I remember Cinnamon very well from years ago. His fund looked good when the market crashed and then it looks pretty bad. How long can a high % in cash works?
The following is from the last report. As expected PVCMX had over 92% in cash on 1/1/2020 and probably in 2019 too.
The Palm Valley Capital Fund gained 0.79% for the quarter ending March 31, 2020, while the S&P Small Cap 600 and the Morningstar Small Cap Indexes lost 32.65% and 31.61%, respectively. The Fund began the quarter with 92.4% of its assets held in cash and equivalents and ended the period with 52.0% cash.
I will pass on this fund..."fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me."

Howdy folks,
@FD1000 mentioned the revolution occurring in education. F2F to virtual. My Econ 101 Prof was so good they taped him in the early 80s and ran his tape for years. Why should I pay thousands in tuition when there's no classroom interaction. Even if I can video chat with the Prof it's not the same. Tuition needs to be cut by 50%. Oh, and scrap intercollegiate athletics once and for all and focus on education.
My huge fear on the k12 front is computers and internet access for all the kids. Damn, we already have to import educated workers and we have so many brilliant people that are simply not receiving the education. Another reason why we need universal education. A step in that direction would be to erase the interest and penalties on all the federal student loan debt. Have them pay off the principal.
And so it goes
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono

The entire investing world has been telling us to invest in short term bonds since the great recession. It pains me greatly to see how short term bonds have performed against long term bonds.
Of course I'm not invested in a fund that's returned 8% over 5, 10.5% over 10 and 8.5% over 15 years. Because I listen to reason and reason said if you owned long dated bonds in your portfolio then you are an idiot.
Well, fact of the matter is I AM an idiot, but for the exact opposite reason. As long as I do not invest in WHOSX, it will continue doing well.

It is hard to imagine a more backward conclusion than this. Who on earth does he think is offering active, non-transparent ETFs? Oh, yes, the mutual fund companies.
American Century, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price ... The mutual fund companies have faced two major impediments. One, an antiquated regulatory system designed in 1940 and periodically patched since then. That system imposes a series of direct and indirect expenses on OEFs (state registration fees and taxation of realized capital gains, e.g.) that ETF regulations do not. One fund company president who is looking to transition one of his smaller funds directly into a non-transparent ETF estimates that regulation and the fee structure for middlemen represent over half of all of the expenses his firm bears. Two, the "mutual funds are dinosaurs" mantra that caught on with the media, anxious for stories, and advisers anxious to "add value."
There are 656 ETFs that are three years old or less; dozens more were launched and liquidated or "repurposed" (the Drone ETF becoming the Cloud Economy ETF) in the same period. Of those 656, nearly 400 are no economically sustainable. That cutoff there, established by people who study ETF liquidations, is $30M AUM.
And whose funds are rolling in the cash? Looking just at these younger funds that have drawn $1B or more: JPMorgan, State Street, Vanguard, Deutsche, Franklin, BlackRock, Principal. Which is to say, old-line mutual fund companies. (As an aside, most also have a captive adviser workforce whose "recommended" list of ETFs are in-house products.)
Among the 25 largest newer ETFs, only two come from the upstart community: GraniteShares Gold (BAR) and GlobalX US Preferred (PFFD). Global X is owned by Mirae Asset, a Seoul-based firm that also owned Brown Brothers Harrison and the BBH Funds.
I don't know whether, a generation hence, PRWCX will be structured as an OEF under the '40 Act, an ETF under the Precidian Rule, both or neither. But I do know that the firms with the global reach, global recognition and multi-trillion asset bases that dominate the fund industry are more likely to cast the CNBC favorites of the world into deep shadow than vice versa.

Hi @Old_Skeet
You noted:

"1974 was a bad year in the stock market. As it began to turn upward so did the economy."

