There have been a number of manager changes at Vanguard International Explorer (VINEX).
Schroder Investment Management was the sole manager when Vanguard acquired the fund in June 2002.
AUM grew quickly and the fund was forced to close two years later before reopening in October 2008.
It seemed like the fund would close in 2010 but Wellington Management was added as a sub-adviser instead.
AUM exceeded $3.5 billion in late 2017 — breaching the previous asset high-water mark —
and Vanguard added TimesSquare Capital Management as the third sub-adviser.
Baillie Gifford was added as the fourth sub-adviser three years later.
Vanguard fired TimesSquare in 2022 after only five years on the job.
Baillie Gifford was fired in March 2025 after approximately five years.
VINEX now has two sub-advisors — Wellington Management with 60% of the portfolio
and Schroder Investment Management with 40% of the portfolio.
https://www.independentvanguardadviser.com/iva-quick-take-vanguard-reshuffles-international-explorer-again/
Note: Subscription required to access article in its entirety.

History is starting to rhyme a bit, eh? Per BBG this morning:
A distressed-debt fund is seizing control of one of the largest malls in America after a series of moves that wiped out some creditors and even left holders of bonds once rated AAA nursing steep losses.
The trade was set in motion after Black Diamond Capital Management bought more than 70% of the top-ranking slice in a commercial mortgage-backed security tied to the struggling Palisades Center shopping mall in West Nyack, New York. The firm then used its position to acquire the sole mortgage backing the CMBS at a discount, triggering the bond’s liquidation, according to court filings and deal documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
The maneuver puts Black Diamond in control of a roughly 2 million-square-foot (185,806 square-meter) mall in West Nyack, a bedroom community for legions of middle-class New York City commuters. It also cemented about $231 million in losses for bondholders — including a $72 million blow to the AAA tranche — only the second instance since the financial crisis where top-rated CMBS investors have been hit.

Sold my TDS preferreds to lock in some TLH offsetting on some large gains this year.
May sell other paper-loss holdings going into year-end too since PRWCX looks to be delivering another large payout as well.

I would label this portfolio as risky for the age profile and the presumed goals of capital preservation, income generation and minimizing volatility.

The gold miners ETF (GDX) has risen 117.6% YTD, 72.5% over the past year and 49% annually for 3 years
The more subdued gold etf (GLD) is up 56.4% YTD, and has risen 51% over 1 year and 35% over 3 years.
I can’t think of any other asset class (ie equities, energy, real estate) in my lifetime that held those types of short term gains without a significant correction somewhere down the road. Color me skeptical.
Then again - maybe Haggard explained gold’s workings in his Rainbow Stew classic.
* Figures from M* and do not include today’s gains.

@Sven. Moving overseas? As in global stocks and bonds or moving capital offshore? We were living in Mexico a long time ago and one of our ex pat buds decided to become a peso millionaire. He was attracted to the seemingly high interest rates but when he cashed out he lost a ton as the cambio rates had changed.

Budget committee warns that U.S. national debt hits $38 trillion.

Rather, it’s the interest being paid to service it. As of September the U.S. spent $1.21 trillion to maintain the debt— 17% of the total federal spending in fiscal year 2025. That interest rate is also increasing over time. Just a couple of years ago, in 2021, the rate of repayment by the U.S. government was, on average, 1.61%. Now it’s 3.36%.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will add $3.4 trillion to national debt by 2034. That number is the net of a decrease in spending of $1.1 trillion and a decrease in revenues of $4.5 trillion. The White House has repeatedly argued that the revenues expected to be generated by tariffs, estimated by the CBO at $3.3 trillion over the next decade, will effectively balance the books.

https://msn.com/en-us/money/economy/u-s-national-debt-hits-38-trillion-and-washington-is-numb-to-our-own-dysfunction-budget-committee-warns/ar-AA1P2CuV
The number should be alarming to treasury holders. Future market on gold and silver are moving up again on Thursday, October 23, 2025. What does that reveal ?
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx
Like Capital One commercial said “what is in your wallet?” Mine has been moving oversea.

