August 1, 2025 | Mutual Fund Observer

Pricey buddies,

Welcome to the August difficulty of the Mutual Fund Observer! We simply accomplished one of many 5 rainiest Julys within the metropolis’s historical past, with three torrential downpours (the backyard celebrates) and roll expectantly into August.

For these of us who train for a dwelling, August is the season of watchful ready, a phrase lifted from the Christian celebration of Creation. The devoted are ready for … you realize, Christ’s return and stuff. Professors are ready for the primary day of sophistication. For a sea of hopeful, anxious faces. For the chance to elucidate that AI will not be the reply to all questions. (A dialogue that used to start “the web will not be …” after which “Wikipedia will not be …) For Augustana, the top of the month will see almost 700 new first-year college students, of whom over 200 are home college students of shade and … hmm, some quantity are worldwide college students. Which quantity? Good query! Perhaps 15 or 20% of the category? We’re largely on the mercy of the federal authorities which has been, let’s say, measured in its willingness to difficulty scholar visas. So, we’ll see.

And, within the meantime, we wait.

On this month’s difficulty

In Trending Funds at Mid-2025: Lynn Bolin presents his systematic method to figuring out promising mutual funds utilizing a score system that emphasizes fairness worth and bond high quality, pushed by considerations about excessive market valuations and potential financial shocks from coverage adjustments. He highlights trending funds throughout threat classes, noting that worldwide and international fairness funds have carried out significantly effectively attributable to their decrease valuations in comparison with the extremely valued home market.

Lynn follows that us along with his Portfolio Danger Evaluation, a complete threat audit of the present funding panorama, arguing for extra conservative portfolio allocations (shifting from 65% to 50% shares) attributable to considerations about market overvaluation, tariff impacts, rising nationwide debt, and potential inflationary pressures. He advocates for lively portfolio administration throughout what he sees as an more and more unstable interval, drawing parallels to pre-1982 financial patterns and warning that the period of ultra-low rates of interest could also be ending.

Each items mirror Bolin’s cautious, value-oriented funding philosophy in response to what he views as vital structural financial dangers forward.

Charles Boccadoro, maestro of our information and screener website, MFO Premium, shares phrase of an up to date navigation system there. (It’s nonetheless the net’s finest worth; for a tax-deductible donation of $120, you get entry to a number of thousand datapoints on almost 10,000 investments; in contrast to most websites that produce “canned” studies on one kind of fund, MFO Premium is able to operating reside, real-time calculations for you. within the correlation between the funds in your portfolio over the past three years? No downside. Transfer it out to 5 years? Can do!)

We spoke with John Neff, supervisor of Akre Focus, on the cusp of the fund changing into the most important mutual fund ($12 billion) to transform to an ETF. Mr. Neff displays on what’s altering at this iconic fund, and what isn’t.

As is our summer time custom, we seemed again three years to an August 2022 article on funds for unstable markets. We beneficial six funds to your consideration, 5 of which turned in good-to-excellent efficiency. The opposite one misplaced its founding supervisor. This month we replace the efficiency and prospects of all 5 and, as a late summer time bonus, we tuck in some new analysis on investor delusions.

I additionally look at the obvious consensus that markets face a dramatic 15% transfer—with specialists cut up on whether or not up or down—and recommend that a number of warning indicators level towards vital US market vulnerability forward. Drawing on every thing from Warren Buffett’s large money place to deteriorating jobs information and geopolitical tensions, I encourage of us to contemplate the case for lowering US market publicity and embracing a extra globally diversified, defensively positioned portfolio. The piece contains particular fund suggestions for buyers searching for equity-like returns with decrease correlation to more and more overvalued US markets.

Talking of adjustments, we share a fast Launch Alert for Rainwater Fairness Fund. We spoke with supervisor Joe Shaposhnik in 2019 concerning the fund on which Rainwater builds: TCW New America Premier Equities. That fund completed the last decade as the highest performer in its class, then was merged away into an ETF. Its file of excellence in each up and down markets warrants some particular consideration to the prospects of Rainwater Fairness. We’ll watch rigorously for you.

