marks has never written to offer monthly advice. his main talent has been to deploy loads of committed capital at mkt lows in high tiers of capital structures. that is the only 'signal' one will get, and maybe that is also gone within the maze of brookfield.
where i do fault marks is his ever-insistent emphasis on 'risk' without proving any practical means of assessing such for the self-investor.

I discussed that as well. His memos have always been long and convoluted, filled with commentary but very little actionable guidance. After years of avoiding a clear stance, he finally called a bubble last January.

marks has never written to offer monthly advice. his main talent has been to deploy loads of committed capital at mkt lows in high tiers of capital structures. that is the only 'signal' one will get, and maybe that is also gone within the maze of brookfield.
where i do fault marks is his ever-insistent emphasis on 'risk' without providing any practical means of assessing such for the self-investor.

Since you are the account owner or custodian, you can rename the beneficiary to another child or grandchild in case your child does not wish to attend college, or wanting to spend it on a new car instead.
They cannot access the 529 fund with you being the custodian. The rules on 529 fund is strict and they are use for qualified education expenses such as tuition, books, and room&board. The rules relax a bit recently to include private schooling (high school level). Upon withdrawal, these 529 fund are tax-free in tax reporting.
We put in about 30% of the total sum and the rest was from capital appreciation through compounding. So get start as early as possible and let time works to fund your college education. If you are so lucky to have few remaining fund, they can be use for post-graduate studies.
Edit:. 529 plans typically start with global stock funds and gradually move to a balanced and end with short term bonds and money market when the child enters college. Many options to choose from these days. As the custodian on the account, you have many flexibility. Important thing to remember, start early and let the market do the work for you. Dollar-cost-average investing works very nicely.

My new list, by no means inclusive:
5* wide moat: MDLZ, CLX, TRI ( 5-star, wide moat and exemplary capital allocation)
4* wide moat: NOC, CL, BMY, AVGO, OTIS, MSFT
3* wide moat: CAT, V, HON, KO, MRK, SYY
Barron's is "overweight" on HON, CAT, TRI, NOC, CL, OTIS, MDLZ, MRK, SYY with a "buy" on KO, V, AVGO & MSFT.
Edit: I bought CLX, MDLZ & AVGO today. GTC limit orders placed for OTIS, BMY & CL.
I am considering a limit order for TRI & NOC, as I hold minimal/zero amounts in my mutual funds.
@hank - Good to know info on Barron's. I take M* ratings with a grain of salt. Mainly, just as a starting point. And because I get it free from T Rowe. I am looking for that intersection of stocks that both Barron's and M* consider "overweight or buy", and that I do not already hold in mutual funds. I also prefer a "wide moat" and "exemplary capital allocation".

Wealth Track Interview:

In 2020, influential strategist Ed Yardeni predicted the economy & markets were entering a “Roaring 2020s” decade. So far, he’s proven the naysayers wrong. He explains why the economy should continue to expand and the markets to advance in 2026 and beyond.

as a rough guess, i wondered how much of my investment gains are effectively being eaten by trump & friends. your results may vary radically.
my personal monthly expenses will up ~$2k/month (new insurance rates, guessing typical 1 major appliance replaced w/tariffs, no new car)
now since i pay all those higher living expenses in after-tax dollars, then i need to make that plus my marginal fed+local tax rate.
i concede that my bracket stays the same, with any new tax breaks offsetting maybe jumping into a higher bracket.
$24k * 140% ~ $34k
assuming my added time is worth at least a cheap tip, add ~10%
so to tread water, i need to reap ~ $37k more in a country much worse to live in.
and if its not obvious , i am comparing guaranteed expenses vs no-guarantee investing gains.
please MAGA, enough winning ! i already know that some prices go down for brief periods while most trend up.

Do folks know much about Diamond Hill?
I don't, but do invest with First Eagle.

