I've purchased Brokered CD's from BMO Harris,Discover Bank,Goldman Sachs,JPMorgan Chase and Capital One recently at Fidelity-all of which include FDIC insurance. If all these banks fail, then the world is in a financial armageddon where the most valuable assets are guns, bullets, prepper food and toilet paper !

@Ben. I sympathize, following your messages down this thread. Others have asked if there are any good alternatives. I will TRY Personal Capital. If they want a phone, I'll give them the spam number I saved once, a spoof Area Code from back East. In the past, I've tried Yahoo and Google finance pages, where you can create a watchlist or portfolio. I found them both to be very clunky. I just looked over at INVESTOPEDIA. They seem to have everything EXCEPT a PORTFOLIO MANAGER of the sort we're talking about here. There is a "SIMULATOR" game, where you compete against a billion faceless other people in the market, choosing stocks and funds. I suppose someone could choose to use the Simulator for REAL, instead?
I still plan to use the "New and Improved" version (LOL) because the premium version is provided for free to me via TRP, because I have X amount of money invested with TRP. But I'd love to find something simpler, less aggravating and just plain handy. This current nonsense has the look and feel of a cluster-fuck. AGAIN.

Hi @Diane I bought a small amount of PQTAX earlier this year and have been pleased that it has reduced volatility. I have also considered AMFAX. For someone who likes ETFs, they may want to consider the iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (DBMF).
While these funds don't do well during bull markets they have done well during the 2020 bear market and this year.

Bears are at 58.3%, three SDs above average but 1% lower than the worse reading for the year on April 28, 2020 when the S&P 500 (4,280) was nearly 18% above the current level. Does not appear we are near the bottom.

Personal Capital is a good (free) choice, which I use for periodic snapshots of my portfolios.

These guys require a phone number. Wondering if they’ll sell it to advertisers or use it to pester you?

They called me once. Told 'em I wasn't interested and they took me off their call list. No worries. I gat the occasional (very rare) email asking if I'd be interested in their services but I ignore them.
I'm blocking any non-known numbers in my contact list and they've never called me back in well over a year or more.

Personal Capital is a good (free) choice, which I use for periodic snapshots of my portfolios.

These guys require a phone number. Wondering if they’ll sell it to advertisers or use it to pester you?

They'll pester you nonstop, especially if you have a decent amount of capital (they want you to become a fee-paying client). I just blocked them.

Personal Capital is a good (free) choice, which I use for periodic snapshots of my portfolios.

These guys require a phone number. Wondering if they’ll sell it to advertisers or use it to pester you?

Personal Capital is a good (free) choice, which I use for periodic snapshots of my portfolios.

Sorry, but PQTIX lost 1.70% today.
But, PGAGX - PGIM Wadhwani Systematic Absolute Return Fund gained 0.66%! PGAGX, a fairly new fund, is currently on my watch list. Looking for lower volatility funds in this category. So far, so good.
According to the Financial Times, the investment objective of the related UK fund is to seek a positive return on capital while simultaneously attempting to limit the risk of capital loss using a multi-faceted risk management. PGAGX intends to achieve its investment objective through investment in financial markets globally, gaining exposure through the use of financial derivative instruments to currencies (through forward foreign exchange contracts), fixed income securities (through bond futures) and equity securities (through equity index futures and equity index swaps) or by investing directly in equities.
Per M*, the manager, Dr. Sushil Wadhwani, CBE, is the Chief Investment Officer for QMAW, originally founded as Wadhwani Asset Management in October 2002. Prior to joining QMA, Sushil served as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wadhwani Asset Management. He was formerly a full-time member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England from 1999 to 2002. Prior to this, his roles included director of research, head of systems trading and partner at the Tudor Group, and director of equity strategy at Goldman Sachs International Ltd, and as an academic economist at the London School of Economics. He has over 25 years of quantitative modelling experience and runs a high calibre team of quantitative and qualitative research analysts...
Fred

@msf: my memory might be faulty, but I recall that the problem was that the investor kept his own records, not his brokerage. I also understood that pass-through dividends issued by the MLP, which, are not taxed, require an adjustment of the basis as though they were a return of capital. In any event, I have always avoided such investments.

