For MAXJ, looks like on June 28 they started fund with IVV at 547 and bought July 2025 puts at 547 and sold July 2025 calls at 608, which is about 11.1% upside minus the 0.5% fee and we get the 10.6% upside. Would have to check prices for this strategy over last 20 years to determine if 10.6% is at top of range. Suspect that during 2008 timeframe this strategy would pay out 2-3%?
Seems like a reasonable strategy at todays prices…
Long term 100 year 1 year rolling returns shows market up about 75% of time and probably up 80% of time using last 40 years.
.

@sma3
Yes, I was still there, under Baker. A reasonable, intelligent man. He is no Trumpster-ite, for sure. Greed is always and forever a bad thing, even if it's perfectly legal.

@crash
We lived in CT, run as a one party state for decades. Budget deficits, huge government worker ( all unionized) pension and retiree health care deficits ( over $65,000 per person with a declining population). The only thing that saved them was iron clad "Guard rails" requiring a rainy day fund and any surplus to be put into deficit. Now Unions want to remove both.
Initially MA seemed much better with a moderate GOP Governor Baker ( who won by 33% margin in 2018) , although the dem controlled legislature is ranked as the least transparent in the US.
Baker stepped down. Trumpites took over GOP in 2022 and their candidate lost by 30%! so the Trumpites lost 60% of the electorate in 4 years!
Now we have a one party state. Taxes have doubled. New income tax surcharge 4% over $500,000. Mansion tax 2% on sales of over $1,000,000. People are talking about Taxachusetts again
A one party government is bad no matter who it is

@Devo,
Please check out MAXJ holdings. Investing in IVV (not Treasuries) and using a collar (selling calls at the cap and buying a put at the buffer). Would love your insight into why MAXJ has gone for holding IVV when it could have held Treasuries easily and simply, as in your post. What could be their thinking? E.g., Is it that they can not sell naked calls without holding some variation of the underlying?
https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/products/337965/ishares-large-cap-max-buffer-jun-etf
Please comment on how the effective Cap can drop if more inflows come in and the collar for newer assets costs them more. Fund started with $10m and now at 24m Assets.
Looks like Blackrock is trying to out compete the competition. Good for us in the short run.

Thanks, @equilizer.
Innovators has six 100% buffer ETFs, four of which are July products. 2, 1, & 0.5 yr measurement period (or defined outcome period) products. We discussed about innovators earlier in the thread.
I have to check out the Blackrock product which seems to have the best cap.

Odd that Schwab apparently allows purchase of ARDBX advisor shares without an advisor and low minimum

The minimum investment for ARDBX at several brokerages:
Fidelity - $2,500
Schwab - $2,500 (Basic), $1,000 (IRA)
Vanguard - $500

@catch22, thank you for the readable charts. VTV is still running ahead of VUG as of the last data drop at MFO premium to the end of June.
You ask "is this investment area really a solid 'trend' and/or rotation?" And I am reminded of a recent comment by Howard Marks highlighted in this thread (dinky linky.) "Investors should understand that the investment environment and the starting point for investments have a huge impact on their success."
People putting their money down at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 might have different opinions about value versus growth than those of us playing around with various start times. The person that bought dumpy old FGRIX is probably tickled about his 12.5 return versus the 8.8 return of SPY, or the 7.5 return of VUG, his smarter friends bought. And there is no reason to assume that his smarter friends will ever catch up, though they will pound the table.
Of course FGRIX is only 35% value per M* although Lipper labels it LCV. There are plenty of other funds on the list that might better fit someone's definition of value. That old passive curiosity LEXCX returned 10.5.

@WABAC and BenWP I've added to two other performance charts for different time frames when Value could have provided some 'head fakes'.
--- Chart line colors likely vary by device type; but my laptop, for my very good eyes show red, a lime green and blue. Also, one may hover a pointer over the graph line at any point to 'see' the name of the fund/etf.
VUG vs VTV vs SPY (a reference choice) This chart is for 2 years and covers the full years of 2022 and 2023.
This chart is for the beginning of the COVID period and covers the full years of 2020 and 2021.
'Course, I'm showing these as time frames for various periods which can cause any of us who may want to make decisions in 'real time'. A tough road, for sure. Being, is this investment area really a solid 'trend' and/or rotation?
BIAS NOTE: We've been mostly U.S. centric investors for many years and fully since the melt of 2008. This includes equity and bonds. We obtain small pieces of international exposure via U.S. fund holdings. The 'other' bias is that we've been oriented to growth. 'Course there have a few scary periods for growth investors.

ahh...so the lawfare didn't work...Orange Man still standing (ya, I'll give you so far anyways)...and how come no one on this board is writing about how Biden does not have the stamina nor cognition for the role...and who is really running the country..the Bolshie Ron Klain, Jill Biden? and their diversity pick for VP is obviously not competent either so therefore all the angst, no?
Biden's presidency has been a total and complete flop...everything from intentionally opening the border to illegals consisting of who knows whom, a disaster re foreign policy, wars, emboldening Iran, not negotiating effectively prior to Putin marching into Ukraine, inflation up the wazoo which continues, using lawfare against his political opponents, out of control crime (don't BS me with false statistics, reporting of serious crime has been downgraded for the optics and many blue cities don't even report to the FBI stats anymore), freebies on the taxpayers dime, reducing school debt for many who make decent monies, what about the plumbers who didn't go to school to chase skirts and drink beer and screw off for 5 years?...and watching the debate...who in their right mind would think he is capable of holding office right now, let alone in the future?

