Factoid City dinky linky:

“Hedge funds and traders held record short positions in small cap stocks going into last week’s CPI report and were caught off guard by the lower than expected inflation,” said Cole Wilcox, chief executive officer of Longboard Asset Management. “This sparked the violent rally in small caps.”
Data on Russell 2000 futures show that traders had pushed their exposure to the most net-short since 2023. About 25% of the $68 billion iShares Russell 2000 ETF’s free float is held short, compared with 9.9% for the $564 billion SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and 7.6% for the $302 billion Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1, according to data from S3 Partners.
[snip]
The earnings outlook for small caps has started to improve as well. Consensus revenue and net income growth forecasts for the Russell 2000 show a strong recovery in late 2024, with it approaching the S&P 500, according to an analysis by RBC Capital Markets. The rate of Russell 2000 earnings estimates getting revised higher has also started to move back to parity with the S&P, strategists led by Lori Calvasina found.

I've been looking to dump NUSC and FSSNX from the IRA, but I think I'll let them run a little.

Size of R2000 is tiny % of the total market-cap (R3000). As noted in weekend Barron's,
"The SCs R2000/IWM now are near 20-year low at 5.2% (by market-cap; the recent peak was at 8.8% in 2006) of the total Russell R3000 universe."
It should be possible to calculate it as % of AAPL market cap too.
But that is why there are big moves in SC from small flows into it.
Edit/Add. AAPL is 6.27% of R3000 IWV. So, the entire R2000 (IWM) market-cap is 5.2/6.27 = 0.8294 or 82.94% of the market-cap of AAPL.
Note that LC don't have to tank for SC to rally. But if people only stopped believing that LC or LC-growth was a guaranteed path to success, then the rest of stocks will do better.

LC to SC rotation started on July 10 & can not longer be ruled out as a 1-day fluke.
Ratio IWM:SPY stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=IWM%3AONEQ&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p37185738747
Ratio IWM:ONEQ stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=IWM%3AONEQ&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p04805111262
Also, rotation from growth to cyclicals,
Ratio DIA:QQQ stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=DIA%3AQQQ&p=D&b=5&g=0&id=p19698173155
In the ratio chart of X:Y, up-trend means X outperforming Y, down-trend means X underperforming Y, sideways means X and Y in-line.

@WABAC,
4% is nothing to sneeze about.
If you have held DIVO in 2022, do you by any chance know why about 50% of its distribution in that year was ROC? At least that is what M* shows. I am only curious. So, if you do not know the answer on top of your head, no need to research for me. Thanks

Dennis Baran did a write up on MRFOX in the Feb. 2019 MFO commentary. He mentions that the funds' philosophy, process and discipline have been used successfully by the managers since 2008 with winning results and gives data on that SMA method. As Dennis points out, SMA data may give a "sense" of the mutual funds possible longer-term performance. A sense certainly isn't exact fund data of course.

The fund is managed according to the same philosophy, process, discipline, and objectives as its SMA Core Equity product, which allows us to get a sense of the strategy’s long-term performance. Since 1989, that APR is 10.61% vs. the S&P 500 9.27%. That’s net of fees with an ER of 1.25%, higher than the fund. In 2008, its net return was -16.45% vs. the S&P 500’s -36.99%.

FWIW, I don't invest in this fund and don't plan to. But history of how management handles their Separately Managed Accounts (SMA), seems relevant to how they run their mutual fund. Do SMA results translate to what to expect in a mutual fund? Probably not exactly, but the managers methods and process probably do.
From their website:

Separately Managed Accounts (SMA)
Our SMAs are highly concentrated, typically holding 16-20 stocks. We are disciplined adherents of our process and are extremely selective regarding the stocks we want to own. We seek resilient companies with long-term competitive advantages, and we require a margin of safety when making a new stock purchase. Moreover, we are willing to hold cash when we cannot find the opportunities we seek. Historically, our SMAs have been characterized by low turnover and less volatility than the market.

