@crash
That one on Kaalawai Ave looks like just the ticket for me and my wife to escape New England winters. Can you run over and check it out for us?

Giggle. LOL.
Back up in Pittsfield and up by the VT line, they're still digging out. Tomorrow's St. Patrick's. Already. Beware the Ides of March. A day late.

@crash
That one on Kaalawai Ave looks like just the ticket for me and my wife to escape New England winters. Can you run over and check it out for us?

This article goes into more detail than I have seen elsewhere about the politics of the 2018 changes in the banking regs that allowed SVB to escape regulation, and how easily the startups etc could have protected their funds. It also implies that SVB prevented them from using multiple other banks ( with InfraSweep).
https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-13-silicon-valley-bank-bailout-deregulation/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
We still dont know how many of these accounts were really “ small businesses”. Roku apparently had half a billion dollars on deposit without any protection
Why should we bail out Roku?

I'm with ya.

This article goes into more detail than I have seen elsewhere about the politics of the 2018 changes in the banking regs that allowed SVB to escape regulation, and how easily the startups etc could have protected their funds. It also implies that SVB prevented them from using multiple other banks ( with InfraSweep).
https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-13-silicon-valley-bank-bailout-deregulation/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
We still dont know how many of these accounts were really “ small businesses”. Roku apparently had half a billion dollars on deposit without any protection
Why should we bail out Roku?

After a nearly 700 point drop Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended in negative territory for 2023 at the close.
YTD Returns - As of 12:30 PM Wednesday, February 22
DJIA + 0.22%
S&P 500 + 4.24%
NASDAQ + 10.13%
(Numbers from Bloomberg)
One fund of recent interest here, ARKK, was ahead by more than 34% YTD going into today’s session. It fell back by more than 6% today. The fact that any fund could move like this one has over the past year might indicate how crazy the investing landscape has gotten. (Numbers from Bloomberg)
Just me or do geo-politics seem increasingly related to the market problems? Russia / Ukraine for sure. But now, just as China’s economy is emerging from its covid-related pullback, it appears relations with the U.S. are deteriorating. The balloon of course. But a lot more going on from my readings, including what appears to be China becoming more supportive of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If that’s not enough, North Korea fired off a barrage of its new solid fueled ICBMs over the weekend - one landing in the Pacific within sight of Japan. The solids are superior to liquid fueled rockets in that they’re easier to hide and can be launched without any prep on very short notice.
And you want to invest?

@BenWP
>> I don't know what happened to DEESX, either.
My post and phrasing were about CAPE and CAPE only.
As for DSEEX, the M* chart for DSEEX
https://www.morningstar.com/funds/xnas/dseex/chart
shows its growth from end October 2013 to yesterday to be >203%, compared w SP500's 181%. For ytd it's >13% vs <8%.
That's all. Not making any other claims about it. Don't hold it anymore. 5y and 1y show it lags SP500 somewhat.

@davidrmoran: I don't know what happened to DEESX, either. I see from the charts that it reached its nadir on 3/22/2020, having fallen some 7 percentage points more than FXAIX at that point. It never really caught up and I can't devise a chart that shows it outperforming FXAIX. Maybe at exactly 9.5 years, as you say. I wrongly assumed as a shareholder of DSEEX that the bonds would serve as ballast in a down market; it seems the opposite was true and that the "secret bond sauce" appeared to accelerate the move downward. I was a CAPE fan and said so on MFO. I sold, disillusioned. Fortunately, MOAT has proven itself over the long haul. I've traded it, but have never been out. MOTI and SMOT, which adopt a similar "moat" methodology, have been welcome additions in recent months.

