I struggle with this topic all the time. Taleb might argue that only pedestrian journalists would make an issue of such things, since most journalists untrained in probability can't recognize being "fooled by randomness." Instead, like M* claims, look at the process ... the "generator" of the return. If the process is good the numbers will follow, sooner or later. And ultimately, it is the investor that determines just how long is too long. Is Hussman's process good? Or Heebner's? Fund Alarm was established on the premise that 5 years was about as long as an investor should give a fund manager to prove whether the "generator" is worthy. I find fund managers these days, especially quants, would rather not talk about performance: "Need to give it 10 years," they say. And, maybe statistically, they are right ... and even 10 years may not be long enough. Some random thoughts on this cloudy morning ... from Orcas Island this summer.

My, my, I don't find Mr. Carlson's questions too insightful. Presumably he gets paid for that column?
However, the topic of neg-yield debt is interesting. Here are my questions:
1. Is it possible to short neg-yield debt? If so, then presumably, the shorter would receive proceeds for the shorted instruments up-front, but would also be paid a (modest-) yield by the party who is holding the shorted bonds. Is that right? If so, I can see somebody like Pimco engaging in this activity with great effectiveness. The danger I suppose would be that neg-rates go even more negative..
2. Neg-rates seem to be the "new normal" in much of the developed world. That being so, why not use these rates to de-lever sovereigns globally, as follows: Sovereign govts and their respective CBs could agree the govt could issue "perpetual placement" bonds in 100 billion denominations (yen, dollars, Euros, etc), which would be purchased by the CB of each sovereign. These "PPP" bonds would yield interest of $1 (one dollar, yen RMB etc) per annum (effectivly zero interest). Being perpetual, there would never be any need to worry about maturing debt. The proceeds could be used to redeem public, interest-bearing debt. In this way, sovereigns could effectively de-lever.
Inflationary? Well, its the lack of inflation which seems to be the problem. I think issuing PPP debt makes more sense than paying premiums to private bond-holders (enriching them, but doing nothing to get money in circulation). And the reduction of most sovereign paper would push private investment into the productive sector.
3. "How did we get here?" - By that I mean persistent risk of deflation, There are many culprits: offshoring of jobs by MNCs from the developed world to EM has definitely suppressed incomes of those NOT in the top 5%. In fact "lower inflation" was one of the mantras pushed by the globalists. Well, they got it. In spades. Declining/negative birth rates are another factor. Feminism -- by disrupting household formation patterns which have existed for thousands of years and through "family planning" is killing the developed world both in the present and over the next several decades.
But I will say that debt is a major factor. Issuance of debt permits acceleration of consumption, which would otherwise be deferred. Global debt-to-GDP is ~ 230% and growing. So 230% of this years global consumption was already pulled forward (into prior years). We now sit in that future, where, what should have been today's consumption/demand was already satisfied. Of course there is insufficient demand --- the demand has long since been satisfied. Today's demand has been "robbed" by the past, just as we in turn are "robbing" economic vibrancy in the future to keep the music playing today.
Thoughts?

I've never looked at the form, but you might check out Form 4626.
https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i4626
But that was then. This is now, and now there's no more corporate AMT. It was permanently repealed as part of the 2018 tax cuts.
http://www.bowlesrice.com/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-2018-changes-Alternative-Minimum.html
Why was that done? As I understand the official story line, corporate tax cuts were made, and made permanent, so that US corporations would be more competitive and to stimulate investment and jobs. Never mind that corporations were already sitting on piles of cash that they didn't know what to do with. Meanwhile, individual taxpayer tax cuts were made temporary, because otherwise the deficit after ten years would be too big and would break Senate rules.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-senate-bill-why-individual-tax-cuts-temporary-2017-11

msf, that's very helpful. Thanks again!
I'm basically trying to see how much performance is attributable to the top 5 holdings. I read a while ago that FPA ran an analysis and said that their top 5 holdings beat the index by a large amount. I'm mainly curious what FLPSX would look like with the top 5. It's not been a great performer over the past 10 years but part of that is due to its international exposure. I wonder if the fund would have outperformed the S&P 500 if one looks only at the top US holdings.
It looks like FCNTX is up about 80% over the past 5 years so it seems like the larger holding have done quite well.