And, as at all times, TheShadow helps maintain us abreast of the business’s many machinations, in Briefly Famous.

The View from 4400 Miles Away

They give the impression of being down and so they perceive why it’s referred to as Mom Earth. All of them really feel it on occasion. All of them make an affiliation between the earth and a mom, and this in flip makes them really feel like youngsters. Of their clean-shaven, androgynous bobbing, their regulation shorts and spoonable meals, the juice drunk by straws, the birthday bunting, the early nights, the enforced innocence of dutiful days, all of them have moments up right here of a sudden obliteration of their astronaut selves and a strong sense of childhood and smallness. Their towering mother or father ever-present by the dome of glass.

Suppose the brand new thought, they generally inform themselves. The ideas you’ve in orbit are so grandiose and previous. Suppose a brand new one, a very recent unthought one. However there are not any new ideas. They’re simply previous ideas born into new moments — and in these moments is the thought: with out the earth we’re all completed. We couldn’t survive a second with out its grace, we’re sailors on a ship in a deep, darkish unswimmable sea. Samantha Harvey, Orbital: A Novel (2023), with due to Martha Barnette of A Manner With Phrases for commending it to us.

We’re struck by how fairly often those that’ve taken go away of the Earth, astronauts, actual or fictional, are all drawn to the identical imaginative and prescient and the identical sense of marvel. Not the infinite cosmos round them, however as an alternative “the little blue marble” earlier than them. Not the place they’re, however whence they got here. Astronaut Leland Melvin feedback, “seeing our world from that vantage level adjustments you” (Chasing Area: An Astronaut’s Story of Grit, Grace and Second Probabilities, 2018).

Chip and I had almost the identical response as we considered dwelling from a distance of 4419 miles, the hole between our dwelling in Davenport, Iowa, and our vacation begin in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s simple to get mesmerized by the cosmos – fjords, waterfalls, funicular railroads, and Viking treasures – then miss answering the query, “What did we see?” And so, we decelerate to provide ourselves an opportunity to see and never merely to cross by, snapping and posting like fools. Our tendency is to settle in a single spot, maybe for 4 days or every week, in order that we are able to begin feeling settled. The world slows down sufficient for us to see, to assume, and to get pleasure from. And so, we cut up two weeks between the 2 capital cities – Stockholm and Oslo – and Bergen, on Norway’s far west coast.

To start out with the vital stuff: it was splendid. English is spoken universally and with nice magnificence and beauty. My grouchy countenance and rumpled clothes apparently satisfied a good variety of shopkeepers that I used to be Swedish, so they’d start a dialog with me in Swedish, I’d reply in English (the context clues and a tiny vocabulary of Swedish phrases made that doable), and so they’d transition to English within the subsequent breath. The few indicators that we’re bilingual have been …effectively, actually, actually clear.

Of all of the issues that we noticed, extra under on that, we have been most struck by two issues we virtually by no means noticed: vehicles and sugar.

Chip could have been barely daunted by the escalators at Stockholm’s T-Centralen.

Stockholm is dwelling to one million folks. Oslo, with 20% of Norway’s inhabitants, is dwelling to 700,000 or so. Neither had as a lot visitors as Davenport (100,000). Of the vehicles within the capital cities, 70% have been electrical or hybrid. In two weeks, Chip and I traveled by aircraft, prepare, electrical tram, subway (the T-Bana or Tunnel Bana in Stockholm, actually “tunnel path”), funicular railroad, ferry, and taxi (as soon as, a 4:00 a.m. airport run). We didn’t hire a automobile and didn’t want one. 

That one issue had a bunch of implications. The cities have been walkable and devoted big quantities of different house to … you realize, human quite than machines. No downtown parking heaps. Hardly ever even parking garages. Small public parks are scattered by the handfuls, and big out of doors plazas for strolling and enjoyable.

