My old ( 30 years) retirement account at VOYA has ITCSX ( TPR Capital Appreciation Pt SVC) open and available at least to existing accounts.
I don't have a lot of money in this account, but might add to ITCSX at next market swoon.
Still law of big numbers makes his previous outperformance harder to continue

Good point - PRWCX is closed to most new investors.
The fund is closed to new accounts other than investors whose accounts meet any of the following criteria:
• Participants in an employer-sponsored retirement plan where the fund already serves as an investment option;
• Direct rollovers from an employer-sponsored retirement plan to a new T. Rowe Price IRA;
• Accounts held directly with T. Rowe Price that qualify through participation in certain T. Rowe Price programs;
• T. Rowe Price multi-asset products (such as funds-of-funds);
• Discretionary accounts managed by T. Rowe Price or one of its affiliates;
• Wrap, asset allocation, and other advisory programs, if permitted by T. Rowe Price.
T. Rowe Price submitted an SEC filing (dated 03/22/2023) for Capital Appreciation Equity ETF.
David Giroux will be the portfolio manager.
The new ETF will normally invest at least 80% of its net asset in equity securities.
PRWCX normally invests at least 50% of its total assets in stocks while the remaining assets
are generally invested in corporate/government debt and bank loans.
Consequently, this ETF will not be a clone of PRWCX.
MFO Link

Mr. Braham:
Thanks for your insightful comments.
You are quite correct that nothing in life is riskless, least of all in investing.
"Riskless" is a financial term of art that can mean several things, most commonly that if these vehicles fail to deliver, which they well might, then you've got far bigger problems than your investment portfolio. In other words, financial economists use the term in the same way that a physicist might use the term "spherical cow." Trust me, the AdvisorPerspectives audience well understands these usages, and I doubt that any of them regard any human operation, investing or otherwise, as "riskless" as defined by the OED or Merriam Webster.
As long as you've got me going: Yes, my backgound is in the sciences, but I view investing as half math and half Shakespeare, and if you only master the former, the latter will surely get you. (See "Long-Term Capital Management.")
I'm also fond of pointing out that if we take the half-millennium survival of the Roman Empire as a starting point, that gives the average person about a one in six (Russian Roulette) chance of falling victim to such an event during their lifetime.
And that's before we consider that several times in the past half century mankind came withing a hair's breadth of nuclear annihilation.
Not to pile on here, but I don't write that much about the sciences, and David might tell you that I have been known to write about history.
So, just to reassure you, I don't view any investment activity, or even tying my own shoelaces, as "riskless" in the literal sense you're using it.
Take care,
William Bernstein

Great article that summarizes David Giruox’s many interviews he gave in last several years. In light of this large asset base ($47.4) fund, he manages to move and to execute very well in his portfolio in order to deliver this remarkable results over the tenure as the fund manager.
Giruox also written on a book on “Capital allocation” and is available at Amazon that describes how companies can execute successfully in their business.
https://amazon.com/Capital-Allocation-Principles-Strategies-Shareholder/dp/1264270062

Although I agree with some of what Bernstein says here, I find it amusing for him to use the term "rational investor" in the same article he uses the term "riskless." Nothing in life is riskless. Investors call T-bill interest the "risk-free rate" because it is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government. In the short-time frame that T-bills have to mature, that is a fairly safe bet, although the debt ceiling debate shenanigans currently reveal how even a T-bill is not truly riskless. But 30 years? 30 YEARS. I can barely predict what is going to happen tomorrow in the U.S. or in my own life let alone 30 years from now. To assume that a 30-year TIPS is riskless if you hold it to maturity is a mistake.
Securities markets are not rational. People are not rational. Spock, or our inner Spock as Bernstein describes it, is a fictional television character I think certain men with a scientific bent aspire to as a role model. Yet the show was interesting enough to expose the flaws in Spock's beliefs--yes, belief, not absolute fact--in reason. And Spock, and the investment models and algorithms "rational" investors use are also designed by flawed humans to measure other flawed humans financial behavior.
There's a reason physics, chemistry and biology are called the "hard sciences" while economics and psychology are called soft sciences, and even the former despite the scientists in those fields attempts at objective measurability are subject to human biases. I'm not sure finance even qualifies as a soft science as a subset of economics. It's very difficult to determine what is luck and what is skill in this field.
Yet it is very important from a marketing perspective to present certain professional investors as rational. That is the emotional subtext behind this veneer of rationality in the investment management business--greed for investor assets. The usual line of advertising goes: These extremely educated investors approach finance as a science and have developed a never-fail rational and repeatable scientific system for beating the market. See how well that worked with the Long-Term Capital hedge fund.
Alternatively, the line of advertising logic goes for indexing "scientists": Our data of the last 100 years indicates in the long-term the market rises. In every ten year period if you just bought and held, you would have had strong positive performance, and beaten the active managers. And because this was true in the last 100 years we are now going to extrapolate into eternity that owning an index of U.S. stocks is a good idea because human history and global history always repeat themselves.
The irony to me is the most predictable thing in finance may be the fees professional investors charge for us to believe in them. I would add this is where Bernstein, Bogle, and indexers are, for the most part, rationally right. Bogle aways said it wasn't the efficient market hypothesis he subscribed to. It was the costs matter hypothesis.

