@hank : I was surprised when you said TMSRX was on your list ! Would you buy back into this fund if what happened ?

Hi @Derf. No, I don’t see myself ever owning TMSRX again. But - Never say “never”. If I were going to go back into a multi-strategy fund it would be BAMBX. Hasn’t shot the lights out either. Moving in would be a defensive move if I felt some other asset I own had gotten overvalued. Not the case today.
It’s not a buy-list. Just a bunch of funds I look at to see how the day is going during hours and how it went at day’s end. It’s true, however, that many are former holdings. That’s because I know a little more about them. It’s also true that I watch some things with an eye to possibly buying at some attractive point. And some are things I sold way too early and so I just whimsically watch them “fly away” …
Thanks for asking!

uh, how's Hussy doing? I think I am joking … (Hope) I can lock up my monies for a couple years and stop playing around in this casino....

Good question. I stopped tracking him. But HSGFX gained over 17% in 2022. YTD it is down about 8,5%. Unfortunately, had you held it 15 years, you’d have lost 4.5% annually over that time. (Running in reverse ain’t going to make you wealthy.)
I’m not qualified to say, but my impression is that parts of the U.S. market are grossly overvalued. Not sure the entire market is, however. I lean more toward international equities, so don’t fret much about where the S&P is. Sebastian Page, a very smart dude from TRP, was on Bloomberg today trumpeting the unrecognized value that resides in many U.S. equity sectors. Small cap is one area he mentioned.

Thanks @yogibearbull
One media heavy stock I’ve played with in / out the past couple years is GHC (the former Washington Post Co.) I’m currently out - or probably wouldn’t mention it. Barron’s ran a very positive story on it a year+ ago which brought it to my attention. They have local TV stations in about a half dozen major cities, including Washington DC, Jacksonville, Fla. and Detroit. It can’t seem to get out of its own way. Has gone nowhere over the time I’ve watched or owned it. But - Gosh … I’d expect it to benefit from political advertising as the Prez campaigns heat up. It’s always on my radar.

Thanks @Mark. Enjoyed all the guffaws. But yours is good basic investment info. I’m not talking about who the audience is or whether the distinguished members here plan to view. I see a 3-ring circus shaping up and plenty of green to be made from the Ads. Let’s face it. Making money’s been tough the last couple years - at least if you’re not heavy into tech.
I should have added that both political parties will be spending generously on advertisement across media. Hell, Trump is swimming in dough as all the indictments just help pull in more contributions. I’d expect similarity heavy inflows from the left to their candidate as the campaign heats up.
Thank you for avoiding political comment here. Old Joe & Derf both have threads running on the judicial / political issues and both are well qualified to manage those threads.

@sma3
I started out many years ago using Vanguard's free financial planning tool. I think it might have been Financial Engines. I later created my own spreadsheet financial planning tool.
My employer moved our accounts to Fidelity, and I started using their financial planning tool many years ago and really liked it. Several years ago, I began using Fidelity's services from my employer which was essentially a financial planner for providing advice, but not managing my accounts. To my surprise, he used the same Fidelity Planning tool that I had already set up. Now that I use Fidelity Wealth Management, we have still reviewed the financial planning tool.
Yes, there are a few unknowns about it. It provides estimated end of plan assets but does not display tax planning options such as Roth Conversions. I still use my planning spreadsheet which takes into Roth Conversions and accelerated withdrawals, but it supplements Fidelity's tool.

@sma3
Vanguard has a two-step process, as I understand it. Behind the scenes:
First, the estimate the returns over the next ten years using the Vanguard Capital Markets Model.
https://static.vgcontent.info/crp/intl/auw/docs/resources/Vanguard_VCMM_brief.pdf?20150814|091500
Second, the run the Vanguard Asset Allocation Model to create a model portfolio.
https://advisors.vanguard.com/insights/article/whats-behind-our-portfolio-construction-process
As part of the process of talking to the Advisor, I was asked what percent active and passive allocations that I favored. It was a fuzzy question, and I responded 50% active and 50% passive. I also derived with the Advisor that I wanted 50% stock and 50% bond portfolio.
The Advisor came back to me a couple of weeks later and presented a proposed portfolio. I went with that portfolio, although the literature says that clients have the option to propose different funds.
One more point, Vanguard provides you with an Advisor, and you do not have the option to select your own like at Fidelity. I did look up the credentials of the Advisor and was pleased with his knowledge and professionalism. It is an improvement over my experience from several years ago. I believe that it is part of Vanguard's effort to improve PAS.

uh, how's Hussy doing? I think I am joking.
But I sure hope the 2-yr is treasury is at 5% in a couple weeks at auction....so I can lock up my monies for a couple years and stop playing around in this casino....

