I've checked brokerage balances, maybe even made trades from transit stations. Just killing time waiting for trains. Platforms used to have payphones, and brokers didn't add a surcharge for automated phone orders (800 numbers).
Though I don't think this is quite what you had in mind for trades executed by phone.
A few years ago I made a Roth conversion in Asia, when the market swooned. (On my laptop using a friend's home network.) Had the market taken a nosedive while we were away last month, I would have done the same thing.
Never anything unplanned though. Not like the ad (which always reminds me of the downing of a US plane in Hainan, 2001).

A dedicated laptop with exactly five dropdowns on it (3 brokerages, one bank and one credit card company.) No surfing, no e-mail. So far, no spam, or other incoming junk. Three years and hoping. Probably will add the two-step verification thing.

FYI: Tocqueville laid out why Americans, sooner than any other nation, would prove apt to embrace indexing 150 years later.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=823295

I use my iPhone for information and limited trading while I am on the road. Otherwise I use Macs and Linux for everything else. Much secure than Windows PC.
We left our brokers years ago as we embrace the coming of the information age. The internet leveled the playing field on investment ideas and choices for those who want to be informed investors like ourselves. So we don't use brokers at all.

It seems to be pretty much in line with the usual suspects, CAIBX, MDLOX, SGENX, TIBIX.
Slightly better performance, but looking at its portfolio, that could be explained by its slightly more aggressive stance. It's a bit more growthy than the others; allocation funds typically lean toward value.
It also piles on the junk bonds with 1/4 BB, 1/4 B, 1/10 below B. That's similar to TIBIX (the other funds hold much higher rated bonds). But unlike TIBIX it uses a barbell strategy with 1/4 AAA-rated. (TIBIX has 1/3 in BBB, and little above that.)
Counterbalancing the higher credit risk is a much reduced interest rate risk with a very low duration of 1.88 years, unlike the other funds.
The only downside I see is the potential end of the fee waiver (0.24%, currently set to expire 2/28/18, but these are often extended indefinitely). On the plus side, it's significantly smaller than the funds above.
BenWP's RPGAX is not a fund that one (or at least I) normally think of. But it may be the one closest to GAOSX. Similar growth leaning, similar average market cap, virtually identical std dev and Sharpe ratio. The bond side has a little less junk though still a lot, and is a little more evenly spread out in credit ratings, but still has a barbell feel. Much longer duration though. RPGAX has the lowest AUM of all the funds mentioned.

Well ... It is about time Arnott got the train back on its tracks. A few years back I owned PASAX and it did absoutely nothing for about three years while some other tactical allocation funds that I own dusted it britches thus I kicked PASAX to the curb. I was thinking of buying into the fund again but after some thought I don't want to go through another three years of nothing (again) when the time comes for him to reposition.

I hope no one noticed that I had stated Blackstone instead of Bridgewater for Dalio's hedge fund. Have now corrected that. Sorry for the goof.
Old Joe made an excellent point yesterday which did not escape me. And he generously repeats it here. That being that no one has exclusivity over particular topics. I'll go farther and state that when someone who seldom links stories or does so only a half-dozen times a week puts a story up on the board, I'm much more inclined to perceive their link as worthy of my time and thereby click on it. Human nature I guess. Ol Tom Paine said it well a couple hundred years a go: "It is dearness only that gives every thing its value."
None of this is meant to take away from anyone's contributions. Just that linking interesting stories found while reading has become more of a hassle nowadays than I recall in the past.
---
PS: @Ted, Ol'Joe is the best of the best here IMHO. No reason to insult him or anyone. Drive everybody away through this nonsense and what have you got left? The purpose of new posts should be to initiate/stimulate discussion. Otherwise, Google, Yahoo, Bing can churn out hundreds of financial stories daily.
I've said my piece. I'll shut up now.

