Some discussion of potential higher rates having an effect, but as I noted in another thread, was a good article on seekingalpha discussing how some interest rate sensitive fixed income wasn't really all that moved. The article noted that REITs (and utilities) were overdone to the upside and I'd agree with that strongly - as I've noted on this board many times recently - you were going to get a pullback in REITs and that they were overbought (or way overbought.) I think it was entirely a reach for yield.
I definitely think there is more downside for some names that I follow. I own a number of real estate companies, although not all are "straight up" REITs.
My post from another thread:
"I've been staying that REITs will pull back and you're getting what may be the start of that. I don't think that I will be adding any new positions in terms of real estate, as I've been adding to real estate plays that have not gotten the same coverage or are not REITs or are unique in some other manner (CLNY/Colony Financial, HHC/Howard Hughes, BPY/Brookfield Property, KW/Kennedy Wilson) that haven't taken off to the same degree that many of the straight up REITs have.
CLNY (which is sort of a REIT hybrid) is merging with its parent this year (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-05/barrack-s-colony-units-to-combine-under-colony-financial), HHC (which is real estate but does not offer a dividend and is not a REIT) was wrecked (at least until recently) because of a view that it was exposed to oil (it is, but not nearly as badly as I think people thought) and BPY is an MLP that is a fascinating and giant/complex real estate vehicle still trading below book, despite a pretty decent move in recent months.
Kennedy Wilson (KW) is a unique little vertically integrated real estate company, complete with real estate services (property management, auctions and more) as well as diversified global real estate investments. It's an interesting, very opportunistic little global company that gets not much coverage but has a substantial investment from famed Canadian investor Prem Watsa of Fairfax (11.1M convertible pfds.)
The one that I thought about a few weeks ago and regret missing is Texas Pacific Land Trust (TPL).
STWD is another holding, which I like due to skilled management and the fact that many of their loans are floating rate. The company has discussed in the recent past that rising rates will be a positive to their bottom line. Of course, the market will just throw it out anyways because it's real estate.
Also, I have real estate exposure elsewhere in other REITs and things like Blackstone, Oaktree, Jardine, Hutchison and other companies."
-------------------------------------------
Also:
"http://seekingalpha.com/article/2981816-fridays-sell-off-assessing-the-damage-and-opportunities
"With that said, selected market segments took Friday's decline disproportionately on the chin. Leading on the downside within the U.S. stock market were those categories that would likely be most sensitive to the potential for increased interest rates in the coming months. This includes utilities (NYSEARCA:XLU) and REITs (NYSEARCA:VNQ), which despite their traditionally defensive characteristics in down markets declined on Friday by a jarring -3.00% and -3.32%, respectively. One could naturally conclude that these declines were in direct response to the potential for rising rates. But if this was the case, why then did other highly interest rate sensitive categories such as high yield bonds (NYSEARCA:HYG), senior loans (NYSEARCA:BKLN) and preferreds (NYSEARCA:PFF) hold up considerably better with declines of just -0.64%, -0.17% and -0.90%, respectively? Thus, a closer inspection of exactly why utilities and REITs were down so severely is warranted.
In the case of utilities and REITs, both are categories that had gotten way ahead of themselves in recent months."
Article then goes on to provide charts and other discussion. Worthwhile viewing."

Thanks and good luck in retirement. Again, wasn't trying to be combative. It seems lately I've seen too many people in my Mayberry type town pass away and with way too much money in the seven figures. Another lady I know well is 82 and her 1.8 million nest egg is now being spent on round the clock nursing care as she hardly knows who she is and no longer has control over her financial affairs. Like me, this lady took frugality to another level and looked where it got her. Balancing wealth accumulation to infinity vs spending in old age to reap/enjoy the fruits of our labor is a topic I would like to see addressed here more.

Do you think that the banking and loan industry will benefit? Maybe financial services will replace healthcare as the go to sector for 2015.

You know, I think for a number of reasons mortgages and loans will probably still not have the kind of demand that the industry would hope for, but I think if there was a noticeable and sustained move higher in rates that would likely get people who have been waiting around to move.
Rates have been low enough for long enough that perhaps some people interested in a loan have become complacent and have been waiting for even lower rates or they think rates aren't going anywhere.
I really don't have any interest in the financials from the standpoint of I don't think anyone truly has any real visibility. Several years after the financial crisis, the major banks are still fined for some bad deed at a rate that seems to be once every month or two.
If you look at the ten year, it wandered around the 1.50-1.70 neighborhood for 2012 into 2013, then in Spring of 2013, it ramped higher. Early this year, it fell back into that neighborhood again and bounced. Perhaps that area is/was the bottom?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-05/take-out-7-year-car-loan-buy-stocks-cnbc-experts-advise
"We saved the best for last. Watch below as Bill Griffeth and Kelly Evans host WSJ’s Jonathan Clements and Premier Financial Advisors’ Mark Martiak for a discussion on what we’re calling the car-stock arbitrage wherein you are (literally) encouraged to take out a 7 year loan with a rapidly amortizing asset as collateral in order to buy stocks. "

