I knew that Ron Baron was really fond of Tesla.
However, I didn't realize that Tesla comprised 50% of a Baron fund.
Yikes, that's a bit too risky for me!

@yogibearbull,
I'm not very familiar with technical analysis.
How reliable of an indicator is the 50-Day / 200-Day SMA death cross?
Do you know if there were death cross patterns for the S&P 500 prior to sell-offs in 2000 - 2002, 2008, 2018 Q4, and 2020 Q1?
Thank you!

Monday was a bit curious in that most of the defensive funds I track (about a half dozen) failed to hold water in the face of a rather broad based market selloff. HSGFX managed to loose .44%.
CCOR lost 1,50%. SWAN down .88% And DRSK off about .30%.
Gold and miners have been hot for 2-3 days. The futures tonight have gold approaching $1900, which would be close to a 1 year high.
Don’t know what happened to the yield curve today, but it looks like the shorter duration stuff got hit harder than farther out.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/822632/000119312522041565/d448645d497.htm
497 1 d448645d497.htm WILLIAM BLAIR FUNDS
WILLIAM BLAIR FUNDS
WILLIAM BLAIR BOND FUND
WILLIAM BLAIR SHORT DURATION BOND FUND
WILLIAM BLAIR ULTRA-SHORT DURATION BOND FUND
Supplement to the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated May 1, 2021, as Supplemented
Upon recommendation of the Adviser, the Board of Trustees of William Blair Funds (the “Trust”) determined that it was in the best interests of each of the William Blair Bond Fund, William Blair Short Duration Bond Fund, and William Blair Ultra-Short Duration Bond Fund (each a “Fund” and collectively the “Funds”) to redeem all the shares of the Funds on or before April 15, 2022 (the “Liquidation Date”), and then terminate the Funds. Shareholder approval of the liquidation is not required. The Funds will be closed to new investors effective February 14, 2022 but will remain open for investment until February 28, 2022 for existing shareholders.
At any time prior to the Liquidation Date, the Funds’ shareholders may redeem all or a portion of their shares or exchange their Fund shares for shares in the corresponding class of another fund of the Trust pursuant to procedures set forth in the William Blair Funds’ Prospectus. If you wish to exchange your shares into another fund of the Trust, or would like to request additional copies of the Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information for the Trust including other funds for which you may exchange your shares of the Funds, please call William Blair Funds Shareholder Services or your William Blair client representative at the following numbers:
For Class N and Class I Shares
Call: 1-800-635-2886
(In Massachusetts 1-800-635-2840)
For Class R6 Shares
Call: 1-800-742-7272
If you are invested in the Fund through a financial intermediary, please contact that financial intermediary if you have any questions.
Liquidation of Assets. The Funds will depart from their stated investment objectives and policies as they liquidate holdings in preparation for the distribution of assets to investors. During this time, the Funds may hold more cash, cash equivalents or other short-term investments than normal, which may prevent one or more of the Funds from meeting their stated investment objectives. Any shares of the Funds that have not been redeemed or exchanged prior to the Liquidation Date will be redeemed automatically at their net asset value per share on the Liquidation Date.
Dated: February 14, 2022
William Blair Funds
150 North Riverside Plaza
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Please retain this supplement for future reference.

A death-cross formation is imminent in days (2-3?) for Nasdaq Comp, and in weeks (2?) for Nasdaq-100/QQQ and R1000-gr/VUG. This dreadful name is when the 50-dMA crosses the 200-dMA on the downside. Other major indexes are not showing this formation.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$COMPQ&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p04185122627
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$NDX&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p23385139800
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=VUG&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p59404796095

Somewhat to the side of the topic, but in the eternal debate b/w active management and rolling your own, I see that any combo of VONG half or more (2/3, 3/4) with FBND the rest, outperforms easily my recent love interests CBALX and FMSDX over 3y and 5y.
Go, bull.
However, if the future is anything like the recent past (I know, I know), for 1y, 6m, 3m and ytd, those two mutual funds do notably better (they are not even -4% ytd).
Apples to pears, sort of, but I thought of interest. Just fyi.
(Assuming my calcs are good.)

I have a chunk of my daughter's account in BPTRX since 2003. Needless to say she thinks I am a genius, although her suggestions to buy APPL and AMZN in 2012 and 2014 have actually done better.
We have been cutting back. I think APPL and AMZN are likely to be better long term investments than TSLA, but they are all overpriced. It hurts to have to pay taxes, even at her lower income, but it is better than a 50% loss.