Am I to understand your statement that the stock market was front running the economy and knew (somehow) things were improving before the consumer was aware, thus supporting the economic growth??? I fully understand the numerous temporary economic conditions that have existed back to 1974. There is no comparison to any modern (post- 1974) economic circumstance that relates to today.
I'll stick with this below % number, as it has been in place from the math for many years .....
Consumer spending comprises 70% of GDP. The retail and service industries are critical components of the U.S. economy.
It was easy to look around our community and towards the larger city communities as Michigan began the shutdown of normal business functions. I fully support these actions; as there remains too many dumb asses who continue to argue that their constitutional rights are being violated. Fine, you'all can move to one location to hang out together until ; well, that is the question, eh?
I don't need an economics degree to see how far down into the previous employed population impacts in all areas. The magnitude of the depth of unemployment is easy enough to consider when looking at all the variables into how many other business companies are impaired when any one business, large or small closes.
@rono expressed this several weeks ago from a common sense view. I remain fully in agreement.
I submit my adjusted quote from the movie, "August Rush":
The "economic" music is all around us, all we have to do is listen.
Lastly. What will it take to move me back into what was "normal", pre-COVID? A hell of a lot more than what is in the Washington, D.C. plan....that isn't a viable plan at this time.
I say this, for myself and numerous others here; by the mere fact of our birth dates, that our survival rate from contracting COVID is low to 0. I'm not ready to leave this third rock from the sun just yet; and will have to adjust my societal involvement.

This is what Marks said on March 3rd (link).
"These days, people have been asking me whether this is the time to buy. My answer is more nuanced: it’s probably a time to buy. There can be no unique time to buy that we can identify. The only thing we can be sure of today is that stock prices, for example, are a lot lower in the absolute than they were two weeks ago."
On March 3rd the SP500 was less than 7% down for year-to-date. Marks started buying way too early and what is known as falling knives. Marks claims that he is using intrinsic valuation, after just 7% drop for the longest bull market, how much intrinsic valuation can you find?
But my main problem that you will find anything you like in most of his memos. Do nothing, it's too expensive, buy now, prices can go lower/higher and many what ifs to cover any angle.
BTW, buying on the way down isn't recommended, IMO a better way if to start buying and keep buying only on the way up. When you buy lower and lower and the price goes down you will lose more money.
Do You realized that Marks hardly ever quantify his memos because when you do that you actually have to put the time and analyze the numbers :-)
I was trained from an early age at school that saying no isn't enough, you must come up with a good example or a solution. With that in mind, see below.
If you want to read great memos from a manager that actually manages money please read David R. Giroux who manages PRWCX. Giroux can invest in stocks + bonds and navigate market extremely well and why PRWCX performance for 3 thru 15 years is in the top 3%. The following (link) is PRWCX 12/31/2019 annual report. You will find so many specific ideas and additional numbers/estimates.

Over the years I posted many times about Marks. You will never find actionable items but lots of narratives that go both ways.
This article is no difference
"Stocks may turn around and head north and you’ll be glad you bought some. Or they may continue down, in which case you’ll have money left to buy more. That’s life for people who accept that they don’t know what the future holds."
"In my opinion, however, there’s simply no room for certainty in investing, and today more than usual."
Please let me know what you learned :-)

Harry Truman said:
“Give me a one-handed Economist. All my economists say 'on one hand...', then 'but on the other hand...”

Over the years I posted many times about Marks. You will never find actionable items but lots of narratives that go both ways.
This article is no difference
"Stocks may turn around and head north and you’ll be glad you bought some. Or they may continue down, in which case you’ll have money left to buy more. That’s life for people who accept that they don’t know what the future holds."
"In my opinion, however, there’s simply no room for certainty in investing, and today more than usual."
Please let me know what you learned :-)

Fwiw, and this is late and only trivially of interest now, I just got this from Fido C/S in response to my request to have everything cash-default FDRXX:
Please note that due to Money Market reforms in recent years, we are limited regarding which securities we can offer as cash core positions. At this time, the only two positions available for cash cores in your Joint account are Fidelity Government Money Market (SPAXX) and Fidelity Cash Reserves (FCASH).
Fido Roth IRA offers (meaning for me defaults to) FDRXX, which is ever so slightly the best.

