Has anyone seen/heard anything more about this?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/29/-your-social-security-check-might-be-taxed-how-that-could-change.html
Excerpt: (bold added)
Those thresholds are not indexed, which means they have not been updated since they were first established by Congress.
Consequently, over time more people have become subject to taxes on their benefits.
“There was the intent that it would only affect high-income earners when it was first passed in 1983, but over time, it’s reached further and further down into the middle class,” said Joe Elsasser, founder and president of Covisum, a provider of Social Security claiming software.

June 2nd Episode:

In an article titled “In Praise of Target-Date Funds,” one of our favorite WEALTHTRACK guests, Morningstar’s Director of Personal Finance, Christine Benz described them as “…nothing short of the biggest positive development for investors since the index fund.”
That got my attention! So this week we are interviewing one of the best target-date managers in the business. He is Wyatt Lee, who is Head and Co-Manager of T. Rowe Price’s $390 billion Target Date Strategies, the largest group of actively managed target-date products in the U.S.
The firm’s Retirement Series earned a Gold analyst rating from Morningstar, one of only two in the actively managed category, for its stellar performance and high ratings for its process, people, and the parent company.
Lee begins with the basics and defines what a target-date fund does and how the product has evolved since it was first introduced in 1994. It turns out target-date funds can be an effective retirement vehicle for investors at all stages of life and that there are many options available.

June 4th Episode:

Part 2 of 2
Candid career advice from three super successful women portfolio managers. Causeway Capital’s Sarah Ketterer, Capital Group’s Karen Choi, and Canyon Partner’s Robin Potts share their victories, setbacks and strategies as they tear down the pink wall.

Interesting IOFIX info from Jeff Ptak:
"In case you were wondering: Since 1/1/20, AlphaCentric Income Opportunity Fund has reported a 0% daily return in 47% of trading days. Despite that, it has been >3x more volatile than avg Multisector fund and had a 40%+ drawdown, which is ~3.5x the category avg."

There are two different difficulties with FDGRX. One is that if you go back early enough (2006 seems about "right"), the annual reports are only found under the trust (of which FDGRX is a series), and not under the fund itself. Possibly because the filings for the trust aren't sorted by series (fund).
If you start with the mutual fund search page:
https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/mutualsearch.html
and type in FDGRX (right side box), you see a link for the entire trust (Mt Vernon Street), and a link for Fidelity Growth Company Fund. Follow that second link and you'll get just the docs for FDGRX and not for other funds in the trust. But only back to 2006.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=S000007119&type=N-CSR&dateb=&count=40&scd=filings&search_text=
So you need to get all the docs for the trust. Follow the first link for the trust (click on the trust name, not the number to get the "classic" Edgar version). Then click on the number of the trust (0000707823) on the resulting page to get to the classic version of the trust's docs.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000707823&owner=include&count=40
If you do a search on shareholder reports (N-CSR), you'll get (semi)annual reports back to 2003. Better. but not quite there.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000707823&type=N-CSR&dateb=&count=40&scd=filings&search_text=
This shows the second problem. Annual reports can be filed as N-CSR's or as N-30Ds. Search on Form N-30D.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000707823&type=N-30D&dateb=&count=40&scd=filings&search_text=
That gets you filings between 1995 and 2003. Bingo!
Here's the oldest annual report (dated Nov 1994):
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/707823/0000707823-95-000003.txt
Another problem one has to watch out for is when a fund is moved from one trust to another. Possibly one searches for fund name (not ticker) and finds the fund listed under two different trusts. Not going to look for an oddball case to test now.

For FDGRX, SEC/Edgar search stops at 2/24/2006.
https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=C000019448&owner=include&scd=filings&count=40
This is the basic link that I played around. Difference was that Fidelity Contra pulled up on "Company" search while Fidelity Growth pulled up only by "Mutual Fund" search.
https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html

TDA still showing it at 100K and also unavailable.

For example, I could get FCNTX 1999 reports by entering dates in the date fields for this SEC/Edgar link,
https://www.sec.gov/edgar/browse/?CIK=24238

Thank you Mark. Can you please post for everyone's benefit the steps you took to pull up this page. I still don't know how to pull up the data you seem to have found. I am missing 1999 to 2006 dates.

Are you missing 1999 to 2006 or earlier dates? Edgar goes back to roughly 1996.
For example, from FCNTX's Dec 1999 Annual Report
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/24238/000079542200000022/0000795422-00-000022.txt

TOP TEN STOCKS AS OF DECEMBER 31, 1999
% OF FUND'S  NET ASSETS    % OF FUND'S NET ASSETS 6 MONTHS AGO
McDonald's Corp.		3.6			3.3
Time Warner, Inc.		3.1			4.3
Cisco Systems, Inc.		2.5			1.7
Microsoft Corp. 		2.4			1.4
Vodafone AirTouch PLC		2.0			1.7
sponsored ADR
Exxon Mobil Corp.		1.8			1.4
CBS Corp.			1.7			1.1
BP Amoco PLC			1.6			1.3
sponsored ADR
Home Depot, Inc.		1.5			1.0
CVS Corp.			1.5			2.0
21.7			19.2

It looks like it is available to institutional investors at Schwab for $100K, not the new amount of $5K.

