Re: boats and wealth. Many, many years ago my old man told me that if weren’t for my sailing habit I could have been rich. But sailing twice to Mexico made us rich in experiences. Just should have sold her sooner.

Sounds like our weekend place. Didn't build it as an investment- we've had 25 years of use and pleasure out of it. With current insurance problems it may not be easy to sell that either. If we just break even, adjusted for inflation, that will be fine.

Yes, in some parts of the world including here in California sand dredging has caused major damage to beaches and waterways, destabilizing adjacent land and damaging local fishing. Been going on for some years.

@Baseball_Fan, if you capitalize your mutual fund tickers it would be easier for people to read and review funds. Yes, shout it out :)
I might do:
50% PRWCX
30% AVGE
20% CD/treasury ladder going out 5 years.

On the next sizable down day I would put half in FPACX and half in JQUA and pay no attention to them for many years

Terry Savage, who writes a finance column and has been at if for a long time, was noting, rolling tbills 3, 6 months a time with "chicken money" as she calls it...she's prolly right...

Not sure where you are driving at, but I will let MFO posters here to decide if Warren Buffet is rationally rolling over $6 billion chicken dollars into T bills every week. @yogibb and others here considered short term T bills as risk-free instruments. Some even venture out beyond 6 months to 2-5 years. By the way, many money managers are also taking advantages of 5% yield on their cash equivalents.
Addition: sorry that I was cranky. The biggest risk with T bills is when inflation rates exceed treasury yields. They were not attractive until the yields went up in 2022. At some point when the yield curve normalizes again, one needs to move to longer duration treasury notes.

How far out are you going in duration wth your tbills @Sven if I may inquire? Curious as to whether we will regret NOT going out to 5, 10 years with t notes, looking backwards in later 2024? Just a few years ago, getting 4%+ over 5 years was fairly solid, no? Of course inflation might ding you bigly if you get to cute with it.
Terry Savage, who writes a finance column and has been at if for a long time, was noting, rolling tbills 3, 6 months a time with "chicken money" as she calls it...she's prolly right...
Personally as long as I can get 5%+, I am pushing out as far as that goes with tbills/note, (picked up some 5% 2 year notes recently as well as 1 year tbill)....also looking real close at CBLDX, Crossing Bridge....will prolly step in with 6 figure + by EOY or sooner there....
Best Regards,
Baseball Fan

I tried to sneak a lot into the publisher's letter, under the assumption that it was the end of summer and a holiday weekend and folks weren't in the mood of lots of long articles.
In addition to Rupal Bhansali moving on (which you knew and about which I've learned no more, though I'm still working on it), I shared a list of ten things - roughly half finance, half not - that I learned in August. One thing that I learned (again) is that ARKK is a disaster for its investors, fawning press and stunning results (up and down) notwithstanding. As the drought here worsens (and many residents in Iowa move deeper and deeper into denying both that the climate is changing and that we're to blame), I've been vaguely heartened by and fascinating by the story of concrete.

I spared folks from a completely unrelated discussion of what Roman roads last 2000 years and Davenport roads made it about five, but there were a couple cool articles on the subject - short version, start with a four foot deep trench and build the road with a series of distinct, compacted layers.

We profiled Artisan International Explorer after an hour-long interview with the managers. It was my first time meeting Anand Vasagiri and Devesh's first time chatting with either. Devesh agrees that David Samra's underlying discipline is sound but hasn't seen enough evidence that the team will remain stable and able to execute it over time. I totally get the concern, which was heightened by the conference call tech - a weird ceiling mounted camera and mic that occasionally seemed to move on its own and provided neither ideal sound nor a close view of face, but remain positive.
Devesh has a follow-up interview with Rakesh Bordia, the manager of the five-star Pzena EM Value in which he's now a shareholder.
Lynn walked through both notable young ETFs by age and muni funds by type. Shadow tracked the industry, as always, with special notice of an announcement from Osterweis.
I hope your holiday weekend is / have been / was joyful!
David

WABC, The problem with your post....This site isn't an email forum, it's an investment discussion online forum. Valuation was the only all-caps word and the most important one. Obviously, you paid attention.
BTW, it's about time to look at the context and stop looking for controversy.

No controversy FD99.
If you think tarting up the typeface makes your posts more, something, knock yourself out.
Where you may see “aesthetic seriousness,” readers might see "pomposity" or overwrought "grandeur" a little too much for an informal place like a forum. They might see something else entirely, like shouting to grab attention. Reader's opinions will be colored by their familiarity with the writer's previous posts.
You say, without typographical histrionics:

I have read annually for years that EM stocks have a better value than US stocks...and it didn't seem to matter.
In fact, at the end of 2022 many analysts and managers told us that Tech is overvalued and to buy Value stocks....and QQQ made YTD already over 42% and Value is way behind.
Years ago on this board several claimed that Apple is another blue chip, it wasn't.
Bottom line, valuation can be "irrational" for years.

