As I posted in the "SVB Thread", Schwab is the 8th largest US bank holding company. It is subjected to annual Fed stress-tests. Obviously, the brokerage side has SIPC (& additional) coverage, while the banking side has FDIC coverage.
As for the m-mkt funds, under the 2014/16 reforms, there are the safer government m-mkt funds (Schwab SNVXX, etc), the higher yielding prime-retail funds that can impose gates and/or redemption fees without advance notice (Schwab SWVXX, etc), and also the prime-institutional funds with floating NAVs. So, know what you own, for what purpose(s), and why you are getting 27 bps extra 7-day SEC yield for SWVXX.

I agree it would be interesting as a matter of curiosity to hear what Artisan would say. Though there are so many ways they could say that their statement was not false in a narrow sense that all I expect such an inquiry to accomplish would be to satisfy that curiosity.
Various possible responses:
- We stopped saying that Mr. Samra managed Oarkmark funds. Rather,
(a) he worked as a manager for funds based (i.e. sold in) some foreign market (e.g. Canada, Luxemburg), or
(b) he managed private portfolios of Harris clients (institutions, wealthy individuals), but not funds
Moving further down the misleading scale ...
- He had no "direct management responsibilities or final decision-making authority with respect to [fund] investments". Neither do Mr. Herrick and Mr. Luciano at Artisan, and we still call them portfolio managers. Of course we identify this in the prospectus though we don't in any other fund literature, e.g. here and here.
- What we choose to call a portfolio manager and what Harris chooses don't have to be the same. We even change our own titles to make them sound better. The 2008 and 2009 prospectuses for ARTGX described Mr. Samra and Mr. O’Keefe as co-managers since the fund's inception. Starting with the Oct 1, 2009 supplement, we changed their titles retroactively. Now we describe Mr. Samra as "the Portfolio Manager of ... Artisan Global Value Fund since its inception in 2007" and Mr. O'Keefe as "the Lead Portfolio Manager of Artisan Partners’ ... Artisan Global Value Fund since the inception ...in 2007".
Too many potential explanations, none (aside from the possibility that Mr. Samra managed some foreign-based funds for Harris) ultimately satisfying.

@hank, I use several VG LifeStrategy funds (static 60/40 and 40/ 60 allocation) and a target date 2025 (60/40 with a glide path) as my benchmarks. Not perfect but workable over longer time period over say 6 months. I don’t invest in them either.
This week has not been easy, but diversification reduced the drawdown. I am glad to see that bonds finally did not correlate to stocks as they fell:
1. All equity funds are in red, 2%
2. All balanced funds are also in red about 1%, except for VWINX +0.29%.
3. All investment grade bonds are up 1.5%. Bond loan funds loss 0.2%
4. Commodity futures funds are up 0.5%
5. Alternates are down slightly.
Will have more CDs and T bills maturing for the remaining year. Think bonds will have better chance of making decent gain yield wise. Not as confident on stocks as they face more pressure with the coming higher rates.

@LewisBraham
I agree with "Decent" but in general most news I think is a shadow of it's former self. I pay for anybody that asks for it because I want to support most of them.
There are non traditional online sources that are doing a great job ( Judd at Popular information is a very good source) and I send them money to keep them alive and hopefully thriving.
What has changed is the overall depth and quality.
1) There is a huge difference between the available stories at the NYT and WaPo websites and what is in the physical paper. The stories seem to be the same, but the on the app or website you have to dig to find them. The New Yorker's three part articles are a thing of the past unfortunately.
2) I cannot bear the inaccurate and scurrilous opinions at the WSJ, and do not pay them, but I firmly believe their general articles since Murdock took over have less detail and less content and are dumbed down
3) The headline stories in Bloomberg are also weaker, but the columnists who seem less limited by space do an excellent job on specific topics they write about
I read occasional Politico and etc, but do not have time to follow them.

I would say you are right, David, if you insert the word “online” between “long form” and “journalism.” The opposite is the case in print journalism.

Hmm. I dunno. I read the New Yorker and NYRBooks in paper form, and I expect that if I took the Atlantic, WaPo, NYT, WSJ in paper form I would get the same as their online deep dives although with less fancy graphics and cool internal linking.
Now, the two dozen or more superb second- and third-tier diggers, emptywheel, vice, lawfare, abovethelaw, much less their better-known peers (salon, slate, dailybeast, vox, politico, nymag, vf, nation, etc. etc.), I don't know which even appear on paper.
It is overwhelming how much solid work is going on. Just today vox has a very smart rebuttal to / modulation of the Princeton guy's seemingly smart work on poverty measuring:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/3/10/23632910/poverty-official-supplemental-relative-absolute-measure-desmond
I too am very guilty of ripping off these places, though do try and pay where I feel I can and should and the ones I read most. But I cheat, yes.
I don't know how they do it and how their paid journalists stay afloat, actually,

@orage
I think Bloomberg said that SVB was just under the $50 Billion limit when the campaign started to raise the limit to $250 Billion. In 12/2022 it was at $210 Billion, so he would probably have started another lobbying campaign to raise the limit again.
Lots of both parties feeding at the trough, too.

