As I have mentioned, stock in my former employer (PEG)  is one of our largest holdings. I have owned it for 50 years or so. It’s recent financial reports were good, but it missed one estimate by one penny.
That range over the last 52 weeks was $68.29 to $96.52. Other than interest rate concerns I have no idea why. Today the price is $78.79.
Then I read this:
News

Evercore ISI Adjusts Price Target on Public Service Enterprise Group to $92 From $99
MT NEWSWIRES
May-01-2025 11:36 a.m.

After several years of RMDs from my rollover IRA, I’ve run out of cash to cover the withdrawal. In 2025 there is enough cash to cover about half the required RMD.
So, where does the rest come from? Which fund(s) do I sell? Here are the funds and their percentage of the account balance. 
NOTE about these funds. There is no rhyme or reason. A logical strategy does not exist. Some resulted from the transfer of the account.

This week marks the 50th Anniversary of Vanguard, and through that time, John Bogle’s company has saved investors on the order of One Trillion dollars – yes the total savings approach a huge T, not just B’s!!!
Vanguard serves over 50 million investors, has over $9 Trillion assets under management, and has fund expenses that average a meager $0.07%. We have about half our assets invested through Vanguard, and particularly appreciate that Mr. Bogle’s fee savings have been adapted across large segments of the brokerage industry.

When I sought a good plan for investing during the 1960s,  women were discouraged from having too much interest in the male-dominated Investment world.  Then I discovered dividend investing,  and found that income is not only a path to steady returns, but also a source of comfort when the market hits maximum turbulence, as it has recently.
I discovered this strategy has also become popular with people who are planning to retire early and need income—but also growth.

YOU MAY BE FAMILIAR with Peter Lynch. In the 1970s and ‘80s, he was one of the most visible figures in the investment world. As manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund, he achieved the best track record, by far, among his peers. He shared his wisdom in a series of popular books for individual investors.
Among the ideas for which Lynch is best known is the notion of “diworsification.” As its name suggests, Lynch argued that diversification simply for the sake of diversification isn’t always a good thing.

I’ve recently lived by the principle of keeping about 20% of my assets in cash as a safety net—not as “dry powder” ready to be fired off in some speculative move. But lately, I’ve caught myself eyeing that safety net differently, wondering if it could be more than just a cushion. Am I starting to see it as dry powder after all?
I keep hearing the word “play” tossed around in financial circles. “What’s your play?” they ask.

You can learn a lot about history by studying it but to truly understand it, you had to have lived through it.   This holds true for the popularity of financial instruments as well.  This is a companion piece to Jonathan Clements’s recent post, “Seeking Uncertainty,” in reference to Savings Bonds.
Savings Bond mania was in full swing during World War II.  They were introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, before I was born. 

WE WANT OUR STOCKS to behave like bonds, and our bonds to behave like cash investments. That leads to all kinds of portfolio contortions—some of them damaging to our investment results.
Remember, risk is the price we pay to earn higher returns. Many folks want those higher returns, but they’re anxious to avoid risk. Chalk it up to loss aversion: We get far more pain from losses than pleasure from gains.
Result? Think about stock-market strategies like purchasing equity-indexed annuities and writing covered call options.

For years I’ve used Vanguard’s “Portfolio Watch” feature, which provides portfolio analysis of assets held at Vanguard as well as those held at outside investment firms.
I’ve liked the Vanguard analyzer since, by agreeing to its aggregator feature via Yodlee (now owned by Investnet), it will update on a daily basis all your holdings’ values and analyze them as far as stock/bonds/cash; foreign/domestic; large cap/midcap/smallcap; growth/blend/value; etc. And it likewise analyzes your bond holdings as to credit quality,

IN 1774, AMSTERDAM businessman Abraham van Ketwich created a new type of investment. After raising money from a group of individuals, van Ketwich built a portfolio of bonds. He deposited the bonds in a metal box in his office, which three people then secured using three different locks.
Van Ketwich’s fund could be considered the world’s first index fund. How so? For starters, the bonds purchased were broadly diversified across industries and geography. Second,

Our portfolio leans somewhat towards the conservative side.  Our overall target allocation is 45% equities, 45% bonds, and 10% cash.
When it comes to the allocation within bonds I have not seen much in the way of literature that recommends an allocation regarding types of bonds/durations.
Our current allocation in specific funds as a percentage of our entire portfolio is: 15% short term, 8.5% short term tips, and 16.5% intermediate (the rest of the bonds are in a target date fund).

I have some active managed mutual funds(getting hammered by yearly tax distribution) in one of my brokerage accounts. I would like to know the best tax effective way to sell these funds?

“I’m giving you a love that’s true
And gonna make you love me, too
So get ready, get ready
‘Cause here I come.”
adapted from “Get Ready”
The Temptations, 1966
 
The Motown rhythm and blues quartet may well have divined the arrival of actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Can’t stop them now, ladies and gentlemen—they’re already here.
Leave it to the frantic asset managers who brought you the load fund and then repackaged it as no load with hidden excessive fees to invent a product to compete with the fabulously successful passive (or index) ETF.

To follow up on a recent post by Steve Abramowitz:
A Morningstar article published 3/11/25 addressed this subject looking at performance over the past 10 years.
It found that less than one out of every four active funds topped the average of their passive rivals over the 10-year period ended December 2024.
Long-term success rates were highest among bond and real estate funds.
The prospective payoff for choosing a winning fund versus the penalty for picking a loser.

IN THE 1990s, Mark Cuban started one of the first internet companies, a video streaming service called Broadcast.com, and later sold it to Yahoo for several billion dollars. With some of the proceeds, he bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise and sold that as well, taking home another several billion dollars.
And for 16 seasons, Cuban appeared on the reality TV show Shark Tank, in which entrepreneurs present ideas to a panel of prospective investors.