Renewable energy is the cover story in the current Barron's. LINK1 LINK2
COVER STORY, “Clean Energy’s Future Has Arrived/6 Stocks to Play the Rush for Renewable ENERGY”. AES, BE, FCX, LG Energy (S Korea), PLUG, RUN, etc; ETF TAN
TRANSITION from wood to coal took200 years, from coal to oil 100 years, but that from fossil fuels to RENEWABLES (solar, wind, batteries, hydrogen) to be in only a few years? Global renewable power was 29% in 2020, and by 2030, may be 60% in Europe, 38% in the US, 38% in China. Both the US and Europe, each, are adding 30 GW of renewable power capacity now and that may be 80 GW/yr by 2030. There are transition TAX CREDITS/INCENTIVES everywhere. Russia-Ukraine war has set back some current efforts (coal has come back and natural-gas is scarce) but has accelerated the push for future transitions. Europe has committed $200 billion, the US Inflation Reduction Act will have $370 billion, and private investments will kick in $1.2 trillion. This may be the end of boom-and-bust energy cycles. Many countries have NET-ZERO carbon emission goals by 2050+. However, be very selective on companies in the renewable energy area. Besides the companies mentioned earlier, other beneficiaries may include VWDRY, NLLSF, XOM, CVX (old energy companies won’t be sitting still).

There is an interview in the current Barron's from a China fan, LINK1 LINK2
Virginie MAISONNEUVE, Allianz Global. An interview focused on China (VM has followed China since the age of 5, has degree in Mandarin, has worked in China, specializes in China ESG). China-Taiwan conflict is not in anybody’s interest. The US-China trade war was misplaced by the US concerns. Treat China as a separate asset class, not just a part of the EMs. China is often out of sync with the others, so that provides important diversification benefit. China offers opportunities in innovative/disruptive techs, biotech, digitization. Chinese equities are volatile but attractive on earnings and valuations. Her big themes include quality-value (i.e. not deep-value), quality-growth, high-impact global themes (energy, food, water, AI, cybersecurity), risk control with ESG (her “new normal” despite temporary criticisms/doubts now).

https://www.suneast.org/save/savings-accounts-and-certificates/
4% 16 months. $10k minimum.

I presume you read through this recent thread.
What is different about a sector "bet" versus a single stock position?
MFO, August 9

+1

@hank, the threatened penalty for keeping VG mutual fund account is $20/yr/fund holding. So, for someone holding 5 VG funds in an account, it is $20 x 5 = $100/yr for that account. Double that if both husband and wife have VG accounts. We actually have 5 distinct VG accounts (4 IRAs, 1 trust) and on us alone, VG could get a windfall (-:).
In another forum, people also got notices to switch to electronic statements to avoid $20 annual fee. VG uses a householding system and the previous threshold to avoid that fee was $50K in household assets, but it was suddenly bumped up to cool $1 million. The deadline for that is also 9/30/22.

One thing worth doing with small-caps is looking at their betas. Only a handful have betas less than 1 and if you’re worried about volatility, that matters.

@hank, I only watched the first five minutes or so and likely not get to it until late Sunday. A

It would be nice to hear any takeaways after you’ve watched. Generally, the recent rally in equities seems to have surprised everyone, including most of WSW’s guests. If you listened to Summers every week I suspect you would have burried your head in the sand the past 6 months (financially speaking). One notable exception is frequent guest, Sarah Ketterer, Causeway Capital CEO & Fundamental Portfolio Manager. She’s been more positive than most over the year I think. Schwab’s Liz Saunders, while more cautious, also offers a balanced and circumspect picture.
One (unrelated) sign that things have improved is that PRWCX has clawed its way back from doubled-digit loss territory to only - 4.71% YTD.

Did anybody get anything out of this week’s show? The first 2 guests were well qualified. The woman was from Invesco. But I thought they spoke in broad generalities. Geez - Can we stop second guessing what the Fed will do next? Even the Fed members sound clueless. And to say China “might be” a productive investment going forward really doesn’t say much. Like it or not like? What percentage would you so allocate?
I can’t stomach Summers anymore. Obviously bright and highly educated. His particular weekly “take” on inflation & Fed policy wouldn’t seem to require what sounds like 10 minutes of droning. You don’t suppose they’re paying him by the number of words? :)
Thanks @BaluBalu for posting all the shows. (I always record / replay the show thru my Hulu subscription). While I didn’t take away much this week, often the guests are really good and leave some incisive commentary.
Hoping others can contribute here whatever substance, insights, advice they gleaned from this week’s program? While the show shines occasionally, overall it bears little resemblance to the spontaneity and expert analysis served up by a distinguished array of financial gurus on Louis Rukeyser’s old Wall Street Week.

+1.