If there is any place where the vulnerabilities of the system to runs and fire sales have been clear-cut, it is money market funds.
...
Even without a fixed NAV, liquidity mismatch in other kinds of funds can still make them vulnerable to runs and fire sales.

Falling between the cracks here are floating NAV money market funds - neither fixed NAV nor other (non-MM) kind of fund. I suspect this was an unintended omission.
The alternative would be that she considers floating NAV MMFs to be relatively immune to runs and fire sales. That's not beyond the realm of possibility. The MMF runs she describes are due to funds breaking a buck and investors rushing for the gates (a la SVB, Reserve Fund) - first mover advantage.
Floating NAV MMFs by definition can't break a buck - they aren't fixed to a $1 nominal NAV. Redemption values vary continuously (fractions of a percent) rather than discretely (1%, a penny at a time).
FWIW, one can invest in floating NAV MMFs via Merrill. That's one of the very few advantages I can see in that brokerage, though one of which I'm not partaking.
Footnote 13 (in the OP) is a cite to https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-258
The proposed MMF rules she refers to would have removed redemption fees/gating, and imposed swing pricing on institutional funds. This 2021 proposal is still being worked on and seems to still be accepting comments (last one was Feb 2023).
Proposal: https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2021/34-93784.pdf
Fact sheet: https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2021/ic-34441-fact-sheet.pdf
Comments: https://www.sec.gov/comments/s7-22-21/s72221.htm
Mutual fund managers responded to the redemption fee/gating rules by managing the funds more conservatively so that the rules would never be triggered. They were concerned that if a fund got close to that point, investors would stampede out - first mover advantage redux.
Or something else might spook investors. Say, a pandemic.

Evidence indicates that SEC's reforms did not prevent runs during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, prime MMFs—which can invest in all types of short-term debt instruments—held by institutional investors experienced net redemptions of about 30 percent of their total assets in a 2-week period in March 2020 (see figure). Some evidence also indicates SEC's reforms may have contributed to the runs. Some investors may have preemptively redeemed MMF shares to avoid incurring a liquidity fee or losing access to their funds under a redemption gate.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105535
Notable in that report and in the SEC's proposal is the focus on institutional investors. (Swing pricing for institutional investors, relaxed restrictions on retail investors.) As with SVB, institutional investors are apparently the elephants in the room stomping on everyone else.

"The structural vulnerabilities at the heart of money market and open-end funds aren’t new. In the banking sector, capital and liquidity requirements and federal deposit insurance reduce the likelihood of runs taking place. In case runs occur, access to the discount window helps provide buffers for banks. Yet the financial stability risks posed by money market and open-end funds have not been sufficiently addressed.
Over the past two years, the SEC has proposed rules to mitigate the vulnerabilities plaguing these funds.13 The SEC’s proposals would reduce the first-mover advantage, reducing run incentives during times of stress. They would also require new liquidity management tools, while mandating more comprehensive and timely information on these funds for the SEC and investors."
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1376

Be careful what you ask about. You might get more than you bargained for :-)
There were a couple of exceptions to the "usual" step up rule in the past, there's one current exception (in timing), and potentially one in the future. Perhaps others that I'm not aware of.

