May be a good time to invest in value, seeing all the capitulations to growth: looking hard at RPG, PRDGX an "obvious" choice within the TRP house, etc.
If you've ever used "mean regression" as a mantra, how does that apply here? I agree with hank that "a decade is a pretty short period".
RPG and RPV go back barely a decade. Using VIVAX and VIGRX instead (going back to 1992), here are their last 10 year cumulative returns, their their previous 10 year cumulative returns, the cumulative returns for those 20 years, and their lifetime cumulative returns (11/2/1992 through 1/22/2018).
last 10 yr:    196.29% (growth) vs. 141.12% (value)
prev 10 yr:    44.05% (growth) vs.  76.08% (value)
last 20 yr: ;   326.80% (growth) vs. 324.55% (value) - a virtual dead heat
lifetime:        983.07% (growth) vs. 991.05% (value) - a virtual dead heat
You can get these figures from M*'s chart here (just tweak the date ranges).
Annualized, the first three are:
last 10 yr:  11.47% (growth) vs. 9.20% (value)
prev 10 yr:  3.72% (growth) vs. 5.82% (value)
last 20 yr:   6.10% (growth) vs. 6.06% (value)

I am a 77 year old retiree and not a sophisticated investor. Had my selfdirected IRA for many years with Scottrade and it will transferred to TDA on February 23, 2018. TDA has “hundreds” while E*trade offers “thousands” of funds, but without an account in either company I cannot find out which ones they are. TDA charges $50.- for a transaction fee funds while I paid $17.- at Scottrade and don’t know what other fees may apply. I wonder if I would be best off with Vanguard which is known for low fees. I already have 3 Vanguard Funds and one Vanguard ETF. I also have one fund each from Fidelity, T Rowe Price, Oakmark, Mairs&Power and a James Fund. I am grateful for any advice I can get.

Simon said:
“I have an IRA with T. Rowe Price” - Good. It doesn’t get much better than these guys.
“and have some dry powder ready to buy on the next correction” - Not me. I believe the next “correction” from these levels will more closely resemble a trap door over a rather deep pit (maybe something out of Alice in Wonderland).
“I've been waiting an awfully long time” - That’s not your fault. It’s silly season in the equity markets.
“The obvious choice is PRDGX but it has lost a Morningstar” * - Don’t be seduced by the stars. Read the Prospectus and a couple recent annual or semi-annual fund reports to garner the flavor of the fund and how it invests. Always balance out the M* reviews with at least 2 other opinions. I like Lipper and Max Funds.
Suggestions:?
It’s a big fund universe. My own experience is limited to about a dozen families. But you did say you wanted answers based on personal experience.
(1) Dodge and Cox are deep value investors. Low fees. Solid long term performance. However, their flagship DODGX lost over 43% in 2008. (How strong is your stomach?)
(2) OAKBX doesn’t advertise itself as deep value, but in owning it and reading their commentaries for over a decade, I’m convinced it is run like deep value. They bought GM 4-5 years ago when you couldn’t give the stock away (slight exaggeration). It eventually paid off. The nice thing about this fund is it does a pretty good job hedging against steep losses. It lost 16.2% in 2008 - less than half as much as DODGX. I’ll point out that the former is normally classified as a stock fund and the latter a balanced fund. I’m not sure those distinctions mean a whole lot at this point in time. It’s more about your risk appetite and willingness to stick to your investment decisions.
The growth and value labels can be confusing. Sometimes value houses move into traditionally “growth” areas because they find the price attractive. And I suppose it could work the other way around as well.