The following information was excerpted from Morningstar's Parent Rating (Oct. 14, 2024)
for Diamond Hill Capital Management.
"Diamond Hill Capital Management’s clear identity, strong manager ownership, and willingness
to close strategies to protect existing investors earn it an Above Average Parent Pillar rating.
Current CEO Heather Brilliant has made strides in transforming this Columbus, Ohio-based boutique
from a plucky, founder-led mutual fund shop into an institutionally focused operation.
Brilliant, who took over in July of 2019—the same year key personnel decamped to a new firm
started by founder and former CEO and chairman Ric Dillon—has closed noncore services,
such as Diamond Hill's private asset-management business, and hived off strategies
that did not fit with the firm's intrinsic value investing ethos, such as its high-yield capabilities."
"Changes at the publicly traded firm are ongoing, but it remains a sound steward.
It is devoted to bottom-up,long-term, value-oriented equity and fixed-income investing
and has refocused on that core competency since Brilliant (who used to work for Morningstar) arrived.
In recent years, the firm has invested in building and promoting its core and short-term fixed-income teams,
filing to launch two new strategies for them in 2024. To improve equity analyst recruitment,
retention, development, and accountability, the family hired a full-time director of research,
who has formalized the research team's processes, upped expectations, attracted experienced new hires,
and parted ways with some members who had not adapted to the new standards."

am neither friend nor foe of ibm.
when was the last time they exploited a technology edge into durable profits?
given the enthusiasm for capital failure in quantum since 2023, not to mention google and such also playing around, the odds seem good that a few competitors may eventually have viable or superior tech.
more interestingly, quantum software ventures are poised, again, to be a capital light subsector. i believe the largest was split from honeywell. some already have productized 'quantum-resistant' security options ahead of gov standards. others have deployed hybrid products (anything not completely reliant on general purpose quantum compute HW).

Writing could be clear, but PRWCX is indicated as closed, not PRCFX.
"T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation and Income Fund (PRCFX)
The fund many people wished they were in is T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation (edit PRWCX), but you can’t have it. The fund has been kicking butt, under three different managers, since the 1980s: for every trailing period from one to 40 years, it has higher total return, higher Sharpe, smaller maximum drawdown, and lower Ulcer Index than its peers. And it’s closed.
The fact that the success spans manager tenures suggests it’s the process that works, and TRP has been rolling out a suite of funds that incorporate variations of the discipline. This version (edit PRCFX) is a mixed‑asset conservative fund that seeks total return by pairing income‑oriented fixed income with a risk‑aware equity sleeve, typically keeping roughly half to two‑thirds of assets in bonds and other debt instruments and the balance in stocks..."
Attn @David_Snowball

December article stated that PRCFX is a closed fund. I went on my account page in Fidelity and found it is apparently open. I do have other funds with TRowePrice but not this one. Inspired by what was stated in the article I searched for it and made a purchase.
Perhaps a new look should be made?
Pete

Buffer funds have become popular in recent years.
Cliff Asness and his colleagues from AQR Capital Management recently published
a review of buffer funds in The Journal of Portfolio Management.
Key Findings
• Buffer funds, options-based strategies that aim to limit downside risk while capping upside,
often underperform their reference assets in both returns and risk-adjusted terms,
despite being marketed as investor-friendly solutions to equity volatility.
• The promised downside protection is inconsistent in practice—realized losses frequently exceed what
investors might expect based on option payoff diagrams, especially outside narrowly defined periods.
• Simple alternatives like mixing equities with cash generally outperform buffer funds on average
and even in drawdowns, raising questions about whether these products truly serve investor goals
or just cater to behavioral preferences.
https://www.aqr.com/-/media/AQR/Documents/Insights/Journal-Article/JPM-Rebuffed-An-Empirical-Review-of-Buffer-Funds.pdf

"Although companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars in a race to fully capture the benefits
of artificial intelligence, the history of technological advancements argues for caution in estimating how
quickly and effectively this investment will pay off. If the anticipated AI-driven productivity gains fail to
materialize in the next couple of years, the U.S. could face more inflation, labor challenges,
and reduced economic activity."
"That leaves productivity growth to do the heavy lifting.
Yet the Congressional Budget Office projects that annual productivity gains will average just 1.3% through
the end of the decade. As a result, most economists expect U.S. GDP growth to fall in coming years below
the 2% rate considered healthy for advanced economies. Economists surveyed by FactSet expect
the economy to grow by 1.8% in 2026 and 1.9% in 2027."
"Slowing productivity growth, together with growing government obligations, could force policymakers to make
difficult decisions around taxation, public spending, and entitlement outlays, Vanguard’s Schickling says."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/u-s-productivity-is-about-to-slump-why-ai-won-t-come-to-the-rescue/ar-AA1RsLdg

