Bogleheads.org

So I wonder if one way the Fed manages this is to lower the Fed's reverse repo facility rate? Why would they discourage it? Sounds like exactly what they want to do. Get money out of circulation. Pay less than it's worth from inflation The larger thrust of the article is why the Fed didn't allow The Narrow Bank to happen (a gross over-simplification on my part). But in the quote above you can see the thinking: If money funds continue to prove more attractive for savers than deposits, the downward pressure on banks’ reserve levels may remain or even increase. Smaller US banks have seen deposits drop, raising concerns about a reduction in lending to businesses and households if the outflows continue. Fed figures show that while the biggest 2...

This thread, and surely my response now, are going to get into dangerous territory of guessing about law/policy etc. Still here's my attempt. From Matt Levine yesterday, himself quoting Alex Harris: Money-market mutual funds are proving an irresistible place for investors to park their cash right now instead of banks. ... “Depositors are noticing” the gap between what banks and money funds are offering in terms of interest rates, Barclays Plc money-market strategist Joseph Abate wrote in a note to clients. “We expect flows into money funds to grow by several hundred billion dollars, heating up bank deposit competition.” An ongoing funding pinch for financial institutions risks having knock-on effects for banks’ willingness to lend, which in...

Electron wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 3:58 pm [snip]

3/27/23 4.17%
3/28/23 4.16%
3/29/23 4.03%

Woot! That tracks my math too

haha yeah it does seem crazy, even given my limited grepping of the concepts about the coupons etc.

zonto wrote: ↑Thu Mar 30, 2023 2:26 pm I'm seeing 4.15% 7-day SEC yield for this fund today. Tax equivalent yield for higher federal tax brackets is approaching 7%. Can't last long, right? But I moved money from the settlement fund here all the same.

7.06% TEY for those of us in 38.8%/5.75% fed/state brackets

I would call 70% pessimistic, as it's been running at 75-80%, so I would call 80% optimistic and 70% pessimistic. I just changed my TEY calcs to use 75% USGO as an estimate for 2023. I concur. I switched to 75% after the FEB report on VUSXX. I am using 40% for VMFXX and VMRXX as well base upon their recent reports. Why are folk sticking with VUSXX now that it is no longer 100% USGO? Don't Fidelity and Schwab have 100% USGO money market funds? Because I don't have accounts at either of those and it isn't worth the hassle of getting one and shifting money between; not to mention my employer's reporting requirements for another brokerage [bangs head]. Or can I buy those funds through Vanguard? ETA: though I just switched all over to VMSXX any...

Not directly. You can approximate it by looking at the accumulated interest in Balances By Date if you hold some. For anyone curious, if you want to calculate the 1-day SEC yield of VMSXX based on the Daily Balance feature of the Vanguard site to an accuracy of 10 basis points (4.0 vs 4.1) you're going to need $3650 in the fund given that the daily balance is rounded to a penny. Any less than $3650 and you might miss a day-to-day 10-basis point change in yield by not seeing a penny change in the daily balance movement. At $1825 you'd need a ~15 basis point change before you'd see it as a penny difference in the daily yield assuming they are rounding up . That might be enough honestly to see the change in time to swap if you project the nex...

I know several CFOs of mid sized companies. What you are preaching is unrealistic and absurd. Maybe at large companies it is somewhat realistic. But CFOs at small and mid-size companies are never going to properly analyze the risk of their deposits. If a CFo can't understand that uninsured deposits aren't insured I don't know why they are a CFO. If it's not the CFO's job then it's the treasurer's. Or the accountant or bookkeeper or whoever is putting the money into the account but understanding that money that is uninsured is not insured is not a difficult concept. Maybe trying to figure out what to do with the money is a little bit more difficult but not that much. Just get a good financial advisor. There are many options The least and ea...

