My Question : Will the next 8 years be so generous to the dividend growth portfolio ?
Derf

We ask ourselves and each other these questions all the time. Here is one persons story.
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/939639-bob-wells/5283656-followed-advisors-advice-look-last-eight-years

Can't argue the comments here, but I'll point out, a few years ago here at MFO, AQR was one of those "group think" management themes. Alternative funds that will perform in all economic markets. Obviously, no such thing.

Hi Hank,
Over decades investor annual returns performance is not very impressive. The accumulated data demonstrates that the average investor earns slightly more than half the relevant Index returns. See my reference:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4108688-investor-returns-vs-market-returns-failure-endures
So, in hindsight, perhaps my critique of experts was overdone? No!!! The experts claim to fame is that they have special insights. In general, the accumulated data do not support that assertion. Being right about half the time is no great claim to fame. Too, too bad. I sure could use special insights into the market’s future performance and direction. In my case, historical data will suffice lacking any talents in that discipline.
Thank you for contributing here. Over the many years some of the comments, observations, and references offered by MFOers have influenced my investment strategy and tactics. I do learn, but mostly very slowly and sometimes incorrectly. Investing is a tough business, and it does change over time.
Best Wishes

I have not looked at this site for about 10 years; but it appears the discussion board is available to read without any registration, for those inclined to discover more. One will also find various internal links for other information.
https://403bwise.com/

“This explains why three-fourths of non-Erisa 403(b) holdings in portfolios are these expensive annuities. There are practically none in 401(k)s.”
Something doesn’t compute here that 75% of 403-B holdings are in annuities. Teachers aren’t dumb. They’re not going to sit idly by and allow their school board or state to push them into annuities during their working years.
Would be nice if Rithholtz could be a lot more specific? What age group? What state? What professions? Were this written 30 years ago I would have surmised these folks went into those annuities prior to the law being changed around ‘74 and held onto them. But today?
Now, there’s a move in Michigan and elsewhere to get rid of DB pension plans. In some cases they’ve been replaced by matching contributions into 403 B plans. I suppose that such a setup might possibly give both parties some incentives to go with traditional annuities - especially the employer.
-
Racking my brain on this one. Maybe in some lower education, lower skill-set public sectors there’s a feeling among workers that stocks and mutual funds represent risk, whereas they may view annuities as safer. Don’t know. Just trying to make sense of that 75% figure.

Judging from the above comments, the components of a 403(b) must depend upon the individual school district.

(Shooting from 20 or 30 year old memories here.)
- The 403 B preceded the 401 K by a number of years.
- The IRS 403 B provision was originally intended to allow certain public employees (including teachers) to shelter from taxes a portion of their pay in annuities. In my early years the plan was often referred to by colleagues as a TSA (Tax-Sheltered Annuity) as that was the original scope of these plans.
- At some point early on it was expanded to allow these employees to invest in mutual funds. (Employees had pushed for this.) Haven’t time to check, but either by adjucation or legislation that change occurred in the early 70s.
- OJ is correct (as pertains to where I worked and perhaps more generally). The school district or other employer had control of which fiduciary (and fee based advisor) could handle their workplace account. At first only one fund company was allowed where I worked; and there was a 4+% front load on everything. A few years later the employees organization pushed the employer to include no-load T. Rowe Price as a second option. With Price there were no restrictions as to which funds we might purchase.
- There was a convenient IRS loophole that lasted until at least the late 90s. It wasn’t widely known. It allowed employees to do 403 B transfers from the plan’s designated fiduciary to any other fund company of choosing while still working / contributing. The transfers could be partial. There was some basic paperwork, but no harder than moving an IRA from one custodian to another would be today.
- The above loophole was plugged (either by the regulatory authorities or legislation) sometime after 1998.

FYI: (This is a follow-up article.)
The Barron’s Income column has focused recently on the top-performing dividend funds over the past five years. It’s a way to get sense of which strategies and stocks have worked for equity income investing.
The first installment focused on the five top-performing ETFs over the past half-decade. The second featured the top five actively managed funds.
Continuing that theme, these are three more actively managed dividend-focused funds from the next tier of top performers: The Vanguard Dividend Growth (ticker: VDIGX), which is closed to new investors; the Bishop Street Dividend Value (BSLIX), and the Madison Dividend Income (BHBFX).
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/3-more-outstanding-funds-for-dividend-investors-51552573094?refsec=funds

I don’t think anything is cheap. But to the extent there’s a bubble I’d say it’s in some of the tech stuff and the S&P index which have been bid up greatly in recent years. A lot of my stuff (notably deep value and natural resources) haven’t done much the past few years and are now just playing catch up. I like it!

