Some potentially worrisome thoughts …
- Could Zukerberg someday control the universe through this augmented reality?
- Would an augmented reality “Big Mac” taste as good as the real thing? (If it could be made 0 calorie I might buy one.)
Also - Elon Musk, arguably one of the smartest visionaries alive, has been warning about the dangers of AI for several years now.
2018 Article

The inflation headline statistic is 5.4%. 5.9% is the adjustment for SS. That affects only SS receipients. It is based on CPI-W which is different from the marquee inflation metric CPI-U.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
As I posted previously, CPI-E is even lower. According to the CPI-E excel spreadsheet data, this Y/Y figure as of Sept was about 5%.
There are also those who feel that items that are purchased infrequently shouldn't even be counted. On that basis, perhaps we should pull out the figures for vehicles like used cars and trucks. Their costs went up 24.7% over the past twelve months. As you wrote, some things we can control, and most people don't need to buy a vehicle in any given year.
Moving on to bonds, the three funds RPSIX, PRSNX, and PTIAX all have credit ratings of junk by M*. (This does not represent a tactical move by these funds; over the past several years they have been consistently rated junk.)
Junk bonds tend to have moderately high correlation with equities, and so share a similar (albeit muted) risk profiles. This has been a good year for equities and for junk bonds.
Here's a correlation matrix of the four funds. R² over the past year with respect to MWHYX (a junk bond fund) ranges from 49% for PTIAX to over 75% for RPSIX and PRSNX.

@Anna, Where is IBM I wonder (article below asked this question 10 years ago...Article date is 2011)?
where-the-heck-is-ibm
They are somewhere still:
ibm-will-reskill-30-million-people-by-2030-for-future-technology-jobs/
Sept 30th 2021 ibm-kyndryl-spin-off/
Even the IBM Employee Credit Union has morphed into "Intelligent - Thinking" (iThink):
ibm-southeast-employees-credit-union-is-moving-to-ithink-financial-credit-union

>> owing to political and statistical issues
This is silly, or at best tendentious. Why should rare years-apart purchases be included in widely impacting run-of-the-mill inflation calcs? Go read the many articles posted here about what the 'official' rates comprise, and why.

Do you disagree with the BLS for including the prices of new and used motor vehicles in its CPI calculations?
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/new-vehicles.htm

It's a continuum, arguable, debated, as you know despite your automatic contrariness and as (I think) you may have written about; see this from a half-year ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/opinion/economy-inflation-retail-sales.amp.html
embedded inflation, which is the kind of inflation we really need to worry about, is inflation in prices that don’t change very often.

etc.

The Economist: “House prices were included in America's CPI between 1953 and 1983 before being removed. This was partly because indexing benefits and pensions to inflation had become expensive and some politicians wanted to bring measured inflation down”
Source:

Here's a Monthly Labor Review (MLR) piece written contemporaneously (June 1982) with the announcement (late 1981) of the change in how housing costs would be included in the CPI.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1982/06/art2full.pdf
Government expenditures, though not mentioned in the paper, could have been part of the reason for the change. As stated in The Economist, that would be strictly a data driven decision, i.e. based simply on the fact that housing prices were rising rapidly.
The MLR piece notes that there had been a recent statutory change in how government revenue would be affected by inflation. That change called for a more accurate CPI calculation:

In addition to problems of data adequacy, impetus to change the homeownership component stems from an important new use of the index. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (Public Law 97-34) requires use of the CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for escalation of income tax brackets and the personal exemption amount. The law requires announcement of the new tax brackets in December 1984 based on CPI-U data for the prior 2 years. This is a major new use of the index which will have a broad effect on total Federal Government revenues, and this new use underscores the importance of action to ensure that the CPI reflects consumption cost experience of consumers to the fullest extent possible.

>> owing to political and statistical issues
This is silly, or at best tendentious. Why should rare years-apart purchases be included in widely impacting run-of-the-mill inflation calcs? Go read the many articles posted here about what the 'official' rates comprise, and why.