@ron. Someone else explained it to me this way:
I'm in ET, a similar midstream MLP. The K-1 is required, but don't ask me why. Too complicated for me. Anyhow, I'll just let my tax guy deal with it. My tax returns are very simple, otherwise. ...
.....So, the other fellow responded to my questions, offering this response. I'm paraphrasing from memory: in the case of such a LP (Limited Partnership,) when dividends are paid, it is a return of your own capital. And it is un-taxed. If you ever receive enough dividends to make-up for your own cost, then those dividends would be taxable. But will you ever get there? Since the profit is untaxed as long as you own it, he plans simply never to sell it. Let the heirs worry about the rest..... That's far from a thorough answer, but he told me enough so that I was able to make an informed decision. And you might check out ET, too, along with EPD.

It is doing exceptionally well, but pay attention to the returns for each calendar year from 2015 to 2019: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/pqtix/quote This fund does well when managed futures funds do well and they usually need definitive trends in capital markets to do so. They hop on the trend up or down and ride it like a surfer. A small allocation can make sense, but probably not too much.

Tar, no problem -- You are fine with the predicament we are in. We can agree to disagree. Enjoy filling up the gas tank, and giving Putin more leverage, not by anyone's intent, but definitely by effect, by burnishing ESG credentials. Since oil production is still needed, we can either produce here -- where environmental standards can be enforced -- or to our 'friends' in the Persian Gulf, and Russia.
I've no problem holding others accountable --- You mentioned CEOs" Sure, agreed. Both parties spent the past 40 years allowing CEOs to offshore US jobs to our strategic competitor. -- The 1st guy to fight it was... Trump. Once upon a time, the US produced the vast majority of chips used in the domestic economy. -- The supply chain mishaps would largely have been avoided if we still produced what we use/need. Why are the feed stocks for most of the pharmaceuticals we consume sourced from China? And the rare earth minerals in our electronics? -- Heck the rapid spread of the virus itself was accelerated because the economy is so very globalized..
In fact, back to the whole "Global warming" issue, if GW is so important, why have the GW advocates not insisted we build locally -- to reduce greenhouse gases from these round-the-world supply chains? -- Their silence on that is astounding -- if they are sincere..
As for 'holding Trump accountable' -- well Trump holds no office, and was fired in 2020, so holding someone accountable who has no current official powers, may be emotionally satisfying, but really, what is the point?
The point of holding public officials accountable is not to do a "gotcha". Its to remove incompetents (or those who do not operate in the public interest) from positions of power, and discourage wrong-headed decisions by the next guys who take over.
Thus endeth Civics 101 class for today.

There isn't much AUM at launch and PGIM hasn't seeded it with its own capital, so the ERs look huge but are capped. I have seen high but capped ERs at launches but not this high.
Alternative ways to launch funds are 1) use seed capital from the firm that is withdrawn a few years later, 2) lineup some institutional buyers/sponsors ahead, or launch a fund on institutional request(s) but open it to others, 3) use the weird subscription process of several weeks that Vanguard uses where the money collected just sits in m-mkt funds until deployed (I don't understand who these foolish investors are who fall for this).
PGAEX Prospectus from PGIM Site https://prospectus-express.broadridge.com/PNET/summary.asp?clientid=pi&fundid=74440K512&doctype=pros

