Reverse-splits for mutual funds don't make any (rational) sense. They don't trade like stocks, and trading and margin considerations don't apply.

99.9% of the time, I agree with this. There is the oddball exception where there is a sensible rationale for reverse splits.
BTTRX is a zero coupon bond fund. A real zero coupon bond pays no interest (though interest is imputed); it merely appreciates in value until maturity. BTTRX is designed to mimic this behaviour.
From the prospectus:

Reverse Share Splits
When the fund pays its distributions, the board also declares a reverse share split for the fund that exactly offsets the per-share amount of the distribution. If you reinvest your dividends, this reverse share split means that you will hold exactly the same number of shares after a dividend as you did before. This reverse share split makes changes in the fund’s share prices behave like changes in the values of zero-coupon securities.

https://www.americancentury.com/plan/tax-center/reverse-share-split/

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/923184/000119312523008392/d274034d497.htm
497 1 d274034d497.htm FORM 497
MATTHEWS ASIA FUNDS
SUPPLEMENT DATED JANUARY 13, 2023
TO THE PROSPECTUS FOR
THE MATTHEWS ASIA TOTAL RETURN BOND FUND AND
THE MATTHEWS ASIA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES FUND
DATED APRIL 28, 2022, AS SUPPLEMENTED (THE “PROSPECTUS”)
For all existing and prospective shareholders of the Matthews Asia Total Return Bond Fund and the Matthews Asia Credit Opportunities Fund:
Liquidation
The Board of Trustees of Matthews International Funds (d/b/a Matthews Asia Funds) (the “Trust”) has approved a Plan of Termination, Dissolution and Liquidation for each of the Matthews Asia Total Return Bond Fund and Matthews Asia Credit Opportunities Fund, each a series of the Trust (each, a “Fund” and together, the “Funds”), pursuant to which the Funds will be liquidated (each, a “Liquidation” and together, the “Liquidations”) on or about March 15, 2023 (the “Liquidation Date”). This date may be changed without notice at the discretion of the Trust’s officers.
Suspension of Sales. Effective January 17, 2023, the Funds will no longer sell shares to new investors or existing shareholders, including through exchanges into the Funds from other series of the Trust.
Mechanics. Each Fund will cease investment operations in accordance with the Fund’s investment objective and policies, and the Fund’s assets will be converted into cash and cash equivalents on or before the Liquidation Date. In connection with the Liquidations, any shares of a Fund outstanding on the Liquidation Date will be automatically redeemed as of the close of business on the Liquidation Date. The proceeds of any such redemption will be equal to the net asset value of those shares after the applicable Fund has paid or covered with reserves all of its charges, taxes, expenses and liabilities. For each Fund, the distribution to shareholders of these liquidation proceeds will occur as soon as practicable, and will be made to all shareholders of the Fund of record at the time of the Liquidation. Additionally, each Fund must declare and distribute to shareholders any realized capital gains and all net investment income no later than the final Liquidation distribution. Matthews International Capital Management, LLC (“Matthews”), investment advisor to the Funds, intends to distribute substantially all of each Fund’s net investment income before the applicable Liquidation. Matthews will bear all extra expenses other than any brokerage commissions in connection with the Liquidations to the extent those expenses with respect to a Fund exceed the amount of the Fund’s normal and customary fees and expenses accrued by the Fund through the Liquidation Date, provided that those accrued amounts are first applied to pay for the Fund’s normal and customary fees and expenses.
Other Alternatives. At any time before the Liquidation Date, shareholders of the Funds may redeem their shares of the Funds and receive the net asset value thereof, pursuant to the procedures set forth under “Investing in the Matthews Asia Funds – Selling (Redeeming) Shares” in the Prospectus. Shareholders may also exchange their shares of the Funds for shares of the same class of any other series of the Trust, as described in and subject to any restrictions set forth under “Investing in the Matthews Asia Funds – Exchanging Shares” in the Prospectus.
U.S. Federal Income Tax Matters. For tax purposes, with respect to shares held in a taxable account, the automatic redemption of shares of a Fund on the Liquidation Date will generally be treated as any other redemption of shares (i.e., as a sale that may result in gain or loss for federal income tax purposes). Instead of waiting until the Liquidation Date, a shareholder may voluntarily redeem his or her shares before the Liquidation Date to the extent that the shareholder wishes to realize any such gains or losses before the Liquidation Date. See “Other Shareholder Information – Taxes” in the Prospectus. Shareholders should consult their tax advisors regarding the tax treatment of the Liquidation.
If you have any questions regarding the Liquidations, please contact the Trust at 1-800-789-ASIA (2742).
Please retain this Supplement with your records.

