Raised portfolio cash from 10% to 15% with withdrawals from more aggressive holdings across the board. That somewhat understates actual short-term fixed income exposure because some of my ”investments” hold or attempt to replicate fixed income as well.
Another Marvell line: “But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot … “

@Mona, will done.
More tariffs consequences : Pigs can't fly: US high-end livestock breeders lose millions in China tariff fallout

Dr. Mike Lemmon's pigs, each valued between $2,500 and $5,000, were supposed to be on a plane bound for Hangzhou, China, from St. Louis in April, where’d they spend the flight snoring, play fighting and snacking on oats and husked corn before taking up residence at Chinese hog farms.
Instead, many went to a local Indiana slaughterhouse for less than $200 each after the Chinese buyer canceled the order within a week of China implementing retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. in April.
China is one of the biggest importers of American breeding pigs and other livestock genetic material such as cattle semen. These lucrative niche export markets had been growing, but dried up since U.S. President Donald Trump started a trade war with Beijing.
U.S. farmers and exporters said the dispute has already cost them millions of dollars and jeopardized prized trade relationships that took years to develop.

https://msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/pigs-cant-fly-us-high-end-livestock-breeders-lose-millions-in-china-tariff-fallout/ar-AA1FgFK9
China plays the long games since they learned from the first tariffs war. Other agricultural products are not purchased from others countries while US farmers are having hard time swelling their products at an even slim margins. Brazil replaced the bulk of soybeans imported to China today, and no tariffs treat will change that.

Several comments, some I said before:
1) My system signaled a buy on April 12th (link).
2) The tariffs are a bargaining tool; get used to it.
3) The SP500 is down less than 1% in 2025 regardless of the politics. The SP500 made 50% in 2023-4, are you expecting another high % year in 2025?
BTW, Europe=VGK made over 20% in 2025 and since Feb is was clear, did you use it?
4) I'm sure Trump was shaking after he talked with Ursula von der Leyen...really?
5) David Rosenberg is one of the "best" predictors. See examples below.
In 10/2016 (link) "It’s ‘late in the game’ for market"
Reality: The SP500 made 27+% to the end of 2017 (link)
In 01/2019 (link) "A recession is virtually unavoidable this year"
Reality: There wasn't any recession in 2019 and the SP500 was up over 31%.

@Hank. For reasons of preservation of capital I live in the world between TRBUXX and common old Money Market Funds. For the last several years my Schwab MM has been more than satisfactory. I became overly enthusiastic about CD’s yielding above 5%. Those days are over but going forward it will depend on the direction of interest rates. I don’t need the income but I value preservation. And as the Bogleheads say,,, take your risk with equity stuff.

PRWCX 2025 Percentile Rank is at 27% = far from the bottom.
3-5-10-15 years Percentile Rank at 8-4-1-1
My portfolio is different = my system

DIVO has a different covered-call strategy. It has a concentrated equity portfolio and writes calls only on a handful of holdings. JEPI on the other hand uses SP500 index for call-writing.
DIVO has a slightly higher volatility (Relative SD 0.6861) but also does little better.

@msf offered this perspective in another thread:
“PRWCX is having one of its poorest performances relative to peers, all the way "down" to the 22nd percentile. Typically growth leaning, it has moved solidly into blend (37% of portfolio is LCBl) suggesting that Giroux also sees the markets moving toward value. (It is also open to investors who have at least $250K total invested at TRP.)”
As one who owned PRWCX almost from inception (1986) until I sold 2 or 3 years ago I’ve witnessed several different managers at the helm, a staggering growth of AUM and changes in how the fund positions itself (away from mid-cap and niche holdings). It’s a heavyweight now. Giroux speaks in terms of a 3-year time horizon and isn’t afraid to hold cash when he thinks equities are pricy. If past is prologue, the fund will again head to the front of the pack sometime during the 2 or 3 years. As always, I’m skeptical.
If you go back to the January Barron’s “Roundtable” 2 or 3 years ago (either 2022 or 2023) you will find Giroux was quite far off on his interest rate outlook - insisting rather stridently at the time that the 10-year Treasury would not finish the year above 3%. It finished quite a bit higher that year. Today it’s at 4.518%

Peeking at PRWCX's bond holdings - the top 4 are three UST Notes (5 yr) and a UST Bond (10 yr), followed by bank debt, corporates and other HY. But it appears that the fund has stayed away from Longer term debt.
Didn't realize how many call options this fund holds.