So if I've got this right, what used to be accounts: savings, checking & possibly brokerage became buckets. Somewhere along the line these buckets transformed or evolved into sleeves. What's next, fingers?, knuckles?, something else?
Frankly all I see with anything beyond possibly 10-12 funds is a bucket, sorry sleeve, of expense fees going out the door under the false pretense of diversification. You might have different managers but they are all buying the same stuff you could get in any index. I'd rather pocket those ER's and have them working for me rather than lining the pockets or leather interiors of some financial advisor or fund manager. But that's just me and I'm kinda old and stupid that way.

Seriously? Now one can just buy that honor huh? Who knew.
Look, Jack Bogle had a good idea setting up a house of index funds for the masses. No question that it's been instrumental in helping a number of individuals on their way toward 'financial' freedom. However I hope, I really, really hope that such an endeavor was not the intent behind awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
One small aside, the last I read the majority of savings/money in Mr. Bogle's personal account is invested in active funds. Maybe that's changed.

FYI: Americans have $4.4 trillion invested in 401(k)s, according to the Investment Company Institute, making these tax-deferred savings accounts a vital part of retirement planning for many. BrightScope, a financial-information company that rates retirement savings plans, compiled this list for Kiplinger of the most popular mutual funds based on funds' 401(k) assets under management. Here is a list of the top 100 funds.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.kiplinger.com/printstory.php?pid=13310

FYI: Lots of investors likely are dealing with a nagging, cautious feeling about the U.S. stock market as major indexes continue to thunder higher. Stocks can’t go up forever, right?
In just one week, the bull-market rally for the S&P 500 will celebrate its sixth birthday from its post-financial crisis nadir. That’s a rare feat. Only three other bull markets have lived to see a seventh year since the World War II, and this one is pacing to be the largest by magnitude (211%), says S&P Capital IQ.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/03/02/10-reasons-bank-of-america-merrill-lynch-is-bullish-on-the-sp-500/tab/print/

Scott, a person's methodology sometimes is a by product of their financial circumstances. When I was your age I had but $2200, a negative net worth and a part time job. So being long term and reinvesting dividends and the like was not an option with such a meager account.

From the article: "A host of factors is behind institutions’ adoption of bond ETFs, analysts say. Among them: Deteriorating liquidity in corporate bonds has frustrated large investors as many individual bonds have become difficult to buy or sell quickly at a given price, thanks in part to rules limiting banks’ risk-taking.
U.S. corporate debt outstanding has grown by more than $2 trillion since the financial crisis to $7.7 trillion, but trading in many bonds has slowed as new rules caused dealers to pare their holdings by two-thirds from precrisis levels.
“You can’t get things done in a day anymore” in bonds, said Cliff Noreen, president at $212 billion money manager Babson Capital Management LLC, who saw an ETF sales pitch by iShares last year. “It’s more like a week.” "
In addition: hedge funds and etfs
Lastly and not knowing the affects; is that many etfs have options trading available for the etf.
Regards,
Catch

FYI: Tables comparing investment returns are nothing new. Fund companies and other financial institutions have used them for years to argue for or against different investing ideas. Though, the problem is most tables are either stuck inside a PDF file or quickly become a giant mess of colored tiles that make it hard to read. I thought I’d take the concept, clean it up, and take it a step further.
Regards,
Ted
https://novelinvestor.com/15-year-look-asset-class-sector-country-returns/

2% APY CD, 32 month maturity - shorter than VFSTX, NCUA-insured, zero price risk, higher yield. if you think rates will be going up, you can take the interest payments monthly, but unlike a bond (except a zero coupon) or bond fund you have the option to avoid reinvestment risk by having the interest compound.
http://www.elements.org/Shamrock_Certificate_Rate
I find that banks and credit unions continue to offer better yielding, safer investments than short term bonds.

From the article:
"Financial research is highly prone to statistical distortion. Academics have the choice of many thousands of stocks, bonds and currencies being traded across dozens of countries, complete with decades’ worth of daily price data. They can backtest thousands of correlations to find a few that appear to offer profitable strategies."

