Any word on when ThinkDesktop will be moved over?? Stunning this integration has taken over 2.5 years and it seems like they're not even halfway done yet. (And Schwab's 'active trader' is horrid compared to ThinkDesktop.)
Glad I switched over myself back in 2020. I've been thru enough brokerage consolidations that I didn't need any more drama!

The 98 cents you pay now but once matured you get the 100 cents, get 4.5% divs annually base on 100 cents (450$ per yr) that why some cd may yield slightly higher base in purchase price (of course lowered price mean more risks like credit suise cd and higher bankruptcy risks)
Becareful because Once bankruptcy goes to court may loose all your monies in bonds but may not loose in cd.
As long as banks are fdic back by Feds investors will get cash back but may take awhile through court procedures.
That why I am scare buy credits suise but fond of boa or wells Fargo or Chase cd backed w FDIC/FEDS. Better get little less ytm but lessen headaches long terms
W bonds investments higher grades better to sleep at night, that why you are betting companies won't bellied up in 12 24 or 36 months holding these vehicles (boeing Ford GM Toyota pg&e etc) . Ytm higher than cd near5%
I am not sure if we need continue hold BBBY
, previously ut they are cc- or lowered chance bankruptcy so high maybe 40 50% annually. We bought Bbby bonds 4 yrs ago rated bbb but their rating dropped severely bad last 7 8 months because poor run companies, poor Er, and no more creditrd/cash, lost customers and poor overall economic conditions. Price dropped they are due in 6 months so we are holding on hopeful won't bankruptcies in 6 months. If you sell them you loose 50% of capitals or more prices do low.... As long as they don't bankrupt by April next yr we get all capital back once called

@WABC: I just bought some SYLD after selling some MOAT. Foreign stocks were really cheap late Sept when I bought FNDF in hopes of a rebound, which occurred. Took some good profits and hope to repeat. These days, I’m trying to be less greedy and more satisfied with modest gains. Added to BRSVX.

I think the 6.6% figure comes from capital gains due to falling bond yields and rising bond prices .

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1444822/000119312522299058/d312974d497.htm
497 1 d312974d497.htm AQR FUNDS
AQR FUNDS
Supplement dated December 6, 2022 (“Supplement”)
to the Class I Shares, Class N Shares and Class R6 Shares
Summary Prospectus, Prospectus
and Statement of Additional Information, each dated January 29, 2022, as
amended, of the AQR International Equity Fund (the “Fund”)
This Supplement updates certain information contained in the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information. Please review this important information carefully. You may obtain copies of the Fund’s Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information free of charge, upon request, by calling (866) 290-2688, or by writing to AQR Funds, P.O. Box 2248, Denver, CO 80201-2248.
At a meeting held on December 6, 2022, the Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of AQR Funds (the “Trust”) approved a proposal to liquidate the Fund. Among other things, the Fund was not viable on an ongoing basis. Accordingly, effective 4:00 P.M. (Eastern time) on January 4, 2023, the Fund will no longer accept orders from new investors or existing shareholders to purchase Fund shares.
On or about January 4, 2023, AQR Capital Management, LLC, the Fund’s investment adviser, intends to begin liquidating the Fund’s assets in an orderly manner in advance of the Liquidation Date (as defined below). Proceeds from the liquidation of the Fund’s assets will be held in cash and similar instruments pending distribution to shareholders. As a result, the Fund may deviate from its investment strategies and policies and cease to pursue its investment objective. The Fund may incur transaction costs from liquidating portfolio holdings and performance may be adversely affected from holding cash and similar instruments.
The Fund has declared a dividend to all holders of record on January 20, 2023 (the “Record Date”) consisting of any undistributed income and capital gains (net of available capital loss carryovers). On or about January 27, 2023 (the “Liquidation Date”), the Fund will make a liquidating distribution of its remaining assets proportionately to any shareholders holding shares on the Liquidation Date. Shareholders may redeem their Fund shares or exchange their shares into shares of another series of AQR Funds, subject to any restrictions in the Fund’s Prospectus, at any time prior to the Liquidation Date.
The liquidation of the Fund is expected to have tax consequences for a taxable shareholder. Any final capital gain dividend will be treated as long-term capital gain, and any final income dividend will be taxable as ordinary income, or as qualified dividend income to the extent of the Fund’s income that so qualifies (which is taxed at the same preferential tax rate as long- term capital gain). The Fund’s final liquidating distribution will result in capital gain or loss to the receiving shareholder. Shareholders should consult their tax advisors concerning their tax situation and the impact of the liquidation and/or exchanging to a different fund has on their tax situation.
We appreciate your investment in the AQR Funds. For more information, please contact the Trust at (866) 290-2688.
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR YOUR FUTURE REFERENCE