@hank, gold did well yesterday, IAU up 2.2%. I've been adding to what I already had in dribs and drabs since the beginning of the year in leu of the looming deficit fight. I have no doubt one party will risk substantial damage to the economy in that fight. It's my guess gold may benefit. My Schwab Inteligent Portfolio robo held up much better than my self-managed, down only 0.14% yesterday. Much more intelligent than me, at least on that day.
I've looked at the AO balanced funds, but relative performance always appears lagging.

Interesting article describing SVB efforts to weaken bank regulations. It 2019 its CEO "was elected to serve on the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Becker left the board on Friday."
https://www.levernews.com/svb-chief-pressed-lawmakers-to-weaken-bank-risk-regs/
Article also appears in The Guardian.

BTW
"Chief Executive Officer Greg Becker sold $3.6 million of company stock under a trading plan less than two weeks before the firm disclosed extensive losses that led to its failure.
The sale of 12,451 shares on Feb. 27 was the first time in more than a year that Becker had sold shares in parent company SVB Financial Group, according to regulatory filings. He filed the plan that allowed him to sell the shares on Jan. 26."

I do have linked Schwab Bank account with my Schwab Brokerage account. I don't know too much specifically about the Schwab Bank, but Charles Schwab is #8 bank holding company (it is also included in annual Fed stress tests). Schwab Bank is also an important profit center for Schwab and it is integrally tied to its robo-advisors. So, I doubt that "Chuck" would let anything bad happen to it and have heaps of eggs on him. I am not worried. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks_in_the_United_States
There is good coverage of Silvergate/SI, SVB Financial/SIVB and banks in the current Barron's:
TRADER. The STOCK market has been hit by rising RATE expectations (after POWELL’s 2-day testimony) and falling BANKS/financials (after the failures of SI and SIVB). The problem faced by SIVB – a forced sale of Treasuries at huge loss – isn’t that unusual for banks facing runs (if there is no help from the Fed, FHLB, etc). These events may cause the FED to go slow on rate hikes. In a soft-landing scenario, the SP500 of 4,600 is possible.
UP AND DOWN WALL STREET. Silicon Valley Bank/SIVB is the 2nd largest bank failure in history; it was in part due to losses on forced sale of a huge portfolio of Treasuries. The fed fund futures projections were all over – up after POWELL’s 2-day testimony, and then down on the failure of 2 CA banks, the crypto-friendly Silvergate/SI and the venture-capital (VC)-friendly SIVB. The financials were stressed (KRE, KBE, XLF); credit conditions have tightened. As SIVB lent to tech startups and others burning cash, the prospects of those companies became gloomy. The 2-yr fell 48 bps from Wednesday and similar moves were seen in the past during 10/1987 crash, Lehman failure in 09/2008, 9-11 terrorist attacks. In all this drama, the jobs report was a minor sideshow. But coming are the CPI (Tuesday) and PPI (Wednesday).
All BANKS/FINANCIALS sold off last week (KRE, KBE, XLF). But most differ from SVB Financial/SIVB (and Silvergate/SI). The problem with SIVB was a large loss on huge forced-sale of available-for-sale (AFS, market-to-market) Treasuries, and its efforts for raising capital failed (and the Fed or the FHLB didn’t step in for the rescue). Most large banks have diversified businesses, are well capitalized and can tap multiple sources of funding. While rising RATES are generally good for banks, some overleveraged banks with poor quality loan-books get squeezed. DEPOSITS are also moving from banks into higher-rate Treasuries and money-market funds. SIVB was really a bank for venture-capitalists (VCs) who are sophisticated investors that can move large amounts of money (its sudden closure during the business hours may have been to limit that flight). In better times, SIVB just parked excess deposits into Treasuries that it had to sell suddenly at depressed prices (due to higher rates now). All banks now have large unrealized losses that may be hidden within their hold-to-maturity (HTM, not marked-to-market) portfolios – really, a permissible accounting trick. (In a bank run, the distinction between HTM and AFS basically disappears) Large banks also have tougher regulations and undergo annual stress-tests by the Fed. So, this general selloff offers opportunities in banks now – FITB, HBAN, JPM, KEY, MTB, PNC, RF, USB, etc.
https://www.barrons.com/magazine?mod=BOL_TOPNAV
See also open access LINK1 LINK2