"Facebook posts claim that the rising cost of goods in the United States is due to price gouging rather than inflation. But experts rejected the idea that corporations are the main culprit and said the spike in prices follows big federal spending, heightened demand, and supply problems, all of which have accompanied the pandemic."
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.9ZG3DG (apologies if the link does not work, go read the article)
We can pee in each other's Cheerios all morning as to the root cause of the inflation we are experiencing, we likely won't agree. But there is no doubt it is real. The question is for how long and where to protect your investments.
Anecdotally, my heating bill for my home in the Blue Ridge Mtns, same usage as prior year etc, ~$235 last month vs ~$145. Not a small increase. I don't have to tell you about grocery shopping or what services are costing these days.
What concerns me the most is that from a product standpoint, my thinking is there might be a tremendous amount of "false orders", meaning I need 10k widgets but better order 15k because the lead times are extended. what happens when that unravels or there are cancelations?
I want to see when many companies provide raises to their associates this spring...what willl that look like...what will the wage-price spiral look like?
Wondering if we are about to get into a stagflation scenario...tough times during the late 70's early 80's. Will the precious metals protect our purchasing power...might not be a bad idea, dunno?
WSJ article over the weekend stated we are in "unchartered waters" as we have never experienced the same scenario we are going thru now. So who knows?
I'm thinking about the metals, also HSAFX, our ole' friend Hussy might be telling us "I told you so" by the end of the year but he likely has too much class to do that.
Good Luck to ALL,
Baseball Fan

"Old" Sam Stovall may be in late-60s. He used to be at S&P but then in 2016 S&P spun off its equity research unit to CFRA. His father Robert Stovall, a well-known Wall Street analyst, passed away in 2020.
Son/Sam Stovall https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-stovall-34153988#:~:text=Sam is the author of,flagship weekly newsletter The Outlook.
Father/Robert Stovall https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/robert-stovall-obituary?id=12891994

Fed's measure of inflation, the PCE deflator, released on Jan 28 showed an increase of 4.9% (excluding food and energy) from a year earlier. January numbers will be released on Feb 25.
https://www.bea.gov/data/personal-consumption-expenditures-price-index-excluding-food-and-energy

“Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines, the two largest ultralow-cost carriers in the U.S., have agreed to merge, creating what would become the fifth-largest airline in the country. The company boards approved the deal over the weekend.The deal, valued at $6.6 billion, is structured with Frontier Airlines controlling the merged airline and Spirit holding the remaining 48.5%.“
CNBC
(Not an early April 1 prank)

I have no opinion on “transitory” or “non-transitory”. Nor have I any opinion what folks should buy if it turns out to be the former or the latter. But Barron’s this week seems to confirm what I’ve been seeing for about a year when I grocery shop. (I like to eat. I eat very well. But I don’t eat ice cream.)
“The January consumer-price index confirmed what consumers have known for some time. Prices are rising across the economy, and fast, with the overall index up 7.5% from a year ago from a 7% pace in December. The narrative around reopening bottlenecks keeping inflation contained, if persistent, within a tight group of predictable, pandemic-affected areas has been stale for some time; January's report makes it worth shredding. From a year earlier, bread, meat, and eggs rose by double digits, gasoline surged 40%, and even banking services jumped 14%. As Grant Thornton chief economist Diane Swonk put it: ‘The only thing that looks like a good deal is ice cream.’ “
Excerpted from “Forecasts” - by Lisa Beilfuss / Barron’s (print edition) February 14, 2022
Yet another pundit in the same Barron’s issue writes …
“In the inflation forecasting Olympics, Team Transitory missed the first gate, fell on the first jump, slipped at the first corner … We now expect headline CPI to average more than 6% this year before fading to just below 3% in 2023, both a long, long way from the 1.7% average in the decade prior to the pandemic.“ (Credited to BMO Capital Markets)

“About a week ago, I spent a few hours at my local Chevy dealer buying out the lease on my 2018 Bolt, with brand new LG batteries—the old ones were recalled because they risked bursting into flames. While working on the paperwork in the eerily quiet dealership, the salesman told me there were cars that had been sitting in the service department for weeks waiting for the arrival of parts—computer chips, in particular. He said sales at the dealership had dropped by about 90% from prepan-demic levels, and most of the sales staff had been laid off...”
“Meanwhile, Toyota Motor (TM) recently cut its vehicle production forecast for 2022 by 500,000 units, citing both uncertainty related to Covid-19 and the ongoing chip shortage. The bottom line? The case for owning chip fab stocks … is very compelling.”
From: “Feeling Better About the Chip Shortage?” - by Eric Savitz
Barron’s (print edition) February 14, 2022
Fascinating that the problem has persisted so many months. I’m always amazed when I take my 2018 Honda Accord back to the once thriving dealership for routine service and see the showroom and lots devoid of autos - completely barren.

