Thanks @Ted,
If you ever have an opportunity to read or listen to a Dan Fuss Interview, do so. Like Bogle, Fuss is a grandfather like figure that is both engagingly dry and full of financial wisdom.
From @Ted's article on owning bonds in today's market:

“I do know from my 59 years of experience, when the ice was very thin, it’s always good to be very cautious,” he said. “You can skate around the edges but you can’t go out to the middle.”

and,

“I‘m not trying to be an ‘end of the world person’ here, but it is a possibility,” he said. “It used to be one percent, now it’s a 15 or 20 percent possibility. Would you get on an airplane if there was a 15 percent risk? And that’s a good way to ask a person about risk,” he said.

Maybe investor confirmation bias, but I sold my "middle of the pond" position in AGDYX about a month ago. His concerns about a lack of buyer of bonds and a higher risk of inflation paired with do nothing politicians is what you pay a bond manager to worry about. Bond index funds provide none of this risk management.
Wish the article dug a little deeper into Dan Fuss and his bond choices over the next part of the market cycle.

I've had TGINX for several years now, and it doesn't seem overly affected with recent actions. Not sure why, however.

Good column (and not pay-walled). The bright spots, such as they are, in his projections are that although he doesn't expect the market to beat inflation in the next several years, he's also not expecting a crash near term. Also, over the longer term (two decades) he expects stocks to beat inflation by 2.8%.
I agree with Lewis (and Grantham) that workers are being treated worse than in "days of yore". However, I think Grantham's view of pension funds in the past is a bit on the rosy side. Pensions were used to lock in employees (30 year requirement to benefit), used as an excuse for paying lower wages, used to lavish benefits on management, perennially underfunded, and often bankrupt (think Studebaker). ERISA protections didn't come along until 1974, and by 1980 you had 401(k)s appearing.
NYTimes Magazine article 2005: The End of Pensions.

There are parts I agree with, and parts where I see things differently.
I agree that the intent was likely, at least in part, to prevent gaming the system. I make multiple/excess conversions in a year. Then after I see how each investment has done and how much I need to roll back to stay within a tax bracket, I select which investments and how much of each to undo. I'm sure there are others here who do something similar.
All perfectly legal, and all gaming the system. Heads I win, tails the IRS loses.
A simplified version of this is: if the market goes up, keep the conversion. If the market goes down, back it all out. Ed Slott doesn't see this as gaming. I disagree. Still, heads I win, tails the IRS loses.
Ed Slott thinks that if this provision passes, you won't be able to undo your 2017 conversions after December 31, 2017. I read the proposal differently. He's certainly being more conservative, and that's probably good, especially for an advisor.
What the proposed legislation says is: "EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by
this section [removing the ability to recharacterize] shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017."
I take that as meaning that you will not be able to recharacterize anything for tax year 2018. Recharacterizing your 2017 conversions, whenever it is done, applies to tax year 2017.
As supporting evidence, I point to the wording in the current code (which would be deleted):

if, on or before the due date for any taxable year, a taxpayer transfers in a trustee-to-trustee transfer any contribution to an individual retirement plan made during such taxable year from such plan to any other individual retirement plan, such contribution shall be treated as having been made to the transferee plan

A bit of a mouthful, but basically saying that if you undo your tax year 2017 Roth conversion by Oct 15, 2018, it's treated as if you'd just moved the money from your traditional IRA back into a traditional IRA in tax year 2017.
Of course this isn't advice, Ed could be right, or the law might not be changed at all.

FRIFX looks like a great fund. I remember that I had in on my watch list years back, can't remember why I didn't pull the trigger.

Q: Where are you finding stocks these days that meet your criteria? How does today’s environment rank on the scarce-to-plentiful/easy-to-hard scale and how does it compare to other times?
A: Japanese small caps are the single biggest pocket of great opportunities.
Also, this comment seemed worth considering Canada now:

Five years ago, the Canadian dollar was near parity with the U.S. dollar, but today it is worth about US$0.78, reducing the value of Canadian stock holdings proportionately.

FYI: For Joel Tillinghast, investing is as much about avoiding mistakes as picking winners.
In 28 years of running the $38 billion Fidelity Low-Priced Stock Fund FLPSX, +0.02% he has done plenty of both.FYI:
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fidelity-fund-manager-investing-successfully-is-about-minimizing-regrets-2017-11-06/print
M* Snapshot FLPSX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/FLPSX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot FLPSX:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/flpsx
FLPSX Is Ranked #6 In The (MCV) Fund Category By U.S. News & World Report:
https://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/mid-cap-value/fidelity-low-priced-stock-fund/flpsx

FYI: A few years ago I wrote a post that is still far and away my most popular called What if You Only Invested at Market Peaks? I still regularly receive comments, caveats, and questions about this one.
A recent follow-up question from a reader asks:
What if you only put your money to work at below average P/E ratios?
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2017/11/what-if-you-only-bought-at-below-average-pe-ratios/

FYI: U.S. investors have poured into “risk-parity funds” in the last few years. Advocates say the complicated strategy of investing in stocks, bonds and commodities offers better returns than traditional balanced funds that invest in a mix of stocks and bonds.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.ajc.com/business/atlanta-money-manager-brings-sophisticated-mutual-fund-main-street/BJ524YWOYIG0g8rTRR3UnN/
M* Tactical Allocation Fund Returns:
http://news.morningstar.com/fund-category-returns/tactical-allocation/$FOCA$TV.aspx