Do you disagree with the BLS for including the prices of new and used motor vehicles in its CPI calculations?
https://www.bls.gov/cpi/factsheets/new-vehicles.htm

Here’s a colorful (albeit slanted) blurb from this week’s Barron’s under the title “The Striking Price: A Smart Trade for Heady Times” - by Steven Sears
“Now, almost 100 years later, the market construct has seemingly changed. The shoeshine boy's figurative heirs have grown rich buying stocks, digital currencies, and other risk assets … The S&P 500 index just hit another record high, and activity has reached a fever pitch. The options market, which enables investors to magnify their stock bets at relatively low cost, has seen daily trading volumes rise to about 40 million contracts a day, up from maybe a million in 2000.”
Barron’s 10/25/2021
* Represents the views of one contributor. The publication contains both “bull” and “bear” case analyses.

>> owing to political and statistical issues
This is silly, or at best tendentious. Why should rare years-apart purchases be included in widely impacting run-of-the-mill inflation calcs? Go read the many articles posted here about what the 'official' rates comprise, and why.

Schwab & Vanguard allow this & request you notify the other brokerage of what you're doing, as far as I know.
( After rereading I didn't answer your question. Schwab allow this as I've been doing it for a few years,

“What if the discount rate is higher or we lower the assumed yield to reflect the uncertainty surrounding buybacks? Today’s market would appear overvalued. On the other hand, perhaps the pandemic has temporarily depressed dividends and buybacks—and the buyback yield will jump sharply in the year ahead, making stocks seem relatively cheap.”
Reminds one of the line about “a one-handed economist.”
That’s a very thoughtful piece overall. And Yikes - Mentions that the S&P fell 34% in early 2020. I’d sure like another crack at those prices.
@Old_Joe - What you say is true. But inflation’s probably averaged 5-7% annually in recent years. Equity prices seem way out ahead of that (by S&P and other averages). If inflation were to catch up to the market gains of recent years we’d be looking at much worse than present level.
-
One thought …
I’ve been taught that in investing there exists a rough correlation between risk and reward. So how does one reconcile 1-2% returns on “safe” bonds now for several years along with double-digit gains in equities over many of those same years? Do today’s investors in the S&P index (or similar fund) really feel like they’re taking 5 or 10 times the amount of risk that’s inherent in an AAA rated corporate or government bond? That’s where I’m having some trouble reconciling all this. Risk / reward seems out-of-whack.

I came across this link on another forum & wondered to myself, how many brokerages do I need ? Two at the present time seems to be right ! A few years back the number was (4).

What measurement, metric, guide or guru (if any) do you observe?
I don’t have any particular monitor - except I follow trends by looking at charts and can’t help thinking about the half-dozen or so serious corrections I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. I try and listen to all the educated pundits. But they appear largely largely clueless. Opinions are all over the place. There’s long time bear Shiller, of course. And Howard Marks sounds concerned. Ray Dalio was big into gold (defensively) a year ago. It’s finally starting to move. Even David Giroux has voiced concerns.
Here’s an October article on the Buffett Indicator
Following the media is, of course, counter-productive. In a downward markets the general tenor becomes bearish and the bearish prognosticators get rolled out. But in an up market, reasons abound why the bull will continue. I do feel Barrons comes closest to providing an accurate perspective - though both bulls and bears appear there.
Biggest concern? All the sharp downturns I’ve lived through began with higher prevailing interest rates. This did two things: (1) It buffered the downside for investors who held some bonds and (2) It allowed for the monetary authorities (ie “Fed”) to stimulate by lowering rates. With rates as low as they are now, the game has changed.
A second concern is all the “hot” money that has entered in recent years thru forums like Robinhood. Could make things interesting in a 20-30% selloff. Could exacerbate the problem.
One thought that occurs to me is that ultra low bond yields have pushed everybody and his neighbor into riskier assets. (TINA). One possible “out” here. The dollar could depreciate sharply thereby making those “nominal” paper gains worth less in real purchasing power. - in a sense justifying the higher prices. In that case, investors would be well served hanging tight.

