The SEC’s issue wasn’t so much with interfering with the fund’s operation (buying / selling) as with the fact that outsized “gains” were going out the door into the pockets of the slick operators. (Hence the term “skimming). Say an ETF investing in mining companies (highly volatile) jumps in price by 10% on a given day. I’ve been tracking the holdings or an index of mining companies and I sell 100% of my holdings at 3:59 PM. Two days later, the ETF drops by 15%. I reinvest my outsized gains, buying an additional 15% more shares in the ETF than what I had 2 days prior. Now, tell me harm wasn’t done to those who sat tight and didn’t sell at the high and buy in at the low. If I do this over and over again, often enough, those who sit tight will bleed (financially).
And, this would appear more serious in an actively managed ETF.

SFHYX has been referred to in other threads. Here is the website -- https://www.hundredfoldselect.com/ Below has been lifted from the site
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Managing alternative strategies, seeking steady returns and controlling risk
The Hundredfold Select Alternative Fund is actively managed to anticipate and respond to trends in differing types of fixed income and equity securities. It seeks steady returns, principal protection and low correlation to the overall markets while providing daily liquidity.
Portfolio construction begins with a basket of high-yield fixed income securities managed for steady returns and limited volatility. These securities are complemented with alternative strategies including a variety of short-term equity trading strategies, investments in long/short, absolute, or merger strategies, and the ability to move into cash depending on market conditions.
Objective
The Hundredfold Select Alternative Fund is an alternative mutual fund investment that seeks a moderate total rate of return (income plus capital appreciation) annually.
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Classified as a Long/Short fund by Lipper so same family as JHEQX. Very actively managed and positions can change quite dramatically MoM. ER is high but the risk adjusted returns have been great and the manager(Doudera) is a veteran(in the industry since 1973). Doudera also manages SVARX(income fund) which also has great metrics

Hi @stayCalm. I've personally never heard of SPD, but there was a lot of talk in other threads about JHQAX with it's "puts" hedging format. I own it and an unscientific observation (just me with a calculator on equity up days and down days) is it typically capture's ~60% of the S&P gains and about 40% of the losses. Much tamer than SPD when compared on a chart. JHQAX is closed but JHDAX and JHTAX are similarly structured.
Just a thought if the purpose is to hedge loss in a correction.

Two years ago: I don't know where at this forum, but I too, noted Covid on Jan. 21, 2020. I still have pics in my phone from the John Hopkins site when they began posting global Covid data. Anyway, you may choose to read some of the posts in this thread.
NOTE: the MFO link below contains 3 sections. The link goes to page 3, and I can't adjust this fact. Click the number 1 (1,2,3; just to the top right of the text area ) to go to the beginning of the post.
From the original post:

I wrote on Jan. 21:
As to a "black swan" or what could also be named as an excuse to take some profits by the big market players; IS IF.......and likely a much to do about nothing, is the monitoring of the corona virus in China and other countries in the area.
If this virus were to become very wide spread and deadly; well, who knows, eh?
Market reports (of course) are already headlining that this virus could trigger a markets sell-off.
I can not disagree that if a global problem with any virus became serious enough; markets would be affected.
Of concern to the CDC, WHO and other health organizations at this time, is the beginning of the lunar new year period; which always involves escalated travel volumes by millions of Chinese, both domestic and foreign travel.

MFO February 2020
Remain curious,
Catch

@BenWP- well, there's been a lot of that, for sure. Probably some buying early in the day as things start to struggle up, then taking any gains and cashing out later on. Arbitrage, I suppose.