@stillers I think you might have gotten some faulty info. This is from the basic info tab on a manager database I have access to. It has returns going back over 20 years for this strategy, with said returns being provided by the manager on a quarterly basis.
STRATEGY OVERVIEW
Manager: Marshfield Associates
Strategy name: Marshfield Core Value Equity
Year of inception: 1989
Benchmark: S&P 500 Composite
Product Group/Category: US Equity, Large Cap Value
Status: Open to All Investors
Strategy Assets: $US6.0 billion as at 31 Mar 2024
Number of clients: 4659
Outperformance target: Not Provided
Expected tracking error: We are a concentrated manager of about 20 names - don't manage tracking error
Number of stocks: 17.00
Portfolio manager: Christopher M. Niemczewski
Marketing contact(s)
Kim Vinick
Richard Seaton

”There is speculative excess today relative to recent years.” - David Giroux, T. Rowe Price
(From Barron’s “Mid-Year Roundtable” July 15 issue)
Brilliant deduction, Watson!
Giroux’s Picks: Aurora Innovation / AUR, Danaher / DHR, Revvity / RVTY
And he still likes utilities.

AUR up 38% since this was posted by @hank

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has just launched an ETF that offers 100% downside protection to investors. The new ETF (MAXJ) will have its maximum gains capped at 10.6% while protecting against the downside for a duration of 12 months. 0.5% ER
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/how-good-is-blackrock-s-new-100-downside-hedge-etf/ar-BB1pdRfO?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Hearing stuff like that makes me wonder if we’re approaching a market top? “Risk-free equity investing” (So easy a cave man could do it).
I confess to not understanding the finer workings of these funds very well. That may be a plus. As I suspect a lot of people pouring money in don’t understand them (or equity investing in general) very well either. Never mind that the guarantee appears to last only 12 months. To some that’s an eternity. Hell, might “hit the jackpot” well before the term expires! Bail out at 364 days and let the next greater fool investor buy it.

So to try to get some, you know, FACTS, about what one poster is incessantly claiming about prior performance on this thread,
I phoned Marshfield today.
Here's what a, LT, experienced Marshfield representative told me TODAY, quoting her pretty much verbatim in BOLD:
She has NEVER in her life heard the words "Marshfield Equity Composite" (that another poster is repetitively using on this thread and citing TRs for vs S&P) strung together in that sequence.
She has NO IDEA what that is, what it might reference, or how it might be calculated. It is not anything Marshfield calculates. (Note that the poster has NEVER posted any support or links for it and I guess I now know why.)
MRFOX incepted on 12/28/15 (as I previously posted). It was a NEW fund and NOT the second coming of ANY previous advisor/private/public fund that those PM's managed.
ANY prior performance of ANY other Marshfield funds, advisor, private or public, is irrelevant to the performance of MRFOX.
==============================
So, there's that.
And based on that he's my Conclusions pending any other FACTS:
(1) MRFOX has ~8 1/2 years of performance data. That's the data I will use to review it, and the data that I suggest any reasonably intelligent investor should use as well.
(2) It's the internet folks. Be careful out here!

Collecting dividends. Not buying. Seems to me the best thing is to grow cash and buy on a pullback. No pullback? Fine with me. BCE Bell Canada held back 15% of divvie for Canada tax. I can live with it. (15 July.) Divvie was smaller than expected. M* is surely using CAD numbers. Now I know.

”July 7 - Charles Schwab upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Keefe Bruyette.”

From Bloomberg today:
“Charles Schwab Corp. shares suffered their biggest intraday drop since the depths of last year’s regional-bank crisis after the investing giant reported that fewer clients opened new brokerage accounts than analysts expected.”
You can buy SCHW for considerably less today than when the projection cited by @Crash was made. Assuming the projection (dated on a Sunday) was based on SCHW’s Friday, July 5 closing price of $73.20, the current price of around $68 is about 5% lower.
At 12:00 PM today: SCHW - 9% @ $68.23
As for the big brokerages … Their profitability is linked in part to the performance of the equity markets. A hot (frothy?) market like today’s causes their AUM to increase (and profits to rise) even if they attract no new money. In a deteriorating market AUMs decrease (absent any new money). If I wanted to hedge against a big market decline, brokerages wouldn’t be my first choice. Of course there will always be exceptions to the rule.
UPDATE: SCHW closed today down -10.18% at a price of $67.43. Best to ignore these gurus who “upgrade” and “downgrade” stocks for us bumpkins. Clearly Keefe Bruyette didn’t know what they were talking about. Not unusual either as these kind of stock guru grades go.