In the last couple of years there was a discussion in some circles regarding the economic viability of an economy where governments would regularly issue "cash" to all citizens. If I remember correctly, the discussion was centered around the concept that the ever-increasing number of jobs assumed by robots and artificial intelligence would eventually reach a point where there would simply not be enough jobs remaining to allow the world economies to function as they have historically.
Of course this entire debate was dismissed as hallucinatory by the usual suspects- those in the political spectrum who cannot conceive of anything possibly ever being done differently than "it always has been". While I am personally well-removed from that end of the political spectrum, let me concede that this particular concept did not strike me as being highly probable, nor anything that I might live to see.
But lo...here we are! Welcome to a new world where it is very possible that so many jobs and income-producing small businesses may be lost, at least for a significant period of time, that the entire income/spending cycle may be disrupted to such an extent that the world economy may take years to recover, if in fact it ever completely does.
I'm thinking that this is what is really running in the background thoughts of politicians and economists, and likely scaring the hell out of them.
Interesting times, for sure.

A depressing as heck article. A few questions I have though are: The author discusses the real and expected unemployment numbers and compares them to the Great Depression, but he doesn’t ask about the duration of that unemployment or expected duration. There’s a huge difference between a 25% unemployment rate for three months and three years for instance and the impact that will have. How long will this scenario last is a vital question? Also, he doesn’t examine the nature of employment itself and how that’s changed since the Great Depression. Back then people had trades and jobs when they were working often for life, often in the same locale. Today we have a gig economy where Americans are used to switching jobs and relocating for work. How will that factor into the equation? Then there’s technology itself and how that’s changed our consumption patterns. Will Americans stop clicking Buy when it’s so easy even if the economy worsens? Also, regarding fiscal spending versus previous eras, I wonder how they would look if you inflation adjusted past spending, debt and GDP numbers?
@Charles

I had a neighbor once tell me that stocks had to go up because everybody's retirement depends on it.

The only thing is a significant percentage of Americans have little to no savings so this really isn’t true.

I was thinking of how some investors, especially retirees, can protect themselves from massive sell-offs like we just had. This idea came to my head. What about using a "Trailing Stop Order" on a portfolio? (maybe this hibernation gives me to much time to think :) )
These are typically used when you are buying or selling stocks. It sets discipline on when to sell. There is one set of diversified portfolio ETFs that you could do this with, the BlackRock iShares allocation funds, AOM, AOR, AOA. These are actually pretty good diversified "balance" funds, conservative, moderate and aggressive. The one closest to 60:40 allocation is AOR. This fund compares well to Vanguards balanced index fund VBINX. I think @davidrmoran brought these ETFs to my attention a few years ago. I have not been able to find other balanced ETFs that are diversified like these.
The idea would be to hold one of these ETFs as your core portfolio holding, maybe the bulk of the portfolio or whatever % you deem appropriate. If you want to limit your loss to say 10% of the funds high you set up the trailing stop order to sell at -10%. You protect the bulk of your retirement savings. Especially important if you are already retired and massive 20%+ really hurts maybe more so than for people still in the accumulative stage.
Any opinions + or - on this idea? I am contemplating this idea in my retirement savings so that I am not a deer in the head lights.

@FD1000

The price is always right

I don't think the price was always right when the market bid up Pets.com, Adelphia Communications, Enron, Worldcom, Washington Mutual, Lehman Brothers, tulip bulbs, etc. throughout history in past manias. But there are those who believe what you are saying. They're called efficient market theorists and would recommend only buying a total market index fund. I don't really understand, though, if you believe that, why you're posting on this board, which is devoted primarily to actively managed funds with managers who don't believe the price is always right. Those two philosophies--the price is always right or the price is often wrong and there are ways to get an edge on the market through active management--are incompatible. So if you don't mind my asking, why are you here?

