Inflation? My starting point, from decent definition: Inflation is a measure of the rate of rising prices of goods and services in an economy. Inflation can occur when prices rise due to increases in production costs, such as raw materials and wages. A surge in demand for products and services can cause inflation as consumers are willing to pay more for the product.
Obviously, there are several common areas that may cause broad inflation. Broad inflation, however; may be impacted more from some select sectors and how these sectors affect an individual household, IMHO. Example: While both personal healthcare needs (insurance, meds, etc.) and technology (computers, smart phones) are of great benefit for a household; their inflation paths likely have a bigger bang for the buck, over time. We have supplemental health insurance through United Health....it's expensive, well; until you need it. So, the offset, to pay for the insurance could be to buy United stock or a healthcare fund that has United stock as part of the portfolio. We may think the insurance cost is way out of line, but if this is the case; then holding the stock/fund should be of benefit and effectively the profit will pay for the premiums over time. As for technology and the consumer side, is that one has been able to upgrade, if desired; the ability of the product.......computers, smart phones, flat screen televisions, etc. If one has been investing in technology over the years, the likely profits have more than paid for the tech. upgrades one desires.
Investing in growth should provide, over time; enough to overcome broad inflation. Though a S&P 500 investment product should provide for growth too, as a reflection of the economy; for us, there remain sectors in the S&P 500 which we do not choose to invest, although this investment offers diversification. There are numerous quality growth funds, etf's or sectors within the growth area, to choose. Healthcare and tech. are ,of course; subject to their own problems with performance over time periods.......as in legislation that may affect profits, etc.; or too expensive and the big money takes profits and runs to another sector. Such, is the nature of all investing, eh?
OPPS, ADD: CPI (gov't. only data) 1971- April 10, 2020 = 537.3% AND Jan., 1999 - April 10, 2020 = 54.5%
NOTE: Our investment portfolio is fully tax deferred (IRA's), so we do not have to be concerned with buys/sells or capital gains when moving our investments. Taxable accounts will have other considerations; although long term investing in growth should not be set aside for this reason, IMHO.
My 2 cents worth.
The below chart is a line graph, for an easier view of returns; click the lime green/red icon at the bottom left of the chart screen for a bar graph. You may return to the line graph when clicking the icon adjacent.
This CHART starts at Jan. 4, 1999 comparing FSPHX, FSPTX and the S&P500.
Take care of you and yours,
Catch

This is an interesting look at what the Fed has been doing in recent weeks.

Creating the Zombie Apocalypse. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is doing an admirable job of playing the action hero in “2012 Zombie Apocalypse,” a 2011 film about a fictional virus, VM2, that causes a global pandemic. He is doing whatever it takes to stop the zombies from killing us by ruining our economy and way of life.

blog.yardeni.com/2020/04/fed-trying-to-contain-zombie-apocalypse.html

YOU have 60 days to return it from date of distribution, I believe I read. Although that may be from CARES implementation.
(Already taken out your 2020 RMD but wish you hadn’t? You might be able to roll over distributions you’ve already taken for 2020, says Slott. If you've already received a distribution from your own IRA or one inherited from a spouse for 2020, you can roll it back into your IRA within 60 days of receipt. ]

A couple of tweaks.
The "classic" 60 day rule is that the clock starts from the date you receive the distribution, not from the date the distribution is made. It can take a few days to receive the check in the mail.
https://www.irahelp.com/slottreport/6-facts-every-ira-owner-should-know-about-60-day-rollover-rule
CARES extended the time from 60 days to three years, and allowed the money to be deposited back into an IRA in pieces. But these modifications apply only to the first $100K withdrawn, and then only if it was withdrawn because of a COVID-19 created need.
The inherited IRA rule is not that you are rolling it back into the inherited IRA. It must be rolled over into an IRA owned by the beneficiary (spouse). As Kitces writes:

(Nerd Note: The lone exception for beneficiaries would be for a spouse who chose to remain a beneficiary of the deceased spouse’s retirement account. In such an instance, they may be eligible to put the RMD back into their own retirement account, as a spousal rollover, using one of the methods described above.)

