With a comprehensive personal investment strategy an investor can avoid the inevitable, repetitive and difficult questions like those asked in the OP. Or, at least have the answers at the ready.

@Stillers: I agree with you that the total of 3 Discussion Topics you have posted for the community in the 16 months since you arrived are all vastly superior to any topic @Derf or I have offered up. That #3 - “Your tax dollars at work” sounds particularly compelling.
As to your investment prowess, I’ve been wanting to thank you for the tip on DODFX back during the first half of December.
“The conclusions that should be drawn are: DODFX is a mediocre FLV stock fund that has only kept pace with IC+ bond fund DODIX for the past ten years. DODFX is inherently a much higher risk fund than DODIX and the chance of it not meeting investors return expectations is significantly higher.” - Posted by @Stillers, December 2020.
Admittedly, it’s only been 5 months. But here’s what’s happened since your post:
- DODIX -5% (or more) / DODFX +14%.
- DODFX has outpaced DODIX by approximately 20% over the 5 months.
- DODFX is now in the top 20th percentile of its peer group based on recent performance (Lipper).
- Meanwhile, DODIX peaked December 17 at $14.98 and has been falling ever since. Looks like you caught the high. Sure glad I listened and sold my depressed DODFX at that time, while putting the money into high flying DODIX.

… Fidelity's holding period to avoid early redemption fees is 60 days, compared to Schwab's 90 days.
Thanks @carew388,
That’s an unexpected issue for me. I shuffle a fair amount of $$ around at TRP (and Invesco). Not selling entire fund - just adding or subtracting. During periods like March & April 2020 you want to be moving from less aggressive into more aggressive funds. Usually abide by a self imposed 30 day rule - in addition to TRP’s own 30-day block.
*Question: Is that early redemption fee only applied to the most recent shares bought? First in / first out perhaps? Makes a heck of a difference!
I did find this …..
“Fidelity charges a short-term trading fee each time you sell or exchange shares of a FundsNetwork NTF fund held less than 60 days. This fee does not apply to Fidelity funds, money market funds, FundsNetwork Transaction Fee funds, FundsNetwork load funds … “
That’s good news. But still trying to figure out whether first in / first out applies in the NTF cases.
Ahhh … Fidelity sounds fine (as does Schwab). Fido has a lot of good funds of its own - and there’s no short term trading fee. Used to play around with their sector funds when younger.
I’ve dealt with TRP for 25 years. Their online system is great 99% of the time. Pretty slick. But the method of switching over to electronic delivery is a bit gimped up. My talk with them today reminds me of the old line: A man said to the Universe … “Sir, I exist …”

“Decades ago, Fidelity nudged all investors off of their mutual fund platform onto their brokerage platform. (Who remembers T-account numbers?) Vanguard is in the middle of that process now.”
Thanks. Wondered about that based on some past discussions here. And the Fido rep I spoke with today never mentioned that little detail.
There is a difference. With a fund-to-fund exchange, it goes through at that day’s closing price. That’s handy if it’s a sector or very volatile fund and you’re watching the market. But in a brokerage, as I understand it, it takes 1 extra day to clear. One reason I never got into a brokerage. Admittedly, that kind of timing’s less important to me than years ago. (Still, OPGSX jumped over 5% yesterday.)
The way around that, I guess, is to buy and sell ETFs …. if you want the latest market price … Right?

FWIW - I have been with Fidelity for over 50 years with hardly a hiccup. Any problems (all minor) were handled promptly with less than a 10 min phone call. No hassles working through their phone menu to obtain an actual human on the other end.
What they don't have is possibly every last mutual fund you'd like to own with or without purchase fees but they have a large selection as you've already documented. A nice recent option was the incorporation of many TRP funds in their stables. Great research options across the board. I've been quite happy.

@msf, thank you very much for your analysis. Always appreciated, but living until 100 to gain a$67k advantage in the game of life still doesn't seem significant to me. Yeah, $67k is a lot of money in today's dollars, but what does it mean 30 years from now. 1 extra year of withdrawal potential maybe? That is what makes this decision a toss of a coin or of little significance either way for me. I may very well live to 100. I have pretty good genes, but will I care or even remember this "when-to-take-SS" decision on my death bed? Pretty sure not.
Squeezing the last penny from your potential SS is a game. It can be won or lost by many factors.

How can this be? Surely you jest. See, e.g.
Flawed Paperwork Aggravates a Foreclosure Crisis, NYTimes, 2010
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/business/04mortgage.html
(Just the first random article I happened to hit.)
IMHO there are at least two important takeaways:
1. Always check your statements. The boilerplate verbiage from financial institutions to do this is there for a couple of reasons:
- Actually checking helps find problems like the ones written about when they first occur.
- The verbiage protects the institutions in case there is a problem and you failed to check. This is a defense mentioned in the article.
2. Hold onto your statements "forever", or at least until there's no more money left to trace. Financial institutions may destroy records after a finite period of time, as allowed by law, e.g. "TD does retain records for RSP accounts for seven years, in accordance with applicable provincial laws."

