My "retirement" job is putting in gardens for people retiring in their homes but are no longer able to do some of the work. A lot of what I do is building raised beds to help ease the bending and lifting discomfort. The price of cedar this spring is up 27% this winter over the end of summer, and sustainable redwood is up 36%. For some, who have gardened for 50-60 years as a labor of love without putting a dollar amount to their time, the costs of a raised bed or rototilling has them visibly stepping back. This cost increase is going to make getting work harder. For several years retirement communities with budgets kept me comfortably going, but even they have balked at this year's cost estimates for spring work.

A few years ago the fund was closed and shortly thereafter it entered a period of extreme volatility. It can be a difficult fund to hold onto (speaking from experience). We'll see how many of 2017's new investors stick around should things get dicey once again.

I have a regular account and have being making zero fee recurrent invest in TF mutual funds regularly for years. However, short term investment withdraws (less than 180 days) will be subject to penalty fees.

FYI: Marvin Schwartz, one of Neuberger Berman’s most renowned investors, joined the firm’s research department in 1961 at an hourly wage of $1.25. He caught the eye of Philip Straus, the great contrarian investor who was one of the firm’s first partners, and who taught Schwartz the tenets of value investing. Today, Schwartz leads Neuberger’s Straus Group, whose stock picks have roundly beaten the market for the 30 years that Neuberger has kept track, even counting a recent disappointing stretch when oil investments fizzled
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/An-Investment-Pro-Who’s-Seen-It-All-Still-Sees-Upside-for-Stocks.r1TAD5FSz.html

FYI: The level of stock markets differs widely across countries. And right now the U.S. is leading the world. What everyone wants to know is why—and whether its stock market’s current level is justified.
We can get a simple intuitive measure of the differences between countries by looking at price/earnings ratios. I have long advocated the cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio, or CAPE, that John Campbell, now at Harvard University, and I developed 30 years ago.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/america-the-worlds-priciest-stock-market-1517019872

Hate to be missing the Trump bump, but Cinnamond isn't buying, so far as I can tell. (My legacy accounts have enough for the next ten years.) RBS is finally doing well, and I think TEVA will work out. GE will probably work out over a few years, so will average down. Bought some Vanguard Overseas a few months back when my university restricted my options (possibly a good idea, since it's cheaper), although I think I'd be several thousand ahead now otherwise with my previous Fido investment (mostly overseas), but I never know when to sell. Riding VPMAX and VHCAX (adding the yearly minimums) plus VGHAX for the next decade, and moving money from my TDA account into them at the allowable rate. (In hopes that there won't be enough money left when my dementia becomes obvious [strong family history]) for any financial harm to be done.
Will be living on SSI and RMDs from 2019 on, so good ideas are appreciated. (I've really benefited from some, so this is not an idle comment.)

Sorry, perhaps I missed, but have you worked out already how much you need and when and for how long? Are you thinking output stream only and never touching the holdings?

Right, the intent is mostly output stream only (pension from work should be about $1500mo/18,000yr and SS about 1200mo/14,400yr, which the SS I won't be touching for several years!).

Okay, I may be about to retire.
My main nest egg is Vanguard, with about $1,000,000 (I also have about $600K in 401K/Roth IRAs—which I don't plan on touching for several years—and $175K in cash/treasuries/savings bonds).
The Vanguard portfolio breaks down as so:

            Total US Stock- $350K
Total Int'l Stock-  200
Energy Fund-   75
Total Bond-  125
REIT Index-  150
(State) Tax Exempt Muni-  100
=========
$1,000,000
For that $1M, the 2017 Income & Dividends works out to:
                    Taxable- $22.5K
Non‐Taxable-   3.0
=======
$25,500

or just over 2.5%!
Even with the low interest rates, I would think that I should be able to get at least 3.5-5%, even while playing it reasonably safe.
Should this portfolio be radically revamped or just tweaked (maybe take 100K out of Total Stock and open a more income/dividend rich index/sector?)?
Or is 2.5% reasonable/acceptable, given current conditions?

PIMIX is my largest bond holding and yes, it's struggled over the past few weeks for sure. I've been looking at LSYFX but it does seem a bit volatile in that category. Any thoughts on LFRAX ? It seems to be a tamer fund.