Always eager to read what @rforno is buying or selling. :)
Personally ….
- I’ve sold off 2 of my 3 largest equity holdings in recent weeks. Took a nice profit on the global reinsurer I’d held most of the year. Break-even, or a slight loss, on a major bank. Kept the large international food conglomerate, but sold off a little. It’s about break-even since buying early in the year but has been making up lost ground as the dollar has begun to weaken.
- Unloaded 100% of a significant hold in ABRZX. I was very wrong in my previous positive appraisal of that fund - especially its ability to hold up during down markets. Moved the same sum into an old favorite TRRIX. For that matter, both of the afore mentioned funds have stunk up the joint pretty good this year. But the latter’s .49% ER takes away some of the stench. (ABRZX charges 1.37%).
- Added CVSIX to my “Alternative” sleeve with $$ from the stock sales. The thinking here is that with now higher prevailing interest rates, it’s a decent place to hide. Also, some positive commentary on convertible bonds in a recent Barron’s.
- I added 2 small spec positions yesterday. Each represents only 1% of my total invested assets: BCAT & GUG. They caught my attention when reading Randall Forsyth’s always fine Barron’s column over the weekend. Frankly, I’ve had no prior experience with closed-end funds. So am viewing this small venture as mostly a learning experience. (And folks may know that I enjoy dumpster diving.)
-
Here’s the passage referenced from this week’s Barron’s (Randall Forsyth).
“Another bargain is a relatively new type of closed-end fund, which was supposed to avoid sinking to a big discount by going public at net asset value, rather than at a premium, as is usual. Nevertheless, some of these funds have succumbed, including ones from marquee-name portfolio managers such as BlackRock and Guggenheim …. One is BlackRock Capital Allocation Trust (BCAT), which yields 8.52% and trades at a wide 15.93% discount to NAV. The other is the Guggenheim Active Allocation fund (GUG). It yields 10.16% and is quoted at a 12.16% discount. It's no disgrace to delve into offbeat corners to pick up bargains.”

Source: Barrons
"Small-caps outperformed during recessions in the 1970s and early 1980s, when the Federal Reserve was fighting high inflation, as it is now. The group has higher proportional exposure than large-caps to inflation beneficiaries, like energy. It’s also more domestic and more tied to capital spending, which is a plus if U.S.-based manufacturers continue moving factories home. But small companies generally have less financial flexibility than large ones, which is a negative if borrowing rates stay elevated.
One way for investors to add small- cap exposure is with a low-fee index fund like the iShares Russell 2000IWM –2.75% exchange-traded fund (ticker: IWM). Then again, switching indexes might be an upgrade. The S&P SmallCap 600SP600EQ –2.60% index has outperformed the Russell 2000 index by more than a percentage point a year over the past five, 10, and 20 years, and has generally been less volatile. The biggest reason: S&P uses a profitability screen to admit index members. SPDR S&P 600 Small CapSLY –2.81% ETF (SLY) is one fund option there.
If a profitability screen helps, how about a value tilt? The aforementioned indexes weight small-caps by market cap. Asset manager Research Affiliates has an index that weights them by fundamental measures of value like sales, cash flow, and dividends. Investors can buy in through Schwab Fundamental U.S. Small Company Index ETF (FNDA). It’s more expensive than the other funds, but still cheap, with yearly expenses of 0.25%. Since inception in 2013, the fund has returned 7.4% a year, beating the Russell 2000 by nearly a point through Sept. 30."
"For actively managed funds that are open to new money, Columbia Small Cap Value II (NSVAX) and Wasatch Core Growth (WGROX) get high marks from Morningstar. Each costs a little more than 1% a year and has beaten its category by about a point a year over the past decade."

CELFX did not exist in March 2020. Just saying. Inception date is July 1, 2021
Swedroe is certainly a known name but the conclusion of his linked AP article is as per below.
"Bond investors can avoid the risks and costs created by stale pricing in mutual funds by either building their own individual portfolios or engaging a separate account manager."
First suggestion isn't actionable by the vast majority of individual investors due to the size of the individual bond portfolio needed for adequate diversification and the second suggestion is Swedroe and Advisor Perspectives hawking their wares (nothing wrong with that, just pointing it out). There are no free lunches.
So would one rather avoid bond funds altogether due to losing 0.04% or invest through RIA who will cost a lot more than 0.04%?
To each their own.

