A sign someone is making stuff up to bolster their case: They use familiar cliche stats like “nine times out of ten.” Really, she interviewed sex workers and hit men and they said it was their fathers who got them into the business via nepotism nine times out of ten? That must be an interesting fatherly chat about future careers when they’re children. While I agree nepotism is a problem, it tends to be more of one at the top than the bottom. Why not instead of glib statements, do some real analysis? How prevalent is it actually, in what jobs and what industries?
It’s also amusing to me she’s fine with the government stepping in to address the “big risks” like a “crazy” stock market crash but seems to take issue with addressing millions of workers problems with retirement savings. Socialism for the rich in the form of a stock market bailout is OK in 2020, but everything else for workers is too much nanny state. Most Americans either have little stock exposure or none at all because they have little left over after they pay their bills. So why should the government bail the stock market out? In general, Main Street not Wall Street needs the bailouts. The two are interconnected to a degree, but not nearly as much in 2022 as they were in 1929.
While I agree defaulting to short term bonds as target funds do when someone retires is overly simplistic, I imagine many workers are thankful they owned the short rather than long-term bonds right now. Also, short term bonds adjust to inflation and interest rate increases more quickly than long.

I thought this was a pretty good read from Allison Schrager. Some interesting points regarding Fed policy and action that has impacted the economy and the market.

Getting rid of risk is the biggest risk. It seems like every time something bad happens in the economy we decide we need policies to keep it from ever happening again. And sometimes that is wise, say if a bad recession or stock market crash reveals some crazy distortion or externality that needs to be eliminated. But often, we tend to try to eliminate any bad thing.

On the Housing Market:

Now, the market is weird—sales down, prices up, and frozen in some places. And I think it will be screwy for a while because no one who got a cheap mortgage can afford to move. And the MBS market will be weird because no one will refinance either, so the duration of these securities is totally unpredictable.
and,
the Fed buying the entire MBS market in the middle of a housing boom?! That’s crazy, and it did not eliminate risk—it only created more.

On "nudging" the workforce into Target Date Funds:

nudging did have a big impact on investing. Before nudging, people kept their portfolio allocations pretty constant as they aged or kept their money in cash. But automatically enrolling people in target date funds (TDFs) means more people now own stock and move into bonds as they age.
Great. But the problem with TDFs is they don’t help people spend in retirement, and that is the whole point. And while I agree people should move into bonds as they age—because of lifecycle finance, not because a shorter time in markets is riskier—TDFs move people into the wrong kind of bonds. They are mostly in short-duration bonds (less than five years), while the duration of your future spending at retirement is more like 12 years. This leaves people exposed to interest rate, market, and inflation risks.
Nudging is not enough; you need good defaults too. And in a changing-rate, high-inflation environment, we’ll start to see the costs of TDFs’ shortcomings.

On Nepotism:

I meet a lot of people who do some unusual jobs: Sex workers, bounty hunters, mob hitmen, horse inseminators, pensions actuaries—you name it. And the first thing I always ask them is how they got into this line of work. And nine times out of 10, I hear, “My father.”

Article Link:
allisonschrager-helicopter-fed

One of the better articles I've read in a long time.
Summary
° Investing is hard.
° After 20 years, I've made countless mistakes.
° My journey improved through a wide range of epiphanies over time.
° I've discovered along the way what I call investing "secrets."
° I hope sharing them can improve your journey.
ARTICLE at SeekingAlpha