M* had mentioned that co-lead-manager Yu Zhang was responsible for the recent (5+ years) shift in MAPIX from old current-dividend emphasis to also include dividend-growth emphasis. As a result, MAPIX started behaving similar to other growth-oriented Matthews Asia funds. IMO, this change may restore MAPIX to its original current-dividend emphasis.

Good catch, Yogi; didn't realize the strategy change with YZ, just that it seemed to get growthier than it was during its better days.
Off topic: I also hadn't realized until yesterday that the China Dividend fund is up more than 30% in the last 3 months (not up just in the current rip).

Bloomberg has a great piece by Matt Levine pointing out that the debt ceiling applies only to the principal of the bonds not the interest. So it would be easy to get around the limit by selling bonds with high interest for a premium, which is entirely legal. It is behind a paywall so I will quote the argument here
He points out that there is little difference in selling two $100 one year bonds paying 4.5% ) yields $9 interest) vs selling one $100 bond paying 109% interest. The latter would sell for $200, or a premium of $100 with $9 in interest being the same as that accumulated on two $100 bonds. The 109% interest bond would only raise the debt ceiling by $100, compared to the $200.
I would buy this in a non-taxable account!

I believe this is what you're referring to:
https://www.chron.com/business/enron/article/Enron-executives-may-lose-lawsuits-but-not-all-2070656.php
As far as OJ is concerned,

Collections attorneys who have experience know how to use the Florida Uniform Fraudulent Transfer act and other such actions in Florida to attack transfers by a debtor into exempt assets. Such transfers may be reversible in certain circumstances. Furthermore, transfers to a spouse may also be reversible if done to defraud a creditor.

https://whhlaw.com/oj-simpson-really-moving-florida-debt-collection/
IOW, you'd better have your ducks in a row before there's a judgment against you.
With respect to plaintiffs being constrained by contingency lawyers, submitted for your amusement:

Geico must pay $5.2 million to woman who got HPV from sex in man's insured car, court rules
...The woman — identified in court papers only as "M.O." — said that she "engaged in unprotected sexual activities in Insured's vehicle" in November and December 2017 and that he "negligently caused or contributed to" her catching the human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted infection, court papers said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/geico-must-pay-52-million-woman-got-hpv-sex-mans-insured-car-court-rul-rcna32831
Of course this is being appealed. Still this is the type of claim (liability for negligence) that umbrella insurance is designed for, and it illustrates that the amounts and types of claims possible are limited only by a plaintiff's imagination.

I suspect i's merely for optics. Having a bunch of funds priced < $5 probably makes them feel embarrassed. Heck, I don't remember seeing a 'reverse split' for an OEF before, come to think of it...

There are only a handful of small-cap funds less volatile than the S&P 500, and I don't know if there are any with a growth-stock orientation like these funds. One on the value side is RYSEX. Actually, NBGNX is one on the growth side. But that has a very different style and owns much larger stocks than these GP funds. It doesn't make them bad funds, but you have to know what you're buying before investing. Perhaps it would be a useful launch for GP, given the slew of fund launches they've had over the years, to create a new truly defensive small-cap fund.
A couple of things that make small cap funds more defensive in downturns are cash obviously, put options, holding dividend-paying stocks with a strong track record of paying them, strong balance sheets, low valuation but high quality companies with the aforementioned strong balance sheets. RYSEX for instance holds cash and seeks companies with low valuations and rock solid balance sheets. QRSVX on the value side is similar.