Having gone through this exercise a few years ago when vanguard unfairly dropped their decently integrated banking services, I was on the verge of moving to Fidelity and hit 2 roadblocks :
1. their may be some funds that are restricted from transfer, probably the good ones. (e.g., admiral and primecap for vanguard). serious golden handcuffs.
2. the moved funds may not count towards your asset limit to get the best benefits. in which case, you may have to move cash-like assets, or worse, realize tax gains just to get a similar holding.
in the end, i had to open a conventional online bank account with needed services (capital1 , a nightmare in itself since it took almost 9 months to set up due to repeated administrative hassles)
let us know if there is a silver bullet solution.

Thanks for your figures. Now I can be more specific to your particular "what if". Since I'm still making estimates, feel free to adjust the calculations as needed.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that your SS benefits are 50% taxable. (It could be as high as 85%.) Let's also assume that you're working part time until age 70 so that we don't have too many different intervals to compute.
Finally, let's assume a fed marginal tax rate of 22% and a state marginal rate of 6% for a combined 28% rate. We have to pick some figure to work with to make this concrete.
I gather from your followup that you need an extra $20K/year (after tax) over and above your part time income for your expenses until you fully retire (assumed age 70). The fact that you'd be drawing from your IRA for this money suggests no money in taxable accounts - since that's what conventional wisdom says to deplete first.
So if you defer benefits, you'll need to draw $27,778/year from the IRA. (72% of this gives $20K post tax).
OTOH, if you take benefits at age 67, you'll get to "bank" $14,028/year, assuming you bank it in that same deductible T-IRA:
$35K pre-tax SS benefits = $20K for expenses + $14,028 to IRA + $972 taxes
[ net taxes = tax on SS benefits - tax savings on deductible IRA contribution
$972 = (28% x 1/2 x $35K) - (28% x $14,028) = $4,900 - $3,928]
So from age 67 to age 70, you're either reducing your IRA by $27,778/year or growing it by $14,028. That's a difference of $41,806/year for three years. In pretax dollars. In post-tax dollars (72%), that's $30.1K.
I already explained how to account for the growth of this amount in an earlier post in this thread. So I'll just give the results here:
Expected value of $30.1K (post-tax) difference/year over three years: $104K (portfolio visualizer), $93K in real (inflation adjusted) dollars.
After age 70, if you've deferred SS, you'll be receiving 132%/108% x $35K, roughly $42.8K/year.
Compared with the $35K you'd get by starting at age 67, that's a $7.8K/year difference pre-tax, real dollars. Post tax, the difference is $7.8K - (28% x $7.8K x 1/2) = $6.7K/year.
The extra savings and growth ($93K real dollars to age 70) that you get by taking SS at age 67 can on average be expected to cover this $6.7K shortfall through age 87 (portfolio visualizer).
That's a tad under what the new RMD table1 (single life) gives as the expected lifetime (88.2) for someone now age 67.
The comment "by the way your dead at the end anyway" suggests that you're not giving much weight to the risk of loss once you're dead, since, well, you're dead anyway. OTOH, the risk of having less money while you're alive is going to matter. A risk averse person who values these two risks (dying before "breaking even", and living "too long") differently will tend to make the choice that reduces the more important risk.
In addition, the estimate that by deferring benefits one will begin pulling ahead around age 87 is a result subject to wide variations. Maybe the market will not produce 7%/year (the figure I used as input), maybe it will swoon early in your drawdown period. Maybe you'll do much better, maybe you'll do much worse.
In contrast, SS is a steady (inflation adjusted) income stream. All else being equal, the risk averse person will take the sure thing.
A final note on the numbers. The calculations above incorporate the effect of taxes and account for investment growth. Your potential shortfall by taking benefits at age 67 and living to 100 still comes out to nearly triple magnitude you hypothesized: ""$10k, 20k, 30k maybe?" Or maybe $87K (13 x $6.7K, post tax, in real dollars).

It depends on whether the securities are "covered" or "uncovered". If they are covered, institutions are required to transfer what they think the cost basis is. If they are uncovered, they're not required to transfer this information.
Sounding like a broken record - what a brokerage thinks your cost basis is and what it actually is can be different. You and you alone are responsible for reporting the true cost basis.
For example, a few years ago I had a wash sale of covered securities across two brokerages. The brokerage where the wash sale took place could not possibly report the correct (adjusted) cost basis of the shares sold since it was unaware of the repurchase in the other brokerage. The brokerage with the replacement shares could not possibly record the correct (adjusted) cost basis of those shares because it was unaware of the wash sale in the first brokerage.

lost extra income over 30 years minus gained extra income over first three years =
30 years x 12mo/year x ($2112 - $1728) - $62,208 = $138,240 - $62,208 = $76,032.