The price over time is right as reflected in the SP500.
Sure, there is a way for managed funds but over LT the SP500 performance is better than most managed funds.
BTW, I have posted for years now that QQQ has been a better performer because the big high tech companies are winning so big.
The SP500 is also a global index and gets about 40% of its revenues from abroad. QQQ is even more global with about 50% of its revenue from abroad.

FXAIX didn't perform better because it didn't have a lower ER all these years. The main difference between me and others is that I supply numbers and not just narrative;-)

It would be very time consuming to find ER for previous years but from memory, Fidelity lowered ER for their index funds years ago to compete with VG.
From M*, for 5 years average annual as of (04/08/2020) [...]
It's a surprise that VOO with lower ER had lower performance than VFIAX

VOO is a bit of a distraction, because it introduces an additional layer of differentiation (ETF share class vs. OEF share class) and because its ER was lower by just 1 basis point for one year. Amortized over five years that amounts to nothing more than a rounding error. Still, it's good to see an acknowledgement that an S&P 500 index fund with a lower stated ER can have lower returns.
That's important because it puts lie to the statement that "FXAIX didn't perform better because it didn't have a lower ER". Certainly ERs affect relative returns, but they're not dispositive, especially when the magnitude of a difference between funds is small.
"It would be very time consuming to find ER for previous years." So sometimes you don't "supply numbers". That's okay. But you presented a numeric claim, viz. that FXAIX had a higher ER all these years, without checking the numbers. That calls into question numbers posted without citations and links.
VFINX ER from current prospectus and from 1998 prospectus
2019: 0.14%
2018: 0.14%
2017: 0.14%
2016: 0.14%
2015: 0.16%
2014: 0.17%
1999-2013: between 0.17% and 0.19% (interpolation)
1998: 0.19%
1997: 0.19%
1996: 0.20%
1995: 0.20%
1994: 0.19%
1993: 0.19%
1992: 0.19%
1991: 0.20%
1990: 0.22%
1989: 0.21%
1998: 0.22%
FXAIX (and predecessor fund) ERs from:
current prospectus [On July 1, 2016, FMR reduced the management fee ... from 0.025% to 0.015%],
2011 prospectus [On February 1, 2011, FMR reduced the management fee ... from 0.07% to 0.025% ],
2005 prospectus [Fund shares purchased prior to October 1, 2005 and not subsequently converted to Fidelity Advantage Class are deemed Investor Class shares]
2004 prospectus [Effective April 18, 1997, FMR has voluntarily agreed to reimburse the fund to the extent that total operating expenses ... exceed 0.19%.]
1997 prospectus (showing actual expenses for 1988-1996)
2019:       0.015%
2018:       0.015% (per 2019 note)
2017:       0.015% (per 2019 note)
2016:       0.020% (per 2019 note and averaging over half year)
2015:       0.025% (per 2011 note)
2014:       0.025% (per 2011 note)
2013:       0.025% (per 2011 note)
2012:       0.025% (per 2011 note)
2011:       0.025%
2006-2010: 0.070% (per 2011 note and 2005 prospectus showing YE 0.07% ER)
2005:       0.090% (per 2005 note, weighted avg of share class ERs)
1998-2004: 0.190% (per 2004 note)
1997:       0.190%
1996:       0.280%
1995:       0.280%
1994:       0.280%
1993:       0.280%
1992:       0.280%
1991:       0.280%
1990:       0.280%
1989:       0.280%
1988:       0.280%

