REVIEW. After doing well in FY 2021 (07/2020-06/2021), university ENDOWMENTS did poorly in FY 2022 (07/2021-06/2022) (but now is 02/2023! It takes that much tome to collect data from 678 institutions). Average allocations of 30% alternatives (some not marked to market, a concern) and 28% US equity meant that they outperformed the SP500. Gifts/donations remained strong.
FUNDS. Best Fund Families are ranked based on performance in 8 fund categories and are asset-weighted.
For 2022: 1-DFA, 2-Victory, 3-Neuberger Berman, 4-Capital Group/AF, 5-JPM,…, 18-Franklin Templeton,…, 21-Vanguard,…, 23-Pimco,…, 30-Fidelity, 31-Nuveen/TIAA,…, 36-Price.
For 5 Years: 1-Fidelity, 2-MFS, 3-Putnam, 4-Mainstay, 5-Amundi US, 6-Pimco,…, 10-Neuberger Berman,…, 13-Capital Group/AF,. 14-JPM,…, 17-DFA, 18-Vanguard,…, 21-Price,…, 26-Victory, 30-Nuveen/TIAA,…, 41-Franklin Templeton.
10-year rankings and rankings within the fund categories are also provided. (Too much detail to be included here, so access Barron’s online, at newsstand, or at local library)
INCOME INVESTING. Be wary of higher-yielding EM debt, whether dollar-denominated (EMB) or in local currencies (EBND, LEMB). Many EM countries are at different stages of the rate cycle, and dollar can also have a significant impact.
FUNDS. Gibson Smith, Smith Capital (core-plus SMTRX, etc); formerly, Janus Hendersen FI-CIO (JABAX, etc). After a disastrous 2022, BONDS in 2023 are the most attractive in a decade and may remain so for 12-24 months. Money is flowing into bond funds. The FED is near the tail end of its monetary tightening (rate hikes, QT). Remember that slowing economy or recessions are good for the bond market (true for investment-grade bonds, but not for spread products, HY, EMs, etc). He doesn’t like short-term bonds – yes, yields are attractive, but for how long? He likes IT/LT bonds and a BARBELL approach. Bond volatility will remain (Treasury MOVE 110.11). For corporates, he looks at company fundamentals first, and then invest in its bonds, investment-grade or HY. He also likes MBS and CMOs.
(EXTRA) FUNDS. ETFs that are benefiting from higher rates include DIVO, DGRW, GCOW, LVHI, ROUS, TBF (short Treasuries).
https://www.barrons.com/magazine?mod=BOL_TOPNAV
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/403/barron-february-20-2023-2

And yes; surprised to see Bob Doll with a Deep South Texas firm. I remembered he was at Nuveen and Black Rock before that. I remember him talking to CNBC folks, from Princeton, for years.

Vanguard made the mistake of not licensing its "ETF class of funds" patents to anyone. By now, this idea is quite stale. Vanguard itself has launched some self-standing ETFs in the US, and in Europe, most of its ETFs are self-standing. The Australian firm Perpetual US/PGIA (not to be confused with the US PGIM) that has filed is for ACTIVE ETF classes of ACTIVE funds. Unclear if the Vanguard patent was limited to PASSIVE funds only, or whether it never bothered to do so with ACTIVE funds. Last few years have shown limitations of this idea - when there are heavy mutual fund outflows, then the related ETFs have the same CG distributions as all classes.

No access to NYT
(The link is to a subscriber-only newsletter.)
Courtesy of Google:
Cached copy
If that link doesn't work, try doing a Google search on:
warshawsky TIAA annuity
Mark Warshawsky worked for TIAA and wrote a paper about this 20 years ago. His idea is the subject of this NYTimes OpEd.

@PRESSmUP Might you have a few mutual funds (tickers) that are developed international that could be charted against a similar U.S. fund(s)? We have remained U.S. focused over the years, so I don't really have any international names that come to mind.
I suppose that broad based index funds many offer a better view, as they are not being managed; and may present a cleaner view.
Suggestions.....? A chart of four isn't too busy for viewing.
ADD: An inception date before 2008 would likely be best.