In response to several comments above:
I have been a DIY investor until about two years ago. I did try the Charles Schwab robo-advisor. I have been using both Fidelity and Vanguard for decades and like them both for different reasons. I now use the Fidelity Wealth Services and Vanguard Personal Advisor Service Select.
For clarification, Vanguard Advisor Services are:
1) Robo Advisor Services with a minimum of $3,000:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/robo-advisor
2) Personal Advisor Services which is a hybrid robo advisor with a minimum of $50,000 and team of advisors. Cost is 0.35%:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-hybrid-robo-advisor
3) Personal Advisor Services with a minimum of $500,000 and a personal certified financial planner/fiduciary in addition to the team. Cost is 0.3%:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-financial-advisor
Fidelity Wealth Management fees are listed as 0.50%–1.50% with a minimum of $250,000. The more you have them manage the more your fees fall.
I invested the minimums to get a personal advisor and to lower my fees.
With regards to objectively evaluating the funds and services:
Whether you work with Fidelity or Vanguard, they will evaluate your goals and needs and propose an allocation (or range) and the funds. Both base their recommendations on the long term, but Fidelity also adjusts based on the business cycle. You can make changes within their criteria and policies. I entered the funds and allocation into the MFO Portfolio Tool to evaluate them. With Vanguard Advisor funds being only 1.7 years old there is not much history to go on. Vanguard has the option to select the percent of active and passive funds.
With a dual income household, we have multiple accounts with different tax characteristics. Our advisory service ranges from 50% stocks to 70% based on my input.
With regards to performance:
It does take a leap of faith to use an advisory service. There is evidence that individual investors tend to underperform the markets because they tend to panic, trade too much, or be too conservative. I did take the leap of faith based on my experiences with both Fidelity and Vanguard.
My primary objective is to set my wife up with a financial advisor in case I pass away before her. Mission accomplished. The surprising thing is that I feel a burden is lifted and more relaxed. I still have accounts that I manage myself.

Nasty across the board. ”Babies with the bathwater” comes to mind.
Foreign stocks down. Domestic down. Foreign currencies down. Bonds down. Metals & miners down. Energy down. Consumer staples down. Berkshire down 1% at last look. A favorite pundit I read keeps saying gold’s gonna “rock” one of these days. Gets a bit stale after 5 years. Still in a slumber, holding just above $1900. Only hold it indirectly through a nat resources CEF.
PS - Bargains galore! Just picked up a non U.S. food conglomerate at a lower price than I sold it for a month or two ago. What’s not to like? Had been a portfolio staple for a couple years. Glad to have had a chance to retrieve it. Generally, I dumped the 2% hedge position today and moved it into equities.

Don't let names of services confuse you. PAS at Vanguard and PAS at Fidelity are two different animals. PAS at Vanguard is a hybrid robo advisor, similar to Fidelity's GO (assuming AUM of at least $25K). Fidelity defines the service this way:

A hybrid robo advisor typically refers to a robo advisor that includes access to investment adviser representatives, whether via telephone or in person. In the case of Fidelity Go®, we combine our digital offering with access to 1-on-1 financial planning and coaching via telephone for clients that invest at least $25,000 in a Fidelity Go account.

https://www.fidelity.com/managed-accounts/fidelity-go/overview
The cost of Fidelity GO is 35 basis points/year. But the account uses Fidelity Flex funds, which have ERs of 0.00%. Vanguard's PAS uses Vanguard funds. So the all-in costs of these two services should be similar.
Fidelity's older PAS service uses proprietary and third party funds. It is model based but not robo-based. The last time I looked at it many years ago, it tended to throw a gazillion funds into a portfolio, perhaps because it could, perhaps because that gave the impression that it was doing something. In any case, this is not the same type of service as Fidelity GO or Vanguard PAS.
https://www.fidelity.com/managed-accounts/overview
https://www.fidelity.com/wealth-management/investment-management-services
FIdelity has so many fee schedules that it's hard to find the one you're looking at. Their fees are different for Fidelity-preferred portfolios, "blended" (no preference) portfolios, and index fund portfolios. Regardless, PAS services do cost much more than hybrid robo services, whether at Fidelity or elsewhere.

