@Sven
For me, the key was to buy solid dividend growers in a down market. It takes patience though. These end up being "accidental high yielders" in the 4-6% range who also who also have a history of increasing their dividends. If we're talking individual stocks, banks are good targets, select pharma companies, the occasional tech company (like Broadcom in 2020), insurance companies.
4-5% short term bonds makes it easy to be patient.

I don't usually post comments regarding The Week in Charts.
Since the first half of the year has been "crazy", I'll make an exception today.
What will the second half of the year bring for investors?
Fourth worst S&P 500 performance through first 66 trading days (-15.3%) of 2025.
Followed by tenth biggest 12-week S&P 500 total return (22.0%) from 1989-2025.
Biggest 12-week $VIX decline (-64.0%) from 1990-2025.
Frankly, I wasn't expecting this type of market behavior!
Why is the market pricing in three Fed rate cuts in 2025?
1) Stocks: all-time highs
2) Home Prices: all-time highs
3) Bitcoin: all-time highs
4) Money Supply: all-time highs
5) National Debt: all-time highs
6) CPI: averaging 4% per year since 2020—double the Fed's "target"
We'll get the non-farm payroll report this week but this isn't the jobs indicator to watch (subject to massive revisions). Better jobs indicator is 4-Week Moving Average of Continued Claims for Unemployment Insurance.
Existing single family home inventory is at the highest level since June 2020.
New single family homes for sale are at their highest levels since November 2007.
Sellers outnumber buyers by nearly 500,000.
Perhaps this is an inflection point which will lead to a lower pace of home price appreciation?
Of course, affordability is still a major problem.
Home price inflation has far outpaced wage increases for many years.

"According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total cost to own and operate an automobile averaged a frightening $12,296 in 2024, roughly 30% higher than a decade ago."
The main reason is the fastest inflation in decades we had under the previous administration. See 2020 to 2023 chart https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SETA01

Talking about automobiles, I see that you are still racing Yugo's as the stock market hit an all-time high.

"According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total cost to own and operate an automobile averaged a frightening $12,296 in 2024, roughly 30% higher than a decade ago."
The main reason is the fastest inflation in decades we had under the previous administration. See 2020 to 2023 chart https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SETA01

Nearly a dozen ETFs boasted yields of at least 100% this week.
Most of these funds trade option contracts on a single stock to generate high income.
Much of this "yield" is often return of capital.
“'The higher the yield you’re generating, the higher the risk you’re taking with the principal,'
says Will Rhind, chief executive of GraniteShares, which offers several option-income funds.
'Can you get a 150% annualized yield with no downside?
There’s no free lunch in this world.'”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/these-funds-are-yield-magicians-how-do-they-do-it/ar-AA1Hy1HC

Top Executives
Name			Title					Since	Until
David R. Giroux		Vice President				2006	Now
Jeffrey W. Arricale	Deputy Director				2006	2007
Stephen W. Boesel	Managing Director and portfolio manager	2001	2006
Richard P. Howard	Senior Vice President			1989	2001
Richard H. Fontaine	Vice President, Portfolio Manager	1986	1989

https://www.investing.com/funds/t.-rowe-price-capital-appreciation-company-profile

A superstar at the helm of T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation fund in the late 1980's, Mr. Fontaine anticipated the 1987 market crash and bought aggressively afterward, delivering average annual returns of nearly 40 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/19/business/mutual-funds-a-bear-on-stocks-who-s-outrunning-the-bulls.html
Side note: T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation commenced operations on June 30, 1986. It was legally created as T. Rowe Price Capital Advantage Fund on May 9, 1986 and changed to its current name on June 29, 1986.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/0000793347-94-000004.txt

It's interesting to google the names on the list. Boesel seems like the stereotype of a T. Rowe Price guy. Howard is quite a character. Haven't made it to Fontaine yet.
Giroux seems like more of the Boesel type.

Wow, when I linked mine it was a few clicks, enter routing number, account number, maybe one or two other steps and done. Although that was back in 2020.

That is why I migrated to index funds over time to minimize capital gains. Still have dividends to pay, but that is okay.
New manager(s) likes to change more than few stock holdings and capital gains are passed on. We left Mutual Discovery when Michael Price sold the company to Franklin Templeton.

I did similarly with shares of Mutual Shares when Max Heine died. Heine founded the firm and mentored Michael Price. Max Heine was an outstanding investor. Sold my Mutual Qualified shares when Price sold the firm to Templeton.