Per BBG this morning:
"PrimaLend Capital Partners filed for bankruptcy after months of negotiations with creditors following missed interest payments on its debt.
PrimaLend, which provides financing to auto dealerships that cater to subprime borrowers, listed estimated assets and liabilities below $500 million each, according to court documents it filed in the Northern District of Texas. "
A few banks w/debt issues, and now a subprime lender.....sound familiar?

The Nuveen muni CEFs I follow have return of capital as a slug of their monthly dividends. I just don't see the point.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821080/000158064225006629/hkusstocketf497.htm
497 1 hkusstocketf497.htm 497
HUMANKIND BENEFIT CORPORATION
(the “Company”)
Humankind US Stock ETF (HKND)
(the “Fund”)
Supplement dated October 17, 2025
to the Prospectus, Summary Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”),
each dated April 30, 2025
This Supplement contains new and additional information beyond that contained in the Prospectus, Summary Prospectus and SAI and should be read in conjunction with the Prospectus, Summary Prospectus and SAI.
On October 17, 2025, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) of the Company, based upon the recommendation of Humankind Investments, LLC (the “Adviser”), authorized an orderly liquidation of the Fund. After considering all the information presented to the Board by the Adviser, the Board determined that closing, liquidating and terminating the Fund was in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders. In this regard, the Board has adopted a Plan of Liquidation for the Fund (the “Plan”).
Under the Plan, the last day of trading of the Fund’s shares on the NYSE Arca will be December 1, 2025 (the “Closing Date”), which will also be the last day the Fund will accept creation units from authorized participants. Shareholders may sell their holdings in the Fund prior to the Closing Date and customary brokerage charges may apply to these transactions. The Fund is expected to cease operations, liquidate its assets, and distribute the liquidation proceeds to shareholders of record on December 8, 2025 (the “Liquidation Date”).
From the Closing Date through the Liquidation Date, shareholders may only be able to sell their shares to certain broker-dealers and there is no assurance that there will be a secondary market for the Fund’s shares during this period. Between the Closing Date and the Liquidation Date, the Fund will seek to convert its portfolio holdings to cash. The Fund may seek to convert its portfolio holdings to cash prior to the Closing Date to the extent it is deemed in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders. When the Fund moves to cash it will not follow its investment strategy and will not meet its investment objective.
Shareholders of record remaining on the Liquidation Date will receive cash at the net asset value of their shares as of that date, which will include any capital gains and dividends as of such date. The liquidating cash distribution to shareholders will be treated as a payment in exchange for their shares. Upon payment of the liquidating distribution, all outstanding shares of the Fund will be redeemed and cancelled. The liquidation of Fund shares may be treated as a taxable event. Shareholders should contact their tax adviser to discuss the income tax consequences of the liquidation. Once the distributions are complete, the Fund will terminate.
Following the liquidation of the Fund, the Company will be terminated.
Please contact the Fund at (888) 557-6692 if you have any questions.
Please retain this supplement for future reference.

Bought starter in Australian data centre operator NEXTDC. No dividends, but looking for capital appreciation over time.

Understood -- I am far from an expert in BDC's or corporate debt but based on the long history of manias (Tulips, telecom, mortgages, etc..) would not be surprised at all if the gusher of capital into private credit over the last decade turns out badly.

