"we started at 25, and have obviously benefited from perhaps the greatest bull market we will see in our lifetimes."
Might well be. It's already the second longest (in case you measure greatness by age), and as of March is closing in on the second highest gain. Likely even greater in real terms since we've had low inflation for many years (though I haven't computed real gains).
Graphic: Post WWII bull markets, duration and gain
http://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7HDT2/2/
You'll find other sources that state the bull markets ran longer (see graphic below), but they tend to ignore "minor" intervening blips like the 19.90% S&P 500 drop from July to October 1990, or the Aug 1956 to Nov 1957 22% drop.

Using Monte Carlo, at least the tools that you've been referred to, would seem to ignore this not insignificant fact that we're in nearly uncharted territory. In addition to disregarding the run up in equities, they would also seem to discount the the 35 year bull market in bonds. A multi-decade bond run is not a singular event, but unique when one considers how fast/far bond prices have risen, or alternatively how much rates have fallen:
The tools don't address your question because they don't seem to allow for the setting of preconditions; verily they are built on the premise that performance in one time period is independent of what came before.
Even if they did incorporate preconditions, there doesn't seem to be sufficient historical data to provide meaningful input for current conditions. The preceding eight years have been part of the same bull market. That's only happened twice before: 1998 when the 1990-2000 bull also hit the eight year mark, and 1999 when it hit its 9th birthday.
Monte Carlo tools strike me as better suited to playing with hypothetical long range outcomes than ascertaining real world (context sensitive) possibilities.
As to the question at hand, your guess is as good as mine. If you're looking long term, the rule of thumb is that there's no better time than now to invest, though in bonds I'd be more conservative. Best case for principal protection is that rates don't rise (currently 2.16% 10 year), and the risk isn't worth the 80 basis points over cash. Worst case, rates rise and you lose principal.
Personally, I've never been fond of real estate as an investment. Historic returns have been lower than for US equities, though real estate could help meet your objective of diversification.

For many years, I've owned PONDX as well as TGINX. The latter is the fund/firm where Luz Padilla established her track record before migrating to Double Line. TGINX throws off a nice divi, and provides a nice return albeit a bit lumpy which appears to be somewhat common. There is indeed a place for an EM bond...for its own performance or as an EM stock proxy as many would suggest. I am a firm believer in spreading my bets, particularly in the bond space.

After 3 consecutive losing years emerging markets bonds came back to life last year and in 2017 lead the pack in Bondville. With a deteriorating dollar and improving emerging markets economies I see no reason why that should change. Historically they have been a great investment beating the S&P over the past 15 years. They also performed well in the 90s. I have tried at times with this sector but always found it was too volatile for my style of concentration. Also many here hold PONDX/PIMIX and that fund has a large position in emerging markets bonds and is less volatile than a pure emerging markets bond fund.

FYI: One of BlackRock Inc's longest-serving mutual fund managers, who is responsible for tens of billions of dollars in investors' money, is stepping down.
Dennis Stattman, who has run what is now BlackRock's largest mutual fund for more than 28 years, will retire from his role at the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund in August, according to an internal memo on Tuesday.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/one-of-blackrock-s-longest-serving-mutual-fund-managers-to-retire-33226.html?print
M* Snapshot MDLOX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/MDLOX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot MDLOX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/mdlox
MDLOX Is Ranked #13 In The (WA) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/world-allocation/blackrock-global-allocation-fund/mdlox

Permit me just an initial reaction, without really looking further. DoubleLine has been around only since, when? ... 2009? They already have a fair-to-middling EM Bond fund, run by Luz Padilla. (DLENX, 5 years +5.09%, 39th percentile.) Compare PREMX +6.01/12th percentile. FNMIX +6.3 and 7th percentile. I think a short-term EM bond fund is not a thing that would interest me. In DLENX, you already have 108% turnover. PREMX = 60%. FNMIX =82%. And with a low-duration EM bond fund (DELNX), what ARE you investing in, then, when the "standard" DoubleLine EM bond fund already carries 108% turnover. How long is anything being held in DELNX? A week? Morningstar shows 60% turnover, but this is within a professed short-duration universe. So, my reaction is negative just based on common sense. Others will surely disagree. ... Yes, PRSNX is NOT a purely dedicated EM bond fund. Latest numbers at Morningstar show 41.64% of holdings are USA. The rest is REALLY spread-out, starting with Serbia, and ending with Japan, among the top 10 countries. India, Mexico, Malaysia and Brazil are surely EM, besides Serbia.
EM bonds are especially appealing with higher-grade domestic stuff just not paying much. PRSNX pays me only about .03 cents/month, but it's something of a counterweight to my all-in bet with PREMX. They're not designed to be quite the same thing, so they don't DO quite the same thing. ... Compare the disgustingly low rates of return on Savings Bonds. I looked at Canada sav. bonds, too. It's pathetic. Canada now offers TAX-FREE savings accounts. The returns are less than 1%. So a global or foreign or EM bond fund makes sense. Otherwise, you're treading water. No way to invest... Just don't go whole-hog. By the way, David Snowball featured PRSNX as a "Morningstar orphan" recently:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2017/02/t-rowe-price-global-multi-sector-bond-prsnx/

