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.)

Anyway, let me add that FXAIX does not outperform either Vanguard SP500 product if you go back to their spring 1988 origin, only more recently.

Nothing to do with insecurity, trying to be accurate. 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 ;-)

As you're a numbers sort of person, could you provide some numbers to go along with your narrative? The story saying that FXAIX "didn't have a lower ER all these years"?
I can find some early years over the lifetime span when VFINX had an ER more than a single basis point below FXAIX's. But there aren't very many years like that, and the VFINX advantage in those years was just 6-9 basis points. In contrast, there are a greater number of later years where FXIAX had the advantage. More sizeable to boot, 8-15 basis points.
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".

I don't have a dog in the fight, but I did take a quick look at upside/downside capture ratios for DODFX on M* and they are terrible for 3, 5 and 10 years. T
It is well know that large cap is the hardest category for a fund manager to "beat" the index. It is very unlikely that it can be done and if it can be the investor picking the "the winner" ahead of those 3, 5 or 10 years is close to impossible. If the case for owning a managed LC fund is a smoother ride or principle conservation and not beating the index return (which it is for me), the up/down statistic is a good one to judge performance.

Your contrib is so valuable, but are you really so insecure you have to impugn ('obsess') anyone who offers even mild corrections or challenges ?
Anyway, let me add that FXAIX does not outperform either Vanguard SP500 product if you go back to their spring 1988 origin, only more recently.

Nothing to do with insecurity, trying to be accurate. 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 ;-)
As of (04/07/2020) FXAIX did better than VFIAX for 3 + 5 years by only 0.02% annually.

“This relatively rare condition of intense stock market fear, combined with a generally calm bond market, has proved to be a powerful combination for ensuing stock market returns,” Paulsen wrote in a note Tuesday.
When the VIX is above the 80th percentile and MOVE is below the 50th percentile, the average annualized S&P 500 price performance has been “remarkable -- at nearly +21% compared to only a little more than +7% the rest of the time,” he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/bond-stock-volatility-gap-is-bullish-equity-signal-for-leuthold
In checking the stock futures, about an hour before the markets open, this morning, it looks like the market is set to build on Monday's gains.
The futures ... https://finviz.com/futures.ashx
Old_Skeet has been a buyer of equites during this downdraft believing that program trading had the markets oversold. It is now nice to see the stock market rebounding since ... as the saying goes ... I caught some falling knives. I'm thinking ... as the 500 Index begins to approach the 2700 to 2800 range things will slow and we will trade off of TTM earnings projected by S&P to be in the $130's. This could take us sideways and in a trading range through summer. Hopefully, though, when fall comes forward earnings will start looking better (possible in the 150's to 160's) and this will set stocks up for a nice fall stock market rally.
Anyway ... this is how I see it.
Take care ... be safe ... and, I wish all "Good Investing."
I am, Old_Skeet
@mcmarasco ... Matt you asked for a signal. Jim Paulsen is one I have followed for years. I have found that his thinking has been pretty much on spot. Hope this helps you sort things out. Anyway, his comments confirmed my thinking. By the way ... my fixed income sleeve took a beating much more than I thought it would. With bond valuations being down I have now begun to buy in the fixed income area of my portfolio.

Going the other way - if the OP were to open a new account, would he need to wait 5 years before making any “qualified” distributions?

I think you got the mandate wrong there. D&C is not required to beat the S&P 500. They are acting to select value stocks which they deem safer and worthy of their clients money. It's obvious to me that many investors do, judging by the AUM. For many of them it's not just all about who has the biggest pile of money at the end of the day. Not everyone can make trades after the fact.

See 15 years of risk/reward(link).
As of 3/31/2020
15 years aver annual performance...VFIAX=7.39...DODGX 5.45%
15 years SD=volatility......................VFIAX=14.3...DODGX 17.1
The SP500 made close to 2% more performance annually. If you invested $100K in each(VFIAX vs DODGX) 15 years ago, you would have now $293.2K in VFIAX but only $223K in DODGX
But DODGX had almost 20% more SD=volatility.
This means the SP500 was a better risk/reward fund than DODGX. Unless you disregard the numbers above, how can you explain "safer"?
BTW, for 10 years (link), the numbers for DODGX get even worse. VFIAX had 2.33%(11.04 vs 8.7%) better annual performance (instead of close to 2% for 15 years) + SD is still worse(higher) for DODGX by over 20%
To the question of size? "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." The SP500 + US Tot Index (VTI) are so much bigger than DODGX but wait, most of the saved money is thru 401K, employers now must in most cases use indexes, especially for US LC and/or very cheap funds such as Target funds (mainly based on indexes) because it is very difficult to defend fiduciary duty.
and we already discussed that VFIAX expense ratio is so much cheaper too at 0.04% but VOO=0.03% while DODFX = 0.52%
Finally, nobody can stop you investing in DODGX, after all, it's your money but the above was a pretty clear case, at least for me :-)

Nothing new here but it may be worth repeating...

Legendary investor Mark Mobius.....was asked Monday if the recent 20% rally off the bottom of the quickest bear market in history signaled an all-clear for investors...Mobius cautioned investors....“I think it's a little early to predict that because given the lockdown that we have seen globally in so many countries around the world, the impact of this lockdown on businesses, it's not going to be seen immediately..... I believe that once the numbers start coming in, people will be somewhat disappointed.”
...historical bear markets on a global scale have averaged a larger 30% to 50% drawdown spread out over the span of roughly two years. “The most expensive words in the world are ‘This time is different.’ I don't think this time it's different,” he said. “I think we’re probably maybe going to do a double bottom, jumping down again and pushing up again.”
“The recovery may take longer than people expect,” he predicted, barring any absence of a New Deal-like work program. “It's going to be a real challenge to get these people back to work.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/investor-who-predicted-the-start-of-the-2009-bull-market-were-not-in-the-clear-yet-104234346.html