IMHO, the investment potential for crypto was always a prime example of the "Greater Fool" theory. Same with NFT's. The underlying technology of Blockchain is a different story.

+1

I am interested in top 10 holdings of Mutual Funds. SEC Edgar Database has reports since 2006. Any idea where on the internet I can get top holdings, for Fidelity Growth Company, Fidelity Contrafund, Primecap Growth Fund for the 1999 to 2006 era? I know CSRP has it but looking for public resource that's easily available. Thank you in advance.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/03/crypto-firms-say-thousands-of-digital-currencies-will-collapse.html
Crypto firms say thousands of digital currencies will collapse, compare market to early dotcom days
***There are more than 19,000 cryptocurrencies in existence and dozens of blockchain platforms that exist.
Several cryptocurrency industry players told CNBC that thousands of digital tokens are likely to collapse while the number of blockchains in existence will also fall over the coming years.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of cross-border blockchain payments company Ripple, said there is likely to be “scores” of cryptocurrencies that remain in the future.***
we have stop investing CRYPT-BASE currencies past 3months. was a smart move IMHO. Many friends lots moderate amount of monies

Absolutely correct. Pure grandstanding.
If they wanted to actually do something, they could repeal the statute that Congress passed in 2009 permitting the mutual fund window. Or they could have followed protocol and made comments on the fund window proposal, which the FRTIB would have had to respond to.
It's even worse than grandstanding, it's dishonest. From the letter:

it is unlikely that your Board would be able to ensure that the approximately 5,000 mutual funds are all free of Chinese firms that pose a direct threat to American national security, enterprises implicated in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) human rights abuses, or companies that otherwise lack the requisite financial transparency and fiduciary responsibility to qualify as prudent investment opportunities. In fact, the FRTIB has explicitly acknowledged as much ...

This is deliberately conflating risk to a portfolio with threats, real or not, posed by some companies within said portfolio. In fact, the FRTIB emphasized the prudent nature of moving the I fund benchmark from the EAFE to the ACWI ex-US index.

In coming to this decision [to switch to ACWI ex-US], the Board noted that moving to the broader I Fund benchmark is in the best interest of participants and beneficiaries, a current best practice in the investment industry, and is widely recognized as a smart strategy in today’s market. The ten largest U.S. companies’ 401(k) plans all invest in emerging markets, as do the ten largest federal contractor plans and the six largest target date fund providers. In addition, the 20 largest defined benefit plans—all of which are for state government workers—invest in emerging markets. TSP participants can decide which TSP funds they want to invest in.

https://www.tsp.gov/plan-news/investment-benchmark-update/
The letter continues:

After widespread and bipartisan outrage in 2020, the FRTIB voted unanimously to abandon the ACWI ex-US IMI transition.

Granting, for the sake of argument, such widespread outrage (which seems dubious as few track such details}, the delaying (not abandoning) of the transition was due to other reasons, notably covid:

Board defers action on I Fund transition — Due to a meaningfully different economic environment related in large part to the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the nomination of three new Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board Members, pending further study, the Board is delaying the implementation of the I Fund benchmark change to the MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. Investible Market index from the MSCI EAFE index.

https://www.tsp.gov/plan-news/i-fund-transition-defer-2020-05-13/
Further down in the letter:

U.S. service-members and other federal employees would likely be shocked to learn that the FRTIB is unaware of which companies make up these approved funds or what risk those companies pose. ... When they invest through TSP, they rightly expect the FRTIB will protect them and their investments from these types of dangerous investments.

That seems to be belied by the very minutes cited in the letter. The FRTIB not only acknowledged the presence of Chinese companies in some the 5000+ funds available in the US (though identifying specific investments at every moment in time would be problematic). It also acknowledged that the developed nations benchmark used by the I fund already includes Chinese companies via Hong Kong.

She also noted that the TSP’s current I Fund index includes Hong Kong, which is part of China, and that there is no widely recognized index for developed markets that excludes Hong Kong. As such, to both divest from Hong Kong equities and create a new, specially designed index without Chinese investments would increase costs to all TSP participants. It would also preclude the implementation of the TSP mutual fund window, as monitoring approximately 5,000 mutual funds for any investments in Chinese entities would prove too costly for the plan.

https://www.frtib.gov/meeting_minutes/2021/2021May.pdf

Yes, I agree. Thank you, Hank.
"A growing land war in Europe and a growing U.S. role providing weaponry; a tightening Federal Reserve; A near total Covid lockdown in China (easing at present); Supply chain shortages; Near dysfunctional politics; Growing firearm related violence here at home. 21 killed in Texas a week ago and 4 more killed overnight in Oklahoma. All told, it’s enough to make you not want to get out of bed in the morning - or buy stocks."
To invest at all means you believe in the future ... that the world economies will continue to grow and, in fact, that the world ultimately will be a better place.
So, yes, there is certainly a lot of news and opinion that says it isn't so.
But maybe there always is.