LFRAX (assuming it is load waived) is a fine bank loan fund. While not as robust as EIFAX and LSFYX it was positive in 2015 unlike many in that category. But you wouldn’t have wanted to be in bank loans anyway that year. In bull markets in this sector ala post February 2016 it is pretty much straight up with little to no volatility along the way. While PIMIX/PONDX is not my cup of tea and don’t expect returns like the past two years, it is still an excellent fund. It is hard to hop on and off where the momentum is unless you can discern such momentum sooner than later. Most always seem to be weeks to months late to the party.

Currently, in my income sleeve my average yield is 3.41%, my average duration is 3.0 years and my average maturity is 5.3 years. With this, I am not doing much. However, I am thinking of removing one of my shorter duration and lower yielding funds (LALDX or THIFX) and replacing it with a multi-sector income fund (FSTAX). Over the past two years FSTAX has had much better performance (about double) over LALDX and THIFX. My holdings within this sleeve are BAICX, CTFAX, FMTNX, GIFAX, LALDX, LBNDX, NEFZX, THIFX & TSIAX. Most likely, the one that will be removed is THIFX. I might even go with a 18 mo to 24 mo CD with yields ranging from 2.0% to 2.3%. Yield on THIFX is 1.87%. Until recently the CD, from a yield perspective, was not a viable option.

I've had BTAL in a tracking portfolio at Google Finance for a number of years and have yet to be impressed with the returns during time frames. The lone exception was during late 2015 through mid-2016. Our IG bonds offset any equity struggles at the time. BTAL may be viable during a prolonged down period in the equity sectors. I surely can't say.
The below link for total return graphic includes BTAL , QQQ , RSP and AOA. The graphic start point date is limited by the youngest inception of these funds.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?BTAL,QQQ,RSP,AOA&p=6&O=011000

Kaspa,
FPACX, SGENX, and OAKBX are my top fund holdings and among my longest ones. Great choices. They have done great over the long haul and stick to their investment processes. Even after the gifted Jean Marie Evillard left SGENX, they continue to do well. If only these funds had less assets and could buy smaller caps in amounts which could move the performance needle more.
Kaspa
1:49PM Flag
L/S funds are interesting and I have considered many with interest. However, upon analysis, I always come to the conclusion that 'my' objectives are better met with good balanced/allocation funds. I own OAKBX, FPACX, SGENX for a long time know and have handled the dips very well since I held them. Started accumulating from around 2001 and continue to add to them all these years. My suggestion is to at least consider them vs. L/S funds and see if they satisfy 'your' objectives.

I looked at alternatives ( L/S, Merger, futures, even market neutral) a year or so ago, because I thought stocks and bonds were overpriced even then and cash paid so little. I came to the same conclusion about L/S funds as David but BPLSX was closed (somehow SFHYX escaped my radar) so I started a position in it's global cousin BGLSX/BGRSX. It has done pretty well and seems to be positioned to avoid huge draw downs.
All of the other alternatives are reasonable, ie more cash, options etc, although the performance of FPACX has not inspired confidence in the last three years ( it lost more than the SP500) in Jan 2016, making me wonder what was involved.
One of the problems with mutual funds is you are investing in someone else's ideas about returns, safety and risk. Usually they are consistent, and reliable but not always. Of course the farther away from "bread and butter" diversification ( major asset classes, cash as ballast etc ) the more of a black box.
Certainly a portfolio with 30 to 50% cash will be significantly less volatile, but your returns will lower. There is a greater argument to made for cash with a 25 return now than a year ago
The key is 1) know what return you need and be sure you won't stick your neck out and get burned and 2) know exactly what you will do when a crunch comes and the market is down 20 % . If you can't stand the heat...

L/S funds are interesting and I have considered many with interest. However, upon analysis, I always come to the conclusion that 'my' objectives are better met with good balanced/allocation funds. I own OAKBX, FPACX, SGENX for a long time know and have handled the dips very well since I held them. Started accumulating from around 2001 and continue to add to them all these years. My suggestion is to at least consider them vs. L/S funds and see if they satisfy 'your' objectives.

