NOTES
Fed fund rate hike +25 bps (range 5.00-5.25%); discount rate 5.25%; bank reserve balance rate 5.15%. Data & events dependent policy flexibility is indicated going forward. The QT continues at -$60 billion/mo Treasuries, -$35 billion/mo MBS. The monetary policy is restrictive.
Tight credit conditions at banks are being monitored. They may have the effect of some rate hikes, but that is unquantifiable.
Inflation remains high, well above the Fed’s +2% average target. Inflation-expectations are now modest. Labor markets remain strong. There is excess demand. The FOMC will make decisions meeting-by-meeting, but cuts in 2023 won’t be appropriate.
Economy has slowed down, but recession may be avoided.
The US banking system is sound. This crisis has revealed some issues for small/medium banks, including unexpected & fast runs. The unsured institutional money moved out first, and now, the retail money is moving out gradually. With the resolutions of the 3 biggest problematic banks, the banking crisis may be near the end. VC Barr has the sole and distinct constitutional role on supervision, but Chair Powell & other members do provide input. The focus now is on how the problems can be avoided in the future. Barr’s report will be implemented to the extent possible. US bank consolidations have been happening for decades. It is desirable to have small, medium & large size banks. But specific crisis-merger decisions are by the FDIC & it chooses the least costly option(s), makes related selections & any decisions on required waivers.
Use of the overnight reverse repos by the money-market funds is being watched.
Debt-ceiling is a fiscal issue that must be addressed timely. Consequences of a US debt default would be unknown but severe, & no one should expect the Fed to protect from those.
Powell isn’t dwelling on the past but wants to control the controllable going forward.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1029/thread

To me, the question isn't just of efficacy, but whether the government can force these pharamaceutical companies to lower their drug costs? Somehow I don't think a year's worth of this drug costs $25,000 to $58,000 to manufacture. I wonder what the profit margins will be on it, even after factoring in the R&D costs? If it's effective even somewhat, that matters. One thing I would add is the current annual cost of a private room in a nursing home is $108,408: https://health.usnews.com/best-nursing-homes/articles/how-to-pay-for-nursing-home-costs It is sad but true that the most expensive nursing home patients are ones with Alzheimer's as they can be physically healthy otherwise, but still be mentally unfit to care for themselves, becoming both a danger to themselves and others. So, unlike most elderly patients, they can end up in nursing homes for many months or even years. As strange as this sounds, the medicine, if it works, would be cheaper.

Certainly if every Alzheimer's patient on Medicare in the US received this drug, Medicare would be bankrupt very quickly. Part B premiums increased 14% in anticipation of the costs of Anduhelm two years ago, before CMS and FDA wisely decided to limit it's use to clinical trials.
It is too early to decide if donanemab is cost effective, but at $25000 to $58,000 ( initial projected cost of Anduleum) a year, shouldn't we wait to see some data on cost reductions before wholesale approval?
The limited information Lilly released ( press releases have a bigger effect on the stock price than a peer reviewed scientific article!) indicates it "stabilizes" cognitive decline, but does not reverse it. No information on how long this lasts. Hopefully a year of treatment will provide long lasting benefit, but there is no data.
It is also not benign. 35% of patients had brain swelling and/or bleeding and at least three died. This is a common problem with these drugs. There may be ways to predict who is at most risk, but this is not a well tolerated medication.
This country needs to have a serious discussion of the goals of Alzheimer's treatment and how many Billions of Medicare money we can afford to pay for it. But, of course it is unlikely this will occur. The Alzheimer's lobby said the FDA was "ignoring" Alzheimer's patient's medical needs when it put up "barriers at every turn" to prevent patients from receiving a drug that reduced the decline in a cognitive test by few points.
The tortured course of Anduleum should be a warning of how aggressive the pharmaceutical industry, academics and patient advocates will be to force approval of drugs that show any possible benefit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aducanumab

Stock's up 6% today, although the efficacy is far from 100%. Still, any help for this horrible disease deserves praise: https://cnn.com/2023/05/03/health/alzheimers-drug-donanemab-eli-lilly/index.html

An experimental Alzheimer’s medication slowed declines in patients’ ability to think clearly and perform daily tasks by more than a third in a large clinical trial, drugmaker Eli Lilly said Wednesday.
Based on the results, in people with early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease, Lilly said it plans to file for approval from the US Food and Drug Administration by the end of June.
The medicine, donanemab, works by removing plaque buildups in the brain known as amyloid that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. However, there were some side effects reported; there were three deaths in the trial among people taking the drug, two of which were attributed to adverse events such as brain swelling or microhemorrhages, known as amyloid-related imaging abnormalities or ARIA. The trial was run in more than 1,700 patients for 18 months.
Alzheimer's drug lecanemab receives accelerated approval amid safety concerns
“For every medicine, for every disease, there are potential risks and potential benefits,” said Lilly’s chief scientific and medical officer, Dr. Daniel Skovronsky. But he noted that almost half of the participants taking the drug, 47%, showed no decline on a key measure of cognition over the course of a year, compared with 29% of people taking a placebo.
That’s “the kind of efficacy that’s never been seen before in Alzheimer’s disease,” Skovronsky said.
Alzheimer’s affects more than 6 million Americans, with an estimated 1.7 million to 2 million people over 65 in the early stages of the disease, according to Lilly. Drug development for Alzheimer’s has been riddled with failures, but Lilly’s drug is among a new group showing promise. The first, Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi, received accelerated FDA approval in January.

