That's putting it mildly, to say the least. He had the best economic/financial mind in the building....

Just trying to be clear on things here ...
- You're planning to take money from your traditional IRA in 2019 to pay taxes on your 2018 Roth conversion. (I guess this from your saying you'd use RMD money, and there's usually no RMD on a Roth.) So far, so good.
- You're planning to take 4% (of what, the traditional IRA?) in 2019.
-- The "usual" 4% rule of thumb is for how much you can safely spend in a year (including "spending" on taxes); it's not an amount you must spend, or even move from investments to cash. Don't confuse RMDs, which are amounts that must be withdrawn from traditional IRAs - that's a tax event - with financial planning - how much money you have available to live on in retirement.
-- The first RMD is usually 1/27.4 = 3.65% (if your 70th birthday is the same year you turn 70.5) or 1/26.5 = 3.77% (if your 71st birthday is the same year you turn 70.5). You don't have to withdraw more than that from your IRAs, and you don't even have to sell any investments (you can just move that amount of securities from your traditional IRA to your taxable account).
- You'll owe taxes in April 2020 for whatever you withdraw from your traditional IRA in 2019.
- You'll be able to withdraw from your Roth tax-free, anytime, tax-free the money your converted in 2018 to your Roth tax-free at any time. But if you dip into the Roth earnings (which happens only after you withdraw all the converted moneys), you'll owe taxes on them unless you wait until Jan 1, 2023 (the beginning of the fifth year after conversion).
- Going forward, you're planning to convert more money each year. That will work if you take your RMD for the year before you do the Roth conversion.

FYI: Sheila Bair has demonstrated that she’s not afraid to be the lone person flagging potential problems. The former head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is best known for her early warnings about the subprime mortgage market, and she’s still spotting problems in the financial system.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/Sheila-Bair-Sees-the-Seeds-of-Another-Financial-Crisis.SJmhOxcDOf.html

FYI: During PBS Pledge this week we are revisiting our annual exclusive, Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s #1 ranked economist for a record 37 years shares his outlook for the U.S. joined by leading value manager Matthew McLennan. Watch that episode
again here.
How do you raise financially responsible children in an instant gratification, consumer-oriented culture? Award-winning personal finance journalist Jonathan Clements shares his common sense How to Think About Money approach.
Regards,
Ted
https://wealthtrack.com/financial-smarts-jonathan-clements-tips-to-raise-financially-savvy-children/

FYI: The U.S. housing market’s thunderous crash a decade ago helped bring the global economy and financial system to their knees. But those dark days seem like a distant memory now, as For Sale signs sprout on suburban lawns—a sure sign of spring—and Open House events in many locales attract a crush of prospective buyers.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/The-Housing-Market’s-Rebound-Is-Far-From-Over.H1XFBhiPOf.html

@Maurice This is in Warren's letter to BlackRock's Fink:

In your January 12, 2018 Annual Letter to CEOs, you explained that companies have a duty to positively contribute to society. In that letter, you called for a "new model of shareholder engagement - one that strengthens and deepens communication between shareholders and the companies that they own." You wrote that, "[ to] prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society." Now it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

Note the word "engagement." Warren is asking Fink to be true to his own words and those words in recent months from Fink's own mouth and pen have been about engagement, not divestment. Many articles have been written about Fink's recent letter that Warren is citing in which he promises to engage with companies, including this one:
https://nytimes.com/2018/01/15/business/dealbook/blackrock-laurence-fink-letter.html
BlackRock's policies about the importance of engagement are also clear:
https://blackrock.com/corporate/about-us/investment-stewardship
I'm fairly certain you yourself have commented on Fink's stance, and it's well known that as an index fund provider that has to track a benchmark it is far easier for BlackRock to engage than divest. Engagement has been its longstanding claim and now Warren wants the company to live up to that claim. There is no reading between the lines here.

Hi, Derf.
My portfolio review is a victim of my problems with the Morningstar website. I can't even see my portfolio through Chrome, my default browser, and I've been exchanging (amiable and patient) notes with them for six weeks about it. That keeps derailing me, at least in part because I become frustrated and stomp around rather than switching to Firefox or Edge or whatever. Two other stories are similarly in limbo because there are some things that their database (when it's working) facilitates that ours does not. Sorry.
Hi, JoJo.
If you want to pick that bone with the CFA and/or CFA Charterholder in question, drop a note to [email protected].
David

Not picking any bones, just try messing with y'all. But as a CFA Charterholder myself, I know all too well from the curriculum that calling oneself a Chartered Financial Analyst is a no go.