@Old_Joe while I appreciate Ted's links, he does not have a monopoly on them.
Ted is quick to point out when others have repeated his links, but he hasn't responded to my request for existing links to help avoid such repetition. It could be that despite having posting multiple times about Tibble v. Edison, Ted missed posting links for more than two years. (Pionline.com published many updates on the case in this time frame.) Or perhaps it's not so easy to find links on MFO that he or anyone else has posted.
The former says that we shouldn't assume everything's been posted about a subject, or even anything at all. The latter says that it's unreasonable to expect us to find all the links even if they have been posted.
The Chuck Jaffe post (second link I gave, above), states that it is a follow up. Follow up to what, who knows? It contains no link to another post, not even a clue other than to say some older post exists. It took me a fair amount of effort to locate that earlier post.
In contrast, there was no note (prior to mine) in this thread that it too is a follow up to earlier posts. No hint at all. Just lucky that I remembered an earlier post.
Now I (and many others here, I assume) appreciate Ted's "virtual digest" of articles of the day. But it's not especially conducive to reducing duplication.
It's always possible that I fail to remember other posts on a subject, either because of a faulty memory or because the other posts were not memorable. No big deal. I can eat more fish :-) and unmemorable posts can be made more enticing.

@Ted How many years did it take you to learn how to use emoticons? It's like you have a new toy.

Found this comment by John Mauldin:
"I am not necessarily calling for an end to this amazing bull market. I’m agnostic about that right now, because the traditional forecasting tools have been taken to the woodshed."
While he is certainly not a perma-bear, he has never been giddy about markets, either. Those who have been yelling from the sidelines for a number of years have become more or less skulkers.

FYI: In the 30 years ended 2016, the S&P 500 returned just over 10% per year. Compounding at that rate, fifty grand invested at the start of 1987 would have grown to nearly $875,000 by the end of last year.
Not bad.
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2017/08/managing-sequence-of-return-risk/

Though PRWCX was "hatched" a mere 8 months after PRFDX (6/30/86 vs. 10/31/85). At the end of 1994 PRFDX had $3.2B AUM, while PRWCX had "merely" $655M.

Thanks for the documentation msf. I find the closeness of inception dates (PRFDX, PRWCX) surprising.
When I mentioned integrity, one of the attributes I've found with Price is that they do a nice job explaining their funds and the type of investors who might benefit. If anything, they'll probably over-state risk rather than lull someone into owning one of their funds who shouldn't. That practice hasn't changed over the years.
I recall that they presented both PRFDX and PRWCX in the mid-90s as relatively "safe" ways to gain equity exposure. But their presentation regarding PRWCX seemed more subdued / conservative then than now. Not sure if the fund has evolved into a more aggressive fund or whether they're simply being more cautious now due to its popularity. Today, PRWCX ($28.6 Bil) is closed, while PRFDX ($21.7 Bil) remains open to new investors. (numbers from Lipper).

Hi Guys,
There is no universal correct answer to the fund management question. It depends on the specifics. Most funds these days are team managed, like 75% of them. For this majority, the answer is in the No bracket. But a respectable number of funds are managed by a mostly single or small group cohort that has a decisive influence on market decisions. It matters in this active group of fund managers.
The primary example here is the Warren Buffett/Charley Munger team. Any change here will likely have a major impact on how their firm will survive amd function. Even with this illustrious team, yearly performance varies over a wide range. Skill matters when investing, but luck and opportunities are unpredictable and also enter the performance equation. In the marketplace, the only certainty is outcome uncertainty.
Certainly not all fund managers are equal. Do you remember the Steadman fund family? I do. Those funds had dismal performance records for many years. Just like there are some long term losers, there are some long term winners. The trick is to identify them early. That's not an easy job.
Good luck for a successful search. A significant number of exceptions always exist.
Best Wishes
ADDED THOUGHT: Statistics are helpful, but can be misleading when incompletely reported. It is not enough to simply report the average of a Normal distribution. That's nice, but not enough. The standard deviation, the maximum and minimum values, and the sample size are needed to permit a meaningful interpretation of that statistic. Buyer beware!

