Thanks @David for sharing this. Ive enjoyed your writeups on this fund over the last 5 years. A nice steady eddy consistent fund which is what I look for.

Pretty good reminder of what we have forgotten:
inflation-truthers

That video is Exhibit A in what Consumerism is, and why it's a bad way to live. Completely uncritical and accepting of the status quo. Don't think about what you're buying. Just buy it. Don't ask whether this purchase is a good idea, just buy it--- because everyone else is. Hoover Institution: conservative. Thus, he found a way to show how the middle class and the poor HAVE gotten richer over the years... That's a crazy statement that does not compute. Of course, he sounds very matter of fact and reasonable in his presentation. I'm the radical Lefty, ya. So move on, and don't listen to a word I might have to say.
Sorry, bee. I'm sure you offered us that video in a very different vein.

No, it would've reacted surely to that. But if the national guard/cops came in and then killed the traitors--and anyone invading and then carrying a Confederate flag in the capitol is a traitor in my book--the markets would've tanked and then probably bounced back. Yet if the coup was successful or if it was an ongoing siege, yes it would've been disastrous. The way a coup would be disastrous to the market is that Trump actually has a rather hostile relationship with these dominant tech companies and harebrained ideas about foreign trade, so giving him complete control would ruin the economy, unless the tech giants somehow struck a deal with him. But Google and the other tech players, which are global companies, have been willing to work with autocracies before. This is why I believe strongly in regulation, taxation and anti-monopolistic breakups of dominant players. In other words, I'm not really sure Wall Street minds tyrants, just so long as the tyrant doesn't get in the way of business. In fact if anything the last four years shows is that Wall Street rather liked this utterly corrupt administration. It also liked Obama's administration too and seems ready to embrace Biden's. Am I being too cynical? Perhaps. Yesterday's treason has put me in a mood.

That would depend on how you define successful. A complete coup in which Trump seizes power as the dictator he's always fantasized being and American democracy dies altogether instead of limps along slowly to its demise like it has been for forty years would probably be disastrous for markets. But seriously, ask yourself as you stare at your screen right now how much yesterday's event affects Google's, Microsoft's, Amazon's and Facebook's bottom lines? Not much if at all I suspect. And even under autocracies markets can do well. China is an autocracy which switched from being a fake communist autocracy to now a fake capitalist autocracy and its markets have done quite well. The idea that capitalism brings freedom is a myth. I am horrified by yesterday's events, disgusted, but Davidrmoran is right that it will probably not hurt the market.

Ah, Prof Snowball.. nonsense it might be but I was telling folks 15 years ago that
. We'd be letting criminals out of prison cause we can't afford to keep them there
. We'd legalize the weed cause we need the tax monies
. We'd be wearing six shooters on our hips cause of all the crime
. We'd be seeing youngsters skip out on school loan debt..too excessive, expensive
. We'd be seeing legalized sports gambling cause we need the tax monies
Now me thinks we're going to see prostitution legalized within four years. And. We will see gaming be the next sports arena slash investing platform similar to horse racing etc
Check it. I believe in chicago they are building a mini arena just to watch live gaming seating for a few thousand
C'mon prof. You're around the young Turks and I believe you have a young son... different times for sure...
Best regards to all
Baseball Fan

It was disturbing to see Romney got harassed at Salt Lake City airport on Monday/Tuesday. He stayed cool and tried to answer her question. The GOP has created their own monster by enabling him in the last 4 years. This country is a democratic republic, not a banana republic.

I commend the decorum thus far, with comments in this thread.
The subject matter was placed in "fund discussions" as to the potential fallout implications into all areas of the investment markets; from the events of Jan. 6, at the Capitol building.
May 1, 2020 found gun carrying protesters inside the Michigan Capitol building face to face, literally; with Michigan State Police. One false move, accident or mistake could have caused a very nasty situation. One can easily imagine what could have taken place at the U.S. Capitol building, had "x" number of the protesters carried and chose to use weapons. I didn't see any long rifles, but I would not be surprised about 9mm pistols. Common GLOCK handguns may have 20 rounds in place.
What we may have considered in the past years to be a "black swan" event; has taken a new face, that still may affect investing markets going forward. Those who feel more empowered now about what a "patriot" may be; have not and will not disappear.
Thank you.
Catch

Yes this would be a total cluster if trump includes alibaba and tencent as most EM funds hold these stocks in large quantities. It has driven performance for many funds over the past few years. let's hope not. Still it will be up to Biden on whether to enforce it and I bet he doesn't. China would retaliate over this

