FYI: Suggest you also take profits in any Emerging Market Funds you own. I sold my position in EEM the day before yesterday.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/columnist/waggon/story/2012-04-26/europe-financial-crisis-euro/54563614/1

Scott, please forgive my curiosity, but I am constantly impressed by the balance and breadth of your financial knowledge. Are you perhaps, like BobC, a professional in this area?

Late Morn'in Coffee,
'Course, the Mr. Real Estate Fund guy, is me.
I find from time to time, either asking outloud or silently to myself, about whether to drift a bit more money into the real estate sector. We currently hold a "shy" real estate fund, FRIFX; which is an equity/bond mix. When compared to other real estate funds, this one is quite conservative; although still subject to market whacks.
To the other side of this fence is the consideration of adding PETDX, which is a whole different critter, in this sector. In one non-Fidelity acct., we also have access to CSRSX; a more traditional real estate equity fund.
As usual, there are more than enough "things" to observe, but I find the real estate funds to continue to slowly march upward. Yes, these are subject to equity market moods in general; and they are not outstanding performers related to some other equity sectors that receive all of the headlines; but are performing well at this time.
A possible better performing real estate niche may be an etf or active managed fund with over-exposure to the rental side of things. I have not checked into this particular area niche fund.
I suppose the question need not be asked if you currently hold real estate funds and are pleased; but I am curious if anyone is considering moving monies into or out of these funds.
I ask about this investment sector in spite of the "reality bites" potential that still exists in the financial world.
Your thoughts about this area would be appreciated.
Take care,
Catch

Howdy,
While the consideration of a near riskless investment may point towards FDIC insured type investments in CD's or whatever currently small yield may be obtained from checking/share draft accounts and related; the small and likely risk is loss of purchasing power going forward with these "investments". However, I will never poo-poo an individual with using these accounts, "IF" they do not fully understand themselves, the investing world or have full faith in an investment advisor.
Ultimately, the risk factor is with the individual investor and what they placed on their own list of what is risk for them; versus the typical risk assessment from a prospectus (below). Not unlike a risk assessment list that is provided to an investor from an advisor; I am of the opinion that an investor must perform their own risk assessment "how to" list with the utmost honesty. A sincere, who am I, assessment, so that you too; may sleep soundly.
Not that these thoughts are new territory to many here at MFO, but may be of value to the new investor reading through MFO.
The below prospectus wording was drawn from typical fund wording. I have added or deleted a few words to reflect a more general prospectus that may apply to any flavor of investment.
Just my inflation adjusted 2 cents worth.
Take care,
Catch
It is possible to lose money on an investment in a FUND. Under certain conditions, generally in a market where the value of equity and/or fixed income securities are declining, a Fund may experience substantial losses. The principal risks of investing in a Fund, which could adversely affect its net asset value, yield and total return are:
--- Interest Rate Risk: the risk that fixed income securities will decline in value because of an increase in interest rates; a fund with a longer average portfolio duration will be more sensitive to changes in interest rates than a fund with a shorter average portfolio duration
--- Credit Risk: the risk that a Fund could lose money if the issuer or guarantor of a fixed income security, or the counterparty to a derivative contract, is unable or unwilling to meet its financial obligations
--- High Yield Risk: the risk that high yield securities and unrated securities of similar credit quality (commonly known as "junk bonds") are subject to greater levels of credit and liquidity risks. High yield securities are considered primarily speculative with respect to the issuer's continuing ability to make principal and interest payments
