I enjoyed reading this month magazine. I am eagerly waiting for next month's continuation article on Options by Devesh Shah. After you read his Options article in this month magazine, you may want to also checkout his instructive Youtube videos on derivatives -

@yogi. I am 75 and wanna have fun too. Go get em. But isn’t bit coin similar to investors of another time piling into tulip bulbs?

@Balu: managers of absolute return funds strive to always produce a positive return. Relative return guys want to outperform their benchmark, absolute returns guys want to outperform zero percent.
Their mantras:

• "return of principal is more important than return on principal"
  
• "the best way to make money is not to lose money"
  
• "stocks are worth owning only when stocks are worth owning"

In consequence they tend to have stick absolute value standards (if their calculation of the internal rate of return does not exceed 15%, say, they won't buy where relative value guys will happily snap up "the best of a bad lot"), often strict portfolio weight rules, and would rather hold cash or cash-like bonds rather than stocks that are irrationally valued.
In general, you hope that they'll do great in market crashes and great in the first phase of the recovery, knowing that they will more-or-less quickly hit valuation concerns and begin selling down (or selling off) overvalued stocks. The problem for these guys is that the market can remain irrationally frothy for much longer than the average investor can remain patient, so after a couple years of making 15% when everybody else is making 115%, investors abandon them.
Large firms cannot abide by the thought of money leaving, so almost all absolute return investors work on their own or in boutiques. For lists of such lonely souls, search "dry powder gang" in the main MFO search box. That is, not on the search that looks at the discussion board.
Does that help?

NYCB raised $1 billion from an equity issue at throwaway prices. These investors will make out like bandits, or will be fools, but only in hindsight.
News https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/06/new-york-community-bancorp-tumbles-40percent-and-is-halted-as-troubled-bank-reportedly-seeking-cash-infusion.html
NYCB Chart https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=NYCB&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p31473357190

I have core & explore.
Core is very boring stuff.
Explore is wilder stuff - stocks, options, futures-based ETFs (but no futures directly), and more recently COIN. Be aware that COIN has businesses of exchange, broker-dealer, custody, all related to cryptos, and more uniquely, it's US-based.
Anyway, for explore, if it trades, I may look at it - it could be rotten fish smell in a bottle, I don't care. Can't a guy at 75+ have some fun? (-:)

Thanks David for your linked article.
David's Article identified OMCIX which is also mentioned in my linked article (3 of the 6 funds mentioned are Micro Caps funds):

Oberweis Micro Cap
Ticker: OMCIX
Morningstar Medalist Rating: Gold
Morningstar Rating: 5 stars

6-top-performing-small-growth-funds
Paradigm Micro-Cap, PVIVX, seems worth checking out as well.

I owned it for 10 years or but finally sold it in 2017 when it had sorta done little.
It looks like PVFIX has put up better results since I sold it ( of course!) and gained 24% last year while 50% in cash. Not bad

Once Huge companies sponsored those ETFs, the space was legitimized and Congress lost any power they may have had to control the monster. Previously, only the rich and cool kids dabbled in this space. Soon cryptocurrencies will permeate many retirement accounts of those that are not self managed plus 401(k) accounts.
UNH paying ransom of $250m in cryptocurrency to a hacking group hardly made news this week.
There is a reason why hedge funds and Aby Johnsons do not mix personal morality and investing.

This article suggests the rise is from the disparity between ~900 bitcoins mined per day and the >3500 purchased by the ETFs.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-reason-for-new-bitcoin-mania-simply-not-enough-supply-194356549.html

From the Wall Street Journal, 3/6/2024: "Bitcoin ETFs have been a smash hit, helping feed into a frenzy that has sent the cryptocurrency's price to a record. Investors have piled into the fund at a historic clip ... swelling [them] to nearly $50 billion."
It brings to mind Henry David Thoreau's curmudgeonly commentary: "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at ..."
Bitcoin is a high volatility speculation untethered, so far as I can adduce, to any underlying metric. The best portfolio-level argument for such toys comes when they are demonstrably uncorrelated with, or perhaps negatively correlated with, the stock market. So far, for bitcoin, that has not been the case. Bitcoin crashes periodically and crashes with especial vigor when the stock market does.
None of which makes a whit of difference to folks fearful of missing out.