I never said in any of my posts the managers were committing fraud. The appropriate term, "returns smoothing," would be as described in the Advisor Perspectives article:

Stale pricing can create problems for investors. For example, funds are incented to engage in “return smoothing” by selective use of valuations

There can be disagreement as to what the "fair value" of a private security is precisely because it does not trade and in many cases could be one of a kind. That's not fraud, but let's just say the pricing can tend to favor the managers of the funds when there is a debate between what they see as the intrinsic value of a private security is versus what the market says publicly traded securities with very similar credit qualities, businesses and risks are worth.
It reminds me almost of how General Electric used to smooth earnings out so they hit their targets every quarter for many years. I don't think it was ever labeled fraud, but it was disingenuous as to what the company was actually producing earnings wise each quarter. I would trust an interval fund more that marked its portfolio down more during March of 2020 and simply issued a letter to shareholders stating: "We don't think any of our portfolio companies are impaired at this point but the market thinks there is a risk that there could be impairment in the future and so the market is marking down all high risk securities and we are marking ours down accordingly. The good news is because we are an interval fund we are not facing a run on the bank situation like an open-end fund would and if we're right and there is no impairment we should recover all of those losses."

The stale pricing issue I am describing is not necessarily particular to this fund but a universal one that is particularly relevant though with private funds that don’t price every day. Most corporate debt funds don’t have pricing that reflects market reality.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3244862
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2978284
https://advisorperspectives.com/articles/2022/09/25/stale-pricing-and-the-risk-to-bond-fund-investors
I don’t care how skilled of a bank loan manager or high yield bond fund manager one is, in March of 2020 when the whole world was falling apart, there was no way a high risk credit manager could liquidate their portfolios with only a 2% haircut in that environment. To say the portfolio’s liquidation value only fell 2% then is unrealistic.
As for my largest position, cash remains it.

It’s not what CELFX is investing in that is the problem I am identifying but how much it’s yielding above Treasuries, i.e., the yield spread, after deducting significant fees without showing any apparent volatility while public markets invested in similar low credit quality debt show significant volatility. Its NAV is behaving as though it invests in high quality low risk credit while it is actually investing in the opposite. You can’t earn 11% today before fees when Treasuries are yielding 4% without taking significant default risk. I don’t think the pricing of the fund reflects that risk. And I am fairly certain it didn’t reflect that risk in March of 2020.

@Lewis
- NICHX and CELFX invest in a wide variety of debt instruments, not just corporate debt. For example litigation financing, structured capital, royalties, etc..
- Both are debt specialists with pedigree and a track record. This is their bread and butter, they're not generalist debt analysts within a 60/40 fund and unlike many debt funds both spread the net quite broad when it comes to portfolio assets.
That's not to say that a Madoff like event cannot happen to either one of above. The main advantage of interval funds is that one is less affected by the daily gyrations of the market and through gating policies managers can prevent a stampede to the exits which open ended mutual funds do not have the capability to do so. At inflection points, herd behavior rules and is what causes perm losses.
Regards your comments on stale pricing, interval funds allow for quarterly redemptions so the NAV needs to be at least close to reality for the fund managers to allow redemptions else if there is a large disconnect, the managers are effectively handing out dollar bills for 80c.
Not following your comparison to Treasuries because that is kinda table stakes for any debt or equity fund that performs above benchmarks, nothing unique in CELFX or NICHX about that. Giroux at PRWCX or BRUFX managers did not build their long term track records and beat their benchmarks by buying plain vanilla Treauries or being closet indexers on equity side.

@StayCalm The smoothness of the returns of NICHX and CELFX during periods of distress makes me less comfortable, not more, about investing in them. Here is how various publicly traded debt markets traded in March of 2020 during the worst of the pandemic decline: https://wstam.com/news/market-updates/march-2020-fixed-income-market-review/
Yet CELFX, which invests in junk rated credits only fell 2%. The public floating rate market fell 8% and the high yield market 11%. They invest in comparable credits from a risk of default perspective. That indicates to me stale pricing in illiquid assets in CELFX. It is arguable that public markets oversold, yet by how much? In a period of true long-term distress instead of a flash followed by a government bailout like March of 2020, defaults rise, liquidity dries up and even private debt as interval fund shareholders gradually redeem will need to reflect market pricing as opposed to some stale assessment of valuation by a fund board or pricing service hired by the board. All of which is to say I do not think those March 2020 numbers reflected reality as to what those assets were worth at that moment.
Meanwhile, CELFX is charging a 2.5% total expense ratio including acquired fund fees and administrative costs while currently yielding 8.9%. With Treasuries yielding 4% without fees subtracted, a fund cannot yield 8.9% today without taking on significant credit and/or leverage risk. Pricing of its assets should reflect those risks when public debt markets slide.

