FYI: As has been widely reported in the financial media, 2014 was one of the worst years in recent memory for active managers.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/3-reasons-investors-still-buy-actively-managed-funds-2015-05-01/print

FYI: The relative anonymity of target date bond ETFs could fade when the financial markets become convinced that the Fed will finally make its move to raise interest rates for the first time since December 2008.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2015/05/01/a-little-known-bond-vehicle-for-when-interest-rate?t=fixed-income&page_all=1

I wasn't a paid contributor but I've been on Bloomberg a few times and CNBC once. One day I was double-booked on both to discuss the same topic, and I called the Bloomberg producer enroute to the studio to see if it would be a problem -- she said no, but was thrilled that I a) called to check, and b) gave them first dibs on me....which I probably got away with because I wasn't a regular/contracted analyst for them. (Reportedly CNBC's totally anal about having exclusive access to people, both analysts and executives.)
My CNBC appearance that evening (on Kudlow) felt rushed and I really didn't say anything or know why they even wanted me on. On Bloomberg, I had like 2-4 minutes of total time and we could at least have a real discussion. However, although none of these appearances were paid, at least they were gracious enough to send me a car so I wouldn't need to fight for parking in DC during rush hour. :)
I will happily 'do' Bloomberg anytime I can if/when asked ... they're the sane ones in the world of financial tv journalism.

Where does CNBC find their guest commentators from? Some of these people seem to be running their own outfit while others are from financial advisors I've never heard of. This is just my observation, others may have a wider recognition of financial firms than I do.
Do these people/organizations pay CNBC to be a guest commentator and therefore (in theory) increasing their exposure and brand recall?

Yes. Its important to develop a complete will (or living trust) early and to keep it updated. It is also important to do some contingency financial planning regarding what happens if you do suffer from significant mental decline. And, it is important to self evaluate your financial mental fitness as time passes (and that, if you are in a long term relationship with someone, that you discuss the importance of honestly reporting to each other about what you observe about that significant other).
My father lived with dementia for the last 15 years of his life. He had handled most of my parent's financial affairs during their 60 years together. My parents did very little "what if" planning regarding this possible outcome. Fortunately, I was able to make myself available to handle their financial and many of their other personal affairs during those years. This experience clearly showed me that planning for this possible outcome is important.

""The financial crisis was meant to have exploded the credit bubble once and for all, but there's very little sign of it. Rising public indebtedness has taken over where households and companies left off.""
LOL. The financial crisis would have busted the credit bubble if governments let it. Instead, they scrambled to reflate it (and then some) as soon as possible. As I've noted previously, no one learned anything - the only question was, "How fast can we reboot to a few years prior?"
Now you have:
"The combined public debt of the G7 economies alone has grown by close to 40 percentage points to around 120pc of GDP since the start of the crisis, while globally, the total debt of private non-financial sectors has risen by 30pc, far in advance of economic growth."
"need constant infusions of financially destabilising debt to keep them going."
...which is certain to end well.

This somewhat alarmist headline by Jeremy Warner caught my eye this morning. He is a widely read British financial commentator with about 30 years in the business. Its interesting to read a commentary coming from that side of the pond.
Here are a couple of "facts" I gleaned from the article:
"According to investment bank Jefferies, some 70pc of all German bunds now trade on a negative yield. In France, it's 50pc, and even in Spain, which was widely thought insolvent only a few years ago, it's 17pc."
"The combined public debt of the G7 economies alone has grown by close to 40 percentage points to around 120pc of GDP since the start of the crisis, while globally, the total debt of private non-financial sectors has risen by 30pc, far in advance of economic growth."
Here are three of the author's conclusions:
"The financial crisis was meant to have exploded the credit bubble once and for all, but there's very little sign of it. Rising public indebtedness has taken over where households and companies left off."
"For all kinds of reasons, advanced economies, and perhaps emerging ones too, seem to have run out of productivity-enhancing growth and therefore need constant infusions of financially destabilising debt to keep them going."
"The flip side of the cheap money story is soaring asset prices. The bond market bubble is just the half of it; since most other assets are priced relative to bonds, just about everything else has been going up as well."
The author does not lay out a clear case for why a mass default lies ahead rather than some other less dramatic "muddle our way through" outcome. But perhaps he does successfully argue there is a fat tail risk for that or another similarly disruptive outcome ahead for the global economy in the not too distant future.
Here is the link:
telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/11569329/Jeremy-Warner-Negative-interest-rates-put-world-on-course-for-biggest-mass-default-in-history.html