Here's a companion reading from JP Morgan:

At this interesting juncture, we are pleased to launch the 2024 edition of J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions (LTCMAs). In our 28th year of producing capital market estimates, we incorporate more than 200 asset and strategy classes; our return assumptions are available in 17 base currencies.
Over the years, many investors and advisors have come to depend on our assumptions to inform their strategic asset allocation, build more resilient portfolios and establish reasonable expectations for risks and returns over a 10- to 15-year time frame. Additionally, with each passing year, we aim to readjust our long-run approximations, incorporating new information presented by markets, policymakers and economic data.
In this edition of our LTCMAs, our economic and asset class forecasts generally hold steady.
While the 60/40 stock-bond portfolio remains at the core, it requires extension, expansion and enhancement. The insights presented here aim to help clients identify the right adaptations for their risk and return objectives as they build smarter portfolios for a world in transition.

Assumptions on Bond Returns:
Fixed Income Return Projections
Outlook for Real Estate:

Despite some well-flagged issues in some segments of U.S. commercial real estate and persistent weakness in China, we believe that the outlook for core real estate is strong. In the wider real assets complex, the return outlook remains resilient, with core transport forecasts rising 20bps to 7.7% and core infrastructure up 50bps to 6.8%. In addition to attractive returns, real assets offer a diversifying potential that is especially welcome, given the greater volatility in inflation that we anticipate over our forecast horizon.

On Cash LT:

While high cash rates appear compelling, investors should remember that sitting in Treasury bills might mean collecting 5% for limited risk today, but it misses
out on compounding of returns over the longer run. In short, extending out of cash is imperative. We estimate that a dollar invested in cash will be worth, in real terms,
USD 1.04 a decade from now, whereas in a simple public market 60/40 it would grow to USD 1.54, and in a 60/40 with 25% alts it would be worth over USD 1.60.
So for investors that have already extended out of cash, the capacity to extend further within their asset opportunity set – factor allocation, international diversification, currency overlays, etc. – is not constrained by higher cash rates. Compared with last year, equity valuations are higher and translate to a modest cyclical headwind for stocks. By contrast, elevated starting
yields are a cyclical tailwind for bonds.

Capital & Active Management:

when capital is provided by asset buyers with a financial stability objective, they buy indiscriminately, but when capital is provided by investors with a return objective, they buy selectively. More selective investment means more differentiated asset performance and greater potential for active styles of investing.

Industrials:

The tax incentives in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) support greener commercial buildings and more efficient air conditioning units, which will benefit U.S. electrical and air conditioning companies. Electricity providers will also benefit from reshoring supply chain policies, as electric grids need to be strengthened. More broadly, reshoring supply chains will stimulate the use of U.S.-made inputs across the U.S. industrial sector, potentially benefiting U.S. manufacturers relative to their competitors in Europe and China. In addition, reshoring should fuel global spending on factory automation to offset higher domestic production costs, a boon to global suppliers of factory-automation software. Finally, rising geopolitical tension is increasing global spending on combat readiness, a clear benefit to defense companies.

Utilities:

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will benefits renewable...most of the largest renewables developers in the U.S. are European.

Semi-Conductors:

Over the near term, expanding chip manufacturing should benefit the tech companies that provide the required equipment, software and design that support chip production. However, chip tech equipment companies may face competition in the longer term as Chinese companies are incentivized to develop their own equipment.