@MikeM, I don't know and can't easily uncover what the heck happened w CAPE as of 4/22, but I am sure someone here knows. DSEEX has still outperformed FXAIX for 9.5y and also ytd :) --- but not, as others would, or will, instantly point out, for various stints in between. (QQQ likewise looks appealing at 10y and ytd, not quite so much in between.)
I wasn't being facetious in rhetorically posing the question of where the breadth sweet spot is. Or can reliably be said to be, if we seek investment goals and guidelines. Some of the above apples-oranges (categories) objections are silly, but someone else also mentioned subsets of sets; and so I began to wonder whether everything in SCHD was in SP500 and everything in SP500 in VONE, and everything in VONE in VT.
For the first it turns out not, but close, so far as I had the energy to parse. Specifically, if you exclude SCHD's last 25 or so holdings (out of ~100), which contribute a minuscule amount to performance, you do see that the remainder appear to be in SP500 (I'm not 100% positive about this, as I got tired searching within the long columns). SCHD applies a seriously delimiting quantified quality criterion. Could there be an SCHD for the VONE universe? (For some periods, of course, that is sort of what VONG and VONV do.)
Unappreciated (why I also mentioned comparative UI) was the 'leveling' effect the SCHD criteria appear to exert. But maybe UI is arguably overvalued as well. Gustibus.

+ @larryB
I can remember not to many years ago, all the comparison and clear winner from that comparison was CAPE over the S&P 500. It was the clear winner - until it wasn't. I'm sure many bought into CAPE high and sold when it faltered. The key is having the conviction to stay with one scheme over another. Value and dividend stocks will have their day, same as growth or tech or using the CAPE methodology. Isn't the S&P500 a collection of all those sub sets?

@LewisBraham
At least in Southwestern Connecticut, Electric Boat is desperate to hire "blue collar" technically trained industrial workers to build subs. They subsidize the training programs in high school and guarantee a job if student finishes program. Unlike the Cape, where you can charge $350 to put in a toilet ( personal experience) people can afford to live in SW CT.
A lot of the CHIPS act and Inflation Reduction Act is directed exactly at building those training programs in Red States
https://www.brookings.edu/research/with-high-tech-manufacturing-plants-promising-good-jobs-in-ohio-workforce-developers-race-to-get-ready/
How US compares to the rest of the world in College expenses
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-is-college-so-expensive-in-america/569884/
"All told, including the contributions of individual families and the government (in the form of student loans, grants, and other assistance), Americans spend about $30,000 per student a year—nearly twice as much as the average developed country. “The U.S. is in a class of its own,” says Andreas Schleicher, the director for education and skills at the OECD, and he does not mean this as a compliment. “Spending per student is exorbitant, and it has virtually no relationship to the value that students could possibly get in exchange.”
For example, U.S. colleges spend, relative to other countries, a startling amount of money on their nonteaching staff, according to the OECD data."
That doesn't include the climbing gyms, hot tubs and locally sourced organic food the students demand!

@Yogibearbull. Yes.. There’s a lot in the current Barron’s about “illiquid securities” and “private equity,” and “leveraging”. Several panelists in the “Roundtable” sounded alarms. They view the issue as potentially affecting the entire 2023 investment landscape.
ISTM folks who bought into these instruments should have understood the risks they were undertaking. Outsized gains generally entail additional risk on the part of participants. Hedge funds, for example, typically limit redemptions. One reason they’re not available to small retail investors. Not disagreeing with anything you said.
Re: My OP - A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the year since I initially posted the story. The Fed has “tossed out” its initial assessment of “transient” inflation and has been aggressively / rapidly pushing up interest rates. Real estate values & REITS have fallen sharply in response. I have to believe all this is somehow related to the higher requests for redemptions and the restrictions (gates) put in place to slow redemptions - from a shrinking pot. It’s hard to discuss one facet of the problem without at least touching on the other.

"Did his opponent never think about checking out his claimed credentials? Lots of blame all around on that one."
@Junkster- Man, are you ever right. Next we'll find out that he isn't even a US citizen, and is a jail escapee from Bangladesh.

I read in NYT or WaPo that the opponent in the general knew about it and did raise the issue, but that it never got traction. Probably the constituency thought he was ideal and wouldn't hear anything to the contrary, especially from his opponent.

"Did his opponent never think about checking out his claimed credentials? Lots of blame all around on that one."
@Junkster- Man, are you ever right. Next we'll find out that he isn't even a US citizen, and is a jail escapee from Bangladesh.