In 2023, nothing like this should ever happen. Period. Not enough spent on infrastructure, on safety, on everything connected to running an operation like this. Inexcusable, unconscionable. Not enough crew on board, spread too thin, worked too hard, expected to cover too much. But it's all about the Benjamins, isn't it????? Feces. I'm just utterly disgusted.
And I just remembered THIS disaster from several years back, too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-Mégantic_rail_disaster

NHYDY refuses to fall far enough to make me happy with my Limit Order. Just canceled. Bought a few shares in PSTL, instead. Then where did it go, after the order was executed? Down further, of course! Growl.
down -1.12% on the day. Market just closed for the long week-end.
down -2.77% over 5 days.
down -1.67% over 3 months.
YTD: +5.57%
1 year: down -12.04%
5 years: down -6.76%
Why own this booger? It's the P.O. I think the divs are in the bag. I've been looking to find all the stoopid statistics and analysts' opinions on the stock, lately. Positive outlook, even if the target-price isn't much higher than where it is at the moment. Good market reaction to recent Earnings Report.

Supposedly the buy-side and sell-side 'analysts' don't coordinate the timing of release of their guidance, but I still don't trust Wall Street to play fair, even if it's the law or SEC regulation. A Chinese-firewall sort of thing, I think.
Nevertheless, a good rule of thumb is that when Joe/Jane Retail Investor see something in the media or as a research note from their firm, the information's already long-since known by others with far deeper pockets so it's not a surprise to everyone and depending on what's discussed, the 'easy' money could already have been made.
An even better rule of thumb is to never act blindly on what big-bank 'analysts' and prominent CIOs put out no matter how loudly their prognostications might be. You could've made a fortune fading (taking the opposite position) on such statements from, for example, Goldman's various CIOs over the years or Cramer's TV picks. Frankly, to me, the more I see them on TV or the financial press/social media, the less credence I give them.
By contrast, senior investment analysts or CIOs who eschew the media and rarely do interviews or make prognostications, or smaller folks running tiny funds or doing newsletter analysis might be worth paying more attention to in terms of their assessments and opinions - such as David Giroux of TRP or Jason Kelly. But even there, you still have to do your own diligence!

Thank you. Great to visualize the inverted yield curve.
Short duration are reaching close to 5%. As of today, 6 mo and 12 mo T bills yield 4.98 and 4.99%, respectively.
https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_yield_curve&field_tdr_date_value_month=202302
Today, new auction has been posted for 13 week, 26 week and 52 weeks T bills, 2 years, 3 years, and 5 years T notes. The expected yields are posted in major brokerages. Whichever treasuries you decide to purchase, you need to place your order by this Sunday and it will be executed by the following Tuesday.

Since Norfolk Southern's derailment on February 3rd in East Palestine, Ohio, the stock has fallen about 6.5% while Union Pacific has dropped 4.8% and CSX 3%. The poisoning of an entire community with PVC and other carcinogens seems to be worth about 2% to 3% of the company's value relative to its peers.
https://npr.org/2023/02/16/1157333630/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment

Several cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a cancer-causing substance. Other cars held other hazardous substances
Five of the derailed cars were carrying vinyl chloride, a manmade substance that is a key ingredient in PVC, the hard plastic resin used widely in construction and health care.
At room temperature, vinyl chloride is a sweet-smelling colorless gas. It is typically transported in the form of a compressed liquid.
Inhalation of vinyl chloride can cause respiratory symptoms like shortness of breath, along with neurological symptoms like headaches and dizziness. Chronic exposure to high levels of vinyl chloride has been associated with liver damage and cancer, according to the CDC.
This week, the EPA released a partial Norfolk Southern manifest that detailed other hazardous chemicals on the train, which included ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene. All can cause irritation or neurological symptoms like dizziness and headaches.

https://thenation.com/article/economy/rail-workers-say-industry-courts-derailments-in-quest-for-profits/

Rail workers have insisted for years that the staffing cuts that rail carriers have pursued to pad their bottom line would create a safety crisis in the industry. “Through PSR [Precision Scheduled Railroading], they’ve cut staffing levels, not just for the operating side, but for maintenance…and basically all crafts across the line,” Doering said. These acute staff shortages also mean that freight lines are subject to incomplete or infrequent inspections, compounding the risks of environmental disaster.