OK, I revised the article to add the full-cycle comparisons requested by VintageFreak and to update the tables with month ending February performance ... so, the full 10 years.
The Ten-Year Bull
I made the full-cylce data for just the top bull market performers, but did not run best performers over full cycle, which seems like a different article. Easy enough to do though, so I'll post a sample here.

Hi Guys,
Nothing new here. The performance data remains very persistent in this arena. The few winners in any fund category in any year fail to repeat their outperformance success in the following years. Here is yet another reference that demonstrates that luck is a more significant factor when investing over skill:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-05/s-p-fund-manager-study-shows-luck-a-big-factor-in-outperformance
Newton's first law of motion states that "An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."
This physical law also seems to apply to investing with an unpredictable infrequency exception of an “unbalanced force”. Good luck on predicting when this “unbalance” perturbation will happen. Over the long haul, being good in the investment universe is just a struggle to stay near the averages. That’s best accomplished by filling a portfolio with Index products.
That’s much easier and ultimately being more profitable then being skilled, and more likely than being lucky. I’m not a very lucky person. It’s hard not to be fooled by randomness,
Best Regards

Hi Guys,
Year after year the SPIVA reports persistently document the general failure of active fund management to even match the performance delivered by comparable Index products. It's a sad story.
Over a one year period many excepts do exist ( the Buffetts of the investment world), but even for that short period the odds are often below a 50% outperformance score. Over even a modest 3-year period, the active management outperformance drops to below a disappointing 20% outperformance record. Over longer periods, the failure rate goes north of 90%. Indeed a sad, sad story. Good luck on identifying those 20% that are superior before the fact.
A few of us have the intuition, the experience, and/or the statistical,analyses skills to successfully make that winning selection. From years of trying, I conclude that I do not. So, basically it's Index investing for me with a small fraction still in active management. I'm a slow and optimistic learner. Good luck to all MFO learners, both fast and slow.
Best Regards

Here are a few pages from Schwab about their plan. They (or other providers) can set up and manage a plan for you.
DB plans can be very useful for tax purposes, generally for high earners over age 50. The reason for that age is that since these are pension plans, the value of the plan at retirement must be enough to sustain the promised pension. The fewer the years until retirement, the more you can/must put into the plan annually to build up to that value. If you've got many years until retirement, you may find the amount you're allowed to contribute limited (since there's a cap on how large your pension can be).
A couple of caveats excerpted from the first Schwab page:

• Contributions are generally required annually, and this plan is suited for someone who can contribute $80,000 or more for several years. Note: Contributions are not discretionary—you must make the annual required contributions needed to properly fund the plan.
• [D]ue to the permanency requirement, the IRS could disqualify the plan if it is terminated in less than five years

https://www.schwab.com/public/file/P-1604569/SLS25840-05-ST.pdf
Q&A Guide: https://www.schwab.com/public/file/P-1604574/MKT35488_WB.pdf
FAQs:
https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_products/accounts/small_business_retirement/personal_defined_benefit_plan/personal_defined_benefit_plan_faqs
Schwab plan/setup/costs:
https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_products/accounts/small_business_retirement/personal_defined_benefit_plan (multiple tabs)
A plain English article from the NYTimes with its own set of benefits and risks. In addition to the caveats above, it points out that because defined benefit plans are pension plans, they (like state pension plans) may be required to add extra money beyond what they planned for if the investments don't perform as well as expected. (Amounts in article are from 2012.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/your-money/defined-benefit-plans-allow-fast-retirement-saving-but-with-risks.html

FYI: The worst ended in 2009. But save your birthday wishes for March 28. And bring six candles to the party.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-12/the-bull-market-actually-isn-t-10-years-old?srnd=premium

Related
JP Morgan is about to launch lowest-fee US stock market ETF — lower than Vanguard, BlackRock and Sch
johnNjohnN
5:48AM in Fund Discussions
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/11/jp-morgan-about-to-launch-lowest-fee-us-stock-market-etf-yet.html
Published Mon, Mar 11 2019 • 1:37 PM EDT Updated Mon, Mar 11 2019 • 4:58 PM EDT
Eric Rosenbaum
@erprose
Key Points
J.P. Morgan is about to launch the JPMorgan BetaBuilders U.S. Equity ETF with a fee of 0.02 percent.
That makes the broad U.S. stock market fund cheaper than similar ETFs from Vanguard, Schwab and BlackRock’s iShares.
Schwab and iShares had offered the cheapest U.S. stock market ETFs, charging 0.03 percent .
J.P. Morgan has grown to become one of the largest ETF companies in only a few years, primarily by selling ETFs to its own clients.

