This is not unusual for small company plans. Small companies tend to shift the cost of running the plan onto the participants in the form of higher expense ratios (level loads).
Companies are going to spend a certain amount of money on each employee. That includes overhead (desk space, etc.), salary, and benefits. They can choose to pay higher salaries and have you pay more for your benefits (i.e. your 401(k) plan administration). Or they can choose to pay lower salaries and then they cover the cost of your plan. Similarly, they can provide matching contributions or pay more in salary. And so on.
I'm a bit surprised to see a company simultaneously push the cost of administering the plan onto employees and offer matching contributions. If they have money (budget) for matching, companies usually cover the cost of the plans themselves.
What the company is doing is not all bad. By having the participants pay for the cost of the plan, the company is placing the burden exclusively on those employee who are benefiting from the plan.
The bigger issue is why in 2019 any plan, even one for a small company, costs so much that the employer isn't willing or able to spring for the costs. Raymond James as intermediary might have something to do with it. Hard to tell with so little info.
Here's what American Funds says about its R share classes.
https://www.capitalgroup.com/us/investments/share-class-information/share-class-pricing.html#classr
R-2 shares are designed and priced for when "Plan sponsor [employer] wants all or part of recordkeeping costs [i.e. fee paid to CUNA Mutual] to be covered by plan assets [i.e. ERs of funds as opposed to employer paying]". Until you get to R-4 shares, the participants are paying a load (a 12b-1 fee in excess of 0.25%) to cover some of the plan costs.
P.S. The MMF yielded exactly 0.00% in FY 2015, 2016, and 2017. It achieved that non-negative performance only because it waived some fees for those years. With rates on the way back down, don't expect much better going forward.
MMF Prospectus.

@bee, you mention that the new portfolio 'max recovery time' was about 3 years. Was that the great recession period? I'm wondering because the REIT you are putting in your "income" bucket, which I believe you would be withdrawing from while the market recovered, also went down in the -40% range during that time and also took 3 years to recover. I guess I'm just surprised a REIT, which can be just as volatile as equities, would be in the bucket you use to wait out those 3 years. And why wouldn't some percentage of that bucket be cash (MM, CD)?
I'm setting up similar to what you are doing, a 3 1/2 year withdrawal bucket, so I like hearing your ideas.

I am over 50 - Motley Fool said I could contribute $ 6000 plus $ 1000 for a total of $ 7000. because I am over 50 years old.
Fido said NO. Anybody else have any comments or knowledge of the subject.
Thank You

“ I am presently at 5 institutions which I will reduce to 4 by Spring 2020 and 3 by summer 2020 “
Great stuff @bee. I’m a dozen years beyond you in age and facing the same challenges. I went from 5 institutions to 4 a year ago - vacating Oakmark. Tough getting it down further anytime soon. I view both Permanent Portfolio Funds and Invesco as “one-trick ponies” at this point. The first for PRPFX and the second for its gold fund. The bulk, however, is at D&C and TRP - both of which I regard highly.
bee - You incentivized me to count mine: I have 14 funds (which includes 2 ultra-shorts). I find that number quite manageable. (If I counted correctly, you listed 16, including VHT.)
My allocation :
Balanced: 25% (3 funds)
Alternative: 25% (3 funds)
Diversified Income: 25% (2 funds)
Cash (Ultra-short / Short-term): 15% (3 funds)
Real Assets: 10% (3 funds)
PS - As noted recently, thinking about this allocation is a good way to fall asleep. :)