Bond volatility MOVE is fine. My complaints are that it is Treasury blend and I would prefer clean MOVE-10 (for 10-yr Treasuries), etc; and that it is not widely available (so at Yahoo Finance, but not at StockCharts). I include it in my weekly Barron's summaries (Part 1).
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/17/vix-skew-move?page=1&scrollTo=632

Mr baseballfan question - it's a 4 hrs answer question
Many analysts probably give quarterly opions about each bank or stock with each earnings. Schwab research has excellence summary of different equity or banks if you need research about these vehicles. If you buy bonds from these banks bond desks /analyst summaries give you guidelines and redflags to look for.
But with a perfect storm like what we have now, any largeships can turnover and sink in an instant. So difficult to predict.
I did not expect small/ mid cap companies like LCID RIVN BBBY to loose 95%s of stock values over past 14 months
Also read that many small caps Pennies start ups in Silicon Valley/wineries have so much tied up in pacwest, sivb, and first republic.
We are at holding patterns now. Not much new buys next 8 12 wks, Prob buy more UST SHY TLT, or short spy for now

+1

Riders on the Storm, March 6 - 10, 2023
Song titles that may apply for this write:
--- Riders on the Storm, The Doors, 1971
--- Dazed and Confused, Led Zeppelin, 1969
--- I Can see Clearly Now, Jimmy Cliff, 1993
Bonds mostly in a funk until the Silicon Bank melt on Friday, March 10. Then, IG bonds performed as normal for a flight to safety. I suspect some of these price gains will be pulled back next week. 'Course, this may put a pinch on the FED plans for rate changes coming March 26; and I imagine numerous folks in the FED and Treasury departments do not have the weekend 'off'. As noted in a thread by @Old_Joe, Silicon Bank's UST collateral had to be dumped at market rates without benefit of maturity. Contagion towards other FDIC banks may be a problem at some point 'IF' their portfolio is concentrated within their customer base. I only note this now, as I imagine some bank portfolios will find a deep analysis of 'where is your money', being loans and deposits.
An example could be: a bank catering to sub-prime used auto loan.
The 2007-2008 melt was the result of too many folks with their fingers inside the sub-prime mortgage loans areas, and a lot of fancy quasi guarantees layered to protection against default of the mortgage borrower. As the dominoes fell, not many could cover one another's butts with the heavily margin monies. Default city X 10. So many of these sub-prime mortgages were packaged and sold as 'good', with a nice yield. A lot of lying by the peddlers and failure to verify from buyers. I recall pension funds in Finland and other places one would not think about who found their money 'up in smoke'.
There will likely by some more banks with problems, but not to the point of a FDIC grab; but with impact to a stock price and withdrawal of deposits. Any of this could be highly modified with 'social media', which was not a concern in 2007 - 2008. Some companies having monies with SVB may have problems. ROKU (online digital streaming) reportedly had $500 million parked at the bank. What will be their fate with this money recovery?
One may suggest that poor bank management, high interest rates, improper regulatory monitoring and the poor decisions by companies having a concentration of their monies at one bank helped cause a 'perfect storm' for a bank run.
I feel that the appropriate and timely actions with SVB were performed properly, which should add assurance.
If you're curious; a list of failed banks 2009 - 2023. I last posted this list in 2010 or there about. Scroll down for names.
I digress.
IG bonds will likely find favor until the dust settles. IMHO.
Those MMKT's. Stagnant yields again this week, as they've hit a plateau; but most still having a yield between 4.2 and 4.5%, unless it's a magic sauce MMKT. Perhaps another bump up in yields when the FED raises rates again.
--- U.S.$ DOWN -.32% for the week, +.86% YTD
*** UST yields chart, 6 month - 30 year. This chart is active and will display a 6 month time frame going forward to a future date. Place/hover the mouse pointer anywhere on a line to display the date and yield for that date. The percent to the right side is the percentage change in the yield from the chart beginning date for a particular item. You may also 'right click' on the 126 days at the chart bottom to change a 'time frame' from a drop down menu. Hopefully, the line graph also lets you view the 'yield curve' in a different fashion, for the longer duration issues, at this time. Save the page to your own device for future reference.
--- The NAV's list below had a few small positive moves on Thursday, and of course; big positive price moves on Friday, with exceptions; as yields had large down moves from a flight to safety from the failure of SVB. The longer duration were in favor.
A good day to you.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---Several selected bond funds returns since October 25, 2022. I'll retain this date, as it is a recent inflection point when bonds began to have positive price moves. We'll need to watch if this was just a 'blip'.
NOTE: I've kept the prior dated reports in the beginning of this thread; and have added YTD to this data.
For the WEEK/YTD, NAV price changes, March 6 - March 10, 2023
***** This week (Friday), FZDXX, MMKT yield continues to move with Fed funds/repo/SOFR rates and ended the week at 4.46% (flat lined now). The core Fidelity MMKT's have continued a slow creep upward to 4.22%. The holdings of these different funds account for the variances at this time.
--- AGG = +1.04% / +1.63% (I-Shares Core bond), a benchmark, (AAA-BBB holdings)
--- MINT = +.11% / +1.26% (PIMCO Enhanced short maturity, AAA-BBB rated)
--- SHY = +.56% / +.44% (UST 1-3 yr bills)
--- IEI = +.4% / +.91% (UST 3-7 yr notes/bonds)
--- IEF = +2.27% / +2.05% (UST 7-10 yr bonds)
--- TIP = +.07% / +1.55% (UST Tips, 3-10 yrs duration, some 20+ yr duration)
--- VTIP = -.19% / +.62% (Vanguard Short-Term Infl-Prot Secs ETF)
--- STPZ = -.2% / +.46% (UST, short duration TIPs bonds, PIMCO)
--- LTPZ = +.97% / +5.15% (UST, long duration TIPs bonds, PIMCO)
--- TLT = +3.63% / +6.6% (I Shares 20+ Yr UST Bond
--- EDV = +4.48% / +8.98% (UST Vanguard extended duration bonds)
--- ZROZ = +4.63% / +9.92% (UST., AAA, long duration zero coupon bonds, PIMCO
--- TBT = -7.% / -11.8% (ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (about 23 holdings)
--- TMF = +10.9% / +16% (Direxion Daily 20+ Yr Trsy Bull 3X ETF (about a 3x version of EDV etf)
*** Additional important bond sectors, for reference:
--- BAGIX = +1.25% / +1.83% (active managed, plain vanilla, high quality bond fund)
--- LQD = +.61% / +1.99% (I Shares IG, corp. bonds)
--- BKLN = -.81% / +3.09% (Invesco Senior Loan, Corp. rated BB & lower)
--- HYG = -1.71% / +.83% (high yield bonds, proxy ETF)
--- HYD = +.41%/+1.63% (VanEck HY Muni)
--- MUB = +.67% /+1.04% (I Shares, National Muni Bond)
--- EMB = -.33%/+1.29% (I Shares, USD, Emerging Markets Bond)
--- CWB = -3.1% / +2.41% (SPDR Bloomberg Convertible Securities)
--- PFF = -4.08% / +3.28% (I Shares, Preferred & Income Securities)
--- FZDXX = 4.46% yield (7 day), Fidelity Premium MMKT fund
*** FZDXX yield was .11%, April,2022.
Comments and corrections, please.
Remain curious,
Catch