"And if the individuals involved were Chartered Financial Analysts"
There is no such thing. If you hold the CFA designation, you are a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder, NOT a Chartered Financial Analyst.
:)

Reminds me of Motif investing; build your own, eh?
https://www.motifinvesting.com/motifs#catalog=overview

From the article: A low-vol fund gives you more of sleepy Microsoft (MSFT)
>>> Things change, times change, managers change. Microsoft is not currently a sleepy company.
Sample: growth to value and value to growth:
---Durant-Dort Carriage Company was a manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint, Michigan. Founded in 1886, in 1900 it was US's largest carriage manufacturer.
This very successful business made the partners rich men and it became the core on which William C Durant and J Dallas Dort began to build General Motors.
Durant sold out of this business in 1914 and it finished carriage manufacture in 1917.
>>>With the assumption of being able to purchase stock in the above, one may suspect those who poo-poo'd the demise of carriages and those who poo-poo'd rise of the motor car. Who and when someone may have bought or sold shares in either organization would have allowed them a more complete understanding of growth becoming value and value becoming growth scenarios, yes?
Below chart is factor investing, too. Large cap value vs large cap growth, from 2 different vendors. Simple etf models, although I don't know about internal holdings changes over the years. In particular, since early 2016 value can not find as many friends.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?JKE,JKF,IVW,IVE&p=6&O=011000
I will guess that active individual investors are/were 50% inclined to be "factor or smart beta" investors before the terms became fashionable, eh? One makes personal investment choices for whatever reasons. One makes choices based upon many "factors" in their own world of risk and knowledge.
A few possible factors might include:
---age
---financial status, being employed and young with a good wage and prudent personal financial habits; being near retirement or being retired with a comfortable financial position
--- How hungry are you? = I'm young and hungry, I'm almost retired and don't want to lose what I've worked so hard to attain or I'm retired, and don't want to lose what I've attained, but still need to be invested in something reasonable. Among all of this at any age level is the aptitude/attitude involvement which may lead one to a more hands off approach of a plain joe/jane balanced fund style of investment or the Robo advisors.
One sorts and searches for whatever investment style floats their boat of comfort.
Factor or smart-beta investments offer more choices and hopefully not more confusion.
In closing, I'll offer the below partial lyric as the "theme song" for the ever evolving world of etf choices. Build it and they may come, eh?
Kinda like the simple lyric of this Dave Clark Five song (I Like It Like That) from the mid-60's:
Come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
Ah, come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
Whoa!, come on (come on let me show you where it's at)
I said the name of the place is I like it like that
The music is all around us, all we have to do.....is listen.
Take care,
Catch

FYI: One of my father’s friends is a Scottish immigrant named Bill. He doesn’t have time for fools. “Could you talk to Bill about investing?” my father had asked. “He just fired his financial advisor.”
At the time, I was visiting my parents. After dinner, Bill dropped by. As Bill poured himself a beer he said, “I’ve had three different investment guys in the past five years. I fired the third guy last week.”
Regards,
Ted
https://assetbuilder.com/knowledge-center/articles/would-you-fire-an-investment-manager-who-averaged-29-percent-per-year

"But without any public disclosure of the assessed price or public disclosure of an unrealistic stale consensus price, there is much more limited liability and less of a paper trail for lawyers and prosecutors to use in pursuing the parties guilty of fraud or incompetence."
The amount of liability (losses due to mispricing) does not depend on disclosure. What is most affected by lack of disclosure is the probability of being caught and held accountable. The paper trail will exist with or without public disclosure - funds must be able to provide that for SEC compliance inspections. That data should be subject to discovery.
For example, here's an SEC compliance alert from July 2008:

The SEC staff conducts compliance examinations of ... investment companies ... to determine whether these firms are in compliance with the federal securities laws and rules ...
Many high yield municipal bond funds invest in securities that trade in the secondary market on an infrequent basis or never trade in the secondary market. ... Further, liquidity determinations for a high yield municipal bond fund are critical to ensure that the fund is able to redeem fund shares within seven days, as required under the Investment Company Act. ...
[E]xaminers: analyzed the credit quality of portfolio holdings; reviewed illiquidity levels as determined by fund management; compared sales prices to prior day valuations; compared bond valuations provided by pricing services to market transaction data; ...
[E]xaminers noted the following: ... Disclosure. High yield funds often did not disclose the increased risk with respect to liquidity and valuation, as required. For example, examiners commented in situations where the percentage of illiquid securities held by a fund dramatically increased and the fund did not disclose: that a dramatic increase in the percentage of the fund invested in illiquid securities occurred and the risks associated with such an increase; what effect, if any, the increase may have on the fund’s ability to redeem investor shares in a timely manner consistent with the federal securities laws; and what steps, if any, the fund may take to dispose of some of the illiquid securities to bring the percentage within a range appropriate to the circumstances.