Banks & financials can count preferred as Tier 1 capital only when they are noncumulative; some exceptions may apply. So, there are rarely any bank/financial preferreds that are cumulative.
https://content.next.westlaw.com/practical-law/document/I21061766ef0811e28578f7ccc38dcbee/Tier-1-Capital?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)

This is what I have done recently (reported on another thread).
I bought a preferred stock JPM-M, the company is very safe from default for US$ 16.998 per share, coupon is 4.2% with first call date being 9/1/2026.
Income is 6% to me based on my cost so I collect 6% till 9/1/26 (I get US$ .26 every quarter per share). This will not be paid only if JPM doesn't pay the dividend on the regular share (I think the chances are very remote but this is the little risk with any preferred).
If JPM calls the preferred stock after 9/1/26, I will get US$ 25 for each share - potential capital gain.
This is invested in Roth so 6% income and subsequent CG will be tax free.
Do you see any issue with this?
Mark - corrected & thanks for correcting me.
Thanks,

johnN has been a poster at MFO for many years. He seems attracted by offerings that promise above average returns, but upon closer examination also have well above average risks. Not for the faint of heart. Perhaps the gains and losses of these types of things average out over long periods of time- we have no way of knowing.

This fund popped up in my screener and looks interesting on the surface
https://www.destracapital.com/about/updates/destra-capital-launches-international-event-driven-credit-interval-fund
https://www.destracapital.com/strategies/bluebay-destra-international-event-driven-credit-fund
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/fund-performance?s=y&symbol=CEDIX
Investment Strategy and Philosophy
The Fund invests in credit related instruments and/or investments considered by the Fund to have the potential to provide a high level of total return. Credit related instruments include:
Bonds
Debt securities
Loans issued by various U.S. and non-U.S. public- or private-sector entities
Derivatives
Cash equivalents
Pros: Global mandate, CAGR 12.60%, StdDev 9.43%, interval fund, market co-relation 0.57, Alpha 9.11%, corporate parent is Royal Bank of Canada
Cons: Relatively young, low AUM < $60M, niche strategy
Anybody invested in this one or have thoughts on it?

I have always been a bit suspicious of Rida Morwa's many many posts on Seeking Alpha.
They all seem to promise unlimited income with no or little risk. The articles are well written and seemingly wise and appear to offer great investment opportunities. But why are there so many many recommendations?
The recent article is pushing HT ( Hersha Hospitality Trust) preferreds. HT owns a lot of "high end" hotels nationwide ( Marriot?). The common dropped 75% during Covid and the dividend ($1.12 a year) disappeared until last month when it started paying $.20 a year.
The Preferreds crashed also. HTpD was down 75% and the dividend of $0.406 a quarter was eliminated for all of 2020. As it was cumulative, they did payback dividends in 3/2021 of $1.625 after Pandemic eased.
A quick Google search turns up a fair amount of concern about Rida Morwa's investment service ($550 a year) performance. I cannot find any information the service itself posts about past preformance on the website.
TipRanks says only 52% of his recs have been profitable one year later with an average return of 4.3%.
https://www.tipranks.com/experts/bloggers/rida-morwa
Interesting blog on income investing has worse accusations
https://innovativeincomeinvestor.com/new-discussion-areas/
"HDO is short for High Dividend Opportunities which is a paid service on Seeking Alpha. The head guy is Rida Morwa, but he is assisted by several other authors, often times Pendragon or Preferred Stock Trader.
On this board, III, they might be referred to as HDO, Rida or Pendy.
There are at least four issues that some III’ers have with HDO.
1) They typically pick the highest yielding preferred/baby bond to recommend to investors, because it is enticing. They often times understate the risk. Several of their recommendation have literally gone bankrupt. Others have suffered catastrophic losses but have not gone bankrupt (yet.)
2) They ignore their past history of recommendations. They might recommend an issue when it is selling for say $20. Then it drops to $10 and they write a NEW post recommending it again, WITHOUT mentioning they recommended it earlier. Obviously anybody that bought it on the first recommendation is suffering.
3) When someone posts any critical comments they typically get deleted on short order. We do NOT know if it is a HDO person or a SA person, but “responsible opposing comments” are NOT welcome.
4) There is a suspicion that is NOT provable by us, that they are taking advantage of very illiquid preferreds to reward “insiders”. The mechanism would be something like:
a) Have “insiders” buy positions in XYZ
b) Publish a recommendation to HDO paid subscribers on XYZ, which pushes the price up
c) Release the recommendation to the free SA readers on XYZ which further pushes the price up
d) Creates a potential opportunity for insiders and/or paid subscribers to make a quick profit, mostly based on HDO’s ability to move the price up.
In the last two days, a few of HDO’s picks have done very poorly. Yesterday it was HMLP-A which closed down 21%. Today it was ALIN-A,B, E which all closed down ~ 62%. HDO had written SA posts recommending all four of these. The posts are NOT recent, but at the same time they did NOT post any sell recommendations, so there is an assumption they were still valid HDO recommendations."
For Preferreds CEFS etc look at Forbes/Fridson Income Investing Newsletter ($200 a year). Marty Fridson is quoted in Barron's regularly
https://isinewsletter.com/profile-current-newsletter/
Four portfolios of preferreds, CEFs , lots of ideas and recommendations on individual issues. His portfolios of preferreds etc were down between 12 and 24% in 2020.
For income investing in individual stocks, I have found Simply Safe Dividends very useful
https://www.simplysafedividends.com/
He publishes three portfolios, with monthly return and risk stats, compares them to to SCHD, and SPHD and VIG and trades very little (now unfortunately price is up to $550 a year but there is a two week free trial).
Kiplinger's Investing for Income is much cheaper ($79 a year) and has pretty good ideas ( a little more volatile than SSD so much diversification necessary here) for mutual funds, ETFs, CEFs and stocks.
In my opinion, all three are much better choices than anything I have seen on Seeking Alpha

