It's really hard to believe that after all these years we're still exchanging insults over Monte Carlo (or, evidently, "alleged" Monte Carlo) simulations. This poor horse has been dead for a long time now. How about a decent burial?

Certainly this is beyond a robo type service.

Charles Schwab's announcement Thursday that it was moving from an assets-under-management fee to a flat monthly charge for its robo adviser sent shock waves throughout the industry.

I think it is tied to the robo service @Sven. It's been available for a couple years now, just a different fee structure. You have to be in Intelligent Portfolio (robo) to use this service is the way I read this.

I applaud his approach (and the debt-free thing) but can't help noting he was doing bonds during a MAJOR bond bull market. Heck if I could get 10, 15, or 20% in quality gov bonds now like they were back in the 70s and 80s I'd sell everything and move into them, too.
It's like this past 10 years ... lots of folks probably think they're awesome stock pickers and/or savvy investors when the "rising tide" pretty much lifted all equity boats post-GFC.

Thanks @msf for the excellent response to @Ted’s questionable use of MFO board space. :) It’s always a good idea to read some top flight reviews, like you’ve linked, before shucking out money. The NYT is hard to top in that category.
In simpler terms, there are many reasons for attending a play other than to learn about finance or financial history. When one considers the cost of transport to NYC, the outrageous hotel rates, the dilapatated subways, a third world airport (LGA) - and play tickets reaching into the hundreds of dollars (even for a cramped seat), from a purely financial standpoint, attending a play in NYC is a non-starter. Better to stay home and count your dollars.
Largely, @Ted’s linked Bloomberg review sheds little light on investing and misses the mark as a literary critique. I suppose as a look at the profit margins involved in producing a play or a comment on how the consumer chooses to spend his discretionary income there may be some use. Those do bear on investing. But, as presented, the article barely touches upon those areas. I’ll say that the fact that the producer of this play also produced the Broadway revival of Cabaret a few years ago, I’d at least consider attending this one. That is one of the most profoundly meaningful and moving semi-historical dramas I’ve witnessed. Saw it three times in NYC - and regretted its closing.
Critical Reviews of dramatic art, which you mention, rarely concern themselves with historical (or financial) accuracy - though it’s appropriate to note where substantial artistic license has been taken by the writer / producer. As I said earlier, receiving a factual lesson in finance or history would rank low on the list of reasons why one might attend a play.
It should be noted the play isn’t appearing on Broadway (at least yet). It’s location, The Park Avenue Armory, is in the 59th Avenue area of NYC - a dozen or or more blocks away from the Broadway section where most top-flight plays are performed. As the Park Avenue institution appears to have a relationship with the highly respected Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. I’d expect the play to be top quality.
-
From Wikepedia: “Artistic license”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_license
[excerpt] “Artistic license often provokes controversy by offending those who resent the reinterpretation of cherished beliefs ... William Shakespeare's historical plays, for example, are gross distortions of historical fact but are nevertheless lauded as outstanding literary works.”
From Wikepedia: Park Avenue Armory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Avenue_Armory
From Marketwatch: For those (like Ted) whose primary concern seems to be finance / financial accuracy (not artistic merit) here’s a quick read - How To Make Money On Broadway.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-make-money-producing-on-broadway-2018-07-16

@MJG, you really present as a windy dimwit sometimes. You posted an article with the hed the 3 Best Free Retirement Calculators and subheds Final Three and Conclusion. It is six years old and out of date and likely superseded and updated and the methods and sophistication of the data usage. One specific criticism charged within it is probably fixed. Who knows? You did not dive into each program and check for the latest state of play. You did not survey the field to see what is new. And now you just go off about asking me whether I think the rules still apply. Wrong question! What is wrong with you that you would miss the obvious and simple point and then still argue about it?? It is the programs we are talking about and historical databases. The car analogy was hasty but is fully apt. Would you accept from anyone an article that says these are the best cars today and stopped at 2011 models?
Please just sometimes think before posting one of your automatic windy responses. Who said anything about taking exception to the advice? Find a latest-state-of-play article to post instead.
When someone points out foolishness on your part, you come back with wait, wait, what about the content? I mean, the old cars still roll and work and have wheels and follow the laws of gravity. Jeez, man.

I get my convertible security exposure through FISCX which is held in my hybrid income sleeve of my portfolio. Some other members on the board also own this fund. Through the years it has done me well as its 10Yr total return has averaged better than 13% per year.