One takeaway - even the (relatively simple to compute) illiquidity percentage was often not disclosed, even though such disclose is already required.
Every once in awhile there's merit in the position that the government should enforce existing regulations before adding new ones. What's the point in requiring funds to disclose what at best are noisy estimates of liquidity slices (3 day, 7 day, etc.) - estimates that would merely enhance the value of illiquidity percentage data - when the latter aren't being properly disclosed?
As to astute financial advisers making use of this "additional" information: how many advisers are making use of the new disclosure of (mark-to-market) NAV values for prime MMFs?

I prefer the risk of one or two examples of intentionally fudged or incompetently assessed numbers over a completely inaccurate consensus or a black box of ignorance. If you think about the case of valuing illiquid Uber private equity for instance, one approach would be to merely maintain the purchase price of the security on the books no matter what market conditions are. This was not uncommon in the past. Another approach would be to take the latest sale's price of the security the last time it traded even though that price is stale and could be months old and much could've changed in the interim. Managers instead use a fair value system in which they generally hire an independent third party to assess the value of the illiquid asset based on current market conditions. When they screw that assessment up or intentionally fudge the assessment, there are legal ramifications that often get resolved in court. But without any public disclosure of the assessed price or with instead public disclosure of an unrealistic stale consensus price, there is much more limited liability and less of a paper trail for lawyers and prosecutors to use in pursuing the parties guilty of fraud or incompetence.
Yes, you could argue that the average retail investor will never look at liquidity disclosures. Indeed, the average retail investor cares only about performance and now more recently fees. But professional analysts could use the data at places like Morningstar to come up with liquidity ratings for funds. The SEC can certainly used the data for its investigations. And institutional investors and investigative journalists can use the data as well. Financial advisers worth their salt most certainly could use the data so even if their clients don't care about it, they should and alert their clients if there is a problem.

He also seems to like commodities. Anyone have a favorite commodity fund? PCLDX has crossed my radar.
gundlachs-favorite-idea-in-the-financial-markets-today-is-commodities

Translation: Fund vendors, feel free to dump your speculative hard-to-value cr--p into vehicles that you then peddle to unwitting retail investors and pension funds. Because the financial sector must continue to privatize the profits, but socialize the risks and losses.
They have learned NOTHING from history. As many of us predicted would be the case.
So much #winning!

Looking at assets (or AUM) of financial institutions presents a distorted picture. Banks, investment companies, etc. control lots of assets, but those assets are owned by others. The value (market cap) of these companies is much smaller than their assets would suggest.
When thinking about settlements, revenue might be a better yardstick. It's hard to get firm numbers on TCW (privately held), e.g. Nippon Life just acquired 1/4 of TCW, but terms were not disclosed.
FWIW, Hoovers estimates TCW's annual revenue to be $278M. $30M would put a sizeable dent in that, let alone net profits.
http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/revenue-financial.the_tcw_group_inc.7beb84b4a92f7670.html

Hi Guys,
As Seth Kllarman is often quoted as saying "The stock market is the story of cycles and of the human behavior that is responsible for overreactions in both directions."
We all have a strong tendency to overreact. As Damon Runyon remarked: "The race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet".
So my answer to market gyrations is largely to ignore them. Far to many false signals. I do nothing short term. I stay the course and anticiate a 10% long term annual equity market return. I have both the patience and financial strength to do so. I invest with money that I definitely do not need in even the moderately long term. That's a position of strength that works to ease my decision making in the marketplace.
Best Wishes