Thanks, David. That not only clears up what I didn't understand today but also why I was unsure who owned and managed the Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund 20+ years ago.

Hi @SMA3,
Taxes are complex and the tax preparer knows the taxes best. With companies like Fidelity and Vanguard, I suspect that an investor will be dealing mostly with an external tax accountant. My experiences are that the tax accountant will not be familiar with the implications of Medicare on taxes. This is an area where I find an investor will benefit from financial literacy and double check on advice given. I have not dealt with independent financial planners that may be a one stop shop?
Regarding financial convictions and disclosures, an employee was convicted in 2019 of theft:
"The total amount of the funds that the defendant stole exceeded $2.1 million. To Vanguard’s credit, all individual accounts were made whole after the defendant’s crimes were detected."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/former-vanguard-employee-sentenced-four-years-fraud-scheme
The disclosures from the SEC are mostly minor:
https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/content/viewform/adv/Sections/iapd_AdvDrpSection.aspx?ORG_PK=105958&FLNG_PK=005984D6000801D203A190C104921F01056C8CC0#Regulatory
Lynn

David I hope Chip is getting better, but please don't over exert yourselves just to publish MFO! there are many capable other people who wrote great articles this month and while there is probably no data that pushing yourself during Covid recovery delays the recovery, why chance it?
I really enjoyed the reference to Mathers Fund.
Maybe a few other grey beards here will remember the Mathers fund and good old Henry Van der Erb. His commentaries were pretty good, ala Hussman. While I didn't put much money into the fund, his commentaries kept me from being 100% equities for a few years in my 30s, when I really should have dumped everything into the market.
I never knew Bruce ran the Mathers fund before Henry, nor did I know Van der Erb was such a jerk

I saw the real OJ buying Orange Juice in a grocery store near my folks house in Buffalo years ago. This was well before he divorced his first wife.
I should asked him to autograph my Orange Juice carton, but respected his privacy!

Unfortunately, bond ladders also have a duration. A 10-yr bond ladder may have a duration around 4-5 years.
So, the ETF PLW has duration 10.80 (M* Portfolio tab below) and SD 9.07 (M* Risk tab) - plenty volatile!
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/plw/portfolio
But if you had a private/DIY ladder, you would let each bond in the ladder mature at par, so the duration effect will be only if you have to liquidate ladder prematurely, not otherwise.
Just because a fund uses the term "ladder" doesn't mean that it will act as private/DIY ladder. Some DIY stuff you really have to do yourself and cannot farm it out to funds.

I have never invested directly in a treasury fund because this category has a high correlation to rates and rates are unpredictable short term. PLW did poorly YTD. See a YTD chart of VGIT(inter Gov/treasury) + DODIX(good generic higher rated bond fund) + PLW(has a longer duration > 10 years). (https://schrts.co/AEsZUCwD)
You can see that DODIX has the best performance + the lowest volatility. PLW has the worse performance + the highest volatility of 7.5+%.(peak to trough).

According to several web sources, Treasury simply uses this formula for Coupon-Equivalent Yield of T-Bills,
Coupon-Equivalent Yield = 100*[(Par Value - Purchase Price)/Purchase Price]* 360/d, where d = days to maturity.

Which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the web. (In all fairness, the second post in the Bogleheads thread correctly says that 365 days are used and references the same Treasury sources I'm relying on below. Except it misses an added complication for T-bills maturing in more than six months.)
According to the Treasury (the authoritative source), the above formula is not what is used for Coupon Equivalent Yield of T-bills. It is almost correct for T-bills maturing in six months or less, except that the correct formula uses 365 or 366 day years. For T-bills with longer maturities (still under a year), a quadratic equation must be solved.
Some people may not be clear about what Coupon Equivalent Yield represents.