Because it will gradually matter more and more to the investment landscape no matter what the climate science deniers think:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/10/world/eight-warmest-years-climate-copernicus-intl/index.html
https://nytimes.com/interactive/2023/climate/earth-hottest-years.html
It has for instance huge implications for the insurance industry, for the food industry, real estate, the military, textiles, globalization, shipping, tech waste and power consumption, and of course fossil fuels. There will be economic winners and losers here, and of course a number of species will go extinct. Some already have. Given the conversations we’ve been having about asset classes, a forward looking analyst of them will have to take the shifting climate into account, and how it might impact the expected performance of each asset class over the next fifty years instead of just taking how they did in the last fifty as gospel.

I'm going to repeat something here that I posted over in an Off-Topic thread:
The Democrats are going to be the very least of McCarthy's problems. For a truly somber overview of the legislative minefield laying ahead, I highly recommend pulling up last night's Brooks and Capehart segment of the PBS NewsHour. I was very impressed with the reportorial exchanges between Amna Nawaz, David Brooks, and Jonathan Capehart. A very professional crew indeed. NewsHour has certainly landed on it's feet with the transition from Judy Woodruff.

I'm married. So, I never know what the Big Picture actually looks like. It morphs and changes, with items added to it, always along the way. Rather than panic and try to respond with a huge, total makeover, I adjust.
In order to cover the spouse-person's most recently communicated priority, I'll be starting a TIPS account, while their landscape looks quite positive. Looks like that $$$ will get slud into SCHP.
Dizzy Dean: "He shoulda slud into 3rd, but he didn't, and he was out by a heifer's step."
******************
Otherwise, I'll keep things rather the same. I'll add to equities if/when things go south. Our investing time-horizon is lengthy. If one or two single-stocks on my watchlist falls far enough to look attractive, I'll start a position there. (FNLC. CMTV. TGH. BBVA. WFG. SCHN.) But growing the TIPS will be at the top of the list, until that puppy rolls over. We do not need to obtain that newest priority-item for several years, at least--- the item that the TIPS account is intended to address. I don't want to be so spread out that I'm actually "de-worse-ifying."
PRISX will be held at a greatly-reduced level. (DAWG!)
PRNEX will remain in the portfolio.
Here's hoping PRFDX will do as well for me in '23 as it did in '22.
PRWCX and PRCPX and TUHYX round out the mutual fund section of the portfolio.
Today is the first trading day of 2023. My holdings which bucked the fall in the Indices are the ones I own the least of: PSTL. JRSH. The others, I still think, are worth keeping: BHB. NHYDY. ET.

@Old_Joe -
Yup - It’s complicated. My reported comparison was just a rough sample. Results may vary. Knowing how short in supply labor is I have to believe that’s a big factor for airlines / airports because of the intensive use of manual labor for baggage handling, fueling, maintenance, security, etc. Heck, around here if you can walk and chew gum you’ve got a job - labor’s so tight.
The attached article mentions one factor that escaped me at first. While oil prices have generally fallen in recent months, that may not be the case for aviation fuel. Diesel has rocketed higher. I’d expect the fuel for jets is more closely related to that than to what we buy at the gas pump.
The article mentions cut-backs in flights. Seems to be the case from some searching I did last night looking for other travel. A distinct shortage of direct flights from what I could see. If it costs the same to go from “Point A” to “Point B” but takes twice as long because of added connections … that in itself is a form of inflation. The product may cost the same, but it is an inferior product.

