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I am looking at RAV4 Plug in hybrid. "Looking at" means I've thought about it for two months without doing anything. I hate buying cars. Rav4 phev seems a good alternative to all plug in. 40 something miles on electric and no range worries. And people say that 40+ is a legitimate number regardless of speed, air conditioning etc. $7500 tax credit. Best acceleration of any Toyota, I think. Minivans are great btw. So practical. No, not a lot of fun. But for hauling kids and kids stuff and every other type of stuff they are very useful. Up until you've moved your kid into an apartment for the last time. We have an Odyssey.

Great post. Thanks. As a horrible writer I appreciate your writing and your comment on writing. I read all the way down to "on the brink of economic depression, where the future is dim". That was a bit of downer! ;) I usually lurk but I'm even using emojis for this.

Off topic but good article today on Taiwan's Vice President. He's a Johns Hopkins trained epidemiologist, a virus expert. President has a PHD in Law from london School of Economics. Pres and VP are both very smart. Imagine that?

If you've ever wondered for whom we put do not drink labels on bleach you've found your man.

Nonfiction - The Soul of an Octopus. Fiction - Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles. Fantastic. Great writing. I thought it was recommended here but I can't find it anywhere. The Overstory - Richard Powers. Halfway through I'm loving it. Writing is beautiful. Good paired with the Octopus book. We humans think we're so special. So are octopuses and trees.

This is the only website I would click on "Cat food and nutrition." I don't even own a cat. I will say though, I was expecting something better.

"Did you get a better price because the market moved by the time your order hit the exchange?" My example was a spac that doesn't trade. What doesn't make sense is that they wouldn't pay 10.01 when I was offered there but paid higher when I removed my offering and the spread was 2 cents. It could be fees from taking my offering, I don't know. Bottom line is it doesn't matter much to me what's happening, although I appreciate your response. I do think the markets have gotten really screwed up because of fees, routing, dark pools etc. But, commissions get lower and lower and spreads get tighter so I guess it's ok.

I don't know what best execution means any more. Example: A stock was 10 to 10.02. I offer 2000 at 10.01 and my order shows, so it's 10 - 10.01 now. I cancel my offering and with the the stock back to 10 - 10.02, I hit the 10 bid with my 2000. I sell it at 3 different prices averaging higher than 10.01 which is where I offered originally. This is all in a 2 minute span in a completely inactive stock, a spac. The fragmenting of markets with dark pools and who knows what else has made it impossible to know the real market. Maybe with another broker I would have gotten a different execution. Better or worse I don't think I'll ever know, and I doubt you can trust any broker's statistics on best execution. I could be wrong as I don't understand any of this any longer. I use etrade btw.

What's memorable to me about the JPM Bear stearns merger is that it was announced at $2 as if it was done - "JPM buys Bear for $2." It immediately started trading around $2 and it still had to be voted on. JPM eventually paid about $10 a share. The move from 2 to 10 was a great move. Of course if I owned Bear prior to that, 2 to 10 wouldn't be such a big deal.

Etrade let me place a bid. I was just curious. There's one offering showing now at 40 so maybe placing a sell order would work now.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet that Trump is a moron. I can understand people voting for him, I really can, but I can't see listening to him for more than ten minutes without deciding that he's a complete idiot. Or a moron, take your pick.

A traveling salesman pulls up to a farm house. As he approaches the front door a pig runs by with three legs, missing one ear, and a chunk out of his side. The farmer comes to the door and the salesman says,, " Sir first off what happened to your pig?" The farmer says, " Mister that's one special pig! Few months ago we had a fire in the house at night. That pig broke the front door down, ran upstairs and woke the whole family." "Oh so he got hurt in the fire?" "Nope" "So what happened to him?" Farmer - "Short while after that I went hunting. Came upon a bear and he attacked me. That pig came running at the bear squeeling and chased the bear away." "Oh so he got mauled by the Bear? "Nope" " So what happened to the pig?" "Well there was an earthquake and that pig..." Salesman - "Wait a minute. I just want to know what happened to his leg, his side and his ear!" " Mister that's one special pig! Pig like that you don't just eat all at once"

I'm wondering if anyone can provide some input - tell me if this is a stupid idea. I am looking at Guggenheim High Yield Corporate Bond BulletShares. They're target maturities and they range from 2016 through 2023. Ishares I think offers the same idea. Looking at 2018, BSJI. http://guggenheiminvestments.com/products/etf/bsji/performance With almost 3 years to maturity in 12/31/18, they have: 30-Day SEC Yield of 8.65 %. Weighted Average Yield to Worst 9.16 % And at the current offer, using the Guggenheim calculator, an Estimated Net Acquisition Yield- 8.53% It's price is down about 15% from it's high about 1 1/2 years ago. 7.71 % is in energy. I understand they're not treasuries, and they'd get hurt in a recession, but this just seems like a lot of return for 3 years of risk. Am I missing something major?

Why Nothing Much Will Change For Fannie and Freddie Anytime Soon "In short, the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t going away anytime soon" http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/10/06/why-nothing-much-will-change-for-fannie-and-freddie-anytime-soon/

Thanks for the reply Richard. I didn't realize the 2008 results would be so ugly. The website sixfigureinvesting has some good information on it. I'll read up some more.