VIX = Stock market price movement.
MOVE = Interest Rate and Bond Price movement.
Some notes from this link article:

- When the MOVE Index spikes, that added volatility premium means risky bonds sometimes get priced lower, boosting yields.
- A Higher MOVE Equals Costlier Mortgages, A More Strained Consumer
- The MOVE Index also has vital implications for the domestic mortgage market. High rate vol makes a typical 30-year mortgage more costly as lenders price-up home loans.
- Historically, the spread between the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and the U.S. 10-year Treasury is about 1.9 percentage points. As of Friday, according to Mortgage News Daily and the U.S. Treasury, that difference stood at a massive 2.76%.
- More expensive home loans further strain an already unhappy consumer, potentially damaging future consumption.
The Bottom Line
Keep your eye on the MOVE Index and credit spreads. These are important indicators that might determine where stocks head. If rate volatility and yield spreads ease, that could further support an equity market rally.

move-index-how-bond-market-volatility-can-help-investors-spot-stock-trends

There are several good articles on Bloomberg regarding what made SVB unique. Here is one:
Startup Bank Had a Startup Bank Run
One problem for Silicon Valley Bank is that its customers had too much cash, and now they don’t.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-10/startup-bank-had-a-startup-bank-run?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY3ODU0ODE5NiwiZXhwIjoxNjc5MTUyOTk2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJSUkJOU1REV0xVNkEwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiIxQTZFNTVBMDIxREI0REJGQjc3MDc4RTE2MUNBNjI0MyJ9.VDcRvPyCtAcky6NCXXKuwLL85ic9ybNwVFh5UXHXpWM

USDC (US Dollar Coin, a so-called 'stablecoin') broke its $1 peg and is now trading around 90c b/c of concerns over SVC and the USDC reserves that were there.
Buckle up, folks...

