+1. Yes, all the bond-people i hear are more positive on IG corporates. If stocks turn around, I might put a big slug into Equity-Income. PRFDX. Or maybe nibble-in. Current yield on THAT puppy is a mere 1.91%. A far cry from over 7% at TUHYX. Of course, it's in relation to the share price. And the stock fund offers potential for cap gains, too. I think it will be quite a while: next year or the NEXT. patience is a virtue until it becomes procrastination. and there's the war in ukraine, too. and china-covid, still.

Bonds can recover in at least 2 ways. Treasuries recover when bond prices rise generating capital gains. I'm sure many astute investors bought the EDV etf in 2008 hoping to capitalize on interest rate cuts and rising bond prices. Junk bond funds recover when their bond prices rise to approach par at 100. So in theory a junk bond fund with bonds priced at 60 would generate nice gains in an equity recovery when those bonds rise in price to approach 80 or 90. Some junk bond funds returned 50% or more in 2009, resulting from price gains and interest payments when QE commenced. Current bond funds are priced so that their effective yield matches the stated yield of newly-issued bonds.

TBO Capital Group Owners, I looked around 9/29/22-09/30/2022 to check om my account value and the website was down. Then I looked for the executives and fund managers pages on LinkedIn. They were all missing. That put the nail in the coffin for me that TBO Capital Group - HMC Trading LLC were missing. The next day I tried the phones and emails etc. have all been disconnected. The account at Wells Fargo I had received a couple checks from HMC Trading LLC is gone as well. Simply says: Loading page please wait - System error on Wells Fargo end. It should either show an open account or a closed account but not that message. I wonder if someone could be playing a part of this issue from Wells Fargo. Due to the TBO Capital Group - HMC Trading LLC account complete disappearance. Any suggestions of steps to take please pass along. I have Wells Fargo involved where the funds were wired too, and the checks I also received from them. I have my bank involved in checking what action they can take on the wire sent to Wells Fargo. There was no BBB record in NY, NY for TBO Capital Group. They suggested the SEC but, they work for the (government only) and can maybe help stop this from happening further but not help for us. Did everyone's dividend check on the top left indicate NO ACCOUNT #? Thanks for all suggestions on any further action to look into. Stay focused there are many of us here that have been burned by this.

Yes, right now Britain is in the midst of a real mess, thanks in large part to the libertarian-influenced changes introduced by Prime Minister Elizabeth Truss.
Her interest in and links to various right-wing libertarian groups has been known for years, but has not really received much attention currently.
However, a recent perspective from the New York Times takes a look at her background. Here are some excerpts, heavily edited for brevity:

LONDON — For the past decade or more, Tufton Street has been the primary command center for libertarian lobbying groups, a free-market ideological workshop cloistered quietly in the heart of power. In September, it stepped out of the shadows. The “mini-budget” presented on Sept. 23 by Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s finance minister and key ally of Prime Minister Liz Truss, clearly owed a debt to Tufton Street.
The plan spooked the financial markets, sent the pound crashing and forced the Bank of England to intervene to halt a run on Britain’s pension funds. It was, in economic and political terms, a disaster — something made plain on Monday when the government, in an attempt to mitigate the damage, scrapped a planned tax cut for high earners. But the package was more than folly. It was the consummation of plans designed on Tufton Street, and of an alliance with Ms. Truss stretching back years. Under her watch, Britain has become a libertarian laboratory.
In Ms. Truss, they found a friend. After a youthful dalliance with the Liberal Democrats, the new prime minister’s belief in small-state libertarian politics has been a mainstay of her political career.
Appointed head of international trade, Ms. Truss seized the chance to staff her operation with libertarians. In October 2020, just a couple of months before the start of Britain’s new life outside the European Union, Ms. Truss appointed several pro-Brexit, free-market figures to advisory bodies in her department.
This battalion of free-market thinkers has now been welcomed into 10 Downing Street. Five of the new prime minister’s closest advisers are Tufton Street alumni, including Ms. Truss’s chief economic adviser and her political secretary, and at least nine Tufton Street alumni are scattered across other major government departments.
Under Ms. Truss, once nicknamed the “human hand grenade” for her ideological obduracy, the libertarian right has detonated the British economy. The cost, for all but the richest, could be incalculable.