There’s a small grocery retailer each few blocks and, as a result of the shops have been small (near an city CVS or Walgreens), the choice was thoughtfully curated (the common American grocery carries 240 totally different cereal choices, measured by SKU; the common Swedish retailer may need stocked 20). At the least in cities, “meals deserts” weren’t a problem.

Equally, sugar was extremely scarce. Espresso retailers tended to supply sugar in half-teaspoon sachets. A slice of carrot cake (on the Espresso Home close to Haymarket in Stockholm) was the scale of a Snickers bar. A lodge’s breakfast buffet would possibly supply 10 sorts of bread – half crispy, all fresh-baked – however one tiny bowl of mini-muffins. The occasional doughnut store was just a bit stand with a deep fryer. Iced tea was very evenly sweetened. Bakery gadgets, comparable to cardamon buns, had little or no sugar within the dough however massive, crunchy sugar crystals atop.

Ice cream, then again, was fairly widespread and fairly expensive, and licorice was almost a fetish.

Yep. Licorice logs, with flavored facilities, bought within the licorice retailer Lakrits Roten (Licorice Root).

Had I discussed that the Swedes’ love of licorice prolonged to ice cream? The signal advertises a gentle serve ice cream in salt licorice taste – with licorice bits.

Within the US, we principally have to seek out time to stroll; strolling will not be a necessity, it’s a kind of ethical obligation. In Norway and Sweden, strolling is common and ongoing, an inescapable a part of on a regular basis life. Maybe on account of walkable cities and a food plan oriented towards much less processed meals and fewer sugar, only a few persons are noticeably chubby, and virtually none are battling the kind of morbid weight problems (BMI > 40) that afflicts almost one in ten People.

You need to think about visiting.

In the event you do, you would possibly get pleasure from Midsommar. The Swedes have a 10-day vacation that brackets the summer time solstice. As a sensible matter, it doesn’t get darkish throughout the competition days; essentially the most you expertise is a kind of deep twilight between, say, midnight and a pair of:00 a.m. The view from our lodge in Oslo at 9:00 p.m. (high), 11:00 p.m., and 1:00 a.m.

Issues that struck us in Stockholm

Fantastic folks, temps within the mid-60s to mid-70s, phenomenal public transit – critically, the very best we’ve ever encountered – and persistently good meals … aside from the tendency to think about espresso as a late-morning beverage. (sigh)

The Vasa Museum is price a go to. The Vasa is a kind of monument to kingly ego and the tendency of presi royal advisors to say “sure, Your Highness” first and “WTF?” after. The Vasa was designed to be the best warship of its age (1627), however the king wished it even larger (“One Large Lovely Boat”, he demanded!) and so the shipwrights added a palatial degree on the strict, which made the ship disastrously top-heavy and unstable. Its maiden voyage was about … oh, 500 ft earlier than it tipped over, drowned a bunch of individuals, and sank in about 100 ft of water in Stockholm’s harbor.

About 350 years later, they raised the Vasa, inched it to shore, and constructed a five-story-tall museum round it.

Skansen the world’s oldest open-air museum, on the island Djurgården in Stockholm. People aware of Colonial Williamsburg or Previous Sturbridge Village will know the vibe.

Gamla Stan merely interprets to “Previous City,” and is. It dates to the 1400s. Cool retailers, Belgian block streets, and the occasional palace.

Additionally, the occasional dragon, dropping.

Notes on a day journey to Uppsala

Uppsala is the house of Scandinavia’s oldest college (1477). 4 hundred years later, a few of Uppsala’s graduates grew to become the founders of Augustana School (1860), my employer. A cool small metropolis with a quiet canal by its middle and an enormous cathedral.

It’s one of many few locations the place the variety of folks buried slightly below the ground didn’t detract from a way of calm and grandeur.

