Where to start?
Catch 22: When you don't know much, you have no idea if your broker (or even your financial adviser) is good, when you get better you don't need an adviser.
Brokers are not Fiduciaries. I would not use a FA(financial adviser) Fiduciary either.
Remember, a FA is a jack of all trades master of none. A FA can give advice after just several months of passing 2-3 courses(I did it in 3 months but never practiced). If you need a tax advice use a CPA. If you want to set up a will, power of Attorney, a trust you want an attorney. Think how many years it took to become a CPA or an attorney.
One of the most important myth for a FA is to put their clients' interest first but if they do that they will starve. A good FA needs about 2-3 hours to set up a typical client (I can do it under an hour). This setup should be good for several years unless something drastic changed. This means, you should pay a $1000 every several years but the reality is a typical FA wants to have a long-term relationship with you (I'm already married :-) ) so they can charge you based on your portfolio size. Why would I pay someone according to portfolio size and not by the hour or the job? Please run. That's how a CPA works and they are real experts.
Here is an easy way to see why your broker has his interest first, send him an email (because you want to see it in writing) and ask him what is the commission to buy 100 shares of AAPL, 500 shares and 1000 shares. Please report back(Hint: it's only $4.95 regardless at Fidelity + Schwab).
Lastly, if you walk in the street and see a broker please cross the street asap, if you see a FA say hi and keep walking :-)

FYI: Shares of Kraft Heinz (KHC) are down nearly 30% today following a big earnings miss and the disclosure that the company has been subpoenaed by the SEC. KHC accounts for more than 7% of Berkshire Hathaway’s’ equity portfolio, and that stock is trading down close to 2% ahead of this weekend’s earnings report on a day when the broader market is firmly in positive territory. Following this weekend’s report, Warren Buffett himself will be all over financial television on Monday to talk about all things Berkshire and its portfolio of companies.
Given the confluence of events, though, the question of whether or not Buffett has lost his touch is once again making the rounds. Remember, it was just a week ago that Coca-Cola (KO), which accounts for over 10% of the Berkshire equity portfolio, dropped over 8% after it reported earnings. In the case of KO, last Thursday’s decline was the most negative reaction to earnings the stock has had since 2002! With two stocks comprising 18% of Berkshire’s total equity portfolio getting demolished on earnings, you can’t blame traders for being a little more skeptical and taking some profits in their Berkshire positions. Year to date, the stock is one of less than 35 in the S&P 500 that are actually in the red YTD.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/has-buffett-lost-his-touch-here-we-go-again/

Sounds to me like @Old_Skeet has simply got an old fashioned, "traditional" full service account. Which can be a good deal if you've got enough money invested.
"Small fry" pay loads that go largely to brokers for sales and service. But for larger investors, fund families pay for those services out of their own pockets - not from loads. This is common industry practice. In a sense, not only is Skeet getting shares at NAV, but he's getting a kickback in the form of a payment from the fund family to his broker for services.
As Skeet mentioned, ongoing servicing is paid for by trailing fees that come from the ER. So that part of the servicing isn't free. Though when he buys say, TEDIX, in theory at least he gets some service for his ¼% 12b-1 fee. What value does one get for that fee when buying at Schwab or Fidelity? Personally, I'd open an MDISX account directly and save the 12b-1 fee. (I can do that; I'm grandfathered.)
It's nice that people are concerned about DIY's paying a 1% wrap fee to do their own investing. I often wonder, though, where the concern is for DIY's buying class C shares? These shares tack on a 1% annual 12b-1 fee (load) just as surely as wrap accounts tack on a 1% fee for owning a no-load share class.
Just today, someone posted a message in another thread speaking favorably about having owned C class shares of a fund. (The praise was for the fund; ownership of class C was incidental; in other instances people have posted about buying C class shares without paying a front end load.)

"But pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors represent the vast majority of public company shareholders—and, according to a recent study, these investors view buybacks as among the best actions management can take when it comes to allocating capital."
I think this is a crock of crap. I contend Management uses this to line their nest.

Of course they do.