To provide some nuance, I will add the folowing excerpt:

If all of this makes you consider throwing in the towel on active management, you’re not alone. Investors continue to shift money into indexed exchange-traded funds and away from mutual funds. In the Large Growth category, some $16.2 billion has flowed into ETFs in 2022, $8.6 billion of that during the first two months of the third quarter. In the Large Growth mutual fund category, $54.8 billion has fled this year, and $14.5 billion in July and August.
The big ETF winners, flow-wise, in Large Growth this past quarter have been Vanguard Growth (VUG), with $2.1 billion of inflows, followed by SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Growth (SPYG), with $2 billion. The biggest mutual fund Large Growth outflow losers were T. Rowe Price Blue Chip Growth (TRBCX), down $3.1 billion, and Harbor Capital Appreciation (HCAIX), down $2.1 billion.
Some 70 Morningstar mutual fund categories suffered outflows this past quarter, while most ETF categories experienced inflows or only small outflows. While September’s full-month flow numbers aren’t available yet, the mutual fund outflows are part of a longer-term trend that some have dubbed “flowmageddon,” which could have harmful tax effects.

Hi, guys.
Following requests from several board members affected by the TBO Capital scam, we've created a locked TBO private board. The locked board will provide a space where affected members might share information that they're not comfortable making available to the world in general.
We assumed that the Vanilla software would allow people to see the board without opening its posts. After half an hour of fiddling, Chip concluded that we were wrong about that. (Ummm, freeware.) Here's her workaround: the board is live, active and visible only to its members. If you have been affected by the scam and would like access, post that request here. The mods and I will be vigilant about monitoring and quickly moving folks in.
Sorry that it can't be more elegant.
As ever,
David

Hi all, ok, I just emailed David Snowball to see if we could start a private group for those that have been scammed by TBO Capital / HMC Trading. Although...I don't know how that will work since we can't vet who gets in....how do they know who was scammed and who was not? Maybe we should just keep this public so all can see? Maybe even people who have not been scammed can see this and help us? And if we need to share private info, we can just private message each other? That way we can exchange private information that way and keep in touch in case this site goes down?
Anyway, Monday (tomorrow) starts a new week....I have been waiting for Monday to get here so I can start making more calls. I honestly don't know where to start. I just know I will do anything in my power to get our money back and help us all to reach that same goal!!!!
Does anyone have hacker friends? Friends at the FBI? Friends in law enforcement? Anyone that can help us or knows what direction to point us? Friends of friends? Let's keep brainstorming.......
How about calling the banks where they cashed the checks and where we sent the wires? Is there no insurance for wire and check fraud? Mine was Wells Fargo and Fifth Third Bank. I have calls into both of them!

Sources please. The cut and paste section came from:
https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/michigan-inheritance-laws

Its inheritance and estate taxes were created in 1899, but the state repealed them in 2019.
Its estate tax technically remains on the books

I know my post above wasn't my best writing, but I don't think I wrote anything inconsistent, like saying that a law was both repealed (in 2019) and still on the books.
It appears the law remains on the books, but that because of the way it is linked to federal estate taxation, the maximum amount of the estate tax is $0. Something like the ACA mandate still being on the books, but the amount of the penalty being set to $0.
Quoting from a late (Oct) 2019 bill that would have repealed the Michigan state tax but died in the legislature:

Repeal the law authorizing a Michigan estate tax. For a number of years this tax has not been collected because language in the law links it to a discontinued state estate tax credit in federal law. Should this federal law change the Michigan estate tax could go back into effect.

https://www.michiganvotes.org/2019-HB-4922
That's why it matters whether the estate tax was repealed (no longer off the books) or merely dormant. (Think of another old law in Michigan, this one from 1931, that was nearly resurrected when Federal law changed this summer.)
The more interesting piece IMHO concerns the Lady Bird deed. This piece came from the Rochester Law Center, and as such the errors and omissions on that page are somewhat disappointing.
https://rochesterlawcenter.com/services/michigan-lady-bird-deed/
A Lady Bird deed is not a type of quitclam deed (though depending on how it is written, it could be used as one). The salient feature of quitclaim deeds is that they enable the person transferring property to do so while disclaiming any title. That is, "I give all my interest in BlackAcre to A, whatever that interest is, which may be nothing at all. Lots of luck."

