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.

You are confusing price momentum with growth. A value or blend stock can also beat the S&P 500’s returns. They can also have price momentum. Growth is about revenues, cash flow and earnings versus the benchmark and industry peers and it’s forward looking, not from five or ten years ago.

I have owned it since the Covid downturn. Although the yield is not as attractive now, I have no intention of selling, but will buy more if we have a dip. My only issue with it is that the bid/ask spread is usually larger than I like. Several years ago, I spoke to an advisor at Capital Wealth Planning in Naples, FL (the subadvisor of DIVO) about opening a separately managed account using this strategy. I hesitated to pull the trigger because it would entail buying many stocks at what was then an all-time high. I did some digging to look for an ETF or mutual fund that had the same strategy and discovered DIVO. I feel more comfortable owning this because I am in control of when to add and when to trim. And unlike the separately managed account where the distributions get paid more sporadically (per the advisor there), DIVOs dividends are paid regularly. A lot less complicated to own DIVO.

The other noteworthy AQR fund is Diversified Arbitrage (market neutral), ADANX, but the expense ratio keeps on rising; now at 2.32%. The rest of AQR funds are getting expensive to own. This fund, however, is leading two competitive funds in the same asset class:
AQR Diversified Arbitrage, ADANX YTD 25.5%
Arbitrage, ARBFX, 5.4%
Merger, MERFX, 5.0%
While the AQR funds are having high expense ratio, their performance in 2020 have not been consistently good versus their peers. The founder of AQR funds, Cliff Asness, a former hedge fund manager, lets his politics spill over his business in recent years. Wish he stay focus on the AQR funds and brings them to be more competitive in the mutual fund universe. Performance-wise, as note by AndyJ above, they are not consistently good.
Think I will stick with T. Rowe Price funds.

nah, I disagree, it doesn''t even out...I'd take my chances with a slowly rising sea way before I went into some rat hole crime infested city led by Marxists and politco cronies looking to suckle of the teet of other's savings and hard work. Criminals and punks wilding and looting...ya that's a good idea, let's defund the cops...
I'll be putting my house up for sale outside Chi town in the next two months after 25 years...sell into this epic bubble....property taxes are 5x as in home in Asheville, for 1/5 the land and 1/3 the home value...too many taxing districts, now local school looking for more, more , more thru tax referendum, putting out feelers. Good Luck, they are insane asking for more tax revenue when so many out of work etc. Selling more video gambling licenses, trying to build large casino, selling weed...needs the tax monies to keep the socialism going...as all the folks with means and companies leave...
So ya, I still wave old glory and believe in living right and being free.
Good Luck to all,
Baseball_Fan

Just noticed recently that AQR Long-Short and Market Neutral, about which much was typed here several years ago while they were soaring at a time not much else was doing anything, are now negative since inception (per M* growth of $10k charts).

I held FAIRX with 2 other funds (OAKBX,SGENX) for about 8-9 years from 2000 to 2010. I held FAIRX for about 8 years and OAKBX,SGENX about 9 years. It's part of my system of finding good risk/reward funds until they don't keep up and sell them.
Similar case to PIMIX, held it from 2011 to 01/2018 and since then maybe just a for a short trade but not for moths. PIMIX is a still a good fund but not the way I do it. See my bond thread(link)

The S&P 500 through the lens of Presidencies:
stock-market-by-president
If you need to spend your money within the next 3-5 years... keep it in cash (or ST Treasury Bonds).
@davidmoran, If you can avoid the powerful persuasions of fear and greed over the middle term (3 -10 years) by following rules...we all need personal investment rules...then equities over the long term looks promising.
The 10 year rolling average of an index such as the S&P 500 is pretty impressive.
In Percentage Change (last update 2016):

Source:
https://bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/rolling-1-2-3-5-10-and-20-year-sp-500-performance/
In Percentage Returns (10 year rolling average):

There are two major takeaways from the chart below:
1. Historically, once the long-term mean has been breached on the up-side, annualized returns have remained elevated above the mean for an average of almost 18 years.
2. Historically, once the long-term mean has been breached on the down-side, annualized returns have remained subdued below the mean for an average of almost 10 years. This is significantly lower relative to the time-frame on above mean returns.

Source:
https://credentwealth.com/blog/10-year-annualized-rolling-returns

15 years is a long time. 15 years before we landed on the moon we didn't even have an orbital flight. It seems like a short time but a lot can happen in 15 years, more so with an optimistic outlook. I'm sure in 1954 there were people who said there is no freakin way we'll ever land a man on the moon in 15 years, that's crazy talk.

@LB,
My trough period intervals were taken from M* $10k growth (= reinvestments) of FXAIX.
Something seems off with your chart, as $10k in Jan of 1973 into SP500 reinvested was back to $10k by early December '76, meaning breakeven a little less than 4y later.
The US market was sideways the next two years after that, though, yes --- until the nonstop bull started mid-'78 and rolled and rolled till the late summer of 2k.
So I dunno where their 7.5 comes from.
1929 will never repeat for a whole host of reasons behind now being way different.

It's funny how most studies on market performance ignore the Great Depression as if it never happened, yet the first article does reference it:

The author does mention that this price performance ignores dividends so the recovery rate would've been sooner than 25 years with that, but I wonder how many people during the Great Depression would have had the stomach or the financial wherewithal with 25% unemployment to hold on and reinvest their dividends as the market went into free-fall.