I had to go back and check, but U.S. Treasury notes do not compound. Here’s an explanation:
“A $10,000 treasury note with a seven percent coupon rate pays an investor $700 per year interest in two semi-annual payments of $350 each. The interest from notes and bonds paid out to investors is simple and does not compound.”. https://www.sapling.com/8173138/interest-government-bonds-simple-compounded
So a 2% 10-year Treasury over its lifetime would yield only 20% total return

Consider a 10-year zero coupon Treasury that you buy for $10K and pays you $12K (20% increase) at maturity. That's clearly a 20% total return.
Is a 2% 10-year Treasury that you buy for $10K and that puts $100 into your pocket every six months, instead of your waiting 10 years to get any interest, really no better?
Consider a bank that pays monthly interest on a savings account. Its APY is greater than its APR; the calculation assumes you'll reinvest the interest though you're under no obligation to do so. Now consider a second bank that pays annual interest. Its APY is equal to its APR, because you've got only one payment per year. There's no opportunity to compound within the year.
That's the same as the situation with coupon bonds. The hypothetical total return (yield to maturity or YTM), is calculated like APY - it assumes that you'll reinvest the coupons (interest) at the same rate until maturity. Of course if you don't, then you'll only get the coupon rate (analogous to APR). But you'll have that cash in your pocket, cash that could be earning more interest.

@Old_Skeet - Thanks for commenting. One of the main problems with bonds is that virtually all of us own them either directly or indirectly. I know I do. Bonds are everywhere. If you own a balanced or asset allocation fund you likely own a great many. There’s a reason why the balanced fund came into existence. It relates to the conventional wisdom which says that when equities decline in value bonds appreciate in value, helping to compensate for the equity losses. However, with rates now so low, bonds wouldn’t seem to have the degree of offsetting value (vs stocks) they would have had 10 or 20 years ago.
If you are investing in bonds for “income” than you (or your fund managers) are probably not holding a lot of U.S. government paper. My initial comment pertained to the U.S. 10 year, which if held 10 years to maturity should generate about 2% per year. I suspect you’re banking on a much healthier income stream than that 2%. There are bonds that produce much more than 2% of course. However, the lower you go on the credit scale the more closely linked to the fortunes of equities those bonds become. And the less immune to carnage during a steep stock market slide they become.
No other single investment class that I can think of so permeates the financial markets as do bonds. They affect mortgage rates and thus the affordability of housing. They affect auto loans and thus the automotive industry. They’re intrinsically linked to the dollar’s value in the foreign exchange markets which affects the prices we pay for everything from clothing and smart phones to gas and oil. And, for older investors, bond rates affect the ability to grow their assets and maintain a decent standard of living during the retirement years.

“I also suspect bonds are being purchased, whether management really wants to or not; by pension funds and insurance companies to cross their fingers they'll have enough money to pay future obligations.”
Hi Catch. I didn’t read the linked article either. I’m not into ETFs at all and have little interest in bonds - except to notice (accidentally) tonight the very low 10-year yield. Bonds generally do well (better than their coupon would suggest) in a declining rate environment, which they’ve had now going back 20-30 years - or about half our investing lifetimes! And, of course, lower rated bonds tend to track the equity market more than the investment grade bond market - so they’re not a reliable indicator on their own.
You may be right. On both the bond side and equity side it could be a case of “hold your nose” and plunge ahead as you would under normal circumstances. However, I think it begs credulity to think a savvy pension manager or insurance company portfolio manager would willingly forgo 20% equity returns to lock in 1.94% fixed on a 10 year note just because that’s how they’re supposed to invest. :)
Strikes me as a really unusual and unsustainable situation at the moment. But what do I know? The world turns over completely every 24 hours.