Quitclaim deeds offer no warranties of title, and title companies may offer very limited coverage or none at all if asked to issue a title policy based on one. A ladybird deed may transfer title with warranties in the deed whereby the grantor warrants that he has full ownership of the property at the time of the conveyance

https://legalbeagle.com/8083490-comparing-deeds-lady-bird-deeds.html
Most of the advantages stated for the Lady Bird deed (i.e. the ones apart from being able to change beneficiaries) are the same as for the simpler (once and done) non-enhanced life estate deed. IOW, had the Law Center said, rather than a Lady Bird Deed being a type of quitclaim deed that it was a type of life estate deed, it would have been essentially correct. But see below (notable Medicaid difference).
All life estate deeds, enhanced or not, keep the property out of probate. In this respect, there's nothing extra special about the enhanced (Lady Bird) deed in avoiding Medicaid recovery.
What differentiates an Enhanced Life Estate Deed from a (nonenhanced) Life Estate Deed is that the grantor retains control over naming beneficiaries in the former. That is sufficient to make the gift (deeding the property to the life tenant and the remainderman) "incomplete".
Rochester Law Center writes: "a Lady Bird Deed allows for you to qualify for Medicaid benefits while preventing the government from going after your home. " That's misleading. In looking at assets to determine Medicaid eligibility, Michigan doesn't count your home if your equity interest in it is under $636K.
https://www.medicaidplanningassistance.org/medicaid-eligibility-michigan
However, and this is where the Lady Bird deed can come into play, any asset that is transferred, including a home, within five years of applying for Medicaid, does count.
https://www.michiganlawcenter.com/blog/2020/august/transferring-assets-to-qualify-for-medicaid/
But since the Lady Bird deed is an "incomplete" gift, even though the home is transferred it isn't counted as an asset for Medicaid eligibility purposes.
Finally, though this has focused on Michigan, it's worth noting that Michigan is one of only five states that allow Lady Bird deeds. There are 30 states (Michigan isn't one of them) that allow TOD deeds.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/lady-bird-deeds.html
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/avoid-probate-book/chapter5-1.html

Hey Guys, ask the owner of this site, David Snowball or whoever maintains the site to help create email group for TBO Capital victims on this site so far. This way we don't have to place our private email addresses on this site or group for public to see. If we have to create our own email group, then I guess we have to share our emails here but create a different email address than your main one, like a special email address on yahoo or gmail just to be used for TBO Capital/HMC trading scam victims;

Also I want to say WE SHOULD CREATE EMAIL GROUP BUT HOW TO SHARE EMAIL ADDRESSES HERE? CAN WE ASK OWNER OF THIS SITE TO SEND EMAILS OF EVERYONE FOR TBO CAPITAL DISCUSSION?

Brokered CDs cost if you want/need your money sooner than maturity. Also reported gains/losses are on statements.

J. Zweig is smart. Thanks for that. Yes, I do believe that Buy & Hold is dead, if by that we mean "auto-pilot forever. i threw a slug into financials in 2022. I've been way too early. But why bail now? My decision is to wait for the inevitable dividends to arrive----- if not capital gains. Then I shall reassess.

...and Consuelo Mack introduced me to the fact that our favorite Fund Manager wrote a book:
https://www.amazon.com/Capital-Allocation-Principles-Strategies-Shareholder/dp/1264270062
He will be the guest again, next week. Looking forward.

Oct 8 Episode

It’s been a rough year for the markets and Capital Appreciation, although it’s down less than the market and its category. In this weekend’s episode, Giroux will give us his view of the state of the market, its risks, and potential rewards.

Has anyone here ever given these charts a serious look & use? https://stockcharts.com/public
I tried to be an Elliott waver back in the 1980s. I wasted a lot of time drawing lines on Dow charts and never took action based on my lines. I assume I would do the same with these - but you, are you reaping, harvesting gains based on these charts?
Just a Friday evening discussion starter.

Hi Guys, I am Lucy and I was also a victim of fraud from TBO Capital Group; I invested with them in May and on 9/30/22 I couldn't access the website, phone nor emails. I reported to my bank right away, did police report, FTC.com, SEC.com and CA State Attorney; Also another government place to report it is IC3.
Bravo Louise for finding out who the fraudster is behind HMC Trading;
Dale, thanks so much for informing us that SEC got back to u in 2 weeks. Please keep us informed on this site. HOPE EVERYONE GETS THEIR MONEY BACK. Next time I see anyone offering more than 10 to 20%, do my homework and check them out on finra.com and sec.gov and brokercheck.com

[also posted at Bogleheads.org, and maybe a few more to come, but I've gotten good value here at MFO and wanted to post it to give back.]
Here at the end of the 3rd quarter, the statement has become true, period, with no qualifier other than “as regards investment grade bond markets in the US and Britain.”
The statement can be evaluated over four time frames, in all cases treating the first nine months of 2022 as if these were 12 month returns. Tickers used to determine 2022 returns are in parentheses. All are nominal total returns and year-to-date as of 9/30/2022.
1. Since December 1972 (total bond, BND)
2. Since December 1925 (intermediate Treasuries, VGIT, and long Treasuries, VGLT)
3. From January 1793 to January 1926 (long investment grade bonds, mostly governments, BLV)
4. August 1753 to December 1918 (British Consols, EDV as the comparison)
Charts and brief discussion follow,. Red dashed line shows 2022 return, bars show historical returns over rolling twelve-month periods.
 