Hi Puddnhead,
Ya want me to get naked in front of everyone with my portfolio, eh? :)
A few notes: At this time, all of our market holdings are either T-IRA or Roth accounts, so any position changes do not involve taxation considerations. We generally do not hold more that 5 investments at any given time, with 10 being a maximum; as beyond this number tends to not have a meaningful impact (positive or negative) upon a portfolio. An EXCEPTION would be: if one wants 25% of a portfolio to be in health related; and can find 3-5 funds/etf's that don't have a lot of overlap; this would be okay.
Our house continues to favor health and technology. FSMEX, IMHO; is a fund that favors both of these areas. FSPHX, FHLC and similar funds are more broad based health funds. Although the ARK funds, ARKK in particular; has a lot of rocky performance and bad press at this time; the ARKG etf has become fairly inexpensive at this time and travels into another favorable long term area (IMHO) of medicine/health/tech. (genomics and related). Some of these companies will fail, but others will prosper and/or become the targets of M&A.
Generally, one can expect decent distributions (div's, cap gains) from the healthcare area. So, a bonus, eh?
AND YES, health care funds have taken a hit with much else, for 2022.
Now: We no longer have FSPHX, which was replaced several years ago with FHLC.
FHLC is 21% of the total portfolio
FSMEX is 15% of the total portfolio
You mentioned a poor year....2021....for health. I'm okay with the 2021 total returns shown in the below chart.
CHART of FSPHX, FSMEX and FHLC (Fido health etf) for 2021.
I've sure as heck forgotten something to jabber about, for this post.
Remain curious,
Catch

I would rather use ETFs unleveraged such as SH as you can set stop losses so don't loose your shirt.
while it doesn't make sense to use them in Retirement account as there are no capital gains, in a taxable account they can protect you from generating sig taxes.
Of course, Mommie Vanguard will not let you use inverse ETFs

Jason Zweig, WSJ
THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR
"What the Hell, It Is Going Up Anyway"
"My column last weekend, How a Flood of Money Swamped Cathie Wood's ARK, looked at how the billions that poured into the ARK funds might have impaired their returns.
That's an old story, of course. Money has always chased past performance.
Imagine a $100 million fund. It puts $5 million, or 5% of its assets, into a stock that has a total market value of $100 million. If it doubles, the fund gains 10%.
Now say the fund has grown to $10 billion. If it puts $5 million into a stock, that’s only 0.05% of the fund’s assets. Such a teeny holding will have to go up 200-fold to contribute 10% to your return. If the manager wants to make a big bet, it takes $500 million now to put 5% of the fund into one stock -- larger than the entire market value of many smaller companies.
You aren't the same person now as when you were a little kid. Why would you expect a fund to be?
Yet all too many people do. No wonder they buy high and sell low: They are extrapolating an unsustainable past."
So Cathie Woods bought into Tesla and the stock went ballistic putting ARKK on an unsustainable trajectory. So I know, lets attack her credibility, her investing acumen and methods, her personal beliefs, whatever we can think of including shorting her fund. We do that with all the fund managers when we lose our ass chasing performance don't we? It's good to be king. Wasn't ever our own personal faults or bad investing decisions. Too bad you can't close an ETF like you can a mutual fund. At least I don't think you can.

T. Rowe Price was the second largest holder of DKNG as of the end of September (behind Vanguard) https://www.holdingschannel.com/institutional/holders-of-dkng/
-
Interesting snippet on Wood’s troubles https://seekingalpha.com/news/3788991-cathie-woods-arkk-closes-at-an-18-month-low-as-all-its-holdings-end-negatively
“Cathie Wood's troubles continue as ARKK experienced its most significant one day of capital outflows in 10-months last week, totaling $352M.”

It wouldn't surprise me if many of the investors who recently exited ARKK got in near the top.
Those investors would not have profited from the fund's spectacular 2017 or 2020 gains.

T. Rowe Price was the second largest holder of DKNG as of the end of September (behind Vanguard) https://www.holdingschannel.com/institutional/holders-of-dkng/
-
Interesting snippet on Wood’s troubles https://seekingalpha.com/news/3788991-cathie-woods-arkk-closes-at-an-18-month-low-as-all-its-holdings-end-negatively
“Cathie Wood's troubles continue as ARKK experienced its most significant one day of capital outflows in 10-months last week, totaling $352M.”