YOU have 60 days to return it from date of distribution, I believe I read. Although that may be from CARES implementation.
(Already taken out your 2020 RMD but wish you hadn’t? You might be able to roll over distributions you’ve already taken for 2020, says Slott. If you've already received a distribution from your own IRA or one inherited from a spouse for 2020, you can roll it back into your IRA within 60 days of receipt. ]
Derf

My thought was that a QCD is an RMD distribution without tax consequences. Since CARES made RMD's unnecessary in 2020 (after the fact), those who took an early distribution should be able to put it back. We'll see...

By March of 2009, Miller's flagship had drawn down about 80 percent. He only drew down half that 11 years later. How does he get the new capital to take advantage?
Oh, but this, gotta love: He cited economist John Maynard Keynes who once said it was “the duty of every serious investor to suffer grievous losses with great equanimity.”

A couple of big name fund guys are bullish on stock market opportunities...

Miller said only four other times have stocks have been as attractive: In 1973-1974 when the Vietnam War was going on and Richard Nixon had resigned as president; in 1982 after Mexico defaulted on its debt; in 1987 following Black Monday; and in 2008-09 during the last financial crisis. "If you missed the other four great buying opportunities, the fifth one is now front and center," wrote Miller, who is now the chief investment officer and founder of Miller Value Partners in Baltimore.
Justin Thomson, a chief investment officer for T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (NASDAQ: TROW) who oversees international equities, also offered some guidance to help investors thrive.....he sees a buying opportunity...."I should emphasize that truly great companies are rare," Thomson wrote in a white paper. "Opportunities to buy great companies at great prices are even rarer. We are currently at one of those moments."

https://bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2020/04/21/bill-miller-this-is-one-of-the-5-greatest-buying.html?ana=yahoo&yptr=yahoo

I normally take my RMD in the form of QCD's. A month ago, before the CARES Act suspended RMD's for 2020, I sent a QCD to a charity that was in desperate need. The funds came out of a traditional IRA, which of course was greatly devalued since last year. If I'm reading the IRS rules correctly, I have 60 days to rollover an RMD back into the IRA, but it doesn't mention how it treats a QCD. I'd like to replenish the IRA from cash if possible. Any advice?

USAA recently "sold" their Investment division to Charles Schwab for $1.8 Billion. That's $1,800,000,000 in cash. USAA will transfer $90 Billion in assets to Schwab sometime in May 2020. I asked how individual investors (there are 1 million) will benefit from this sale. I am still waiting for that answer. This latest move may not mean anything for the orphan investors who are leaving USAA for Schwab. Doesn't look like individual account holders will receive any of this $1.8B as a "bonus" for this asset transfer.
The 1 million investors seem due some it not all of this windfall.

"...I can say that if you are not a buy and hold forever (Bogle style) then you are not an investor...."
I come here to learn. Reading many of the interchanges between others here and FD1000, it's clear that he/she has an unreasonable need to win all the time. Reminds me of conversations with my nephew. Reminds me of the Orange Abortion in the White House.
....... When I was a younger man and doing comunity organizing, our leader reminded us very early about a Cardinal Rule: if you control the terminology and definitions and can get the ones on the other side of the issue to start believing and using your definitions and terminology, then you've all but WON the issue.
********************************************
I'm not interested in embroidery nor competition in here. You've got info worth sharing? Share it, by all means.

My main point is that you can't make your assumption on others. If an investor meets their goals then it's that simple. I know a guy that sold his company for millions of dollars years ago and wants low volatility and invested over 90% in Munis and it worked great for him over 20 years. Another one retired with a pension + his SS covers his expenses and all his money is in stocks. Another guy uses only CEFs and trade them with good results. They all met their needs, there is no right or wrong answer, the problem is trying to put someone in a box that you don't like.
Over the years I shared my thoughts and actually helped hundreds who contacted me privately. I never tell them to use my style, never, I helped them using their style. This is what many can't grasp.
Example: An older relative retired around 2001-2 and told me he saw several financial advisors and thinks that 1% is too high and he really doesn't trust them while markets got volatile and he wants a stable LT simple portfolio and all his money is at Vanguard. Based on his portfolio, he needed about 3-3.5% yearly withdrawal. I told him he can be in just 35-40% stocks and the rest bonds and to invest in just 2 funds VWIAX+VSCGX. Every 2-3 years this guy calls me and thank me how I saved him so much money and how it works.
I knew VWIAX would be better but I wanted to diversify a bit more. Below are the results(link)