For most of the 20th century, stock buybacks were deemed illegal because they were thought to be a form of stock market manipulation. But since 1982, when they were essentially legalized by the SEC, buybacks have become perhaps the most popular financial engineering tool in the C-Suite tool shed. And it’s obvious why Wall Street loves them: Buying back company stock can inflate a company’s share price and boost its earnings per share — metrics that often guide lucrative executive bonuses.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aalsin/2017/02/28/shareholders-should-be-required-to-vote-on-stock-buybacks
Also: Are Stock Buybacks Starving the Economy?, The Atlantic (July 21, 2018)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/are-stock-buybacks-starving-the-economy/566387/

In an exhaustive financial analysis of buybacks [see link below], the consultancy McKinsey found that companies would generally be better off issuing dividends or increasing investment instead. Buybacks also might distort earnings-per-share calculations and other measures of profitability and value.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-share-repurchases-boost-earnings-without-improving-returns

Heartland Advisors isn't quite the place I'd go for insight into the bond market. Remember that Will's dad (William J. Nasgovitz), CEO and controlling shareholder at the time, settled with the SEC for mispricing two muni bond funds. As a result of the mispricing, the funds' NAVs dropped by 69.4% and 44% in a single day.
https://www.twincities.com/2008/01/29/heartland-advisors-agrees-to-3-5-million-settlement-of-sec-suit/
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/23/business/sec-freezes-the-assets-of-three-heartland-funds.html
Some corporations have their act together a bit better than Heartland (which got out of the bond fund business around 2003). Here's S&P's report from six months ago entitled U.S. Refinancing Study--$4.88 Trillion Of Rated Corporate Debt Is Scheduled To Mature Through 2023
https://www.allnews.ch/sites/default/files/files/20180822_SP_US-Refinancing-Study-Rated-Corporate-Debt.pdf

Maturities are set to rise above $1 trillion annually in 2021 and 2022, up from $721 billion in 2019. While this is a substantial amount of debt, credit markets in the U.S. have shown sufficient depth and demand for corporate credit to facilitate companies' issuance of new debt to manage pending maturities. ...
While the maturity wall steepens as debt mounts in 2021 and 2022, we expect that companies will issue new debt between now and then, and that the amount of debt maturing in those years will decline in the intervening years.

It's a solid 17 page report, covering different grades of bonds, financial and non-financial corporate. If the subject is of interest, this is a good place to start.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-3-trillion-tsunami-is-about-to-wash-over-the-stock-market-warns-fund-manager-2019-02-20
"Will Nasgovitz, who oversees about $1.3 billion in assets as the chief executive of Heartland Advisors, isn’t calling for a “full blown financial crisis,” but, with trillions in corporate debt coming due in the coming years, the industry veteran’s not exactly predicting smooth sailing in the stock market, either."
eventually a crash will occur ...the 3 trillion dollars ?! Answer is when
It's like crying wolf

That page looks okay as far as it goes, but it's about as clear as mud if you don't already have an idea of how the industry is organized.
For example:
"The Dual Registered channel includes RIAs who are dually licensed as both a registered investment advisor and a registered representative". While it describes RIAs, nowhere else does it give a clue what a registered rep is.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/registeredrepresentative.asp
"RIA[s] ... access[] mutual funds ... via supermarket platforms such as Schwab, Fidelity ..." What's a supermarket platform and how does it differ from the Discount Channel it describes elsewhere? (I think they're the same thing, though discount brokerages will cut different deals for individual investors and for RIAs.)
"First Clearing ... Clearing Firm (categorized under Wirehouse due to affiliation with
Wells Fargo)". Yet National Financial Services LLC, which is not merely affiliated with Fidelity Brokerage, but is a wholly owned subsidiary of FMR, is not categorized as a Wirehouse. (Nor is Schwab, which it also classifies as a clearing firm.)
It's not easy to sort out the pieces, so it's not surprising to see sites get tangled up in trying to classify interrelated firms. (I claim only the most basic and incomplete sense of what the pieces are.)

Heigh ho.
"SMA" is shorthand for "separately managed account." Often an adviser will have a strategy (EM small cap value) that will manifest itself in a bunch of places; it might be the basis of their mutual fund but they might, separate from that, have some rich guy for whom they manage $10 million. They could offer to invest the $10 million for him in EM small cap value stocks, using the same discipline that's in the mutual fund but not the same investments. The m.f. might have invested in some Brazilian microcap in 2000 that's now worth $10 billion; the fund is letting a winning investment ride but would not consider buying it today. So the new separately managed account would have the same strategy and discipline, different fee structures and some but not all of the same investments.
Wirehouses (an antiquated term from the days when a brokerage would have a private, direct phone line - or wire - to a major bank) are the huge, integrated financial firms like Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, UBS, and Wells Fargo. Many of the online brokerages are, technically, clearing firms.
For now, at least, it looks like Marshfield is available only by directly investing through Marshfield.
Does that help?