@msf, This synopsis is a pretty straight forward, narrow view. But for everyone there are the "what ifs".
What if during the years I wait from 67 to 70, I had to withdraw $20k a year
from an IRA to make up the income deficit for cutting back or eliminating work income? $20k x 3 years is $60k potential growth loss. So, that kind of makes your extra $76,032 gain IF I live until 97 more of a pittance in the scheme of things in my opinion. There is a much greater chance of not living until 97 than doing so statistics say. Factor in that $20k from an IRA is fully taxed. SS is partially taxed. And lets factor in the excess SS I will receive at 67 that I don't need to make up my reduced work income. Still using the $20k needed to fill my income deficit, I now have $15k to bank for 3 years = $45k (I should receive ~$35k/year SS now, (35ss - 20 needed income = 15 excess to save).
Bottom line in my mind, that straight forward formula you gave can easily be affected by real life factors everyone has. With all those factors and probably more factors we may not be aware of heading down the road, using your wait until 70 formula has huge variability for being accurate. I think some of the articles posted in this string are saying a similar view.

FAIRX added medallion guarantee requirements in the prospectus dated March 16, 2009. One can compare that with the March 31, 2008 prospectus that did not have those requirements.
FAIRX went from $3.7B as of Nov 30, 2006 to $6.5B as of Nov 30, 2007 to $6.7B as of Nov 2008, to $8.2B as of May 31, 2009, to $10.6B as of Nov 30, 2009.
Annual figures from 2010 prospectus
May 2009 figure from 2009 semi-annual report
There does not appear to have been a deep drawdown around the time the requirements were added. There were however at least a couple of other notable changes made that March.
First, and my guess for why the policy was changed is that the fund changed distributors. For the past two years it had used Quasar Distributors (an affiliate of US Bancorp Fund Services). It switched to PFPC Distributors (an indirect subsidiary of PNC Financial Services Group).
Second, the fund made a major change in investment policies regarding securities it could invest in. Previously it could invest "in securities of public companies including ... equity securities, such as common stocks, partnership interests, business trust shares, convertible securities, and rights and warrants [to purchase such securities]".
After March 16 it would "achieve the Fund's investment objective by investing in a focused portfolio of equity and fixed-income securities." Emphasis added.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1096344/000094040009000260/fairhm77q1.txt

"But why stress over that choice? Whats the + or - going to be, $10k, 20k, 30k maybe? A piddly amount in the scheme of things?"
Here's a quick look at the magnitude of the risk, worst case. According to SSA, the average retiree monthly check (as of Dec 2020) is $1,544. That is likely less than what the average PIA (primary insurance amount - amount one would get at normal retirement age) is, because so many people take SS benefits early. For our back-of-the-envelope purposes, $1600 seems like a reasonable amount to use for the typical full retirement monthly benefit.
Someone born in 1954 retiring in 2021 (age 67) would receive 108% of PIA if they started benefits at age 67, and 132% of PIA if they waited until age 70.
https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/1943-delay.html
https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/delayret.html
So we can compare a benefit of $1728/mo for an extra 36 months to a benefit of $2112/mo starting at age 70. Worst case if delaying is 36 x $1728 = $62,208 (dying right before turning 70). If we use 100 years old as an upper bound on living, the "worst" case (living too long) of not delaying is:
lost extra income over 30 years minus gained extra income over first three years =
30 years x 12mo/year x ($2112 - $1728) - $62,208 = $138,240 - $62,208 = $76,032.
That's about 2.5x as big a variation as suggested. But that's not the key point. The key point is that by deferring benefits risk of a lower cash flow in very old age is being reduced, and risk reduction has real value. At least for the risk averse.
(FWIW, one of my grandparents lived to near 100, and while 1 in 4 aren't the best odds, it's enough to offer hope and for me to use age 100 for my own planning purposes.)
In short, the piddly (or not so piddly) variation in possible legacies may pale in comparison to the value of the risk reduction achieved should one have the "bad luck" of living a long life.

I just made the switch from full to part time work. I'm 67. I've debated with myself for the past year (in fact the past few years) what to do, start SS or withdrawal from savings to make up the shortfall until 70. This post has actually helped me think... it doesn't matter much which choice I make. It's a gamble which choice will give me the absolute greatest sum when you die. But why stress over that choice? Whats the + or - going to be, $10k, 20k, 30k maybe? A piddly amount in the scheme of things? Oh, and by the way your dead at the end anyway.
My decision is to take SS starting July 1st at 67 1/2... and don't look back. SS will actually give me more income than needed since I'll still work part time, so the excess will go to tax deferred savings.
Great discussion!

