Msf,
If one had millions in T-bills, couldn’t they be subject to fee if they didn’t withhold 90% of taxes due? If so, the taxes due are not in April 2025, rather quarterly estimated payments?

Hi @WABAC The short trade week seemed to start with money moving to some of the laggards from 2023; but I don't find much to have held. One week into this new year after 2023's large run in growth and tech. can't be used to measure right now, IMHO. A lot of the growth/tech. etf's ranged from -3 to -5% to start the year. Although our house remains a tech. holdings bias. The only positive we have this past week is FHLC, Fido healthcare etf at +1.5%.
Our senior citizen(s) portfolio is at:
--- 43%, MMKT***
--- 38%, Equity; growth/tech./health related
--- 19%, IG bond fund
*** Core Fido MMKT's = 5.01% average; one mmkt that must be purchased is FZDXX, that has a yield of 5.21%. We've thought about chasing MINT, etf, Pimco enhanced ultra short duration that returned +6.25% in 2023. The etf is on that performance path at this time, for 2024; starting the year at +.12% for the week. Too much going on right now, so we'll remain with holdings for a bit.
Regards,
Catch

Thanks Charles. I'd be glad to chat with you about some thoughts, though I just got down this rabbit hole responding to a comment that using raw data might not be circumventing a screener. Your post now addresses that in crystal clear terms:

We also have a link to an excel file with performance summary of all funds, oldest share class only ... about 15,000 funds. I know some subscribers just prefer that link! Spreadsheet style

No muss, no fuss, just circumventing all tools.
If I were still really deep into data analysis, I'd likely import that spreadsheet into a DBMS. These days I've got better things to do with my time: going on a river cruise out to the Black Sea, researching a trans-Canada railway trip, fighting with my insurance company on the network status of my healthcare providers (the insurer has processed over half of them incorrectly).

The graphic is set for the 5 days ending January 5, Friday; for the best to worst % returns in select etf categories. One may then also select the one month column to align the one month return best to worst; or for the other listed time frame columns.
ADD an etf performance of your choosing, if you desire.
*** Requested ADD: For the week and YTD
--- EWW = -1.43% / -1.43% (I Shares, Mexico)
NOTE: 4 day market week, due to New Year holiday.
Remain curious,
Catch

Barron’s Funds Quarterly (2023/Q4–January 8, 2024)
https://www.barrons.com/topics/mutual-funds-quarterly
(Performance data quoted in this Supplement are for 2023/Q4 and YTD to 12/31/23)
Pg L2 With higher bond yields, allocation/balanced funds have comeback from dead yet again. But not all allocation/balanced funds are the same. Some have growth or value tilt in their equity portion. Multi-asset funds mix stocks, bonds, and alternatives (HY, FR/BL, convertibles, REITs, option-writing, EMs). M* studies have shown that “boring” allocation funds have the lowest investor-return-gap (= fund TR – asset-weighted fund TR) and one explanation is that their holders tend to stick through good and bad times. There are several types of allocation/balanced funds that follow. (By @LewisBraham at MFO)
CA, 15-30% Equity*: BLADX, USCCX
MCA, 30-50% Equity*: FMSDX, VWINX
MA, 50-70% Equity*: ABALX, AOR, CGBL, FPURX, VBIAX, VWELX; includes classic Allocation 60-40.
MAA, 70-85% Equity*: FPACX
Tactical Allocation: CTFAX, LCORX, SFHYX
Global Allocation: EDIAX, LGMAX, RPGAX, SGENX, VGWLX
Target-Date Funds (TDFs) have glide-path allocations. These are often found in 401k/403b plans but are also available to retail investors. Mentioned are those from AF, BlackRock, DFA, Fidelity, Price, TIAA, Vanguard.
*Nominal-Equity. Effective-equity is typically higher.
Pg L6: JAPANESE market (fwd P/E 14.6) awakened in 2023 from a long slumber. There is finally inflation and corporate governance has improved (one can even look for dividends in Japan). The BOJ has widened the trading band for weak yen. But high government debt and BOJ monetary easing remain issues. Mentioned are BBJP, DXJ (hedged), EWJ, FJPNX, FJSCX, FLJP, FSJPX, HEWJ (hedged), HJPIX, MDLOX, MJFOX, PRJPX; diversified international VEA has decent exposure to Japan.
Pg L29: In 2023/Q4 (SP500 +11.55%): Among general equity funds, the best were LC-growth +14.19%, multi-growth +13.90%, SC-value +13.45%, & the worst were equity-income +9.69%, multi-value +9.73%, LC-value +9.83; ALL general equity categories were POSITIVE. Among other equity funds, the best were sc & tech +17.76%, financials +17.49%, and the worst were natural resources -4.68%, China -3.38%%. Among fixed-income funds, domestic long-term FI +5.43%, world income +7.91%; ALL FI & hybrid categories were POSITIVE (FI isn’t very refined in Lipper mutual fund categories listed in Barron’s).
MORE Fund Stories
Pg 20, Q&A. Michael LIPPERT, BIOPX / BIOIX, BTEEX / BTECX. He looks for secular growth opportunities with big themes – AI, cloud computing, digitalization, genomics, SaaS, cybersecurity, autonomous driving. He likes companies with multiple lines of business and strong management; he holds up to 50 stocks. He no longer owns AAPL, NFLX, etc.
LINK

Here is link to video.