FYI: Studies show that the ability to perform simple math problems, as well as handling financial matters, are typically one of the first set of skills to decline in diseases of the mind, like Alzheimer’s.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/your-money/as-cognitivity-slips-financial-skills-are-often-the-first-to-go.html?ref=your-money

I watched a show on a Singapore financial channel here that went into detail on the investing frenzy in China. They showed large rooms packed with people wanting to sign up. Young and old alike. The Chinese are eager to put their money out there, especially in Hong Kong stocks now that they can via Shanghai.

Hi Guys,
Yesterday, in response to the MFO exchange on younger folks retiring comfortably-not, I recommended a Monte Carlo simulator from MoneyChimp to add to your retirement planning toolkit. I made that recommendation mostly because of its simplified input format. It has limitations.
Upon reflection, I recalled an alternative that also is rather simple to input, and offers its users a wider range of study options. The simulator was assembled by the Flexible Retirement Planner website. You might want to explore its many fine features. Here is the Link to it:
http://www.flexibleretirementplanner.com/wp/planner-launch-page/
It is much more comprehensive than the MoneyChimp version, yet takes only a few minutes to complete the requisite inputs. Enjoy.
Since I hadn’t run the code for quite some time, I did a few practice calculations.
For the 30 year retirement timeframe that I tested, it is not surprising that when I decreased portfolio volatility for an all equity portfolio from 20% annually to a 15% level, without substantially decreasing average annual returns (that’s almost plausible), 30-year portfolio survival rate for a 4% annual drawdown schedule increased from an unattractive 79% to a largely more acceptable 92% likelihood.
If bond-like returns of 5% (with standard deviation of 5%) are postulated for the portfolio with the same 4% drawdown schedule, the portfolio survival rate drops back to an uncomfortable 77%survival probability. This result reinforces the current financial advisor recommendation to keep a substantial fraction of a retirement portfolio in equity positions.
These are examples of the what-if analyses that Monte Carlo codes permit. The 3 illustrates that I reported took less than 5 minutes to input and to calculate completely. These types of analyses are almost too much fun. Please give it a try.
Best Regards.

Oh goody. We've gone from the four food groups (a 1-dimensional representation) to a food pyramid (2-dimensional). In investing, from stocks/bonds/cash (1-dimensional) to style boxes (2-dimensional). Now let's go to 3D; can HD be far behind?
Seriously, what M* is talking about is nothing new. It looks like they're just seeing a market opportunity, since robo-advisors seem to have made paying for advice (good or bad) more fashionable.
Don't invest your 401(k) in company stock? Enron? WorldCom? Hello? On the other hand, there are tax benefits for doing so (net unrealized appreciation). How do you balance these factors?
Don't invest in your company industry (the example given was real estate for a realtor). Sure, and thousands of articles have been written on this. During the dot com bubble, I was in a tech company where the HR person told me that people were pouring money into American Century Ultra (TWCUX). That was the closest we had to a tech fund.
On the other hand, isn't the adage (attributed to Peter Lynch) "invest in what you know"? Again, a balancing act.
So M* may get into the financial planning business, piggybacking on a couple of trends - robo advisors and big data. Sounds hot, sounds now. (IMHO there really is potential here, but one has to be skeptical about the timing, for something that could have been done years ago, but less easily marketed.)

