There is always and opportunity somewhere. Yes, even in a recession. That's just stating the obvious. However, broadly, investment managers have been complaining for years about finding it difficult to identify value.

They've all said this for years.

Mario Gabelli says trade deal priced in 'to a degree' but he sees a lot of interesting 'nuggets' in market. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mario-gabelli-says-trade-deal-000532587.html
Just for you jojo. I assume you’re familiar with ever bullish Gabelli? But more to the point, the article I linked initially points out that there was a flip-flop in sentiment from May to June. In other words, the majority of fund managers surveyed in May reported being overweight equities (vs the June underweight reported.)
I’d agree with jojo that this probably isn’t a big deal. Sentiment comes and goes. As Junkster points out it’s market performance that matters - not sentiment.

Today the market is expensive and the earnings have been deaccelerating. Money managers I follow are having difficulties finding compelling stocks to buy.

They've all said this for years.

Cintas (CTAS, $191.55) is perhaps best-known for providing corporate uniforms, but the company also offers maintenance supplies, tile, and carpet cleaning services and even compliance training. As such, it’s seen by some investors as a bet on jobs growth.
There may be something to that. Shares have more than tripled over the past five years vs. a gain of just 51% for the S&P 500. In January, the economy notched its 100th consecutive month of employment gains. Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims stand at levels last seen in 1969.
Regardless of how the labor market is doing, Cintas is a stalwart as a dividend payer. The company has raised its payout every year since going public in 1983. Most recently, in October, Cintas raised its annual dividend by 26.5% to $2.05 a share.

FYI: Insurer Sun Life Financial has created an independent business, bringing together its affiliated asset management firms and the investment capabilities of its general account under a new brand called SLC Management.
This launch caps off six years of work. In 2012, Sun Life started building an asset management business to offer outside clients the strategies it uses for its own portfolio, such as commercial mortgages, liability-driven investing, and real estate.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1fx5y3rzwtmp2/Here-Comes-a-New-160-Billion-Asset-Manager

Question is why now after lagging the US equivalent for several years? Will the out-performance persist?

Excerpt: “Originally, the CPI was determined by comparing the price of a fixed basket of goods and services spanning two different periods. In this case, the CPI was a cost of goods index (COGI). However, over time, the U.S. Congress embraced the view that the CPI should reflect changes in the cost to maintain a constant standard of living. Consequently, the CPI has evolved into a cost of living index (COLI). ... Over the years, the methodology used to calculate the CPI has undergone numerous revisions. According to the BLS, the changes removed biases that caused the CPI to overstate the inflation rate. The new methodology takes into account changes in the quality of goods and substitution. Substitution, the change in purchases by consumers in response to price changes, changes the relative weighting of the goods in the basket. The overall result tends to be a lower CPI. However, critics view the methodological changes and the switch from a COGI to a COLI as a purposeful manipulation that allows the U.S. government to report a lower CPI.”. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/consumerpriceindex.asp
A few take aways:
- The methodology for computing CPI has undergone several changes over the years So, it’s not the same yardstick today as it was 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Looking at long term historical CPI numbers as some type of norm is tantamount to comparing apples to oranges (or at least mixing them together)..
- These changes were to an extent politically inspired.
- CPI purports to take into account the increased value of the products consumers purchase. So, if you choose to drive a stick shift car with an AM radio and roll-down windows and without power steering, seat-belts or side view mirrors, than the price of new cars has increased by only 2-3% annually. (Good luck finding one.) You could also hue to that government figure by switching to B&W TV and sticking an antenna on your roof instead of enjoying cable. And if you could still find one in a box somewhere, buying a “new” Vic-20 home computer or maybe an Apple II E would allow you to fully appreciate that 2.9% inflation rate. Finally, (at great risk of being redundant), if you can find a physician willing to provide only the level of health care (including prescription medications) you would have received 50 years ago, than your health care costs may have increased by that 2-3% number.
- It would be nearly impossible to measure the change in the value of some products. Take air travel for instance. How in jiggers do you calculate the real cost difference when the airlines keep tacking on fees for things like checking a bag, using the overhead storage compartment or selecting a window seat? But if you could, you’d still have to figure out how to account for the diminished value stemming from the discontinuance of meals on flights (once standard), non-refundable tickets and smaller more uncomfortable seats.
- CPI doesn’t consider the increasing need for medical care as the population ages. So CPI for those of us 70+ may be a bit different (I suspect somewhat higher) than for a much younger individual.
I don’t know whether those numbers Catch quoted included the effect of compounding. But suspect not. When running a 3% inflation rate through a compounding calculator I get a 15.93% cost increase over 5 years. Inflation looks a bit more onerous when viewed over longer periods.