Here's KPMG's description of every section of Secure Act 2.0 that made it into the omnibus bill (19 pages).
https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/us/pdf/2022/12/tnf-secure-act-section-by-section-dec20-2022.pdf
Full text of bill: https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/JRQ121922.PDF
Since Forbes offered opinions about some of the sections, I'll try to explain Kiplinger's observation that "other [supporters of the legislation] have expressed concern that some provisions in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 primarily benefit high-income earners."
https://www.kiplinger.com/retirement/bipartisan-retirement-savings-package-in-massive-budget-bill
Section 107: raising retirement age. This is a tax break for high earners; Forbes notes: "This provision mostly impacts people with wealth who don’t need their RMD and can leave the money to grow."
It might have made more sense to treat IRAs and 401(k)s the same - don't require RMDs so long as you are working. Otherwise, you are retired and thus should be drawing from retirement accounts.
Wonder why increasing the age to 75 won't happen for a decade? It's because these laws only have to look ten years out when considering budget impact. This change in RMD age is said to be the most costly provision of the SECURE Act, but most of that cost escapes scrutiny. Accounting gimmick. (See also JCT analysis of SECURE 2.0 Act.)
Sections 108, 109: increasing catch up amounts. According to a current Vanguard study, only 2%-3% of those earning under $100K max out even with the limits already in place. 37% of those earning over $100K max out.
Section 202: raising QLAC limits. Currently $145K (inflation indexed) up to 25% of account balance, will be raised to $200K (inflation indexed), with no percentage cap. QLACs are basically insurance policies against living "too long". There is a strong correlation between income and longevity.
Section 325: No more RMD for Roth 401(k)s. This section comes under Title III - Simplification and Clarification of Retirement Plan Rules. There's a lot of good cleanup in this Title. Section 325 makes the RMD treatment of Roth 401(k)s and Roth IRAs the same. Complete simplification would have made the treatment of RMDs the same for everything - Roths and Traditionals, employer plans and IRAs.
Being able to leave more money in tax-sheltered accounts mostly benefits those who do not need to take money from those accounts. So while this section doesn't add benefits for the better off, it doesn't address this disparity of benefits either.
Sections 603 and 604 come under Title VI - revenue provisions. They are more accounting gimmicks to make it look like tax revenue is being increased. By moving some contributions (high wage earner catch ups and some employer matches) from traditional to Roth, these provisions increase immediate revenue while moving the costs largely outside the 10 year budget window. At best, the present value of those costs is break even; more likely these changes are revenue losers.
Analysis of earlier but similar Senate Bill (EARN):
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/senate-retirement-bill-would-cost-84-billion-without-gimmicks
Section 603: High earner catch up provisions must be Roth. Since this doesn't affect anyone earning $145K (inflation adjusted) or more and rhus constitutes a new restriction on high earners, simple logic says this is not a change that benefits high earners. But it's not the onerous provision that Forbes suggests. Effectively it is a forced Roth conversion.
Higher wage earners rejoiced when they were finally permitted to do Roth conversions starting in 2010. While those conversions were not forced, converting some savings was generally regarded as a positive. Especially since pre-paying taxes enables one to enhance the post-tax value of tax-sheltered accounts.
https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2010/jan/20091743.html
This legislation has much to commend it, including changes that encourage participation and make it easier to participate. Though in terms of dollars and cents, it is skewed toward those who are already contributing and can afford to contribute more.

Excerpt from The Long View podcast episode (published 12/14/2021) featuring Mr. Bengen.
Benz: How about the reverse of that where you believe that equity valuations are notably scary? Would it be advisable to potentially take the equity weighting way down with the assumption that you would ramp it up later on?
Bengen: Yes. And essentially, that's what I'm doing in my portfolio. I'm only about 20% equities right now, because I think evaluations are ridiculous. And if you look at the chart of the CAPE, you'll see that when it reaches these peaks, in 1929, and it did so in the mid-60s, and then around 2000, that there was a sharp decline from that. It may take a number of years for it to happen. But it has always happened historically, and I don't know why this would be any different, the current environment. I just can't predict when it will happen. It will be six months, two years, who knows. But I'm a believer that the mean reversion--if we don't have mean reversion, it means we're in a whole new era and that the historical data doesn't mean really that much. So, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Link

Excerpts from @BaseballFan’s OP …
”I believe inflation will be sticky” - Agree
”balance sheet tightening continues”- You mean the Fed? One pundit I follow thinks this will be so “until something breaks” (leading to reversal of Fed tightening). I tend to agree.
”Ukraine/Russia war continues” - Hard to say
housing market muddles along, does not collapse - That’s the Achilles Heel that threatens to bring down the entire economy. However, there will always be some assets that do well. And note that economy and stock market are not synonymous.
”economy slows down but also muddles along” - That’s as good a guess as any.
”I'll leave my political thoughts off this post” … We all should. A good investor ought to be able to make money regardless of whether Ds or Rs are in control. One’s skill at money management ought not be contingent on the vicissitudes of the ever changing political landscape.