What do you think you have proved?
Do you buy things without bothering to estimate, and consider, the value of them? That value does not predict the future? Nothing does. Not charts. Not momentum. Not even the Magic 8-Ball or Ouija Board.

I use all 3, bold, italic, all caps for several words.
Back to the subject. I have read annually for years that EM stocks have a better value than US stocks...and it didn't seem to matter.
In fact, at the end of 2022 many analysts and managers told us that Tech is overvalued and to buy Value stocks....and QQQ made YTD already over 42% and Value is way behind.
Years ago on this board several claimed that Apple is another blue chip, it wasn't.
Bottom line, valuation can be "irrational" for years.

The problem with VALUATION

When people start shouting, I stop reading.

Dinky linky.

Professor Paul Luna, director of the department of typography and graphic communication at the UK’s University of Reading, told me we’ve been using caps to convey “grandeur,” “pomposity,” or “aesthetic seriousness” for thousands of years—at least since Roman emperors had monuments inscribed, in all caps, with their own heroic accomplishments. . . .
“All-capitals provide visibility—maximum size within a given area,” said Luna. And that works online, too. “All-caps in an email looks like shouting because when someone is shouting, you’re aware of the shout, and not the nuance,” Luna told me over email. “ALL-CAPS FILL THE SPACE, so there’s an element of feeling that the message is crowding out everything else.”

The problem with VALUATION is the fact that:
1) It can't predict the next 3-6-12 months
2) It can't predict market correction and which index/category will go down more.
3) Once upon a time PE10(CAPE) looked like a decent indicator until it failed miserably.
Prof Shiller created PE10 which is supposed to predict performance based on valuation better than PE
On 05/2012 (https://money.cnn.com/2012/04/10/pf/investing-Shiller.moneymag/index.htm)
Question: You have become famous for your cyclically adjusted 10-year price/earnings ratio. What do the latest numbers say about future stock market returns?
Shiller: we found a correlation between that ratio and the next 10 years' return.
If you plug in today's P/E of about 22, it would be predicting something like an annualized 4% return after inflation.
FD: In reality, the SP500 made 13.6% in the next 10 years (04/31/2012-04/31/2022). Let's deduct the inflation and make it 11%. It is much better than countries with lower PE10 such as Emerging markets.
4) If valuation or another indicator has been how you make more money, we would have a lot more investors such as Buffett and Lynch. Times have changed too...article quote:"It’s harder to find overlooked stocks than it was in Lynch’s day because more people are looking for them — anyone with a smartphone has free access to extensive markets and financial information. The result of greater competition is evident in the numbers: Fast-growing or highly profitable companies are almost always the most expensive while the cheapest ones come with lackluster growth or thin profits."

Lots to comment on here.
- RMDs now begin at age 73, giving an extra "golden year".
- Several states give capped exclusions for retirement income including conversions; this is a consideration in deciding whether to exhaust the Trad IRA (via conversions) or spread out conversions & withdrawals past age 73 to benefit from lower (state) taxes.
https://rpea.org/resources/retirement-information/pension-tax-by-state/
(See, e.g. Arkansas and Colorado; there are others.)
- Couples are often (usually?) not the same age. So a couple may be assessed a single IRMAA surcharge (if only one person is on Medicare) while still getting the benefit of broader (couple) tax brackets. This effectively halves the impact of IRMAA.
For example, in the first IRMAA bracket, a couple (same age) would pay $1874 more, while being able to increase income by $52K before crossing into the next bracket. That's an effective surcharge rate of 1874/52,000 = 3.6%.
Similarly, a single would pay half as much IRMAA, while being able to add only half as much income before reaching the next IRMAA level, so the single would also have an effective surcharge rate of 3.6%. But a couple with one IRMAA would pay just $1874 more while being able to add $52K of income, for an effective surcharge rate half as much, "just" 1.8%.
- RMDs aren't necessarily subject to tax. They can be used for QCDs. If the T-IRA balance is low enough that RMD does not exceed cash needs plus intended charitable contributions, there is less value in converting more (especially if the additional amount pushes income into a higher tax bracket).
- Cash flow is a limiting factor, though the broader constraint is the amount of cash available, regardless of whether it comes from income or taxable account assets. The object of the game, so to speak, is to move everything into tax-sheltered accounts.
Once taxable assets are consumed, there is less value in doing further conversions.
Optimizing a Roth Conversion probably means converting as much as possible because the IRMAA decreases above $750,000 and the federal tax rates increase by small increments above $340,100
It is true that taking a big IRMAA hit one year is better than taking smaller IRMAA hits in multiple years, all else being equal. The problem is that converting more in higher brackets can subject that conversion income to taxes (aside from IRMAA) that are much higher than they would be if spread out over multiple years.
It may be better to convert a little bit each year even before the "golden years", and then increase the conversion amounts as income drops in retirement. This is especially true if one is comparing small conversions at one's working year tax rate with a one-time conversion getting taxed at an even higher rate.
IOW, it can be rather painful to take a one-time hit in a 32%-37% bracket, especially compared with paying taxes at 22%-24% for several years of conversions (whether while working or in retirement).