Agreed that it's to each his own, @MikeM. What I object to is the authoritarian in chief telling others what to do in no uncertain terms, when it's clear he doesn't understand anything about them.
One other minor point: category returns aren't especially illuminating.

It’s very rare nowdays for folks eliciting assistance to state their age, years to retirement, other sources of income, etc. One size does not fit all. Never did.

@LLJB: is a Grandeur Peak US small cap fund a pleasant personal idea or is it something you know has been discussed and planned by Grandeur Peak?

@Ben, this from David's commentary roughly 6 months before Global Micro Cap and the Stalwarts funds were being launched, which was September/October 2015.
"Funds in Registration
This month our research associate David Welsch tracked down 14 no-load retail funds in registration, which represents our core interest. By far the most interest was stirred by the announcement of three new Grandeur Peak funds:
Global Micro Cap
International Stalwarts
Global Stalwarts
The launch of Global Micro Cap has been anticipated for a long time. Grandeur Peak announced two things early on: (1) that they had a firm wide strategy capacity of around $3 billion, and (2) they had seven funds in the works, including Global Micro, which were each allocated a set part of that capacity. Two of the seven projected funds (US Opportunities and Global Value) remain on the drawing board(emphasis mine). President Eric Huefner remarks that “Remaining nimble is critical for a small/micro cap manager to be world-class,” hence “we are terribly passionate about asset capping across the firm.”"
There was another discussion in David's commentary or in a fund review earlier than that and it discussed their plans for funds and their strategy in far more depth but I wasn't able to find that again easily or I just wasn't willing to keep trying once I found the above. Most likely its the latter.
I don't believe I've ever seen this information anywhere else but I have exchanged emails with the leadership at Grandeur Peak a handful of times over the years with questions about when we might see these and other funds. They've never said anything to make me question the validity of these intentions and their answer about when was that they wanted to get their teams comfortable with the funds they had already started and their process before they expanded further. It seems to me that goal should have been accomplished by now and the real reason is that they're waiting for a time they consider more opportune to launch the other funds they had planned and that's what I'm looking forward to.

@Ted The questions to me are do we expect the S&P 500 to deliver 16.08% annualized over the next five years and do long-short funds do what they're supposed to do in a downturn? I don't think it's fair to compare their returns to the S&P in a raging bull market. It would be better to look at risk adjusted returns, alpha, Sharpe, beta and downside capture. By that take, I would still agree with you that most long-short funds aren't worth the price of admission. Their fees tend to be too high and they don't always protect on the downside as much as they should. But there are a handful that are worthwhile.

@msf. Yes, I saw that from 2012 but on the TD Ameritrade website could find nothing about any fees on selling a transaction fee fund. I guess I will just contact an office and ask them about the fees. My Scottrade brokers haven’t been of any help. I can’t handle $49.99 on both purchases and sales unless I make some type of adjustment in my trading methodology. Then again been adjusting continually since my INVESCO and Strong days. Back then you could literally buy and sell their in house funds day after day if you wanted and zero commissions and without fear of being banned. Albeit eventually Strong banned me from datelining of their international funds.
They say luck is a big element in the success equation. Part of the reason my account is seven figures to the better over the past 25 years of buy and hold in the S@P was I lucked upon those two brokerage firms at just the right time in the 90s. I am a big believer in the Luck Factor!

That’s a tough universe to tread in. I can understand the appeal however. I’ve been burned more than once with these types of funds. Generally they run hot and cold. After a few hot years money piles in. Than, next thing you know they turn cold. They are usually beset with high fees - often having ERs in the 2% range. They have to pay interest on their short positions and that gets reflected in the ER. I’d agree with David. Or, if you feel up to it, develop your own scheme for raising and lowering cash or short-term bonds.

I did some research after posting my response above. Based on M* numbers, ARTKX beat OAKIX over 15 years, 10 years they are even, and OAKIX beat ARTKX over 5, 3 and 1 years. However, over all periods, ARTKX has better Alpha and Sharpe ratios for whatever it is worth. Having said that, both of them are good/great funds in opinion. ARTKX managers were trained/worked at Oakmark with Herro before going on their own with Artisan.