More socialism for the rich without concern for the "moral hazard" of supporting junk bond investors:
https://bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-14/federal-reserve-s-high-yield-etf-buying-defies-explanation
Moral hazards apparently only apply to poor folk getting government benefits or homeowners and students seeking forgiveness for their debt. But hey, junk bond ETF investors and their debt issuers need a lift after issuing credits during the longest bull market in history. If your debt is still rated junk after the longest bull market--not a fallen angel but junk at issuance--what does that say about the quality of the business and why should a government agency be bailing you out? And poor Fed, can only leverage Treasury coverage of these purchases 7 to 1 instead of 10 to 1 for ordinary investment grade corporates.

If you read this, it sounds like the crisis in the bond market was just a blip and now that the Fed’s stepped in everything’s hunky dory: https://google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/business/bonds-fed-rescue-investors.amp.html
Now read this to understand how problematic bond funds can be and have been recently: https://google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/bond-etfs-not-mispricing-mutual-120000952.html

Let's look at a story of 2 International funds. If we look at total return, the growth of $10,000 invested on 1/1/2011, we have these results:
Both funds A and B start with a $10,000 investment on 1/1/2011.
on 12/31/2011, fund A had $8609 / fund B had $9823
on 12/31/2012, fund A had $10124 / fund B had $11608
on 12/31/2013, fund A had $12391 / fund B had $14969
on 12/31/2014, fund A had $11489 / fund B had $15138
on 12/31/2015, fund A had $11459 / fund B had $15625
on 12/31/2016, fund A had $11018 / fund B had $17188
on 12/31/2017, fund A had $13360 / fund B had $19843
on 12/31/2018, fund A had $11876 / fund B had $17966
on 12/31/2019, fund A had $15456 / fund B had $21034
At the end of 9 years of return history, fund B has returned 36% more than fund A.
on 4/1/2020, fund A had $12663 / fund B had $15693
Even after a misstep in the 1st qtr of 2020 (which every manager goes though) Fund B has still returned ~20% more than fund A for long term investors.
Also:
Fund A's managers have been on board for 3 years, fund B management since inception. Fund A's volatility as measured by STD is 13.5, fund A has been less volatile at 11.3.
Fund A has an expense ration of 1.15%, you'll pay less for fund B, 0.9%.
If you are a long term investor, which fund would you have been happier investing if on 1/1/2011? If you are a long term investor, why would you throw out fund B and replace it with find A? Is there a crystal ball that tells you fund A is immune to manager missteps?
of course:
Fund A = CWVGX
Fund B = FMIJX

@FD1000 The problem with this sort of comparison is the past is gone, and there is little evidence for long-term performance persistence of top performing funds in the future: https://advisorperspectives.com/articles/2020/01/23/december-2019-spiva-persistence-scorecard There is evidence for short-term performance persistence, however. The fund that is hot this year may well be hot the next, but the fund that is hot over the past five years most likely won't be over the next five. That's why other criteria besides peformance should also be used, fees being one, valuation of the portfolio, style consistency, manager tenure and risk control. By the time three or five-years of outperformance have occurred the investments the manager made that have proven successful may be tapped out and he/she is due for some underperformance. The question is then is the manager someone investors can tolerate sitting through the underperformance periods after the strong ones. Evidently for some MFO-ers, this is not the case with FMIJX, despite the explanation management provided for the underperformance. This is a fundamental problem with active management. Even if the strategy makes sense and the management knows how to execute it many investors buy and sell at the wrong times, leading to a poor overall investor experience. There are a number of MFO-ers I think therefore who would be better off indexing as they can't take these bouts of underperformance. This is not meant to be a criticism. It is a reality of investing.
Then again, FMIJX marketed itself as a defensive fund that is good at losing less during downturns. In this regard, it has failed at a fundamental objective during this period, although it hasn't in past ones. Therefore, a review is in order and a consideration of management's explanation of the suprising downside in this case. The question becomes, do investors believe management's rationale or not?

