Howdy folks,
Love reading your thoughts.
I'm staying in a rope-a-dope with my heavy parking place at Price RPSIX. Still riding my momentum play in the junior silver miners, but standing pat as things resolve themselves. I still really like stocks that pay me a dividend particularly if I'm customer of theirs [read: T, CMS, VZ] and can never, ever, ever stay away from NCV with a yield of 11%.
Couple of thought from above. Being older absolutely changes your approach to risk as you don't have the time to 'revert to the mean'. This is compounded if this is an account from which you're taking distributions. The 2000 dot.com meltdown impacted my wifes 401(k) distributing acct from Vanguard it ran out in about 12 years. And it was invested very conservatively.
Inflation. The tricks they play with the numbers are obscene. Hedonic adjustments (i.e. if it's new and improved they can charge more without it counting. Can you still get the old unimproved model?) Is hamburger a substitute for stead? Which housing metric dampens the number? feh. http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
Whether you care for shadow stats or not, it is one measure of inflation that seems to better reflect what I experience every day.
Lastly, this too shall pass and I too have my shopping list.
However, I must admit that I am ashamed to be an American and I spent 20 months in 'nam.
and so it goes,
peace,
rono

The closest Vanguard match to TAIFX would be VTMFX. Unlike Wellesley it uses muni bonds for its fixed income sleeve. Also, while TAIFX and VTMFX have roughly 50/50 asset allocations, Wellesley's is closer to 40/60 (bond heavy).
VTMFX manages its equity holdings directly, so it can control cap gains a bit better than TAIFX which holds equity funds that are not tax-sensitive. This is reflected in a somewhat better tax cost ratio over the past 1 and 3 years as calculated by M*.
TAIFX tax cost ratios: http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=TAIFX
VTMFX tax cost ratios: http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/tax-analysis.action?t=VTMFX

Einstein called quantum theory “spooky science.” He never fully accepted it, even when some of his own calculations seemed to support it. Among other things, quantum physics suggests ...
- The same object can exist in two different places at the same time.
- By affecting one nearby object, you can simultaneously have the same effect / impact on another object hundreds of miles (or millions of light years) away.
- Quantum takes encryption to a new level. Theoretically, it would be impossible to intercept, interfere with or break the codes of quantum communications..
Biggest fear is that China is believed to be far ahead in military / space applications - rumored to have run tests communicating with satellites using quantum.
@gmarceau is correct. Ted’s ever-ready to pour kerosene on a thread he didn’t initiate. :(

Well, this article knowledge is way past my knowledge base; but tech./science remains a valid investment area, in spite of irregular profit patterns over the years.
Yuh think those NFL replays are pulled up fast now; the processing speed indicated in the link article will eliminate referees.
Personal note: Nature Magazine remains an excellent source for scientific/technology studies. Published articles have passed through a peer review process.
Wish the same peer review could apply to published articles regarding investments; in particular those market crash stories that remain in circulation !!!
Okay, 'outta here. Enjoy.
Catch
From Nature Magazine:
--- Verifying the solution was a further challenge. To do that, the team compared the results with those from simulations of smaller and simpler versions of the circuits, which were done by classical computers — including the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Extrapolating from these examples, the Google team estimates that simulating the full circuit would take 10,000 years even on a computer with one million processing units (equivalent to around 100,000 desktop computers). Sycamore took just 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Dunno if it was the first of the major outfits to offer no-charge stock and etf trading when one's aggregated dollars hit a certain not terribly high level (I think so, but am not positive); but years ago one could have some tens of thou at BoA / Merrill, and the same amount at Fido, and trading at the former was free and trading at the latter was not.
But now that Fido is mostly the same, I may be abandoning Merrill and moving almost everything back to Fido, leaving enough not to incur BoA fees. Will report.