My local library in NC provides a free variation of Morningstar premium with a" Performance" tab. Yearly AUM going back 10 years is listed in the chart that comes up. Works for me. You may have it free via your library also. You might want to check this out.

I have M* Premium (free via T. Rowe Price) and the AUM data is definitely not available in the Performance tab, or anywhere else for that matter that I can find. I see there is a "customize" option in the chart you mention, but don't see AUM as an option.

@fundly, I'm not sure how you see it because I don't see it on the internet pages BUT I did find net assets for the last 10 years on the .pdf report for a fund. The pdf report is also a Premium feature but thanks for your persistence that drove me to keep looking.

My local library in NC provides a free variation of Morningstar premium with a" Performance" tab. Yearly AUM going back 10 years is listed in the chart that comes up. Works for me. You may have it free via your library also. You might want to check this out.

Hi Guys,
Charlatan is six-.dollar word. A cheaper and more common equivalent word is liar.
There are many signals that a liar unconsciously delivers. These have been studied for many years. Several excellent videos have been produced that summarize that research. These videos just might help you to uncover the many liars that we are exposed to just about every day. Here is a Link to a few liar characteristic signal presentations:
Edit: You can access the presentations by typing "how to spot a lie videos".
Enjoy and learn to recognize these charlatans.
Best Wishes

Not so fast. While it could be a one time "blip" in 2015, that the US life expectancy for men and women did in fact decline for the first time. If it holds up and the decline continues, the probable reasons are...
. obesity epidemic
. opioid epidemic
. economic decline of the middle class, especially since 2008
. suicide
. increases in Alzheimer's disease, respiratory disease, kidney disease and diabetes. Some of which may be attributed to the obesity epidemic.
Did you know that obesity with respect to women in the US, has shot up over 40%? And in case you think I'm "fat shaming", I too am struggling with my BMI now over 25. Of course, losing an inch and half in height over the last twenty years, doesn't help the number. (Taking calcium supplement with vitamin D3.)
Anyway, I was only grasping at a financial laugh. Enjoy your RMD!
Life expectancy in the US declines in 2015
Obesity rate for women

Could not agree more. I am biased but I can't think of anything more important than being thin as we get older. Excess weight causes a host of problems too numerous to detail here. And by being thin I also mean no pot belly. I have read that regardless of weight, a pot belly can be a real killer.
Edit. As pertains to the topic of RMD my biggest financial mistake was no Roth. My annual living expenses increases some 60% this year because of the taxes on my RMD.

That just about covers the waterfront. Wife's 403b is in an Index-Vanguard small-cap fund, VSCIX. My other two small-cap funds have done better. Go figure, eh?
5 years:
MSCFX 16.99
PRDSX 16.38
VSCIX 15.00
But I suppose that VSCIX got there with lots less volatility?
MSCFX holds 52 positions.
PRDSX = 299 (Quant fund.)
VSCIX =1,432

Hi Guys,
Jonathan Clements is very conservative, especially with regard to his investment advice. In a totally lucky happenstance many years ago, I fortunately and randomly sat with him on a train ride from New Jersey to New York. Using his columns as a guide, his thinking has not changed much over the years. Hooray for consistency that allows for some learning.
Today, he published a list of investment products and strategies that were sorted relative to their risk ( as perceived by Clements) into three general categories. Here is a Link to that list:
http://www.humbledollar.com/2017/06/goodbadugly/
Plenty of fodder for argument here, but it might just be helpful to novice MFOers. Have fun!
Best Regards

Very generously...OT, and only because we don't have BS category on MFO.
People do not live their investment lives over 100 years.
People also don't notice "pain" unless portfolio goes down 20% because they are "told" not to.
Then people start wondering - deers caught in headlights - while their 20% loss turns into 50% loss. Then they sell. And of course, not a single "expert" at that point will stick his neck out and say "don't sell". THEN, after the market returns back to the point where the correction started we get "investors are so stupid".
First, investors need to define their own "success". Don't let someone do it for you.
Second, a "successful" investor is one that does not lose money, as in permanent loss of capital.
All 20 year olds can read this post or they can read the other. Just remember, you do what YOU think is right, else either I or some expert is going to laugh at you in 30 years either way. And I hope one does not need a "Buddha" to explain this.