@hank @larryB
You're correct. But I suppose I'm (still) in a rare situation, owing no 1040 federal tax, nor cap gains or tax on divs--- year after year. Collecting the divs gives me some freedom as to where to redeploy the "free money." Total return is indeed the goal. With my mutual funds in the T-IRA, those divs get auto-reinvested. :)
https://client.schwab.com/app/learn/#/story/3-retirement-income-mistakes-to-avoid
Vid:
https://client.schwab.com/app/learn/#/story/how-to-evaluate-dividend-stocks

Doesn’t the NAV drop just prior to the dividend being paid out and by equal amount? So it shouldn’t make any difference whether your long term gains come from price appreciation, dividend payouts or some combination. In a taxable account you’re likely better off paying long term cap gains tax on price appreciation rather than being taxed on income.
Total return over time is what we care about - not what mechanism led to that return. True, stocks that pay high dividends tend to hold up better in bad markets and so may be more desirable inside a portfolio in for providing stability. However, like other equity sectors dividend payers are subject to market cycles. They are not exempt from periods of overvaluation.
The foreign tax? That’s been discussed in the past. When you hold the foreign stock in your U.S. domiciled account you see the tax being taken from your account. You still pay the tax when that stock is held inside a fund. You simply tend not to notice it then. Really no difference.

I learned the hard way with Mutual Discovery that if you hold a great fund for a long time in a taxable account, when the manger changes you can get hit pretty bad, either with lousy performance or taxes. For that reason I am reluctant to build huge positions in these types of funds in taxable accounts.

Me too. I am a long time holder of Vanguard Dividend Growth and Vanguard Health Care in my taxable account. So far, VDIGX is not the same fund as when Don Kilbride managed it and VGHAX is certainly not the same fund as when Ed Owens managed it. And, both throw off considerable distributions which I would rather not have in my taxable account. I would love to trade VDIGX for VDADX and VGHAX for VTSAX, but I do not want to pay the capital gains.

At first blush it looks like it's better not to contribute to a deductible IRA, but rather to keep retirement savings in a taxable account. It seems better to pay the lower cap gains tax on the taxable account than the higher ordinary income tax on T-IRA withdrawals. But because initial contributions are deductible, the arithmetic doesn't work out that way.
Disregarding T-IRAs, one could use Roths. Contributing to Roths instead of keeping one's retirement savings in taxable accounts seems like an obvious win. Income in Roths is taxed at 0%; income in taxable accounts is taxed at 15% or more.
That is, unless one qualifies for 0% tax on cap gains. One way to do that is to have relatively low taxable income to take advantage of the 0% cap gains tax bracket. Another is to never sell but to bequeath appreciated assets to heirs.

Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders' recent article asks the question:
"Complation"…Is there too much complacency regarding inflation?
"The rub is that much of the economic data outside of direct inflation readings suggest higher inflation ahead. Both key purchasing managers indexes (PMIs)—the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and S&P Global—show that output prices have jumped to levels akin to the early part of the pandemic. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey is also showing that a higher-than-average number of small businesses are raising prices, or plan to. Many high-profile larger companies have announced price increases as well—including Walmart, Macy's, Proctor & Gamble, Ford, Subaru, Volvo, Volkswagen, Mitsubishi, Mattel, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, Stanley Black & Decker, Best Buy, Microsoft, and Nintendo."
"What's also notable is the still-wide gap between the discretionary ("wants") and non-discretionary ("needs") components of the CPI. As shown below, although there has been some convergence between the two, needs' prices are running at about twice the level of wants' prices; disproportionately hurting lower-income consumers."
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/whats-going-onwith-inflation

I wonder how many companies are opting to slowly boil that frog, by quietly and incrementally raising prices, without actually saying anything. To draw no attention to themselves.
Cherry-picked stats by the OP are not to be taken seriously. Best to be used as a springboard to highlight the total inanity of the circumstances. And an opportunity to set the record straight. A chart of the S&P for the past 2 1/2 years tells an interesting story. 25% back-to-back gains until a wall was hit. That wall was Trump's policies. as soon as he backed off, the market responded positively, still only up 3-4% YTD, instead of 10-15% the trend was implying we should have.
The market wants to surge and he won't let it. He wants loose FED policy, tantamount to stimulus, to cover for his trade/tariff failures. If his policies were working, they would not need artificial help. Mr Market would be running with it.
There is zero historical evidence that even aggressive FED policy calms inflation in months. What we are witnessing is the results of more than two years of FED policy decisions. And someone trying to steal credit for that, while attacking the architect. Biden had two years of the highest FED fund rates in decades and wasn't whining about the hand he was dealt. Instead we had +50% cumulative S&P gains.
The only thing different, and holding the market back, is current trade policy and all the underlying chaos in the disjointed messaging. This guy was handed a roaring economy and is squandering it. Many of the business leaders who supported him are now distancing themselves and hoping for relief.

Even in this day and age, I'd like to think that James R. Schlesinger was right when he paraphrased Bernard Baruch as: “Everybody is entitled to his own views. Everybody is not entitled to his own facts.”
And that's my opinion :-)
How does the IRS know that the checks you wrote out of your IRA were actually charitable contributions? If you're not concerned about the IRS ever checking (pun not intended) except in a "deep audit", why hold onto receipts?
(N.B. cancelled checks are not sufficient evidence of a QCD payment, esp. since 100% of a QCD must be an eligible contribution; no benefits received. Which is why QCDs cannot be used for MFO membership.)
I've gotten my share of letters from the IRS over the years CP2000s and others. With only one exception I can think of, they've all been because of IRS mistakes. No matter. You never know what will trigger an inquiry from the IRS.
One time (back when returns were submitted by mail) the IRS lost my Schedule B. Which was interesting because they had my Schedule A that was on the flip side of the page.
 