Not 100% downside protection but another hedge equity ETF, KSPY. Dynamic hedging? This time from Kraneshares. Is this an indication Kraneshares feels a need to diversify from their China bets?
https://kraneshares.com/kraneshares-launches-kspy-tracking-an-index-powered-by-hedgeye-research-designed-to-reduce-volatility-and-provide-a-downside-hedge-on-sp-500/

From David Sherman's Q1 2024 commentary: https://blog.crossingbridgefunds.com/blog/q1-2024-commentary-getting-off-the-benchmark
"There are good players overseas - Having been involved in the Nordic high yield market since the mid-2000s, we have developed our knowledge base and found opportunities in bonds with better credit metrics, higher yields and better covenants than we find in the U.S. high yield market. By comparison to the U.S. market which has approximately $1.4 tn in bonds outstanding, the Nordic market is tiny, but growing fast, from less than €14.0 bn in 2007 to over €56.0 bn in 2023. So far, we have found sufficient new issuance activity and secondary market liquidity to justify our participation in this market. With respect to yield, the graph above shows that the average credit spread for Nordic high yield bonds has been consistently higher than the option-adjusted spread of the ICE BofA US High Yield Index, on average by 211 basis points, since early 2018. In its earlier days, the Nordic market was highly concentrated in oil & gas and shipping but is much more diverse today. Shipping represents about 7% of the market and oil & gas represents approximately 16%.24 The typical Nordic high yield credit has lower net leverage than we find in the U.S. Nordic bonds generally have 3- to 5-year maturities, are floating rate, are secured by assets and provide strong bondholder protections including debt incurrence and dividend limitations and, sometimes, maintenance requirements (e.g. minimum liquidity). The Nordic bond market reminds us of the leveraged loan market of the early 1990s when investors achieved significantly better returns with less risk than the leveraged loans we see today."
***
But, that's not all. Here's a recent press release on an investment by Crossing Bridge in a Nordic market investment manager.
PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. , June 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CrossingBridge Advisors, LLC ("CrossingBridge") is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with NCI Advisory A/S ("NCI Advisory"), a strong performing debt asset management firm based in Denmark .
David Sherman , CEO of CrossingBridge, states, "The Nordic debt market has provided us with attractive investment opportunities. Establishing a strategic cooperation with an experienced, local team is crucial for our future growth in the Nordics. We have worked with the NCI Advisory team on several transactions and found a good cultural and strategic fit, as well as a shared approach to investing. We see this strategic partnership as key to our ambition to become a leading Nordic high-yield asset manager."
Jørgen Beuchert, CEO of NCI Advisory, comments, "We believe that the Nordic debt market will become even more interesting in the future, particularly for experienced, active managers capable of handling complex situations. This strategic partnership marks a significant milestone in NCI Advisory's growth and expansion plans. CrossingBridge brings a wealth of expertise, which complements NCI Advisory's 16-year track record of delivering attractive returns across more than 100 exits. Our partnership establishes a strong foundation for growth and opens opportunities for additional debt investment strategies."
About NCI Advisory
NCI Advisory is a Nordic debt asset manager, founded in 2008 and owned by Jørgen Beuchert. NCI Advisory has EUR 100 million under management and operates in the primary and secondary Nordic high-yield bonds and direct loans market. The company's oldest fund has generated an average return of 10.1% since 2008 and paid an average of 9.3% in dividends.
About CrossingBridge
CrossingBridge Advisors LLC, founded by David Sherman and owned by ENDI Corp. (OTCQB: ENDI ), has more than USD $2.9 billion under management focusing on Corporate Credit strategies. CrossingBridge has a deep and highly experienced team led by the CEO and majority shareholder, David Sherman .