--- Market Risk: the risk that the value of securities owned by a Fund may go up or down, sometimes rapidly or unpredictably, due to factors affecting securities markets generally or particular industries
--- Issuer Risk: the risk that the value of a security may decline for a reason directly related to the issuer, such as management performance, financial leverage and reduced demand for the issuer's goods or services
--- Liquidity Risk: the risk that a particular investment may be difficult to purchase or sell and that the Fund may be unable to sell illiquid securities at an advantageous time or price or achieve its desired level of exposure to a certain sector
--- Derivatives Risk: the risk of investing in derivative instruments, including liquidity, interest rate, market, credit and management risks, mispricing or improper valuation. Changes in the value of the derivative may not correlate perfectly with the underlying asset, rate or index, and a Fund could lose more than the principal amount invested
--- Equity Risk: the risk that the value of equity securities, such as common stocks and preferred stocks, may decline due to general market conditions which are not specifically related to a particular company or to factors affecting a particular industry or industries. Equity securities generally have greater price volatility than fixed income securities
--- Mortgage-Related and Other Asset-Backed Risk: the risk of investing in mortgage-related and other asset-backed securities, including interest rate risk, extension risk and prepayment risk
--- Foreign (non-U.S.) Investment Risk: the risk that investing in foreign (non-U.S.) securities may result in a Fund experiencing more rapid and extreme changes in value than a fund that invests exclusively in securities of U.S. companies, due to smaller markets, differing reporting, accounting and auditing standards, and nationalization, expropriation or confiscatory taxation, currency blockage, or political changes or diplomatic developments. Foreign securities may also be less liquid and more difficult to value than securities of U.S. issuers
--- Emerging Markets Risk: the risk of investing in emerging market securities, primarily increased foreign (non-U.S.) investment risk
--- Currency Risk: the risk that foreign currencies will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar and affect the Fund's investments in foreign (non-U.S.) currencies or in securities that trade in, and receive revenues in, or in derivatives that provide exposure to, foreign (non-U.S.) currencies
--- Issuer Non-Diversification Risk: the risk of focusing investments in a small number of issuers, including being more susceptible to risks associated with a single economic, political or regulatory occurrence than a more diversified portfolio might be. Funds that are "non-diversified" may invest a greater percentage of their assets in the securities of a single issuer (such as bonds issued by a particular state) than funds that are "diversified"
--- Leveraging Risk: the risk that certain transactions of a Fund, such as reverse repurchase agreements, loans of portfolio securities, and the use of when-issued, delayed delivery or forward commitment transactions, or derivative instruments, may give rise to leverage, causing a Fund to be more volatile than if it had not been leveraged
--- Management Risk: the risk that the investment techniques and risk analyses applied will not produce the desired results and that legislative, regulatory, or tax developments may affect the investment techniques available; and the individual portfolio manager in connection with managing a Fund. There is no guarantee that the investment objective of a Fund will be achieved
--- Short Sale Risk: the risk of entering into short sales, including the potential loss of more money than the actual cost of the investment, and the risk that the third party to the short sale may fail to honor its contract terms, causing a loss to a Fund
Please see "Description of Principal Risks" in a Fund's prospectus for a more detailed description of the risks of investing in a Fund. An investment in a Fund is not a deposit of a bank and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency.

