A few weeks ago on Consuelo Mack's program, Bob Doll said that there were only 2 possibilities: either this is it (meaning the bull market is ending......or......we have a melt up that carries the market much higher over the next 1 to 3 years.
Which of these seems more likely at this point? Or is there a third possibility?
Personally, I feel very strongly both ways.

FYI: Nine years ago, the US economy sank into a recession, the housing market crashed, and credit markets seized, bringing the banking industry to its knees. Businesses were going down. Workers were losing jobs. Americans were losing hope. For many, the psychologically critical low moment was the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. But the memory of events before and after that day is slowly fading.
Business Insider outlined the 27 major moments, from 2007 to 2009, and added some context. From the initial reports of subprime defaults to AIG's second bailout, here are the scariest moments of the financial crisis.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.businessinsider.com/financial-crisis-scariest-moments-2017-9#february-8-2007-hsbc-says-its-bad-debt-provisions-for-2006-will-be-20-higher-than-expected-because-of-a-slump-in-the-us-housing-market-nonfinance-people-start-paying-attention-to-what-subprime-is-1

@MikeM, I reduced my equity and bond allocation by 15% early in the year and have been holding double digit in cash. We had a good run last year but the geopolitic situation has worsen and the possibility of a trade war. I may increase my TRP Capital Appreciation and let the manager to make that decision. He has been right on in last several years.

I'm gonna disagree...mostly.
Problem 1- Roth IRAs have income limits: If your income is too high to contribute to a Roth IRA (a good problem) you have the financial ability to contribute to a taxable retirement account and then orchestrate a "back door" Roth strategy...problem solved.
Source:

Since the income limits on Roth conversions were removed in 2010, higher-income individuals who are not eligible to make a Roth IRA contribution have been able to make an indirect “backdoor Roth contribution” instead, by simply contributing to a non-deductible IRA (which can always be done regardless of income) and converting it shortly thereafter.

https://kitces.com/blog/how-to-do-a-backdoor-roth-ira-contribution-while-avoiding-the-ira-aggregation-rule-and-the-step-transaction-doctrine/
Problem 2 - Roth IRA benefits can be limited: Roth death benefits are tax free for the beneficiary. Tax deferred IRAs are taxable upon death to the beneficiary. If you die early...your dead... regardless. I would agree that if your beneficiaries are non - profit organizations, then, by all means, contribute to tax deductible IRAs and pass the entire tax deferred account on the the non-profit tax free.
Problem 3 - The time value of money can be hard to beat:
Time value is the very reason Roth IRAs are such a great long term retirement investment. You pay less "real dollars" in taxes. When you contribute to your Roth IRA you pay taxes in today's dollars. A $5500 contribution at the 15% tax rate would equate to $825 additional income tax...at 20% rate would equate to $1100...at 25% rate would equate to $1375. The 2018 lower brackets look like this:

If you will fall within these lower brackets it make tax sense to contribute to the Roth. It also makes sense to lower yourself into these brackets by deducting income on contributions to tax deferred IRAs. A combination of the two is also a good strategy.
Fast forward to age 60 (30 years of compounding growth @ 7%):
This one Roth contribution ($5500) would have a value of about $39K (tax free) and has no RMD requirements at age 70. At age 70, it will have grown to almost $77K. This money can help you strategically lower your taxable withdrawals from other taxable accounts to further minimize taxes. This can also help you avoid many income based costs (i.e.- income based medicaid premiums) or qualify for income based subsidies (too many to list).
Fidelity article on Strategic Income Withdrawals:
https://fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/tax-savvy-withdrawals
Had this contribution grown in a tax deferred IRA, the deferred tax liabilities at age 60 would be - $5850 (@15% rate), $7800 (@20% rate), and $9750 (@25% rate) and about twice that at age 70. Roth locks in the tax rate at the point of contribution...tax deferred is always the differential between what you saved on contributions (your tax deductions) verse what you paid on withdrawals (your tax liability on your withdrawals). RMDs force your income higher so you have less control over income levels.
If you can lock in a low tax rate on a contribution with either or both tax free (Roth) or tax deferred (401K, 403b, 457, etc.) this is a tax bird 'in the hand". The real problem is not knowing what your taxable income will be on your tax deferred withdrawals in retirement... that is the "tax bird in the bush." and not having a mechanism to help strategically live on some tax free income when it is to your advantage. Saving 15% on contributions to then, 30 years later, pay a higher tax rate on withdrawals is a real long term loss of capital (withdrawal tax rate - contribution tax rate) compared to the Roth IRA (contribution tax rate).
I like to think of the taxes paid on a Roth contribution that permanently locks in the cost of taxes. Obviously, there are many other advantages to a Roth IRA such as access to you contributions at any time tax free, no RMDs, and the ability to fine tune your retirement income with regard to tax liabilities by accessing tax free dollars.