Absolutely not. I'm 100% all in stocks (via mutual funds). This bull has another 15 years to run fueled by demographics and technology. Of course, there will be corrections along the way, some of them steep, which the doomsters will proclaim (as always) as the end of civilization, but I'm having none of that nonsense.
I believe right now is a great time to be buying risk assets - perhaps more so than in 2009. Stocks have essentially been building a mighty base over the last 18 months in preparation for an explosive move higher that will continue for years to come. As the stock market is the most efficient leading economic indicator, I simply cannot see a recession next year or for many years to come. A cursory glance at a basic S&P500, Dow, or Nasdaq chart supports this point of view. Are they collapsing or on a terminal downward spiral? No.
Note: I speak as a 53 year old with at least 10 years to retirement. My circumstances and outlook may be different to yours and I encourage some degree of diversification no matter your age.

@Old_Skeet: Good afternoon. I took a peek at Yahoo & this showed up.
Morningstar Risk Rating★★★★
Number of Years Up26
Number of Years Down4
Best 1 Yr Total Return (Feb 3, 2019)25.29%
Worst 1 Yr Total Return (Feb 3, 2019)-13.85%
How does best & worst return happen in same year ?
Think I will check else ware .
Derf

https://marketrealist.com/2019/10/will-the-dow-jones-crash-by-the-end-of-2019/
Will the Dow Jones Crash by the end of 2019?
The Dow Jones Industrial Index (or DJIA) is trading just 2.2% below its all-time high. But is the Dow Jones ETF (DIA) trading at a premium despite several macro-economic concerns? The Dow Jones Index is up 14.8% year-to-date and has gained over 50% in the last five years.

FYI —-“Many people turn to books for help, so we decided to go back and review three of the most popular finance books of the last 15 years: Suze Orman’s “The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom” (Currency, $16.99); Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover” (Nelson Books, $26.99); and Robert T. Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” (Plata Publishing, $8.99).”
https://www.consumer-action.org/press/articles/reconsidering-advice-in-3-popular-personal-finance-books
NYT article - I wasn’t willing to click on a NYT article and use one of my 5 or 10 for the month.

FYI: Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote. To which his contemporary, Ernest Hemingway, would retort years later, “Yes, they have more money.”
This difference these days is referred to as inequality, which of course figures prominently in today’s politics. This week’s Democratic debate displayed that in spades, with potential presidential candidates proffering measures to narrow the difference between Fitzgerald’s very rich and presumably just about everybody else who watched the proceedings.
Prominent among these suggestions was a wealth tax, proposed by the two leading lights of the left, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, would levy a 2% tax on a household’s wealth that exceeds $50 million, and 3% on the amount above $1 billion. The Vermont independent’s plan would start at 1% on a household’s wealth over $32 million and increase to 8% on assets above $10 billion.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-real-problem-with-wealth-taxes-51571413910?mod=hp_LEAD_3

Re: “ Stocks Waver On China Data”
Does somebody get paid to cook up these silly headlines every day? Yesterday it was BREXIT. The day before that it might have been the lunar cycle. I don’t know. Of course, only a third grader would believe that a single factor “moves” the markets each day, or for that matter, that there’s been any significant movement at all for a long time.
Truth is the markets have been incredibly stable for a long time now - save perhaps for some nations like China that are hurting from the tariffs. So pretty much nothing happened of consequence in the financial markets today ... or yesterday ... or the day before that. Trying to pretend something important happened borders on insanity.
My headline: “Markets have gone nowhere for most of the year.”
- U.S. stock indexes are near where they sat more than a year ago, mid-way thru 2018. For the most part, they’ve retrenched / recovered from the nasty selloff of late 2018.
- Gold was hot for the first 5-6 months of the year, tacking on $100-$200 and getting up above $1500. But it has in recent weeks slumped back below the $1500 level.
- Oil has stagnated (fitting I guess for a product derived from dead dinosaurs). Brent and NYMEX have been hugging the line just below $60 for several months now - far below their all time highs of several years earlier.
- Interest rates fell sharply for a month or so to absurdly low levels. They’ve retrenched those sharp declines in recent weeks but remain abnormally low.
- Jerome Powell is breathing easier nowadays as the scapegoating of him seems to have abated. DT’s attention and wrath have been diverted away from Chairman Powell’s backside to some - uhmm - other pressing issues.