@bee
As I recall, Accipiter from way back, built much of the program functions here. Tickers with 3 or 4 symbols could be linked and name shown when hovering over the symbol, as well as not remaining in black text.
I asked about this several years ago, when this feature disappeared. I do believe that some functions of the original program were no longer supported from required/necessary changes at the server.
But, David and/or chip will be able to provide information for this.
Take care,
Catch

near the 30% low end of the 30-50% category
"near" is good. It allows for fuzziness and the possibility of bouncing around the figure in a way that "on" 30% and "holding" 30% don't.
holds 30% equity
sitting on the lowest edge of 30-50% category
The iShares AOK website shows the benchmark index is S&P Target Risk Conservative Index. This Index construction shows a 30% equity allocation (2020 prospectus p. S-2)
Quoting from that section of the prospectus:

As of July 31, 2020, the Underlying Index included a fixed allocation of 30% of its assets in Underlying Funds that invest primarily in equity securities and 70% of its assets in Underlying Funds that invest primarily in bonds. As of July 31, 2020, the Fund invested approximately 32.27% of its assets in Underlying Funds that invest primarily in equity securities, 66.98% of its assets in Underlying Funds that invest primarily in bonds and the remainder of its assets in Underlying Funds that invest primarily in money market instruments.

Actually that isn't quite correct with respect to the index holdings. The Underlying Index did not have a fixed allocation of 30% of its assets in ... equity securities as of July 31, 2020
As with anything else, if you want an authoritative definition, go to the source. According to S&P, the index had a 30% allocation in equities as of April 30, 2020. It rebalances only semiannually, at the end of April and at the end of October.
Equities tend to outperform bonds. So between semi-annual rebalancing dates, statistically equities will be above the target allocation (and bonds below) on more dates than the opposite. Of course that wasn't true during the GFC, hence the low equity numbers for 2009-2010. Since then (a lot more years), equities have outperformed.
Regarding the annual statements - it would help if you would provide links to validate your figures. As it turns out, your "equity" figures in the early years are off because you didn't count real estate securities. For example, in the 2009 annual statement, instead of looking at the Management's Discussions section (p. 3) you could look at the actual details of the holdings in the Schedule of Investments for the fund (p. 16).
That shows iShares Cohen & Steers Realty Major Index Fund grouped under Domestic Equity (17.86%). Add in the International Equity holdings (5.81%), and one gets 24% equity. Still a far cry from 30%, but enough to illustrate why all figures are subject to verification.
(M* also considers real estate to be equity; it says that VGSIX is virtually 100% U.S. equity.)
Look at 2018. While M* may say that only 28% of the fund was in equity that year, the SEC filings tell a different story. The 2018 Annual Report says that equities amounted to 30% of the fund as of July 31. And the Semiannual Report says that equities came to 32% of the fund.
As I've explained above, the first year or so of this fund are outliers because bonds outperformed the equity market. (Also the fund was tinkering with its allocations as evidenced by the fact that it invested in real estate back then.) Likewise, you have implicitly labeled these years as outliers. Whether it's because they're not "near" 30% equity or they're not "on" the 30% edge, they're outside of your normal historical range.
Finally, as to the point that funds that bop around a boundary between categories could show up in a different category from what you're expecting: sure, I explained that in my first response. That goes for global vs. domestic, value vs. blend, etc. One can even use this to one's advantage as I illustrated in another thread. In looking for value funds near the value/blend boundary, one might search for value funds with a current blend portfolio style and for blend funds with a current value portfolio style. This doesn't catch all funds, but it's a good start.

Cheap money and those investing on margin..... I don't have any data about how much hot money is in the market place; using margin or otherwise.

"Margin debt—the amount of money borrowed against stockholdings to play the market—hit a record $722 billion in November, its first record high in two years. That sounds scary. But margin debt often hits record highs as the stock market rises, making it a notoriously bad timing tool. What’s more, margin debt as a percentage of the overall value of the market is now near a 15-year low, which suggests that investors aren’t overextended just yet. What has changed is the pace at which investors are adding to their debt. It’s up about 50% from its spring low, and that kind of surge has happened only six times since 1960."
From a Barron's article last week.
I was able to read this without a subscription. Link

Ya, wifey likes to remind me that we should give away money to family members in foreign countries after the New Year, every year, because..... it makes her feel good to throw away money? I dunno. Sometimes we must negotiate and compromise with each other: "No." ... Or: "That makes no sense. It would make sense to do "X" THIS way, instead, though. Let's do it this way, instead."
After a good Market year, we began last year to give ourselves permission to take and use SOME of our profits. Growing up not just dirt-poor, but shit-poor, leaves its mark on everyone who suffers through such an upbringing. So, between us, priorities are quite different. The truism that "spenders and savers attract each other" is certainly true in our case. And though we have a nest egg, "wealthy" could not ever be applied to ourselves.
But as for me: when you're finally where you want to be, the other stuff isn't such a big deal. So, our portfolio will never light the world on fire, either. But we DO use January on the calendar to "take some off the top" and use it for what we've decided upon. But after a bad market-year, we certainly do not need to take that stuff "off the top." That would be like shooting yourself in the foot. I suppose after all these years, I should be accustomed to wifey's inability to plan ahead. Her limit on that score seems to be about 3 weeks. And then things might change entirely. Good thing I'm the "money man," between us. :)