Jimmy Buffett: "A Pirate Looks At 40:"
"...I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast... Never meant to last. Never meant to last."
I tell you what: I never could even THINK about investing until my career became a career, with benefits and vacation time and Continuing Education budgets, too. Isn't that typical? "Youth is wasted on the young." I was a professional student until into my 40s. Most cannot wiggle around and do THAT for so many years... And I gave up a lot to do it, looking back, in terms of experiences. But I was doing what I liked.
Why is "youth wasted on the young?" We don't trust rookies to manage the whole company, right? So they have to toil away and get some breaks, along with a bigger paycheck before investing holds any attraction for them. Until then, we can explain and teach, but it goes in one ear and out the other. Only to be expected, eh?

Here's a similar thread I started a couple of years ago.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/54511/administrative-nuisances-with-some-financial-institutions
The policies and procedures of different institutions are all over the map. I think that a rational argument can be made for requiring medallion signatures in some cases, but not to the extent that some places do.
To address @ET91's question about why a notarized signature isn't sufficient: A notarization validates your signature, but not the accuracy or even truthfulness of what you're signing. Consider a certified check. A bank will certify a check that you write only after if verifies that you have the money in your account and it puts that money aside to cover the check. Notarizing a check does not make it "as good as cash". Similar to check certification, medallion stanps guarantee that you do own the stated security in the stated institution.
It's not unreasonable for the institution guaranteeing the document to review what it is guaranteeing and to keep copies for its records. I agree that it used to be easier to get medallion guarantees - at least to the extent that institutions weren't so restrictive about what they would guarantee.
Then there are the banks .... I had a similar experience to what @catch22 described - with a relative for whom mobility (rather than distance) was a problem. No accommodation offered. Then there's the pettiness. The only time I've used BofA for a notarized signature (for which they require you to be a customer), the bank insisted on charging me the legal maximum for the service: $2! (I could have billed it to my HOA since I was getting a document notarized for the HOA, but I like to think I have better values than BofA ... at least $2 better :-) )

Thanks for the warning. A few years back I had a med. sig. problem with Grandeur Peaks.
I closed an account where quarterly withdrawals were going to GP. Called to see what had to be done . They sent me some paper work, which I filled out & sent back. Later to find out a med. sig. was needed. They decided to leave it go, but NO money was going to move for x amount of days.
Enjoy the day, Derf

Hello, @hank …
At the moment, my fund managers have me -6% in short positions. Cash and bonds.
57: bonds
39: stocks
"other:" 3
Net 4% in cash.

@Crash Thanks for clarifying. Yep - you did specify RPSIX. I get RPSIX and PRSIX turned around all the time. I don’t hold RPSIX and haven’t for over a year. FWIW Yahoo shows it holding 4% in their Global Dynamic Bond Fund - Class Z.
If I’m reading you correctly, you are net-short the equity markets. That’s remarkable considering RPSIX alone has a 14% weighting in their Equity and Income fund (PRFDX).
Might work. Nothing I’d be comfortable with. Good luck with that.
No disrespect to M*, but I haven’t used their analyzer in years. (Apparently, it’s widely used and respected among the community here.) I try instead to evaluate each fund in the portfolio on its own merits based on current holdings, charts, manager, investment style and expenses. Just different ways of attempting to determine potential risk & reward I guess.

Hello, @hank. I read all of that with interest. I don't own PRSIX. But I DO own RPSIX. That's where my remark about a possible typo comes in, above. i like your idea of using PRSIX as a comparison benchmark. I shall keep it in mind.
At the moment, my fund managers have me -6% in short positions. Cash and bonds.
57: bonds
39: stocks
"other:" 3
Net 4% in cash.
(Morningstar X-Ray.) ... So, I'm not trying to light the world on fire these days. I've been aiming for a traditional retiree's portfolio of 60 bonds and 40 stocks for years. My fund managers won't let me. :) Getting close, though. MFO has offered me a helluva financial education through the years.

A snippet of Morningstar's CTFAX analysis dated 04/30/2021.
"In 2018, when the current managers took over the fund, a new layer was added to the process that includes an assessment of whether the stock market is 'expensive' or 'normal.' This is determined by comparing the seven-year cyclically-adjusted earnings of the S&P 500 to the past 40 years. When this metric shows markets are in the most expensive quintile over that time period, it is deemed to be expensive. Under an expensive market, the fund’s equity allocation could shift from 10% to 90% (the fund’s historical range) but in 'normal' conditions the equity allocation is floored at 50%. This new approach should help the fund keep pace with its benchmark better when the stocks are rallying but not in their most expensive quintile. The trade-off is that it may not do as well at protecting against sudden sharp drawdowns when its equity allocation is at the floor."

Compare: 5 years from 05-13-2016 to 05-13-2021
PRDSX: 111%
BCSIX: 140%
DVSMX: 190%
AOFAX: 190%
Relax.......