I have held this fund for over 5 years (institutional version CMTFX) and have been very happy. Its a bit less volatile than my other tech fund PRGTX , and the fact that the Price fund was very concentrated, warranted having two tech funds.

This is not a suggestion or recommendation to @Junkster, but I'll just point out the obvious. As of Friday's close, a ladder of individually held to maturity Treasuries were yielding, not adjusting for state income tax exemptions, with little or no compounding of capital, and with zero worries of the "wiggles and squiggles of the markets"...
1 year... 2.03%
2 years... 2.27%
3 years... 2.45%
5 years... 2.65%
10 years... 2.90%

I was going to mention CDs and Treasuries. They are enticing. Just not sure I am ready to tie my money up to that extent quite yet. Maybe if rates continue their ascent or maybe a portion of my capital.

Late last week I sold parts of my holdings in SFGIX and DSENX as well as my remaining tiny chunk of FAAFX. With that, I brought equities down to 70% of my portfolio from 80%.
Some of that is for personal reasons. I've been pretty much all in the market for the 15 years, it's been a great ride, and I now want to raise cash to buy a house in a year or so. The money I'm taking out of the market is money I expect to need soon.
I also think that, despite the fabulous economic fundamentals, the US now faces political risk: there's a chance IMHO that Trump will do something phenomonally stupid, or that Mueller will find a smoking gun and that (in the latter case) Trump doesn't go quietly.
I hope I'm wrong on both counts, but I'm sleeping better now that I've got enough in cash and conservative bond funds to meet my near-term financial goals.

FYI: In 2018, the richest fundster in the U.S. continues to be Abby
Johnson.
This week Forbes unveiled the 2018 edition of its famous list of
the world's billionaires, now 2,208 people long and 32 years
running. Here are the billionaire fundsters (and fundsteradjacent
billionaires) who made the 2018 list.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=57743&wireid=2

Thanks for the article @Ted,
I'll ask the question in a different way to MFO members. How have your gold holdings impacted your portfolio over different time frames and different market conditions or events? If it serves as a hedge to certain risks what were those risks? Did gold get converted during those "golden day" and into what?
The article's 4% allocation make me think of the 4% rule. Another way to think of it is have one years income allocated to a hard asset. but maybe more importantly have that hard asset fungible. I recall @rono suggesting having some gold or silver in the form of currency so that it serves two purposes. It represent the value of the metal, but also as a coin it is portable as a medium of exchange...a silver dime or quarter...a gold eagle. Each has a face value and a metal weight value. Numismatic value seems less important during time where you might consider trading the coin for a loaf of bread or passage on the next train.
I was in Hawaii in January when we were told to take shelter. I was on vacation and had neglected to pack my dimes and quarters (sorry @rono) so in that moment I realized I had a whole in my emergency plan pocket.
A few years ago I experience 10 days without electricity in a house that depends on the grid like most homes. Again, a teachable moment. I made some changes at the house. I purchased a 500 gallon propane tank and switch my appliances (stove, dyer, fireplace insert, hot water tank) to use the propane for everyday appliances. The propane also now doubles as a fuel that seamlessly integrates an electric generator into my electrical panel.
When it comes to holding gold and silver as part of a portfolio or emergency plan, I obviously need some coaching, especially away from home. I'd like to hear from others on your "emergency plans" and whether a hard currency plays a part in it.

FYI: The asset class with the worst performance over the past 10 years is collateralized commodity futures (CCFs). For example, from 2008 through 2017, PIMCO’s Commodity Real Return Strategy Fund (PCRIX) not only underperformed the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFIAX) by 13.7 percentage points, it lost 5.2% a year.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/index-investor-corner/swedroe-dont-count-out-commodities?nopaging=1

FYI: Gold should have performed a lot better over the past two years — and especially the past two months. That’s because both periods were characterized by the factors that, according to conventional wisdom, should cause gold to perform well: higher inflation and stock-market turmoil.
Because gold GCJ8, -0.26% did not do well suggests that we should take a critical look at what makes gold a good investment.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-ideal-amount-of-gold-to-keep-in-your-investment-portfolio-2018-03-12/print