I agree with Levine. And he seems to be saying exactly what I was saying. That depositors are now pretty much protected by the US government now, that's the precedent here. Not just up to $250k but in full. There now appears to be a guarantee for depositors that I'm not sure was there before this latest crisis hit. The behavioral aspect is important here. If people feel this way and don't go making mass withdrawals at the first sign of trouble, then FDIC mission accomplished. Of course, now that means there will be more regulatory scrutiny on assets and the FDIC will take immediate action (can it go faster than what they did for SVB?) so that it minimizes what it needs to pay out of its fund. Exactly! And isn't this a better way of doing t...

exodusing wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:34 pm

trirunner wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 6:06 pm Other banks didn't not sign up to pay insurance on > 250K. This was forced down their throats.

Other banks signed up to be subject to US banking regulations and applicable law, including whatever the FDIC, Fed, OCC, etc. as the case may be, decide to do. I'd think other banks get some benefit from the stability of the US banking system.

We don't even know if there will be a special assessment. Stockholders and bondholders will be wiped out. The remaining assets may be sufficient to cover all deposits. They should at least come close.

+1

...The Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF SJIM, -1.01% will aim to achieve the inverse of Cramer’s recommendations by going short anything he recommends buying and going long anything he doesn’t like. The Long Cramer Tracker ETF LJIM, +1.48% will go long anything that Cramer says investors should buy... Matt Levine in his Money Stuff column: ... a bunch of readers wrote in to make the same joke/point: Cramer should go on TV and recommend SJIM. Then, by its own rules, SJIM has to short itself. He should do it! Feels like a win-win. For Cramer, he gets to stick it to these guys who are making fun of him. For Tuttle, it’s funny, and “this is funny” seems to be the main theory of attracting investors to these funds, so presumably having to short their...

...The Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF SJIM, -1.01% will aim to achieve the inverse of Cramer’s recommendations by going short anything he recommends buying and going long anything he doesn’t like. The Long Cramer Tracker ETF LJIM, +1.48% will go long anything that Cramer says investors should buy... They are sure to have negative correlation with each other, so to get the maximum diversification benefit you could invest in both. Equal-weighted, to express your lack of conviction about which will do better. Then one part of your portfolio will always be beating the market, no matter what Cramer does. <--- Alert, this is a joke, don't do it. Perhaps, McQ could provide his usual exhaustive and indepth analysis of how these ETF impact the efficien...

“Love him or hate him, Jim Cramer is a polarizing figure,” said Matthew Tuttle, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Tuttle Capital Management, who serves as adviser to the ETFs, in a news release. “We want to give investors on both sides of the debate a way to express their views, and create products that can provide diversification to traditional portfolios.” The Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF SJIM, -1.01% will aim to achieve the inverse of Cramer’s recommendations by going short anything he recommends buying and going long anything he doesn’t like. The Long Cramer Tracker ETF LJIM, +1.48% will go long anything that Cramer says investors should buy. I didn't think it was worth it's own thread so I looked for a good thread ...

The hype around ChatGPT is interesting. Having used it a lot, it seems to be an advanced Clippy. It can be very helpful and also very wrong. Imagine dumping index funds in the 1990's due to Clippy. :-) Companies spending huge amounts of money on hype and acquisitions often doesn't work out well. I'll keep "doing nothing" and "chilling". The below is of course an opinion piece, and I agree with what everyone else is saying about why no one should be making market moves based on any of this. BUT ... this isn't Clippy. It is fundamentally something new and potentially ground breaking. The things most people are doing with ChatGPT are trivial compared to what non-public generative AI is already capable of doing. With ChatGP...

Not sure how I missed that both in my research and playing with Dinkytown sliders. But you are of course correct. I've left shame for all to see.

I was playing around with my tax projections and realized I am probably missing a bit of tax that other's might as well. Odds are good that if you are hitting NIIT and adding 3.8% to your federal, you are also hitting the Medicare Surcharge tax and need to add an extra 0.9% to your total federal rate.

$250,000 for married filing jointly;
$125,000 for married filing separately;
$200,000 for all other taxpayers

And your trad 401k contributions don't help avoid it either because it's based on W-2 Box 5

Anyway, it's small, but folks need to consider if they need to add that to their rate. I found out I do.