Norway in a Nutshell

“Norway in a Nutshell” describes a mixed prepare, bus, and ferry journey from Oslo to Bergen, by the use of the fjord-side hamlet of Flåm. Loath as we’re to be packaged with vacationers, we principally adopted the NiaN route however scheduled issues on our personal.

Probably the most highly effective sense of Norway got here from its geography. As we ferried down the Sognefjord, the water beneath our keel was 4,200 ft deep, and the mountains instantly beside us have been 5,250 ft excessive. Not surprisingly, waterfalls occurred each half mile or so all through the journey.

There’s Flåm, the true village which we didn’t go to, and Flåm the ferry port, a few dozen buildings situated on Aurlandsfjord, which is an arm of the bigger Sognefjord.

An in a single day keep within the small city of Flåm

A view from the dockside in Flåm, Norway

supplied a chance for a beautiful dinner at Ægir BrewPub (the precise meal is on this letter’s conclusion),

and a soothing morning staring out on the water, whereas sipping our espresso.

Fretheim Resort

Bergen

Bergen is Norway’s “second metropolis,” about 300,000 folks, surrounded by seven mountains, can be its westernmost metropolis, simply 350 miles from Aberdeen and 220 to the Shetland Islands, additionally a part of the UK. That meant that, throughout the Second World Conflict, Bergen was a middle of Norwegian resistance … and of public executions by the Nazis. It was odd to wander the peaceable grounds of Bergenhus fortress and the historic Haakon’s Corridor, stumbling upon the backyard the place – the indicators guarantee – 215 folks have been publicly executed, together with British commandos, members of the Norwegian resistance, collaborators and German troopers who “undermined morale.” Dozens extra civilians, female and male, have been gunned down at waterside or within the Ulven focus camp.

And right now? Flowers and walkers.

Haakon’s Corridor

Excessive atop the town is a pleasant park referred to as Fløyen – or extra formally Fløyfjellet – reachable by the Fløibanen funicular railroad.  The railroad is a part of the town’s public transit system, not only a vacationer expertise. There are two stops at neighborhoods alongside the way in which, ought to any passengers sign an curiosity in popping off.

The Fløibanen funicular railway.

The park is about 1000’ above the town.

There’s a strolling path for the adventurous. After due consideration, Chip and I made a decision to seek out our adventures elsewhere – and hopped the prepare.

Visited the Fisketorget, which, for people who spend more often than not close to the Mississippi River, was fairly gorgeous. It’s a mix of a fish market and meals stalls.

Completed the day with smut.

Effectively, okay, ice cream. “Smut” is Norwegian for “soiled” (I ponder etymology for a second), and since Bergen is extremely bilingual, the ice cream store’s bowl for used sampling spoons broadcasts “Soiled Smuts.”

Almost all indicators are bilingual, as on this repository for soiled spoons on the ice cream store.

Oslo

Oslo, dwelling to twenty% of Norway’s inhabitants, was a pleasant metropolis. There gave the impression to be one thing stereotypically Norwegian about the truth that there’s a giant honkin’ palace on the hill replete with a king and guards and all … which has been changed into a public park.

They’ve an unbelievable ardour for parks and public areas.

And sculptures. The presence of artwork all over the place is a part of the town’s cultural identification, and a part of the town’s development price range is dedicated to public artwork. One park alone has over 200 sculptures, a lot of that are lifelike and generally voluptuous nudes. Which, as you consider it, is perhaps a profoundly wholesome message: folks have our bodies. Recover from it already.

We spent a part of our ultimate night time on a jazz dinner cruise. American jazz, adopted by a sing-along of Norwegian people songs, as we approached the dock. A jolly time, however one that exposed a singular obsession with shrimp.

The cruise was marketed as having “a shrimp dinner buffet,” which it did, kind of. The buffet, arrange under decks, was (1) a thousand items of white bread, (2) dueling vats of butter and mayonnaise, (3) a pile of recent dill fronds, and (4) a bath containing two small shovels and cooked shrimp. Intact. Heads, egg sacs, limbs, and all. Our shipmates scooped up shrimp by the shovelful, disassembled them, and piled them on white bread with … effectively, mayo and/or butter and/or dill.