Catch, A great write-up. Thanks.
- Catch said: I've become more of a technical investor with a big dose of leftover "what are the fundamentals of this investment world today"?
I never understood technical analysis, but respect those who invest based on moving averages, etc. and appear to do well. Fundamentals is hard to access. However, Europe seems to have pulled out of its multi-year slump. Japan is finally seeing some inflation and stock market rebound following a decades long bear market. Interest rates remain low at home and abroad. Larry Summers, speaking on Bloomberg recently, suggested some of the global market gains are due to people shifting money out of the U.S. due to our current banana republic political atmosphere. (Things like pledges to arrest / imprison your opponent if you win the election).
- Catch said: Does the market place remain a hugh pile of other folks money seeking profits, or does some real value exist, somewhere? Is this just a chase, chase, chase?
My sense, having invested for 50 years, is that there’s a whole lot of “chase chase” going on. That doesn't mean the equity markets can’t continue to spiral upwards for many more years. It does mean that as a 70+ year old retiree, I’m not willing to put a large amount of money at risk. So much depends on one’s situation and time horizon.
- Catch said: It is apparent that the really big money does much care one way or another about what is going on in politics, in general, yes? The U.S bombing North Korea or North Korea bombing Guam; well, that might change a few things for a week or so, eh?
Catch lists more potential black swans than I care to dissect. Most have been out there for years. But don’t you love “The law of unintended consequences” ? So many threats emanating from Washington to reign down fire and fury on the Korean Penninsula that it has driven the two nations there closer together. Some real dialogue is taking place between the two adversaries. Some revolves around the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Neither country wants to partake of all out nuclear war on their peninsula.
- Catch said: Interest rates (still touchy/feely as to central bank actions) remain low, inflation remains low and the yield spread between the 10 and 30 year Treasury's has continued to shrink.
The HY spread doesn’t surprise me. There is often a strong correlation between the equity and junk bond markets. What happens to rates depends on the health of the world economy. Low rates have boosted the global markets higher following the near depression in ‘08. As the punch bowl is gradually taken away, do we achieve orbit or careen back to earth in flames? Nobody knows for certain. However, higher short term rates could actually help longer dated bonds if a recession were to occur as a result. For that reason I’m averaging a bit into a GNMA fund - the equivalent of taking a parachute along with you on a flight. A lot of dead weight - but priceless in an emergency.

I'm holding too. I dumped FSCRX and bought MSCFX last year as Myers' retirement grew closer and I normally give funds at least a few years to make me happy before I'd consider dropping it for another. What I've been hoping for, for a number of years now, is Grandeur Peak's US small cap fund. I'm pretty confident they're just waiting for a time that looks opportune to register the fund but whenever that happens MSCFX will either be eliminated or at least limited to its then current value in my portfolio.

I use to mess in this space years back.
Now, I just hold extra cash so when the market pulls back I'v got some cash to do some buying. Plus the extra cash (including CD's) acts as a dampner and reduces portfolio volatility as David notes in his above post.

AKREX/AKRIX: my all time favorite. Chuck Akre is a getting up there in years but he hasn't disappointed. His fund typically is called 'Growth' but he's a Value Manager.

The AQR long short equity fund QLEIX looks pretty good but it is closed and just has a 3 year history.

Not that it matters, since it's not available to new investors, but it's been around 4 1/2 years and will hit 5 in July. (Even some L/S funds without a long history have been around for a few short weak periods for equities, e.g., a few months in 2014 and 2015, 2015 overall, and Jan. 2016, for peeks into down-market performance. None of those were deep and sustained like 2007-2008, of course, but the GR was back far enough that many funds of all kinds with that extensive a record have changed managers/strategies or have had big increases in AUM that have likely affected strategy and performance since.)
That Calamos fund (CPLSX) looks interesting. So many different strategies within long-short ...