https://nytimes.com/article/ohio-train-derailment.html

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, weighed in on Tuesday, criticizing Norfolk Southern in a public letter for “inaccurate information and conflicting modeling” of the impact of the derailment.
Residents of East Palestine are losing trust in state officials and in Norfolk Southern, saying that no one has clearly communicated the scale of the disaster and the public health threats it could pose months or years later.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds of East Palestine residents crowded a school gym for an informational meeting about the derailment. They peppered local and state officials with questions about how such a disaster could be avoided and whether their water was truly safe to drink. Representatives from Norfolk Southern declined to attend.
Residents were evacuated and face uncertainty.
Just after the derailment, 1,500 to 2,000 residents of East Palestine were told to evacuate. Schools were closed for the week, along with some roads.

https://nytimes.com/2023/02/15/us/ohio-train-derailment-anxiety.html

“I just don’t want to be diagnosed with cancer or something 10, 15 years down the line because of their mistake,” said Therese Vigliotti, 47, who was outdoors the night that the chemicals were burned and said that her tongue still feels scalded and that she had seen blood in her stool for two days.
Most of the anger so far has been directed at Norfolk Southern, with elected officials publicly taking the rail company to task. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, called it “absurd” that Norfolk Southern had not been required to notify local officials about the train’s contents before it came through because of its classification, calling for congressional action and dangling the threat of legal action should the company fail to pay for the cleanup.
In a public letter, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, denounced Norfolk Southern for its “poor handling” of the derailment, charging that “prioritizing an accelerated and arbitrary timeline to reopen the rail line injected unnecessary risk and created confusion in the process.”

@davidrmoran: I don't know what happened to DEESX, either. I see from the charts that it reached its nadir on 3/22/2020, having fallen some 7 percentage points more than FXAIX at that point. It never really caught up and I can't devise a chart that shows it outperforming FXAIX. Maybe at exactly 9.5 years, as you say. I wrongly assumed as a shareholder of DSEEX that the bonds would serve as ballast in a down market; it seems the opposite was true and that the "secret bond sauce" appeared to accelerate the move downward. I was a CAPE fan and said so on MFO. I sold, disillusioned. Fortunately, MOAT has proven itself over the long haul. I've traded it, but have never been out. MOTI and SMOT, which adopt a similar "moat" methodology, have been welcome additions in recent months.

Given the size of the Buffett's estate, the 90% allocation to stock index funds might be far more acceptable than in this case. If you've got several billion dollars lying around, losing a billion or two to a stock market decline in a year isn't life altering.

Ditto
You can quote or cite the esteemed Buffet to support just about any point of view. My favorites are the ones about swimming naked + “Rule #1” and “Rule #2” .
But yes. @Mark’s reference to Buffet’s plan for wife (as vigorously discussed / debated here about a dozen years ago) is correct. Suggest a big grain of salt. As I believe Lewis intimated, not all of us have an extra billion lying around.

@Puddnhead without knowing how old your missus is, I'ld suggest that you first think about things that suit her time horizon. Then talk about buying things that she will feel comfortable owning if they go through a bad stretch.
From your comments, that might look a lot different than things you are holding. ;) But if she doesn't want tobacco stocks, then she won't be interested in a dividend fund, like PEY, that holds Altria and Phillip Morris.
In the past, bonds, consumer staples, utilities, and phone companies have been the traditional refuge for the risk averse. Today some might add infrastructure and health.
But whatever you do, for heaven's sake, hold onto the FXAIX too. :D.
Anyway, considering the rest of the M* equity boxes, I would first look at things with three year betas below 1.00, positive alpha, and relatively low standard deviation. The past three years does take in quite a bit of market excitement.
But past returns are no guarantee of future performance. So you're probably looking at funds that will under-perform if something like normal returns to the world; that era before pandemics, inflation, European land wars, and UFO's being shot down.
M* has retracted its threats against legacy portfolios. You might build a few watch lists of things you are considering. I break mine up into sector, domestic equity, and so on.
Good luck.