As part of my end of the year portfolio review I try to simplify my holdings without compromising performance. I am 60 years old and have a pension, but no Social Security (SS's WEP provision eliminated SS for me). I see the next 20 years as a time to spend a little bit of what I have saved knowing full well that, if I am lucky enough to live into my eighties, spending priorities will begin to shift away from "foot loose and fancy free" to "foot wear that's loose and free".
Simplification comes in two forms. One, I am attempting to simplify what I hold (the number of funds) and two, where I hold these funds (the number of institutions where I hold the funds). I manage all of my investments independent of advisors. I do attempt to seek out mutual funds that are managed. So, in a sense, I do pay for investment management advice as a function of the Expense Ratio (ER) of the funds i own that have fund managers or management teams.
Over the next 20 years my withdrawal from these investments need to fund:
- Yearly Income gaps - the yearly shortfall when I subtract my projected yearly expenses from my retirement income.
- One time Expenses - For gift costs (weddings, tuition, holidays), travel costs, medical procedures costs (not covered by insurances), large one time item costs (a car, boat, real estate)
- Roth Conversions up to the 12% tax bracket limit (25% of my retirement accounts are in deferred taxable IRA, 75% in Roth/HSA).
- Help fund retirement needs beyond 80 such as income gaps as a result of inflation, out of pocket health care costs, funeral expenses, providing for surviving spouse, and gifting to beneficiaries (Spouse, Kids, Charities)...oh yeah, and loose fitting shoes.
Here are my present holding by percentages of total:
71% Moderate to Aggressive positions (for long term growth and periodic withdrawals)
PRWCX - 22% (half Roth, half SD IRA)
PRGSX - 10.5% (Roth)
PRMTX - 7.5% (Roth)
PRHSX - 4% (SD IRA)
VMVFX - 6% (Roth)
VHCOX / POAGX-11% (Roth)
VHT - 2% (Roth)
FSMEX - 4% (Roth)
FSRPX - 4% (Roth)
6% Balance position (to cover Long term HC costs)
BRUFX - (HSA)
23% Conservative positions (to cover sequence of return withdrawals, to provide cash for buying opportunities, lower portfolio volatility)
FRIFX, VWINX, PTIAX, VFISX, PRWBX, SPRXX - (mostly Roth)
I am presently at 5 institutions which I will reduce to 4 by Spring 2020 and 3 by summer 2020
Recently, I back tested a portfolio consisting of PRWCX (34%), PRMTX (33%) and PRHSX (33%) which I consider moderately aggressive.
Its past 20 year performance had a MAXXDD recovery period of 3 years. I consider this a reasonable time frame to cover a sequence of return risk withdrawal.
Having at least 3 years of retirement income money earmarked for these future time frames (market pull backs and recoveries) seems reasonable to me. A combination of FRIFX / VWINX / PTIAX / ST Bonds are my choices for this part of my portfolio.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Recently accepted a job with a new employer who offers a matching 401k plan. Employer has around 15 to 20 eligible employees. It's been 22 years since I've had access to a 401k plan. Below are the offerings. I've included the corresponding class A shares for each fund which are not available to plan participants. The disparity in expense ratios is staggering in most cases. I'm not going to turn down free money, but I'll only contribute enough to maximize the company match. The plan's adviser from Raymond James stated that changes are being discussed. Sounds like Target Date Funds are among the discussion and hopefully some Index funds, but I fear what the ER for those funds would end up looking like given this lineup. The plan is through Cuna Mutual, whoever they are. I gathered the ER from M*.
Bonds
AMF High-Inc R2 RITBX 1.45 AHITX .73
AMF Bond Fund of Amer R2 RBFBX 1.36 ABNDX .60
AMF Interm Bd Fd of Amer R2 RBOBX 1.35 AIBAX .64
Large Cap Stocks
AMF Washington Mutual R2 RWMBX 1.37 AWSHX .59
Calamos Growth C CVGCX 2.04 CVGRX 1.29
Victory Diversified Stock R GRINX 1.34 SRVEX 1.05
International Stocks
AMF Capital World Gr & Inc R2 RWIBX 1.55 CWGIX .76
AMF Europacific Growth R2 RERBX 1.59 AEPGX .83
AMF Smallcap World R2 RSLBX 1.78 SMCWX 1.08
Asset Allocation
AMF Balanced R2 RBABX 1.48 ABALX .57
AMF Capital Income Bldr R2 RIRBX 1.39 CAIBX .58
Calamos Growth & Income C CVTCX 1.85 CVTRX 1.10
Money Market
AMF US Government MMkt R2 RABXX 1.41 AFAXX .38

From the linked web site:
"MoneyCheck is a fast-growing online publication launched in 2018 with the aim of covering personal finance and investment news.