So Vanguard Prime Money Market is yielding 0.6. All other "Safer" money markets are yielding even less. This when just a couple of months back Prime was yielding more than what you could get in an FDIC insured MM account with a bank. While Bank MMs have also dropped their interest rates, Mutual MM fund yields have basically collapsed.
All of the above to simply explain I'm looking at selling OTM Puts to generate Income and wanted to know tax treatment. I learnt gains / losses from options are capital gains, all short term unless options are actually held over a year (and even here there are some exceptions). More curious was the fact index/bond/futures options get a more favorable treatment of 60/40 long term/short term tax rates. So now I have one question for those might be doing what I'm about to try, or otherwise use options regularly in their portfolios.
If I sell options on SPY - ETF that invests in the S&P 500 index - will I qualify for the favorable 60/40 tax treatment? I'm thinking not and only institutions that can actually sell options directly on the index may be able to do that. However, thought I would ask.

Several comments
1) FMIJX ranks in M* in its category for YTD and 1-3 years at 92-94 which is at the bottom 6-8%. In the last 5 years it ranked in the top 10% in 3 years but at the bottom 2 years. That should tell you its inconsistency. Up to 2016 it was a much better performer.
2) From their 3/31/2020 outlook "At this early stage, COVID-19 has hurt value investors much more than their growth counterparts. Many sectors and industries in the value camp, such as financials, energy, industrials, travel and hospitality, have been the hardest hit by the virus. Intensifying the market pressure, Saudi Arabia’s unexpected move to open the spigots has crushed the price of oil. Nearly all energy-related companies, including businesses that only have moderate energy exposure, have seen their stocks decline precipitously. Year-to-date, value has underperformed growth by 10.69%, as the MSCI EAFE Value Index has declined 8.20%,"
3) You can switch to CWVGX with better performance + risk. See PV(link)
4) I have been avoiding international for years now. The SP500 gets about 40% of its earnings from abroad and QQQ about 50%.

Just found Fidelity closed three of its money market funds a couple of weeks ago (sorry if this was already posted previously):
https://www.pionline.com/investing/fidelity-closes-3-money-market-funds-new-investors
or
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/fidelity-shuts-three-money-market-funds-to-most-new-investors-2020-03-31
or
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fidelity-shuts-three-money-market-205320236.html

April 17th, 2020 Episode:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/891190/000168386320003566/f3655d1.htm
497 1 f3655d1.htm VANGUARD TREASURY MONEY MARKET FUND 497
Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund
Supplement Dated April 16, 2020, to the Prospectus and Summary Prospectus Dated December 20, 2019
Vanguard Treasury Money Market Fund (the "Fund") is closed to all new investors (with the exception of participants who invest in the Fund only through defined contribution plans that offer the Fund as an existing option).
The Fund will remain closed until further notice and there is no specific timeframe for when the Fund will reopen. During the Fund's closed period, all current shareholders may continue to purchase, exchange, or redeem shares of the Fund online, by telephone, or by mail.
The Fund may modify these transaction policies at any time and without prior notice to shareholders. You may call Vanguard for more detailed information about the Fund's transaction policies. Participants in employer-sponsored plans may call Vanguard Participant Services at 800-523-1188. Investors in nonretirement accounts and IRAs may call Vanguard's Investor Information Department at 800-662-7447.

...but it is still expensive.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1370177/000139834420008148/fp0053131_497.htm
RIVERNORTH FUNDS
RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund
Institutional Share Class
(Ticker Symbol RNCIX)
April 17, 2020
SUPPLEMENT TO PROSPECTUS DATED
January 28, 2020
The RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund Institutional Share Class to Reduce Initial Minimum Investment Amount.
On April 6, 2020 the Board of Trustees (the "Board") of RiverNorth Funds approved a change to the initial minimum investment amount for the Institutional Share Class for the RiverNorth Core Opportunity Fund (the “Fund”). Effective on April 24, 2020, the minimum initial investment amount for the Fund’s Institutional Share Class (ticker RNCIX) will reduce from $5,000,000 to $100,000.
RIVERNORTH FUNDS
c/o ALPS Fund Services, Inc.
1290 Broadway, Suite 1100
Denver, Colorado 80203
1-888-848-7569
Please retain this supplement with your Prospectus for future reference.