Response: Lastly, your comment (#4) really intrigued me. I am the type of person that has a strict budget and I can realistically fund back that taxable account prior to December 31st. But what would the point/ the bigger picture be for doing that? Just to take from it and then bring it back to the amount it was before? Thank you! NB Put simply: psychological. If your goal is to maximize total savings then you want to make sure you don't set yourself up to fail. I see you're not too worried about the taxable account itself; that's fine. My main point is to avoid the trap of being "done with retirement savings for the year. YAY!" and then risk spending some/all of that $500/month as opposed to saving it (ostensibly for your house ...

Although in a very different tax bracket, I found myself with the same decision for 2023. In the past I always had the "extra" cash to fund my annual Jan 1st Roth contribution (technically via an IRA to Roth conversion but that's not important here). This year I didn't have the cash and I had to decide. In the end I decided to sell some taxable to fund my Roth and then made sure my bi-weekly taxable contributions included the amount I would have sent to my Roth. Part of my reason was to harvest some Tax Losses in my taxable account. So this raises a few questions you might want to consider for yourself 1) Do you have enough emergency fund outside of taxable to ensure you don't need access to that cash? Though your Roth contributio...

retiringwhen wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 5:29 pm

mouth wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:58 pm

retiringwhen wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:21 pm even on Bogleheads where $700K/income is still not the norm.

You forget some of us aren't married. With only $200K needed for NIIT on top of $181K taxable income for 32% and $231K for 35% muni's make sense for more of us than just the $700K crowd [shrug]

Yes, you are right, I have a bias in my brain for MFJ rates, I have admitted as much elsewhere on this forum.

All good

retiringwhen wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:21 pm even on Bogleheads where $700K/income is still not the norm.

You forget some of us aren't married. With only $200K needed for NIIT on top of $181K taxable income for 32% and $231K for 35% muni's make sense for more of us than just the $700K crowd [shrug]

exodusing wrote: ↑Wed Feb 15, 2023 10:55 am

Kevin M wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 6:11 pm

Hogan773 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 4:09 pm To make sure I am doing the proper adjustment, since VUSXX is not taxable at the state level, and VMSXX is not taxable at the Federal level but IS at the state level, I would back off the tax benefit adjustment from 37% federal by 5% (State rate) and then divide the yield by 0.68 instead of 0.63 yes?

See Taxable equivalent yield - Bogleheads for the correct formulas to use for after tax yield (ATY) or taxable equivalent yield (TEY).

That page does not appear to give formulas for ATY, just TEY. ATY is just yield * (1 - applicable_tax_rate), which I find easier to compute and more relevant.

Kevin probably should have linked, or mentioned, the math page https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Taxable ... eld_(math)

And there we have it. Even at 38.8/5.75 rates, Muni MMF is yielding less right now than it did at the last trough. 2.84% vs 2.87 That's a BIG drop compared to what we've seen in the last year's worth of cycles. Very interesting indeed. It's also interesting that the slope of VUSXX has clearly flattened since the 1st week of December. https://i.postimg.cc/HnVp2DQD/Capture.jpg What kind of results would you get for a District of Columbia resident? My federal marginal rate is 38.8%. My DC marginal rate is 8.75%. In DC, all municipal bonds (regardless of the location of the issuer) are exempt from DC income tax. I think DC is the only jurisdiction with an income tax where this is the case so that a high marginal rate DC taxpayer has just about...

And there we have it. Even at 38.8/5.75 rates, Muni MMF is yielding less right now than it did at the last trough. 2.84% vs 2.87

That's a BIG drop compared to what we've seen in the last year's worth of cycles. Very interesting indeed.

It's also interesting that the slope of VUSXX has clearly flattened since the 1st week of December.

Why don’t you get credit for the 22 years in the military toward your CS time? I know many who have done that. It takes time (like 12 months for paperwork to be routed around for signatures), but may be very worth it in the end. In addition, you can pay a deposit of 1.3% of the pay you received for your military service plus annual interest for the 7 years since you left the military to receive an annuity of 1% of highest pay x 29 years of service. It might end up to be about $10,000. Again, do the math to see if it's worth it. If your high 3 average pay is $50,000, that is $14,500 per year. if you buy the military time back, then my understanding is you have to give up your military retirement pay, to get the CS retirement pay for the sam...

