@Fred495 + 1. It seems as though risk free 5% is possibly the “ magic number “ for many conservative investors . Which leads me to ponder what is a win? For me I am starting to think in terms of dollars instead of an arbitrary per cent.

As a retired and conservative investor, and as long as the Fed keeps raising interest rates, I am staying in risk-free MM's and CD's. In the future, I might be looking at bond OEF's like CBLDX, RCTIX and TSIIX, for example.
But, in the meantime, I see no urgency to invest in bond funds, and since I don't need a lot more money, I prefer to err on the side of caution.
Fred

Hey Fred, how far out are you going with your CD selections?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/fed-seen-raising-rates-this-month-traders-less-sure-further-hike-2023-07-07/
At least one reputable news source thinks that it is almost certain the Feds will raise rates in July, but less certain about a second hike. Most of the articles I have read thinks the Fed rates will be around 5.6% by the end of the calendar year.

Come on folks, you all try'in to be a Wells Fargo??? Trust factor continues to go to hell.
Article

If you gain 800% and then lose 740% of that gain, then you're still way below zero. Impossible.
Starting with $N, you gain 800% ($8N), so you have $9N.
You can't give back more than $9N or 112.5% (i.e. 9/8) of the $8N gain.
740%? No way. Unless it is 740% of the starting amount in 1995. Then you gain 800% of the starting amount, give back 740% of the starting amount, and wind up with a net gain over nearly 8 years of 60% (800% - 740%).
The Wiki Nasdaq composite page, as with the dot com bubble page, gives no citation for its purported 400% gain:

Between 1995 and 2000, the peak of the dot-com bubble, the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose 400%

The intraday low for 1995 was hit on the second trading day, Jan 4, 1995 at 740.47. The intraday peak in 2000, as stated in the Wiki piece, was 5,132.52. According to my handy dandy calculator, that's 6.93 times 740.47, for a gain of 593%. That 400% figure isn't accurate even to a single digit.
No citation, innumerate writers, and inconsistent pages. Don'tcha just love Wikipedia?

Related Wiki article has better explanations and that "On March 10, 2000, the index peaked at 5,132.52, but fell 78% from its peak by October 2002." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasdaq_Composite
My guess is that the other summary article may have been trying to say that Nasdaq rose 800% and gave up 740% of THAT gain. It's still a poor way and the summary author may have missed the class on percentages.
BTW, it was noted in Barron's that Nasdaq-100/QQQ YTD performance exceed all those in the 1990s, including the dot. com bubble.

The SEC rules require CEFs to report the total ER including interest & leverage expenses as applicable to the common shares. This rule has been in effect since 1940s. The mutual funds/OEFs at the time pushed for this "penalty" for CEFs because they were concerned that some leveraged CEFs could always top the performance charts.
Of course, the CEF industry didn't like this. It has remained tiny in AUM due to complexity, and now this ER burden. A compromise has evolved in that the CEFs can make alternate presentations along with the SEC required disclosure; but if only one is presented, then that must the SEC required ERs. A common way has been to separate out the portfolio management fees and say that is what should count to investors in comparison with the ERs; the rest are just operational costs. Another is what Nuveen has done - to present the ER on Total fund (common + leverage) but that is less meaningful for CEF holders (yes, it is more meaningful to Nuveen only).
Fund evaluators such as M* don't fall under the SEC regulations. So, M* has been doing whatever its wants - at one time, it presented only the portfolio management fee on the Quote page. But as it has developed its own advisory and portfolio businesses that are subject to the SEC oversight, it has grudging moved the CEF ER info on the Price tab, and uncontroversially, it shows the CEF ERs in both ways, the SEC way, and its way.
CEF Connect (run by Nuveen) https://www.cefconnect.com/fund/JGH
Nuveen https://documents.nuveen.com/Documents/Nuveen/Default.aspx?uniqueId=baeb8b15-0bb3-4a69-970d-37500c25609d
M* https://www.morningstar.com/cefs/xnys/jgh/price