For those waiting on better valuations to buy Equities, at what point would you be a serious Buyer? Do you have a specific plan in place?
What about Bonds (yeah, what about Bonds) - are any type/class of bonds worth holding in 2022?
Current S&P 500 PE Ratio: 25.85
Mean: 15.96
Median: 14.88

If you are on the sidelines congrats. Don’t see much fear in this market just everyone wanting to buy the dips. A lot of complacency. I guess that is what the past twelve years have conditioned investors to do. Should we actually get something more than a garden variety correction ala late 2018 and February/March 2020 would use a Zweig momentum buy signal to get back in. Worked like a charm after those two brief sell offs as well as the longer bear of 2008.
As for bonds the scary consensus is buy floating rate/bank loan funds as they are the place to be during periods of rising short term rates. Can’t argue with that ( and I have an allocation there) other than it seems a bit too pat and overwhelmingly embraced. If you get a really bad bear market in stocks/junk bonds, the floating rate/bank loan category will not protect you,

You are right about the institutional nature of the rules as they are the main investors for prime funds today. Part of this retail/institutional distinction has to do with brokers converting retail clients prime fund accounts into government fund or FDIC style cash accounts, so there is just less retail money in prime funds. Part of it has to do with retail investors having little interest in prime funds now because the yields on them are virtually nil. Part of the regulators view also is that retail investors don't trade these accounts as much as institutional ones, that during the March 2020 crisis they largely stayed put while it was institutions rushing for the exits--whether that institutional rush was caused by the previous rules remains debated--but it is true that retail investors tend to have more inertia. So, ironically, the regulators are worried about retail less from a liquidity perspective. The retail investor generally is not trying to game a few basis points of NAV or yield in an arbitrage by being the first one out. The technical details you mention I came across but space is limited in these articles and the goal is to try to make complex subjects understandable.

This is a fascinating and lengthy look at the markets past and present. I highly encourage folks to obtain and read the full text. While I quote a few lines from different participants, realize each had a unique point of view. And, sometimes those viewpoints diverged sharply.
Participants:
Todd Ahlsten - Parnassus
Rupal Bhansali - Ariel
Scott Black - Delphi
Abby Cohen - Columbia Univ.
Sonal Desai - Franklin Templeton
Henry Ellenbogen - Durable Capital
Mario Gabelli - Gamco
David Giroux - T. Rowe Price
William Priest - Epoch
Meryl Witmer - Eagle
Quotable Quotes:
Cohen: “Unlike in recent years past, we will see that diversification, stock selection, and risk control matter.” She terms 2022 “the revenge of the nerds”.
Bhansali: “My (year-end) forecast implies a double-digit decline in U.S. markets (S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100) …”
Giroux: “The asset class today with the most attractive risk/reward profile is leveraged loans. I’ve taken leveraged loans to 12% of my portfolio …”
Giroux: “I would make a bet that the 10-year doesn’t get above 2.5% in the next year.”
Witmer: “What has been noticeable in the past year is extreme volatility in individual stocks.”
Witmer: “If the music stops and crypto tanks, there could be a contagion into the stock market. It could set up a good buying opportunity.”
Black: “The NTF craze in the art market is reaching the heights of delirium.”
Black: “I would avoid fixed income like the plague.”
Desai: “With TIPS, you end up taking on duration risk. If there is a selloff in Treasuries, TIPS won’t deliver …”
Priest: “There is also an existential political risk to the market around the question, ‘Does market efficiency require a democracy in order to operate optimally?’ “
Some of the funds mentioned favorably by various panelists at different points in the interview:
GLFOX, PAVE, EAPCX, SRLN, FRIAX, FEIFX, MPACX, CPREX (closed end)
From Barrons - January 17, 2022

These 5 funds make up 5% of the total portfolio. They all at one point had greatly appreciated in value in the past year, but in the last 6 weeks have moved down significantly. Overall I am up in value from the initial investment, but down considerably from the high points. So the question is "Hold On or Move On?" Hold on meaning are they likely to appreciate in the next year and stay with them or Move on meaning to put the present value into allocation funds where 95% of the portfolio is invested and be happy that I did not lose any of the initial investment?
MGGPX Morgan Stanley Global Opportunities Negative return
BGAFX Baron Global Advantage Fund Positive return
ARTYX Artisan Developing World Fund Negative return
MIOPX Morgan Stanley Institutional Fund, Inc. International Opportunity Positive return
BCSVX Brown Capital Management International Small Company Fund Positive return