Any search in our tools, and all the attendant data, can be downloaded. But currently we limit the size to 1000 funds, which seemed practical to me. We also have a link to an excel file with performance summary of all funds, oldest share class only ... about 15,000 funds. I know some subscribers just prefer that link! Spreadsheet style. I suppose we could generate a downloadable file of all the static data (no performance) for all funds in database. But then you still need performance data, which has infinite possibilities. I think we could come up with a customized screener or database based on subscriber request, but that is really a different product. Happy to chat more. c

05 january, 2024.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-01-06/wall-street-week-01-05-2024

05 Jan, '24.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-01-05/bloomberg-real-yield-01-05-2024-video

@rforno - just wondering if you considered PBDC before selecting BIZD? I own neither but like the holdings of the former v. the latter. To date I've only speculated in individual holdings.

PBDC liquidity is around 10K/day while BIZD is nearly 500K/day ... plus PBDC's AUM is only 55m vs 850m for BIZD which means the latter probably won't be closing anytime soon. In addition to holdings, both are key considerations in my book, but I agree some of PBDC's holdings are pretty solid.
Like you I thought about doing a few individual holdings but decided to keep it simple - and besides, it'd be fewer company portfolios I'd need to track of and dig into each year. That said there is one UK-based BDC I'd consider owning separately if it comes back down, though.

MFO's MultiSearch is a great tool with an extremely extensive database underlying it, including a lot of MFO-defined metrics. In no way was I trying to disparage it.
That said, I'm more interested in the underlying data than in the tool. You link to images of the UI to show the screening parameters available. I prefer to look at simple table of those parameters:
https://www.member.mfopremium.com/wp-content/themes/twentynineteen-child_202106v3/olib/media/multisearch_screening_parameters.pdf?v20210728.1
I was taught in programming language design that generally less is better; too many ways of accomplishing something confuses people. Not unlike the effect seen when 401(k)s have too many options. So using predefined sets of options via select boxes is a good screener design for many users.
Realistically, many people think of screeners this way - give me all the diversified foreign funds with large cap blend portfolios and a three year risk/reward rating of 5 (out of 5).
I prefer something more flexible and powerful like a SQL interpreter. The LexisNexis query language is another example of this sort of flexibility, though that language is designed more for document searches than database field searches.
I gave a simple example of a query above that most tools can't handle. Say I'm concerned about the stability of funds that are very small. I might search for funds over $1B in AUM. But recognizing that it takes time to build assets, I might make allowances. For young (under 3 year old) funds, I could accept funds with at least $500M in assets.
Of course I could do this in two separate searches (over $1B, young and over $500M), though I'd have to combine the result sets and weed out duplicates (young funds with over $1B in assets). I'd like to be able to do this in a single query. And I'd like to be able to set arbitrary thresholds, say $767M instead of $500M. That's not possible if I'm given only a choice of $500M, $1B, $10B, or $100B.
As to cost, let's see how the tax laws change in a couple of years. Right now, there are no above-the-line charitable deductions (as there were in 2021). And without a mortgage it's hard to itemize now.
One can still get a tax advantage by contributing via a donor advised fund or a QCD. Those must be pure contributions with no benefit received; they are not subscriptions. Proceeds do go to a good cause. I've contributed before and expect to do so again.
This is not a complaint. It is a fact of life. The subscription services are an inducement to contribute and so pragmatically they cannot be offered separately. If the services were offered separately, people would be less motivated to contribute beyond the cost of the subscription. (I also decline the tote bags offered from 501(c)(3) institutions X, Y, and Z.)
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/support-us
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/support-us/501c3/

MFO's MultiSearch enables searches of nearly 40,000 ETFs, mutual funds, CEFs, ETNs, Interval Funds, Fund of Funds, and Insurance Funds employing literally hundreds of screening criteria across almost 100 evaluation periods.
Dating back to 1960. Plus, indexes back to 1926. While offering dozens of analytics.
Granted, it's not "free" but pretty close ... and, proceeds go to a good cause.
And, granted, it's ex-post, but show me an ex-ante screener and I will show you the moon. (On second thought, I will show you David Snowball.)
Here is link to png screenshot: https://www.screencast.com/t/8bTIcDOTE0b
Here is link to same screenshot but as a pdf download: https://1drv.ms/b/s!AmF1g-5ef-jI1ttKkPDZ6jeu2U9gDg?e=LjVZqv

Yes, JQUA is an outstanding fund and I could be wrong but I do not think posters were attempting to figure out which are the better Quality funds but were more focused on discrediting Inker's thoughts. I think JQUA was previously mentioned in this forum with positive comments. The original thread about QLTY (GMO U.S. Quality ETF in Registration) also mentioned JQUA.
It may be too soon but QLTY has underperformed JQUA since QLTY inception on 11/13/2023. Both in this thread and in that original thread, several posters predicted QLTY's underperformance and were apprehensive about GMO marketing. 7-8 weeks after the launch, notwithstanding their marketing, the fund only has inflows of approx $50M. QLTY already has a OEF cousin in GQETX, with AUM of $10B. What is wild is during every year since inception of QUAL (and JQUA), GQETX has had steady outflows, except for a three month period in 2016. May be that is what prompted GMO to launch an ETF.