Late to the party, I took this to be about running a budget. (And I wondered why an operating budget would include a separate area for wine.)
I share the broader concerns Dex and others have expressed about disappearing pensions, low wages, threats to SS, etc. There's no easy answer to those complex social/political issues and I doubt we would be able to agree at much of a consensus on them here anyway.
But I do think at the individual level it begins with good financial management skills. Work on those first. Part of the answer that evolves may be acquiring additional skills, finding additional sources of income, or growing the assets one already possesses. Another part of the equation is to balance out one's expectations and life style with their financial means. We're still a very affluent country compared with much of the world.

Wouldn't give up my younger years (oh the good times) for anything, EXCEPT if I knew then What I know now about investing, I could have retired a very wealthy YOUNG man, instead I retired 60ish with all the money I will ever need...OH Well.....
Maybe carefree young AND financial secure retirement is still the way to go..seems to be working...

My mindset was shocked by Black Monday 1987. After a year of investing into a plain stock mutual fund I saw over $2000. dwindle to about $800 overnight. What did I do? I pulled out my money and started educating myself. Within six to eight months I was back in the market, this time better diversified and I knew what to look for. I continued to read and listen to radio financial programs, including Bob Brinker. I didn't always see eye to eye with Mr Brinker but I built a foundation. I felt the tech bubble and saw the euphoria before it burst. My moves saved my portfolio a lot as I was only down about 18%. Then, years of dollar cost averaging. I learned that it is not the amount of money you earn, but the amount of money you spend that matters. Money not spent is more for investing.
I believe bleak moments in history show a path.

FYI: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is convening a group of financial industry veterans for the first time next month to consider stock market reforms, but one group will be conspicuously absent: retail brokerages.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/26/us-sec-markets-retailinvestors-analysis-idUSKBN0NH0D820150426

"1. ‘It can’t go up forever,’ or ‘We are overdue for a downturn or a correction.’"
It cannot go up forever, but theoretically, it can go far further than anyone could expect. It really strongly appears to me that Central Banks are absolutely of the view that economic Winter has to be held back at all costs. I'm not saying that they will be successful, but they will push their theories until things get disorderly.
QE (and as I've noted, market didn't even have to go down much and there was a Fed governor the other day talking about the potential for more asset purchases - I thought the market would have to drop 15-20% for that conversation to even start) and ZIRP will not in and of themselves result in a sustainable recovery or fix underlying problems that need to be addressed.
This is not saying that stocks can go up forever, but there's a lot of variables and reflation or bust clearly seems to be the theme of central banks. Again, I'm not saying that stocks go to the moon, I'm simply saying that - for some reason - central banks this time around seem as if they are going to take this to the limit.
If it doesn't work, they'll never admit it - problems are "transitory" and theories don't work because there "wasn't enough". With those views, things will - I think - be taken to the limit until they get disorderly. What that looks like we'll have to see, but I still think this period ends badly. I think in some ways with ZIRP and QE this is the ultimate bubble and it would not surprise me if the global economy looked very different on the other side.
2. ‘Because the bull run has been long, any decline is going to be big, too.’ - This is a patently false premise. Duration of a bull market is not the determining factor in the severity of corrections. Valuations and economic conditions are the primary drivers.
Variables.
3. ‘The Federal Reserve is serious about raising rates now, and that’s going to end the rally.’ - The first part of his statement is probably true. The second part does not necessarily follow.
Who knows what the hell they want. You have different Fed governors saying different things every other day. The Fed can say that they want to raise rates, but they said that a couple of years ago, too. It gets to the point after several years where it looks bad that ZIRP is apparently still a need and does kind of go against their often overly optimistic economic projections. If that looks bad, imagine how it will look if they raise rates 50 basis points and then have to backtrack and lower rates again. That would be a clusterbleep of epic proportions.
The Fed is ultimately "data dependent", but there is a real, strong element of "baffle them with BS" that is becoming more and more apparent with each passing year. As far as I'm concerned, this is a MOPE - management of perspective economy and the Fed is trying to manage the market's view of the economy for as long as they continue to have credibility. You should not be trading based upon what Yellen, Bullard or anyone else says on any given day because guess what? They could very well say something entirely different two days later. And all the discussion about the Fed raising rates might meet resistance with economic reality.
4. ‘The government will screw this up.’ - This is a silly argument. Governments come and go depending on the outcome of elections.
Of course they will. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of what government does these days is simply "hot potato" - hope they can buy time by financial engineering and other garbage in order to get to hand things off to the next person. Or, they hope they can throw enough money at problems that they don't have to actually go through the difficult task of having to solve them. And hey, it's a lot more popular to throw money at problems than to make difficult decisions - until things fall apart again.
5. ‘The market is overpriced.’ - This is probably true in general. However, it's a straw-man so "all-inclusive" that it's easy to knock down.
Meh. It depends on so many factors.
6. ‘You can’t lose money in cash, so I will wait until the next downturn passes.’ -
Well, you can if the government decides that ZIRP and QE aren't enough and decide to step it up to things like NIRP and devaluation.

