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.

I think that one can quote 10-25% under fair use, less the better.
Paraphrasing the essence of the article is another way, my preferred way. I didn't mean just word replacements for paraphrasing.
I did listen to 2 songs that @msf noted on a famous copyright case. It was more the similarity of tunes, not words. Songs can be copyrighted as text and/or audio/video. I recall hearing both songs in the years past and I remember thinking that they sounded similar - many songs do, and one song often reminds about another song. Some popular religious songs are blatant copies of commercial tunes. One can drive a truck under the shades of improvisations. As Ringo Starr noted that George Harrison was just unlucky that it became a legal case. George Harrison noted that, actually, he was trying to sound like ANOTHER song, not the one for which the copyright lawsuit was filed. I think he didn't want to settle either. His version was MUCH more popular than the other song and I am sure that he could have settled easily with the estate of the other song writer/composure if he wanted to.
Only the copyright holder can complain formally. Others can Flag for the protection of forum/site managers.
Beyond the poster, the hosting site can also get into trouble for copyright violations. So, on a serious copyright violation, the MFO may be contacted first, and then Vanilla. The identity of the anonymous poster may become known only in any legal proceeding.

A poster at M* noted that the free credit monitoring offered by Kroll/PBI/TIAA is for 1 credit bureau only. So, I just checked mine by logging into Kroll & under "Services", it says Experian only.

Aside from a self-destruct date (two years of service), I wonder if there is a difference between this and the Experian-only free monitoring service that AAA provides to members?
https://www.aaa.com/experianidtheft/

It is very very rare on these threads, to see specifics about how much you are investing. So you hear these very detailed discussions about buying, but nothing about the extent of buying. I am an investor who does not have a large number of positions. I prefer to have larger, but fewer positions, in my portfolio. When I was investing in Bonds before March 2022, it was typical for me to own 10 or fewer positions, with my smallest position being in 6 figures. Even now in my CD world, 6 figures is my typical minimum.
So, this is a long winded way of stating, that it would be helpful to know how large of a treasury position, a bond oef position, ETF or CEF position, you are referring to when you state you made a purchase, or own a position. I know FD's investing style, and he talks about his successful performance, but he only invests in 5 or less positions in his portfolio, and each position is often larger than the entire portfolio of most posters, in talking about their purchases. I also know Yogi somewhat, but I have the impression that his purchases are part of a portfolio, with very large number of smaller bond positions. So, understand not only what they are discussing and purchasing, but also how much they are investing.

+1
Since 2017, I have been in only 2-3 funds, right now 2 funds. I stopped investing an equal % in each fund over 10 years ago, a typical position is in the 7 figure.

(Originally from Bloomberg)
Excerpt: Gregg Smith was sentenced Tuesday in Chicago by US District Judge Edmond Chang. Smith, who was convicted last year along with Michael Nowak, the bank’s precious-metals desk head, was described by an assistant US attorney as “the most prolific spoofer that the government has prosecuted to date.”
The judge said Smith and Nowak clearly knew what they were doing was wrong. “You told many lies to the market,” Chang said. “For many years, you injected fraud into the market.” He ordered Smith to start his sentence on Jan. 15.
The JPMorgan case is part of a crackdown by federal prosecutors on illegal spoofing, where traders place bogus orders to move prices up or down and then quickly cancel them before they can be executed. Smith and Nowak used the technique to manipulate gold and silver prices from 2008 to 2016.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-08-22-jpmorgans-most-prolific-spoofer-gets-two-years-in-prison/

One only needs to consider GE to see the risk of only holding one or a few stocks. This was the only stock we owned for many years, a gift from my wife’s grandfather.Twenty-five years ago, it was the largest company in the world by stock value. Now, it’s worth a small fraction of that. Fortunately, we sold portions of it during its heyday, for down payments on houses. Plus, we’ve only invested in stocks through mutual funds in our retirement savings. GE was by far our largest asset when we married; now it’s less than 0.5% of our savings.

After many bad experiences with Vanguard from top to bottom, I left a dozen years ago for Fidelity and have not regretted the choice once.

Literally or figuratively a dozen years ago? The reason for the question is that around 14 years ago (2009) Vanguard dropped Pershing as its clearing house and started self clearing. Virtually all the comments I read said that this was a major improvement.
https://www.investmentnews.com/vanguard-to-leave-pershing-and-self-clear-19277

This was after the switch from Pershing. Customer service was the primary problem.

Seriously (for a change)- I suspect that it's just a quirk in the Vanilla software. I'm very certain that the MFO "monitors" have a lot better things to do with their lives than sit there watching a computer screen to see if any of us are doing bad things.
If they were watching closely they would have thrown me off MFO years ago on general principles.

Perhaps my memory of what was notarized at the local UPS stores near me is flawed. I'm pretty sure I got two medallion signature guarantees at one of them.
I can say one thing for sure: maybe 12 years ago local banks stopped being a sure bet for medallions. They went from Any Time You Wish Sir, to once a week, to a haphazard schedule to none. And when it got to None they sent me to Any Notary Public. And I found one a block or two from the bank. She was not a financial institution officer. And she charged me an exorbitant fee. But I got the medallion signature guarantee in her little office.
Here is a link to info about what UPS notarizes:
https://www.theupsstore.com/store-services/notary-services
It looks like wills and trusts are included at at least some of their branches.
No mention of medallions.

I changed CG=100K + coverted $25K from T-IRA to taxable for each person = $150K income..and the numbers for Fed+State tax stayed the same.
Again, even if I was 60 years old and not living in GA, I would not buy CD/treasuries direct. MM or ETF=TBIL for treasuries allow me a much easier and more flexible way. It's especially easier with big numbers.
Most household retirees have small portfolios, about $400K. Most don't need income beyond 80-100K (including SS)

I used to deal with fund companies directly, and it was a huge hassle. It was much more trouble making changes, and I was continually bombarded with mailings and paperwork. My life has been much simpler since we moved all of our accounts to Fidelity. I am able to invest in a range of funds from Fidelity and other fund companies. Fidelity has excellent money market and CD offerings. I can make transactions online quickly and with no difficulties. I have invested wit Fidelity for 20+ years and can’t recall a single bad experience. I also had accounts at T Rowe Price and ended up moving those to Fidelity as well.

BTW, the Treasury FRN ETFs are USFR, TFLO. All references to those have now rolled off to Page 1. I did execute ultra-ST ICSH to USFR switch last week.
So, I am doing both - using FRN Auctions (that will tie up money for 2 years) and FRN ETF USFR that is liquid.
Check multiyear histories of prices for FRNs or USFR - because of the weekly rate reset feature, their duration are VERY short and actual-prices (i.e. w/o reinvestment) don't move much. StockCharts show USFR (adjusted-prices; default) and _USFR (actual-prices) for 1 yr (default); change to February 2014 inception for longer history. BTW, FRNs originated in the US in 2013/14.
https://stockcharts.com/h-perf/ui?s=USFR&compare=_USFR&id=p34790200927