Reply to @AndyJ: I believe 18K is pretty small volume. Even in this case this case bid/asked spread is low now, in a panic such small volume will definitely lead to widening gap in some cases market price is not tracking the NAV at all if the market maker declines to close the gap by using the arbitrage mechanism. This has been the case before in financial crisis with some high yield ETFs, even corporate ETFs. I expect it to happen again.
I prefer >100K daily volume if not much better.

Reply to @catch22:
Hi Catch,
Thanks for your response to my question that I presented to you that asked how you felt one should position for a rising interest rate environment.
Reading what you wrote … In short words … You felt that high yield, short maturity and floating rate funds should fair better than other sectors. I trend to agree with you on that. Currently, I don’t hold any floating rate funds although I do hold some funds that have some floating rate securities in them along with some convertible securities.
Below I have listed what I consider to be my income generating funds within my portfolio. The yield is detailed in (x.xx%) following the name of the fund. I do own some stocks but I have not listed them.
Most of my income funds are listed below in which I hold meaningful positions. They are LIGRX, Loomis Sayles Investment Grade Bond Fund (5.16%) … LALDX, Lord Abbett Short Duration Income Fund (4.41%) … NEFRX, Loomis Sayles Core Bond Fund (4.14%) … STIAX, Federated Strategic Income Fund (5.66%) … CAPAX, Federated Capital & Income Fund (5.22%) … FKINX, Franklin Income Fund (6.56%) … NEFZX, Loomis Sayles Strategic Income (5.85%) … ISFAX, Lord Abbott Diversified Income Fund (5.44%) … PASAX, Pimco All Asset Fund (6.63%) … PGBAX, Principal Global Diversified Income Fund (5.29%) … TPINX, Templeton Global Bond Fund (6.12%) … IGPAX, ING Target Payment Fund (6.29%) … TSIAX, Thornburg Strategic Income Fund (6.32%).
Some of my growth and income funds that are kicking off good distributions are AZNAX, Allianz NACM Income & Growth Fund (8.70% distribution) … TBIAX, Thornburg Investment Income Builder (6.36%) … EADIX, Eaton Vance Tax Managed Global Dividend Income Fund (4.97%) … AMECX, Income of America Fund (4.02%) … CBIAX, Capital Income Builder (4.11%) … PMDAX, Principal Small & Midcap Dividend Income Fund (4.08%) … LPEFX, Financial Private Equity Fund (9.33%) … and, JCRAX, Jefferies Asset Management Commodity Strategy Fund (8.02%) plus a few others as this list is getting to long (twenty funds) to keep going, but these are the higher yielding ones.
Let me just say this … currently if it is not kicking off some type of income distribution in some form and fashion … I don’t own it … anywhere within my portfolio … even with my small and mid cap funds they have to provide some income. As you can see the theme here is diversified income generation.
I don’t know how this “hodge podge” of funds will hold up in a down draft … but, before the risk grade site closed … to individual investors … most of these funds scored real well. Boy, I do miss that site.
Catch thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts on fixed income. I went beyond fixed income in my response back to you … but, as you can see I am all across the board with funds that generate income for me … perhaps, it might help some readers find some income generating funds that they might wish to do their own due diligence.
Thanks again for your response … I’ll take a look see at some floating rate funds.
Skeeter

Reply to @Skeeter: I believe X-Ray is the M*'s own sector classification of the index. It may be that M* has reclassified a whole bunch of companies to a different sector. For example, a bunch of Financial companies seems to be classified in Real Estate sector.
The interesting thing is that another of their tool, Portfolio Allocator is still showing old weighing...

Hello,
I just completed my weekly review of my portfolio using Moringstar’s Instant Xray analysis. I noticed, there seems to be some major sector weighting changes for the S&P 500 Index. Below is the spread sheet and in the first column is the sector, the second column is the new weighting, in the third column is the old weighting, and in the fourth column is the difference (amount up or down form the old).
Sector New Weight(%) Old Weight(%) Difference(%)
Cyclical 23.35 26.81 -03.46
Basic Materials 3.86 3.17 +0.69
Consumer Cyclical 9.38 9.35 +0.03
Financial Services 3.11 12.43 -09.32
Real Estate 7.00 1.86 +5.14
Sensitive 49.11 45.58 +3.53
Communication Srv 14.00 4.30 +9.70
Energy 11.52 12.15 -0.63
Industrials 11.28 11.68 -0.40
Technology 12.31 17.45 -5.14
Defensive 23.77 27.60 -3.83
Consumer Defensive 11.67 12.14 -0.47
Healthcare 8.71 11.67 -2.96
Utilities 3.39 3.79 -0.40
Not Classified 3.77 0.00 +3.77
I wonder if these stock sector changes really took place for the S&P 500 Index or if this is a snafu on the part of Morningstar?
Anybody have any good information on this?
Thanks,
Skeeter

Maurice,
We've saved around 2,700 for this investment. The account is a custodial account at Fidelity.
Some of the my favorite funds are either transaction fee or closed at Fidelity. I personally already own OAKBX, FPACX, PRWCX, ARTKX, etc. My main objective with this money is to start my child with investing early. We plan on adding half her allowance towards her future financial stability. Not that we're going to cut her soda money in hand today - just her bonus for cleaning her room courtesy of dad. This could help with her first house, college, etc. I can only hope that we raise her well enough that she doesn't blow it in Vegas.
VWELX is a really solid fund for sure! But.. we don't have the 3,000. The only similar fund that I can find that invest in value stocks and high quality bonds ( and it is a newer fund ) is JPVTX. The idea of compounding over that many years holds great appeal. I think that is the reason why I keep looking at PQIDX. Just don't know if PQIDX's managers are of the same caliber as the folks over at Artisan ( ARTGX )