Step-up in basis has been eliminated twice during the past 50 years, and each time, the change was short-lived.
Step-up in basis was first eliminated by the Tax Reform Act of 1976 and replaced with a carryover basis regime. The carryover basis rules were heavily criticized and repealed a few years later, before they had taken effect.
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 repealed the estate tax and adopted a carryover basis regime [no step up] for calendar year 2010 only ...
Congress eventually threw everyone a curveball. In mid-December [2010], Congress retroactively restored the estate tax and step-up in basis for 2010 decedents. However, for decedents who died in 2010, estate executors could opt out of the estate tax and into a carryover basis tax regime.

https://www.aperiogroup.com/blogs/repeal-of-basis-step-up-third-times-the-charm
The current estate tax law generally provides for a step up (or down) to current value as of date of death. However, for estates subject to the estate tax, an executor can elect to do an assessment of all assets in the estate (it's all or nothing) on the alternate valuation date six months after the date of death, assuming that would result in lower federal estate taxes.
The exception to this exception is if an asset is transferred (via sale, distribution, or other method) prior to the end of the six month period, the individual asset is valued as of the date of transfer.
Recent federal and state proposals are floating around to tax billionaires on unrealized capital gains annually based on mark-to-market valuations.
https://itep.org/president-bidens-proposed-billionaires-minimum-income-tax-would-ensure-the-wealthiest-pay-a-reasonable-amount-of-income-tax/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/17/wealth-taxes-state-level/
Under these proposals there would be no need for a step up because assets would already be valued at their last annual market price. Further, often these proposals are limited to easily priced securities. They might treat real estate and securities differently.

A little common sense here would go a long way. If one could use current day prices for some of the costs (improvements), then why not also use current price for the base cost as well? Voilà, no capital gain, nada. Problem solved :-)
OF course no one ever said that the tax rules made sense.

Isn't that the case when an asset, like a stock...maybe even a house ...is inherited? This "step up basis" provision basically reprices the asset to the date of transfer.
https://investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp

A little common sense here would go a long way. If one could use current day prices for some of the costs (improvements), then why not also use current price for the base cost as well? Voilà, no capital gain, nada. Problem solved :-)
OF course no one ever said that the tax rules made sense.

ssue not easily dismissed by red herring arguments. Of course other instances of injustice have existed throughout history. Doesn’t in any way explain or justify this instance.
I think you missed my point. Depositors who get "only" $250K of insurance are not being cheated. They are getting their fair share of coverage. It's the fact that someone else is receiving extra that's the red herring. Sure you're envious, sure you think they shouldn't have gotten that extra coverage, but that's got nothing to do with how much coverage you fairly deserve - $250K.
My insurer decides to cover neighbor’s loss. Says it will recoup its expenses by raising my insurance rates and those of other paying customers.
You bring up cost, suggesting that this windfall (SVB depositor unlimited coverage) to others is costing you money. As has been recently pointed out, the FDIC bailout will be paid for by other banks, not by taxpayers. So the broad populace isn't bearing the insurance cost.
What about the costs you bear indirectly as a customer of a bank being assessed for this bailout? In 1993 the FDIC changed the way it charged banks for coverage - the more risky the bank, the more they were charged (risk-based premiums). So some of this is already built into the system. And unlike the auto insurance example that's based by neighborhood, this premium discrimination appears to be done bank by bank.
From what OJ posted at the top, it looks like the cost of the bailout might also be apportioned among banks according to the risks they pose. IMHO that would be a good idea.
Finally, in your example, your neighbor was uninsured, rather than underinsured. There's a red herring FDIC does not bail out non-member banks. Those banks don't pose systemic risks because depositors at FDIC member banks will not start pulling money out upon seeing a non-member bank failing.

No, only the historic costs can be used for taxable gains and IRS purposes. This is common in formal accounting too.

House sale and capital improvements to calculate capital gains on sale question.
So, house purchased for 'x' $ 20 years ago.
There is a capital gain on the sale of the property, which will be taxable.
Improvements to the property may be used to change the 'cost basis' for calculating full capital gains tax.
My question (below) is that it was stated that the owners made numerous improvements to the property over the years; which did provide for a higher sales price.
One example is, a very nice fence that was placed around the property that cost $5,000 15 years ago, but would cost $15,000 to build today.
The seller, of course, wants to keep the capital gains tax on the sale as low as possible.
It is my understanding that they may use the original $5,000 to change the 'cost basis'; whereas it is suggested they may use the $15,000 cost (when the house was sold), if the fence was installed today, to calculate the 'cost basis'.
In effect, they are suggesting using an 'inflation adjusted' value.
Is this allowed in the IRS tax code for calculating a property sale 'cost basis' to establish the capital gains amount???
Thank you for your time in sorting this conflict of thought about this process.
Catch