FiveK wrote: ↑Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:23 am For those who find pictures worth some large number of words, the heat maps in the Taxation of Social Security benefits wiki can be very helpful for the case of SS benefits and ordinary income.

When one adds qualified dividends and long term capital gains, as shown in the Married taxpayers example charts, then a tool like the personal finance toolbox Excel spreadsheet can draw those pictures.

Thank you very much

1. If Medicare B, then IRMAA; if no Medicare B, then no IRMAA 2. You might find this free calculator useful re the torpedo: https://www.covisum.com/resources/taxable-social-security-calculator Generally, as other income begins to approach the SS payment, you will reach the point where the maximum 85% of SS has become taxable. After that point, there is no longer a 1.85 multiplier, and no longer a 40.7% rate. Before that point, $1 dollar of other income makes $0.85 more of SS taxable, leading to a marginal rate of 1.85X the 22% that would otherwise apply to that other income (your taxable pension). Please see the income tax breakdown for Cheryl toward the end of the OP for an example. #1 IRMAA it is :-\ #2 Got it. Thank you very much!

With a Military pension + disability (both COLA'ed) I'm at $74k gross today If your talking about VA disability, it isn't taxable. So only your taxable pension part counts. :oops: yup, I'm aware of that. I am the dumb today. So to amend my numbers (and I'll do it in my post after this) my Pension is $53k + my eventual $43k SS which still puts my above McQ's $95k "course rule" Given your sources of income, do you have to take Medicare B or do you have alternative insurance? No Medicare B (or the smaller D) means no IRMAA to worry about. Good point. I'm retired active duty military using Tricare Prime right now. My current understanding is that when I turn 65, to get/keep TRICARE for Life, I'm required to enroll in Parts A and B. h...

Horton wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 6:32 pm One other option you might try is AI Planner: https://www.aiplanner.com/

It’s free. Gordon Irlam created it. It seems like a black box to me, but you might find it interesting.

FYI, not a total black box https://www.gordoni.com/lifetime_portfo ... arning.pdf

and the code is available on GIT https://github.com/gordoni/aiplanner

Soon2BXProgrammer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:23 am

mouth wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 8:46 am With a Military pension + disability (both COLA'ed) I'm at $74k gross today

If your talking about VA disability, it isn't taxable. So only your taxable pension part counts.

yup, I'm aware of that. I am the dumb today. So to amend my numbers (and I'll do it in my post after this) my Pension is $53k + my eventual $43k SS which still puts my above McQ's $95k "course rule"

anon_investor wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 8:01 am Wow VMSXX yields (1.95%) have fallen off a cliff like a rock. Even at the highest Fed tax rate + NII tax, VUSXX (4.23%) still has a significantly better after tax yield (even better if subject to state income tax).

Yup. It'll be interesting to see what this down cycle is like and when/if it really turns around. Right now it looks like it might actually dip below the last cycle, which is saying something considering the high it just came off from.

How does pension income that automatically drives up your tax bracket figure into all of this? I am assuming your small, medium and large portfolio values corresponds to a certain percentage withdrawal to live on (whether it is an RMD or before they kick in), in addition to SS income that places you in the IRMAA range and various tax brackets. Should we consider an approximate annuity value of a pension (that will be taxed just as the deferred tax savings account) and add that to our deferred portfolio value and SS to see how it affects IRMAA, tax brackets, etc? And what if the pension is not COLA'd but has a fixed 1% adjustment annually? Thanks. Glad you asked, it lets me make a clarification on what is "small, medium, large." ....

BizarroJerry wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 12:08 pm I will be in the 12% tax bracket after standard deduction.

Thread Closed.

At least until something major happens like you make SES and the tax laws change.

... you need to keep very stringent documentation of your contributions every year and prove in retirement those traditional contributions were already taxed at the state level. That doesn't seem too difficult. Sounds like you just need your state tax returns, and maybe your TSP statements, to show that you paid tax on that money [shrug] but i can see where that might not be worth it if you've done the math to show the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Spoiler Alert : I am strongly suggesting you do the math and model our the various scenarios. The major variable being your highest federal tax rate; maybe the answer is a obvious this year (22%). Maybe not (32%). Maybe it will change the year after. You should for sure re-run the math every ye...