@gmarceau: You are right to miss the Obama years. They were eight years of a scandal-free presidency. Obama's people got thoroughly vetted and didn't end up having to resign or be fired for conflicts of interest, fraud, and incompetence. You may be right about the media having low ratings at that time; personally, I'd take boring and predictable over what we've got now.

I think that "off color" is an very inaccurate description of what he said, especially the references to slavery and girl's pants. I never knew that he had significant institutional money ( I guess I never thought much about it but $100 billion is hard to find from individuals). I was never impressed with his pitch despite dozens of mailings over the years
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. The lesson for us mere mortals is don't put all you investment eggs in a one man show basket. How many other mutual funds and investment firms has this happened to!

Calls out people ignoring Fisher shenanigans for 20 years, gets the sjw full on assault from a journalist

Bunch of virtue signaling wimps...question: if he’s been saying this kind of bs for years, why does this type of reaction only happen now?
It’s everyone trying to show how much they care, the kind of crap that could only happen during a Trump presidency...I almost miss the Obama years when the mainstream media establishment was having it’s worst ratings.
Do I think Fisher should speak that way in public- meh, I wouldn’t, but this current climate of trying to put a face to all this outrage is designed to instill fear. I’m not talking about the woes of a billionaire here, if this is the future then this can happen to anyone.

Geez @Ted. While perhaps not the most enlightening post of all time, I’d much prefer hearing about the real-life issues others who own mutual funds deal with than to stare bleary-eyed at an endless sea of links. Hell, any kid over 12 could pull all that **** up on the internet in an hour’s time - maybe faster (if a really smart kid).
BTW - You could really improve those posts if you’d write an intelligent sentence along with each one telling your vast audience why “the linkster” selected this or that particular story to share and how investors may benefit. That, IMHO, would lead to wider appreciation of your work and would show a real commitment on your part to helping less experienced investors - which I don’t currently detect. Copy & paste just doesn’t achieve the same end. Again, kids know how to do that.
Ted, I know you will fault me for being overly-wordy, but please understand: (1) I’m trying to be as “diplomatic” here as possible so as not to ruffle your fragile feathers and (2) I want the advice I am rendering to be crystal clear to you.
-
@ Old_Joe, Thanks for sharing. I’m glad at least the folks at AC you’ve talked to seemed to really care about the issues. Knowing about your steps already taken or under consideration is no doubt useful to younger investors. I left AC angry about 15 or so years ago when they began imposing loads on some of their funds. That effectively locked me out of some pretty good newer offerings at AC, even though I’d invested with them for a decade or more. In hindsight, I might have pursued the issue more patiently and completely and resolved it with their people. But, afraid I have a pretty short fuse. :)

On Tuesday, 10/15, I (and presumably all other AC account holders) received the following email:

Let’s Work Together to Protect Your Information
You want to feel confident that your information is being safeguarded. That’s why we’ve expanded our account security measures—and we need your help.
It’s simple: Just log in by December 31 to activate the additional measures. You’ll need to update your password and enroll in additional security options.

OK, so I went to the AC web page, and updated my password. No big deal. Then AC presented me with three security options, none of which, for various reasons, were workable for me.
That's it folks: we were now locked out of our account. No warning, no options, no way to even communicate with AC, other than by phone, which is not possible for me due to severe hearing issues.
My wife telephoned AC, informed them of the situation, and requested that they close the account immediately and transfer the entire balance electronically to a local account at JP Morgan Chase. We have had that AC account for over forty years, and it has consistently held between 400/500k. Fortunately there are no tax-sheltered IRA issues involved.
The AC service reps were very understanding, and tried their best to be helpful, but were not able to come up with an alternative. They agreed to close the account, advising that the electronic transfer to Chase would be made, and the transferred amount should be available at Chase by Friday.
Wednesday, 10/16: We received a phone call from AC, advising that they were working on some sort of fix which "should be available withing two or three weeks", and asked if we would cancel the account closure until then. We agreed.
Thursday, 10/17, 9:15AM: We received a phone call from AC, advising that they had modified the account sign-in procedure to include an old-fashioned "answer this secret question" safeguard.
I set that up a few minutes ago, and all seems well , at least for the time being.
We have to wonder how many other account AC holders threatened to leave American Century over this. Certainly must have been a substantial number, based on the speed of their response. It would be really interesting to know how much AUM money was at stake for AC. In any case, it certainly seems to have exceeded their "we don't really care" threshold.