No institution provides flawless service. In this respect, what matters is how often glitches happen, and how well they address them.
For example, while Fidelity automatically calculates and distributes the RMD for my inherited Roth IRA annually, one year I noticed that the figure it gave for my RMD was about 4x as high as it should have been. Fidelity acknowledged the error (which has only happened once in many years) and corrected it immediately.
At Merrill Edge, I submitted a paper(!) form for a partial Roth conversion exactly a week before Christmas last year, and it was executed in two days. But this year, when I submitted the identical request (only the number of shares was different) right after Memorial Day, nothing happened for two weeks. I contacted Merrill Edge, and they claimed they were experiencing high volumes of requests. Sure, lots of people must be doing tax loss harvesting, Roth conversions, etc. in June.
I've a relative in the process of moving managed accounts into Vanguard's hybrid human/robo program. I was asked to help in the process (participate in the calls). Could have been the luck of the draw - which reps and advisors we were dealing with - but I was impressed with how well the process was handled, how tax concerns were addressed, how Vanguard did not insist on converting everything now into Vanguard funds (that will be done over time). And how they modeled a dynamic drawdown strategy where the amounts withdrawn would vary within limits based on performance.
I've used Schwab off and on for decades. Absolutely no complaints. Great service, and only four blocks from me. I've just not found a compelling reason to keep both Schwab and Fidelity, so I'm gradually moving away from Schwab. (Schwab does provide an ATM/debit card with no foreign exchange fee and worldwide rebates; this is the only unique feature that interests me but it's not enough to dissuade me from consolidating.)
If one is going to use Merrill, they have pretty good bonuses for moving accounts. Every so often they'll offer 50% more. Between now and Sept 5th they're doing even better, with bonuses that are 2/3 to 100% more than their usual offers.
Fidelity offers 2 years worth of (300-500) free stock/ETF trades depending on the amount moved, but no cash. Schwab doesn't appear to have any significant offers going, but rumor has it that they will match other offers. Vanguard being cheap, is, well, cheap - no offers, ever.

I have no familiarity with Fidelity or Vanguard other than they have some pretty good fund and ETF options. But for the most part you can get any of those options through Schwab if you wanted. Same for TRP funds. But, that probably doesn't stand out as unique to other big brokerages, like Fidelity, Vanguard and TRP.
All my experience is with Charles Schwab where I rolled most of my 401k and pension-lump to an IRA when I left my long time employer. That was about 5 years ago. At the time I wavered keeping everything in my employer's 401k at TRP or transferring everything to an IRA at TRP or transferring to CS. I chose CS for a few reasons:
1- maybe the biggest reason was they had a local office. I much prefer a human, 1 on 1 sit down than phone or computer contact. I ended up being linked to a very nice guy who has gained my trust. He is often just my sounding board for ideas I have. He calls or emails about every 6 months or so to check in and see how things are going. And best of all, I don't pay a dime for the advice, feedback and help! Schwab does offer many different options for paid advisory including a very low cost advisory service linked to their robo portfolio. I do have money in the robo, but at this time I haven't gone the advisor route. They also offer the standard 1% fee where they manage everything in your financial life. Not for me but maybe for some.
2- the product selection, everything from 1000's of funds, ETFs, banking products like MMs, CDs, credit cards, checking and savings accounts, numerous managed portfolio options.
3- the option to have multiple accounts at one place. My mind tends to like "buckets" or separating money for different purposes. A separate 3 year retirement withdrawal account with MM, CDs, treasuries that is linked to my credit union checking account is an example.
4- the online and local learning seminars to just hear new ideas or learn different skills and options (I'm not great at it, but I like to dabble or "play" in stocks and there was plenty of info on that along with a trading platform to manage buys and sells).
Just some personal reasons for where I ended up. At 65 I'm still working full time but will probably go part time or quit altogether soon. Good luck Art.

@Art: I'd throw Schwab in the running also.I've been with them for a number of years & had only ONE problem. I rolled 2 401-k's into Vanguard in 2018. I do find VG hard to operate in. Maybe it's just me ? I don't think you can go wrong with the above mentioned.
Both VG & Schwab have notified me that it's time to take RMD's.
Happy 4/TH to All, Derf