I would say OP should make sure they fully understand the implications of NJ's law upon withdrawal, run the math, AND ask themselves if they plan to retire in NJ vs other states and those state's withdrawals if they are doing withdrawals there.

It all sounds unnecessarily complex, but alas my former hometown doesn't disappoint.

You mean 2.47% (4.20% TEY for me); time to switch to VUSXX 4.15% (4.58 TEY) https://i.postimg.cc/MKP52WTL/Capture.jpg With the cyclical nature of VMSXX and VUSXX would it make sense for someone who didn't want to track the changing rates to put half in each of short term reserves? Hedge between the two? 35% bracket + 3.8 NIIT and 4% State Short answer, at your rates, no. Longer Answer, at your rates, For the last 365, 270, 180, and 90 days, you'd still be better off just being at 100% VMSXX if you wanted set and forget; for at least a little while. But no matter what you'll have to check occasionally, like if the fed starts making noises about stopping rate increases or decreasing them, because the pattern may break and then all bets are o...

luffy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 17, 2023 6:58 pm Vanguard U.S. government obligations information for 2022 is out: https://advisors.vanguard.com/iwe/pdf/FASUSGO.pdf

Cash Reserves Federal Money Market Fund 53.08%
Federal Money Market Fund 37.79%
Treasury Money Market Fund 100.00%

Nice! Thank you for posting.

jebmke wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 10:43 am

adamthesmythe wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 10:22 am I make a few holes with a 1/4" drill and then smash with a sledge in the backyard.

Oh, wait a minute. Wrong paranoia. I crumple and put them in the trash.

Silly, everyone knows that store receipts should be discarded in a 55-gallon drum of sulfuric acid.

said in my best London cockney accent, "Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days ... You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm."

My story - At age 52after 27 years in the military and 7 years working in sales in the defense industry Two questions 1) Are you mean from the future?!?! 2) "Parkinglotracer" you still doing autox? I've got a Focus RS I still haven't driven in anger yet. Though on #1 I'm hoping to avoid the boomerang you rode on back to the workforce. Beyond my doubts that I'm really financially FIRE-ready despite the numbers, I'm hesitant to stop doing something that is so mentally stimulating for me. But I'm also at a bit of a crossroads job wise due to a few unimportant details, and I find myself asking, "do I really want to fight to find my next anchor account, or do I take this as an opportunity to really change things up?" Recentl...

My story - At age 52after 27 years in the military and 7 years working in sales in the defense industry Two questions 1) Are you me from the future?!?! (ETA: mean => me] 2) "Parkinglotracer" you still doing autox? I've got a Focus RS I still haven't driven in anger yet. Though on #1 I'm hoping to avoid the boomerang you rode on back to the workforce. Beyond my doubts that I'm really financially FIRE-ready despite the numbers, I'm hesitant to stop doing something that is so mentally stimulating for me. But I'm also at a bit of a crossroads job wise due to a few unimportant details, and I find myself asking, "do I really want to fight to find my next anchor account, or do I take this as an opportunity to really change things u...

Copper John wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 3:49 pm There is not a backup function in Google Authenticator, but there is a work around. You can use the exort setting within the app that you would normally use to transfer your authenticator accounts to a new phone. Choose each account one by one to transfer. The QR code for the account will pop up. Just take a photo of this code and this will be your backup. I put mine in a locked Apple Notes file. This method is described in the following article:

https://www.avast.com/c-lost-phone-google-authenticator

You don't have to do it one by one, it will provide you one large QR (okay two if you have a lot of keys). Much fewer pictures to take.

TechBogler wrote: ↑Sat Jan 14, 2023 3:01 pm Fantastic - had no idea about this page! You're awesome!!

You're very kind. But I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants here at BH and trying to give a little back where I can.

Do you lose any days of accrued interest if you decide to exchange funds between say VMSXX and VUSXX? Just wondering if the settlement (how long do mutual funds take to settle) or end of the day execution etc. may cause that Short answer: no. (note the lack of capitalized "n" ... that's my hedge for someone like Electron or KevinM to correct me!) Longer answer: MMs accrue dividends daily but pay out monthly (or when closed). You can see your accrued dividend on the VG site if you're looking at your balances page and select the "Show:" dropdown near the top and select Balances by Date. You'll see a new column called [drum roll] accrued dividends. Cheers! My Hedge: As for settlement and gaps, doing an exchange is seamless...