Just a point of clarification:
The author cited in the linked article is William J. Bernstein. From Wikipedia: “William J. Bernstein (born 1948) is an American financial theorist and neurologist. His research is in the field of modern portfolio theory and he has published books for individual investors who wish to manage their own equity portfolios. He lives in Portland, Oregon. His bestselling books include The Birth of Plenty and A Splendid Exchange”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Bernstein
I at first incorrectly assumed the reference was to Richard Bernstein who has been around the block a few times at some of the big N.Y. investment banks and who appeared occasionally on Louis Rukeyser’s legendary Wall Street Week. Here’s a CNBC blurb on Richard Bernstein: https://www.cnbc.com/richard-bernstein/
Don’t know anything about William. Richard, however, wasn’t the sharpest blade in Rukeyser’s otherwise highly respected tool box. If he told me turn right I’d probably turn left.

@Mark- Yeah. Well, if I had the depth of resource structure that Mr. Buffett has, I'd go with his plan too. By resource structure, I don't mean the actual value of the holdings- I mean the expert financial information and manipulation resources which Mr. Buffet, his wife, and estate have access to.

Down to about 1%. At 80 and with potential health issues, I am not optimistic about the time-frame likely needed to hunker down through the next downturn and then back up the other side. My wife has no interest in the financial affairs, other than appreciating not having to worry about them. If I do last long enough to survive the next downturn, I'm well positioned to quickly reinvest as things start to move up again.

FYI: (This is a follow up article.)
Fidelity Investments has expanded its platform to let loose a new volley of more than 500 commission-free ETFs and as of February 28, 2019, additional iShares ETFs.
One hour later, Schwab ETF OneSource one-upped competitor Fidelity by announcing it was doubling its lineup of commission-free ETFs to 503 in 79 Morningstar categories, and by adding 90 iShares ETFs to its offerings, starting one day after Fidelity, on March 1, 2019.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/fidelity-pulls-trigger-on-commission-free-etf-price-war--and-schwab-fires-back-43296.html?print
Schwab Website:
https://pressroom.aboutschwab.com/press-release/corporate-and-financial-news/schwab-etf-onesource-doubles-lineup-500-commission-free-e

FYI: On the heels of rewriting the rules of investing through its
groundbreaking ZERO offering, Fidelity Investments®, one of the largest financial service providers with
$6.7 trillion in total client assets, today announced the expansion of its commission-free exchange traded
fund (ETF) platform for individual investors and advisors to include more than 500 ETFs. The move will
offer clients access to high-quality, industry-leading ETFs and further exemplifies Fidelity’s ongoing
commitment to providing the best overall value in the industry. Fidelity has more than $380 billion in
ETF assets under administration, up nearly 80% over the last three years.1
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/press-release/Fidelity-Expands-Commission-Free-ETF-Lineup_021219.pdf

Yes, I remember when Kinder Morgan MLP shareholders received significant income in taxable and non-taxable accounts when the MLPs were converted into Kinder Morgan stock.
Here is a reminder of that incident:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-advisors/010516/mlp-investors-hit-surprise-tax-bill-ira-income.asp
Here is a link for Cramer on the same issue:
https://www.thestreet.com/story/11544379/1/cramer-on-retirement-can-master-limited-partnerships-hurt-your-ira.html

@mcmarcasco - If you're asking about which 'particular one' to buy then that will depend on your own personal financial situation. I know, a copout, but I hesitate to go there.
If you're looking for schooling on CEF's there are plenty of 101 course sites:
http://guides.wsj.com/personal-finance/investing/how-to-invest-in-a-closed-end-fund/
to start with or just Google "how to invest in CEF's"
I highly recommend the M* 'Closed-End Funds' discussion board FWIW

The Hulbert article offers the following list of value stocks for the DIYer who can't find a fund for the job:
• Bank OZK OZK 3.55% (OZK)
• Brighthouse Financial BHF -0.83% (BHF)
• Capital One Financial COF 0.63% (COF)
• Citigroup C 0.61% (C)
• Goldman Sachs GS 0.60% (GS)
• Gulfport Energy GPOR -0.12% (GPOR)
• Mallinckrodt MNK -0.67% PLC (MNK)
• New York Community Bancorp (NYCB)
• PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust PMT 1.24% (PMT)
Financial services figure prominently. OAKBX has a few, but Citigroup is the only one in common.