There is lot of negative news on the CRE exposures of smaller banks. The 3 US bank failures so far had high exposures to US Treasuries (HTM*, AFS*) and had industry concentrations in tech (private-equity, venture-capital) and cryptos. No US bank has failed yet for the CRE exposure, but if that happens, that may be the max negativity for CREs. Affected may be quarterly-liquid (TIAA) T-REA and illiquid/nontraded-REITs - BREIT, SREIT (typical limits 2% per month, 5% per quarter), etc.
Story is similar. The HTM portfolio is NOT marked-to-market. While that is "legal" and "allowed" by the accounting rules, it was clear to the "market" (but not to regulators?) that IF the HTM Treasuries were marked-to-market, the equity (the book values) of the failed banks would have been wiped out. When the bank runs happened, the HTM and AWS distinction basically disappeared. In the CREs, the revaluations are slow (e.g. T-REA), or not even done (some nontraded-REITs).
Another concern is that the HTM and AWS practices are also found among insurance/annuity companies and pension funds, not just among banks, credit unions, brokerages.
*HTM - Hold-to-maturity (these are not marked-to-market), AWS - Available-for-sale (these are marked-to-market)

Not that I know what I'm talking about but while SCHW's profits could well be affected -- temporarily -- by increased costs of capital neither it nor its millions of clients will be going anywhere. Outflows from its MMFs? They've reversed. Schwab Bank is the tail on the dog. Schwab could (did) profitably exist without it. I guess we'll see, when first quarter fund reports come out, what mega-money managers did: buy or sell.

As I noted elsewhere my local credit union offered a 5+% rate on a 15-month CD with as little as $1,000 about 3 weeks ago. Took a quick look. Gosh, I hold very little cash in any form and what minimal amount is held needs to be fully liquid. I enjoy investing and spread the risk around across diverse assets which in aggregate, I believe, offer better return potential than cash. Am also inclined to lock-in short term gains (at the cost of potentially greater returns) which lowers overall risk. And it certainly helps to have a pension plus SS. So just not into cash - much as I’d like to support my local credit union.
With so little cash it’s not worth my time and effort seeking out the best return. Fido’s SPAXX.works for me - being essentially a store of “dry powder” in case bargains appear. It’s been interesting, educational - and mildly amusing - watching many posters seeking-out the best rates across the banking industry or treasury market for many months now. I understand and respect their reasons, trusting that’s what works for them.
As far as RMDs are concerned, at a much earlier age I converted most of my IRA anssets into Roths. The fact that they require no RMDs was a primary reason for so doing. The remaining smaller traditional IRA requires RMDs, but I typically pull more than required from that every year anyway to supplement expenses - the Roth being reserved for larger purchases / unexpected contingencies..

Nice article. Do you know where to find that “academic study”. ( one of the worst features of most newspapers is their refusal to provide references to their facts and quotes)
I aam not sure what the regulators could have done if they knew that Thiel et al would panic. Restrict withdrawals? Could they legally have done that? Insist they raise more capital?
It was the attempt to raise more capital that triggered the run

@rforno: I looked at the four CGGO managers' bios and found a decidedly international bent to the team. 2 are Europeans based in Geneva, 1 a Brit based in Singapore, and 1 American working from SF. At least 3 manage(d) a global growth and income fund listed in Luxembourg. Capital Group seems to be able to keep their talent, as these folks have remained there for some time. CGGO currently holds about 50% US stocks. The fund traded more than 1M shares today, so no problem with liquidity or big spreads.
By way of contrast, Harbor brought an international ETF to market last fall (OSEA). I have been following it, but have given up on buying it because it hasn't attracted much interest at all. This afternoon, when international ETFs were doing quite well, OSEA had traded only 1 share.

Yup, which is among the reasons I respect them. Sure, I have quibbles about their need to offer 20+ share classes of funds, many of which have front-end loads, but on the whole, they're a huge low-key company that often flies under the radar -- and rarely has folks doing the CNBC thing, which also says a lot about their priorities, I think.

@rforno: I looked at the four CGGO managers' bios and found a decidedly international bent to the team. 2 are Europeans based in Geneva, 1 a Brit based in Singapore, and 1 American working from SF. At least 3 manage(d) a global growth and income fund listed in Luxembourg. Capital Group seems to be able to keep their talent, as these folks have remained there for some time. CGGO currently holds about 50% US stocks. The fund traded more than 1M shares today, so no problem with liquidity or big spreads.
By way of contrast, Harbor brought an international ETF to market last fall (OSEA). I have been following it, but have given up on buying it because it hasn't attracted much interest at all. This afternoon, when international ETFs were doing quite well, OSEA had traded only 1 share.