I think that David was comparing the fund houses, not the brokerages. Fidelity has done a good job at improving its bond funds, and it has the occasional fine equity fund. But overall, and especially for equity/hybrid funds, I would go with T. Rowe Price over Fidelity.
Here's M*'s latest set of reports on target date fund series by some of the largest families. (Premium membership required).
https://www-prd.morningstar.com/articles/847110/morningstar-targetdate-fund-series-reports.html
I think anyone can access the reports it links to; here are the links for reports on three different series of target date funds:
Vanguard: https://news.morningstar.com/pdfs/STUSA04OVV.pdf
Fidelity: https://news.morningstar.com/pdfs/STUSA04OLH.pdf
T. Rowe Price: https://news.morningstar.com/pdfs/STUSA04OMN.pdf
And a more detailed report on the T. Rowe Price Retirement Target Date Funds; however this report is three years old.
https://mpera.mt.gov/Portals/175/documents/EIACPacket/20170126/V.d.Morningstar_Addendum.pdf
Note that T. Rowe Price has two different series of target date funds, which it calls Retirement Funds and Target Date Funds. The former are more aggressive.
https://www.troweprice.com/content/dam/fai/Collections/DC Resources/Target Date Solutions/GlidePathComparison.pdf
You're asking about brokerages though, and that's a different question. A nice thing about Fidelity's brokerage is that you can now get both Fidelity funds and T. Rowe Price funds NTF.
As far as brokerage services are concerned, Fidelity is way ahead of the others. Vanguard's comes in for its share of criticisms, but they've improved over time. It seems reasonably competent though not first tier in variety of services or quality or even hours of operation. I haven't used T. Rowe Price's brokerage, and I dare say few have unless they're primarily Price fund investors. It's more of a convenience offering by Price for its fund investors than it is a full fledged brokerage.
Fidelity is especially suited for decumulation, because you can pay a one time transaction fee to set up your position in a cheaper institutional share class of a fund, and you pay nothing to sell shares periodically. (Schwab has a similar pricing structure).
Vanguard is of course better if you want Vanguard open end funds. Many Vanguard funds are not available through Fidelity, and those that are cost $75 to buy (as opposed to Fidelity's customary $49.95 charge for most transaction fee funds). Also, Vanguard provides access to some institutional class shares with lower minimums than at Fidelity. Finally, if you have over $1M in Vanguard funds, you get 25 free transactions per year, which you can use to buy and sell transaction fee funds of other families through their brokerage.

Why did it take him SIX years to figure out , that he should return investor money ?
Derf

Hey, @Mark. Thanks for noting that my wording here could be taken a couple different ways. I thought about editing it at the time for better clarity but didn’t. No - Not trying to be another Ted. Good discussion with some of the brightest folks on the board opining. Keep it going. Sure beats talking politics and other stuff that creeps in.
What I meant to say: If I owned a fund that had rewarded me as handsomely as this one for a number of years and it had become a really “hot” topic on discussion boards, I’d consider selling some of it. Intense interest is sometimes a contrary indicator. Just me. I tend to be overly cautious and generally sell something too soon.
And sorry I wasn't more clear in the beginning.

Don’t own DSENX. Glad so many folks have made a mint with it. At the risk of being a wet rag - when you see a topic like this with 1.7 K views and 2 weeks running, it might be time to consider moving on. I remember when PRPFX was the rage here back in 2011 - followed by a few losing years after everybody had piled in. No intent to disparage either fund.
(Disclosure: I bought PRPFX about the time others had finished fleeing and still own a decent slice.)

FYI: The S&P 500 rose more than 17% in the first half of 2019. That’s not just a good first-half return, it’s a great annual return. The average annual return for the S&P 500 for the last 87 years, excluding dividends, is about 8%.
Going into the second half of the year, investors have a lot to worry about: a slowing global economy, Federal Reserve decisions on interest rates, a still-simmering trade war, and a presidential election that is starting to heat up. With all that happening, and after such strong gains, maybe investors should take their profits and run.
That isn’t the best idea though, historically speaking. History says investors should actually get more greedy and expect positive returns in the second half of 2019.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/the-stock-market-has-been-on-a-tear-history-says-its-time-to-get-greedy-51561971600?mod=barrons-on-marketwatch

He doesn't even have the guts to mention the disaster that was ARIVX in this little blurb on their new site! That fund was bad because of very poor decisions made by the manager, Eric Cinnamond. My memory is that the only value he seemed to find was PM miners who were in a nosedive and a complete value trap at the time. Also remember him being 20-50% cash when the market took off in 2009 until it closed in 2016. I think it was in the 99th percentile when he closed. I don't think there were many investors left to keep it open. No thanks...
From the People tab on this link:

Eric Cinnamond and Jayme Wiggins met in 2002 when Eric returned to his alma mater, Stetson University, for an alumni event. Jayme learned under Eric as a small cap analyst for the next several years in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, where Eric had managed small cap portfolios since arriving from Evergreen Funds in 1998. Eric implemented an absolute return process while managing the Intrepid Small Cap Composite from 1998-2010 and the Intrepid Small Cap Fund from 2005-2010. Jayme managed high yield bond portfolios, including the Intrepid Income Fund, from 2005-2008, when he departed to earn his MBA at Columbia Business School.
In 2010, Eric started a new small cap fund. The bull market beginning in 2009 elevated small cap valuations to never-before-seen levels. Eric returned capital to investors in 2016 because he did not believe there were compelling investment opportunities. Jayme took over the Intrepid Small Cap Fund upon Eric’s departure in 2010. He managed the fund using the same absolute return investment strategy until September 2018, when his firm decided to pivot to a more fully-invested posture.

“Without more and better lifetime income choices, retirees are essentially gambling with their retirement savings. Too few have the tools and information needed to manage their nest eggs to last throughout their golden years.”
I’m not up to speed on all this. Glanced at the MW story only. But what in heck do they consider “gambling”? Since there’s a significant body of opinion in the investment community and here on the board that one should actually “ramp up” their equity exposure as they progress during retirement, this reference to “gambling” strikes me as vague at best and misdirected at worst.
I don’t subscribe to the school that recommends increasing equity exposure during the retirement years. But the bigger “gamble” in the early years of retirement seems to me to be in locking-in a low growth potential, be it by going heavily into cash / bonds or putting all your eggs into an annuity (less ”growthy” than maintaining a well diversified portfolio with as much exposure to equities as you can tolerate).

So his idea of “creativity” is to side-step the (apparently overvalued) S&P 500 and move your cash instead into (1) REITS, (2) Utilities, (3) Junk Bonds, (4) Dividend Paying Stocks and (5) Unconstrained Bond Funds?
I’m not familiar with the last one. But those first 4 are likely bid up just as much over the last year (perhaps more so) as the S&P 500 is. And you’d likely be paying much higher fees to go into one of those type of specialty funds than what an S&P index fund will cost you. So I’m not seeing the “creativity” angle here. Just jumping from one hot frying pan into another it would appear. As far as gold goes, two months ago would have been a good time to pick some up (or the miners). But now it has pretty much caught up with those other areas. The one I own, OPGSX, is up 20% in the past month, which accounts for most of its 24% gain YTD.
It’s been hard for me for many years now to think of cash as an “investment”. Sure, it’s good to hold some as dry powder or for stability or to meet near term needs. But 1-3% annual return on your long term investment pot just doesn’t cut it IMHO.

I think we can hopefully agree that college is just not right for everyone. There's that segment of the population who are simply not cut out for it. For them maybe a few years in the workforce will show or convince them otherwise. For others there's nothing demeaning about time spent in a trade school if that's where their interest lies.
I'm also convinced that the first two years of college are a waste of time and money for many. I came from a solid high school experience. I had plenty of exposure to the arts along with all of the sciences and math courses. (I admit that I haven't a clue if that's true for everyone). The point I'm trying to make is that my first two years of college were basically a repeat of everything I had done in my junior and senior years of high school. Those that can should be able to test out of that experience. It wasn't an option at the U of MN.

I'm not sure at this point exactly how I feel about a blanket proposal to wipe out student loan debt. I'll be the first to admit that the load is onerous but I have no idea how those loan distributions were spent.
I spent a number of years in college and loans were used BUT I also worked while attending school to hold down those loan amounts to a figure I felt that I could repay when the day of reckoning arrived. It probably didn't help that I also had this thing about owing money and having to pay interest. So hot dogs and ramen noodles it was and I soldiered on.
When I see the debt figures these days of students leaving college, especially those who attend the Betsy DeVos type schools of 'screw them for all you can while providing no meaningful or usable return' I'm just astounded. Surely tuition costs more these days but what was the rest of that loan money used for? Also, I don't feel compelled to bail out some students "elite" school education which I had no chance of getting because my parents could never afford to "donate" enough to get me admitted even if I would have asked them for help.
I would like to find solutions here but I'm having trouble zeroing in on a starting point.