(NOT a recommendation)
What could possibly go wrong here?
“Candlestick takes the hard parts of investing out of your hands and puts money into them. Our advanced model constantly updates to give you weekly AI stock picks that outperform the market. The model, which incorporates dozens of metrics per stock, learns to pick stocks by training hundreds of times over past data until it can achieve superhuman results. To put it simply, Candlestick uses the power of AI to make the stock market work for regular people.”
Candlestick
Note: It appears from 100+ reviews that this has been on the market about a year. Overall rating at Apple’s App Store is 4.5 / 5 (which is good). However, some disgruntled reviewers report losing a whole lot of money using this. One said one early pick fell 4% in a single day after he bought it. (Tried, unsuccessfully, to cut and paste some of the reviews)

Your other post was on pension valuation which is a controversial concept. You don't need to do that at all.
Instead, do an income-gap analysis. Add up all of your estimated annual expenses; subtract your VA pension, Social Security (if any; you didn't mention it), and any other steady income stream(s). The difference is the income-gap that has to be covered by your portfolio. Incidental expenses would be extra.
I think you can handle $500K portfolio DIY. It may cost 1.0-1.50% on top of fund fees etc to use an advisor.

I don’t post here much, but I do follow the website each day.
So, in turn we are both turning 60 this year. I am military retired and work part time. My spouse works full-time for an insurance broker doing accounting procedures. I have been doing my own investing over the years and mine is at Fidelity and hers at T Rowe Price. I started hers at TRP when she was a green card holder and is now a dual citizen and has been this way for 20+ years.
We are both in generally good health. I have my aches and pains left from the military though which are covered by the VA. Our medical insurance is through Tricare and the other insurances (dental, eyes, car & house) comes through her work at discounted price. We purchased long term care insurance a few years ago for a cheap price for $4k a month if we ever need it.
Our current medical insurance is through Tricare (Humana Military). When we turn 65 will have to get Medicare as primary payer and Tricare for Life becomes secondary payer. We will continue to get our drugs through Medicare/Tricare
So, my wife has suggested to me that I get an advisor to manage what we have so it lasts throughout our lives and have a good time traveling seeing friends and family. Not so quick, wifey, I think I’ve done a good job of investing and saving.
Even took money out of Roth IRA and paid off the house, and this still leaves us over $1/2m to have a good time with.
My military retired check covers all the bills including the insurance coverages, plus some left over. Her pay and my pay collect in savings accounts for vacations, household repairs etc.
So, the odd question everyone has about their portfolio is what to do with it. Where do I put it? I had posted a thread under What is Pension worth: Old_Joe had mentioned to create a new thread in other investing in what to do with your portfolio now. We don’t have anyone to leave our money too, so now it’s time to spend it. But where do we put it.
So here I am:
Her’s
PRWCX – Capital Appreciation
PRHSX – Health Science
PRFDX – Equity Income
TREMX – Emerging Europe, bought it when price tanked 2.60 share
PRSVX – Small Cap Value
His
VWENX – Wellington
FSMEX – Medical Tech & Devices
TRMCX – Mid Cap Value
FIEUX – Europe Fund
FSCOX – Small Cap Foreign
FXAIX – S&P 500 Fund

Scroll a bit for the transcript. The interview was at M* MIC 2023 in Chicago.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1153877/liz-ann-sonders-navigating-a-new-temperamental-era-in-markets

Fine line between reality and make believe these days....
So.
All these bank issues remind me of what Marc Faber (the guy you don't see on the shill networks anymore because he speaks truth which don't agree with the political/social views of the censors I mean management of said networks) was saying in recent times.
Said to Diversify. What does that mean. Get a good portion of your monies in another currency outside the dollar, US Stonk, Bond market...meaning you need to get your monies outside of the US, Canada, Aussie..the 5 eyes countries...
Makes you wonder if he is right....and I would have no idea as to how to go about doing that...
Good Luck to ALL

@hank, M* now backs out the shorting- and leverage-related expenses from the ER, and calls it adjusted-ER. Years ago, M* controversially stated only the adjusted ER, and argued vigorously about it, but since it started its own asset management business, it changed its practice to include both adjusted and total ERs. As far as the SEC is concerned, the total ER must be stated, but optionally, an adjusted ER (with explanations) may also be included.
There are historical reasons why the SEC has required inclusion of these costs in the ER and one of these was that the OEFs campaigned for this in the 1940s because there were concerned about the unfair advantages that CEFs may have due to leverage.
@JD_co, I missed that 4.74% -1x (inverse) SP500 position in the holdings.