Hi @Derf

The trick to truly active management is to take advantage of the periods when the market is
moving from below trend to above trend, (i.e. capture those above-trend returns) and then protect
on the downside when the market moves into drawdown

Is this not a goal of all investors? We've played our best over the years to achieve such a goal, having periods (years) of great work! and periods of OH crap!
Regards,
Catch

Howdy folks,
@Observant1 Not really. I've been investing with Matthews for almost 25 years. Managers come and go. feh.
good luck,
rono

Howdy folks,
Not quite yet. All these years and I'm still a fan of the House of Matthews. I've owned MPACX and MATFX and MCHFX for quite a while but scaled back when things got weird under Trump. Still don't know WTF they are up to but trust Matthews. Of the three, I prefer MATFX.
and so it goes,
and yeppers, keep wearing the damn mask,
rono

Howdy folks,
Responded earlier on my phone but the throttle monsters ate my postie.
Sorry about the typo. Indeed, my point is that Defined Contribution pensions can get pretty close to Defined Benefit pensions, IFF, there is a company match, there are investment choices, folks are educated on investing and they have sufficient time to accrue. Even when you're converting the old DB to a new DC pension, you can do it humanely and don't have to be assholes. When Michigan converted their state employees some 20-25 years ago, they forced everyone under 5 years. Above that you had a choice. They had a sliding scale but it was biased towards the retirement ages (i.e. 50, 55, 60, etc.). That said, the DC replacement started with 4% from the state and they will match your 3% up to 10% total. The best option I've seen for health insurance coverage is full for active duty employees and an medical savings account for retirement (with a match and investment choices). Damnit, it can work.
As for protocols to @Ben and @BenWP, sorry. This old geezer is trying but these newfangled computers . . . '-)
and so it goes,
peace and wear the damn mask,
rono

The goal of corporations over the last 20 or so years, increase profits for share holders. The result, destruction of the middle class and greater disparity between the haves and have nots.

I have owned VTMFX for several years and am generally pleased as a core holding.
It depends really on what you want to accomplish Growth? Income? and with what risk.
Almost 10% is in FAANG ( Nvidia not Netflix) so it will take a big hit when that party is over. The Bond duration is 4.2 indicating that the bonds here will drop with a rise in interest rates.
While VTMFX lost 20% during the Covid crash vs 30% SP500 in may get hit hard in a stagnation scenario, as the 10% FAANG will also be sensitive to rising rates.
The yield is nothing to write home about if you are interested in income.

It seems this thread is started to be dominated by FR/BL funds. It was not my intent to hijack this thread from the OPs original intent. MSF gave a more detailed analysis of MWFLX, according to M*. The OP is a Fido investor, and I am a Schwab investor, so we may not view funds quite the same as far as availability between these 2 brokerages. I have done some due diligence analysis of funds in this category, and I maintain a M* Portfolio Watchlist of funds that I am most interested in monitoring, but as I said above, the OP has to apply his own personal due diligence criteria, IF he has any interest in this category.
For full disclosure, I have invested in this category off and on for the last several years--SPFYX and SAMBX are 2 funds I have held in the past, before 2021. In 2021 I have owned several BL/FR funds including the following: AFRAX, EIFAX, MWFLX, FFRHX, and PRFRX, but currently I only own 1 fund from this category. At Schwab, their 2 BL/FR funds they recommend are FRFZX and SAMBX. The "hottest" and highest performing BL/FR fund YTD is OOSAX, likely a favorite for bond traders, but it has a somewhat checkered past and the fund investing strategy was changed significantly in 2020.
Because investors differ so much from each other in their investing style and due diligence approach, I am very reluctant to do much more than "suggest" this might be a category the OP "might" want to consider, and if interested he can do his own extensive due diligence. Good luck!

I've owned MCSMX for about 2 years and this is probably a good time to buy. I'm considering adding if it falls a but further. I'm a big believer in EM overall and this is another part of that market that is really not covered by many analysts and there few investment options as well. For those reasons and the fact I like the Matthews Asia products make it a great speculation vehicle!