There was a post at M* Discussions (long thread, post# 326, warning - needs lot of scrolling) yesterday that offered a ray of hope. https://community.morningstar.com/s/question/0D53o000066YnacCAC/does-anyone-else-feel-like-the-new-morningstar-investor-is-a-huge-downgrade-compared-with-the-legacy-portfolio-manager
"Bill.Baranyk (Employee)
21 hours ago
Hello Investor subscriber,
We're continuing to receive feedback from subscribers on the Investor experience, with an emphasis on the status of missing or incomplete features.
We take feedback seriously and want to show how we’re using it to improve Investor. So, we’d like to lay out what you can expect over the next six to nine months.
The status of legacy Portfolio Manager
Legacy Portfolio Manager will not be retired until the features in Investor's Portfolio help you accomplish the same tasks as legacy: monitoring your portfolio with relevant data in customizable views, understanding investment performance, and reviewing Portfolio X-Ray analysis on your holdings. Our goal is to add features to Portfolio that support those tasks by the end of 2022.
As we continue to build and release, you’ll see similar features to those in legacy, but you’ll also see new additions that improve how you research, analyze, and monitor investments.
But rest assured: Legacy will not be retired until all those features are successfully up and running in Investor. We’ll communicate our progress along the way, and if we aren’t on track to hit our goal, legacy will remain until we are.
Custom views
Custom views are coming to Investor, and they’ll be similar to the My Views feature in legacy Portfolio. The launch of views will come in phases, with the first phase rolling out in early September 2022. This launch will include an improved process for creating, editing, and sorting custom views and around 80 additional data points to work with.
The remaining phases will roll out throughout the rest of the year and will include expanded data points and more ways to control how you view information within tables. [We’re also determining the best way to bring over custom views you’ve already created in legacy Portfolio Manager.]
We’ll notify you as each phase launches.
Performance tracking
In the fall, we’ll add performance tracking to Investor for portfolios that have manually added purchases/sales. This includes both data and comparisons to similar benchmarks. Watchlists in Investor will not include functionality for performance tracking.
Investor will continue to evolve with the needs of our subscribers, so we’ll keep you informed as updates come. This approach may be a bit different than what you’ve experienced with Premium. It’s all in service of getting the right features into your hands, so you can focus on your investment goals.
We can’t wait for you to see what’s in store over the coming weeks and months.
Happy investing,
The Morningstar Investor team"

This week's episode from YouTube:

From Bloomberg site:
https://www.bloomberg.com/btv/series/wall-street-week

Good info @Junkster & @Ybb.
From which event in time is the average 12 month S&P return of 18% calculated? What is the date from which we are supposed to observe this gain? I had to ask because S&P 500 is already up 18% from its June low.
Thanks.

The 18% is from today. But many other such indicators kicked in long before today. For instance since 1946 we have had only 8 quarters where the S@P had a decline of 15% or greater. Average following 12 month return has been 26,1%. This past June quarter makes it a 9th occurrence. So we shall see. But so far so good.

18% from today would make it approx 40% from June bottom. That is huge. If so, I could end up being one of the losers because today I sold all that I bought in 2022 and sitting in more than 40% cash. Still YTD portfolio loss - there was so much institutional pessimism about the 2022 swoon that I was not aggressive in buying in June. I think it was just a day or two around June 15, BoA revised their prognosis and said they see S&P 500 bottoming at near 3,000 with the year end target of 3,400.
P.S.: My sell is not based on any technical analysis, except that we are still in a Fed tightening cycle. S&P 500 is only 11% below all time high while interest rates across the curve are much higher in a short period of time. It just felt right to sell. Of course, the back to school retail sales could prompt retailers to give good guidance next week, giving more reasons for the market to keep going up.

Good info @Junkster & @Ybb.
From which event in time is the average 12 month S&P return of 18% calculated? What is the date from which we are supposed to observe this gain? I had to ask because S&P 500 is already up 18% from its June low.
Thanks.

The 18% is from today. But many other such indicators kicked in long before today. For instance since 1946 we have had only 8 quarters where the S@P had a decline of 15% or greater. Average following 12 month return has been 26,1%. This past June quarter makes it a 9th occurrence. So we shall see. But so far so good. Study done by Ryan Detrick.

Good info @Junkster & @Ybb.
From which event in time is the average 12 month S&P return of 18% calculated? What is the date from which we are supposed to observe this gain? I had to ask because S&P 500 is already up 18% from its June low.
Thanks.

Vanguard Global ESG Select Stock Fund (VESGX) came to mind after viewing the clean/renewable ETFs thread. Wellington Management is the advisor for VESGX.
The fund has performed well since its 2019 inception but this is a short evaluation period.
It's unclear to me how selecting securities based on net zero targets will affect investment performance.
Any thoughts?
"Specifically, the advisor seeks to invest approximately 65% of the Fund’s assets
in companies with net zero science-based targets by 2030 and approximately
90% of the Fund’s assets in companies with net zero science-based targets by
2040, with the ultimate goal of investing 100% of the Fund’s assets in
companies that have reached net zero by 2050. The advisor reserves the right to
deviate from these targets without notice."

Over the past six weeks it has been one after another breadth, volume and assorted momentum indicators kick in on the buy side saying the bear is dead. Today yet another one from Seth Gordon on Twitter. 90% of the S@P stocks are trading above their 50 day moving average. Since 2003 has occurred 14 times with a positivity rate of 94% and an average 12 month S@P return of 18%

@Observant1, the high correlation between the market and A/D line is seen on the chart. But there can be short-term divergences (nonconforming). The A/D thrust days were mentioned earlier - another sign of cash on the sidelines burning hole in investors' pockets. All this means that the market participation is broadening, the rally failure is less likely at this critical juncture, and farther we get from the mid-June lows, less likely it is that may be broken (may be low testing only, if that). Just my 2 cents.

As for, "Is it safe?", think back in time (1922) to the Teapot Dome Scandal.
In today's world, what is safe from predators?

SP500 cumulative A/D line is at a new high, https://twitter.com/bespokeinvest/status/1558147852202917891