The standout defect in Morningstar's methodology is that the yearly survey is based solely on one year's performance. It would be helpful if Morningstar provided 3/5/10 year ratings. This paragraph in the article is suggestive:
"Many of the laggards have consistently ranked low on our Best Fund Families survey. That isn't to say that they don't have some standout strategies, only that as a firm they don't outperform consistently. The list can also fluctuate from year to year, as different styles go in and out of favor."
Coincidentally, on Friday, I sold my Mutual Series Funds (Quest/Global Discovery/Europe). I've owned Mutual Series funds since the early 80s when they were managed by Michael Price. For the last several years, they just haven't performed well. I don't believe their poor returns can be excused solely by their style of investing being out of favor; Great managers adapt. Besides performance, I was further discouraged by the latest shareholders' report that announced the retirement of another one of their managers (Philippe Brugere-Trelat). A picture of one of the remaining managers leads me to suspect the man spends his weekends shopping for a retirement home. The Quest fund was a great owl fund, but I think it's time has passed. Quest suffered from heavy redemptions last year. Franklin Templeton, which owns the Mutual Series funds, came in the survey's last place.
I decided to invest the sales proceeds in my winners: (1) 25% to the four funds managed by Meridian Funds [I like the new young managers who have taken over the funds-I've owned Meridian funds for about 15 years, and bought its Small Cap fund on the day it opened-thanks, in part, to David Snowball's positive comments about the funds' new managers .], (2) 25% to Primecap funds, and (3) 50% to T Rowe Price [Would it be possible to invest too much of my money in PRWCX? I've owned it since the 80s.]

investing in DSEEX would give similar diversification to a vanilla hybrid fund that had a roughly 50/50 stock/bond mix. The difference is one of magnitude of performance (i.e. getting hammered harder).

You know @msf, when I made the statement that I look at DSENX as a kind of balanced fund a couple years ago, I was hammered pretty good here with "no it is not, you can't think of this fund that way". So I'm glad that you investigated enough to say yeah, maybe it is, albeit a more volital hybrid than what we think of as a typical balanced fund. You explained it very well.

With all the people here who are skeptical of M*'s classifications, I think you just lobbed everyone a softball :-)
More seriously, it might depend on how the bond portfolio is being used. Also, DoubleLine and PIMCO tend to be especially opaque, and in DoubleLine's case somewhat unresponsive to M*. So it's not easy to pidgeonhole the bond side of the fund.
One way to use the bond portion of the portfolio is to eek out a little higher return. If the objective is to simply generate enough income to cover the ongoing expenses of owning the swaps plus a little more, you've basically got an equity fund with a small twist. On the other hand, if the objective is to manage the bond side as, say, a full blown total return portfolio, then the fund looks more like a leveraged balanced fund.
For example, MWATX invests in short term bonds (average duration under three years). It's just trying to beat the S&P 500 index, hence the name AlphaTrak 500. Somewhat in contrast, DoubleLine says that DSEEX is invested in bonds for "additional long term total return" (from prospectus).
Regardless of what the prospectus says, the fund in fact might be investing more conservatively, closer to the AlphaTrak model. A year ago, LLJB commented that the bond portfolio was (then) shorter duration and higher credit quality than DBLTX.
A typical balanced fund holds a bond portfolio that aims for higher return than that. It will use a longer (intermediate term) duration or lower credit quality, or both. So DSEEX may not resemble balanced funds so much as equity funds with "a little extra".
Or, M* may just have gotten lazy. Your guess is as good as mine.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
March 8, 2018
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
Keeping track of the myriad of disruptive technologies shaking up business and the markets is a daunting task. It requires familiarity with multiple disciplines, industries and global markets. In preparation for moderating a panel on the destruction and disruptions caused by digital technologies, I was sent a collection of brief essays from the host firm, Thornburg Investment Management, a well-regarded global firm managing both fixed income and equity portfolios and funds. With their permission, I am sharing it with you on our website, WEALTHTRACK.COM. I’ll be delving into several of the topics covered on future WEALTHTRACKS, including the widespread impact of the FAANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google/Alphabet), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics.
On the program this week, while public television continues its spring fund raising drive, we will be listening to part 2 of our rare annual outlook with Ed Hyman and Matthew McLennan. Last week we focused on the U.S. economy and markets. This week we expand our horizons to the world at large. Hyman’s “global growth accelerating” theme has definitely picked up steam and McLennan’s insights on political and financial risks have also proven prescient.
For those of you not familiar with Ed Hyman, he is the founder and chairman of Evercore ISI and the record holder for being voted the number one economist on Wall Street for an incredible 37 years in the Institutional Investor’s survey of professional investors because of his must read, brief and easily understood daily reports on trends in global economies and markets.
Matthew McLennan, another WEALTHTRACK regular over the years, heads up the Global Value team at First Eagle Investment Management where he is also portfolio manager for several funds, including the flagship First Eagle Global Fund, which he took over from legendary value manager Jean-Marie Eveillard a decade ago. McLennan is a worthy successor. The global fund has been a top performer among world allocation funds for years and is known for its superior risk-adjusted returns.
Thank you for watching. Have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and a productive one.
Best regards,
Consuelo

Schwab started offering JP Morgan at least as early as 2012; Fidelity was a bit later, though I don't recall if it was by months or years. Don't follow TDA closely enough to have a clue there.
American Funds was a well publicized and recent addition. Haven't tracked Morgan Stanley funds.