I saw the report earlier and @Ted posted recent about the outflow of monies from high yield bonds; well okay, but.....
Okay, so the second biggest money outflow on record from high yield is probably worth some type of note in the financial press; but it tis a small percentage number in the "move".
Here are more details on fund flows from a current report:
First IG bond fund redemptions in 60 weeks ($2.0bn)
HY bond redemptions second highest on record ($10.9bn)
Largest EM debt outflows for 64 weeks ($2.9bn)
Modest muni fund outflows ($0.7bn)
Strong govt/Tsy fund inflows continue ($2.4bn)
Tiny TIPS inflows ($0.01bn)
Small bank loan fund outflows ($0.2bn)
Based upon the reported numbers above and the reported dollar value of high yield bonds in the U.S. from Forbes being at $1.3 trillion; the percentage change of the HY money outflow = .85% .
I'll use this example of percentage moves that "could" provide the same headlines, but you will not likely ever see a mention:
The U.S. 10 year note yield moves from 2% to 2.05% during a trading day. This is a 2.5% move. Ya won't see this reported, eh?
Anyway, always pay attention to how numbers are crunched. Yes, even small moves may be of value to monitor and other aspects may be causing traders in any market to adjust. What is the overall trend in any market sector and what do you feel is the reason?
These dollar values do not necessarily have any real value in the big picture. This would not be unlike my smile when I see a truck commercial on tv indicating a price drop or rebate or whatever they choose to phrase being at $10,000 of the MSRP. Okay, so what; in 1970 one could buy 3 fully loaded Chevy Impalas for about $10,000. We need reference points, yes???
No, we investors do not "play" in either a fair or concise world of money.
E.O.R. (end of rant)
Have a good remainder
Catch

hmm ... how does one become an AP? can you lose money? (seems so, not sure)

The short answer is that you sign a contract with an ETF distributor that allows you to buy and sell creation units of the ETF.
Here's a sample AP agreement I pulled up at the SEC site. (I've never read one of these, have no desire to; a quick skim of the headings suggests this agreement is pretty basic.)
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1414040/000119312513132740/d513469dex99e2.htm
For a more complete answer, here's ICI's "The Role and Activities of Authorized Participants of Exchange Traded Funds".
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1414040/000119312513132740/d513469dex99e2.htm

What Is an AP?
An AP is typically a large financial institution that enters into a legal contract with an ETF
distributor to create and redeem shares of the fund. APs play a key role in the primary market for ETF shares because they are the only investors allowed to interact directly with the fund. ...

You're correct that there is some risk for APs. On the other hand, while they're allowed to make money via arbitrage (e.g. buying an ETF for less than the value of its components and then selling the underlying securities), they are not required to participate.
In theory you could have an ETF where no AP stepped in to stabilize its market price (relative to its NAV). ICI seems to think this isn't a big deal. Some people here, myself included, might disagree. In its paper, ICI writes:

It is important to remember that even if no APs ...step forward to create and redeem [ETF shares], the affected ETF shares would ... trade like closed-end funds. In addition, the effects would [be] contained to the affected ETFs and not transmitted to other ETFs or the underlying securities markets

Josh Brown, meet Jack Bogle (who never met an ETF he liked - by design they encourage trading).
Jack Bogle: the lessons we must take from ETFs (FT, Dec 11, 2016)

Individual investors are by far the largest holders of the Vanguard [traditional index funds], with annual redemption rates in the range of 8 per cent of assets. Banks and financial intermediaries hold almost 90 per cent of SPDR S&P 500, where the dollar value of annual turnover typically runs to some 3,000 per cent of assets

The only way an ETF can have an outflow is if authorized participants (APs) redeem shares. Otherwise, investors are merely trading among themselves, neither buying new shares nor redeeming existing shares.
APs act only if there is significant tracking error between the ETF price and the underlying portfolio value. For example, when the market is rising, but buyers aren't rushing to buy the ETF, the ETF price may lag. APs will swoop in and buy "cheap" (rising but underpriced) ETFs, redeem them, and then sell the underlying stocks at a profit.
So rapid outflow (redemptions by APs) could be caused by lack of ETF trading, just as it could be caused by excessive trading (e.g. pushing the ETF price down below the underlying portfolio's "true" value). A direct causal relationship between ETF outflow (i.e. AP redemptions) and ETF trading volume doesn't seem clear to me.
Regarding the "active" use of ETFs, Bogle looked at how owners of Vanguard index funds did during a few months of 2016. He wrote that if the investors bought a fund via ETF shares, they underperformed by around 1.6% over the period examined. But investors who bought the same fund via open end shares slightly outperformed the fund.