As of the date of this prospectus, only the following investors may make purchases in the Virtus KAR Small-Cap Core Fund and the Virtus KAR Small-Cap Growth Fund:
• Current shareholders of the funds, whether they hold their shares directly or through a financial intermediary, may continue to add to their accounts through the purchase of additional shares and through the reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Financial intermediaries may continue to purchase shares on behalf of existing shareholders only.
• Exchanges into the funds may only be made by shareholders with an existing account in the funds.
• An investor who has previously entered into a letter of intent with the Distributor prior to the closing date may fulfill the obligation.
• Trustees of the funds, trustees/directors of affiliated open- and closed-end funds, and directors, officers and employees of Virtus, its affiliates, and their family members, may continue to open new accounts.
• New and additional investments may be made through firm or home office discretionary platform models within mutual fund advisory (WRAP) programs and other fee-based programs established with the Distributor prior to July 31, 2018 for Virtus KAR Small-Cap Core Fund and September 28, 2018 for Virtus KAR Small-Cap Growth
Fund.
• The funds will also remain open to Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit retirement plans and will continue to accept payroll contributions and other types of purchase transactions from both existing and new participants in such plans.

$100 minimum

@MikeW. $100k to get in?

It was @msf who helped point me towards Fidelity when I could no longer put up with TRP’s horrible service. From the VG stories, I feel very fortunate to have landed where I did. Great service. Great website. However, a brokerage account is a new experience for me. Right now I’ve got 1 “Good Faith” violation and one “Free Ride” violation still active. (They drop off after a year.) Justly deserved. But trying hard to learn all the “Do”s and “Don’t”s. If you get enough of these violations they curb your ability to trade (with unsettled funds). I hear Schwab is also a pleasure to deal with as @MikeM has stated in the past.
PS - TRP’s final “goodby” to me was to bounce their first 3 transfer checks. So I was in trouble at Fido right from day 1.
:)

+1. @hank. Yet, I seem to see some degree of improvement.

Let us hope. :)

Thanks to everyone for your posts and for your suggestions above. Greatly appreciate it. I spent the weekend analyzing a number of funds and Virtus KAR Small Cap core seems to have the best risk reward stats in the small cap space. It's a Great Owl and also honor roll fund. To me the things that appeal are that it had a MaxDD of 18.3% back in March of 2020 and this year through end of June of that MaxDD was 15.7%. That compares quite favorably to other funds in the space and gives it a low risk rating on Morningstar. Also Beta is only .82. Combine that with top % decile performance in the past 1, 3, 5, 10, and 15 years. I also like the fact that the fund manager has conviction behind his picks with a concentrated fund. At any rate, I plan to purchase the fund. Thanks again for contributing. If anyone else has been following this particular fund, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I purchased 13-week T-Bills (which recently matured) at Vanguard.
I was informed that when T-Bills mature the proceeds would automatically go to my settlement fund.
In a subsequent conversation, a Vanguard rep mentioned no other options were available.
I didn't specifically ask about auto-rolling the proceeds.

+1. @hank. Yet, I seem to see some degree of improvement.

@Derf,
I was unable to purchase Treasuries in May via Vanguard's website using Firefox.
More info here.
My guess is that Vanguard has optimized their website for Chromium-based browsers.
Firefox uses the Quantum browser engine and is not based on Chromium.

@Observant1 : Thanks for that info. After downsizing the page I was able to purchase a CD. @Sven Now I know what the problem I was having at VG. Plus the view of the page had changed , so I'm hoping VG is truly trying to update & make it "very" easy to use their site. Also I use Firefox.
Later , Derf

Small-caps are too volatile for me

Be careful out there @Crash. Many of the individual stocks, MLPs and sector ETFs I notice you posting lately are at least and often more volatile with greater max drawdowns than say a standard small cap index fund like VB or NAESX. It's a risk reward tradeoff I guess, but individual stocks could be a rough ride (I say from experience :) )