Reminds me of two Zurich Axioms:
Minor Axiom I - Always Play for Meaningful Stakes
If you only invest $100 in a stock, even if it goes up 10x you've only got $1,000. Is that going to change your financial future? Unlikely. Your investments must be big enough to make a difference (obviously though, you must start where you are comfortable and with what resources you have).
Minor Axiom II - Resist the Lure of Diversification
Diversification has three major flaws as pointed out by Gunther:
1) Diversification forces you to violate Minor Axiom I by failing to play for meaningful stakes.
2) With diversification, it's more likely your gains and losses will simply cancel out.
3) By diversifying, you spread yourself too thin and must become an expert on too many arenas.
It's far too difficult to be an expert on bonds, stocks, gold, real estate, and every industry from here to there. Just learn about what areas you want to know and become an expert at that. It's far more difficult to avoid losses when you're spread thin and far more difficult to achieve great gains.
Here is the Full list of Zurich Axioms:
http://www.getrichandgiveback.com/2010/12/zurich-axioms-rules-for-investing.html

I would be more worried about how much MLPs have run up than either of the above issues, which is why I still remain pretty much out. This has been discussed a few times on financial media that I've seen recently, as well - people just continue to get in these for the yield and they've run up. The Salient MLP Fund that I mentioned previously was trading at an 11% discount in December, now it trades at a few % premium.
Holding MLPs long-term for yield is fine (or in the case of Brookfield, yield + unique take on infrastructure investing), but I'd wait for more attractive entry points, in other words. I own Brookfield Infrastructure and I own - through owning Loews (L) - Boardwalk Pipeline and Highmount Exploration/Production. I also own a small position in TTO which, as I noted above, is a long-term hold as it transitions from an MLP fund.
The only fund I'd own is the Salient fund mentioned above, which is a more flexible fund that can hedge (interest rate, equity, credit, commodity). ("The Fund may enter into various swap transactions, including interest rate, total return, currency and credit default swap
contracts (“CDS”) to manage interest rate, currency or credit risk. The Fund may enter into futures contracts to manage exposure to interest rate, equity and market price movements,
currency and/or commodity risk.")
That fund also offers shareholder conference calls and an informative website. (In my experience) one of the fund managers also answered an email question.
So, that's really the only thing I'd be interested in in terms of MLP funds, but it would have to really come in in terms of price and premium.

Hey Skeeter,
Not sure if you caught Jeff's interview with Jim Puplava:
Jeffrey Saut: Shrugging Off Bad News!
Why Stocks Are Still The Best Game In Town:
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2012/04/12/jeffrey-saut/shrugging-off-bad-news-why-stocks-are-still-best-game-in-town

Good Grief!! Don't blame you.
Googled "transfer agent Dodge and Cox", and the first return referenced the Dodge and Cox "statutory prospectus". From that prospectus:
"C U S T O D I A N A N D T R A N S F E R A G E N T
State Street Bank and Trust Company, P.O. Box 8422, Boston, MA 02266-8422 (1-800-621-3979), and its global custody network act as custodian of all cash and securities of the Funds and receives and disburses cash and securities for the account of the Funds. Boston Financial Data Services, P.O. Box 8422, Boston, MA 02266-8422 (1-800-621-3979), acts as transfer and dividend disbursing agent for the Funds."
Additionally, there is a full page of Google references dealing with "Transfer Agent".
The following are two excerpts from ⇒ the D&C Terms & Conditions of Use:
"The accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the Funds' account information provided is the sole responsibility of the transfer agent, which provides the information."
and
"the Funds use a third-party transfer agent"