--- Inflation rate
A common measure of inflation in the U.S. is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). From 1925 through 2018 the CPI has a long-term average of 2.9% annually. Over the last 40 years highest CPI recorded was 13.5% in 1980. For 2018, the last full year available, the CPI was 2.2% annually as reported by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.
--- Rate of return
This is the annually compounded rate of return you expect from your investments before taxes. The actual rate of return is largely dependent on the types of investments you select. The Standard & Poor's 500® (S&P 500®) for the 10 years ending December 31st 2018, had an annual compounded rate of return of 12.1%, including reinvestment of dividends. From January 1, 1970 to December 31st 2018, the average annual compounded rate of return for the S&P 500®, including reinvestment of dividends, was approximately 10.2% (source: www.standardandpoors.com). Since 1970, the highest 12-month return was 61% (June 1982 through June 1983). The lowest 12-month return was -43% (March 2008 to March 2009).
Hi @hank
I don't underestimate or have a blind eye to inflation. B.O.L. CPI is a bit twisted with what is used for calculations.
I don't allow the data in the above 2 displays to cause me to think that things won't change.
Hell, I/we still keep a paper ledger for all expenses by category; a habit I've had since 1970.
As I've stated here numerous times........this time is different. And so it remains, seeking a financial path since the market melt.
Too tired to think or write more tonight.
Good night.
Catch

Anyone who believes that overall inflation is running anywhere close to 3% is living in a dream world. Hell, a round-trip senior MUNI fare just went from $2.70 to $3.00 (over 10% increase) and that's just one random number. Everything in the SF Bay Area is going up steeply and regularly, and has been for a few years now.

Thank you, @msf
Available fund investment returns for "x" years historically would keep one ahead of the 2.9% annualized inflation rate, prior to the cash position noted.
Perhaps it is time I leave the stage.
Catch

The hope that CD's would continue to rise so that you could build a nice ladder is quickly becoming a pipe dream. The best rates at Schwab right now are the 3-6 month CDs at 2.3?. To get anything better you have to go out 10 years!. The MM is down to around 2.2%. Oh well. Tough on retirees.

always sensible discussions that upon inspection can seem truly wack:
'The basic [bucket] idea is that you are putting a couple of years' worth of portfolio withdrawals in cash ... [and] ... like another eight years' worth of portfolio withdrawals going in bonds and then the remainder ... into equities.'
If there is a remainder! Ten years' worth of cashflow (augmentation of SS or similar, but still) in cash and bonds.

@msf
You noted: "The Fidelity annuity does provide an income guarantee, but like many annuities, that guarantee locks in a fixed monthly payment amount. No more VIP Balanced Fund. The options offered by the Fidelity annuity are extremely limited: only single life with 10 years certain and joint life with 10 years certain. No annual increases, no adjustments for inflation. ( See p. 17 (pdf p. 23) of its prospectus.)"
The prospectus you linked for April, 2019 includes VIP Balanced, as well as the other choices.
Perhaps, I should have provided a more direct path for the type of annuity I would use (below).
I'm not writing about what one may name as "traditional" types of annuities as you noted above.
The Fido page I intended for use for annuity money is HERE:
I'm sure I've only confused those reading here. As it should be, one must read and understand the documents.
Away I must be...
Catch