Our goal is to simplify and explain in clear language, what can be a confusing jumble of terms and concepts. We hope to provide clear, unbiased facts so people can make up their own mind about important financial decisions."
Being curious and using same to gather knowledge about investments; I'll periodically "bite" at a title that pronounces "Complete Guide". One never knows about a new and undiscovered individual who may actually be qualified in a subject area; and with the rare gift of presenting subject information in a clear and defined manner. When such articles are discovered here and elsewhere, at a minimum, I pass these along to friends and family to help provide for continuing financial educational purposes.
BUT, I'm not quite sure what is going on with this "financial" write. Complete isn't a qualifying word with this. Periodically, one discovers some common terms for a U.S. marketplace, such as; CD's, 401k/403b, etf tickers, etc. As Mr. Oliver is an online media company owner, it is not clear whether he or a contributor wrote this article; nor to what are his or others qualifications to discuss some of the information provided. Or whether any number of the publications are for the sake of only generating revenue from site hits and clicks to other pages. While there is some valid info in the article, I don't find "complete" and if there is a click link to another page; I won't be traveling there.
A few of the head scratchers for me, from the article:
--- You might already own a 401(k) or IRA through your employer. However, you’ll only gain access to this cash when you turn 59.5-years old. If you have to draw down on your account before this date, you’ll end up paying penalties and fees on any money you withdraw.
>>> Well, yes and no. Ready cash for immediate needs = yes; as loans may be available from a 401k.
--- Visit your bank and open a Certificate of Deposit (CD) instead. Banks are always looking for more capital. By taking a CD with a bank, you agree to pay them a fixed amount every month in return for interest on your money.
>>> I must be out of the loop of knowledge for CD's as I don't know what, "agree to pay them a fixed amount every month", means.
--- Bonds are another attractive savings vehicle for long-term growth. Bonds couple interest earnings to the Federal Funds Rate, and you earn coupon payments on your principal investment. However, while relationships are a stable and liquid investment, they don’t offer much in the way of returns. At the moment, you can expect a yield of 1.75%, and if interest rates drop, then your profits do as well.
>>> Huh ???....." and if interest rates drop, then your profits do as well." Well, I think I know what he is trying to portray; but this would confuse the hell for most folks as to the relationship between bond yield movements and pricing to cause a profit or not.
Apparently, the writer hasn't kept up with U.S. bond funds returns for 2019, YTD.
--- Oliver Dale is Editor-in-Chief of MoneyCheck and founder of Kooc Media Ltd, A UK-Based Online Publishing company. A Technology Entrepreneur with over 15 years of professional experience in Investing and UK Business.His writing has been quoted by Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Investopedia, The New Yorker, Forbes, Techcrunch & More.He built Money Check to bring the highest level of education about personal finance to the general public with clear and unbiased reporting.[email protected]

--- Oliver Dale is Editor-in-Chief of GardenBeast and founder of Kooc Media Ltd, A UK-Based Online Publishing company. He has had a love of gardening for many years now and spends the spring to autumn months working on his own garden where he carries out one large project each year ( this year was decking & patio area ).
Oliver oversees the day to day running of the website & publication of our articles.
IMHO, the article offers a few decent things to think about for some folks (considerations for owning a home), is very confusing in areas noted above and doesn't qualify as Investing 101, and COMPLETE is, well..............NOT even close, eh? Does Mr. Dale or others provide a peer review of the information before publishing?
Not an article I will pass forward to others; and I don't understand why this link/article found its way to this site.
Lastly, I don't plan to visit their GardenBeast site.
My 2 cents worth and Take care,
Catch

The legacy pages of M* still let you do that.
Here's the link for the performance page of VFIAX. In Enter Tickers box of the Compare section, you can enter the tickers of the funds or ETFs that you want to compare. While the graph only goes back ten years, the table of returns ("Trailing Total Returns") has exactly the columns you asked for: annualized returns over 1,3,5,10, and 15 years.
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/performance-return.action?t=VFIAX&region=usa&culture=en-US

Is there a site that you can compare 5 funds or etfs 1,3,5, 10, and going out to 15 years annualized returns?

By the way - what is a full market cycle?

Good question. I’ve seen different definitions and I don’t believe any of them. Hussman claims he understands and that he’s investing based on a full market cycle - and look what’s happened to him. I’d say it’s not something you can measure in years, but rather by major trends and turning points (whatever they are).
If you want to look at years however, take a look at this performance chart for DODBX. It doesn’t go all the way back to the fund’s birth sometime in the 1920s. But it does give performance for every year beginning in 1961 - which happens to be the year I entered high school. So - I’d assume there’s a complete market cycle in there somewhere.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/DODBX/performance?p=DODBX
Added: I looked at Investopedia expecting to find the simple (and inadequate) standard definition of a market cycle as: the period during which an equity market travels from “peak” to “trough” and back to a new “peak” again. To their credit, they indicate (as I suggested) that identifying a market cycle is far more complex and difficult. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market_cycles.asp
-

@hank- Sounds like a great project for you on a snowy day up in your cabin...:)

@Old_Joe - Thanks for the suggestion. I was already hard at work compiling all that stuff when BECKMANB posted his great response in the “Find a Good Site to Observe 2008 Fund Results” thread (above) tonight.
Kinda took the fun out of the evening. But I owe you one none the less. :)

Bring up finance.yahoo.com.
Type in the Ticker at top of the page.
Hit Performance.
Will list the Annual Total Returns (%) History for all the funds/ETFS years in operation.

Morningstar stopped reporting at 2009. Too bad! 2008 was the scary year. I lke to know what the fund or ETF did in 2008 and other down years.
Any ideas?
prinx

MikeM,
So, is China nothing....but just like 15 years ago? Would you say cars from 15 years ago are the same today? Move on, bro. You're behind. If it's not all that, then why is our government so worried?
God bless
the Pudd

...I am looking to Asia/China. It's where the future is...