Depending on your interest and background, you may enjoy this use of correlation matrices:
The Matrix Effective Rank: Measuring the Dimensionality of a Universe of Assets

Quantifying how diversified is a universe of assets is an open problem in quantitative finance, partly because there is no definite formula for diversification1.
Let’s make the (reasonable) assumption that the way assets are moving together within a universe is important for its diversification.
This in turn makes asset correlations within a universe important in determining how diversified it is.
...Results
The results obtained are remarkably consistent with those of Fleming and Kroeske(8):
The effective rank varies a lot through time(14), as illustrated on Figure 3
Evolution of the effective rank
Figure 3. Evolution of the effective rank
The proportion of total variance explained is both very high and very stable through time(15), as illustrated on Figure 4.
Figure 4. Proportion of the total variance explained
Another possible usage of the matrix effective rank, hinted in Fleming and Kroeske(8), is to use it as an indicator of systemic risk.
Indeed, it appears that the matrix effective rank bottoms around market crashes (financial crisis of 2007–2008, Corona crisis of 2020…).
Maybe a subject for another time…

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806095/000119312525307683/d69831d497.htm
497 1 d69831d497.htm 497
STEWART INVESTORS WORLDWIDE LEADERS FUND
A SERIES OF DATUM ONE SERIES TRUST
Supplement dated December 4, 2025
to the Summary Prospectus, Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information dated July 29, 2025
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Datum One Series Trust (the “Trust”) has approved the liquidation and termination of the Stewart Investors Worldwide Leaders Fund (the “Fund”). The Board approved the liquidation pursuant to the provisions of the Trust’s Amended and Restated Declaration of Trust.
Effective November 26, 2025, shares of the Fund were no longer available for purchase by new investors. The liquidation of the Fund is scheduled to take place on or about December 16, 2025 (the “Liquidation Date”).
On or before the Liquidation Date, the Fund will seek to convert substantially all of its respective portfolio securities and other assets to cash or cash equivalents. Therefore, the Fund may depart from its stated investment objectives and policies as it prepares to liquidate its assets and distribute them to shareholders. Any shares of the Fund outstanding on the Liquidation Date will be automatically redeemed on that date. As soon as practicable after the Liquidation Date, the Fund will distribute pro rata to the Fund’s shareholders of record as of the close of business on the Liquidation Date all of the remaining assets of the Fund, after paying, or setting aside the amount to pay, any expenses and liabilities of the Fund. At any time prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may redeem their shares of the Fund pursuant to the procedures set forth under “How to Redeem Shares” in the Fund’s Prospectus.
The Fund may make one or more distributions of income and/or net capital gains on or prior to the Liquidation Date in order to eliminate Fund-level taxes. For taxable shareholders, the automatic redemption on the Liquidation Date generally will be treated like other redemptions of shares generally, that is, as a sale by the shareholder that may result in a gain or loss to the shareholder for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
This Supplement and the Prospectus should be retained for future reference.

On the theme of torturing the data...
Typically, when the S&P 500 has effectively doubled (or nearly doubled) in a 3-year window, the subsequent 12 months are often a "hangover" period.
In 6 out of the 7 historical cases, the market either crashed, corrected, or went flat in the year immediately following the peak. The only major exception was the late 1990s Dot-Com bubble, where the market continued to rally for two more years before eventually busting.
...
Summary: History suggests the odds of a negative or flat year in 2026 are elevated, simply because the market rarely sustains a >20% annualized pace for four years straight.

This is my thinking. Call it "mean reversion" or "bubble bursting" or anything at all, it still makes me wary.
On a few notable occasions in my lifetime, I had belated wished I had stepped back and protected gains. And with many bond oefs looking to perform well in a falling rate environment, it may be a little less stressful to step away from FOMO?
One can have a great time, and leave the party early to avoid the hangover. Do the "lessons of the past" apply here? In any case, at 66 years old, perhaps it is time to back off of risk some more and act my age? My current plan is to take another 5-10% off of equities in the next month or two.