I own RPHIX in a non-taxable account and wanted to purchase it in an IRA account. I got this response a couple of years ago from RiverPark when I asked:
"Unfortunately we can’t make an exception here. Since we implemented the second “soft” close in November we have been flooded with requests from shareholders that own the fund in one account and would like to open up IRAs or joint accounts or 401(k)s and we have been forced to say no just so we didn’t defeat the purpose of the tightening and continue to get flows that were so large that it would make the fund hard to manage…I hope you understand."
Matt Kelly
Chief Marketing Officer
RiverPark Funds

This is good news if their recalibration works, and I'll stand corrected during the next correction if it is. However, there is a hole in the narrative. During the 2000-2002 bear market, Oberweis Small Cap Opportunities (OBSOX) dramatically underperformed its small-cap growth peers and the Russell 2000. It did so also in 2008. Why wasn't the process corrected before during the last dramatic 2000-02 underperformance? Admittedly, Oberweis Micro OBMCX did better during the 2000-2002 period, but so did all micro-caps and it actually lagged significantly a micro-index fund --Bridgeway's BRSIX. In some respects, Oberweis reminds me of Bridgeway. Historically, the funds have done well in bull markets and poorly in bears. They seem to be slightly leveraged--not literally but from a beta perspective--amplifying their upside and down by more aggressive bets in sectors like technology. Now the style re-calibration--at both shops actually post 2008--may have changed that, but it seems the nature of the beast somewhat with small-cap growth funds that they amplify risks. From a purely sector perspective recent years have been particularly good for the tech sector and Oberweis tends to focus on those kinds of names. When the sector turns, the performance may not be so good.
Regarding tax efficiency, one secret many investors don't realize is that when a fund has a small asset base that is growing rapidly it is inherently tax efficient. If you have $50 million of capital gains it is far more dramatic in a $100 million fund than a $1 billion fund. New money dilutes the tax impact of all those gains even in a high turnover fund. When money flows in the other direction--out of the fund--the opposite can be the case.

"... she was horrid."
Maybe. The manager did address this question when I talked with him, and it's reflected in the profile. Bottom line: he was surprised and appalled at '08, and began a thorough review and recalibration of some of their stress tests and sell disciplines. Over the past five years, anyway, he's had much lower downside deviation, a better bear market rating and higher returns than his peers.
For what that's worth,
David

@LewisBraham... luckily I didn't own the fund then but using 2008 as the basis of your comment misses how they dealt with those losses. As Dr. Snowball reported in his 2013 review of the fund, "Indeed, OBIOX in 2013 isn’t even the OBIOX of 2009. During the 2007-09 market trauma, OBIOX suffered a 69.7% drop, well worse than their peers’ 57.7% decline. The manager was deeply dissatisfied with that performance and took concrete steps to strengthen his risk management disciplines. OBIOX is a distinctive fund and seems to have grown stronger."
That's not to suggest it can't still perform poorly but if you look at the upside and downside capture ratios over the last 3 and 5 years, they've done pretty well. To your point, the last 12 months haven't been great, but if you can deal with the volatility then the results over time have rewarded you with good risk adjusted returns.
One of the things that amazes me is the tax efficiency. It's a very high turnover fund, higher than I prefer by a lot, and M*'s tax cost ratio is very low. I haven't figured out exactly how they manage that based on the available information and I don't always trust M*'s numbers to tell me what I think they're telling me, but in absolute terms it's an impressive ratio that seems inconsistent with their turnover.

@BobC & MFO Members: Bill has recommended several CEF's over the years, none of which, I would invest in.
Regards,
Ted

The language here is very strange. It reads like this is a hard close except for retirement accounts but it seems to include retail IRAs. It also includes advisor managed accounts but only for rebalancing. Am I reading that incorrectly? Do they really expect Fido or Schwab, E*TRADE or TD to block taxable accounts and allow IRAs? Maybe they have that capability but I don't think I've ever seen it before. And isn't restricting advisors to rebalancing a wide open door that's almost impossible to police? It means all the advisors and clients who follow rules no matter what will limit themselves while anyone who views rules with more flexibility can do what they want more or less. If the old studies are still accurate that should mean about 10% of advisors wouldn't consider being more flexible.
I own the fund in a rollover IRA for years and I've been a very happy camper. I just hope they'll let me continue to buy and sell as I desire.

Hmmm...We should buy these closed end funds who are running discounts which if were wiped out would actually have returned positive returns for the years. Both are negative right now.
So this is like someone saying P/E ratio is low, but stock keeps sucking wind and we are supposed to buy "value". I really don't see it differently at all.