“The top-performing growth fund since the end of 2019 is $7.6 billion Baron Partners (BPTRX). The fund gained 149% in 2020—just a hair behind ARK Innovation's 157%—and an additional 31% in 2021, while ARK lost 23%. This year, the Baron fund has also held up better than the ARK ETF, as growth stocks have tumbled. Investors should be cautious about the Baron fund, however: Most of its recent gains came from just one stock, Tesla (TSLA), which accounts for 50% of its portfolio. The fund bought Tesla shares between 2014 and 2016, and instead of selling to keep its weighting in check as the stock rose exponentially, the fund let it run.”
(I guess it depends on your definition of “fund”.)
Excerpted from Barron’s (print edition) February 14, 2022

I was searching for something like @davfor’s chart last evening. Finally dawned on me this morning that the free Bloomberg ipad app lists YTD performance of many markets - domestic and international. Stuff like that helps me get my head around where we’ve been. Those aren’t particularly large drops for those of us who lived through 2008 or the one-day drop in the Dow of around 25% in 1987.
I’ve been thinking a lot that the “go to” areas of the U.S. market represented by S&P, NASDAQ etc. might well be overvalued but that there may be pockets of good value in some foreign markets and individual stocks here at home. Just a guess. No particular expertise.

-17% discount...
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnas/ssb/quote
-34% discount...
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnys/ebr/quote
This page might prove to be handy. i chose EGYPT on a lark. (EGX 30)
https://www.egx.com.eg/en/Indices.aspx

I was searching for something like @davfor’s chart last evening. Finally dawned on me this morning that the free Bloomberg ipad app lists YTD performance of many markets - domestic and international. Stuff like that helps me get my head around where we’ve been. Those aren’t particularly large drops for those of us who lived through 2008 or the one-day drop in the Dow of around 25% in 1987.
I’ve been thinking a lot that the “go to” areas of the U.S. market represented by S&P, NASDAQ etc. might well be overvalued but that there may be pockets of good value in some foreign markets and individual stocks here at home. Just a guess. No particular expertise.

Current YTD status. Another leg down? January low retest coming? Something else?
(similar charts are now buried in another thread but I am putting this in a new thread).
Dynamic link (may have to use YTD) https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=$SPX&compare=$COMPQ,$INDU,$TRAN,IWM&id=p74767152289

Still wading through this lengthy feature piece. Good timing - the Barron’s cover story coinciding with the 2022 Super Bowl. Sources tell Barron’s that $7.6 Billion will be wagered on the game this year - an increase of 78% over last year. The increase is largely a result of the spread of online sports betting (and every other form of wagering) across the country as more and more states legalize it. Biggest players are DraftKings (DKNG), MGM Resorts (MGM), Flutter’s FanDuel (PDYPY) and Caesars Entertainment (CZR). Penn Gaming and Ballys are lesser players.
The article is a curious mix of statistics and psychology. It delves into the mind of gamblers as explained by psychiatrists. It cites a an addiction counselor telling of people in the U.S. betting on a tennis match somewhere in Eastern Europe in the wee-morning hours here - not because they cared about tennis, but because they needed the dopamine “fix” gained from having money on the line. But the article strongly makes a case that Americans are addicted to gambling in many different forms, citing trading in crypto, fungible tokens and stocks as other parts of the overall equation. And it hits hard at the cost to society.
There’s a lot said about Robinhood and how it has used targeted “cues” to spark risk taking by customers. Some of this has been toned down in the face of public criticism. The SEC is expected soon to unveil regulations to better prevent abuse - especially of inexperienced traders. One thing mentioned was the “herd mentality” of investors. So, here’s a parting quotation from the article on that point. Food for thought:
“About 35% of the stock bought by Robinhood users are concentrated in 10 companies, compared with 24% by retail investors overall, according to a forthcoming study in the Journal of Finance. Investors tend to congregate in stock “herding events” ….. The results don't look encouraging. Robinhood traders lose an average of 4.3% during each herding episode. After adjusting for market returns, losses hit 5.5%. Robinhood declined to comment to Barron's …”

For most people, K-1 in IRAs don't matter. But for some, it may - if there is large UBI in K-1 Box 20 (over $1,000); and then the IRA sponsor will prepare Form 990 and will bill you a few hundred bucks for its preparation and filing.
https://finance.zacks.com/report-k1-ira-account-7692.html
https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/tax-effects-of-k-1s-issued-by-etfs-in-iras.aspx#:~:text=K-1s are tax forms,deductible expenses to their investors.
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/retirement/discussion/does-schedule-k-1-income-held-in-an-ira-need-to-be-shown-in-tax-filing/00/150684

“Too bad they only have a 1 to 5 scale, and no negative answers.”
Sounds like a negative 5 rating. Wondering if VG employs the same “customer satisfaction” team as TRP?
Just a quick “Thanks” to those members who steered me to Fido in mid 2021. (The other highly recommended brokerage was Schwab.)