Howdy,
Again, a thank you to all who post the links and also start and participate in the many fine commentaries woven into the message threads.
For those who don't know; I ramble away about this and that, at least once each week.
NOTE: For those who visit MFO, this portfolio is designed for retirement, capital preservation and to stay ahead of inflation creep. This is not a buy and hold portfolio, and is subject to change on any given day; based upon perceptions of market directions. All assets in this portfolio are in tax-sheltered accounts; and any fund distributions are reinvested in the funds. Gains or losses are computed from actual account values.
While looking around.....Bonds, bonds,bonds. As I have noted before, these are, in my opinion, the backbone of money at all scales; from small local gov'ts. and businesses to the large scale operations of central gov'ts. As to this and we individuals; we also issue a form of bond, in reverse. Very few individuals put up the full amount of monies for two major purchases; being a home(s) and several vehicles throughout our lifetime. One may shop around for the best mortgage or vehicle loan, obtain a loan and in effect have a private issue bond produced in your name. Not unlike traditional bonds, your credit worthiness will affect the yield (interest rate you pay). How does this relate to anything investing. It is nothing more than what our house attempts to view and understand all of what surrounds we investors each and every day. We try to place ourselves into the various positions of the financial machinations in the most simple terms we might understand. As this house will never have an inside track to how or why the big money houses or central banks function; nor will we have the intellectual skills to master all of the subtle changes (sometimes in 275 millisecond time frames---trading computers), we do our best to attempt to determine both fundamental and technical aspects of the markets(sectors), in a simple form and make choices from these aspects to position our monies, .
With a part-time staff of 2, on the best of days; our research staff does its best to find the major cause and effect issues in place.
An example is that "x" number of folks are familiar with a nearly perfect formed, very gently sloping range of small mountains, with either downslope side having 20 small water streams, that feed 10 larger streams, then 5 larger streams and then into one large river on either side of the Bondequity mountain range. A weather forecast notes that there will be a rather strong and slow moving storm; producing more than average rainfall, in the area. Each mountainside has its own set of crop growers (investors), being the bond and equity farmers. Some farmers have diversified/mixed their crops. In either case, not enough or too much rain may cause problems for either farm type; whereas it is possible for both crop types to provide ample returns with just the right amount of rainfall.
Knowing or tracking the storm path may be of great benefit to all growers in order to help protect the crops through the system of drainage gates and bypasses that have been used in this area for many years. Heavy rains may still prove to be overwhelming in the low lying areas in the flat lands below; as the amount of rain diverted above will still find its way to this area. As usual, there will be those who are aware of the weather conditions; and will plan accordingly, there will also be those not checking the weather forecast until after the storm has begun and those who seldom monitor the weather forecast. As time and knowledge allows, one should always make some attempt to monitor some aspects of the weather forecast, in order to protect the planted investment crops.
'Course, an ongoing problem area is too much information about the weather forecast, and who or what appears to be credible; and why. And yes, the forecast always has a mix of fundamental and technical aspects, eh?
Watch the forecast, short, medium and long term; or be prepared to find water over the boot tops.
I have added a few blips related to our portfolio and market observations at the below SELLs/BUYs and Portfolio Thoughts.
SELLs/BUYs THIS PAST WEEK:

--- NONE ---
Portfolio Thoughts:
Our holdings had a + .45 % move this past week. Sidenote: The average return of 200 combined Fidelity retail funds across all sectors (week avg = -.96, YTD +8.1%). Investment grade bonds gave support to the portfolio last week, the HY/HI bond sector was down about .22% and the equity funds were mixed to down. We're watching who and what is "twitchy". The following quote from last week reminds me of the more than two years of some of the "interesting" quotes that have arrived from Europe.... “I don’t see a good reason” for buying government bonds, Knot of the ECB said today at an event in Amsterdam. “I think there has been an overreaction to the unfortunate communication surrounding Spain.” Klaas Knot is a governing member of the ECB. Knot is commenting about the ECB buying more of Spain's bonds to offset the yields that have continued to increase after the LTRO (QE) placements of several months. Spain will have another bond auction this coming week, which will help tell more of this picture. One may conclude that bond yields for Spain and Italy have risen again; because the evil bond traders are playing games, or that folks are a bit on edge about holding the product due to the "unfortunate communications" regarding a vast array of circumstances in Spain in partiuclar that may indicate quality problems. One may suspect that the central bankers sure don't care much for all of the data (of which the public has a right of knowledge) traveling the globe. I will presume that the ECB will have to form a plan to move more Euro's to Spain and others again. My favorite quote person of the past 6 months is Christine LaGarde of the IMF. Perhaps I can find a top ten list.
Lastly, the U.S. is still my top equity pick from the turd pile list.
The old Funds Boat is at anchor, riding in the small waves and watching the weather. To the high praise of MFO and the members, it is very difficult to find a topic to note here that has not been placed into the discussion boards. Excellence, as usual.
I have retained the following links for those who may choose to do their own holdings comparison against the fund types noted.
This 1st link to Bloomberg is for their list of balanced funds; although I don't always agree with the placement of fund styles in their categories.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/data?Sector=888&pid=invest_mutualfunds&ListBy=YTD&Term=1
These next two links are for conservative and moderate fund leaders YTD, per MSN.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Symbol=$HF&Category=CA
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/partsub/funds/topfundresults.asp?Category=MA&Type=&symbol=$HF
A reflection upon the links above; we attempt to establish a "benchmark" for our portfolio to help us "see" how our funds are performing. Aside from viewing many funds within the balanced/flexible funds rankings (the above links), a quick and dirty group of 4 funds we watch for psuedo benchmarking are the following:
***Note: these YTD's per M*
VWINX .... - .13 week, YTD = + 3.26%
PRPFX .... - .04 week, YTD = + 4.36%
SIRRX ..... + .26 week, YTD = + 2.34%
HSTRX .... + .57 week, YTD = + .23%
None of these 4 are twins to our holdings, but we do watch these as a type of rough guage.
Such are the numerous battles with investments attempting to capture a decent return and minimize the risk.
We live and invest in interesting times, eh?
Hey, I probably forgot something; and hopefully the words make some sense.
Comments and questions always welcomed.
Good fortune to you, yours and the investments.
Take care,
Catch
---Below is what M* x-ray has attempted to sort for our portfolio, as of March 9, 2012---
U.S.Stocks 10.5%
Foreign Stocks 6.8%
Bonds 78.5% ***
Other 4.2%
Not Classified 0.00%
***about 35% of the bond total are high yield category (equity related cousins)
---This % listing is kinda generic, by fund "name"
-Investment grade bond funds 26.8%
-Diversified bond funds 19.8%
-HY/HI bond funds 23.2%
-Total bond funds 17.8%
-Foreign EM/debt bond funds 4.3%
-U.S./Int'l equity/speciality funds 8.1%
This is our current list: (NOTE: I have added a speciality grouping below for a few of fund types)
---High Yield/High Income Bond funds
FAGIX Fid Capital & Income
SPHIX Fid High Income
FHIIX Fed High Income
DIHYX TransAmerica HY
---Total Bond funds
FTBFX Fid Total
PTTRX Pimco Total
---Investment Grade Bonds
APOIX Amer. Cent. TIPS Bond
DGCIX Delaware Corp. Bd
FBNDX Fid Invest Grade
FINPX Fidelity TIPS Bond
OPBYX Oppenheimer Core Bond
---Global/Diversified Bonds
FSICX Fid Strategic Income
FNMIX Fid New Markets
DPFFX Delaware Diversified
TEGBX Templeton Global (load waived)
LSBDX Loomis Sayles
---Speciality Funds (sectors or mixed allocation)
FRIFX Fidelity Real Estate Income (bond/equity mix)
FDLSX Fidelity Select Leisure
FSAGX Fidelity Select Precious Metals
RNCOX RiverNorth Core Opportunity (bond/equity)
---Equity-Domestic/Foreign
FDVLX Fidelity Value
FSLVX Fidelity Lg. Cap Value
FLPSX Fidelity Low Price Stock
MACSX Matthews Asia Growth-Income

Reply to @Investor: A couple of refinements to your comments ...
Sometimes, the fund is available elsewhere, but not the same best share class. Janus D shares are available only through Janus (and only for people who already invest directly through them); these generally have administrative expenses about a dozen basis points above the no load T shares available through brokers.
Some funds, when they close to sales through brokerages, also put a restriction on transferring shares to brokerages. For example, they might say that shares may not be transferred for the first 90 days after purchase.
And it's not just funds that take the slow path. As I noted in another thread, I'm experimenting now with Firstrade, and they do not accept ACH transfers to open an account. (They do accept wires, but otherwise you have to fund by check.) And once they receive the check, they'll hold it for 2-4 days before making it available. That's after they receive the check. I should know - I walked in the check, and that's what I was told. Sure enough, it took a couple of business days for the balance to show up, and I couldn't trade with it immediately.
Finally, FWIW, D&C uses Boston Financial Data Services as its transfer agent. This in turn is partly owned by State Street Corp (SSgA), which you should recognize as the sponsor of SPY and other SPDRs.
Also FWIW, full serve/self serve is a false dichotomy, as there's also mini serve. That's what you find in two states, NJ and Oregon.

From the article: "What do you think of the plan put in place in the U.S. to deal with our financial crisis?"
"It is the least-bad plan. It isn't a good plan, because there are no good solutions."