I would avoid all Matthews Asia funds in the near-term (possibly long-term).
There has been an exodus of talent at the firm over the past few years.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/152046
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/156101
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/159415

Thanks @msf / Those numbers don’t comport well with what I’ve been seeing. (But facts are facts.)
Fidelity appears to think that CEF fees are often deceptively presented. From linked article: “Don’t Be Fooled” / Expense ratios: Seeing through the obfuscation
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/investment-products/closed-end-funds/expenses
“All CEFs must report their expense ratios according to a formula set forth by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The expense ratios are expressed as a percentage of average net assets. Most leveraged CEFs levy management fees against total assets, not just net assets, though this is not considered a best practice. Doing so results in higher management fees.
“A management fee of 0.50% on a $500 million unleveraged fund is $2.5 million. If there is an additional $250 million in leverage, the fund provider can rake in an additional $1.25 million. The argument that it would cost more to manage a $750 million leveraged portfolio versus a $500 million unleveraged fund does not hold water. Investment management is a highly scalable business, meaning higher assets under management do not mean higher costs. Because such funds levy fees against total assets but must report expense ratios against net assets, their expense ratios are typically relatively high.”
-
Below, I’ve linked the “Fact Sheet” for one of Nuveen’s CEFs just as an example.
Nuveen High Income Global CEF: https://documents.nuveen.com/Documents/Nuveen/Viewer.aspx?uniqueId=baeb8b15-0bb3-4a69-970d-37500c25609d
Looking at the stated fees: 2.96% Total fund / 1.96% Shares
I gather by that that the lower 1.96% relates to both the money you invest plus the borrowed money (leverage) the fund employs. Of course, the fee would appear lower if the leverage is included in the sum. But, if viewed just from the standpoint of what you invested (and actually own) the fee is closer to 3%.
@msf - Thanks for the Kipplinger article. Features some of the best “low cost” CEFs. Most are under 1%. Some great returns. The ones I’ve explored are considerably more expensive than those covered in article. Albeit, I’ve looked mainly at ones using leverage, investing in lower rated credit and some of them engage in short selling which adds to cost.

"740% drop in the NASDAQ from its earlier high"
Don'tcha just love Wikipedia? A long-only portfolio cannot drop more than 100%. What it means to say is that in 2½ years (March 2000 - October 2002) the NASDAQ composite gave back 92.5% of the gain it achieved in the roughly five preceding years (1995 - March 2000).
Wikipedia does not give a citation for its claimed 800% of the NASDAQ composite over those five years, nor its claimed 740% (of the 1995 starting value) decline of the NASDAQ composite in the subsequent 2½ years.
Yahoo reports a gain (including divs) in the NASDAQ composite of 579% between Jan 3, 1995 and March 10, 2000 (adjusted closing vals of 743.58 and 5048.62). Yahoo reports that between March 10, 2000 and Oct 9, 2002, the composite lost 78% (adjusted closing vals of 5048.62 and 1114.11). Here's another site reporting a decline of 76.85%: https://finbold.com/guide/dot-com-bubble/

WSJ article quoted: https://www.wsj.com/articles/read-the-ingredients-before-buying-this-25-billion-etf-2e9b279d
The excerpt in isolation is a bit confusing: "This should have been a great year" for contrarians. The wording suggests that the past 18 months (ending June 30th) was not great for value. Yet the 7.6% figure for IVE indeed blows away the S&P 500 index (VFIAX proxy) return of -4.3%.
The point of the full article is that value (or growth) is not well defined, and performance figures vary depending on how value is defined. Bill Miller's Legg Mason Value owned growth companies when he felt they were value plays (undervalued).
A value strategy not mentioned in the article, dogs of the dow (highest yielding stocks), when applied to the S&P 500 (SDOG) shows very different results - nearly flat (small losses) in 2022 (-0.13%) and YTD through June 2023 (-0.84%). (Data from ALPS; M* figures slightly different.)
Despite its superficial stability, SDOG was 10% more volatile (std dev) than IVE over the past 18 months, per Portfolio Visualizer.