On the theme of torturing the data, some food for thought (via AI, not cross checked for accuracy)
Typically, when the S&P 500 has effectively doubled (or nearly doubled) in a 3-year window, the subsequent 12 months are often a "hangover" period.
In 6 out of the 7 historical cases, the market either crashed, corrected, or went flat in the year immediately following the peak. The only major exception was the late 1990s Dot-Com bubble, where the market continued to rally for two more years before eventually busting.
Here is the performance of the S&P 500 in the 12 months following each of these massive 3-year runs.
The "Next 12 Months" Performance Table
| 3-Year Peak Era | Streak End Date | Next 12 Months Return | What Happened? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roaring 20s | Aug 1929 | ~ -30% | The Great Crash. The market peaked in September and crashed in October. |
| Depression Rebound | Feb 1937 | ~ -35% | The "Mistake of 1937." The Fed tightened rates prematurely, causing a massive recession. |
| WWII Victory | May 1946 | -6.4% | Post-War Adjustments. Inflation spiked as price controls were removed, spooking the market. |
| Post-War Boom | Aug 1956 | -5.6% | The Eisenhower Recession. The market entered a bear market the following year (1957). |
| Pre-1987 Crash | Aug 1987 | ~ -14% | Black Monday. The market crashed 22% in a single day (Oct 19, 1987) just two months after the peak. |
| Dot-Com Bubble | Dec 1997 | +28.6% | The Exception. The bubble kept inflating. The market didn't peak until 2000. |
| COVID Stimulus | Dec 2021 | -18.1% | The Inflation Bear. Rates rose rapidly to fight inflation, causing the 2022 bear market. |
| AI Boom (Current) | Nov 2025 | ? | We are here. |
Key Takeaways
* Mean Reversion is Powerful: When the market runs too hot (75%+ in 3 years), it borrows returns from the future. In almost every case, the market had to "digest" those gains through a decline or sideways movement.
* The "1997" Exception: This is the one scenario bulls hope for today. In 1997, despite hitting high rolling returns, the internet boom was just getting started. The market ignored valuations and surged for two more years (1998 and 1999) before eventually crashing in 2000.
* Speed Kills: The most dangerous peaks (1929, 1987) were the ones where the gains happened the fastest at the very end of the cycle.
Summary: History suggests the odds of a negative or flat year in 2026 are elevated, simply because the market rarely sustains a >20% annualized pace for four years straight.

@BaluBalu, looking specifically at 2020 and using Whaley's table-row and PV for visualization of data from 12/2020-12/2021, it seems that MaxDD should be in Sept/Oct - PV shows -4.66% for VFINX.
Whaley maybe using the DD for the entire period and that would be 0.00 (i.e. the last DD data, or DecDD, but that isn't really MaxDD). May be you or @Junkster could follow up with WW at X/Twitter https://x.com/WayneWhaley1136 .
I do follow him at X/Twitter.
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio?s=y&sl=16BdDIaUEJiFnzdRWmtOtM

With +25% S&P gains for 2023 and 2024, and a +16% 2025 YTD, an average gain of 22.9% (or higher) for 2026 EOY?
Interesting. When was the last 4-yr period of 90% S&P gains? Never mind the higher Nasdaq gains?

Yes, I know this could be considered playing with numbers and curve fitting etc. I only post it because it comes from legendary technical analyst Wayne Whaley. Last week the S@P had a 3.7% gain. Since 1930 there have only been 15 Thanksgiving weeks that saw 2%+ gains. Over the ensuing 13 months to the end of the following year all 15 signals were positive with an average gain of 22.9%. 3%+ gains are even rarer with average gains of 29.8%. In the investment world the less amount of signals historically the most potent its relevancy. The reason for that we can debate another time.
Since I can’t post tables etc. maybe @yogibearbull could post the table showing drawdowns etc.

Thanks for the heads up. We don’t want any exposure to PE and PC either. Will watch Capital funds much more careful !