My auto/home insurance is up for renewal in a few days/weeks respectively.
Premiums increased significantly over the past two years.
I decided to obtain insurance quotes since I haven't shopped for coverage in several years.
I discovered several highly-rated firms don't sell insurance in my state of residence (Washington):
1) NJM
2) Erie
3) Auto-Owners
4) Farm Bureau Property & Casualty
I can not obtain auto insurance from the following carriers since two claims were filed to repair
windshield "rock chips." The windshield was not replaced and this cost only $50 - $100 per occurrence.
1) American Family
2) Pemco
State Farm is my current insurance carrier.
I contacted Amica and received a bundled quote which was ~$115 more.
Home insurance only from American Family was ~$60 more with slightly decreased coverage.
An independent insurance agent was also engaged.
The agent provided a bundled quote from Travelers which was ~$465 more.
Their quote for home insurance only (from Allstate) was ~$975 more!
Auto insurance combined with umbrella insurance from Progressive was ~$50 less.
Although my premiums increased significantly over the past two years,
I didn't find any highly-rated insurers with lower total costs in the current marketplace.
I may engage another independent insurance agent to seek better deals.

@Charles, good list of Morningstar/MORN achievements as it has made the successful transition from a small-time mutual fund information provider to a global fintech power house - sort of a mini-"Bloomberg".
In the meantime, M* has done everything possible to turnoff or upset its retail investors - remember, those were the guinea pigs that debugged lot of M* software and helped M* with feature requests (M* software was free then and M* was also quite responsive). Now lot of those are very expensive M* professional products. M* now thinks that it can afford to lose a couple of hundred retail clients to gain one professional client.
But further progress to become a real "Bloomberg" may not be easy. If not careful, like Icarus, it may fly too close to the sun.
To pick some items from the list:
"DBRS Morningstar – Independent rating services and …"
OK, but it hasn't become one of the nationally recognized credit agencies (NRSROs). Problem - its credit rating methodologies are opaque, mostly computer-driven, and it won't disclose companies handled per employee.
https://www.sec.gov/about/divisions-offices/office-credit-ratings/current-nrsros
"Sustainalytics – Sustainable investment strategies and security-level ESG research and ratings …"
Well, that was a hugely mistimed ESG capex that misfired. M* can put all of the ESG stuff on its fund pages, but the tide in the US has turned away from ESG. In Europe, ESG is still selling.
"Advisor Managed Accounts – Managed accounts for registered investment advisors"
Recent dumping M* TAMP will hurt the RIA business.
https://riabiz.com/a/2024/6/24/morningstars-sale-of-tamps-12-billion-book-of-business-to-assetmark-ends-two-year-run-that-fell-short-on-growth-whether-rias-stick-or-flee-will-determine-fate-of-deal
I am not negative on M*, but I count myself among the concerned. An irony is that not long ago, I used to link to live M* Charts, but now link to live charts from PV (also very limited now) or StockCharts or TestFol (a free newcomer).
TestFol MORN Max