The fact that AOK has dipped as low as 27% does not mean that historically its equity allocation has been under 30%. You seem to be conflating single moments in time with "historical" positions.
What does "historical" mean anyway? "the last 5 years" is a minority of the lifetime of this fund that's been around since 2008.
I have reclassified on my watch list as 15-30%.
It's currently at 31.75% equity (as of Dec 31), and rose as high as 32.5% equity as of July 31, according to its most recent annual statement.
There are always going to be problems running screens with "hard filters". I've posted on more than one occasion that IMHO it makes little sense to screen for funds that have never had a losing year. Which would you prefer: a fund that lost 0.1% in one year and made 10% or better in all its other years, or a fund that made 3% year in, year out? That's an example of a problem with any hard filter.
As far as AOK goes, according to Lipper there are only a total of 10 ETFs including both
"Mixed-Asset Target Allocation Moderate" and "Mixed-Asset Target Allocation Conservative" categories. So it's no big deal to watch all these funds.
http://www.funds.reuters.wallst.com/us/screener/screener.asp

The obvious problem being that there are funds that sit on 30% equity historically. Basic only allows a hard filter for either 30-50 or 15-30 screens. An investor searching for 15-30% equity may find a suitable fund sitting on the lowest edge of 30-50% category that gets screened out in basic. AOK is an example. In the last 5 years they dipped as low as 27% equity but classified today as 30-50% by M*. I have reclassified on my watch list as 15-30%. AOK is a good fund IMO. Seems to me this would affect the funds performance reputation as M* is quoted often. There is no perfect world, just worth noting. I am sure also applies to 50-70%. I will pay more attention going forward.

There's hysteresis built into the classification system. That is, if a fund has been holding 25% equity and moves to 35% equity, M* does not immediately change its category. It waits (three years or more) to see how permanent and how significant the change is.
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/306244/why-is-my-funds-style-box-different-from-its-categ
(This talks about style drift but it could just as easily been talking about a fund changing stock/bond allocations as changing large cap/small cap allocations.)
The point here is that one can't look at an average over time and determine how the fund is classified. The classification is "path dependent" - it depends on how it got there. A fund that hit 30% from 25% and stuck there would likely remain in its 15% to 30% category, while a fund that hit 30% from 35% and stuck there would likely remain in its 30% to 50% category.
If the fund is bouncing back and forth between a tad under and a tad over 30%, there would be no reason to change its category. Even if those oscillations miraculously averaged exactly 30% equity.

They introduced new Balanced Fund categories a few years ago. You can find the above under
Allocation Funds - 15 to 30% Equity
Allocation Funds - 30% to 50% Equity

For the past four years neither trust nor verify has worked very well. :(

Thanks for that, @msf. Will remember to check that source in the future.
Since last March we have really done no shopping at all personally, but rather relied on Instacart for delivery. We had never used a food delivery service before the current situation.
That has been an interesting experience. A size difference in a product that we have been buying for years might not have been obvious if we were personally shopping, but is very striking as we unpack items from a bag. Breads and various baked goods have been seemingly getting smaller with each delivery. Granted, our food shopping may not be reflective of the average American "shopping basket" used to "measure" inflation, but there is absolutely no way that food inflation in the stuff that we buy is not really rampant.
While price changes may not be immediately or glaringly obvious, the packaging sizes really have an immediate impact.

I noticed MEASX several years ago.
The fund performed exceedingly well within its category the first three full calendar years.
12-31-2016
3 Yr return: 10.9% (top 2% of category);
standard deviation of 8.91%
MEASX seems to be in a slump since 2017.
05-31-2020
3 Yr return: -13.8% (bottom percentile); 5 Yr return: -4.0% (bottom percentile);
standard deviation of 21.40%
Note: Morningstar moved MEASX from the 'Pacific/Asia ex-Japan Stock' category
to the 'Miscellaneous Region' category sometime after May 31, 2020.

SWAN might minimize its losses on its own but it’s not going to provide protection to existing positions like TAIL will.

True, perhaps, but in order to use TAIL as protection to your portfolio as a whole you would need to own a ton of it, and it simply is not a great long-term holding IMO. It has suffered a 14.27% drawdown and TAIL's webpage itself notes that "Cambria expects the fund to produce negative returns in the most years with rising markets or declining volatility." The only way I personally could see TAIL being a sensible choice is as part of a market-timing strategy, and that mostly doesn't work. For the core of my portfolio I'd much prefer to ride the market and limit losses with SWAN or even MNWAX.