I'd guess (i.e. IMHO) the chances are virtually certain that the IRS will penalize you if it discovers that you made an excess contribution as Yogi explained. My own experience with a penalty was when, due to my error, I accidentally underpaid my taxes due and was assessed an interest penalty.
The IRS was sympathetic to the fact that I'd paid in much more estimates than was owed and even left the refund money with them as an estimate for next year. But because that money was now in a different IRS pocket, the IRS refused to waive the interest penalty.
Personally, I have issues with the idea that if one won't get penalized, breaking the law is okay. Right now where I live, we have a new regulation that says we must place compostable waste in a separate bin for collection. But the city is waiving penalties this year. IMHO that is not a license to mix compostables with other trash (regardless of whether one considers it wrong for environmental or legal reasons).

Don't feel bad.
The following commentary is from Jeff DeMaso's IVA Weekly Brief published June 25.
"I’m repeating myself here—but it bears repeating: you can’t profitably trade the headlines."
"If you were trying to profit from trading energy stocks in June, you needed to act before the headlines.
You had to buy before the U.S State Department withdrew personnel from the region or Israel launched
its first missile at Tehran. And you had to sell last Friday, anticipating that U.S. bunker-buster strikes
on Iran’s uranium enrichment sites would lead to de-escalation."
"In fact, if you bought Energy Index after the missiles started flying, you’ve actually lost money on the trade! Making that trade even more painful: Total Stock Market Index is up 2.1% since Israel’s first strike."
"Of course, the conflict isn’t over, and the energy stocks could deliver gains from here.
But this is just another case study in how hard—nearly impossible—it is to trade the headlines and come out ahead."
https://www.independentvanguardadviser.com/weekly-brief-from-middle-east-tensions-to-vanguards-big-reorg

for those in risk off/wealth preservation mode, mkt indicators seem peaking.
thus, am trimming gains+losses in equity where i can, limits are getting bids.
found an unusual amount of agreement from various macro sources. (stonex, zeihan, jpm, poskar, klement,ferguson)
convergence of events june-july :
- as q2 positive earnings reported, look for unusual amount of weak\no earnings forecasts for q3 period
- capex going below trend, but ignore overcapacity signal from buildouts maturing
- trump tariff baseline at 10% is still quadruple of 2024. ~50% sentiment that trump will not taco >10% for most, china remains highest.
- first sign of shelf shortages during china shipping pause in spring
- expected senate vote on budget bill adding $3t debt
(again, oil shock and war cost excluded)
at least 2 sources indicated ~15% mkt decline would be select buying opportunity. meh.

That is why I migrated to index funds over time to minimize capital gains. Still have dividends to pay, but that is okay.
New manager(s) likes to change more than few stock holdings and capital gains are passed on. We left Mutual Discovery when Michael Price sold the company to Franklin Templeton.

Equities may well be in a bull market, but TACO boy cannot stay out of his own way. He is the major risk to the health of this bull. Markets should persevere, or so we hope. They have shown much resiliency this year in eeking out gains.
I'll maintain some allocation to gold for the next 3 years regardless of price.
Most interesting will be how our credibility takes a hit once Powell is no longer the Fed Chairman, and it's just some lackey cutting rates at TACO's discretion. Something to look forward to.

Top Executives
Name			Title					Since	Until
David R. Giroux		Vice President				2006	Now
Jeffrey W. Arricale	Deputy Director				2006	2007
Stephen W. Boesel	Managing Director and portfolio manager	2001	2006
Richard P. Howard	Senior Vice President			1989	2001
Richard H. Fontaine	Vice President, Portfolio Manager	1986	1989

https://www.investing.com/funds/t.-rowe-price-capital-appreciation-company-profile

A superstar at the helm of T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation fund in the late 1980's, Mr. Fontaine anticipated the 1987 market crash and bought aggressively afterward, delivering average annual returns of nearly 40 percent.

https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/19/business/mutual-funds-a-bear-on-stocks-who-s-outrunning-the-bulls.html
Side note: T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation commenced operations on June 30, 1986. It was legally created as T. Rowe Price Capital Advantage Fund on May 9, 1986 and changed to its current name on June 29, 1986.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793347/0000793347-94-000004.txt

"The Fund’s positive return streak and investment approach has been sustained over the years
by several managers. Prior to Messrs. Arricale and Giroux, who became co-managers in July 2006,
the Fund was managed by Stephen Boesel from August 2001 to June 2006
and by Rich Howard from January 1989 to July 2001."
I don't know who managed PRWCX from June 30, 1986 through December 1988.
https://investors.troweprice.com/news-releases/news-release-details/t-rowe-price-capital-appreciation-fund-extends-unmatched