Thanks, @hank. Very generous of you.
Is P/E 22 the new P/E 12! Seems like everything worth owning these days is P/E 20+.
If it is a turnaround story, P/E is likely to be high and I can overlook P/E.
Mark Schneider has been there for 7 years. I am surprised he has not turned the ship around. He did a great job at Fresenius (my client many moons ago).
I did not think any company could be a bigger mess than GE (of course, until I saw BA). Larry took over GE only in 2018 and it probably took him 4 years to turn that lump of coal into a diamond.
I am a sucker for turnaround stories. I have to learn more about NSRGY story: what is the trigger and the time frame for the trigger. If you happen to have the answers, please share.
I do not have access to Barrons.
I just took an initial position to do more research.
Edit: do you hold your position in a taxable account to make use of the foreign tax credit of withholding taxes on dividends?

Concentration by itself doesn't work. I have been using concentration + momentum + best risk/reward funds + being in the right wide-range categories.
Since I started in 1995, there have been three long term cycles
1995-2000 + 2010-2020 = US Large cap tilting growth
2000-2010 = US Value, some small cap and some international
BTW, I changed the number of funds from 5 (2000-2018) to only 2-3 since retirement in 2018 because I can only find very limited great ideas.
You can read how I did it (here).

I think that most investors would generate similar to better results over time by using up to 5-7 funds, mostly indexes, hardly trade, and rebalance...all based on their goals, style and risk tolerance.
I never believed in any of the above, which is why I became a trader in 2000, when the stock market started to go down. It worked really well for me, using wide range categories
Another observation: markets have long cycles where 1-3 categories are above the rest, so why rebalance?
I started investing in 1995 based on the following:.
1995-2000: US LC tilting growth.
2000-2010: US Value+SC, and international. SPY+QQQ lost money for 10 years.
2010-2024: US LC tilting growth. Since 2018, I'm mostly in bond OEFs.

"Morningstar's John Rekenthaler starts with a simple but unusual observation that if 2 assets have the same long-term (LT) TR, then rebalancing will definitely benefit the TR."
In all other cases, rebalancing hurts TR, but does control risk

That's the inverse of the JR wrote, and inverses are often not true. (See The Fallacy of the Inverse, and Example 41 here.)
JR: If two assets have same LT TR, rebalancing helps portfolio TR.
Inverse: If two assets do not have same LT TR, rebalancing does not help (hurts) portfolio TR.
JR's statement can be understood intuitively. If asset 1 has a good year (relative to asset 2) and the assets have the same long term returns, then in the other years (on average) asset 1 must do worse. Since it will do worse, one would be better off moving some money from asset 1 to asset 2, i.e. rebalancing.
But even if asset 2 has poorer long term returns than asset 1, it could have better returns in the right years so that rebalancing still improves performance.
Suppose we have stocks (asset 1) and bonds (asset 2), and they return 10% and 8% respectively in odd years, and 8% and 9% respectively in even years. On average (long term), stocks return just under 9.0% (10% and 8% compounded), while bonds return just under 8.5% (8% and 9%).
In odd years, stocks do better (10% vs 8%) and rebalancing moves money from stocks to bonds. The next (even) year, bonds do better (9% vs. 8%). So moving money from stocks to bonds (rebalancing) turns out to be the right move. Likewise, in even years, bonds do better; rebalancing moves money from bonds to stocks which then do better the next year. Again, the right move.
The world isn't that neat, and often rebalancing won't improve portfolio performance. But arithmetically, one can't say that rebalancing must hurt total return.

And if the heir is a spouse at least 10 years younger than the deceased, there is a particular, more generous draw-down table in the case of a T-IRA. Not sure about 401k or 403b.
https://irahelp.com/forum-post/77387-ira-spouse-beneficiary-withdrawal-rules-different-when-10-year-age-difference/

There are different rules for the living and the dead. The rule regarding RMD calculations when there is a 10+ year difference in spouses' ages applies primarily to RMDs taken by the older spouse when both spouses are alive. No deceased here, just the living.
When it comes to IRAs inherited from deceased spouses, there's a good amount of flexibility but the 10 year age gap rule either doesn't apply (as described in the next paragraph) or is effectively moot (as described after that).
It is frequently better (and certainly simpler) for a younger surviving spouse to assume the inherited IRA as their own. That is, roll it into their own IRA. This pushes the RMD start date back to that of the surviving spouse.
But some surviving spouses need the inherited money now. By keeping money in an inherited IRA, they are allowed to withdraw it without penalty. They do have to take out at least as much as the deceased would have been required to take as RMD (if the deceased had reached RMD start age). But since the objective here is to have access to more money, that RMD won't really matter. Regardless of how it is calculated.

“Morningstar's John Rekenthaler starts with a simple but unusual observation that if 2 assets have the same long-term (LT) TR, then rebalancing will definitely benefit the TR." In all other cases, rebalancing hurts TR, but does control risk.”