Wondering about the status of SPHD, which seems to be getting pummeled YTD (-6.5%) because of its holdings in Utilities, Real Estate and other interest-sensitive stocks. I have built up pretty large cap gains since I bought it a few years ago. It's definitely in the wrong sectors right now, especially compared to something similar like SCHD. Opinions about SPHD?

Dividend stocks tend to ebb and flow, so I assume funds focused in this area do the same. I would tend to stay the course here.
I plan to add to an existing SCHD position when rates settle at their ultimate higher levels, but that might be a year or so from now. I've looked at SPHD, but that duplicated individual divi payers in my portfolio. As you noted, there's quite a bit of a downtrend in this space, but the divi's are what I'm looking for as I'm in the distribution phase.
A fund I plan to add in the future which has gotten a bit of discussion on this board is PMAIX. It has a nice global allocation, with a good dividend. It's also held up pretty well with the initial rate spikes. I'm watching to see if this continues. It might be worth a look.

Howdy @davidrmoran
Although I watch bond funds and Treasury yields, I have not viewed this mix together; so I threw your mentions along with FCBFX.

Chart (below) for a 1 year period through March 6, 2018. During this period there were 2 yield bumps of some consequence versus a smooth uptrend, being Sept. 7 and Dec. 14, 2017.
For these 5 funds, the following total returns for 1 year are:
FSICX = +5.5%
PONDX = +5.1%
FCBFX = +3.1%
DODIX = +2.4%
FTBFX = +1.5%

Since Sept. 7, 2017.......
FSICX = +.4%
PONDX = +.4%
FCBFX = -1.9%
DODIX = -.8%
FTBFX = -2.1%
Since Dec. 14, 2017.......
FSICX = +.2%
PONDX = -.8%
FCBFX = -2.4%
DODIX = -1.1%
FTBFX = -1.8%
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FTBFX,DODIX,PONDX,FSICX,FCBFX&p=5&O=011000
One year chart of yield changes for 30,10,5 and 1 year Treasury issues.These, of course; are not the original issues yields, but the yields as determined by market forces. In this case of yield and not performance, the % increase shown at the right edge are the % change upward in the yield for the 1 year period.
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?$UST30Y,$UST10Y,$UST5Y,$UST1Y&p=5&O=011000
Well, beyond central bank plans and such, overall; with the equity market shakes of the past several weeks, folks have not been running to safe haven bonds. Maybe individuals; but apparently the big money is missing. Are they go'in to cash? I don't have a clue.
But, as we began shedding equity; we did not move into safe haven bonds, as would have been the case 10 years ago, the sell money moved into money market. And there it sleeps for now, earning a tiny annual yield, but safe from a large draw down.
Take care,
Catch

@msf: Appreciate the post. We all have to play both ends off the middle, so to speak, given interest rates, market conditions, personal goals, and our own risk tolerance. CDs and Savings Bonds are worthless for generating real profits these days. I'm willing to slog through some bond-averse conditions like rising rates for quite a while, assuming that rates can't go up forever. And I am less and less worried about share price, and want to see the dividends coming in regularly into my bond funds and "balanced" funds. (bonds= 37% of total portfolio, but that 37% is not all in specific and discreet bond funds.) I have two that pay monthly, and I get quarterlies from the hybrid, MAPOX. (PRWCX is a hybrid, but pays only in December, so its div. is a thing I just consider a supplement to its cap. gains.) How often are we reminded that all of this sh-- (STUFF) is cyclical, eh? Of course evolving markets and new situations cannot just be ignored. Over time, countries move out of "frontier" to "emerging" status. And anything else you can think of, too. It all goes into the soup--- the world we invest into.
************************
Bond funds: much easier than trying to get into individual bonds, except for special offerings like the Massachusetts "mini-bonds" I recall, years ago. It's regular income, even though I don't need it right away and am reinvesting it all. All these years of reinvesting and re-deploying a big slug into STOCKS has worked well for me. And I'm 7 years away, still, from RMDs.

Written a few years ago, but I pretty good explanation of why not to worry...

Worst case scenario? The US dollar might depreciate against some other currency. That’s a long-shot but it could happen. Will that push up US interest rates? Doubtful. The US Fed determines the short rate, and the global search for safe assets plus expectations of future US Fed policy determines the longer rates.
Guess what. As we head into the next GFC (Global Financial Crisis), the US continues to look awfully good. Don’t bet against the dollar or US interest rates. Uncle Sam wears the biggest pants in the world.

Source:
china-dumps-us-treasury-bonds-paul-krugman-inches-toward