2024 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions
Asset Allocation Chart:
Robust portfolio optimization

Bottom Line is a sort of cool "a bit of this and a bit of that" newsletter that covers personal topics from finance to nutrition and scholarship sources. I contribute occasionally. The schtick is that they assess reader interest in various topics and one of the writers reaches out to talk with me. We talk. I share thoughts and data. He filters it through his sense of what would engage readers, drafts an article and the editor sends it back with a "is this about right?" query. Nominally I'm the author. It's unpaid (which is fine) though I do get five copies of the newsletter to share with friends.
The most recent exchange was on microcap funds. You get some idea of the constraints under which the writer works when you realize that the entire article is exactly 250 words, only slightly shorter than the greeting on my voicemail.
The premise is that microcaps are profoundly undervalued relative to a bunch of measures and tend to perform exceptionally well when interest rates begin to fall, since that often signals a period of economic acceleration. I think my screen identified 10 (?) options and Mark picked up on three.
I wish he'd included Pinnacle Value (PVFIX) which is a five-star fund. Shallow observers will say "he's been in the bottom 10% of his peer group four times in the last 10 years." Those who look closer might note that his market cap is one-twentieth of his peer group's and he's posted double-digit absolute returns in three of those four years. 2017 is the only actually bad year. Since inception is Sharpe is 50% above the group's and standard deviation is half of the group's. But John's down to $34 million in assets; as a one-man show he will soldier on, but he deserves more serious attention.
He just shared his latest annual report. He's a laconic guy, so I don't expect it will take long to finish. If there's something cool, I'll post it separately.

I don’t particularly like the arbitrariness of defining what is an emerging or a developed market. Wouldn’t it make more sense for money managers simply to go where they think the best opportunities are. But slicing and dicing is a fact of life, and is to some degree necessary. Owning all US equity, or avoiding EM, is indeed a “slice and dice” decision in itself.
Having said that, I think EM funds can be useful at certain times. Right now (as exemplified in this discussion) there is antipathy for EM investments. And yet, China has recently started up the world’s first Gen-IV nuclear reactor, and designed a battery that lasts 50 years. They also expect to launch a revolutionary space-based telescope next year to make discoveries concerning dark energy and dark matter, and they’ve invented a pair of eyeglasses that allows blind people to navigate their way around. Yeah I know about the political risks and communist party, but I still don’t think this is your grandparents’ China.
Just an example.

Semi-relatedly, AMZN just bought a nuclear-powered data center in PA to power some of its AWS farm...
https://electrek.co/2024/03/05/amazon-just-bought-a-100-nuclear-powered-data-center/
... and GOOG is saying its data center water consumption is proprietary data, asking government to inform them about any public information requests.
https://www.postandcourier.com/business/charleston-google-data-center-public-records-oregon-portland/article_c5f00fd8-d6f9-11ee-b3c1-f3f5e0012225.html
The latter is not surprising, but goes to show how far big companies will go to conceal its activities from the general public while also exploiting the same resources available to the general public.

Now Fido comes clean with the SAME Infosys/INFY - McCamish problem.
In 2 recent breaches, MOVEit data transfer and Infosys - McCamish (IMS), TIAA was out in the front and took lot of flak, but hundreds/thousands of institutions were affected, and I have accounts with some of those, but their handling and secretiveness hasn't been admirable or confidence inspiring.
Cybercrimes are rising. In Chicago area, the communication network (IT, emails, online) of a major Children's Hospital (Lurie) has been down for weeks due to a ransomware attack.
These issues need serious actions through legislation and law enforcement.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/05/fidelity_financial_info_stolen/
https://news.wttw.com/2024/03/05/month-after-cyberattack-chicago-childrens-hospital-says-some-systems-are-back-online

After a short hiatus, Bilello is back!
The Week in Charts (03/01/24)
The most important charts and themes in markets, including...
00:00 Intro
00:11 Topics
00:57 All News Is Good News
05:59 Another Strong Earnings Season
08:15 Home Depot: Stock Surges on Earnings Decline?
09:28 Higher Home Prices, Lower Affordability
14:18 Higher Incomes Driving Continued Expansion
15:49 Bond Bear Market Continues
18:26 Fed Cuts Pushed Back to June
22:59 More Affordable Rents
Video
Blog

"...I’ve already moved a substantial portion of my bond/income allocation to ultrashort bond funds, CDs and money market's. I’m just surprised that intermediate bond funds continue to bleed money. I’ve still a fair amount of money in intermediate funds because I figured they would rebound sooner or later, but later has turned out be longer than I expected. Now that some of my CDs are starting to mature, I’m having to decide whether to continue with short-term investments or start inching back into intermediate bonds."