The Coupon Equivalent, also called the Bond Equivalent, or the Investment Yield, is the bill's yield based on the purchase price, discount, and a 365- or 366-day year. The Coupon Equivalent can be used to compare the yield on a discount bill to the yield on a nominal coupon security that pays semiannual interest with the same maturity date.

https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_bill_rates&field_tdr_date_value_month=202209
In plain English, if you have a bond with a 4% coupon purchased at par ($100), then every six months it pays $2. To compute the annualized rate of return one assumes that the coupons are reinvested at the original rate. So after one year, one would have:
$100 x (1 + 2%) x (1 + 2%) = $100 x 1.0404 = $104.04. That's an annual yield of 4.04%.
T-bills don't have coupons, but if they did, this particular T-bill would pay coupons at an annual rate of 5.351%. That is, a six month coupon would pay half of that, or 2.6755%.
When one applies the same compounding as above (though reducing the second coupon by 2 days simple interest), one finds that the government figures are correct:

Rate (i)		5.351%
Price per $100		$94.883778
Days in 2024 (y)	366
1/2 year coupon		2.6755%		(1/2 X 5.351%)
Total days to maturity	364
2nd half frac of year	0.494535519	(364 - 366/2) / 366
2nd half coupon		2.6463%		(0.494... x 5.351%)

Compounding the coupons as before (except the second coupon isn't for a complete half year):
(1 + 2.6755%) x (1 + 2.6463%) = 105.3926%.
As in the OP, 5.392% is the actual total return. It is higher than the six month (coupon equivalent) yield, because coupons compound.
This is important. New issue T-bills have APYs greater than their coupon equivalent yields.
If a new six month T-bill has a 5.0% "coupon equivalent yield" it will pay 2.5% (half of 5%) after six months by definition. That would compound to 5.06¼% APY if reinvested at the same rate for another six months. That beats a six month CD with a 5.0% APY, paying just 2.47% at its six month maturity.
Treasury page with coupon equivalent yield formulae, examples
Treasury Regulation (Code of Federal Regulations) rules on calculating T-bill discount rates.
Note that the 360 day calendar is used when calculating the bank discount rate, but a 365 or 366 day calendar is used when calculating the "true discount" rate.

I was a relatively early investor in the original Fasciano Fund. I made a modest initial investment and received a hand-written letter of thanks from Mike Fasciano. I was impressed. A few years later I sold my shares when enough changes had occurred that I could no longer tell for sure who owned the fund or what its name was. Today reading the updated story I am finding some oddities. I am reading that the launch of ASAFX was in December of 2009 and its dissolution occurred two months earlier in October 2009. This is a typo or an anachronistic anomaly, or... ? And after reading the entire article I'm not sure if Michael Fasciano is retired or has returned to managing a fund. I think this may be because there are elements in the article from 2010 that were accurate at the time.

August 12,2023 Episode:

Investing can be simple and accessible to the average person, says financial thought leader and economist Burton Malkiel. Malkiel, author of the investment classic “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” has 50 years of research to back up his claim.

Said already several times. The main reason I use lower yield, "safer" MM with no gates because
1) The extra 0.2-0.3% (or a bit more) is *negligible on an annual basis.
2) I also have more than enough and can stay in MM for years but I'm using mostly bond funds. When I'm in the market, I invest at 99+% which is guaranteed by MM with no gates.
*I meant to write negligible.

Not much to add to the "health" discussion. After I retired about 10 years ago, I started focusing on bond oefs, and I did well with them, with limited stress until 2018. Starting in 2018, bond oefs became much less predictable for me, and I went through several very stressful periods, and was faced with having to trade much more often, and not always very successfully. I got through the period of 2018 through March 2022, made modest profits each year, but with increasing stress that I had to manage. When I started investing in CDs in 2022, I was able to make decent investing returns, but with virtually no stress. I don't know how long CD investing will continue to be financially rewarding, but I enjoy the lack of stress, I sleep better, and I can focus on other things in life that bring my wife and I great joy in our remaining years. It is hard to put a price on how valuable that is to me and my wife.