Calamos has an interesting looking fund that was originally a hedge fund that was converted to a mutual fund a few years ago. It has beaten the s&p 500 over the past ten years. Here is a link to a Barron profile of the fund - http://webreprints.djreprints.com/54361.pdf?utm_source=calamoscom&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=barrons1122

"[TBGVX] hedges back to the dollar. The dollar is getting beat up, in 2017 and into 2018."
I'm glad you said that. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record when I point out hedging with some funds (posts mentioning VMVFX, FMIJX). Tweedy, Browne does also have an unhedged version, TBCUX.
After Tweedy, Browne spent years saying how wonderful hedging was (that they could focus on what they knew, stock selection), they came out with an unhedged version of their fund. Call me a cynic, but I viewed that as selling out their investing principles for AUM. Consistent with their charging very high ERs.

Hi guys!
Last week, in The Economist, they had a piece on India.....the great lie of the middle class in India. It's not China of 20 years ago. E-commerce in India in 2017 was about that in China for a week. US companies can't make any money there. GDP per person is $1700 --- and 80% of the people make less. 3% of the population own these 5 things: car or scooter, TV, computer, A/C or refrigerator. Top 1% make $20,000 --- good paying jobs are thin. Education is very poor.....1 in 9 is illiterate. Most US companies aren't selling basics, so they can't make money. Slick said a while back India was not a buy. From what I read, good call!
God bless
the Pudd

EMs (bonds and stocks) are highly cyclical. Conventional wisdom over the last 40-50 years has been that EM stocks will outpace more modernized economies over the long haul. Sir John Templeton used to make that point. However, during the decade or so that I owned his funds, his more sedate TEMWX did much better than the EM heavy TEGOX, which had higher fees and a lot more volatility.
I don’t think anyone really knows. At my age I’d maybe play them if they looked beaten up enough to catch a nice bounce. But I don’t want to own EM on a protracted basis - particularly the stocks, which can drop 30-40% before you can say “ouch”.

Understood. I've never been able to determine whether the EM bond risk is worth it. So I stuck with PRSNX as a global bond fund only.

I'd say the risk (of investing in EM bonds) has been worth it. Over the course of 7+ years, PREMX has averaged a bit over 6 cents per share, per month. It's up to each of us, anyhow to gauge our risk tolerance. PRSNX is offering me over 3 cents per month. Helluva lot better than 10-year Treasuries or CDs in the bank. But a credit union is really the way to go, if you ask me. ;)

I used WellsTrade a long time ago to buy FT Advisor shares. Then years ago they severely limited the funds you could buy, going from one of the most open platforms to one of the more limited ones. They also overhauled their website, making it difficult if not impossible to even figure out what was available. And they imposed the highest exit fee I've seen (I think it was $95). Nevertheless I left.
The only off brand brokerage that I think I was happy with was Scudder. For a brief time, 1998-1999 (and with a sufficiently high balance) they provided free trades on all the funds they sold, and as I only vaguely recall, fine service. "Preferred Investment Plus" for taxable accounts, "Retirement Plus" for retirement accounts. Then Zurich/Kemper/Scudder moved the whole operation to DLJDirect, effectively closing it down.

Check out the Advisor class shares at Firstrade. Will include a T/F.

Shhh. That's the only way I know to get cheaper FT Advisor class shares - they used to be available through other second tier brokerages. I've been wondering for years when FT would shut down this channel too. More so now that A shares of most funds are being sold NTF through lots of brokerages.

Hello, @Catch22: The three I've zeroed-in on are: PTIAX, TUHYX and RPIHX, though the latter is "global," not strictly domestic. ...PTIAX is mostly MBS. ... TUHYX is corporate junk. ...RPIHX is corporates, with just a bit of bank loans. What they spit-out and distribute to shareholders right now is considerably higher than the monthly div. from PRSNX.
I bought (EM) PREMX in 2010, late for the 2009 go-go-full steam ahead party in EM bonds. I bought initially at $13.26, and have never seen PREMX at $13.26 again. But I've reinvested everything, and along the way, I pulled a huge chunk out to re-deploy into a more normal diversified portfolio. PREMX has made serious money for me, despite the share price remaining below my initial purchase-price. I added a bit to it after end-of-year 2017 cap gains and dividends in my other TRP funds. And PREMX has not disastrously imploded on account of the Venezuela holdings.
...When share price sinks, yield rises, I understand. I see that PRSNX holds bonds in many cases in places like DEVELOPED Europe, where bonds are yielding less than 1%. I'd like to get more than PRSNX is offering. My timing might be all wrong, but timing the market is a thing I never tried to do. I started investing in 2003, and do not play around much with my portfolio--- though the current portf. is quite different from the way it looked 15 years ago.
Yield:
RPIHX 5.78
TUHYX 4.75 (30-day)
PTIAX 5.51
PRSNX 3.41
I'm not worried at all about finding a bond fund to replace PRSNX which is of a similar sort.