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1547576/000182912622013161/kraneshares_497.htm
497 1 kraneshares_497.htm 497
KRANE SHARES TRUST
Krane-UBS China A Share Fund (the “Fund”)
Supplement dated June 8, 2022 to the currently effective Statutory Prospectus and Statement of
Additional Information, as each may be supplemented, for the Fund
This supplement provides new and additional information beyond that contained in the currently effective Statutory Prospectus and the Statement of Additional Information for the Fund and should be read in conjunction with the Statutory Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated August 1, 2021.
The Board of Trustees of KraneShares Trust (the “Trust”) has approved the liquidation of Krane-UBS China A Share Fund (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust. Accordingly, the Fund will cease its investment operations, liquidate its assets and make a liquidating distribution, if applicable, to shareholders of record.
The date of liquidation for the Fund currently is anticipated to be on or about June 13, 2022 (the “Liquidation Date”). Shareholders of the Fund may continue to redeem their Fund shares through the Liquidation Date. As of the close of business on June 8, 2022, the Fund will not accept orders to purchase Fund shares from new investors or existing shareholders (including purchases through dividend reinvestments). In connection with the liquidation, the Fund will depart from its stated goals, strategies and techniques as the Fund begins to convert all portfolio securities to cash or cash equivalents in preparation for the final distribution to shareholders.
Shareholders who elect to redeem their Fund shares prior to the completion of the liquidation will be redeemed in the ordinary course at the Fund’s net asset value per share. Each shareholder who remains in the Fund will receive a liquidating cash distribution, to be mailed to their address of record, equal to the aggregate net asset value of the Fund shares that such shareholder holds at the time of the liquidation.
The liquidation of the Fund will result in one or more taxable events for shareholders that are subject to federal income tax. In connection with the liquidation, the Fund may declare taxable distributions of its previously undistributed net investment income and net capital gain, if any, in advance of its normal annual distribution schedule. All liquidation proceeds paid to shareholders will generally be treated as received by them in exchange for their Fund shares and will therefore generally give rise to a capital gain or loss, again depending on their respective tax basis in their shares.
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.

@davidmoran is doing fine.
There are several discussion threads on CAPE and DE_SX dating back to the market collapse in March of 2020. More than one board member became disenchanted with the DoubleLine versions because the « special bond sauce » proved to exacerbate rather than protect against losses. These days, with the apparent surrender of the symbol CAPE, the strategy pursued by CAPD, the ETN, strikes me as a « purer » application of the Schiller theory, at least because it is an equity allocation, untainted by bond holdings. Were I to buy into the CAPE strategy again, it would certainly be via CAPD.
I’m not sure who on MFO was first to buy DE_SX, but it could have been @davidmoran.

Found this at Alight Financial Services:
https://www.alightfinancialsolutions.com/pdf/Final_Fund_Listing_Jan-2020.pdf?ts=274

In terms of risk, we may be talking about two different things. You're looking at short term predictions (early 2020 presaging March events) as exemplified by this IBM commercial. It dramatizes how Watson could predict that an elevator might fail without maintenance.

Morningstar is talking about intrinsic risk in portfolios, which might, I suppose, be analogized to two different elevators, one built with reliable parts and one with third rate reconditioned parts. Or two different portfolios, one built with bonds (BND) and one built with stocks (VTI).
Certainly a higher sampling frequency would facilitate the detection of short duration events. Worth doing. Standard deviation can be used in identifying changed conditions (see, e.g. Westinghouse Rules, aka WeCo Rules) so long as the sampling rate is high enough. That's different from asking whether volatility (taken over years at any sampling frequency) is a good measure of risk.
https://ats-help.com/ATS_Inspect_6_3/Variable_Data_Collect/WECO_Rules.htm

What is negative with EPD? Something to do with the fund?

- EPD the stock is a limited partnership with energy holdings and it is positive for the year.
- Since your question refers to “fund”, most likely you mean EPDIX, the mutual fund, which invests in European dividend paying stocks …
The second is up about 8% this year, but fell about 1% Friday. Since the fund owns dividend paying stocks a 1% drop for one day is entirely normal. Unlike income paying bonds, or mixed allocation funds, dividend paying stocks are normally riskier and more volatile.
@ron - Members are here to help you if you need some direction. It all depends on your age, purpose in investing and your willingness / ability to accept potential losses over shorter periods in pursuit of potentially greater longer term gains.

"Circularity" here arises from complaining about something that may be a result of one's own doing. So, M* is complaining about a blunt tool (MPT based on MONTHLY data) of its own design not being able to detect what happens(ed) over days or weeks.
May be a term other than "circularity" can be used - English or statistics professors here? But in engineering, this is very clear - a sampling at intervals of T or more cannot detect events at intervals of less than T. Basic sampling theory.
I did look at events of early-2020 using DAILY volatilities. I found that one had an advance warning of several days, may be a couple of weeks. Whether one could/did act on that is another matter. But some institutional programs based on VaR (value-at-risk), itself controversial, may have auto-triggered.
Anyway, it would be better if the fund industry moved to MPT stats based on weekly or daily data rather than monthly data. That was my main point, and it is a suggestion that I have made to M* several times. I am sure that such proprietary or subscription tools exist now, but I can only afford freebies (-:).