It will all depend on when the Fed cuts rates, ie if interest rates trend higher as the economy holds up
Who knows? A good rule of thumb is to try to match the yield to the duration. Currently anything out past 5 years could be a problem.
Long term bonds are risky and will probably pay off only if there is a recession.

@Tarwheel: My bond funds are all at the short-end, but not ultra-short. TUHYX = 3.48 years, and PRCPX = 3.08 years. Both junk. Together, I am at least breaking even with them now. The larger one is TUHYX, and I bought at the WORST time. I have been riding it up and out of the low-point of its funk. Without trying to do it, I bought PRCPX at the very BEST time to do it. The point is that my dividends (still reinvested) are all "gravy," now. No use switching horses in midstream. Unless a recession does finally arrive. Then I'll move to MM or I.G. bonds.
"...REBOUND SOONER RATHER THAN LATER, but later has turned out to be longer than I expected."
I know the feeling. And I know it's "apples and oranges," but I have to constantly remind myself why I still hold BHB, my regional bank. As far as I know, the institution is completely solid. But investors want lower interest rates before Financials will go anywhere. (Yet today, my single stocks bucked the trend downward, with the exception of PSTL. Strange.)

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1540305/000089418924001568/defianceevxx-liquidationst.htm
497 1 defianceevxx-liquidationst.htm 497
Filed Pursuant to Rule 497(e)
File Nos. 333-179562; 811-22668
Defiance Pure Electric Vehicle ETF (EVXX)
March 5, 2024
Supplement to the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus, and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”), each dated June 7, 2023
The Board of Trustees of ETF Series Solutions, upon a recommendation from Defiance ETFs, LLC, the investment adviser to the Defiance Pure Electric Vehicle ETF (the “Fund”), has determined to close and liquidate the Fund immediately after the close of business on March 28, 2024 (the “Liquidation Date”). Shares of the Fund are listed on the NYSE Arca, Inc.
Effective on or about March 8, 2024, the Fund will begin liquidating its portfolio assets. This will cause the Fund to increase its cash holdings and deviate from the investment objective and strategies stated in the Fund’s prospectus.
The Fund will no longer accept orders for new creation units after the close of business on the business day prior to the Liquidation Date, and trading in shares of the Fund will be halted prior to market open on the Liquidation Date. Prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may only be able to sell their shares to certain broker-dealers, and there is no assurance that there will be a market for the Fund’s shares during that time period. Customary brokerage charges may apply to such transactions.
On or about the Liquidation Date, the Fund will liquidate its assets and distribute cash pro rata to all remaining shareholders. These distributions are taxable events. Distributions made to shareholders should generally be treated as received in exchange for shares and will therefore generally give rise to a capital gain or loss depending on a shareholder’s tax basis. Shareholders should contact their tax advisor to discuss the income tax consequences of the liquidation. As calculated on the Liquidation Date, the Fund’s net asset value will reflect the costs of closing the Fund, if any. Once the distributions are complete, the Fund will terminate. Proceeds of the liquidation will be sent to shareholders promptly after the Liquidation Date.
For additional information, please call 1-833-333-9383.
Please retain this Supplement with your Summary Prospectus, Prospectus, and SAI for future reference.
It didn't have enough charge....

It will all depend on when the Fed cuts rates, ie if interest rates trend higher as the economy holds up
Who knows? A good rule of thumb is to try to match the yield to the duration. Currently anything out past 5 years could be a problem.
Long term bonds are risky and will probably pay off only if there is a recession.

My understanding regarding Primecap is that Vanguard will not allow you to open a new account, even at Vanguard, even by transferring shares. "The Fund is closed to new accounts for investors not enrolled in Vanguard Flagship Services® or Vanguard Personal Advisor Services®."
VPMCX prospectus
Does Vanguard prohibit transfer of shares into existing accounts outside of Vanguard?