Absolutely. Good distinction to make. To myself, and from what I’ve seen over the years, it’s the second reason that receives more of the attention - especially from the financial press. . Every now and than when equity markets appear frothy you’ll get this suggestion to rebalance as part of a lengthier piece on cutting risk, dealing with high equity valuations, planning for the future or some other broader topic. Not new in that sense.
Rekenthaler goes a step farther and dissects the idea into the 2 categories @yogibearbull observes. Good article. Thanks to @bee and Yogi for posting. Great minds think alike.

And if the heir is a spouse at least 10 years younger than the deceased, there is a particular, more generous draw-down table in the case of a T-IRA. Not sure about 401k or 403b.
https://irahelp.com/forum-post/77387-ira-spouse-beneficiary-withdrawal-rules-different-when-10-year-age-difference/

I turn 70 this month, but have heirs in mind. I suppose I'm more aggressive than others would be at my age. Wife is almost 20 years younger. One grown son.
I don't want to add any more positions. Including "cash," I'm already at 11. Market right now is overbought, so I'm growing cash.
I want my funds to give me diversification. More and more, dividends matter to me. I want at least a 3% yield. Some of my stuff offers quite a bit higher yield. My single stocks (there are 4) give me sector exposure:
1) Regional bank. 5.4% of total.
2) Telecom, media. 1.59% of total.
3) oil/gas midstream. 5.49% of total.
4) oil/gas pipe manufacturer. 1.06% of total.
...So, the single stocks are at about 13% of total.
"K.I.S.S." it. After transferring out of BRUFX, we put my wife's IRA $$$ into a conservative allocation fund: WBALX.
In my own IRA, there are 4 funds. Two are junk bonds. I do keep a sharp eye on how they behave, but they both are the most un-volatile holdings I own right now.
There is a tiny amount in the Fallen Angels ETF. FALN.
Cash 4
Domestic stocks 47
Foreign stocks 6
Bonds 40
"other" 3

I really simplified this year from many to three plus some T-bills and cash. I'm totally in as an indexer in equities holding VOO and VONG for a little kick. I started comparing every new idea I had to VOO and few beat it so I said what the heck. Bonds I'm all in on PIMIX. Had its heyday and not always the best the last few years but good enough for my bond side and it's doing much better recently. ~7%+ last 12months. Asset allocation is more important to me than jumping around looking for the best fund.

This has been tossed around & debated before. But it’s Sunday and the board is a bit slow. We all learn / evolve as investors. In addition, aging may affect our approach. My approach today is different than 5, 10, 20 years ago. Yours probably is too. About a year ago I simplified things by moving to a 10 fund equally weighted portfolio (with regular rebalancing). I expect it to be diversified enough to experience down years no greater than 7-10% or bear market losses no greater than 20%. It hasn’t yet been tested. I add / reduce risk as desired by swapping out funds. When using individual stocks, 3 combined typically count as one 10% weighting. Right now I’m underweight equities at 37% of portfolio. A more normal weighting would be 40-45%.
- 10% Cash / cash alts
- 10% Balanced (domestic)
- 10% Balanced (global)
- 10% Long-short (fund A)
- 10% Long-short (fund B)
-10% Global infrastructure
- 10% Arbitrage income
- 10% Investment grade bond (5+ year duration)
- 10% Investment grade bond (1-3 year duration)
- 10% Risk premia (PRPFX)
That comes to 10 positions. I can add / reduce risk by exiting one position and substituting a more aggressive or conservative one. The advantage of 10 as I see it is simplicity. I’ve considered cutting back to 8 or even 5. If 8 positions, each would count 12.5%. If 5, each would equal 20%.
PS - Feel free to criticize this. It won’t deter me, but might be enlightening or even amusing. Has anyone tried something similar?

This just goes to show how slow I can be in catching up on changes.
T. Rowe Price launched its series of quantitative management (QM) funds about 8 years ago (April 2016) but changed them to use an "integrated" strategy (combining fundamental analysis and quant models) a year ago (April 2023).
April 2016 QM series announcement
My impression of the QM series is that they were respectable (often 4*) funds offered at a reasonable price, at least compared to actively managed funds. In the 16 months since this change (really too soon to judge) the funds seem to have continued their solid performance. PRDSX remains in the top quartile (barely); TQSMX has moved into top quintile, TQGEX is in top third (a little better than past years), TQMVX had somewhat poorer performance, though generally top third starting in 2021.
What T. Rowe Price is doing may be similar to how MFS's "blended research" funds work. MFS describes its process (in phrases as fuzzy as TRP's) as combining a fundamental research stock score and a quant score into a single score, then optimizing (read: reweighting) the overall portfolio to roughly track the reference index. Unlike MFS, T. Rowe Price seems to be giving the final portfolio a bit more slack and focusing more on individual issue selection.
(See, e.g. MUEAX summary prospectus)
Ultimately, figuring out what these funds are doing is like reading tea leaves. Given that TRP seemed to do okay with its QM funds and if anything a little better after adding back the "human touch", its "integrated" funds may be worth a closer look. Not as barn burners, but as solid and reasonably priced actively (or pseudo-actively) managed funds.

Tough to argue against the results...fund manager very articulate in explaining his process...but like Kudlow once said...quant based funds all work great until they don't.
Trend reversals frighten me. Fund obviously worships price points...who knows looking backwards ten years out, might be a real winner.
Kind of almost onboard because who could argue that fundamentals mean anything anymore?