Hi, sma.
A quick follow-up.
1. I added the table to Mark's article as a way of giving folks leads. He's an innocent victim of my good intentions.
2. MFO Premium's screener defaults to providing the oldest share class of each portfolio, and that's often the institutional class. In the case of Griffin Institutional Access, for example, there are four share classes available. Likewise, the BlueRock fund has a $2,500 share class. While many "A" shares have a nominal sales charge, those are frequently avoidable.
3. In some cases, the funds are indeed targeted to institutional investors, which does represent a slice of our readership. (Who knew?) Many are advisors. Charles has noted in the past that funds that were nominally institutional were available at Schwab, through his former retirement plan, for $2,500. Intermittently I've noticed the same at TD.
So I guess I mostly trust that readers will check out both the appropriateness and the availability of interesting funds.
- - - - -
You're right about interval funds. They typically invest in illiquid assets (or not very liquid ones) which offer unique investment characteristics by virtue of their illiquidity. (Owning an apartment building offers vastly different risks and rewards than owning a share of Tesla, for instance.) That makes it impossible for a manager to offer daily liquidity to shareholders. And just as you wouldn't put the money for Junior's fall tuition in shares of Tesla because you can't be assured they'd be there when you needed them, you wouldn't put them in an interval fund either.
For what that's worth,
David

Jamie always sounds to me like he’s got half a toot on. Not that I’d hold it against him. Wondering if comment was made before or after lunch? In the town I grew up in the local bankers were the worst of the lot. Rarely blew a sober breath after lunch. Re Diamon … Sometime ago he criticized crypto as “worthless.” Although it wasn’t worthless, many crypto currencies took a big hit only months later. If you listened to him, you probably came out better off.
As for that “hurricane” … A growing land war in Europe and a growing U.S. role providing weaponry; a tightening Federal Reserve; A near total Covid lockdown in China (easing at present); Supply chain shortages; Near dysfunctional politics; Growing firearm related violence here at home. 21 killed in Texas a week ago and 4 more killed overnight in Oklahoma. All told, it’s enough to make you not want to get out of bed in the morning - or buy stocks.
They all have their story to tell. And it’s hard to know to what extent they’re “talking their book” and trying to move their stock or a segment of the market this way or that. But I like to attribute to them the best of motives and like to think they’re looking out for the best interests of we small individual investors.
Others I’ve followed somewhat this year:
- George Soros thinks WW III has already begun - and I’d give about 1 in 3 odds that he’s correct, Could be catastrophic for equities.
- Ray Dalio thinks cash is trash. He’d prefer most anything to cash and has liked gold for a long time. He also thinks the tremendous wealth disparity in this country spells civil strife in coming years. Again, not good for equities.
- Rick Rieder, who’s involved in multi-asset strategies at Blackrock, loves cash presently. Interviewed on Bloomberg in the past month he commented, “We’re holding on to cash with both hands!”
- Howard Marks was on Bloomberg TV yesterday remarking on the good values that have now developed in the markets - particularly high yield bonds. His approach is to grab off whatever value he can see right away rather than waiting for the price to fall further. Overall, he views the risk markets as offering much better value than 6 months ago. And he’s picking up bargains.
- Larry Fink of Blackrock is being interviewed on Bloomberg as I write. He scoffed at Diamond’s “hurricane” analogy saying he thinks it was intended to represent just one possible outcome. Fink doesn’t think the Fed can solve the inflation problem with the tools they have. Will remain high for 2-3 years, but moderate further out. Fink commented that there hasn’t been much change in how individuals are positioned in his funds. Most are staying the course.
- I subscribe to James Stack’s InvestTech newsletter. Proprietary material. But I suspect it’s widely known that he’s been recommending for some time that individuals maintain a 50-60% long exposure to equities and hold the rest in cash + an inverse S&P fund. He’s expecting trouble ahead - not unlike Diamond’s “hurricane.” I march to my own drummer - but take Stack’s views into consideration.
- I subscribe to Bill Fleckenstein’s “Daily Rap”. When he’s not wasting time criticizing the alleged ill effects of Covid vaccines, Bill makes a compellingly bearish case for equities. (But it may take months or years to play out). Also likes gold and the metals. Been wrong a long time. But the metals are spiking big time today. Miners up 4 - 5% on the day.
Of all the commentators mentioned above, Howard Marks makes the most sense to me. Generally does. And I’ve fallen asleep more than once listing to the audio version of one of his books.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/brian-moynihan-dismisses-jamie-dimons-warning-on-the-economy-youve-got-hurricanes-that-come-every-year-11654166154
(Instant Classic) Excerpt (bold added):
Brian Moynihan, the chairman and chief executive of Bank of America BAC, had a chance to respond, at the very same Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference where Dimon intoned his weather-themed pessimism.
“We’re in North Carolina,” he said. “You’ve got hurricanes that come every year.”