LCR is ETFs based and is long only. Inception was 1/6/20. ER is high for an ETF.
Surprisingly, their M* charts are similar since 1/6/20 (StockCharts doesn't recognize LCR).

It looks like LCR uses inverse ETFs to address the "short" side. SPND (Direxion Daily S&P 500® Bear 1X ETF) was recently the 4th largest holding.

Despite its sharp drop, the regional bank KRE is still +54.4% above its pandemic/2020 low. And now we are having a regional banking crisis, but this subsector hasn't yet reached panic-washout stage. I may take a bite at low-30s.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=KRE&p=D&yr=3&mn=6&dy=0&id=p94432364595

“On Monday, the question was raised as to whether the 2023 banking crisis was near an end, thanks in part to the largesse of JPMorgan. On Tuesday, Wall Street answered with a Bronx cheer. Investors targeted two more regional banks while taking the broader market down with them. PacWest and Western Alliance led the big selloff in regional lenders as trading in both triggered multiple volatility halts. PacWest fell 28% to close at a record low while Western Alliance tumbled 15%.
“The KBW Regional Banking Index dropped 5.5% on Tuesday, the most since the crisis began back in March. Charles Schwab, a brokerage with a banking arm that’s come under pressure by the recent rout, fell 3.3%. And they weren’t the only victims: Comerica and Zions Bancorp each tumbled more than 10% while Metropolitan Bank Holding dropped 20%.”
Story

$10k minimum to get in. Not a problem for some of us. ADJUSTED ER is 1.16%.
Morningstar:
It has provided superior returns compared with peers, but subpar returns compared with the category benchmark...When adjusting for risk, this fund is competitive. The share class led the index with a higher Sharpe ratio, a measure of risk-adjusted return, over the trailing 10-year period. This strategy also delivered a smooth ride for investors, with a relatively low standard deviation of 8.2%, compared with the benchmark’s 12.0%. Finally, the share class proved itself effective by generating positive alpha, over the same 10-year period, against the category group index: a benchmark that encapsulates the performance of the broader asset class.
Still, 0.85% sounds high for an ETF. I dunno about the composition of the portfolio compared to the OEF.

International Business Machines Corp. Chief Executive Officer Arvind Krishna said the company expects to pause hiring for roles it thinks could be replaced with artificial intelligence in the coming years. Hiring in back-office functions — such as human resources — will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said in an interview. These non-customer-facing roles amount to roughly 26,000 workers, Krishna said. “I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.” That would mean roughly 7,800 jobs lost. Part of any reduction would include not replacing roles vacated by attrition, an IBM spokesperson said.
Story
ISTM one of these AI gizmos ought to be able to run a mutual fund better than a human can - perhaps consistently outperforming the S&P. (Not to mention… a lot more cheaply)

@jafink63... I would suggest that you-
• 1) Sit down and map out your total annual dependable income from all sources.
• 2) Do the same for all of your predictable and repeatable annual expenses. Hopefully the income will exceed the expenses. Will it be necessary to draw down your retirement accounts to meet those expenses? If so, an additional level of careful planning will be necessary. Consider that inflation is certain to increase your expenses, but not necessarily your income.
• 3) Consider what resources you may have for unanticipated expenses- primarily health care. Would an illness requiring expensive or extended health care be covered by insurance?
• 4) If it looks like your retirement income will cover your expenses, and you have decent health care coverage, then (and only then!) can you look forward to spending down your retirement savings.
• 4) With respect to "where do we put it", I'm sure that you will get many responses from the folks here at MFO. My personal input: I believe that we are heading into a period of financial system instability which will likely take a couple of years to sort itself out.
During that period you should want to keep your savings as safe as possible. I suggest consideration of laddering fairly short-term (3 months to 2 years) FDIC insured Certificates of Deposit, or similar maturity Treasury instruments. These types of instruments are easily available through brokerages such as Fidelity or Schwab. We personally use Schwab, but many MFO posters would also recommend Fidelity.
For more information about these types of investments you might take a look at the "New to Brokered CDs" thread, and also the "Best Returns on Currently Available CDs or Treasuries Maturing 2024 to 2025" thread.
Best of luck in retirement- I can testify that my wife and I are certainly enjoying ours.

Another look at what happened to FRC:
cws-market-review-may-2-2023

INTERESTING COMMENTARY BY DAVID IN THIS MONTH'S issue. I think LCORX is a great fund which theoretically could be the only fund you need to own because it can invest anywhere and hold any market asset. The problem I have with it is the ER it charges 1.38%. They now have an ETF which appears to have the same strategy and it's ER is .85%. Is the ETF sufficiently similar that it will out perform the mutual fund?

@Mark,
Just looking at the Tastyworks website know called TastyTrade. They appear to be more of a trading platform. A tasty one I assume.
They are offering a $3K transfer bonus (on $250K)...tastier than most offers. They also appear to have the ability to set up and manage a Trust account which I would like to know more about.
Anyways, here is the website and their account types:
tastytrade.com/accounts/
Promotion:
tiered-opening-promotion-2023