[b]Total Bond[/b]

This one is a staple of 3-fund portfolios and Vanguard Target Date funds. It’s probably the most shocking outcome within the Boglehead universe. As of 9/30, BND was down 14.50%. The worst previous 12 month return on the Bloomberg-Barclays Aggregate was the 12-month roll through March 1980 at minus 9.20%.
I think it fair to say that few 3-funders had any conception that BND could decline by double-digits in the space of a year.
But then again, a fifty-year record is not a lot to support a claim like “ever.”
 
[b]Intermediate Treasuries[/b]

This is where investors go if they find BND holds too much risk for comfort, whether duration risk or credit risk. VCIT is down 11.46% in 2022. That’s head and shoulders below the worst previous 12-month return of minus 5.55% ending in October 1994. So much for “safe.”
And 96 years maybe does qualify for “ever.”
 
[b]Long Treasuries[/b]

VGLT really took it on the chin in 2022, down 28.51% thus far. It’s a reminder of why long bonds have a bad reputation in the eyes of some. Maximum duration, maximum price decline in an adverse environment. Turns out, the bad times in the 1960s and 1970s don’t really hold a candle to 2022. The worst previous 12-month return on the SBBI long bond was minus 17.10% for the period ending March 1980. That’s in nominal terms, as are all these comparisons. I’ll look at real returns at the end of the year, since most of the older inflation data (pre-1913) are only available on an annual basis.
Again, 2022 produced the worst return on long Treasuries seen over any 12-month period in the past 96 years. By far.
 
[b]Long bonds[/b]

This is a spliced series:
1. My index of long corporates from 1925 back to 1897; https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3805927
2. My aggregate of corporate, municipal and Treasuries to 1842;
3. Municipals to 1835; Treasuries and municipals to 1825; Treasuries to 1793.
You have to go back over 150 years, to the 1840s, when states defaulted on their debts, to get a result that even comes close to the 2022 results for BLV (which pegs toward the midpoint of VGLT and VCLT). BLV saw a decline of 28.41% in 2022; the worst previous decline was the minus 22.88% decline for the period ending in January 1842. In April, 2022 was only a contender for worst ever in this bond category; it took bad returns in June and again in September to push 2022 returns below even those seen in 1842.
I’d say 228 years is a good approximation of “ever.”
 
[b]Really long bonds: British Consols[/b]

These were perpetuities, so the proper comparison would appear to be the Extended Duration Treasury fund. EDV got slaughtered in 2022, down 37.40%. That would be a mighty bear market even in stocks, much less safe government bonds.
Nothing in the British Consol record comes close, not even the worst months of the Napoleonic Wars. The chart shows 12-month rolls from 1753 to 1823. An earlier examination December on December annual returns had shown all the worst returns to fall within in this stretch. Later years, in the heyday of the British empire, were mostly fine. WW I returns, nominal, in particular did not plumb the depths of Napoleonic returns.
Consols down 20% plus? Happened more than once in the Napoleonic Wars (and before, in the American Revolution, and almost, in the Seven Years War). The worst case was minus 23.17% for the period ending July 1803. A Consol total return worse than minus 25%? Never happened. Return worse than 30%? Never approached, not even close.
2022 EDV returns stand alone at the bottom of a chasm.
And if 269 years isn’t a good proxy for “ever,” I don’t know what qualifies.
[b]Summary[/b]

Unprecedented, across the board.
[b]Why has 2022 been so bad?[/b]
One word: duration, my boy, duration!
Technically, modified duration, or the price sensitivity of a bond to a change in interest rates.
Duration is a function of maturity (as everyone knows) and of coupon/yield (which most people forgot or never knew).
1. Long bonds fall more when rates go up.
2. Low coupon bonds fall more when rates go up.
3. Low coupon, long bonds plunge when rates go up.
[b]What that means in practice[/b]
The last big bond bear market occurred at the dim horizon of memory for most investors active today, i.e., in the late 1970s. Rates on the 20-year Treasury rose from about 6% in 1972 to over 14% at one point in 1981.
The 2022 bear market (so far) has seen a much smaller rise in rates, a little more than 200 bp since the beginning of the year. Why then has 2022 clocked in as historically awful?
First, note the pacing: it took nine years for rates to rise 800 bp in that hazily remembered bear market, an average rise of less than 100 bp per year. 2022 saw more than twice that rise in just nine months.
And the real kicker: in that long ago bear market, rates were already higher at the start than almost any observer expects to see in the current cycle. High rate equals more coupon income to defray price drops, and a more favorable total return, since duration is also less at high coupons.
Back to 2022: an achingly low rate to start, less than 2.0%, and a rapid price drop, combine to produce a potent, toxic brew for bond total return.
Next, the last time long Treasury rates were as low as in 2020-2021 falls outside the lived memory of most investors. It was just under 2.0% in early 1946. And it took 12 years of drip-drip declines before that yield rose as high as the current 4.0%.
Now you have some sense of why 2022 has been so much worse for bonds than ever before.