Hmm, very reminiscent of what I heard 15+ years ago on this board. And my reply then, not in our life time.

My wife and I opened Roth IRAs at the end of 1998, at Fidelity. At that time. we only invested in mutual funds. We figured on a long time frame so I wasn't worried about volatility. I told her "here are the two best Fidelity funds -- Select Electronics and Select Home Finance. Which do you want."
She said "I want the very best one."
So we put her $2000 in FSELX. (2K was the max annual Roth IRA contribution back then.) Two years later we put another $4000 in FSELX.
Now it's worth $30,330. Fidelity calculates the total gain at 405%.
That's certainly been helped by 60% this year.
Meanwhile, I put my $2000 in Home Finance, which went in the tank in 2008.
So that's been dumped.
But I did buy a bunch of FSELX in my Fidelity 403b a few years ago (now my Rollover IRA).
It tilts our portfolio to "aggressive", for sure. We balance it with some dividend-paying stocks and S&P 500 funds and ETFs.
I feel more lucky than smart about it all.
David

A NY Times opinion piece by David Leonhardt
"Americans are dissatisfied, and have been for years, largely because the economy as most people experience it has not been booming. G.D.P. — or gross domestic product, the economy’s total output — keeps on rising, but it no longer tracks the well-being of most Americans. Instead, an outsize share of economic growth flows to the wealthy. And yet G.D.P. is treated as a totemic measure of the country’s prosperity."
"A team of Commerce Department economists has been working on a new version of G.D.P., one that will show how much of the economy’s bounty is flowing to different income groups. The headline number would still exist, but the new data, known as “distributional accounts,” would make clear who was and wasn’t benefiting. The department expects to publish a prototype statistic next year."
ARTICLE

Yeah - a confusing article. It says “Posted by SDD Contributor December 15, 2019” above the article. Than, within the article, it reverts to the original March (first publication) date. Stuff happens. I’d give John a pass on that one.
Well now ... Higher rates have been prophesied for at least 6 or 7 years now. I suspect the reasons it hasn’t happened are complicated and might even blow over into politics - Heaven forbid.
Rates fell (unexpectedly) for much of this year, but have reversed fairly sharply (upward) the past 6 weeks or so. The 10-year Treasury’s above 1.8%. Not sure what the 2-year’s at. But I’d guess money market funds will be soon creeping towards 2%.*
While rates have risen, there’s a lot of speculation the Dollar is going to weaken against other currencies. Trump has said recently he wants it to, and gold seems to be indicating that’s in the works as well. Central banks are loading up on gold. Rumors abound that the Fed is soon going to start purchasing longer dated bonds to try to hold rates down and spur growth (around year’s end.)
EM? In a wreaking dollar situation EM currencies would be attractive. If my time horizon was a bit longer I’d be holding some. As far as EM equities - that’s anybody’s guess. there’s a lot more parts in motion to consider.
* FYI - Here’s some current rates as posted on Bloomberg around noon 12/16:
2 YR Treasury. 1.64%
5 YR Treasury. 1.72%
10 YR - 1.89%
30 YR - 2.31
Vanguard’s Prime mm fund was yielding around 1.7% as of Friday.

Average 2018 and 2019 together and the growth is not so dramatic as I see it. All in all the longer the time period the better picture of performance. By the way - what is a full market cycle? How does it relate to both buggy whips and home computers? I have had some funds for over 40 years. Will the full market cycle end when I sell them? I think what you are calling a market cycle I am calling a time period.

Hi guys,
Did some buying this week: BTBFX, BTMFX, FNSTX, YAFFX, PGTAX and added a new position FEMKX......my thinking is we go higher.
God bless
the Pudd

Interesting Pudd. You've mentioned PGTAX before and I'm curious to know if you've ever looked at Janus Henderson Global Tech. I have JAGTX and will add to it this week after the distributions have been paid. PGTAX has a load and a higher ER than many tech funds and I was wondering why you prefer it. Several are closed to new retail, of course.
FWIW I also think the US market will go higher in the next 2-3 years and probably for the entire 2020s. Much, much higher. We will look back and be amazed.

@MikeM ...hi sir maybe in 9 months feds may raise rate again, dows may reach 29k
when we find out 4q 2018 was indeed a large correct ion/ small recession stock pulled back -15%
n focus - Economics
How Q4 ranks among the worst 20 quarters of the past half century
-gobal stocks have suffered their worst quarter since 2011. We look at how it compared with the 20 worst quarters over the last 48 years and the potential silver lining for investors today._
https://www.schroders.com/en/insights/economics/how-q4-ranks-among-the-worst-20-quarters-of-the-past-half-century/