@DavidV: Thank you for your question about my all weather asset allocation.
My all weather asset allocation of 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity affords me everything necessary to meet my needs now being in the distribution phase of investing. The benefit of this asset allocaton is that it provides sufficent income, maximizes diversification, minimizes volatility, and provides long-term returns.
The 20% held in cash area provides me ample cash should I need a cash draw over and above what my portfolio generates plus it can provide the capital necessary to fund a special investment position (spiff) should I choose to open one during a stock market pullback. In addition, cash helps stablizes a portfolio during stock market volitility.
The 40% held in the income area provides me ample income generation to meet my income needs in retirement. It is a well diverisfied area that incorporates a good number of diverisified income generating type funds including a commodity strategy fund that has a yield of about 11%.
The 40% held in the equity area provides me some dividend income along with some growth that equities generally provide that offsets the effects of inflation plus, over time, they tend to offer up a growth of principal benefit as well.
I found years back this asset allocation model gave me good comfort when I ran my parents money during their retirement years. It is also the model my parents broker recommended that I follow which worked well for them and now I have adopted it.
My father's all weather model had less risk than the one I have described above. His model was 25% cash, 25% fixed income, 25% stocks and 25% real estate. Also know he was raised during the depression and farm land was a cherished asset.

Yes, a great deal depends on one's circumstances, prospects and specific desires as to what to actually DO with retirement income. I could forget about Medicare and live like a king in The Philippines, even after needing to buy an insurance policy over there which covers my long list of prescriptions and doctor/hospital care. (Wife is from there.) But the food and the climate in The Philippines both really suck. I could, as an Irish citizen, move there, too. But the health insurance system is not as good as some others within the EU. I do know for certain specifically that diabetes needs are covered 100%, totally free, in Ireland. And I'd first have to establish residency in Ireland for long enough to be able to fill out a form which transfers my health coverage to a different country within the EU which I actually want to live in--- maybe the south of Portugal, where it's sunny and warm for more of the year.
But as long as my wife remains 19 years younger than I am, there is a very reasonable expectation for as long as I live that at least one full-time income can be depended upon, between the two of us. That's like an "ace in the hole." My income-producing mutual funds only continue to grow, too. So, we can afford to leave the principal behind me, so that she will get it after my passing. Which I hope will be many years away. Our Will provides the specific destinations for various percentages of what we will both leave behind, once that happens. It is satisfying to be able to do this, emotionally and spiritually. But I worry about my son's prospects re: retirement. Nothing like my own case. He's 25. ... Re: healthcare, just imagine how much easier and stress-free everything would be if we could provide decent healthcare to everyone, globally?! ...It would require some very stoopid countries to get smart, though. I'm talking about IQ as well as putting POLITICAL stoopid-ity behind them!

Hi davidrmoran,
I understand the point you make. It is true in many instances, but false in others. The auto example that you selected as an illustration is terrible. Today’s cars are much improved over those of a few years ago. Some things change rapidly, others do not. The laws of physics don’t change whatsoever; they are time invariant. There are no laws of investment, but rather accepted good policy and rules.
The rules for profitable investing tend to approach the the laws of physics, although I admit they are not cast in stone. Some have changed, but only sloooowly. Investing is sensitive to circumstances. Also, each investor has his own rule set. Those differing rule sets are what make a dynamic marketplace.
I am sure I am preaching to the choir now. I believe you are an experienced, knowledgeable investor. Do you take exception to the advice offered in the referenced document? I did not. It was OK, but not great. If you do not take exception to some of the comments made in the reference, this discussion is not worth pursuing.
Thank you for taking time to reply.
Best Wishes (I mean that)

The market has risen after yield inversion ( albeit in a small sample size ) on past occasions. Link shows highest forward return after onset of yield inversion

The yield spread is an important and useful ( and is definitely getting a lot of attention these days ), yet it is an isolated data series
In the book "A Guide to Modern Quantitative Tactical Asset Allocation" *, one of the few data series that has shown enough precision and statistical confidence for use towards signaling infrequent tactical shifts from equity based assets into safe duration assets in avoidance of significant decline events and sequence of returns risk, has been a "trend change" in the Conference Board Leading Economic index. The CB LEI is constructed with a composite of 10 data series components ( the yield spread being one ), creating a more robust view of economic activity. One will see many of these components being used in analysis, in isolated fashion, in attempts to devine the direction of the economy / equity markets.
A trend change in the CB LEI variable combined with and confirmed by signaling produced from a stock market trend identifier ( Moving average variable - core concepts # 3 & 4, chapters 1, 3 & 4 * ), has identified the bulk of significant market decline periods over the past 50 years.
At present, the two trends are positive ( since July of 2009 ) **
Additionally, from the past historical signals generated ( Chapter 5, Part 1, table 2 * ) in the past, we can see the gains accrued from the onset of the inversion to the next negative trend change of the LEI / moving average variables https://imgur.com/EGpcnQC
A key premise to successful investing involves the holding of equity based assets for longest optimal periods ( years in most cases ), and in rare circumstances, switch to duration assets ( months in most cases ).
. . .
* https://tinyurl.com/y6w4ca8b
** https://tinyurl.com/y9rrzral