Seems like in retirement one should not (1) generate (SS income, RMD, + investment income, cap gains, etc.) more income than one needs and (2) take investment risks that could result in generating more than (1). Also, is it reasonable to say that take equity risk (e.g., equity ETFs) in taxable accounts and put fixed income (e.g., Treasuries) in the IRAs, relatively speaking?
The above does not apply to Roth accounts. Seems like having almost all your assets in Roth accounts could be the most ideal, provided you meet the penalty free withdrawal requirements so you can access the money but have least obligation to the government. (BTW, I have insignificant amounts in Roth accounts.)
SS income is included for IRMMA calc. So, if a surviving spouse claims SS based on higher benefits earned by deceased spouse, that could increase Part B premiums. Moving from a higher State income tax to a no to low State income tax State in retirement is another good way to keep more of what you worked so hard for during your working life.
Finally, seems like one should try to keep built in gain (net of transaction costs) in their primary residence within the exemption amounts to avoid income tax and additional Part B premiums. So, sell your primary residence (i.e, move) more often than you otherwise would without this exemption amount.
Congratulations to those who plan their lives well.

There are various factors that affect net Part B premiums. IRMAA is just one of them. It is almost impossible for IRMAA alone to cause the premium to triple when filing status changes from MFJ to single.

Part B Premium	2022 Coverage (2020 Income)		2023 Coverage (2021 Income)
Standard	Single: <= $91,000			Single: <= $97,000
Married Filing Jointly: <= $182,000	Married Filing Jointly: <= $194,000
Married Filing Separately <= $91,000	Married Filing Separately <= $97,000
Standard * 1.4	Single: <= $114,000			Single: <= $123,000
Married Filing Jointly: <= $228,000	Married Filing Jointly: <= $246,000
Standard * 2.0	Single: <= $142,000			Single: <= $153,000
Married Filing Jointly: <= $284,000	Married Filing Jointly: <= $306,000
Standard * 2.6	Single: <= $170,000			Single: <= $183,000
Married Filing Jointly: <= $340,000	Married Filing Jointly: <= $366,000
Standard * 3.2	Single: < $500,000			Single: < $500,000
Married Filing Jointly: < $750,000	Married Filing Jointly: < $750,000
Married Filing Separately < $409,000	Married Filing Separately < $403,000
Standard * 3.4	Single: >= $500,000			Single: >= $500,000
Married Filing Jointly: >= $750,000	Married Filing Jointly: >= $750,000
Married Filing Separately >= $409,000	Married Filing Separately >= $403,000

https://thefinancebuff.com/medicare-irmaa-income-brackets.html
If one is in the first bracket (paying just the standard premium), then the premium can triple by moving the one of the top two brackets (3.2 or 3.4 times as much). But if one is in the second or higher bracket, it is impossible for the premium to triple.
So the initial MAGI (MFJ) must be no more than $182K. Filing as a single next year, the MAGI would have to be greater than $183K to jump into one of the top two brackets.
That is, even with the change in filing status from married to single, MAGI would have to go up in order for the Part B premium to triple. It would not triple if MAGI remained the same or went down.
Repeating, there are adjustments aside from IRMAA that affect net Part B premiums. So it is easily conceivable that net Part B premiums could triple with a change in filing status. But not because of IRMAA alone.

I feel it’s educational to follow a portfolio. By so doing one comes to understand and appreciate the interplay among many different types of investments. However, to a degree, it’s also counterproductive. Suspect a lot of us could post better returns if we stopped looking for at least 5 years.
A scatterbrained article citing a half dozen or so knowledgeable investors. But there seems to be a few pertinent take-aways. One relates to the mental stress of checking too often. Another suggests that we are prone to sell too early after a quick gain - diminishing the potential for far greater gains.
Another Good Link - Study shows nearly half of all investors check their performance at least once a day.