time to review all policies again.

Reports are from multiple sources.
https://x.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1805282196082597917
https://www.scmagazine.com/news/lockbit-claims-ransom-negotiations-with-the-fed-over-33tb-of-stolen-data
https://securityaffairs.com/164873/cyber-crime/lockbit-claims-hacked-us-federal-reserve.html