Comparing VHCOX and POGRX, the Vanguard fund is larger cap, less volatile (lower std deviation), slightly lower beta (relative to the best fit R3K growth) over the past three and five years, smaller downside capture. All of these suggest that VHCOX is, if anything, slightly less aggressive than POGRX. That's following your lead, equating aggressiveness with volatility.
The two funds have essentially the same number of holdings (136 vs. 128) though VHCOX is slightly more concentrated (32% in top ten vs. 26%), similar sector allocations (except that VHCOX seems to favor industrials a bit more and financials a bit less), the same foreign/domestic ratio, the same developed/emerging ratio, perhaps suggesting that VHCOX is slightly more aggressive than POGRX in its holdings.
I agree that VHCOX is the most aggressive of the Vanguard trio, but ISTM that it's not more aggressive than POGRX. It just happens to have done better over the past five years (though matched performance over the past ten). That makes is better performing, not more aggressive.
FWIW, M* says of POGRX that it is already more volatile and aggressive than all three of the Vanguard Primecap funds including VHCOX, with POAGX even more so.

If you're young, willing to stay in a fund for a long time despite volatility, and can sleep well at night after a potential significant decline, you could add Capital Opportunity. If it were me, I'd be happy with POGRX, and just sit tight. If you overlay these funds on the same graph, you'll see they all have very similar performance profiles. The two that are somewhat different are Capital Opportunity, and Primecap Odyssey Aggressive Growth, which I would characterize as being more aggressive (and therefore somewhat more volatile) than the others (which are very similar to each other). I was fortunate to open an account in POAGX several years ago, and am very happy with it; I plan to hold it for a long time.

I cancelled my M* Premium membership in 2005 --12 years ago !! because of all the M* website problems .---- 12 years later and it has only gotten worse !!!! UNBELIEVABLE

It's not the same Price I first invested with sometime between 1990 and 1995. Too d** many funds now days if you ask me. Not sure what they offered back than. I'll make a (probably incorrect) guess that it was around 30-40 funds in the '90-'95 period (not counting different share classes). Back than PRFDX was in large part their claim to fame. Around that period PRWCX was hatched. And it played second fiddle to the much larger PRFDX for a decade or longer.

Not too far off. M* shows 53 distinct funds that began no later than 12/31/95. About 1/3 of the number of funds they have now (155, again from M*).
Though PRWCX was "hatched" a mere 8 months after PRFDX (6/30/86 vs. 10/31/85). At the end of 1994 PRFDX had $3.2B AUM, while PRWCX had "merely" $655M. (Data from 1995 prospectuses.)
Price had other claims to fame as well at the time, including PRNHX, then (and for another 15 years) managed by Laporte. At the end of 1994, The (then) small cap fund had $1.6B AUM.

It's not the same Price I first invested with sometime between 1990 and 1995. Too d** many funds now days if you ask me. Not sure what they offered back than. I'll make a (probably incorrect) guess that it was around 30-40 funds in the '90-'95 period (not counting different share classes). Back than PRFDX was in large part their claim to fame. Around that period PRWCX was hatched. And it played second fiddle to the much larger PRFDX for a decade or longer.
I realize they need to stay competitive with their peers and so need to provide lots of choices and attract more and more assets. Also, that there's some practical limitation to how much $$ a manager wants to manage inside one fund. Haven't had a chance to delve into this latest offering. But all the comments here sound interesting and thought provoking. Doesn't sound like a fund I'd be interested in adding to my established mix.
Price is a class act in a lot of ways - customer service and integrity among them. The $20 fee used to pertain to accounts a lot smaller than it does now. Seems to me the magic number was once $5,000. In recent years that jumped to $10,000 or $20,000. Not a problem. If you keep a relatively modest $50,000 under their umbrella or go to paper statements only (as msf and others have noted) they waive the fees.

Wait, whose point are you making??
Romney was weak (worse than weak, but putting it nicely) in any number of respects, and latterly has become rehabbed into this ersatz statesman quite by default.
Five years after your article, Baker has brought the state back to its ever attractive vibe, for several reasons, and it remains a place companies look to for all sorts of advantages; see the article I posted.
If I were in the 1%, or close, I would not be hanging out here looking for smart ideas. If I were a rightwingnut, hmm, don't know what I would be opposing, depends on which flavor...

I seem to remember that a few years back, this fund was one that a lot of posters on this site loved. Definitely one of those funds with a simple strategy that worked great -- until it didn't.