The article discusses guaranteed income streams upon annuitization, or in the case of deferred annuities with GLWB riders, drawing down according to a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal rate.
Those guarantees are the whole point. If a portion of your income is certain (e.g. Social Security), then you can plan the remainder of your portfolio around that. Absent the guarantee, an annuity is nothing but a tax shelter - a higher priced, non-deductible T-IRA.
People lament the demise of the pension (guaranteed income stream for life), yet consistently decline to make the rational choice to annuitize. Without appreciating the value of any guarantee (apparently unless it comes from the government or an employer), it is difficult to evaluate the relative merits of different types of guarantees.
The Fidelity annuity does provide an income guarantee, but like many annuities, that guarantee locks in a fixed monthly payment amount. No more VIP Balanced Fund. The options offered by the Fidelity annuity are extremely limited: only single life with 10 years certain and joint life with 10 years certain. No annual increases, no adjustments for inflation. ( See p. 17 (pdf p. 23) of its prospectus.)
So its guarantee doesn't provide inflation protection (the subject of Tomlinson's article). If you want to gamble that inflation will stay moderately low, then, as Pfau observed, fixed annuities without adjustments such as Fidelity's can pay off better. And the guarantee does provide longevity protection so long as the payments doesn't get eroded too much by inflation.
These days, if you want some potential upside from the market while still having a guaranteed floor on your income stream and a guarantee for life, you look into living benefit guarantees, such as the GLWB rider discussed in the article. Fidelity's annuity doesn't provide this option, but Vanguard's does, as do Schwab's two VAs. You can do a 1035 exchange into them when you're ready to start drawing cash out.

He must be smoking something when today's 10 years Treasuries is yielding 2.5%. It is highly unlikely to reach 4% higher in two years. Especially now that Trump is urging Chairman Powell to cut rates. Today the Fed will decide the rates going forward - most likely they will hold the rate unchanged since the inflation is well below the 2% threshold.

Hi @msf
We've been down this discussion road before; but I would still opt for Fidelity's annuity offering.
With the offerings available, one should not have a problem with beating inflation; and with fairly low risk, IMHO.
Even with a somewhat aggressive investment choice of Fidelity's VIP Balanced fund, one has very low costs: .57% expense ratio (same as retail offering) and .25% of account balance for the fee. And no surrender charges found in more common annuity types, usually after the first 7 years of the contract; and the normal spousal/non-spousal beneficiary choices.
For those not familiar with this product, check the link and read through everything....investment choices, etc.
Fidelity's Personal Retirement Annuity
Have a good remainder,
Catch

Nice article from Reuters @davidrmoran
Guess I’d mostly agree with this contributor: “The inflation hedging abilities of gold are not measured over months or years, but centuries. People mistake the very long term performance for the shorter term, thinking gold is going to protect them. My research is very clear that an investment in gold is not a reliable hedge.”
My experience messing around with the stuff from the 70s is that it moves in leaps and spurts - and is likely to move in either direction at just about any time. Hard to find a rhyme or reason for what it does. As markets go, the gold market’s quite thin, so there may be some manipulation going on from big holders or players. Just a guess.
To expect gold to keep pace with inflation day to day or year to year is unrealistic. However, if you’d put $1000 into gold coins or bullion 25 or 50 years ago and buried it, it certainly would buy you more today than had you stashed away $1000 in dollar bills in a vault somewhere. So yes, you got some inflation protection.
Overlooked in a lot of these analyses is that many other things also appreciate over time and also offer inflation protection. Think real estate, equities, lumber, etc. And in all honesty, many other investments would have done better most of the time.
I maintain a small exposure to a mining fund. As Mike noted the miners are more volatile than the metal - though they usually run in the same direction. I could probably develop a pretty good bull case for gold today. But it wouldn’t necessarily prove correct. :)

@MikeM: You're right to point out the quality of the gold discussion going back a few years. Too bad some of the finer commentators have departed.