The time between retirement and taking Required Minimum Distributions (Age 72) is often called the "Golden Years" because income for retirees is lower than in the future. Deferring Social Security increases this effect. Federal Taxes cuts in 2017 are set to expire in 2026 which means taxes are likely to be a little higher in the future increasing the benefit of a Roth Conversion.
Below are the Income Adjustments (2023) based on the Modified Adjusted Income including tax exempt income for Medicare known as IRMAA. Couple is calculated on an annual basis. Note that if one's MAGI crosses the $194,000 threshold, IRMAA for a couple goes up by $1,874 for a couple for that year. Crossing the $306,000 and $366,000 thresholds increases a couple's IRMAA by $5,669 for the year.
Part B Part D
Individual Individual Couple Incremental
0 $164.90 $ 0.00 $ 3,958
194,000 $230.80 $12.20 $ 5,832 $1,874
246,000 $329.80 $31.50 $ 8,671 $2,839
306,000 $428.60 $50.70 $11,503 $2,832
366,000 $527.50 $70.00 $14,340 $2,837
750,000 $560.50 $76.40 $15,286 $ 946
Below are the Federal Tax thresholds (2023). There is a jump from 24% to 32% by crossing the $340,100 threshold.
Lower Upper Marginal
$ 0 $ 20,550 10%
$ 20,550 $ 83,550 12%
$ 83,550 $178,150 22%
$178,150 $340,100 24%
$340,100 $431,900 32%
$431,900 $647,850 35%
$647,850 + 37%
Optimizing a Roth Conversion probably means converting as much as possible because the IRMAA decreases above $750,000 and the federal tax rates increase by small increments above $340,100. However, when you take into account the additional taxes that have to be paid for both Federal Taxes and IRMAA it becomes more of a cash flow constraint. As a recent retiree, I have three years before Federal Tax rates sunset, and four years until reaching 72. This three-to-four-year window is the optimum time to do Roth Conversions. Using municipal bonds, tax-efficient accounts, tax loss harvesting, and deferring Social Security are useful methods for targeting Federal and Medicare thresholds.

The generally low IG muni yields with my lower marginal tax rate is why for several years, my only muni investments have been in high yield, and only when they're good buys with a fresh spot of momentum. (And after a good run slows/stops, it's good-bye.)
Thanks for the clarification of your situation, @lynnbolin2021. Of course all of us have individual situations that can make any specific investment a go or no-go.

3 years old:

I've used Symantec VIP to access Fidelity via my desktop computer for several years.
I haven't experienced any issues with this two-factor authentication app.
Note: I never access personal financial accounts via any mobile devices.

With all due respect to Romick, his clients made a lot less than other allocation funds in the last 10 years because Romick was too cautious and used a high % in cash.
PRWCX,FBALX and even rigid and conservative Wellington had a higher performance.
See 10 year chart(https://schrts.co/BTmdEvwt)
In 03/2020, a black swan event, FPACX wasn't great either. It lost a similar or more % and was slower to recover (https://schrts.co/pRegXfdG).
FPACX/Romick charges a higher ER>1% than many other funds in this category.

A real story: in 2000, 2 retirees from GE and Lucent came to work on my team just for another 3-4 years.
Both invested all/most of their money in their company stocks. The GE guy had about $360K in GE stock and the Lucent guy had about $300K. The market started going down and they started losing a lot of money, I begged them to sell but they didn't.
The GE kept saying that GE is diversified and the other guy couldn't believe it will go longer.
The Lucent guy lost everything. The GE guy lost a lot too. 10 years later they still worked and postponed their retirement. GE lost about 60% from 2000 to 2010(https://schrts.co/HEVxxEdE)

With my previous employer (a big box retailer) from whom I retired last year after 35 years, due to a 15% employer match and rapid appreciation its stock alone escalated to 25% of my portfolio. Have whittled that down to @10% after using proceeds for mortgage down payment and charitable gifting. No hurry to reduce further as company pays a dividend and is stable.