My wife and I have been in the 12% tax bracket but will probably bump up to 22% this year. Even so, the tax-equivalent yields on our muni funds (FTABX and FLTMX) were competitive with taxable bond funds and CDs until the past year. Now the spreads are so large that our muni fund yields are not competitive even at the 22% rate (and I presume 24%).

+1.

HYMU
YTD +2.87%.
1-year: -4.8%
YIELD: 4.21, a respectable neighborhood.
It's not lighting the world on fire, but better than the 3% you mentioned. I don't own it. I track it, for the sake of reference. I have no practical use for munis. "Break a leg."

The Week in Charts (07/31/23)
A tour of the markets covering the most important charts & themes, including the 11th Fed hike,
an epic run in the Dow, active managers going leveraged long, and more...
Video
Blog

Good question. These things run in cycles. I’m in a similar situation. Short / intermediate term stuff. Down in ‘22 and up a bit this year. Treading water for 18 months now. I’m prepared to wait it out. But your point is valid. Agree that for many of us it’s a toss-up in terms of tax advantage, One could probably over analyze this and come up with various political / macroeconomic / social reasons why munis have underperformed. But I haven’t seen anything convincing in the press. For every detractor I read today, there’s someone else who sees opportunity in munis. So it goes.
Sorry I haven’t answered your question.

Drop back 15-20 yards and punt

Funny, that. giggle.

Motherlovers!

Years ago someone in law enforcement told me that when they followed through on identity theft complaints, they found 80-90% of this crap was originating in Russia. (No idea if still true.)

Would be no surprise. Anne Garrels' book, "Putin Country," was a revelation. Russia's government is not a government; it's a mafia-style-ocracy. A gang-ocracy. Extortion, intimidation, graft, theft, rape, all sorts of violence and blackmail. And the "government," as we already know, is the sponsor for such criminal junk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Garrels

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 8/1/23
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
No changes.
Restricted RC 6.75%, RA 6.50%
Flexible RCP 6.00%, SRA 5.75%, Newer IRAs 5.20%
TSP G Fund hasn't updated yet (previous monthly rate was 4.00%).
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
#401k #403b #StableValue #TIAA #TSP
LINK

Drop back 15-20 yards and punt

My 2022 Form 1099 shows Foreign taxes flowed through from SCHY. It was ~ (<)10% of the dividends. I shall let others delve into IRAs and foreign taxes pass through from ETFs.

Wanna hedge? Take a look at CCOR which is off 11% YTD.

Why take a look at a loser? What's your point?
Instead, check out JHQAX, for example, which has gained 15.3% YTD, and on top of it has a lower standard deviation than CCOR. JHQAX also has an excellent 9-year risk/reward record.
Fred

I'm 15% in healthcare, but it's all through funds. Over the years, I've seen that my ethical filters just don't work, because at every turn, I'm battling the behemoth called (conscience-less) Capitalism. It sickens me, but what's a mother to do?

Wanna hedge? Take a look at CCOR which is off 11% YTD.
“Good hedges make good neighbors” - for your riskier S&P loaded assets.

Just posted ratings update to MFO Premium using Lipper's 28 July data file.
Descent July! If things hold today, I think we're about 1% of getting back above water since beginning of this Great Normalization cycle in January 2022.

You have to sign up for the auto-roll program and it basically locks that money. Any changes (additions/subtractions, etc) to it would cancel auto-roll; also the auto-roll order can be cancelled manually when it shows up around the roll time. I tried it once, but avoid it now.
But if you are up to manual monthly roll of 4-wk Treasuries, go for it.
Also look at 2-yr FRNs that pay floating 13-wk T-Bill rates + a spread, accrued daily, paid quarterly. A poster mentioned that you have to call Fido to place order, i.e. no online orders.

these middlemen / brokers have been buying up the insurance companies that cover prescription drugs. One they bought is Optum RX
The corporate structure is a bit more muddled than that. The major presecription benefit managers (PBMs) are owned by insurance companies or their parents. United Health Group (parent of United Healthcare) owns Optum Inc. (including OptumRx), CVS acquired Caremark (now branded CVS Caremark) a few years ago (and acquited Aetna more recently), and Cigna owns ExpressScripts.
One interesting facet about these PBM subsidiaries alluded to in the PBS piece is that since they're not insurers, they "can have a higher profit margin than the 15 to 20 percent that's regulated. Insurers are mandated [by the ACA] to spend 80 to 85 percent on medical costs."
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/secret-weapon-unitedhealths-optum-business-laying-waste-old-notions-about-how-payers-make-money
While Optum services hundreds of insurance companies, 2/3 of its revenue comes from United Healthcare - suggesting that PBMs are largely arms of insurance companies rather than independent third party service providers.

If I understand correctly, the latest 1 month Treasuries yield is about 5.4%. I wonder whether it makes sense to buy them and then reinvest them automatically as Fidelity offers. One can invest like that each week. This would be almost as liquid as a money market, with 5.4% yield, free of state and local taxes, which is better than VMFXX and VUSSX. Is there anything wrong with this idea? Maybe @Yogibearbull can comment?

+1

The PBS segment from Friday (I linked earlier in the thread) focused on the advent of pharmaceutical middlemen / brokers - a fairly recent development. These are companies that serve as a “broker” and set the prices drug wholesalers or insurance companies pay to big pharma and, in the end, what retail must pay and than charge customers. ”Gouging” is a better term than brokering.
Anyways … these middlemen / brokers have been buying up the insurance companies that cover prescription drugs. One they bought is Optum RX - which happens to be mine (as part of my retirement benefits). And that helps explain why with insurance I might pay $30, $40 or more for a common drug, while by skipping insurance and printing out a Good RX coupon in advance I might get the same medication for $10. Really nuts.
ISTM David Giroux in the recent Barron’s interview prophesied that big pharma will be a better investment if the R’s win the Presidency in 2024. So politics might enter into the Pud’s question. Healthcare has been the “in” thing for as long as I can remember. Old Ted liked it. Personally, I tend to run the other way when something’s in vogue - often at my own expense. Thus, I’ve never invested in it aside from indirectly through some fund(s).