I deserted OAKBX late in 2018 after a near 15-year marriage. It got ravaged during the December market rout. It is, of course, supposed to be a value fund. BTW - It’s been hot ever since I left. :)
Interested what folks think of these top 25 holdings. Is that fund still true to its value roots, or has it morphed into something else? Thanks for any observations.
Symbol Name % Weight
GM General Motors Co 4.95%
BAC Bank of America Corporation 4.80%
TEL TE Connectivity Ltd 3.93%
-- United States Treasury Notes 1.25%
MA Mastercard Inc A 3.11%
NSRGY Nestle SA ADR 2.98%
CVS CVS Health Corp 2.58%
UNH UnitedHealth Group Inc 2.36%
DEO Diageo PLC ADR 2.26%
GOOG Alphabet Inc Class C 2.18%
PM Philip Morris International Inc 2.12%
-- United States Treasury Notes 2.12%
C Citigroup Inc 1.82%
CHTR Charter Communications Inc A. 1.78%
-- United States Treasury Notes 1.75%
FL Foot Locker Inc 1.73%
ORCL Oracle Corp 1.69%
ALLY Ally Financial Inc 1.67%
BWA BorgWarner Inc 1.63%
-- United States Treasury Notes 2.38%
-- United States Treasury Notes 1.62%
NOV National Oilwell Varco Inc 1.41%
LEA Lear Corp 1.30%
GLEN Glencore PLC 1.30%
AIG American International Group Inc. 1.23%
Source: https://ycharts.com/mutual_funds/M:OAKBX/holdings

>> the only way for us to deal with the mountain of government debt at this point will be to inflate our way out of it.
Studzinski has lots of quaint bearish notions, but in this matter he really oughtta study up mo and better, Blanchard e.g., if he is going to be a working financial columnist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/10/very-good-economic-idea-may-be-about-replace-very-bad-one/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/melting-snowballs-and-the-winter-of-debt.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opinion/united-states-economy-public-debt.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/806636/000119312519022093/d678081d497.htm
497 1 d678081d497.htm 497
LONGLEAF PARTNERS FUNDS TRUST
SUPPLEMENT DATED JANUARY 30, 2019
TO PROSPECTUS DATED MAY 1, 2018
References to Longleaf Partners Fund in the Table of Contents and on page 23 of the Prospectus should now indicate the Fund is open to new investors.
LONGLEAF PARTNERS FUNDS TRUST
SUPPLEMENT DATED JANUARY 9, 2019
TO PROSPECTUS DATED MAY 1, 2018
Effective January 1, 2019, Ross Glotzbach became CEO of Southeastern Asset Management, Inc. (“Southeastern”) and a Portfolio Manager of Longleaf Partners Global Fund. The Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information should be updated accordingly. Mason Hawkins remains Chairman of Southeastern and a Portfolio Manager of all Longleaf Partners Funds.
On page 30, under Purchases and Redemption through Brokerage Firms and Other Authorized Intermediaries:
A broker may charge a commission to its customers on transactions in Fund shares, provided the broker acts solely on an agency basis for its customer and does not receive any distribution related payment in connection with the transaction.
LONGLEAF PARTNERS FUNDS TRUST
SUPPLEMENT DATED OCTOBER 1, 2018
TO PROSPECTUS DATED MAY 1, 2018
Under the Additional Investments section on page 26:
Online Transactions: Once you have opened an account, the Fund’s website, longleafpartners.com, can be used to make subsequent purchases. Choose “Account Log In” and follow the instructions. Payment for shares purchased online may be made only through an ACH debit of your bank account of record. Only bank accounts held at US financial institutions that are ACH members can be used for online transactions. Online transactions are subject to the same minimums, maximums, and investment restrictions as other transaction methods.
When you buy or sell shares over the Internet, you agree that the Longleaf Partners Funds are not liable for following instructions believed to be genuine. The Funds use certain procedures to confirm that your instructions are genuine.
Under How to Redeem Shares on page 27:
Online Transactions: Once you have opened an account, the Fund’s website, longleafpartners.com, can be used to make redemptions and exchanges. Choose “Account Log In” and follow the instructions. Redemptions will be paid only by check, wire, or ACH transfer and only to the address or bank account of record. Only bank accounts held at US financial institutions that are ACH members can be used for online transactions. Online transactions are subject to the same minimums, maximums, and investment restrictions as other transaction methods. Daily online redemptions are limited to $100,000 per Fund.
When you buy or sell shares over the Internet, you agree that the Longleaf Partners Funds are not liable for following instructions believed to be genuine. The Funds use certain procedures to confirm that your instructions are genuine.
LONGLEAF PARTNERS FUNDS®
ADVISED BY SOUTHEASTERN ASSET MANAGEMENT, INC.
6410 Poplar Avenue, Suite 900
Memphis, TN 38119

FYI: Retail alternative-investment funds, practically speaking, are 10 years old. Alternatives have long been in institutional portfolios, but they attracted little attention from retail buyers before the 2008 financial crash. After the disaster, however, the people craved protection, and the fund companies responded. Launching a spate of alternatives funds, they marketed the strategy hard.
The results, so far, have not been good. The problem is not just that the insurance was sold after the fire--a customary practice in investment management--but also that many of the alternatives have been flat-out losers. Even if U.S. stocks hadn't compounded by 13% annually during the decade of 2009 through 2018, those funds would have been poor choices.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/909394/the-past-decades-worst-alternative-investments.html