From this weekend’s WSJ
Investors continue to pile into ETFs at record pace
(If you’re not into sports betting at DraftKings, these products are the next best thing.)

FD said, ”I never believed in B&H for decades, the markets keep changing, and sometimes it's for years.”
Somewhat agree. Every 3-5 years I’ve found it prudent to alter the overall mix - even though it is intended as long-term B&H. An example was after real assets funds outperformed heavily around 2020-21. I dumped them. But during the past 6-12 months I reallocated to one, as these products have cooled off in recent years.
My “Strategery” doesn’t always work. Last year I sold a big position in PRPFX after it had surged 28% at one point during the year. Darned if it hasn’t continued on its winning ways this year, thanks to gold’s unparalleled rise plus its holdings in the Swiss Franc which is up around 10% YTD.
However, at this stage of life, ”A bird in the bag is worth two in the bush”.

From the article
"The so-called 60/40 portfolio – long recommended for investors who want to balance exposure to risk with a cushion of safer, steady income – calls for allocating 60 per cent of holdings to stocks and 40 per cent to bonds. While a bedrock for retirement savers over decades, the approach lost some of its lustre in recent years as its underlying mechanism fell out of whack, with US stocks and bonds moving more in lockstep rather than offsetting each other."
VBIAX is your typical 60/40.
I would not call 2.2% a great income.
BND, the US Tot Index made 1.46% annually in the last 10 years, a pretty low performance. Even 15 years at 2.2% is pretty low. BND lost more than 13% in 2022, where was the cusion?
I never believed in B&H for decades, the markets keep changing, and sometimes it's for years. I preferred to hold funds like PRWCX.

@WABAC. Sometime will have to post all the bullish momentum indicators that triggered beginning on April 9. A plethora of them. More than in August 1982 and March 2009. So far so good.

I would be interested in seeing them. I'm interested in the human desire to find patterns and meanings in patterns.
As an amateur historian I would also be interested in looking at the historical circumstances around the other eleven events that are similar to market action since April 9.
Starting tomorrow, the S&P 500 will have to find its way out of another tariff-induced pothole. The recent comments about Apple and the EU are the main reason my small holding in BUBIX has out-performed SPY since I bought it on March 4, and my money market has outperformed it YTD. They also put a sizeable dent in my taxable holdings that have remained largely untouched for quite a while.

These are many tempting ideas to read for one who has 95% of his egg in FIGXX earning 4.17%
Normally chasing a few basis points isn't worth the effort, but ...
Or you could roll short maturity Treasuries. ... About the same as VUSXX and you don't have to go to another institution to buy.

Thanks v v much. Appreciated and most considerate.
76% of that 95% is in Roths. Our tax situation therefore is meager, chiefly on (meaning AGI chiefly comprises) RMDs plus some CG and divs from a brokerage account.
Plus we have some senior prop tax circuitbreaker thing which I no longer understand fully.

If the markets start tuning out these Tariff announcements, maybe we suffer over the next year or so and narrowly avoid a recession. The dollar has to stabilize. Our credibility has taken a hit this year. And the Fed must remain independent, or our credibility takes another hit.
The US Markets resilience will be sorely tested. Hopefully the next POTUS can unwind most of this regime's mess, but that is easier said than done.
"Brand USA" keeps falling.

A tidbit I recently read. There was recently a 25 day trading period ( ending May 12) where the S@P gained 15%. That is rarer than rare and going back to 1957 - 11 occurrences - and in no instances has a recession occurred within 12 months. In fact the S@P has averaged a 25% gain one year after such signals.

From 1957 til recently tariff policy wasn't in a constant state of flux, or even something people have had to consider since the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act.
It's only my opinion--meaning I don't know of anybody I could quote on this--that tariffs are exogenous to whatever most people take into account when they think of market cycles. I can't say that I am reassured that smart people are beginning to discount the velocity of announcements and reversals as crying wolf while elsewhere companies are pulling earnings guidance.
As a sports fan, I hate streaks. Seems like they always end ugly.
For extra reading: The S&P 500 was introduced in 1957. And according to this website, the bear market that year is classified as a Teddy Bear:

Because it just dipped below -20% and then accelerated into a recovery more rapid than the drop which lasted over three times longer

If the markets start tuning out these Tariff announcements, maybe we suffer over the next year or so and narrowly avoid a recession. The dollar has to stabilize. Our credibility has taken a hit this year. And the Fed must remain independent, or our credibility takes another hit.
The US Markets resilience will be sorely tested. Hopefully the next POTUS can unwind most of this regime's mess, but that is easier said than done.
"Brand USA" keeps falling.

