Ignore gold shills.
Rebalancing is not too hard. Don't be afraid of capital gains taxes, they are at historic lows if you have little or no earned income.
I am wary of bond funds. As I shave off my stock index fund gains little by little, I've actually been buying individual bonds of 1 to 2 year duration until recently. The offerings really dried up in January, though, and even money markets are paying more than 1-2 year near-junk-grade stuff. Once rates hit zero (and I think they will) what will happen to valuations? I dunno.
My calculations say I can live for a few years off my for-now 3% bond ladder yield so I am buying my time. 15% cash as well, shooting for higher.
Don't forget that I-series savings bonds pay over 2% if you are willing to hold them a long time.

Look like a done deal. Got an email this morning:
"Legg Mason, the majority owner of Royce Investment Partners, to be acquired by Franklin Templeton
"Transaction Structured to Ensure Continued Autonomy of Royce Organization
New York, NY February 18, 2020 – Royce Investment Partners, a small-cap equity specialist for more than 45 years, announced that its parent company, Legg Mason, is being acquired by Franklin Templeton, a global investment management organization. Royce Investment Partners will continue to operate as an independent investment organization with its own brand to reinforce the distinctiveness of Royce’s investment culture and processes. There are no changes planned to the management of the organization or investment teams as a result of this transaction."
Well, I've had a good nearly-20-year run with RYPNX. It was a good performer if not particularly tax efficient, and their shareholder communications were always interesting.
I was a reluctant participant in an employer's overpriced underperforming Franklin 401k once and Franklin's on my list of hated fund companies. But I'm not tempted to bail out right away as long as their fees don't go any higher, and current management sticks around.

First nice thing I have seen on Vanguard Equity Income from M* in a long time. I hope it does take off. All those shares that have been compounding over the years I have owned it will look nice when it comes to distribution time.
And It's about time they stopped touting Vanguard Health. I sold it a while back, and split the proceeds (after taking a little profit for bonds) into Fidelity Bio and Fidelity Med Tech.

Hi, guys.
I'll have a few minutes to chat with Mr. Yacktman this Friday. Mr. Yacktman manages YCG Enhanced, a large cap growth fund with an options overlay and some bond exposure; those are the "enhanced" of the name. Five star, Silver, Great Owl, $400 million after seven years. As you might infer, this Mr. Yacktman is the son on Don Yacktman, long-time manager of Yacktman and Yacktman Focused, and brother of Stephen Yacktman, their current manager.
The two Yacktman funds have phenomenal long-term records. Interestingly, YCG's is better: substantial higher returns than YAFFX, slightly high volatility, substantially higher Sharpe, modestly lower expenses. The Yacktman family investment in the fund is phenomenal.
We've been working on a profile of the fund. Our normal procedure is to use statistical screens (and reader leads) to identify interesting possibilities, then we write a profile based on the public record and performance. We only turn to the management team near the end of the process, when we have specific questions to pursue and less potential for being swayed by their eloquence.
If you have been following the fund and have comments or questions that you'd like shared, please do let me know.
As ever,
David

My notes after reading The Investor’s Manifesto by William Bernstein.
Over periods of more than a year, stock and asset prices tend to mean revert. An asset class with an above-average past return will tend to deliver a below-average future return and vice versa. In tax-sheltered accounts, letting the losses and gains run for two to three years before rebalancing seems to be the optimal strategy.
Rebalance your portfolio approximately once every few years. In taxable portfolios, do so even less frequently. Rebalancing your portfolio more than once per year is probably too often.

I've always thought the PM/gold miner funds were a way to speculate, not to invest long term, but that bias is likely because I've been burned in the past. I've sworn off that group forever. I guess you could say the same for gold ETFs but they are a much tamer play, which is why I bought the ETF IAU back in Dec. '18 and have added as the trend-up persists.
For me gold has been a bet on economic and political uncertainty which I think will play out to even a greater extent for the next few years if not the next decade.

It was going bad for YEARS. I'm still not sure if they ever got all the data problems worked out .. but after a decade+ I quit a few years ago, and the forums there are a shadow of their former lively selves --- many of the regular posters there, including me, threw up our hands in disgust at their new horrid forum site.
If M*Premium was $50/yr I'd consider re-upping and paying for a few years at once. But IMO it is NOT worth the price they're charging for it, especially given many of the useful features/data they had have been removed and switched over to their professional platform instead.