I appreciate your words. I do post some names that I know I'll never own, just because I'm not independently wealthy. This seems like not a terrible moment to share my current holdings. Some held forever, some new.
BHB has been good to me ever since my initial purchase. It's still less than 4% of total. And ET, too. A bit more than 3% of total. .....After RGR got hammered following the earnings disappointment, I bailed on it. That money went to PSTL. (Only 1+% of total, so far.)
TRAMX is virtually back to "even-steven" for me, since I bought it in the Spring. I added to it. Then it fell. Now, it's rising again. TRP Africa-Middle East.
PRWCX is the biggest chunk. If we're lucky, it may even finish the year in the black.
PRISX is still underwater. TRP Financials.
PRNEX= still in the red for me, too. The published figures might be positive, YTD. But my timing has been dreadful, as always. TRP Energy.
BRUFX is wife's IRA. Balanced, mostly equities. Not doing badly, rising with everything else, lately.
PRFDX. bought just recently at a good moment. Positive returns, already. TRP Equity Income.
TUHYX. TRP junk bonds. I'm making money with it, now. Bought chunks at deep discounts. (11% of total portfolio.)
Like the Texaco Tiger used to say: "Happy Motoring!"

If you have gotten used to single-stock ETFs, get ready for single-bond/Treasury ETFs. I suppose they make rolls easy although many brokerages (Fido, Schwab, etc) have auto-rolls for Treasuries. There may be other minor trading advantages for small ERs. Keep in mind that major brokerages already have commission-free trading for Treasuries.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/single-treasury-bond-etf-51660337288?refsec=etfs&mod=topics_etfs

I believe that the credit union is required to publish a blended APY, combining 4% for 4 months and 1.65% (the current rate for the remainder) for the final 12 months.
See Reg DD Appendix A. This is a stepped rate CD. Section B talks about blending rates, and Section C talks about using the current rate (1.65%) if the rate is variable.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/1030/a/#1B-1
The credit union is advertising this as 4% APY without disclosing the blended rate. This may be violating Reg DD. Haven't researched but suspect it should not be necessary to read the fine print (though one should) if the institution is stating APY as required by law.

I hope they get fu**ed on this.

I believe that the credit union is required to publish a blended APY, combining 4% for 4 months and 1.65% (the current rate for the remainder) for the final 12 months.
See Reg DD Appendix A. This is a stepped rate CD. Section B talks about blending rates, and Section C talks about using the current rate (1.65%) if the rate is variable.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/1030/a/#1B-1
The credit union is advertising this as 4% APY without disclosing the blended rate. This may be violating Reg DD. Haven't researched but suspect it should not be necessary to read the fine print (though one should) if the institution is stating APY as required by law.

the threatened penalty for keeping VG mutual fund account is $20/yr/fund holding. [...]
[...] people also got notices to switch to electronic statements to avoid $20 annual fee. [...] the previous threshold to avoid that fee was $50K in household assets, but it was suddenly bumped up to cool $1 million.

In both instances (legacy mutual fund platform, brokerage platform), Vanguard was and is charging annual maintenance fees. In both instances the amount of the maintenance fees is not changing. In both instances Vanguard was and is providing ways to have those fees waived.
Vanguard is making two changes. One is to increase the threshold balance for waiving fees from $10K to Flagship status ($1M), for both legacy and brokerage platforms. (There is a different $50K threshold for SIMPLE IRAs and solo 401(k)s that is not changing.)
The other change is that Vanguard is eliminating electronic delivery as a way to wave fees on the legacy platform. Vanguard is retaining this waiver on its brokerage platform. The practical effect of this if you are counting upon using electronic delivery to have fees waved is to nudge you onto the brokerage platform. This has no impact on Flagship customers as they will continue to have maintenance fees waived.
Apparently (I have not received communication from Vanguard), the new fee schedule for existing accounts goes into effect on Sept. 30th.
Old fee schedule
New fee schedule
(Links "borrowed" from Bogleheads thread.)

Speaking of malfunctioning websites, has anyone viewed Vanguard funds on its website using Firefox?
It appears there are issues ¹ as a result of recent Vanguard "improvements."
1) No margin on left side of page.
2) Headers (Overview, Performance & fees, Portfolio composition, etc.) are not listed on top.
They occupy most of the page which makes it extremely difficult to view the corresponding data.
¹ Chrome and Edge work fine.