A tidbit I recently read. There was recently a 25 day trading period ( ending May 12) where the S@P gained 15%. That is rarer than rare and going back to 1957 - 11 occurrences - and in no instances has a recession occurred within 12 months. In fact the S@P has averaged a 25% gain one year after such signals.

CNN
—
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has agreed to delay a 50% tariff on European Union imports until July 9, the latest instance of Trump declaring an impending tariff and throwing markets into confusion only to later walk back the threatened levies.

... which goes along w/what I just posted in another thread:
IMO we are in the early stages of a seismic, but quiet, re-ordering of the global economy over the next 10-15 years. Specifically, I think the world economy and/or money flows will pivot to working WITH (or AROUND) the United States as a partner, not THROUGH the United States as a requirement. Could that become the proverbial 'New World Order'?
The current regime, backed by its complicit Congressional enablers and a history of biparitsan whistling-past-the-gravegard, is showing that America cannot be relied upon anymore as a stable partner in business, economics, markets, defense, etc, etc. Tariff Toddler's on-again, off-again proclaimations are not confidence-building or reassuring other nations, let alone businesses. And then seeing our nation's 'leaders' gleefully adding more to our debt again on the very day our credit rating gets (again) downgraded is just another example of the current folks in DC acting irresponsibly and figuring deep down that the music will never stop.

I think international ex-USA funds should see more positivity in the future. The only US sector I'm bullish on are utilities.
IMO we are in the early stages of a seismic, but quiet, re-ordering of the global economy over the next 10-15 years. Specifically, I think the world economy and/or money flows will pivot to working WITH (or AROUND) the United States as a partner, not THROUGH the United States as a requirement. Could that become the proverbial 'New World Order'?
The current regime, backed by its complicit Congressional enablers and a history of biparitsan whistling-past-the-gravegard, is showing that America cannot be relied upon anymore as a stable partner in business, economics, markets, defense, etc, etc. Tariff Toddler's on-again, off-again proclaimations are not confidence-building or reassuring other nations, let alone businesses. And then seeing our nation's 'leaders' gleefully adding more to our debt again on the very day our credit rating gets (again) downgraded is just another example of the current folks in DC acting irresponsibly and figuring deep down that the music will never stop.

CNN
—
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has agreed to delay a 50% tariff on European Union imports until July 9, the latest instance of Trump declaring an impending tariff and throwing markets into confusion only to later walk back the threatened levies.

These are many tempting ideas to read for one who has 95% of his egg in FIGXX earning 4.17%
Normally chasing a few basis points isn't worth the effort, but with 95% in MMFs, you might take a look at VUSXX. Its seven day yield is 4.23%. And last year it was 100% state tax exempt (vs about 1/2 for FIGXX). For someone in a 5% income tax rate state, that would save about 0.20% in taxes vs. 0.10% with FIGXX.
After tax, VUSXX does about 1/6% better. For pocket cash, or even "money awaiting investment", that may not be worth the effort.
It's also relatively accessible. Just a $3K min, and it's available through E*Trade (for those who decline to transact with Vanguard).
Or you could roll short maturity Treasuries. Fidelity reports 3 month Treasuries as yielding 4.32%. (Estimated yield on auction 3-month T-bill is 4.31%.) About the same as VUSXX and you don't have to go to another institution to buy.

Barron's article simply mentioned that "...JEPI has about two-thirds the volatility of the market...", but didn't offer any explanation.
True, the equity portfolio of JEPI has more conservative, dividend-paying stocks. And Morningstar shows 86.49% equity exposure with the rest in Other (options on SP500 + some cash).
Assuming JEPI equity similar to VYM (3-yr Relative SD 0.8546 by TestFol) and applying M* % equity, I get to Relative SD 0.7391 for JEPI.
Repeating this calculation with VIG, I get 3-yr Relative SD 0.7289 for JEPI.
That is still too far from TestFol 3-yr Relative SD 0.6512 (almost 2/3 rd) for JEPI. So, I am missing something in JPM's secret sauce.