My usual comment.
For most investors, buy and hold a simple target fund is one of the best. I believe you can do worse.
For above-average knowledge investors, there are several other good options.
I see stocks as a simpler portion of one's portfolio. The US LC is the dominated category and SPY/VTI is a pretty good risk-adjusted index. The biggest difference is the bond portion and the older you get the more you should pay attention. For most, it's several years prior to retirement and thru retirement.
Bond land has opportunities such as Multi sector and Non trad bond OEFs and all the way to leverage FI CEF. These funds have much higher dist and in most cases reasonable risk attributes (SD, Max draw, Sharpe, Sortino). Examples: PIMIX,SEMMX,IOFIX,JMSIX...PDI,PCI.
For about 20 years I have used best risk/reward funds.
I can name several for stocks/allocation...PRWCX,USMV,SPLV and maybe DSEEX, AUEIX...recently I looked at international stocks and came up with MFAIX/MFAPX.
Most/all of these articles, opinions and research papers are discussing simple bond funds which are planes without a pilot.

Ignore the swings if you're a longterm investor. Volatility is a natural part of the markets and is not necessarily something to be feared. Going nuts at every wiggle, even a short-term violent one, is a recipe for disaster. If anything, embrace the volatility to accumulate shares that go 'on sale' or get so overpriced you can lock in more profits and reposition things if you like.
Folks freaking out about every market spike/drop are probably the same folks who expect to get a participation ribbon just for being in the market and expect the very fact of that participation to result in immediate gains. IMO the past 12 years artificially-induced and sustained 'bull' market conditioned folks that there is only one direction that markets can ever go, which is disturbing.
Speaking of Seykota, don't forget his 'Whipsaw Song' -- which I still play now and then. :)

Hi @Simon, @johnN and others:
How to Deal With Head-Spinning Market Swings ... In short words ... Play the Swing
Big money has the ability to create volatility in the markets though their program trading systems. With this, the markets get pushed around more than they perhaps use to. And, this leaves the little investor wondering, at times, how to govern. Generally, when in doubt, they sell. For every sell that takes place there has to be a buy. And, again generally, this is big money that is doing the buying when the little guy is selling. When the big investor is selling generally the little investor is buying towards the top. Through the years I've seen this process repeat itself many times.
For me, a small retail investor, I now generally do some buying during the dips and sell the rips. Some call this playing the swing. I call this activity a special investment position or a spiff. I've been doing spiff activity for the past twenty years, or so, with good success. Please note that my spiff positions are a part of my overall investment plan and are not designed to be my complete investment plan.
Old_Skeet's market barometer helps me govern my spiff activity which I have been posting on the MFO board for the past couple of years, or so. Here is a link to my most recent post.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/52513/old-skeet-s-market-barometer-report-august-september-october-update
For those that would like to get on board with some proven trading strategies (The Essentials) the link below might just be of good interest.
http://www.seykota.com/tt/
You might also enjoy listening to the Tribe's theme song. Just click on the link below.
http://www.seykota.com/tribe/essentials/index.htm
I'm a card carrying member.
And, so it goes.
Old_Skeet
Trailing comment: The graph in the link below reflects the S&P 500 Index's range of movement over the past rolling year. Notice, the trend for the most part has been down to flat with a recent gain resulting of about a 3% to 4% overall return for the time period. By playing the swing, at times, I was able to increase my returns over just being invested in a long only strategy.
https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?p=d1&t=ES
If you would like to view the volatility spikes the below link graphs the VIX for the past rolling year.
https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=VX&p=d1