Result: my $1M investment portfolio is 27% taxable, 23% Roth, and 50% pre-tax and contributions are 65%, 7%, 28% respectively. Note that I 'm in the 38.8 fed bracket and 5.75 state. Neither Mega-Backdoor Roth nor HSA are available to me either :annoyed and with another 5 years of work, with your current contribution distribution, your taxable will end up much closer to your pretax. (asset allocation by account could skew things) and your Roth will end up much smaller then taxable. You're dead right. I left out (but you might have guesstimated) that my annual savings this year is projected at roughly $105K +/- 15k depending on bonus and splurge spending. With my 75/25 AA, all of that 25% is in TDA (which makes it 50% of that bucket) and eve...

(I'm still trying to figure out why Cheryl had a sizeable taxable account to spend down, but not much in Roth IRA. Contributing to Roth IRA is generally much higher on the priority list than taxable). :confused People who have all of their saving in the back half of their career end up with no Roth and more even amounts in pretax and taxable. (Closer to even the higher their savings rate playing catch up) Of course number vary, but late accumulators look different then lifetime diligent savers. This would be me. An early career in the military followed by a career in management consulting. My time in the military, with so much of my comp being tax free, should have meant a decent Roth pile. But a few things conspired against me; Youthful d...

TechBogler wrote: ↑Fri Jan 13, 2023 6:02 pm I see 2.83%, is a daily rate published somewhere else?

My spreadsheet is pulling it from vanguards price history page which seems to update the most recent day's price rather quickly. 2.83% was yesterday.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/ ... es#res#res

ETA: quickly as compared to the main fund page which is still showing yesterday's rate.

You mean 2.47% (4.20% TEY for me); time to switch to VUSXX 4.15% (4.58 TEY)

Gaston wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 6:53 pm
I do agree, however, that Vanguard misleads investors by calling them owners. As you and others have pointed out, calling someone an “owner” implies that certain rights and responsibilities go with being an owner, but as Vanguard investors, we have none of those rights. Vanguard should come up with a different way to communicate its mutual structure without calling its investors owners.

Would calling it a co-operative be more accurate then?

Or how about just calling them "non-voting owners"

In 2022, VMSXX's yield seemed to spike then go flat for a while, versus VUSXX which seemed to go up steadily. So VMSXX's advantage only seemed to be for a few weeks out of the whole year. You aren't wrong. But two things ... - At higher marginal tax rates the duration of VMSXX having a higher rate is longer. At the 32% rate (5.75 state) duty cycle is about 50% - Switching between the two is near frictionless with no capital gains.For some people, monitoring the prices is a bridge too far. A savvy and motivated person could set up google alerts if they didn't want to have to check. For me, I open my copy of the google doc linked above, and then decide if I'm doing anything today. Takes a few seconds to load, and <5min to move money between ...

Reading these responses is insightful - thank you for sharing. This made me wondering however - how many people have taxable investment accounts? Adding to my previous response in this topic, I moved $6,500 from taxable to Roth IRA today. I sold ETF in taxable and bought similar but not substantially identical ETF in Roth IRA. Felt like... nothing, really. Just a motion of moving assets between accounts. As a side benefit of doing that, I realized taxable losses, which gives me tax deferral. Essentially, I combined Roth IRA contribution with TLH. None of that substantially changed my market exposure. Neither it affected my cash flow. Same here, except I am technically in the middle of the backdoor process. But I grabbed some tax losses on ...

TechBogler wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:10 pm ah had no idea Vanguard had that page, appreciate it! seems to closely resemble the FFTXX daily yields also slightly dropping. Think I'm going to keep 75% in VMSXX for now and monitor, if the yields start dropping precipitously I'll rotate back into the settlement fund VMFXX. Thank you so much for all your help!

Just make sure VMFXX is better for you than VMSXX in your given state.