BLNDX is advertised as an "all weather" fund.
Yes, the fund may finally be "on fire this year", but looking at your chart, it seems to have exhibited a relatively flat total return performance for most of the previous 2 years, i.e., from approx. April 2022 to January 2024.
I was also somewhat surprised that BLNDX lost approx. 2% in the last 2 days.
As a retired and conservative investor, I am looking for a little more consistency.

Ok, I got it.
MM pays now 5+% but for years it pays under 1%. A couple of year from now it will be much lower. I can always find pretty good risk/reward bond funds but that's my specialty.
Logins at 4 weeks interval and not interested too much tell me Fidelity is better for you.
How can $250K sit idle? Suppose I sell 1 million and buy $950K(5% less than a million) it's only $50K. To have $250K sitting idle means you sold $5 million. I'm a stickler in that dept, if I see $100 left, I invest it.
Taking care of my money and logging in 10 minutes 2-3 times per week is worth it. I always check all my other financial institution sites too. IMO, It's a must in the digital world to protect and verify your assets.
I only invest in funds/ETFs, very rarely, I trade leveraged CEFs for hours/days when I see a good trade, like 2020, or 2022.
What does someone pay for RIA services?

Thanks. I'm usually skeptical of faith-based and veterans-based funds (USAA). Ever since I came across Timothy "Biblically Responsible" Funds (see family table below), which is perpetually on the bottom of our Fund Family Scorecard, likely because of high fees.
But AVEFX seems to be a frequent Great Owl. It pops-up on a MultiSearch screen requesting top quintile 3-year rolling averages over last 10 years, with the added constraint of never losing money in any of those 3-year periods. As does, Azzad Wise Capital WISEX. Another faith-based fund, but this time Islamic. Azzad is based in Falls Church, VA. Schwartz is based in Plymouth, MI. Timothy in Maitland, FL.

Final SECURE 2.0 version has been released (260 pages). X/Twitter Jeff Levine
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-14542.pdf
Edit/Add, 7/19/24. A longer thread is X/Twitter Jeff Levine2. It focuses on the unexpected vs the vague original SECURE 2.0 (re Roth 401k/403b, beneficiary classes, aggregation rule for partially annuitized IRAs, etc).
One clarification of the 10-Yr Rule for Inherited IRA RMDs is that:
(i) If the RMDs hadn't started, then the beneficiaries empty the IRA within 10 years in any way,
(ii) If the RMDs had started, then beneficiaries must continue RMDs at least the same rate for 9 years, and empty the remainder in the 10th year. There have been waivers for these RMDs for 2021-24, and those years will be counted in the 10 years, but resume RMDs as required in 2025 and empty the remainder in the 10th year.
Edit/Add. The above applies for designated-noneligible beneficiaries, the most common type. But the picture becomes very complicated if all types of beneficiaries are considered.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GSzVXu9XgAApoW0?format=jpg&name=900x900

Good info, Charles. Ethics in investing is a high priority for me, though after so many years, I have found that the very means of investing at all--- capitalism--- makes the task supremely difficult. What's legally permitted and what's ethical are almost divorced from each other today. I'm a former Catholic. I've moved on. But I admire the attempt at Ave Maria.

• Largest Catholic mutual fund family in the U.S.


• Diverse group of six funds that enable investors to align financial goals with moral beliefs


• Value investors utilizing proprietary criteria to screen out companies that promote or support activities contrary to the core moral teachings of the Catholic Church


• Place equal emphasis on investment performance and moral criteria in selecting securities


• Serve institutional and individual investors


• Advised by Schwartz Investment Counsel, Inc., a registered investment adviser established in 1980


• Professional portfolio managers and analysts average over 20 years of investment experience


• 100% no-load mutual fund family

I believe RCMFX is actually secular, but same advisor.

stayCalm

That said Fidelity and Vanguard imo are still better imo because one is not forced to manually enter a 2nd MMF trade for every single buy/sell.

Most should don't trade, and most shouldn't own MM.
This is such a small thing, no need to worry about, even if you didn't do the second buy, the yearly difference is meaningless.
You still need to look at the TOTALs.
Vanguard? no thank you, bad servicess.
Fidelity? sure. But, as I said, waving commissions is probably about $2K for me. The ability to invest 99% on day one when I switch funds at Schwab can generate another $K
These are all peanuts.

Regards your Catch 22 comment

I made a generic comment not related to you. All I can tell you is that I met probably at least with 30-40 financial advisors, and I wasn't impressed. Most are just salespeople who repeat what is fed to them.
Most are not real fiduciaries, even if their title says so. A good one should assess your goals in a couple of hours, set a plan for years to come, and only make changes at pivotal points.
They also should put you in up to 5-7 funds, at least half indexes, it's not a brain surgery.
That means charging you maybe $1000-1500 first time and nothing for years, hardly any of them will do it. Fiduciaries should look at their clients interests, not charge them every year, and never by the size of their portfolios.
Good luck.

David profiled the fund in January: Standpoint Multi-Asset Fund (BLNDX / REMIX).