As a sentient (or at least semi-sentient - my wife made me say this) carbon-based life form (yo, Spock), I can assure you, based on over 35 yr. in a profession in which personal benefit could be in conflict with the best interests of those served, fee for service or commission-based reimbursement poses stresses difficult to resist. There is a pressure to increase the services offered or the products recommended. Ultimately, I opted for the reduced income and the reduced stress of an employed position, where my recommendations were not financially altered.
OTOH, if the adviser, taking a small percentage of my investment portfolio, sucks down over a month's worth of income yearly, regardless of the quality of the advice, the eye I turn towards them is definitely jaundiced.
I plan to send my lovely wife to meet a Garrett network member to discuss her age 70 options to see if the adviser meets my standards, since the situation is moderately complex. I hope the result is positive, so I can get an opinion regarding the next 30 years.
The unfortunate reality is that honest financial investment advisers probably can't make a decent living. I may want to buy 3 or 6 hours of advice a year, and even at $500/hr (and, yes, I would be complaining loudly), it is less than any percentage-based advisory service. OTOH, I'd trust the hourly advice more, since I'd presume they were trying to earn my money.

Obama's Fiduciary Plan:
"There are a lot of very fine financial advisors out there, but there [are] also financial advisors who receive back-door payments or hidden fees for steering people into bad retirement investments that have high fees and low returns," he added. "So what happens is these payments, these inducements, incentivize the broker to make recommendations that generate the best returns for them, but not necessarily the best returns for you."
obama-fiduciary-plan-targets-advisors-back-door-payments-hidden-fees

There is nothing confusing other than the writer, who as the WSJ notes, writes about how financial advisers can "build and improve their practices" - not how they can best serve their customers.
Most of the article is about how "advisers" can charge for their services - percentage of AUM or commission. (It doesn't discuss fee only - based strictly on time and effort.)
If someone is a fiduciary, there is no confusion, no conflict. The adviser is to ignore any benefit he gets from the fee arrangement and recommend the best investments for the customer. Period. That's what the government is recommending, and why articles like this try to confuse matters.

FYI: While the Obama administration is pressing for more financial advisers to operate as “fiduciaries,” the reality is that many advisers currently wear two hats.
That can be confusing because those advisers provide some financial-planning or portfolio-management services under a fiduciary standard, which requires them to put their clients’ interests first. They typically charge fees for this work.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/totalreturn/2015/02/25/fiduciary-or-broker-many-financial-advisers-wear-both-hats/tab/print/?mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.wsj.com%2Ftotalreturn%2F2015%2F02%2F25%2Ffiduciary-or-broker-many-financial-advisers-wear-both-hats%2Ftab%2Fprint&fpid=2,121

Classic Risk/Reward 101
(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp. sold $6.35 billion of bonds, the biggest debt offering by a U.S. oil and gas producer since the 54 percent rout in crude began in July, as investors seek debt of energy producers that can weather the downturn.
“Chevron is a reminder that all energy companies aren’t created equal,” said Scott Carmack, a money manager at Portland, Oregon-based Leader Capital Corp., which oversees $1.5 billion in fixed-income assets. “They are a behemoth of a company that is built for the long haul. Investors have no problem lending to them.”
Debt of the riskiest energy companies tracked by Bank of Merrill Lynch Bond Indexes lost more than 9 percent since last June, while those of safer energy securities gained 0.6 percent.
The new debt is an insurance policy against further declines in oil as well as an opportunity to take advantage of lower interest rates, Fadel Gheit, Chevron analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said in a telephone interview.
“If they see a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity, they don’t want to be stuck in a situation where interest rates rise,” he said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-24/chevron-said-to-plan-bond-sale-in-second-deal-since-oil-plunge
Original
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2322826-chevron-raises-6_35b-in-biggest-oil-bond-deal-since-rout
Country,Company,Commodity,Corruption Risk Wrapped in One
Moody's downgrades Petrobras' ratings to Ba2; maintains review for downgrade
Global Credit Research - 24 Feb 2015
These rating actions reflect increasing concern about corruption investigations and liquidity pressures that might result from delays in delivering audited financial statements, as well as Moody's expectation that the company will be challenged to make meaningful reduction in its very high debt burden over the next several years. The ratings remain on review for downgrade.
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Petrobras-ratings-to-Ba2-maintains-review-for-downgrade--PR_319021
It was the fourth Petrobras downgrade in five months by Moody's.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2322936-moody-s-downgrades-petrobras-debt-to-junk

FYI: (Less Is More)
Time to take an inventory of your mutual funds. How many are there? What are their investment styles? Is your portfolio of mutual funds cluttered just like your closet? Have you owned some mutual funds so long that you have forgotten why you bought them? Are there some mutual funds on the top shelf, way in the back of your financial closet you haven't even looked at in a while?
Regards,
Ted
http://www.aaii.com/evergreen/article/how-many-mutual-funds-should-you-have-in-your-investment-portfolio.touch

My mind will never be as sharp as when I was Faced with daily business problems and financial decisions..... which I don't want or need today to Live a good life,
"Simple" is a good way of life, "boring" is not...I worked to get "simple"..