One can download the entire MFO dataset, or as you seem to suggest, download a view that includes only a subset of columns (AUM and a whole lot of other, but not all, fields). And one can program a spreadsheet to sort and search based on various criteria. Better yet, import into a database and use its query engine.
Either way, this is circumventing the MFO screeners, not using them. In the picture on the right below, what this is doing is snarfing the box "Data" and attaching your own query engine to it.

One of the things I used to do for 25 years was sell data. Being able to download all of the data for the price of an MFO subscription seems like more of a feature than a circumvention to me. But there were always people that wanted us to do the slicing and dicing for them. So we charged them more.

mfo does not describe how PRCFX is built up, but if it is somehow via PRWCX assets, then again i must ask what could be the attraction to legacy investors. same question, if new seeded cash simply replicates PRWCX.
the delta or non-identical holdings seems aspirational for now, and potentially insignificant for longer periods.

The attraction is that the style would be similar to PRWCX, but in a 40/60 package. One could pair the two and get about 50/50.

One can download the entire MFO dataset, or as you seem to suggest, download a view that includes only a subset of columns (AUM and a whole lot of other, but not all, fields). And one can program a spreadsheet to sort and search based on various criteria. Better yet, import into a database and use its query engine.
Either way, this is circumventing the MFO screeners, not using them. In the picture on the right below, what this is doing is snarfing the box "Data" and attaching your own query engine to it.

FWIW, I believe that one can download the M* data using the Investor screener. Though because downloads are limited to 120 rows, one will wind up doing around 400-500 downloads depending on how clever one is in constructing small subsets to download. An absolutely insane exercise, albeit theoretically possible. I have better things to do for a week.

Thank you for participating! Will post video shortly. c
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow, Friday, 5 January, we will be conducting our year-end webinar to review funds and the MFO Premium site. If you can make it, please join us by registering here. Just one session this year: 9 a.m. Pacific (noon Eastern).
I posted a preview of the call here, which includes a link to the chart deck (a good reference and background summary of all tools and data offered on the site) and snapshot of State Street Sector ETFs 2023 Performance.

My preference is to slice and dice raw data (annualized returns, ERs, etc.). My ideal would be a screener that let the user write their own queries - to have access to every data column, to be able to use logical connectors. For example:
> $1B in AUM or (> $500M in AUM and < 3 years old).

With MFO premium you could download the dataset that includes something like AUM, and a whole lot of other fields. And then you could apply those criteria in your spreadsheet. If you're already thinking Boolean, you could probably learn how to apply those criteria in a spreadsheet or data query. Am I missing something?

Buy low, sell high. Which funds aren't based on a formula?
I think of the formulas as theses, though not in the academic definition of the word. I would not invest in a fund if the prospectus could not coherently express the rationale, formula, thesis, approach, what have you, behind their choices. I would not invest in a fund that does not apply its formula reasonably consistently.
Are there any funds based on the idea of throwing what would now be virtual darts at virtual stock pages? Been about 40 years since I read Random Walk. I think that's where I got the idea.
If the market is going up, most theses will likely do well enough for you, if you understand why you bought it in the first place. If the market is going down, almost everything looks dreary. But utes and staples, two hoary formulas, did all right for me in 2022.
Should we wave bye-bye to the the Fama-French three factor model? How many times have you heard that small caps and value are dead? None the less, since inception in March of 2008, the formula behind RWJ has outperformed the mighty 500 formula.
I'm no fan of quants. But back in the day they were generally marketed on the notion that they had some secret formula in a black box that they could not share due to something, something, something. In which case, the prospectus might look something like this:

The XYZ fund is firmly rooted in the time-tested principle of magical thinking. We believe that the sponsor can reasonably expect to line it's pockets, and reward shareholders of the sponsor, at the expense of gullible investors.

MFO's Basic Screener (aka QuickSearch) is still free!

Yes it is, and it is a fine engine with several post-analysis criteria available (Great Owl, MFO risk,etc.). But just as with M*'s "new and degraded" premium investor screener,only post-analysis criteria are available.
Neither tool provides screens for funds based on annualized returns, though those figures are displayed in the result sets and one can sort them. Nor are other raw (pre-analysis) screening criteria like ER or AUM available.
My preference is to slice and dice raw data (annualized returns, ERs, etc.). My ideal would be a screener that let the user write their own queries - to have access to every data column, to be able to use logical connectors. For example:
> $1B in AUM or (> $500M in AUM and < 3 years old).
M*'s premium fund screener was great at this. It provided access to a plethora of underlying data categories and let you build queries using ands and ors
https://screen.morningstar.com/v2/AdvFunds/data_definition.html?field=Sector+Weightings
After that tool vanished, M*'s basic fund screener was still available for awhile. It was a very weak tool. But it did have a limited ability to screen on a few raw data attributes. Now what?