@Observant1
Several political blogs questioned why Santos's opponents campaign or the national Dems couldn't find stuff that the NYT easily uncovered. I looked into it a bit and found the research paper the Democrats wrote on Santos. ( If anyone is interested I can try to find it again)
95% of it deals with his pro Trump/election denying statements etc, and other than mentioning his education and supposed job history they did not investigate. The one red flag is they did discover he had been evicted for non payment of rent several times, but apparently didn't follow up
My impression was they were so focused on his being a Trumpite ( Thinking it would rile up the Dem base?) , that they failed to make a few phone calls to Citi or Goldman, thus violating what to me would be the first law of politics : Know your opponent.
I shared this info with my uber Democratic cousins and was accused of "always complaining about the Democrats". Tehy refused to believe the campaign was responsible.
I think it demonstrates again, how polarization has so overtaken people's previous good sense and investigative reporting. Even criticism from allies is seen as treacherous

Ditto. Plus headline CPI (CPI-U) is +0.9 for the past six months, or 1.8% annualized. (See the bar graph partway down this page.)
Think how meager the yield of an I-bond priced now would be, even if the fixed portion was bumped up a bit. Per Yogi's thread on I-bonds, it's not likely to be any better when the re-rate comes around again in May.

Michael Santoli, Senior Markets Commentator at CNBC, has been pointing out the relative outperformance lately of the equal-weight S&P 500.
https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?spy,rsp

Equal-Weight & Market-Cap Sector ETFs
As noted already, the GICS sectors (11) suffer from odd placements of companies because the companies can be only in one sector (e.g. all of the original FANG are now found in XLC and XLY), and also the super-concentration (e.g. XLE). The SPDR sector ETFs follow the GICS sectors using market-caps, but Invesco/IVZ sector ETFs use equal-weights. There are other related ETFs too, but this post lists only the SPDR (market-cap) and Invesco (equal-weight) sector ETFs. Search the other ETFs with etfdb.com/etfs/.
Sector, Equal-Weight ETF, Market-Cap ETF, Notes on SPDRs
Communications, EWCO, XLC, High % in META (#1), GOOG/GOOGL (#2, #3), NFLX (#6)
Consumer-Discretionary, RCD, XLY, High % in AMZN (#1), TSLA (#3)
Consumer-Staples, RHS, XLP
Energy, RYE, XLE, High % in XOM (#1), CVX (#2)
Financials, RYF, XLF, Real-estate equities are now in XLRE, mREITs remain
Healthcare, RYH, XLV
Industrials, RGI, XLI
IT, RYT, XLK
Materials, RTM, XLB
Real Estate, EWRE, XLRE
Utilities, RYU, XLU
SP500, RSP, SPY
StockCharts has CandleGlance charts for SPDR ETFs. https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?[SECT]
Added is one for Invesco ETFs. https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/candleglance.html?RSP,RCD,RGI,RHS,RYE,RYF,RYH,RTM,RYT,RYU,EWCO,EWRE|B|null
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/133/gics-sectors-industries?page=1&scrollTo=899

More inflation data posted today.
https://vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/12/23551782/inflation-cpi-consumer-price-index-federal-reserve
Couple that with last week’s slowing wage growth is encouraging; the rate hike may become smaller. After a bruising year of 2022, these are quite encouraging data.

From Walter Deemer this evening, a true icon since the 1960s among technical analysts. “ The stock market generated breakaway momentum today for the 25th time since 1945. This is a genuine breadth thrust. It means (IMHO) we’re in a bull market. How long it lasts, and how far it carries is something we will know only in the fullness of time.”
Twitter is all lathered up about Mr. Deemer’s breakaway momentum thrust, Zweig’s breadth thrust, a Whaley breadth thrust and more, I am in a small group of retired bond traders from insurance companies and banks and that is all they are talking about too. Even more so since the junk bond indicator has worked so well YTD. I just hope since these breadth thrusts are now so well embraced/discussed/known that doesn’t blunt their effectiveness,
Would be nice if this lock out move up continues not allowing those waiting for a pull back to jump on board. But who knows, The S@P is the most overbought now since last May where it then proceeded to lose several hundred points so say the bears. This current market though in no way resembles the May market other than being overbought. Just look at the daily new highs/lows.