+ @larryB
I can remember not to many years ago, all the comparison and clear winner from that comparison was CAPE over the S&P 500. It was the clear winner - until it wasn't. I'm sure many bought into CAPE high and sold when it faltered. The key is having the conviction to stay with one scheme over another. Value and dividend stocks will have their day, same as growth or tech or using the CAPE methodology. Isn't the S&P500 a collection of all those sub sets?

Global hybrids are difficult to find. Two good ones are SGENX & TIBAX, both no-load/NTF at Fido & Schwab. TIBAX also has an unleveraged CEF cousin TBLD that can be bought anywhere.

The cheaper TIBIX share class can be purchased (with a TF) in a Fidelity IRA with a $2500 min. It can be worth the fee if you're planning to hold the fund for a few years. And via Fidelity's automatic investment system, it should be possible to buy additional shares with just a $5 fee.
Fidelity comparison of TIBIX and TIBAX

VYM is current-dividend, VIG is dividend-growth, SCHD is dividend-blend. In recent years, div-blend has worked better.

Some things can appear so obvious that they become difficult to explain, yet be so unclear to others. I watched an economics teacher struggle to explain something having to do with averages, I forget what. As a 3rd party observer, these different perspectives were visible to me. Perhaps what is happening here is like that and I'm not explaining things well.
I wrote: there's a tendency for people to look at "what have you done for me lately" even when trying not to - sometimes it's baked into the numbers.
Here's a paragraph from CBS News describing how "what have you done for me lately" is baked into M*'s ratings. On the surface, it looks like M* is biasing its ratings toward long term performance, because it weights 10 year performance at 50%, while weighting 5 year performance at 30%, and 3 year performance at just 20%. But something else is going on.

Obviously, the past three years account for 30 percent of the past ten years, which means that they account for 15 percent of the overall rating (30 percent X 50 percent). They account for 18 percent of the five-year rating (60 percent X 30 percent); and 100 percent of the three-year rating. Sum them all up, and we find that the past three years account for 53 percent of a fund's overall long-term rating.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whats-right-and-whats-wrong-with-morningstar-fund-ratings/
There's a similar problem in looking at good 1/3/5/10 year figures and concluding that performance is somewhat uniformly good, especially over longer terms. The final year's performance is influencing (I would say skewing) all the numbers. We saw this effect clearly (though with respect to bad, not good, performance) in figures published after March 2020. Suddenly good (and not so good) funds looked terrible, even long term.
Now I'm not expecting another once in a century pandemic anytime soon, nor do I think that nothing has been done to make economies more robust. So I'm inclined to discount (but not ignore) 2020 figures to the extent that they distort averages.

>> what have you done lately
? SCHD longterm performance shows this is, again, a rather misleading way to put it.
>> Had you looked at the same figures at another point in time,
sure, cherrypick away

You pick one trading day out of 2800+ and I'm the one cherry picking?
I looked at the long term (read lifetime) performance of SCHD on every trading day since inception and found that on most of them, its long term performance was superior to that of FXAIX. At least by eyeballing it.
The easiest way to see this is to plot the two over SCHD's lifetime, and note that there are long (multi-year) runs where FXAIX's cumulative performance exceeds that of SCHD:
11/2/13 - 2/5/16 (2¼ years), 7/27/16 - 5/12/21 (4¾ years).
Here's Portfolio Visualizer's graph. You won't get quite the same detail I'm providing (gory details below). The PV graph looks as though FXAIX led the whole way until five months ago. Though that's not far off from what happened.
FXAIX outperformed SCHD for virtually its whole life until five months ago. Are those few recent months supposed to stand in for long term performance?
When you talk about cherry picking, recognize that if one were to pick a date at random, much more likely than not, FXAIX would have outperformed SCHD to that point in time.

>> that we can expect, or at least hope for, another huge year (relatively speaking) for SCHD in the future? One that will make up for its typical slightly underperforming years?
and now you make it sound like SCHD is more this volatile / Heebnerlike instrument.