Jan, one of many of us sitting with us, labored by quite greater than 100 shrimp, one and a half bottles of wine and a beer. With gusto.

We loved the corporate on a 3 hour night jazz cruise on the Oslofjord, with a reside jazz band and a shrimp buffet

On entire, we had enjoyable and it (ultimately) confirmed. We’d totally endorse the journey for anybody who loves being out and about and assembly fascinating of us who share a love of life.

Phrases You’ll Really Use in Bergen (Norwegian) vs. Stockholm (Swedish)

Biblioclasm: the impulse to destroy data

All censorship exists to forestall anybody from difficult present conceptions and present establishments. George Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Career (1895)

There’s, generally, just one motive to suppress data: the concern that if folks possessed the data, these in energy could be screwed (aka out of a job).

That bubbled up within the context of President Trump’s current resolution to destroy two NASA satellites, which, apparently, have been reporting again inconvenient local weather information.

The information the 2 missions accumulate is broadly used, together with by scientists, oil and gasoline corporations and farmers who want detailed details about carbon dioxide and crop well being. They’re the one two federal satellite tv for pc missions that have been designed and constructed particularly to observe planet-warming greenhouse gases. (“Why a NASA satellite tv for pc that scientists and farmers depend on could also be destroyed on goal,” NPR.com, 8/4/2025)

The administration additionally shut down a Division of Protection climate satellite tv for pc program, in July (“Trump terminates satellite tv for pc information thought of essential to storm forecasting,” E&E Information, 6/27/2025). They’ve additionally begun the purge of federal local weather databases, placing in danger “a long time of well being, local weather change and excessive climate analysis” (“Contained in the determined rush to avoid wasting a long time of US scientific information from deletion,” BBC, 4/23/2025). The worldwide local weather web site, GlobalChange.gov, has been shuttered (“Trump administration shuts down web site on local weather change,” LA Instances, 7/1/2025) and the principle federal local weather information web site (Local weather.gov) is more likely to comply with (“Main US local weather web site more likely to be shut down after virtually all workers fired,” The Guardian, 6/11/2025). The 4 hundred scientists engaged on the Congressionally mandated Nationwide Local weather Evaluation have been fired (“Scientists intention to compile US local weather report after Trump cuts,” Deutsche Welle, Germany’s official worldwide broadcaster, 5/2/2025).

The coup de grace could be the approaching rescission of the 2009 “endangerment discovering.” At base, the EPA reviewed the scientific proof and in 2009 discovered that local weather change endangers the general public well being and security. That discovering then allowed the company to pursue rules that managed carbon air pollution from vehicles and energy crops. The Trump Administration has, in a reasonably triumphalist tone, introduced its plan to rescind the discovering (7/29/2025).

Presumably, should you truthfully thought that local weather change was a hoax, you’d constantly search the information wanted to show your rightness. The choice to destroy the power to gather information, contrarily, means that you realize you’re fallacious … and also you don’t care.

Dependable federal local weather information and clear threat disclosures are important for a functioning, well-informed monetary market. The systematic destruction of those assets by the Trump administration will not be merely a scientific or environmental difficulty—it’s a direct menace to buyers’ means to evaluate threat, worth belongings pretty, and make data-driven funding selections. This rollback of knowledge and disclosure will increase monetary market volatility, raises the price of capital, and should result in capital flight from sectors and areas most uncovered to undetected or unreported local weather dangers. For anybody managing a portfolio, the absence of reliable local weather data is a recipe for threat mispricing and sudden losses.

You can act to guard the globe and your portfolio. EPA regulatory adjustments, together with rescission proposals, require public remark durations. Citizen scientists can submit scientifically knowledgeable feedback—supplemented with regionally collected information—to the Federal Register or at public hearings introduced for the rulemaking course of. These feedback turn into a part of the authorized file and might be referenced in lawsuits. The EPA has directions for these inquisitive about commenting on their resolution.

