Every gas station in my state advertises a credit price and a cash price.
We use a Sam's Club MasterCard for gas -- 5% cashback (at any gas station). That's better than the cash discount (which is usually 10 cents).
David

I sent you a private message, @kings53man.

Found that on Schwab:
FEDERAL FARM CR BKS CONS SYSTEMWIDE BDS
Rating: Moody's: Aaa
Rating: S&P: AA+
Coupon: 5.3
Maturity: 10/19/2026
Callable: Yes
CUSIP - 3133ENT26
Personally, I prefer to buy individual bonds rather than bond funds for exactly the reasons that you mention. Here's some of the bad things that can happen with an individual bond:
• Issuer bankruptcy- (Given the Moody's and S&P ratings, improbable with this one)
• General interest rates decline, so issuer calls bond before maturity. You get your money back, plus accrued interest
• General interest rates continue to climb, so that newly issued bonds pay better interest rates, but your money is tied up until maturity.
The overall direction of general interest rates between now and maturity is your main concern. If you're comfortable with locking in 5.3%, susceptible to a premature call, then it seems like a reasonable situation. Your understanding is correct- I hope that this is helpful.

Hello, never bought an individual Bond earlier and all my bond investments via mutual funds - are under water this year.
So trying to buy an individual bond in my fidelity account to supplement 4% SWR later (retired this year and in perfect storm - sequence of returns risk - luckily holding cash for expenses for two years).
CUSIP - 3133ENT26 FEDERAL FARM CR BKS BOND 5.30000% 10/19/2026
Looks like 4 year BOND but may be called after 1 year.
I will get 5.3% - paid semi-annually and on 10/19/2026 - I will get my principal back unless called earlier.
Am I right in my understanding?
Any risk, I do plan to hold it till maturity.
Thanks,

Sears is a regular contributor to Barron’s. I doubt this story has any practical application, but it is fascinating and perhaps adds clarity to how the options markets / VIX volatility gage operate.
Excerpt:
“Amid the gloom, one trade looms so unusually pessimistic that it is hard to process because the world would likely need to end, or come close to it, for it to prove profitable. The trade is predicated on the Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, hitting 150 by March, a level that has never before been realized. The so-called fear gauge was recently around 32. In recent sessions, an investor bought 50,000 VIX March $150 call options, paying about 19 cents per contract. The trade is so large, and so unusual, that it was almost certainly made by a wealthy investor worried about a massive stock market decline, perhaps triggered by Armageddon, or something approaching it.”
Source / Barron’s
(The above likely requires subscription to Barron’s to access.)

It's a huge, expensive mess. My state's crappy asset creation for what's left of a massive coal generating campus (down to two operating units from four, still one of the dirtiest operations in the nation), which is also the plant operator, has filed for bankruptcy; the out of state owners want out, like yesterday; the eventual cleanup will cost the better part of a billion dollars; the in-state utility is asking for a 25% permanent increase in electric rates with plenty more to come; and that utility stopped publishing its costs per unit by generating sources after people noticed that the coal portion costs more than twice as much as a wind farm that came on line in 2005 ... and those figures don't include cleanup.
To top it off, the state legislature is all-in for the dinosaur utility, every session bringing a new attempt to dun taxpayers and ratepayers for the utility's malfeasance, and kill off rooftop solar, the only real option for individual ratepayers to avoid any of the massive coal costs.

The customers can pay cash by several ways:
1. A bank check (merchants often need driver license plate number and another piece of ID). Last time I did that was over 20 years ago.
2. a debit card. Often the gas station charges $0.35 per purchase.

I think the usual way to pay in cash is to go up to the person at the cash register and hand them green paper. You know : 5, 10, 20 dollar bills. That's how I've paid for gas for decades. I have yet to see a filling station attendant refuse actual cash money.

I agree that holding cash or short term bonds would be a lot better, but that is hindsight. Investment grade bonds are down 14% YTD and there are two more rounds of rate hikes to go this year. Until the Fed starting to reverse the course and cut rate, IG bond prices continue to fall. VWINX will likely to have the worst year on its record.
Europe is in the early phase of contraction and US will likely to follow in early 2023. One possible scenario is inflation to remain high, say 5-6% (not the 2% target) and economy slides into a recession, what will the Fed do?
In another post of WealthTrack interview with David Giroux of PRWCX, he uses bank loan and treasury (recent addition) in his fixed income portion of the fund. The portfolio responded to this year environment much better than VWINX even though PRWCX holds many growth stocks. https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/154372/#Comment_154372

This seems somewhat like a non-event, given that China is "the largest importer of gas in the world". China is not like Qatar, a major exporter.
In terms of world demand, it doesn't matter whether China exports some LNG and imports more, or exports none and imports a bit less. What matters is that "China’s LNG importers seek to stay out of the spot market this winter as demand growth has skidded to the slowest since 2002, meaning the world’s top importer of the fuel will likely avoid competing with crisis-hit Europe for supplies."
That could help ease inflation a bit. Wishful thinking?

My post at Twitter, 10/14/22 (LINK)
Weak excuses by someone w Harvard & Stanford education, & whose name has been floated for Treasury Secy, Fed Chair, Comp of Currency, etc. Atlanta Fed Prez is really a private sector job w some public roles & responsibilities. Was he up for a new position when all this came out?