Not today. I’m referring to the mania of the late 90s which culminated in a 740% massive drop in the NASDAQ from its earlier high beginning in March 2000. Other major markets also suffered heavy losses.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
(The above article notes that Barron’s had began sounding warnings at about this time and that Sir John Templeton made a small fortune by shorting tech prior to the wreck.)
Notably, all 4 panelists on the famous Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser show’s end of year program December 31, 1999 sounded downright “bubbly” in forecasting the year ahead. Not one, including the program’s distinguished host, foresaw the approaching train wreck. (So much for “the experts”)

I'll add this with my experience with what I considered an early A.I. My wife was working on her Masters thesis in 1999. We were both working full time and this was a daunting task for her. As my typing skills were very good, I assumed the task of dictation/transcribing from yellow legal sheets, her notes and statements for this work. At the time, we had a '1997' desktop computer running Windows 98 which also had the MS Word program. This was fine, but still not getting the work done fast enough. I purchased the 'Dragon Systems NaturallySpeaking 1.0 ' voice recognition program. This was simply the program and a headset microphone. I spent about 1 week, during off hours, teaching the program my voice 'sounds' for whatever word I spoke. The error rate became very small for its understanding of how I spoke numerous words. I could now read into the Word document what had been written or spoken by my wife. There were always some corrections to be made (typed) from words not understood or known, but the speed of producing the final printed document increased a great deal. I was amazed with the use of a computer interfaced with this program. Voice programs are available now, too; and are embedded into some office suite packages (MS 365, etc.) And cell phones.
I remain most hopeful, using A.I. and computing power, with the speedy process(es) for medical applications of all types.
NOTE: This was written by me without use of any additional programming features.
Below, about the Dragon speak program.

Dr. James Baker laid out the description of a speech understanding system called DRAGON in 1975.[5] In 1982 he and Dr. Janet M. Baker, his wife, founded Dragon Systems to release products centered around their voice recognition prototype.[6] He was President of the company and she was CEO.
DragonDictate was first released for DOS, and utilized hidden Markov models, a probabilistic method for temporal pattern recognition. At the time, the hardware was not powerful enough to address the problem of word segmentation, and DragonDictate was unable to determine the boundaries of words during continuous speech input. Users were forced to enunciate one word at a time, clearly separated by a small pause after each word. DragonDictate was based on a trigram model, and is known as a discrete utterance speech recognition engine.[7]
Dragon Systems released NaturallySpeaking 1.0 as their first continuous dictation product in 1997

Remain curious,
Catch

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I bought the wrong CEF Friday. Historical performance too volatile and fees too high. Have better one in sight, but need to wait for $$ to settle before selling the former. Meanwhile it has bumped up nearly 1.5% today. With some luck will be able to pocket a few dollars from the short hold. Casino for sure. But nice to be able to trade in out of these vehicles almost at will.
I’m certainly not in the euphoric camp as equities go. But who knows?
@Level5 - 5.5% is a nice return for sitting on your hands.

Invested a hefty (for me) chunk of 6-month t-bills at 5.5% through Vanguard Brokerage.

@david_snowball I am surprised (shocked) that you find it difficult to identify and buy the 50 stocks in the S&P 500 that are up 56% this year. I might just have to start traveling on other discussion boards at this rate.

While July has historically shown to be a good month for stocks I'm of the opinion that we will see the market hold or drift down over the next few months rather than surge to the tune of a new bull market. If the institutional folks are not buyers at these levels there's no reason for me to be either. Therefore I sold DIVO and 25% of my SCHD position. I captured no gain or loss on DIVO and a small short term loss on SCHD. In return I gather a 4.7% distribution which is greater than either of these two ETF"s were paying by contributing the proceeds to my MM position while I wait and see what happens. I could be wrong but I'm used to it.

Ha! Yes, 7.6% net gain (0.69 * 1.56) over 18 months ... or, 7.6% per month gain since January if you were lucky enough to apply the strategy.
It's easy ex-post.