Sure, take out the engine of the world, and things will look different.
Value has been lagging for about 15 years now.
But one day.... :-)

...but starting fwd P/E not so for stocks. Twitter LINK
This is a good illustration of the well-known bond Rule of Thumb that initial yields approximate the TR over the duration (AGG duration 6).
Shown https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRkhkOuXsAAkAPh?format=jpg&name=large
Not shown https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRkhoOlXkAEzkLm?format=jpg&name=small

In the ratio chart of VUG:VTV,
up-trend = growth outperforming, 01/2023-now
down-trend = growth underperforming, 11/2021-01/2023
flat-trend = both performing in-line; not seen for long as the two are opposites
See longer 5 yrs at StockCharts (can use even earlier dates),
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=VUG:VTV&p=D&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p35418833536

AAII Sentiment Survey, 7/3/24
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (41.7%, above average) & bearish became the bottom sentiment (26.1%, below average); neutral became the middle sentiment (32.2%, above average); Bull-Bear Spread was +15.6% (above average). Investor concerns: Elections, budget, inflation, economy, the Fed, dollar, Russia-Ukraine (123+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (38+ weeks), geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks up, bonds flat, oil up, gold up, dollar down. Speculations continue about the Democratic ticket. In UK elections, Labour is ahead of Conservatives (incumbents). Paramount/NAI & Skydance deal is back. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1542/thread

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has just launched an ETF that offers 100% downside protection to investors. The new ETF (MAXJ) will have its maximum gains capped at 10.6% while protecting against the downside for a duration of 12 months. 0.5% ER
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/how-good-is-blackrock-s-new-100-downside-hedge-etf/ar-BB1pdRfO?ocid=BingNewsSerp

It represents one form of relative performance of USA growth vs value stocks. Growth has trounced value as we all know but in market sell offs value holds up better. Where are we now in that growth vs value cycle? Not at the bottom.

Now that I can see all three lines, it looks to me like one Vanguard index has trounced another Vanguard index over five years spanning rapidly changing market conditions.
If I had bought VSMIX or GQEPX five years ago I would be ahead of VUG. There may be other examples of funds that have performed better over the last five years. Those are just two that are on my watch list. I'll admit that only one of those is a value fund.
If we were to look at the last three years, during which growth has been digging itself out of a very large hole, a number of funds in my watch list outperform VUG. Only two outperform IWY.
I spent the last year ditching Vanguard index funds.
Edit to add:
Did a larger search at MFO Premium. Add HIMDX to the list of three funds that beat VUG over five years. The interesting thing about HIMDX is that it is a quant fund. Wouldn't we like to see the inside of their black box?
But what if we went back three years? There are 20 value, or equity income, funds that are beating VUG.
What if we went back to the start of "Normalization 2" which is 202112? Then we get a much larger number of value and equity income funds that are still beating VUG's return of 7.5 over that time period. (Lipper categorizes some funds as value that M* sees as blend.)
People assume that growth will continue to beat value just because. But, as with comedy, timing is everything.

As LTC Hal Moore said at the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, "Nothing's wrong ... except there's nothing's wrong."
I agree the markets are treading water and churning - there is a false sense of security forming, but at least it's not overwhelmed with bullish exuberance. Maybe that's b/c of the geopolitical and electoral climate around the world this year?

All you have to see is a nice uptrend of the SP500 chart since 11/2023(

link).

To clarify: My comments reflect my accounts (income-oriented, value equities), not the broad market.
That said, take out the Mag-7 and that chart will look a lot different, I bet.

As LTC Hal Moore said at the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, "Nothing's wrong ... except there's nothing's wrong."
I agree the markets are treading water and churning - there is a false sense of security forming, but at least it's not overwhelmed with bullish exuberance. Maybe that's b/c of the geopolitical and electoral climate around the world this year?

All you have to see is a nice uptrend of the SP500 chart since 11/2023(link).

Thanks, @Devo, for the explanation about CPSJ construction.
I am not averse to paying fees but I would rather buy an investment grade fixed income product that more guarantees to give me a 6% return at the end of the measurement period than CPSJ's promised variable 0-9% return.
I shall keep an eye on CPSM and see how close to $25 (inception price) it gets if SPY were to drop to April 30 closing price.
For any future purchases of these Calamos products, I intend to compare them to then available fixed income prospects.

VUG vs VTV vs SPY chart total returns. 5 years.
Value may remain value for good reasons and not yet ready for 'prime time'.

”JPMorgan's chief global market strategist and co-head of global research, Marko Kolanovic, is leaving the bank, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The move follows a disastrous two-year stretch of stock-market calls by Kolanovic. He was steadfastly bullish in much of 2022 as the S&P 500 Index sank 19% and strategists across Wall Street lowered their expectations for equities. He then turned bearish just as the market bottomed, missing last year's 24% surge in the S&P 500 as well as the 14% gain in the first half of this year.”
(This brief market news update was excerpted in its entirety from subscription based Bloomberg Media July 3, 2024)