Good morning @MikeM,
Thank you for your inquiry.
Old_Skeet has many investment strategies at play within his well diverisfied portfolio.
Currently, the Compass Strategy (which I'm thinking you are referencing) is momentum based strategy found in the growth area of the portfolio and picks a spiff hound form the lead pack to invest in. I have a sleeve within the growth area that contains this strategy called ... the spiff sleeve ... where my special investment positions are found.
In other parts of the portfolio are where some value type strategies are found. The compass can be used as an aid in locating these (out of favor sectors) as well.
Many years ago, back in my Scouting days is where I learned of the value of a compass in finding my way. Today, I still use a compass (of sorts) in finding investing opportunity within the market. In addition, I learned that a two man canoe could make greater distant over a one man canoe. And, a three man canoe was even better. With this, this is why most of my investment sleeves have at least three members (some more). This is because when one becomes tired and begins to falter then there are the other two (or more in some cases) that can offer suppport and continue to propel the sleeve.
Were you a Scout?

FYI: Miller Value Partners’ Bill Miller holds the record for being the only mutual fund manager to beat the market for 15 years in a row. One way he did it is by investing in new technologies that the Wall Street establishment thought were crazy at the time – Amazon, Google, and Facebook among them. His latest “crazy” idea: Bitcoin.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthtrack.com/bill-miller-on-investing-in-disruptive-technologies-including-bitcoin/
M* Snapshot LGOAX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/LGOAX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot LOGAX:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/lgoax
LGOAX Is Ranked #43 In The (MCB) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/mid-cap-blend/miller-opportunity-trust/lgoax

Hello.
This is Old_Skeet’s weekly barometer report for the weekending January 19, 2018.
Last week I reported that the 500 Index was extermely overbought with a barometer reading of 128. This week the reading is found to be the same at 128 and, with this, the Index remains extremely overbought as scored by the metrics found in the barometer. If the reading should drop much lower it will be off the scale. Generally, a higher barometer reading indicates there is more investment value in the Index over a lower reading.
For the week short interest for SPY is found to be 1.8 days to cover.
In review of the 500 Index compass the lead pack remains XLE (energy), XLF (financials) & XLY (consumer discretionary). Within the lead pack my spiff hound remains XLY and has for sometime as the consumer continues to spend. The bogey hound for this compass is EQL.
In review of the global compass the lead pack consists of GSP (commodities), EEM (emerging markets) & EWJ (Japan). Last week EEM had pulled back a bit but has now regained its momentum and edges out VTI (domestic stocks) for third place. Within the lead pack my spiff hound remains GSP and has for sometime as good demand for commodities continues. The bogey hound for this compass is VT.
This investment strategy was derived from a betting strategy I used years back at the dog track. The betting strategy was that I’d bet three dogs to either win, place or show during the early to mid races. This strategy provided a number of ways to have a dog (or dogs) be in the money. And, for me, this resulted in some good winnings as I had a prety good system that aided me in picking some good opportunity dogs for a wager.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
I wish all … “Good Investing.”
Old_Skeet

Took some distributions from HQL accumulated in my Roth in last few years and added to ISMRX and GPGOX. In a taxable account, I used proceeds from XMLV to buy RYT.