Fascinating cautionary tale for folks looking at Bitcoin ETFs and thinking "what's the worst that could happen?"
Joe Pinsker and Caitlin Ostroff offer this report in the Wall Street Journal (3/7/2024):

Joe Oathout lost $500,000 on bitcoin from his peak, but he didn't lose faith. Few would have the stomach to hold on after watching a $20,000 investment soar halfway to $1 million in 2021 only to have nearly all of it evaporate."

Good news: he's up to $169,000 (as of 3/7/24). Bad news: that's still down b 65% from its peak.
Much of crypto's surge, they report, came "following a strong urge of buying on one crypto exchange ... it is unclear what drove the rally and what it's sustainable."
Ummm ... my guesses: (1) speculation. (2) no. But that won't impact the behavior of those who need to believe.

Bought a nearly-complete first tranche in CMSpC -- ute preferred trading well under-par, 5.25% div.

Looking at the long-term trend for m-mkt fund assets at FRED, during the ZIRP, the m-mkt fund assets were around $2.8 trillion, the pandemic levels around $5 trillion, then the trend picked up in 2023, and the assets now are around $6.36 trillion. Unclear why the ICI data are a bit lower at $6.08 trillion. It is counterintuitive that m-mkt fund assets are going up in a bull market run.
Personally, my fixed-income portion lately has more m-mkt funds and ultra-ST bond funds than in the long past.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1i18j

@Crash, I was confused reading all this and what you said on another thread, so I went looking. In the other thread you said you were transferring the Bruce fund to Schwab so you can cash it out there and buy a different fund. Is that still true or do you want the transfer in-kind to keep it. If cashing it out, I don't understand this to be a problem.

WBALX Weitz Conserv Allocation
Crash, did you come to a final decision regarding WBALX?
Yes. We are moving (T-IRA) BRUFX under Schwab's umbrella, along with the taxable brokerage account and my own IRA. That was not going to be what we originally had decided to do. BRUFX is wife's IRA. After the move, we'll exchange BRUFX for shares of WBALX. It's not going to shoot the lights out, by design. But that's OK. It's about 50/50 stocks/bonds. More tame. That prospects might serve to counteract the volatility of the single stocks in the portfolio. Single stocks = 14% of portfolio now.
Also looking for a seat at the table for (bonds) Weitz WCPNX.

... this may be one heck of a coiled spring if/when rates start coming down and that cash moves back into equities of all types, yes?
c/o: https://www.ici.org/research/stats/mmf
Total money market fund assets increased by $18.65 billion to $6.08 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, March 6, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $21.56 billion and prime funds decreased by $3.57 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $658 million.
< - >
Retail: Assets of retail money market funds increased by $15.07 billion to $2.38 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets increased by $7.77 billion to $1.53 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $6.49 billion to $740.23 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $807 million to $109.08 billion.
Institutional: Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $3.59 billion to $3.69 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $13.79 billion to $3.40 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $10.06 billion to $279.26 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $149 million to $10.84 billion.

@WABAC, just curious, how many funds do you own?

Down to 35 In the IRA, and only 27 in the taxable. There are at least 12 funds I would love to cut from the IRA. When the rate environment gets a little steadier, I'll be able to consolidate in that area too.
Stay tuned.

BA stock is up 1.5% today!

Who needs ethics, common sense or a brain, eh?

BA stock is up 1.5% today!

AAII Sentiment Survey, 3/6/24
BULLISH remained the top sentiment (51.7%; high) & bearish remained the bottom sentiment (21.8%, low); neutral remained the middle sentiment (26.5%, below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +29.9% (high). Investor concerns: Elections, budget, inflation, economy, the Fed, dollar, Russia-Ukraine (106+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (21+ weeks), geopolitical. For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks were mixed (growth up, cyclicals down), bonds up, oil up, gold up, dollar down. New highs for Bitcoin & gold. The outcome of US election primaries is now known. #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1380/thread

The March 3rd episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver featured Boeing.
I watched it on YouTube but it has since been taken down.

Oliver broke the news to his followers in a Feb. 19 post on X (aka Twitter). “I know I usually share a link to our main story here on Mondays, but HBO has decided they’re going to wait until Thursday to post them to YouTube from now on,” the host explained.

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver-youtube-delay-hbo-max-1235916416/

Time for some long overdue SERIOUS punitive consequences. Will the FAA actually EVER get around to doing its job? You're going to tell me they're under-funded. That doesn't mean they can't prosecute and sanction the company. Boeing has become brazenly shameless.
Or, take the CEO and Board out to the Laurentian Abysmal and secure anchors to them all. Then let gravity do the job that needs to be done.
***************************
"The Laurentian fan or abyss is an underwater depression off the eastern coast of Canada in the Atlantic Ocean. Not a trench, but more of an "underwater valley", it is estimated to be at most ~19,685 feet (3.7 miles; 6.0 km) in depth."

@yogibearbull,
From my following and researching CGBL....The only reason I have not invested in it is because of potential high distributions from its fixed income sleeve (bonds with market discounts) if I were to put it in a taxable account.

If bonds only make up 32% of the CGBL portfolio and it has a 30 day SEC yield of 2.5%, shouldn't the divy's be limited?

So, you don't like M* chatbot Mo? It has been out for a while.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mo-an-ai-chatbot-powered-by-morningstar-intelligence-engine-debuts-in-morningstar-platforms-301822115.html

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