Reply to @CathyG: I don't know about RJ in terms of brokerage, but I have to say, the best thing that some family members did was switch from dealing with a broker (which was often about which "products" the brokerage was pushing/which companies they had relationships with/etc) to dealing with a financial planner that charges fee + performance fee. There's no products to push and the broker has to take an active role because they want the fees from positive returns. Obviously, not every performance fee broker is going to be the same, but I just think the whole performance fee set-up means the planner is going to be actively monitoring and is focused on finding "what's working", not what product/products need to be pushed.

Reply to @CathyG:
I wouldn't be surprised to find stuff like this (and more) about any large brokerage. Not that that excuses any of it. What I am suggesting is to compare RJ with any other brokerage, to see if one can do better. (One alternate approach would be to look at independent financial planners - not a recommendation, just an observation that there are alternatives, but you might have to expand your search to find them.)
As an editorial comment, the law firm you located sounds like a bunch of shills: "The firm’s website chronicles a truly boring 45 year-by-year history, including the name of the firm’s first client and its art show sponsorship. This litany is highlighted by ever increasing additions to and/or replacements of its headquarters. " Is that tone really necessary or professional? Here's a much more professional presentation by a different law firm (basically same info): http://www.dkrpa.com/Brokerage-Firms/Raymond-James-Financial-Inc.shtml
Regarding the wrap account fine, here's Investopedia's take: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/05/042705.asp
It acknowledges the fine, but provides background and notes that "With advisory products, the advice provided by financial services professional is considered to be a material part of the process. With non-advisory products, the regulators view the advice as incidental. ... [This was problematic for] the traditional ... wrap account because it was classified as a non-advisory product, even though many advisors included ongoing advice as part of the package..."
That's consistent with RJ's defense: http://registeredrep.com/news/averitt-scolds-nasd/ ("It's not a price issue, it's a relationship issue.")
Wrap accounts were designed for at least two reasons: to reduce/eliminate the motivation to churn accounts (if commission-based), and to generate revenue. Nothing wrong with either, unless it goes too far, and to some extent at least, that's what NASD seems to have found.
The law firm pages note that RJ shut down its wrap account operation rather than comply with NASD rules. But was that petulance or prescience? The Investopedia article goes on to note that a couple of years later, NASD itself shut down all wrap accounts. (They were then reconstituted by firms as non-discretionary accounts.)
The selling of B shares where A shares would be cheaper is an industry disgrace, and has led to most mutual funds to stop offering B shares. This particular violation was one shared by many funds, see, e.g. http://www.finra.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2004/P117398 ("Fifteen Firms to Pay over $21.5M in Penalties to Settle SEC and NASD Charges"). And in case you're wondering about some of the firms not on that list, here's another: http://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/WhitePaper_2005EnforcementMatters.pdf
(Merrill Lynch fined $14M, Wells Fargo $3M, Linsco $2.4M; plus make restitution. Citigroup accepting censure and $20M civil fine for selling inappropriate B shares and other violations.)
My take is that, yes the violations are real, yes they're serious. All the more reason to make sure you understand what services you're buying, and what the costs are.

Thanks for your response, Mark. I've just finished reading the Annuity link mentioned above.... almost all sounds really dismal, and way too complicated to figure out exactly what you are getting with these. With apparent "fat" commissions, makes me suspicious of any broker who recommends these.... this particular one may be ok, but I'm not willing to test it out.
I don't need a financial planner... I do our own "budget", and we are fortunate enough to not have to worry about current or future income (barring total market crash).

Is it just me? It seems like almost every time someone poses the discussion question regarding Broker 'X' experiences it is invariably accompanied by the followup query wondering about the Annuity 'Y' they are recommending. Makes me wonder.
I know squat about Raymond James as a financial firm. I'd be willing to bet that they have a fair share of good and bad brokers alike. I know probably even less about annuities with the exception that most people have little use for one, that they are a place to shelter your money after you've exhausted all the other usual suspects, that rare indeed is the appropriate setting for one within an IRA, and that the seller is better served by the annuity than the buyer.
So really, I'm no help whatsoever. Re-read msf's comments and then read them again. Are you really looking for an 'investment advisor' or are you looking for a 'financial planner'? There's quite a difference and I'm not sure that any brokerage firms stock a whole lot of the latter.