See the CG link below:
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/64622/2025-estimated-capital-gains-estimates-with-links

Surely you understand that figure
Reference points are most effective when people have incorporated an intuitive sense of them. Manhattan is barely two miles from side to side, while San Francisco is seven miles wide. (I've walked both.) This disparity in linear sizes (and difference in shapes) may distort people's sense of area. As does the fact that Manhattan, while often perceived as most of NYC (outside of JFK) covers but 8% of NYC's land area.
How good is your sense of the size of an acre? My parents had a friend who headed a nature/education center. On an open field he laid out markers for the four corners of an acre. Until I visited there I did not have a good sense of the area covered by an acre.
In a similar vein, consumption without normalizing for land area (let alone population) is misleading. Japan consumes "only" 4.87% as much coal as China. But its land area is just 3.93% that of China's. So it is consuming nearly 1¼ as much coal as China given its size.
Sources:
world coal consumption https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-consumption-by-country/
(unknown year); see also here
country land areas: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/countries-by-share-of-earths-surface/
Perhaps a more important problem with the China pollution claim is that it conflates consumption with air pollution. SO₂ (wet) scrubbers can reduce emissions by 90%. (Coal fired power plants "are major contributors of air pollution, especially the primary gas-phase pollutant sulfur dioxide (SO2). SO2 is a precursor to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) sulfate...") One can likewise reduce NOx emissions with catalytic (SCR) scrubbers. So consumption doesn't necessarily correlate that closely with pollution.
OTOH, there's Berkshire Hathaway:

Berkshire plants produce the most coal-fired electricity in the industry without the use of selective catalytic reduction systems, or SCR scrubbers, a technology that can reduce a coal plant’s NOx emissions by more than 80%. Available since the 1990s and more broadly adopted by Berkshire competitors, SCR scrubbers as of 2023 were employed at plants that generate 62% of the coal power in the U.S., EPA data show. At Berkshire, only 27% of its coal power was generated at coal-plant boilers with SCR scrubbers.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-operates-dirtiest-set-coal-fired-power-plants-us-2025-01-14/
A documentary (Counted ≠ Out) about how people need to and can understand numbers better tosses out this joke: If you insert a single statistic into an assertion people are 92% more likely to accept it without question.
Again, pollution in all forms is IMHO a critical problem. I'm questioning the numbers and contexts posted, not that conclusion. I'm questioning the conflating of consumption and production. I'm asking about technologies deployed and even how much it matters who creates that technology so long as it is utilized. I'm questioning investing in companies like BRK, that does whatever it can to avoid literally cleaning up its act.

BDC and REITs may have similarities for investors
Isn't the point of publishing ERs in a prospectus to inform investors?
but they have different business structure, so they have different treatments by SEC.

They usually do not fall under the Investment Company Act of 1940 because of what they hold, not because of their structure. (If they hold enough securities, they will be subject to the Act.)
https://www.troutman.com/insights/reits-investment-structures-and-investment-company-status/
In any case, this says how REIT fees come to be excluded from AFFEs (acquired fund fee expenses). But it doesn't justify their exclusion. If there's a rationale for REIT fees to be excluded, the same rationale would seem to apply to BDCs. Conversely, if Zweig or others believe that BDC expenses should be included, that same belief would seem to apply to REITs.
==============================
Warning - the remainder is legal gobbledegook of interest primarily to geeks.
BDCs are RICs (registered investment companies) under 1940 ICA (Invest company Act).

As a technical matter, BDCs are not registered investment companies. However, they elect to be subject to many of the regulations applicable to registered investment companies.

https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins/publicly-traded-business-development-companies-bdcs-investor-bulletin
This election applies to tax regulations, not expense reporting regulations:

Most BDCs elect to be treated as a regulated investment company (RIC), which provides for pass-through tax treatment of net income. BDC dividend payments to shareholders are not subject to entity-level tax on distributed income. In this manner, a BDC operates like a real estate investment trust (REIT) or master limited partnership (MLP) that offers access to the ownership of real estate assets and energy assets, respectively, and passes through investment income.

https://www.blueowlcapitalcorporation.com/about-blue-owl-capital-corp/what-is-a-bdc
See also: 12 USC § 1820a(d)(6) (registered investment company), Westlaw Glossary (RIC - regulated investment company), 26 USC § 851(a) (tax code definition of regulated investment company, BDC special clause).
SEC Final Rule 33-8713 (2006) p. 40 is what creates the AFFE requirement. It applies to all investment companies, not just ones registered under the '40 Act.