Thanks BaluBalu.
I extracted the paragraphs below from our 2021 MICUS report. A bit dated, but I believe M* has continued to grow its business even higher in the 3 years since.
The Business
If attendance at Morningstar The Conference was down this year, it does not reflect the success of Morningstar The Business, in spite of COVID or perhaps helped by it. Since Kapoor took over CEO in 2017, employees have doubled, as have MORN’s valuations. The company’s market cap has nearly quadrupled.
Adding to its acquisition of private equity tracker Pitchbook, the company acquired credit rating firm DBRS in 2019 and ESG rating firm Sustainalytics in 2020.
Since most people probably think of Morningstar as just the “Good Housekeeping” of the fund industry, it’s probably worth listing all their current products:
• DBRS Morningstar – Independent rating services and …
• Morningstar Advisor Workstation – Investment research, financial planning, client reporting …
• Morningstar Data – Global equity, managed investments, and market data …
• Morningstar Direct – Advanced portfolio analytics and performance reporting …
• PitchBook – Data, analysis, industry news, and in-depth reports on the private and public markets …
• ESG Investing Solutions – Assessments of ESG risks and opportunities across asset classes …
• Financial Planning Solutions – Web-based financial planning tools for advisors
• Sustainalytics – Sustainable investment strategies and security-level ESG research and ratings …
• Morningstar Office – Web-based portfolio and practice management …
• Morningstar Research – Independent, comprehensive evaluations on equities, funds …
• Morningstar Annuity Intelligence – Annuity research for professional investors
• Morningstar ByAllAccounts – Account-aggregation and financial-management tools…
• Morningstar Commodities & Energy – Research and data in the commodities and energy sectors …
• Morningstar Credit Information and Analytics – Credit tools and research …
• Morningstar Enterprise Components – Configurable, ready-to-integrate enterprise software …
• Morningstar Essentials – Investment statistics and ratings for institutional marketing professionals
• Goal Bridge – Goal-setting and investment planning for financial advisors
• Morningstar Investment Research Center – Comprehensive investment resources for library patrons
• Morningstar Reporting Solutions – Marketing materials, regulatory documents, and other custom …
• Manager Selection Services – Manager selection and investment analysis for financial advisors
• Morningstar Total Rebalance Expert – Tax-aware rebalancing for financial advisors
• Morningstar Indexes – Product benchmarking & creation for financial institutions and asset managers
• Managed Portfolios – Mutual fund, stock, and exchange-traded fund portfolios …
• Morningstar Retirement Manager – Workplace retirement account service for plan sponsors
• Advisor Managed Accounts – Managed accounts for registered investment advisors
• Morningstar Fiduciary Services – Investment selection, portfolio monitoring, and portfolio reporting …
• Morningstar Plan Advantage – Comprehensive retirement-plan management …
• Target-Date Solutions – Target-date funds for plan sponsors
• Morningstar Premium – Analysis of stocks, funds, and markets, plus tools …
• Morningstar Investor Newsletters – Investment strategies and in-depth analysis …
Morningstar’s founder and chairman, Joe Mansueto, retains about 45% of outstanding shares, representing a current value of about $5 billion. If there is someone vested in Chicago’s recovery, it would be him. He purchased the historic Wrigley Building in 2018 and most recently the Waldorf Astoria Chicago. He owns Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire. He remains a large donor to the University of Chicago, his alma mater.

One of the businesses Morningstar entered just under three years ago was their own brand of mutual funds, which replaced other funds in its Managed Portfolios business. The nine funds have accumulated $5.3B in AUM, or about $44M in additional fees for Morningstar.
At the time, it seemed awkward to us [here’s David’s Take] and it remains awkward for Morningstar to offer its own competing funds. What’s worse is that so far they have performed unremarkably, as can be seen in the table below. As a fiduciary, I would be hard-pressed to defend why these funds were chosen over others recommended by Morningstar’s own research teams. None of the funds will qualify for Morningstar’s “5 Star” rating when they soon reach the 3-year mark. Morningstar is also a sub-advisor of five other funds for ALPS. These five ETF asset-allocation portfolios suffer even worse performance; in fact, Morningstar itself ranks the ALPS family “Below Average.”

An article today by Ron Lieber, NY Times. (Free read)
A Money Guru Bet Big on a Very Long Life. Then He Got Cancer.

Baby bonds (I believe) are bonds that are traded on exchanges in denominations less than $1,000….usually $25, although some are $50 and some are $100 (or other par prices). There are also preferred stocks that trade similarly (in denominations, exchanges, etc.), but baby bonds are higher in the capital stack, have call and due/maturity dates, and generally trade more muted (lower volatility) than preferred stock (which are closer to equity—or the bottom—of the capital stack).
I know trading individual baby bonds (or any other security) can be a PITA, but if you spend some time looking at individual baby bonds, you can get yields easily of 6% or higher (usually called stripped or current yield), with built in capital gains if buying under par, that adds to the return (usually called yield to maturity or yield to call).
PIMCO also has a fund that invests in baby bonds and preferreds….PFANX is the A share version of it.
I have invested in several individual preferreds and baby bonds, so am happy to answer any more questions; usually ETF or mutual fund versions that hold these funds have several limitations (usually liquidity and excessive exposure to financial companies because these are the most likely to issue these securities) that hurt longer term returns.

Checked HOBAX / HOBIX. It does invests in BDC baby bonds. HOBAX is no-load/NTF at Fido only (not at Schwab).
https://www.holbrookfunds.com/_files/ugd/0b9fcd_f222282487f94c3490f5c24fb5daa6e6.pdf