I think that the regulators are worried about the health of the COMMERCIAL PAPER market that companies rely on heavily. Dependence on commercial paper to fund operations is not a good thing but it is what it is. This market has lost a huge buyer as the money-market funds have mostly shifted to government paper. Only prime m-mkts funds now buy commercial paper and those are now tiny relative to government m-mkt funds.
What is interesting is that the fund industry hated 2014/2016 m-mkt reforms, but now likes those better than the new proposed reforms (swing-pricing instead of redemptions/gates). I suppose that the Fed wants to do SOMETHING because it had to step in to provide some liquidity backstops for m-mkts in 2020, but will it be effective? Or, is it just spinning the wheel? Leave it alone, says the fund industry and its trade association ICI.

Continuing on …
It was a good article in Barron’s (By @LewisBraham) :) as Yogi mentions. The details are rather complex and I don’t understand it as well as @msf (above).
Anyone invested in short duration corporates must have noticed something “spooky” going on starting in mid March 2020. TRUBX, which I owned than, had been conservatively administered by TRP for years. Pegged at $10.00 it rarely budged - just a penny or two on rare occasions. But after the Covid-19 lockdowns & stock market fall began, it lost at least a dime very quickly - probably a bit more than that. And, it stayed down for a number of weeks afterward. A reflection of stress at the short end of the corporate bond ladder.
My take from a cursory reading of the Barron’s piece was that these “reforms” are mainly to reassure (institutional / corporate) investors that delaying or postponing redemptions will not “shut the gate” on them and make it harder to access their money down the road. It was this fear that led many to “rush” the funds and try to get out ahead of everyone else.

“Getting back on track, it's been said that you should not mix your political view with your investing approach. Very likely true but I wonder if we are entering a new era where you have to consider outside factors? Taxes going up, rates going up, more regulation, killing the energy companies required to run a large economy... “
Sure. Consider everything when investing. I do. But no need to voice your every thought / political preferences here. It’s not the first time.
As far as the federal debt goes … both sides share the responsibility. One side likes to cut taxes - especially for people who don’t need it. Another side likes government funded infrastructure and social programs. Both pushed for those stimulus checks. The goal was to get as much money into circulation as possible before the economy froze up due to the pandemic. It’s hard to second guess those emergency measures or to recall the extent to which the economy shut down.
Remember which direction your investments were heading in March 2020 before relief measures from the Fed and the Treasury were announced?

The Smead Value Fund has performed very well in the Large Value category.
It will interesting to see if Smead Capital can produce similar results in the International Value category.
When Smead Capital was headquartered in Seattle, Bill Smead was a regular guest on a local PBS business/finance program (2008 - 2011?).
Mr. Smead was very articulate and his investment philosophy resonated with me.
However, I could not get past Smead Value Fund's high expense ratio so I didn't invest in it.
In retrospect, perhaps I should have taken the plunge?

@LewisBraham has a piece in Barron's on this. My summary (advance preview):
"FUNDS. Post-Financial-Crisis reforms are not working for some MONEY-MARKET FUNDS. GOVERNMENT money-market funds are doing fine (AUM grew to $4.1 trillion). But PRIME money-market funds have shrunk to $831 billion. These invest in commercial paper and CDs, can have redemption fees and/or gates and/or floating NAVs (institutional prime). When issues developed in 2020, these prime money market funds were reluctant to use their available tools and the FED had to step in with some liquidity backstops. So, now, the SEC has proposed new rules that will ditch redemption fees and gates in favor of SWING-PRICING (a form of floating NAV related to redemption level). The fund industry is opposing these new rules (Fido, Federated Hermes, Blackstone, BNY/Mellon, etc)."
https://www.barrons.com/articles/money-market-funds-sec-regulations-51642183815?mod=hp_DAY_9

@Baseball-Fan, First year of pandemic was under Trump and the second year was under Biden. What was the federal budget deficit in the first year and second year. You can pick the deficit by calendar month to come up with the calendar year deficit. Let us talk facts and keep political commentary and hyperbole out. Hyperbole is needed only if trying to market something people do not need.
I did not receive any of the stimulus checks and was happy to see BBB not pass in the form it was being pushed. Unemployed since Feb 2020 and did not receive unemployment checks or any form of assistance either.