@LewisBraham makes a good point about KGIRX. David Iben, the manager, had a successful run working for other firms, including ex-Fidelity manager J. Vinik's, before he set up Kopernik, his own shop. I guess all gold bugs have their day in the sun, the problem is the uneven returns. The Permanent Portfolio looked unbeatable for several years, and then it wasn't. For my part, I've been sucked in by "story stocks" as often as I've been sucked in by "story managers."

This is why Warren Buffet recommends S&P 500 index fund for many investors. The compounding return year after year helps to build wealth.
My kid's 529 college funds invested in Total Market Index, Total Int'l Market Index, Total bond index and Total int'l bond index fund. Eighteen years later the 529 plan accumulated enough to pay for their 4-years college tuition plus room and board. The cost basis is about 40% of the total sum after 18 years of compounding. Through monthly investment the college grew and grew. We also added our year-end bonus to the 529 fund. Asset allocation were adjusted to pay the college bills.

I completely agree with the idea that many people should pay more attention to living and less to making a living. And if you're one of the fortunate minority at risk of dying with a surfeit of cash, there are many worthwhile things you can do with that money to solve this "problem".
But I do take issue with how the figures are presented.
" the average inheritance in the U.S. being $177,000(the median is closer to $69,000)"
The two numbers come from different sources. Which is curious, because the writer had available figures from the same source (Survey of Consumer Finances) on the page he cited:
$707,291 (average) and $69,000 (median).
By mixing numbers from different sources, he makes it appear as though average and mean are not all that far apart. So don't worry when he then gives only average figures:
"The average retired adult who dies in their 60s leaves behind $296k in net wealth, $313k in their 70s, $315k in their 80s, and $238k in their 90s."
However, from the source of that quote also comes this:

The median respondent that died in their 60s had about $3,000 in liquid investments within two years of their passing, which increased to $10,000 for respondents that died in their 70s and $15,000 for those that died in their 80s.

Without liquidating or otherwise monetizing their homes (if any) many people have virtually no assets to live on.

Indeed, about 46 percent of senior citizens in the United States have less than $10,000 in financial assets when they die. Most of these people rely almost totally on Social Security payments as their only formal means of support

https://news.mit.edu/2012/end-of-life-financial-study-0803
The shift from inheritance (used in the original piece) to liquid asset data in the quotes I gave is deliberate. If we're talking about trading money for time, we're talking about the money that you have to spend, not how much your heirs will inherit.
If one has the resources, or projected future earnings, to take more time for oneself, definitely go for it. But for far more people than his figures suggest, being able to do so is only a dream.

sma3 said:
"There is no magic cure in this low interest rate environment. With a duration of 8 years, VWINX may really hit the wall if rates go up."
I quite agree with your opinion on VWINX and, as I said previously, another Vanguard fund, VSCGX, may be a better option at this time.
Fred

I had rather large positions in ARBIX and MERFX. I never lost much money but never made much either. Over last 15 years MERFX has paid out about 10% in income and the share price is up 25% Over a fifteen year period that's not much
There is no magic cure in this low interest rate environment. With a duration of 8 years, VWINX may really hit the wall if rates go up. If there is a substantial equity pull back, you could lose 10 to 15% in a week or so.
I think at these valuations you are better off DCA into a target position over months if not a couple of years, unless you understand options well enough to buy puts ( which reportedly are very cheap now)

It is confusing and very messy when dealing with portfolios of all different maturities, coupons and ratings (different yield curves). That's why it's easier thinking about these questions with a single bond or a homogeneous portfolio of bonds all the same.
If you own a bond and sell it before maturity, even assuming that rates remain the same, you'll get a bit more than YTM. This is because longer term bonds pay higher rates. Since SEC yield reflects YTM, I don't believe this return is reflected in that yield.
Think of a two year bond paying interest annually. Let's say that market rate for a two year bond is 2% and market rate on a one year bond is 1%. (This time I'll ignore pennies for simplicity). If the two year bond pays 2% each year, it will cost you $100 (par).
A year after buying, you get a 2% interest payment. You're now holding a 1 year bond with a 2% coupon (that's above the 1% market rate for a one year bond). So you're able to sell that bond for $101 (1% premium). Your net return: 2% market rate interest plus 1% in capital gain.
[A buyer of your bond, if holding to maturity would net 1% on that bond (2% coupon less 1% loss in value). There's your 4% total return over two years.]
There's no difference between you doing this with your own bonds and a fund manager doing this with the fund's portfolio. You get more total return by turning over bonds because you're taking on more risk.
When holding a two year bond to maturity the average maturity over that time is one year. If instead you sell a two year bond after a year (and replace it with another two year bond), your average maturity over time is 1.5 years. You're always holding a bond that matures between one and two years from now.
We didn't assume rates were changing here - just that we didn't have an inverted yield curve where shorter bonds pay higher yields than longer bonds.
Rates changing complicates this. If you swap one bond for another of the same maturity, nothing's going to change. It's as if you sold your bond and then simply repurchased it. Your sale price and your purchase price will be equally affected by the rate change.
But if you're selling shorter maturity bonds and replacing them with longer maturity ones, then a change in the yield curve is going to affect how much you get for extending that average maturity. In ways I honestly don't want to work through right now :-)