@Hank. Have you ever tried a custom benchmark from however many component ETF’s you choose and assemble to your desired asset allocation. Then put in Portfolio Visualizer. I don’t think it will work for daily but by months it’s fine. Compare with your balance from any start date. Like when you retired to now.

I appreciate your response Larry. I’m not really in search of some performance benchmark. Just wondered how you would go about it. As one who has always eschewed holding cash what I really concern myself with is the inherent short term volatility of the riskier things I invest in. I figure if I’ve invested in what seem to me sound investments with risk offsetting characteristics, than the performance part will take care of itself. (You may assume that like most I keep yearly performance records - now dating back some 25 years.)
Those holdings contain as of now:
6 individual stocks
1 traditional 60/40 balanced fund
1 traditional 40/60 conservative allocation fund
1 non-U.S. equity index fund
1 gold miners fund
1 commodities basket (metals) fund
1 capital allocation CEF using derivatives / leverage
1 infrastructure fund
1 long-short fund
1 risk premia fund
1 global real estate fund
1 EM stock fund
1 GNMA fund
1 global bond fund
1 intermediate HY fund
1 market neutral convertible bond fund
1 inverse S&P 500 fund
- negligible % in money market funds
Friday the entire collection ended down 0.22%. I made 3 purchases throughout the day as a stock was falling, so that number is a bit exaggerated to the high end. That’s reasonable daily volatility. Of course there are occasional off-days when the portfolio falls more than 0.50%. It’s the roughly 8-10% commitment to precious metals / mining that affects volatility the most. Also, individual stocks affect volatility, especially two which represent close to 5% of portfolio each..
If you are beyond 70, and if you hold close to 0 cash reserve, then daily / monthly / year-to year volatility may concern you a great deal. The “close your eyes and invest for the long-run” approach ceases to work at some point.
I know you’ve been looking at a simplified approach. Makes sense. I’d likely recommend that to many our age. Unfortunately, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I’ve always enjoyed investing. Am reasonably informed. Lived through some horrendous inflation during the 70s & 80s period and came to distrust holding much cash. Other than for ballast, I’ve not liked bonds that much. Albeit - under Paul Volker you could pull 15% or better in money market funds. But it wasn’t always that way. There were stretches where cash didn’t keep up with rising prices. And, as we learned in 2008, some of those money market funds were riskier than we thought.
Re the 3 funds I track daily for volatility: They are all conservative allocation type funds, selected primarily for their diverse investment approaches:
ABRZX from Invesco spreads risk equally among equities, bonds and commodities. It does so largely through the derivatives markets. A stated goal of the fund is “reduced volatility”.
PRSIX is an actively managed 40/60 allocation fund run by T. Rowe Price, one of the best managers in the business - notwithstanding this fund’s recent lackluster performance. Until the bond wipe-out of 2022, it was considered one of the best conservative allocation funds in its class.
AOK is a 30/70 allocation ETF from Blackrock with an appealing 0.15% management fee. It appears to rely partially or wholly on various market index funds. I like that it includes some domestic mid-caps, some foreign equities and even a small exposure to EM stocks. As far as I can tell it’s not actively managed, so the return - for better or worse - represents how the varied assortment of global / domestic indexes perform.
As I’ve stated, I do not own any of the 3 tracking funds above. Just enjoy watching their daily behavior. I did find it unusual - and a bit funny - that they managed to break-even on one of the most volatile trading days I can remember - and with a bank failure thrown in for good measure.

@Sven "I agree that quality journalism has decline significantly and I try to read as much as I can from our local library’s online subscription to major newspapers". =+1
@Old_Joe From your wrap up. "Hopefully we all know or understand that holding bonds or CDs of various types can easily lead to a capital loss if we are required to sell those types of instruments before maturity, and if their value has meanwhile deteriorated due to overall financial market conditions.
So they held short term T-bills paying ? , while paying their customers 20 times less than the T-bills on the customers accounts !! 2% T-bill & customer gets paid .1% !?
Over extended I'd say.
Have a good day, Derf

March 10, '23
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-03-11/wall-street-week-full-show-03-10-2023
Katterer at Causeway is so smart and engaging. But I just don't need small-cap volatility anymore. The other guest from Voya says you would do well with EM if you can hang on for 3-4 years into the future. Not interested, after EM has burned me so often.