A lot of peeps cancelled their premium membership after MS re-did the website and forum (making everything worse) last year.

https://www.livetradingnews.com/buying-gold-physical-vs-etfs-166650.html
Buying Gold: Physical Vs ETFs
$XAU $GLD
/Gold has been valued as a currency, commodity and investment for thousands of years, and is popular among today’s investors because it can be used as a hedge against currency devaluation, inflation, or deflation, and due to its ability to provide a “safe haven” during times of economic uncertainty./
https://online.kitco.com/gold?gclid=Cj0KCQiA7aPyBRChARIsAJfWCgIAJ71kPYDhuMpYaDN6Yk-clmZWEYxJG86zPFSdi7achTpU0kstTf0aAoyIEALw_wcB
Just go to the nearest gold billions and buy ur physical golds

MAINX I track this one, and babysit some money for friends. I put them into this one, since 2010. It's 4.98% of their stuff. For 2019, divs averaged out to 3.7 cents/month per share. I own other funds that are doing less well than that. Name changed, to "Matthews Total Return" bond fund. Current yield is 3.99, call it 4%. Up 13% in 2019. Up 1.62% YTD. The fund will turn 10 years old very soon. Teresa Kong still at the helm. With this selection, I don't have to say, on behalf of those friends: "I coulda been a contender!"

Vanguard #10 TRP #20 AKRE Primecap not ranked because
"To qualify for this ranking, firms must offer at least three active mutual funds or actively run exchange-traded funds in Lipper’s general U.S. stock category; one in world equity; and one mixed-asset—such as a balanced or allocation fund. They also need to offer at least two taxable bond funds and one national tax-exempt bond fund. All funds must have a track record of at least one year"
These rankings have made little sense for years. If you do not use a "Supermarket" and stay with one firm maybe if that firms lags for years you might switch.
I assume Barron's continues to do this to appeal to institutional investors and retirement plans who can point to the fund families they use relative ranking to their client
It is far more helpful to compare funds to each other is a single class, along with risk statistics and ratios etc, ie at MFO Premium

Damn near worthless - “The primary ranking focuses on one-year relative performance ...”
Even the Kiplingers article some time ago (which received considerable heat here) looked at funds all the way back to their inception date - far better than looking at 1 year.
Hey Barrons - How about taking into consideration :
- Years in business
- Long term performance
- Manager turnover
- Talent / average tenure
- Expenses
- Customer satisfaction ratings
- Down market performance / preservation of capital
- Governance scores
- Type and variety of offerings
- Account minimums

I like good news:

The good news is that, as we describe below in detail, we still see a lot of value in the “great unloved,” or the middle part of the market that actually looks attractively priced against today’s low interest rate backdrop, particularly if significant operational improvement can be implemented.

International Markets:

Non-U.S. markets are now cheap enough that, even with their flawed compositions (which is why we prefer Private Equity to Public Equity outside the U.S.; see below for details), they warrant investor attention for at least a cyclical “catch-up trade.” Also, central bank liquidity trends are now generally more in favor of international markets.

The Asian Millennial:

this year we want to allocate additional dollars to vehicles that are capturing the explosion in buying power that is being unleashed in Asia. By way of background, there are now a total of 826 million millennials in Asia, compared to 67 million in the United States. Because of this segment’s heft, total consumption in Asia actually passed that of Europe in 2011, and it is poised to exceed the U.S. by 2022. How should one invest behind this theme? See Section IV for more details, but personal financial services, healthcare services, wellness/beauty, healthier foods, and food safety should all be major long-term beneficiaries of the environment we are envisioning.

For your investing and reading pleasure:
https://kkr.com/global-perspectives/publications/play-your-game
Where will growth be over the next 5-10 years?
https://screencast.com/t/CKZuBjabnHWa

https://www.barrons.com/articles/top-fund-families-for-2020-barrons-annual-ranking-51581711228
Barron’s Top Fund Families of 2019
Good years are great. Investors have reveled in more than a decade’s worth of markets marching higher in lockstep. Last year, the S&P 500 index returned 31%, international markets climbed more than 20%, corporate bonds soared 14%, and even Treasuries gained nearly 8%. That was certainly good news for index investors, who went along for the ride. But it’s a high bar for active managers, most of whom still struggle to beat their benchmarks.

BEKA is trailing the SP500(VFIAX) for 1-3-5-10 years. See (chart)
SP500 has higher performance but also better SD, Sharpe and Sortino. See PortVis (link).