Well, we have 'Two for Tuesday' (FM radio); and a 'Warm for Wednesday' (Powell/Fed. statement). Warm and fuzzy feeling, for the most part; the Fed. rate increases may back down a tad. Then, 'Freaky Friday', from the jobs and wages reports. Too many new jobs and folks making too much via hourly wage. Damn, can't catch a break, eh? Speaking of breaks, these 'hotter' numbers may give more pause to the Fed and any notion about going easy on the rate increases and for how long. Sorry, companies and you worker bee folks; you're going to have to stop this economic expansion. We'll help you going forward, okay? Bond yields/prices hopped around a bit; with many bond areas giving the 'bird' to the FED, for the week in total. About midday Friday, bond yields dropped and resulting nice price gains came forth to support a direction for the week. As shown in the below list, the longer duration of IG bonds continues to provide the best performance. Those who have bonds in their investment mix now have more support in this area. The recent, apparent bottom in bond pricing from October 25 continues to find support from those levels.
ALGO FED: Perhaps the FED should try operating their mandates via an ALGO program using 20 economic data points of their choice; to discover the results for managing the U.S. economy, in this manner.
Several selected bond fund returns since October 25.
NOTE: I've kept the prior dated reports in the beginning of this thread; and have added YTD to this data.
All listed etf's below have nice price gains for this past week, except the 'bear/short' etf.
For the WEEK/YTD, NAV price changes, November 28- December 2, 2022
--- AGG = +1.5% / -11.2% (I-Shares Core bond etf) widely used bond benchmark, (AAA-BBB holdings)
--- MINT = +.22% / -1.4% (PIMCO Enhanced short maturity, AAA-BBB rated)
--- SHY = +.47% / -3.8% (UST 1-3 yr bills)
--- IEI = +1.2% / -8.4% (UST 3-7 yr notes/bonds)
--- IEF = +1.8% / -12.8% (UST 7-10 yr bonds)
--- TIP = +2.65% / -9.5% (UST Tips, 3-10 yrs duration, some 20+ yr duration)
--- STPZ = +1.2% / -3.5% (UST, short duration TIPs bonds, PIMCO)
--- LTPZ = +6.8% / -25% (UST, long duration TIPs bonds, PIMCO)
--- TLT = +4.3% / -26.2% (I shares 20+ Yr UST Bond
--- EDV = +6% / -33% (UST Vanguard extended duration bonds)
--- ZROZ = +6.5% / -34.5% (UST., AAA, long duration zero coupon bonds, PIMCO
--- TBT = -8.2% / +68.6% (ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (about 23 holdings)
--- TMF = +12.5% / -65.6% (Direxion Daily 20+ Yr Trsy Bull 3X ETF (about a 3x version of EDV etf)
--- BAGIX = +1.56% / -12% (active managed, plain vanilla, high quality bond fund)
*** Other, for reference:
--- HYG = +1.2% / -9.1% (high yield bonds, proxy ETF)
--- LQD = +1.9% / -15.1% (corp. bonds, various quality)
--- FZDXX = 3.81% yield (7 day), Fidelity Premium MMKT fund
*** FZDXX yield was .11%, April,2022. The rate of rise in the yield is stagnate for this past week, versus the past six months.
Remain curious,
Catch