Here's an older (2012) article by Wade Pfau summarizing a research paper he did on the subject:
Efficient Frontiers: Inflation Assumptions, Fixed SPIAs, & Inflation-Adjusted SPIAs
While it dates from a few years ago, I figure that interest rates haven't changed much since then, especially since they've backslided in the past half year.
Like Tomlinson (the original linked article), Pfau observes that "Today ... fixed SPIAs performed so much better than inflation-adjusted SPIAs." He's looking at completely fixed SPIAs as opposed to Tomlinson's SPIAs with fixed annual increases." Either way, the nominal amounts are set in stone, independent of inflation (despite Tomlinson calling them COLA SPIAs).
What I like about Pfau's article is that he shows how these results can be incorporated into a full investment plan:

In the case study used the article, a 65-year old heterosexual couple requiring a 4% withdrawal rate to meet their lifestyle goals (and whose minimum spending needs were set equal to the lifestyle goal) was best served by combinations of stocks and fixed single-premium immediate annuities (SPIAs). At current product pricing levels, there is little need for bonds, inflation-adjusted SPIAs, or immediate variable annuities with guaranteed living benefit riders (VA/GLWBs).

This relates back to another thread that explained why having an annuity allowed one to be more aggressive with the rest of one's portfolio. According to Pfau (assuming one has enough of an annuity income stream), one can not be merely more aggressive, but invest entirely in stocks.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/50475/here-s-why-advisors-may-urge-retirees-to-load-up-on-equities
While Tomlinson and Pfau both use Monte Carlo simulations, comparing and contrasting their articles helps to highlight the limitations and deficiencies of the simplistic models implemented on web sites.
They each acknowledge how sketchy their input is:
Tomlinson: "The current Treasury/TIPS spread is just under 2% and we also know that the Fed is targeting 2% inflation. However, my purely subjective view ..."
Pfau: "Your views about future inflation are quite important to this decision."
Tomlinson uses his subjective sense to construct a skewed distribution of inflation rates (something many tools can't handle), while Pfau falls back on a normal bell curve. These people are making subjective, albeit well educated, guesses on distributions, and admitting that whatever they guess has a major impact on their conclusions.
That's not an argument against trying. It's an argument for putting a lot more effort into the guessing than letting a website pick a default and pressing a button. It's an argument for using a model that has the flexibility to deal with sophisticated guesses. Otherwise, all you've got is GIGO.
Pfau summarizes the potential impact of higher inflation nicely:

Note that higher inflation would also hurt the performance of the VA/GLWB strategy since its guarantees cannot be expected to keep pace with inflation, and it would also hurt bond mutual funds since the interest rate increases accompanying higher inflation would result in capital losses.
Higher inflation will not completely overturn the idea that the efficient frontier consists of stocks and SPIAs, but it could influence the result about whether the appropriate SPIA choice is a fixed SPIA or a real SPIA

@MJG - I have no quarrel with your point here. In fact, it’s the reason I believe in having a clearly defined plan (preferably written down) and keeping with the plan rather than letting emotions rule.
What I’ll note, however, is that author Adam Grossman (in Ted’s linked article)) appears to advocate for considerable latitude in allowing emotions to intervene. Grossman specifically lists 5 reasons why emotions might be allowed to interfere with allocation decision making (math be damned).
Here’s those 5 reasons in Grossman’s words (edited for brevity) :
1. “All math involves (possibly flawed) assumptions. If the math says your portfolio can afford maximum risk, ask yourself what assumptions underlie that calculation. ... If you look back at U.S. stock market history, downturns generally result in losses of 20% to 50% and last two to four years. But notice that I said “generally.” During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the market dropped more than 80% and didn’t fully recover for more than a decade.”
2. “Just because something hasn’t happened recently — or hasn’t happened here — doesn’t mean it can’t happen. ... Consider Japan. In 1989, it was on top of the world. Its economy and stock market were soaring. But over the subsequent two decades, the Japanese market declined more than 80%. Even today, nearly 30 years later, the Nikkei index stands almost 50% below its peak. ...”
3. “(Consider) ... if something happened — a health issue, for example — and your expenses increased? These kinds of things are impossible to predict, but I think it makes sense to allow for the unexpected when structuring your finances.”
4. “You might not know your true tolerance for risk. ... If you haven’t yet lived through a true bear market, when all the news is relentlessly bad, you might want a more moderate asset allocation than the math suggests.”
5. “It might be unnecessary. ... If you have the risk dial set to 10, ask yourself whether you’re swinging for the fences, even though you’ve already won the game.”
Ted’s link (restated for attribution of quotations): https://humbledollar.com/2019/06/math-vs-emotion/