I'm looking not at SCHD, but the difference in annual returns between the two funds. This has got little to do with volatility of either component, but of volatility of their correlation.
If, for example, you take two share classes of the same, wildly volatile fund, differing only in ERs, then the volatility of the gap in performances will be zero.
The difference in annual returns ranges in magnitude between a half percent (0.52%) and 4½ percent (4.59%) except for 2022, when the difference in performance is more than triple the next largest annual difference. In the "biz" we call that an outlier.
Lewis linked to a couple of pieces that suggest an explanation for this outlier. Assuming you buy the reasoning, the question for you is whether you believe similar conditions (with similar results) will happen again.
11/1/11 - 1/24/12 - SCHD leads
1/25/12 - 5/15/12 - FXAIX leads
5/16/12 - 5/18/12 - SCHD leads (ends on a Friday)
5/21/12 - 5/23/12 - FXAIX leads
5/24/12 - 5/25/12 - SCHD leads (ends on Friday, Mon holiday)
5/29/12 - one day - FXAIX leads
5/30/12 - 6/19/12 - SCHD leads
6/20/12 - one day - FXAIX leads
6/21/12 - 8/16/12 - SCHD leads
8/17/12 - 3/20/13 - FXAIX leads
3/21/13 - 8/13/13 - SCHD leads
8/14/13 - 8/16/13 - FXAIX leads (ends on a Friday)
8/19/13 - one day - SCHD leads
8/20/13 - 9/18/13 - FXAIX leads
9/19/13 - one day - SCHD leads
9/20/13 - 11/5/13 - FXAIX leads
11/6/13 - 11/12/13 - SCHD leads
11/13/13 - one day - FXAIX leads
11/14/13 - one day - SCHD leads
11/15/13 - one day - FXAIX leads (ends on a Friday)
11/18/13 - 11/20/13 - SCHD leads
11/21/13 - 2/5/16 - FXAIX leads (ends on a Friday)
2/8/16 - 2/9/16 - SCHD leads
2/10/16 - one day - FXAIX leads
2/11/16 - one day - SCHD leads
2/12/16 - 6/23/16 - FXAIX leads
6/24/16 - 6/28/16 - SCHD leads
6/29/16 - one day - FXAIX leads
6/30/16 - 7/11/16 - SCHD leads
7/12/16 - one day - FXAIX leads
7/13/16 - 7/15/16 - SCHD leads (ends on a Friday)
7/18/16 - one day - FXAIX leads
7/19/16 - 7/26/16 - SCHD leads
7/27/16 - 5/12/21 - FXAIX leads
5/13/21 - one day - SCHD leads
5/14/21 - 4/25/22 - FXAIX leads
4/26/22 - 4/27/22 - SCHD leads
4/28/22 - 5/4/22 - FXAIX leads
5/5/22 - 7/20/22 - SCHD leads
7/21/22 - one day - FXAIX leads
7/22/22 - tie, Friday
7/25/22 - 7/27/22 - SCHD leads
7/28/22 - 8/18/22 - FXAIX leads
8/19/22 - 8/24/22 - SCHD leads
8/25/22 - one day - FXAIX leads
8/26/22 - 9/8/22 - SCHD leads
9/9/22 - 9/15/22 - FXAIX leads
9/16/22 - present - SCHD leads

>> what have you done lately
? SCHD longterm performance shows this is, again, a rather misleading way to put it.
>> Had you looked at the same figures at another point in time,
sure, cherrypick away
>> that we can expect, or at least hope for, another huge year (relatively speaking) for SCHD in the future? One that will make up for its typical slightly underperforming years?
and now you make it sound like SCHD is more this volatile / Heebnerlike instrument.
>> a "true buy & hold type" is going to need more than a one year anomaly
huh ?
god forbid they look at the 10y (end of January) comparison.
>> but then counter balance it.
Oh. Of course!
What do you suggest?
So often when one does this, performance suffers. Just compare FXAIX with VONE over time.
Or with RSP, a different kind of balancing.
'Tis the great mystery of investing decisionmaking.
Pleasing outcomes --- recently. Recently, go with VONV or RSP.
But oops, not the last month.
So: everybody, just do VT, and let its broad diversification (counterbalancing) be the drag, most often, or the plus.
As always, where is that breadth sweet spot?

@ PressUP… I I thought about those two missing sectors many times. Just ran 80% SCHD, 10% VPU and 10% VNQ vs 100% SCHD. SCHD won but the next ten years may be entirely another story.