Not inquisitive about railing towards the EPA?  Honest sufficient. Nonetheless, you would possibly need to get entangled regionally. Don’t attempt to repair the world. Attempt to get your metropolis authorities to vary the constructing code to encourage inexperienced roofs, help pocket parks, and plant metropolis bushes. Heck, for $1, you’ll be able to get a tree planted your self.

Greetings from a superb man

Davenport’s Bix 7 Race attracts about 14,000 folks to city each July. This 12 months, one among them was Murray Rosenblith, a gentleman of roughly my classic and co-manager of The New Alternate options Fund (NALFX). Based in 1983 by two attorneys, father and son Maurice Schoenwald and David Schoenwald. New Alternate options was created in 1982 as a automobile for the Schoenwalds and their buddies to precise their help for environmentally accountable and sustainable corporations, main them to be dubbed “the greenest fund in america” (The Economist, November 1989). It’s most likely the oldest renewable power (plus different sustainable stuff) fund within the US.

A captivating bunch. Murray’s background is primarily as a social activist and author who joined the fund’s board on account of his work stewarding the investments of an activist non-profit. Because the board thought of the problem of succession planning (Mr Schoenwald is now 75 or 76), they sought to tag an insider. Mr. Rosenblith match the invoice. Subsequently, they added Kate Don Angelo, who has an MS in Accounting, to the combo.

The managers have little endurance for quantity crunching or conventional funding metrics; their intention is to direct cash to corporations that they consider have the best prospect for bettering the world.

We’ve no dedication to a particular system in deciding on investments, comparable to favoring progress or worth or any technical system. We choose securities for buy or sale by subjective concern to the areas of curiosity and focus. Consideration is given to the perceived prospects for the corporate chosen and its business, with concern for financial, political and social situations on the time. 

It has persistently marched to its personal drummer (lively share north of 99%) with a median holding interval of 20 years. The fund has had extra good years than unhealthy, tends to be out-of-step and barely extra unstable than its international small- to mid-cap friends.

Given an curiosity in utilizing their capital to make a distinction, the workforce is having inner discussions on whether or not a social-impact bond ETF  is perhaps a logical subsequent automobile. Keep tuned.

On the passing of Nick Kaiser: Farewell to a terrific man

Nicholas (Nick) Kaiser, a pioneering funding strategist and founding father of Saturna Capital Company, handed away peacefully on July 25^th at his dwelling in Ponte Vedra Seaside, FL, surrounded by his household, after a brave battle with most cancers. He was 79.

In Might 2020, Nicholas Kaiser referred to as it a profession as he stepped away from day-to-day tasks on the Amana, Sextant, and Saturna funds. They’re all suggested by Saturna Capital, a agency Mr. Kaiser based in 1989. On the time, we summarized his impression:

Mr. Kaiser is a monumental determine: an early champion of sustainable investing, the supervisor of the primary funds accessible to devoted Muslim buyers, a ten-time honoree on Morningstar’s Final Stockpickers record, twice nominated for Morningstar’s Home Inventory Portfolio Supervisor of the 12 months and twice named to Barron’s Prime 100 Portfolio Managers. Mr. Kaiser stays as Saturna’s board chair and chief strategist. We provide our heartfelt thanks for the distinction he’s chosen to make.

The oldsters at Saturna Capital provided some further particulars:

Born in Bellingham, Washington, in 1946, Nick’s early educational and private accomplishments mirrored the fervour, self-discipline, and curiosity that will outline his life. He attended Shawnigan Lake Faculty on Vancouver Island for highschool, Yale School to review Economics (Class of 1966) and earned an MBA with twin majors in Worldwide Economics and Finance from the College of Chicago in 1968. He additionally served as a non-public within the U.S. Military at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

In 1976, Nick and his first spouse, Markell Foote Kaiser, acquired Unified Administration Company in Indianapolis, Indiana. There, Nick utilized his experience in finance and computing to remodel the corporate right into a mid-sized funding administration and brokerage agency. His success led to improvements in mutual fund operations and the creation of the world’s first Halal mutual funds, The Amana Mutual Funds Belief, pioneering values-based investing lengthy earlier than it grew to become mainstream.