This study (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2597122) documents that the active share measure, which has attracted so much attention in the past few years, has no performance predictive power once the analysis is done carefully. This is a real problem given that many financial advisors and consultants use this measure to pick funds for their clients. In addition, some funds seem to heavily advertise having high active shares, potentially misleading investors.

FYI: No one wants to be a statistic, but when it comes to retirement preparedness and confidence, everyone falls somewhere in the spectrum.
You’re either part of the 58% of workers who are at least reasonably confident about having enough money for retirement, or you’re in the parts of the populace that are significantly more nervous about their future. You either have a financial plan, which is boosting your confidence, or you lack a plan, which is holding your outlook down.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-things-you-need-to-have-a-successful-retirement-2015-04-24/print

Your suspicions would appear to be well-founded. Here is the Schwab robo-portfolio as shown in Ted's MarketWatch Quiz Link, from the "Can You Tell A Human Financial Adviser From A Robot?" posting.
Schwab Robo-Portfolio

Hi Hank,
The consensus wisdom from successful football coaches is that wins are generated by superior defense. A ton of expert investing professions are similarly persuaded. That’s why so many financial advisors talk about playing defense. That’s why so many articles are written that outline X number of ways to practice defensive investing.
After reading the referenced Jaffe article and your post, I feel that both you guys are on the same exact page. The way to superior end wealth is to avoid the many inviting pitfalls that do substantial harm to portfolios.
You are in substantial agreement with the six common axioms that often misguide over-reactive investors, both the professionals and the amateurs. “Don’t just do something, just stand there” is not bad advice. Even famous speculator Jesse Livermore realized that “The big money is made by the sitting and the waiting, not the thinking”. He believed that only a fool trades frequently.
Oaktree’s Howard Marks sure advocates defensive investing in his “The Most Important Thing” white paper to clients. I referenced it recently. Here is the internal Link to my original post:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/20477/placing-constraints-on-yourself
On page 2 of the Marks paper, he concludes that “The most important thing is investing defensively”. Later he proclaims that “If we avoid the losers, the winners will take care of themselves”.
Jaffe is simply restating ways to avoid wealth robbing mistakes. He did not invent these pitfalls. They have been recognized for decades and have been fully documented. However, the evidence suggests that the identification and warnings have not plugged the hole in the dam. These same mistakes, plus others, are made daily.
Just the other day, one of my sons worried that a large market drop was eminent because of the huge run-up in prices (number 2 in the Jaffe piece). Well, he just might be right, but the uncertainties are such that he just might be wrong. A total jump switch is almost never a good idea. Some modest incremental adjustment is likely more appropriate action given his feelings (intuition, gut, whatever).
I do not take issue with the cautionary articles that frequent our investment media. Do I benefit from them now? Not much, given my years of exposure to these warnings. But that is not the situation for many younger investors. Even reminders serve a purpose.
The referenced article is a reprint of an earlier March submittal from Jaffe. Perhaps his writing pen had just run dry momentarily and this is just a space filler. Perhaps MarketWatch feels that the article has exceptional merit, and warrants a reprint. Like all market decisions, we get to choose our own interpretation.
Best Wishes.