Many brokerages provide cash management services as if they were real banks. For example, Fidelity accounts offer checking ant debit card services. But those services are provided by UMB Bank (routing number 101205681is associated with UMB Bank, KS). Fidelity says that its "accounts are considered a checking account for direct debit purposes."
A few institutions will link only to real banks, not to these pseudo "bank" accounts. I don't have any problems linking Treasury Direct to such accounts. So it doesn't look like Treasury Direct is one of those few picky institutions.
On the other end of the spectrum are real brick and mortar banks with lots of branches. Such as Chase, or TD Bank that is "one of the 10 largest banks in the U.S" and "a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada". They are FDIC insured, unlike brokerage accounts masquerading as checking accounts.
https://www.tdbank.com/aboutus/investor_relations.html
When it comes to Schwab, Schwab Bank is a real, FDIC-insured bank, separate from but affiliated with the broker-dealer Charles Schwab & Co. "Affiliated" here means that they are both owned by the same parent company, The Charles Schwab Corporation.
https://www.schwab.com/savings
But the Schwab One brokerage account (as opposed to the HY checking account) appears to operate as a pseudo "bank" account. The account disclosure says that "Checking account and Debit Card services provided by the Bank". And it defines "Bank" to be "BNY Mellon Investment Servicing Trust (IST) Company and/or its affiliates, the entity responsible for administering the Bank Services."
https://www.schwab.com/legal/schwab-one-account-agreement
Then there are internet-only banks (e.g. Ally Bank). In theory that shouldn't make any difference in the context of electronic transfers as opposed to walk-in services. One doesn't walk into a bank to set up a domestic EFT link.

Are you catching up with March/April 2021?
Anyway, GABVX is a focused MC-blend, but has high exposure to SC; it also has exposure to M&A deals. So, SP500 isn't a good benchmark for it. As it has only 25 stocks, you will have to dig into those for the week of March 22-26, 2021 (you may have to check SEC/Edgar filings for its portfolio around then). But it looks like that week there was a selloff Mon-Wed that hit SC vary hard, and GABVX went down hard. But when things rebounded Th-FRI, GABVX kept falling - that can happen with concentrated positions.

On Monday March 22, 2021 it was $16.46, and by Friday March 26, 2021 (same week) it was $14.92 for a loss of 9.4%.
Vanguard Index 500 (VFIAX) was up 0.5% in the same week, and that's not even including a distribution that was paid. There were no GABVX distributions paid in that week.
If you own or track GABVX do you know what happened that week that caused such a sudden correction? I'm just curious.
thanks!

I was very leery of VWINX and other "allocation" funds. Everyone knew the stock market was close to peak PE, but when interest rates were so low last year, the protection bonds offered in the past disappeared, especially as VWINX duration is still 5 to 7 years.
I don't understand why they didn't move rapidly into short term bonds and cash. The bonds they held were almost guaranteed to lose 5 to 10%
I can only assume this is a case of being stuck as their mandate did not allow 70% cash

There’s certainly a lot of negative commentary / sentiment out there. And I’m not buying any more garbage than I already own! Yet - I think it’s worth noting that for every seller on any given day there has to also be a buyer.
Point being: Sentiment cuts both ways. Not entirely one sided.
Speaking of garbage. The antithesis of garbage would seem to be blue chip. No? So I checked TRBCX (T Rowe Price Blue Chip Stock Fund). It is down 39.5% YTD. That’s a garbage-like number. So kinda muddles the distinction ISTM. / Shakespeare - “What’s in a name?”

Credit card business is a very profitable business with little downside risk. That is why Visa and Mastercard stocks are commonly held in growth mutual funds.
Think the transaction fees have gone up from 3% (Visa and Mastercard). Now the credit card companies offer $ reward annually based the amount the customers spent.
The customers can pay cash by several ways:
1. A bank check (merchants often need driver license plate number and another piece of ID). Last time I did that was over 20 years ago.
2. a debit card. Often the gas station charges $0.35 per purchase.
The downside of debit card is that there is no credit protection for the customers in case of fraudulent charges, and it is tied directly to your checking account. With a credit card you can dispute the charges with credit card companies and they will investigate. If proven in favor of the customers, no payment is required.
With high gas prices everywhere, one can minimize the debit card risk by paying inside the gas station, say $100, any amount unused will not taken out from the checking account. This would avoid “skimmer” that thieves often install outside by the gas pumps.

...for a charge that BUSINESSES had been paying to Visa, M/C. Maybe AMEX, too.
I think it's common now all over the place, especially at gas stations, to see a separate "cash" price and "credit" price. NOTE: merchants cannot do this in Quebec, because they still have some sense in that Province. There are consumer protections against it there.
Mother-suck-pus:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/credit-card-surcharge-faq-1.6610356

Audit???????

Crazy good documentary. 3+ hours long. I’m 30 minutes in. So, if I heard correctly, buying shares in a company is related to sexual fulfillment! Wonder what it means when the shares lose 25% of their value in about 6 months?

He recommends Texas Instruments these days, at the end of that 2nd conversation. TXN. (PRWCX is my largest holding.)
Not much of a discount now, according to Morningstar, but Morningstar always offers a low-ball fair value number. Healthy dividend. Net Margin 43.59. TXN.