Nice eye candy. A fun chart to look at. Seriously.
Of course it has to be true that all else being equal cheaper is better. But all else is virtually never equal, and there's a lot being glossed over in this one chart.
* It's comparing apples and oranges - asset weighted performance vs. unweighted share classes:
A fund could have five expensive share classes with few assets and one cheap share class; the performance could look good on an asset weighted basis because of the cheap share class but the fund family would look expensive because of all those "empty" expensive share classes.
Note also that while a load share class might be considered expensive on an absolute basis it could still be rated average or below average in cost. That's because M* groups share classes by type: load, institutional, no load, before ranking their costs as relatively high, average, or low.
For example, LCEVX, a LCV fund with an ER of 1.56% is said to be "below average" in expenses. Its sibling classes include LCEAX, ER 0.81%, called "low", and LCEIX, ER 0.76% called merely "below average" because NL shares are expected to have lower costs than their loaded brethren. (I'm not faulting M* here for how it evaluates costs; just pointing out what's going on beneath this chart.)
* Load families tend to make costs look less relevant. As noted above, A shares can be counted as "cheap" even as their costs drag down their performance.
* At least according to papers I've read, the correlation between costs and performance is stronger for bond funds than for equity funds. That could skew the per-family data, since some families specialize in bonds, while others have more assets in equities.
* How meaningful is data about share classes for families with very few (say, five) share classes total? As opposed to one with hundreds of share classes.
There's the usual caveat of relying on stale data. Here's the source of the chart, from four years ago.
https://www.morningstar.com/videos/691300/the-clear-link-between-fees-and-performance.html
Quoting from that page:

Dodge & Cox has a perfect 100% score in both metrics, which is a testament to its ...small fund lineup. Vanguard, the largest fund firm, has 100% of its funds with below-average fees. Considering its large lineup of funds, it has an impressive 75% that have a Morningstar Rating of 4 stars or better.

If you to play with more extensive data, there's the Morningstar Fund Family 150 (Jan 1, 2019): "a semiannual publication that gives investors access to the same analytical rigor our own analysts use to keep tabs on the 150 largest fund families in the United States."
Highlights: https://www.morningstar.com/blog/2019/02/22/top-fund-families.html
Full paper: https://morningstardirect.morningstar.com/clientcomm/DueDiligenceReports/FundFamily150.pdf
Spreadsheet data: https://morningstardirect.morningstar.com/clientcomm/DueDiligenceReports/FundFamily150_2018_Q4.xlsm

@MJG,
That analytical article you posted about is 6 years old.

This used to belong to Monsanto. There have been spin-offs and re-iterations. So now Bayer owns it. My aunt worked for Monsanto for a million years. She gave us nephews and nieces stock in the company. In those days, the 1990s, Monsanto could neither see nor shoot straight. Everything they did turned to shit, resulting in lawsuits due to totally unethical behavior. I sold and re-deployed the money.

My word! You do have a sense of humor after all! All these years and I had no idea.
:) :)

“To deep for me.”

Watch out for those spell-checkers @MikeM. They can be nasty. :)
Thanks for replying. I’m not asking “How can money just “disappear” when markets drop. I’d agree with you that sometimes an investor’s losses are attributable to a depreciation in the paper value of the underlying assets. (The ‘29 crash is often cited to support this idea.)
But the Dalbar findings suggest something quite different at work. It seems to imply that even when changes in stock values are taken into effect, U.S. investors managed to lose twice as much as the S&P lost in 2018. Simply saying there are a lot of “bad investors” can’t explain that. Per my earlier illustration, for every investor who bought high and sold a stock (or mutual fund) low, there is (in aggregate) another “investor” who sold the security high and bought it back low. Net-net, investors as a group broke-even by trading.
What might be happening:
- The S&P is an index absent any operating fees. Investors, by contrast, pay an assortment of fees to invest. Those fees come out of their potential gains - or add to their losses during bad markets.
- The S&P is specific to U.S. large-cap companies. Investors, by contrast, often diversify into non-U.S. companies, emerging markets, commodities and bonds (to name a few). Emerging markets, in particular, had a very poor year in 2018.
- The S&P holds no cash Most investors and funds maintain some cash for liquidity purposes.
- Most imortantly, I’d say, the S&P index has far outdistanced value stocks which many actively managed mutual funds seek out. It looks like the trend is beginning to turn. Possibly active management will outpace the S&P one of these years.