“Acquired Fund” means any company in which the Fund invests or has invested during the relevant fiscal period that ... is an investment company ...

Form N-1A instruction 3(f)(i)
So what's an investment company?

“investment company” means any issuer which—
(A)is or holds itself out as being engaged primarily, or proposes to engage primarily, in the business of investing, reinvesting, or trading in securities;
(B)is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of issuing face-amount certificates of the installment type, or has been engaged in such business and has any such certificate outstanding; or
(C)is engaged or proposes to engage in the business of investing, reinvesting, owning, holding, or trading in securities, and owns or proposes to acquire investment securities having a value exceeding 40 per centum of the value of such issuer’s total assets (exclusive of Government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis.

15 U.S. Code § 80a-3(a)(1)
BDCs fit this definition even though they're not registered investment companies. But then, so can SPACs (pre-acquisition). Yet their costs aren't counted in AFFEs.

The principal regulation for investment funds in the United States is the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“ICA”). It applies to any company that is “engaged primarily” in the business of investing in securities. Because SPACs invest 100% of their assets in securities prior to their acquisitions, many of them qualify as investment companies under this definition.

Robert Jackson and Joh Morely, SPACs as Investment Funds, Wharton (July 14, 2022)
SEC position on SPACs as subject to '40 Act ("it depends")
https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2024/03/05/final-rules-on-spac-ipos-and-de-spacs/
REITs, BDCs, SPACs. From an investor perspective, what's the difference? And fundamentally, should any indirect costs be explicitly reported, especially if they aren't included (except implicitly) in financial reports?

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/908186/000090818625000099/accpscv497-10102025.htm
497 1 accpscv497-10102025.htm 497
American Century Capital Portfolios, Inc.
Summary Prospectus and Prospectus Supplement
Small Cap Value Fund
newaci_logoblkg97a.jpg
Supplement dated October 10, 2025 n Summary Prospectus and Prospectus dated August 1, 2025
As of December 9, 2025, the fund will be open to all investors.
The following changes are effective on December 9, 2025:
The first paragraph under Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares on page 5 of the summary prospectus and the prospectus is deleted.
The section entitled Closed Fund Policies on page 18 of the prospectus is deleted.

@bee
I looked at material Check Capital sent about their returns since 2000 through 3/31/2025.
They give cumulative and annualized returns for both of their fee programs, the fee based at 1% per year or the 10% of profits only
Cumulative 10% has done a little better 590% vs 554% or 7.95% per year vs 7.72%

No one knows the answer.
There is a Wall Street saying, "The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent,"
The market, as a collective force, can sustain trends or pricing bubbles that defy logic for extended periods.
Don't fight the market:
Markets have dropped sharply several times over the past 2-3 decades and not based on valuations:
2008: Down over 50% due to the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) crisis.
2018: A correction caused by Fed rate hikes.
2020: The COVID-19 crash.
2022: Another downturn triggered by rising interest rates — arguably the easiest one to predict.
2025: The current uncertainty stems from potential tariff issues.
Market movements today happen far faster than they did one or two decades ago — which means you have to be a smarter, more disciplined trader.
Hint: Don’t base your trades on 24/7 media coverage or popular opinions. Develop your own strategy and criteria.
And if active trading isn’t your strength, that’s fine — just hold your investments and build your portfolio around your goals and risk tolerance.

M* Fund Category Definitions, 10/2025
https://pdfhost.io/v/yjDfKREXgy_MStar_Fund_Categories_102025
Changes, Oct. 31, 2025 - more private-equity/credit & securitized categories
Added Private Equity, Venture Capital, Private Debt - General, Private Debt - Direct Lending, Private MultiAsset, Direct Real Estate, Direct Infrastructure, Government Mortgage-Backed Bond, Securitized Bond - Focused, Securitized Bond - Diversified, Multi-Asset Leveraged, and Equity Digital Assets.

@Mark I also sold a large longtime VZ position today to lock in some offsetting capital losses heading into EOY.