Hi @poptart
I forgot about lsbrx for income... Several mfo members owed this fund before, I have it since 2012..good reasonable fund to have for nice monthly income
Just some personalize thoughts being in market for 12 yrs now :
I do hold fidelity total bond market Fbnd and Phk in mom portfolios she is few months from retirement plannings
In my acct I have bnd - Vanguard total bond market
At 35 yo I would do 80 to 90% stocks portfolio in my holdings to reap most rewarding to long terms investments lol... You still have a long way to go +35 or 40yrs until retirement ... I would not change nor touch portfolio too much maybe once every few yrs.. Being couched and iddle maybe best for you and invest more in indexes stocks.. At least this is what buffet and boggle keep on preachings for many years
For my tsp 401k I have 80/20 since started investing in 2007 (right before the largest crash in modern time),,, have not changed portfolio much since 2007 and I am doing very well with those positions and holdings... Currently still >80%stocks <20%bonds
For 401k-tsp biggest holdings
Indexes from tsp 80% large cap mid cap small cap and em divided evenly
10% 2040 maturity fund Tdf
10% G bond
Brk.b another large holdings
Vgstx
Vppcm Vanguard prime cap
Another thing if you have 1099 return forms (most investment company have these for their portfolio for tax purposes if you have div incomes from bonds or MF ETFs)
you maybe able qualified to open sep-ira acct, we have this since few yrs now, this acct works exactly as regular-Ira but you can put in 20%of your income and maxed out at 55k annually... the best thing is you can have this along w tsp(private 401k if working for govt) and regular 401k. You may save lots tax money once able to retired many yrs from Now and just let those money grow taxed free... Just do research and ask ur cpa at your institution before starting... I highly recommend having Sep-ira + roth Ira... We saved so much in taxation $$ past 3 yrs now
Good luck

https://money.usnews.com/investing/slideshows/7-tips-for-finding-the-best-target-date-retirement-funds-to-buy?src=usn_invested_nl
7 Tips for Finding Target-Date Retirement Funds
March 11, 2019
One in three Americans have nothing – zilch – saved for retirement. That's not OK. If you're financially able, you need to start saving, today. A retirement nest egg is vital for a full, happy, and healthy life.
Once you start saving, choosing where to invest your money is another hassle. Thankfully, retirement funds have made this much easier for investors, and target-date retirement funds, which adjust their holdings as you age to suit your changing risk profile, are even easier. Contrary to public perception, figuring out how to invest responsibly isn't rocket science.
Here are seven tips to finding the best target-date retirement funds for you.
1. Figure out your timeline. This is generally the easiest and most crucial variable to consider when narrowing down what kind of target-date funds will work for you. Most target-date funds contain a year in their name, which corresponds to the year you expect to retire. If you're 45 and expect to retire at 65, pick a target-date fund roughly 20 years out. They're often organized into five-year increments, so in this case you might consider a 2040 target-date retirement fund. There are also target-date funds designed for those currently in retirement.
2. Figure out your risk tolerance. Remember, target-date funds are designed to be full portfolios, so if you have other investments, consider how those might affect the total risk you're taking. For example, if you already have a good chunk of money in the stock market, you might want to lean more conservative than you otherwise would, choosing funds with less equity exposure, or funds that move to lower-risk investments more quickly than others. – John DIvine

hank: you said, "The fact that JohnN says he just bought some, however, gives me pause.)" John gets an A, you on the other hand get an F. Looks at BA's returns over the last ten years.
Regards,
Ted :(

Buy BA at your own risk folks. Yes, it’s a great company with a storied tradition. But issues like this one can take years to resolve. Perhaps the cause was a completely different one than the first. We don’t know yet. But: If It should be determined to be the same or similar software issue ... than you might just have an even better buying opportunity down the road. (BTW - The change in software was dictated by a new type of larger and heavier more fuel efficient engine - likely adversely affecting CG - which may complicate any “fix”.) IMHO it’s a coin toss at this time whether this will hurt Boeing.
Here’s a summary of the rudder reversal problem which afflicted the 737 in the 90s. There were two fatal crashes and a third close call on landing approach caused by what proved to be a faulty piston actuator in the tail that on rare occasion would cause the rudder to deflect uncommanded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues
From first related crash in 1991 until final NTSB official finding of probable cause in 1999, 7 years elapsed. The flying public was more accustomed to aviation disasters in the 90s than today. More likely to ignore the issue. In today’s environment I’d expect to see some aversion to 737-MAX (and possibly all 737s). Temporary one would expect. I don’t deal in individual stocks and so have no recommendation either way on BA. (The fact that JohnN says he just bought some, however, gives me pause.)

Smart idea JohnN. Of course my position in BA goes back to 1978 and I continue to hold 40 years now.