(2 Stories ) Reprinted from the WSJ By Webull / Should Be Accessible.
Average stock fund lost 18.4% - https://www.webullapp.com/news-detail/7961738086763520
Best Managers 2022 - https://www.webull.com/news/7954778224053248

If the rate is high for twelve months (you're getting a blended 12 month rate of around 8.4%), then the penalty is almost meaningless. Hold the savings bond for 15 months and you get that 8.4% for 15 months instead of 12, which is still around 6.7% annualized.
That penalty wasn't a deterrent with rates so high. It's likely to be one going forward as
rates for upcoming 6 month periods drop back down to "normal".

Alert on #IBonds, 1/12/23
While the current 6.89% rate will apply to I-Bond purchases until 4/28/23 (rate valid for 6 months from the purchase date), the preliminary projections for the next rate on 5/1/13 are for only 0-1%. About the half of the #CPI data needed for 5/1/23 rate is in, and inflation is trending down. I-Bonds that are 12+ months old after 5/1/23 may be sold with 3-mo interest penalty.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/209/savings-bonds-6-months-nov?page=4&scrollTo=897

”Too many George Santos impersonators have infiltrated some of these forums.”

Hi Gary. I don’t know whether your reference was to me or not. But inasmuch as I’d earlier alluded to some profitable personal investments and inasmuch as others might construe your remark in that way I’ve edited my original post, deleting all references to my own investments or personally favored assets / asset classes. I also deleted references to investment newsletters I may subscribe to.
The question of poster integrity is a critical one that surely affects

mfo and similar forums. You are right to raise the issue. Short of submitting to board sponsors authentic documentation to substantiate investor claims (which I know you to have done on at least one occasion) there is no way for readers to know for certain whether poster claims of success are truthful - or even if they’ve owned the funds / assets they claim to. I should add here that I have been most impressed with the caliber of the posters on this forum and do not get the sense, as you appear to, that there are a significant number of “George Soros” posts occurring - at least on regular basis. But I could be wrong.
One here whom I greatly respect, Mark Freeland (@msf), has always astutely avoided identifying or acknowledging any stocks or funds he may own. I can’t speak for Mark, but the reasons he has stated in the past made good sense to me. I will follow in his footsteps and refrain in the future from identifying any funds, stocks or other assets I may own or may have owned in the past. I will also avoid mention of asset classes I may favor or invest in. At first blush I considered going back and similarity editing all such past references made in other threads. But doing so would be grossly unfair to those who responded / participated in the threads with their own thoughtful or helpful remarks.
Thanks for responding to my post. Enjoy the long hike.

@Hank, heavens no. You are as honest as the day is long. One of the most valued members here from long ago. It’s the posters who have masterfully crafted a make believe trading/investment background/ persona with all sorts of bells and whistles to gain attention. I have pretty much gotten off Facebook too. A bit different reason but tired of seeing the irrelevant go to such lengths to become relevant. That obviously applies to only a select few as I do understand the value/appeal of FB. Let’s just say I am more than a bit old fashioned and a bit of a Luddite and not a social media fan. Please take me back to the 80s. Better yet the 50s. If it weren’t for the fact of having a long time lady friend here in Mayberry, I would be living off the grid somewhere in the mountains.
I do believe though there are lots of George Santos in all walks of life. How he pulled off that scam is beyond me. Did his opponent never think about checking out his claimed credentials? Lots of blame all around on that one.

LKAB says it plans to apply for an exploitation concession this year but added that it would be at least 10 to 15 years before it could begin mining the deposit and shipping to markets.
The approval for new mines in Sweden is a lengthy process in which the risk to water resources and biodiversity is considered.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/12/sweden-discovers-europes-largest-rare-earth-mine