Hi @hank
You noted: "- I contended a while back (some other thread) that worker contributions tend to increase when markets are richly valued. Fidelity’s observations might support that."
Based upon my observations regarding 401k/403b plan participants over many years; the participants have a chosen amount of money placed each pay period into their plan, regardless of what the markets are doing.
One may suspect there is a very small percentage (less than 5%) of these participants who actually pay attention to the markets. Those who do pay attention may alter some of their allocations periodically; but not likely the contribution amount, unless there is a change in their overall financial circumstance.
My inflation adjusted 2 cents worth
Catch

I've had a gym membership for going on two years now and nothing has happened. Next week, I think I'll go there and see what's going on.

stillers: And I never understood your "All bonds all the time/bond OEF momentum" investment strategy when markets have gone up FOR 10 YEARS.
It should be noted that you posted on M* that you sold all of your stocks near/at EOY 2019, you have not reported any stock buys since then, staying 100% in bond OEFs. So despite you reporting that data, you have not participated in any of the 2020 YTD stock market gains.

The above was your usual inaccurate agenda. I owned stocks constantly several years in the last 10 years. In the last 2 years and especially since retirement, I'm invested mostly in bond OEFs and I trade stocks/ETF/CEF several times annually. That fits perfectly with my goals which I exceeded easily
I don't post most of my trades and holdings anymore.
In the past, you said several times that
1) I will never retire but I did
2) I will never have enough but I already have more than 30 times our annual expense without drawing social security.
and now you said, "So despite you reporting that data, you have not participated in any of the 2020 YTD stock market gains." I didn't claim that I used "sell trailing stop" it was just a generic post. There is no way for you to know if I owned stocks and how long.

I can't find where you posted your holdings, their % and trades in the last 1-2 years. Your quote said "markets have gone up FOR 10 YEARS" while you were holding a huge % in CD and bond OEFs for years

@Gary1952 Of course there is a correction coming......................someday. There always is.

No correction is needed unless you can find something wrong I said.
My comment about sell trailing stop was a generic one that I used to do years ago. I do trade riskier funds short-term, usually days to 2 weeks.
I suggest that you guys stay on topic and not rehash Morningstar posts, after all, this is MFO.

FD, please take a breath, relax and re-read my post. I did not comment on your investing. The correction I posted about was a MARKET correction, about the OP. I had the misfortune to post after a derogative post. My post had no quote attached. No apology needed.

@davidrmoran
Yes, I have had access to an advisor for many years with a grandfathered account where I received a good number of A share funds from my late parents. It is in this account that I can, at times, purchase some A share funds at nav or reduced commissions depending on the fund company. Also, I can hold C shares if desired; but, thus far have elected to hold only A share funds. Perhaps, you have failed to remember that I became an investor at the age of 12 in, or about, 1960.
In addition, there are no fees charged to me for this mutual fund holding account other than what the fund companies pay the broker. This also applies to my self directed IRA account for both me and my wife but not to my health savings account which does have a fee associated with it.
From my perspective I've got a good deal that probably could not be had today without some sort of direct or wrap fee arrangement associated with it.
According to Morningstar Instant X-ray my mutual expense computes to 0.78 percent.

stillers: And I never understood your "All bonds all the time/bond OEF momentum" investment strategy when markets have gone up FOR 10 YEARS.
It should be noted that you posted on M* that you sold all of your stocks near/at EOY 2019, you have not reported any stock buys since then, staying 100% in bond OEFs. So despite you reporting that data, you have not participated in any of the 2020 YTD stock market gains.

The above was your usual inaccurate agenda. I owned stocks constantly several years in the last 10 years. In the last 2 years and especially since retirement, I'm invested mostly in bond OEFs and I trade stocks/ETF/CEF several times annually. That fits perfectly with my goals which I exceeded easily
I don't post most of my trades and holdings anymore.
In the past, you said several times that
1) I will never retire but I did
2) I will never have enough but I already have more than 30 times our annual expense without drawing social security.
and now you said, "So despite you reporting that data, you have not participated in any of the 2020 YTD stock market gains." I didn't claim that I used "sell trailing stop" it was just a generic post. There is no way for you to know if I owned stocks and how long.
I can't find where you posted your holdings, their % and trades in the last 1-2 years. Your quote said "markets have gone up FOR 10 YEARS" while you were holding a huge % in CD and bond OEFs for years

@Gary1952 Of course there is a correction coming......................someday. There always is.

No correction is needed unless you can find something wrong I said.
My comment about sell trailing stop was a generic one that I used to do years ago. I do trade riskier funds short-term, usually days to 2 weeks.
I suggest that you guys stay on topic and not rehash Morningstar posts, after all, this is MFO.

@davfor, one of the reasons that I am 40 percent equity is that my advisor recommends only a 10 percent weighting to high yield and aggressive income ... .

Sorry for ignorant question, but you who for years have listed vast and detailed holdings using many fund selections within a dozen 'sleeves', use an adviser??
I missed that.