After promoting Unified Administration Company in 1986, Nick returned to Bellingham and in 1989 based Saturna Capital Company. As Founder and World Strategist, he led the agency with a imaginative and prescient grounded in principled, long-term investing and moral service. His management helped Saturna develop into an internationally revered funding agency, which remains to be led right now by his daughter, Jane Carten. He remained an lively mentor and presence within the firm, even after stepping down from portfolio administration in 2020.

Nick’s contributions prolonged past finance. He served as a Governor of the Funding Firm Institute, President of CFA and Monetary Planning Affiliation chapters, and Nationwide President of the No-Load Mutual Fund Affiliation … [and]  generously devoted his time and experience to civic and academic causes. He served on the boards of the Mt. Baker Basis and Franklin Academy and supported Western Washington College, endowing the Kaiser Professorship in Worldwide Enterprise. He held management roles with organizations together with the Mt. Baker Council of the Boy Scouts of America (Government Vice President), St. Paul’s Episcopal Faculty (President), B.C.’s Island Belief Fund (Advisor), Fourth Nook Economics Membership (Founder) and Bellingham Rotary.

Nick’s life outdoors of enterprise was wealthy with journey. The lifelong bonds solid with Shawnigan classmates assisted in his repatriation to the waters, islands, forests and ski hills of the Pacific Northwest. A licensed industrial pilot, ocean sailor, skier, and avid reader, his return noticed him commerce in Midwest small aircraft piloting for boat possession and prolonged voyages across the San Juan and Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound and circumnavigating Vancouver Island.

Nick Kaiser’s legacy lives on within the lives he touched by his knowledge, generosity, and unwavering integrity.

Thanks …

To the entire of us who helped to make our Scandinavian sojourn superb!

Thanks, Stuart. The Vasa Museum was outstanding! Hello, Leah. We tracked down Susan Foss in Bryggen, the previous city part of Bergen. What stunning, extremely heat stuff. I ended up with a pullover sweater that I promise to share when the climate turns chilly; I start sweating simply taking a look at it now. Regrets, DGH: we sailed previous Bygdøy on our night jazz cruise, however didn’t make landfall. Chip’s itinerary for the return go to (presumably after a visit to western Scotland), is already intimidating. Roger: Every part concerning the “Norway in a Nutshell” piece of the journey – trains, tiny trains, electric-powered ferries, waterfalls, the occasional dancing nymph, and an in a single day in Flåm – was superb. We had one among our favourite meals of the journey at Aegir’s microbrewery in Flåm.  It included a beer flight matched with 5 dishes, together with what I have to say is a number of the finest smoked deer and pulled goat (with creamed potato and lingonberry) dishes we’ve ever eaten!  (These are numbers two and 4 on the plate.)

Because of you all for the steering. We considered you usually.

And, many thanks, at all times, to the regular contributors who assist us maintain the lights on and our spirits up: the nice of us at S&F Funding Advisors, RHG Advisors, Wilson, Greg, William, William, Stephen, Brian, David, Doug, and Altaf.

And a particular observe to Poody: thanks! Your belief, need to be taught, and to train some company over your affairs are extremely highly effective drivers for all that we do. My very own of us, as you would possibly know, by no means completed highschool, by no means sought monetary steering, and spent many nights whispering collectively on the entrance porch, usually concerning the payments they couldn’t pay. A whole lot of what we attempt to do is to supply a easy message: take a deep breath, it’s not magic, with a little bit of endurance and planning, you’ve obtained this. We’ll assist.

As ever,