I've had a few items regarding inverted yield curve stashed in the laptop for a few years. I've retrieved those and looked around for other, newer related information.
I suspect there may others with theories from much earlier dates; but this look starts with Campbell Harvey from 1986. A Arturo Estrella link is also included.
I can not offer a formal financial education suggestion as to what is ahead for the markets. I can only personally rely upon what I see with market moves; being bonds and equity. Some equity market actions in 2018 (Feb. 2018 and Dec. 2018) had flashes of late 2007 market swings.
I'm one of those bad boys who watches the markets and the portfolio, daily; if time allows. Does this make me an emotional trader? The answer would be a big NO. But, I sure as heck know more about changes and trends in the investing road upon which I am driving.
Charts, charts; those darn charts. Yes, I look at these. They're not some magic back testing event view. They are the investment roads that have been and are being driven with real money. Charts just happen to be a comfort area for me to view trends to mix with other news and intuition; meaning whatever is still in my brain cells from experience.
We remain 34% U.S. focused bond fund (mostly corp. and Treasury) , 33% equity; being tech. and health related and 33% money market cash at about 1.7% yield.
These links are quite broad and could require more time than one is willing to expend on the topic; so you may pick and choose a link of your choice.
Campbell Harvey
Campbell Harvey, related videos
Campbell Harvey, direct search at YouTube
Arturo Estrella
A yield curve chart below, from my post on Wednesday. The below chart..... Treasury(s) is for 30, 10 and 5 year; as well as the 3 month. It looks a little busy if viewed on anything smaller than an Ipad size screen. The critical color is the mauve, which is the 3 month yield. So, keep in mind; this is not a price chart. If one is using a laptop/desktop with a pointer/mouse the cursor can be hovered on the lines and will display the yield %, date and percentage change from the begin date of the chart. Looking at the cross-over points will provide information as to when the inversions were taking place.
Yields, Feb. 2006 - May, 2009
Another 1,000 words could be expressed; but gotta do some other work.
Take care,
Catch

FYI: Unless you spend your day glued to a Bloomberg terminal or mainlining CNBC, you might have missed the news late last week that the yield curve for U.S. Treasury bonds “inverted” for the first time since 2007. This dry-sounding development has led to a great deal of speculation on Wall Street and in the financial press about whether an economic downturn might finally be on the way. As the Wall Street Journal’s James Mackintosh put it, “The market’s most reliable recession indicator is finally flashing red.”
Why does this have people so worried? The yield curve has inverted in the lead-up to all nine U.S. recessions since 1955. As the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco notes, there has only been one instance in the last six decades when an inversion wasn’t followed by an official recession within two years or less. That was back in the mid-1960s, when growth slowed, but the economy didn’t technically shrink. Since then, there hasn’t been a single false alarm.
Regards,
Ted
https://slate.com/business/2019/03/recession-indicator-yield-curve-economy-worry.html

Hi Guys,
DALBAR has been providing this useful service for many years. And for these many years the numbers and stats change, but the basic conclusion does not. With a few exceptions, investors suck. We underperform the various Indices most of the time. Here is a year old Link that makes the case:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-are-still-terrible-at-investing-annual-study-once-again-shows-2017-10-19
This story is frequently repeated. You might be interested in more detail, so here is a Link to a recent DALBAR report:
https://content.swanglobalinvestments.com/hubfs/Third Party Documents/Dalbar 2018 QAIB Report - Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior - Advisor Edition.pdf
As a general observation, you can improve your returns by trading less, using low cost mutual funds, and allow your wife to make the investment decisions. The data demonstrate that many of us don’t follow these simple rules. Easy to say, but hard to implement.
Good luck to all of us. We need it since our skills are insufficient.
Best Wishes

From date of inception to 2/12/2016, when it was at its nadir, the fund lost 12%, which would be outside my personal comfort zone for a bond fund. It has rebounded dramatically, no doubt about that. In fact, over the past five years it has outperformed the firm's own foreign STOCK fund. That's not what I'd call "ballast."

Interval funds are the new hot thing, it seems. A bunch of real estate funds like this have opened in recent years (like 3-5 years) that are structured similarly. If they mainly hold PE or institutional stuff (or even buildings) I could see owning some as an option to something like, maybe, TREA if you have access to it. That said, if it's just holding publicly traded REITs and charging you 2.5% for the privilege, I say run fast run far since you could own the underlying positions your own for free.