Why tech will continue to lead for decades to come. I worked in IT over 35 years in different sectors from retail, to banking, finance, mutual funds to healthcare. There is no way to stop this trend and it's getting faster. How long it took Walmart to be dominated? compare it to Amazon. BTW, Amazon is a tech company and I can argue that WM is one of the best retail companies because of its great IT for many years.
Value investing was easier years ago when a good manager can find undervalued companies under the radar but in a digital, global, free data world it's a lot harder. High tech squeezes every corner in every business. To acquire the next customer for high tech companies is very cheap, sometimes pennies because the infrastructure exists already and digital is very cheap compared to actual stores and humans.
Some sectors are harder to break such as banking and finance but even they have been going down by joining the big tech. How long can you deceive clients by promising them better performance when a computer is cheaper and better. You can transfer now money to any person in seconds for free, just several years ago you had to pay a commission and took several days.
There are always new upcoming tech companies and when they do something well they explode very quickly because 1-5% lower price for the same (sometimes better) service means a lot. You can see it on Amazon if one company offers the same product for $1 cheaper and if the service is good it will take a huge % of the market. A reasonable customer will always pay less.
Real estate is another slow sector that will be more computerized.
The only sector that holds steady is healthcare, it gets more expensive with no end in sight IMO. There is no way to solve the HC issue in the USA. We can start a new thread on this.

@davidrmoran Not only what VOOG excludes but includes. Without doing too deep a dive, VOOG has a 32% weighting in tech stocks. VOO has a 21% weighting. Although I don't think VOOG breaks out sectors like the S&P 500, the tech sector isolated by itself from the S&P 500 has dramatically outperformed it since 2009: https://morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/xlk/performance
I would imagine this tech effect would be even greater in VOOG because it probably only owns the growthiest tech names, not the loser ones like Hewlett Packard all those years, the one tech company value managers found attractive. VOOG, for instance, has almost double the weighting of Amazon of VOO. RPV's tech weighting is a mere 2.3% and its financials is 34%. As I said above, the real story here isn't really just a growth versus value one. It's a tech sector versus financial sector one. To the extent that tech stocks are overvalued as some like Netflix I would argue are, the value managers will win. To the extent the financial services sector gets disintermediated by the tech sector--talk for instance of Amazon managing money soon or other tech companies doing banking--than the growth sector will win. The past ten years have been about Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Netflix ostensibly taking over the world. If you believe that trend continues, you go growth. If you don't, you go value or cash.

Riffing on @LewisBraham responding to @FD1000: 2001 dot-com specialness -- a lot of "top" companies got to the top and....
In the short run, the market is a voting machine; in the long run it is a weighing machine. Belief in that principle (as well as the logic of buying a quarter for a dime) is what is makes value investing logic appealing to many investors.

Statements like this are really meaningless. 15 years is pretty long and over long term it's being proven that a very cheap, "stupid" but a smart idea like the SP500 will beat most managed funds
What is VALUE? value means different things to different investors. Is Buffett value equal D&C value.? Is T a better value than AAPL?
The best voting machine is the market thru the price. It doesn't matter what anybody thinks, the price reflects the end results of all decisions. The price is always right and the price will affect the SP500.

From what little I can find, it seems that FXAIX overall had the lower ER all these years. I look forward to seeing the ER numbers for "all these years".

It would be very time consuming to find ER for previous years but from memory, Fidelity lowered ER for their index funds years ago to compete with VG.
From M*, for 5 years average annual as of (04/08/2020)...FXAIX=7.9%...VFIAX=7.88...VOO=7.86
It's a surprise that VOO with lower ER had lower performance than VFIAX

https://www.kitco.com/news/2020-04-07/Gold-is-undervalued-prices-to-hit-5-000-in-medium-term-says-economist.html
/Gold is cheap; prices to hit $5,000 in medium-term, says economist
Kitco News) - Gold prices could climb to $5,000 in a few years, this according to John Butler, author of "The Golden Revolution."/
Not sure if cheap or not in medium term, could be pure speculation. We are thinking increase our Commodities to ?! 4-5% in portfolio with GLD and VDE

They say markets are foward looking... If we're heading to a recovery starting later this year, even if it's a slow one, and interest rates are likely to say at zero for years, then maybe buying stocks in companies likely to survive makes a lot of sense.
(Just playing devil's advocate here, I can't believe this either. But everyone I know and every analyst I read has been saying not to trust this rally, so maybe it's just the old stocks climb a wall of worry story.)