In general, if I were 30-40 years from retirement I’d prefer to use a pre-tax program like the Traditional IRA. At 10 years from retirement I’d begin transitioning (through Roth contributions and/or conversions). At 60+ I very much like the Roth concept. So these considerations affect my view of the anticipated change (not favorably).
Reason: I have no confidence in being able to anticipate the rules of the road as Congress, the executive branch and federal courts may define them 65-75 years from now (anticipating 35-40 years of making contributions and 30-35 years of withdrawing money. The “promise” of tax exempt contributions exists now. Use it. The promise of tax exempt withdrawals in 75 years is anybody’s guess. I do, however, have a somewhat higher predictive confidence for 20-30 years out. So for a shorter time frame like that, I’ll take my chances transitioning to a Roth-type product.
Memory is a funny thing, especially with politicians. Who knows what the federal budget, tax collection needs and political mood of the nation will be so far out? For some perspective - 75 years ago (1942): Pearl Harbor had just been attacked, FDR was President, the interstate highway system hadn’t yet been built, and the setting for one of my favorite films was taking shape along Nantucket Beach (BTW - not the actual filming location).

@BenWP, from reviewing SEC filings I believe the strategy changed in October 2015. At that point the only name change was to replace AllianzGI with Fuller & Thaler. The name change to explicitly include "Small Cap" happened at the end of January this year. I believe the strategy actually changed in 2015 because the stocks in the portfolio before and after the change were very different, from clearly large cap names I recognized easily to mostly names that I didn't recognize or know are a lot lower on the capitalization spectrum. M* also changed the category designation, showing the portfolio in the small blend box of their 9 box in 2015 and which I assume relates to where they finished the year and then changing the category designation to small blend in 2016.
I'm not particularly concerned about turnover because I would buy it in my IRA if I decide to do that and their performance in the small blend category, albeit for just 2 years, might be even better than their previous performance. If you're willing to put any weight on 2 years and you're comfortable with the total assets chasing the strategy then it's pretty interesting. I normally compare small blend funds to my favorites, VVPSX, MSCFX and FSCRX as well as IWB rather than peers, which is an extension from what Sam Lee was talking about to include a few small cap funds I really like, have held and/or would like to hold (VVPSX), and these guys look great for the last 2 years. I think I'd like to see how they do in a more extended negative market because they haven't done anything special in the few isolated negative months in the last 2 years and they didn't do well against my comparisons in January 2016. Can't someone whip one of those up just for comparison's sake?

@ MFO Members: Have read and invested in Frank Holmes for years, he kinda GROW's on you, and then he doesn't !
Regards,
Ted :) :) :)
GROW:
YTD: 142%
1-Yr. 126%
3-Yr. 4.9%
5-Yr. -(7.84)%
10 Yr. -(14.33)%
http://performance.morningstar.com/stock/performance-return.action?t=GROW&region=USA&culture=en_US

FYI: ( For those of you who are not aware David Snowball was Marla Brill's gatekeeper on her mutual fund website.)
For most of the last few years, investors have largely ignored emerging market stocks as the prolonged and positive momentum of the U.S. economy and healthy corporate earnings reports kept them satisfied with stocks closer to home.
Over the five years ended August 31, the annualized return for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index was 5.3%, while the S&P 500 returned 14.4%.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/are-emerging-market-etfs-getting-frothy-35389.html?print

Sorry, LLJB, I should have been clearer. I've been reading work on the adviser's site, which is more extensive. https://www.fullerthaler.com/news. They've run the strategy in several wrappers back for a couple decades. Microcap, if I recall correctly, is 17 years old.
The original adviser (Undiscovered Managers) sought out Fuller and Thaler based on their private work, that fund was then sold (perhaps twice?) before Fuller and Thaler moved from sub-adviser to adviser. The previous owner of the fund withdrew something like 90-95% of the fund's assets when it became independent, which allowed them to transition from a larger cap product (which the adviser wanted) to a small cap one (which they wanted). I'll see if I can extract more info about the small cap accounts.
David

I'm thinking that sometime in the future Roth withdrawals will be taxed once contribution principal has been removed. So, if you invested 100k in the form of contributions in your Roth, through the years, the first 100k taken will not be taxed; but the investment gains after contributions will be taxed when removed or some form of this. This one of the reasons I never opened a Roth account in the first place.
If and when the government needs money ... Hello, taxation.
My "Crystal Cube" when polled gave the "yes" answer ten out of ten times.

Hi @johnN,
The powers that be on the board have asked all posters to write a short blurb about the subject matter they are linking. I have noticed that you have recently just been posting links the past couple of months. So, why are you not doing as the rest of us and writting a short recap? Is it no longer required?
I do like reading what Dr. Madell thinks. In this edition, I found it interesting in viewing the asset categories he listed and feels will outperform over the next three to five years. Seems, LCG was not one of them.

Hi @Roy
Interesting question.
As a stock over the last 20 years, TROW has generally performed well in bull markets and poorly in bear markets. I believe this to be an investor sentiment phenomenon as opposed to a passive investing issue.
TROW has $22B in market cap. They are a long way from being forced to go private IMO.
Frankly, I think passive investing/robo advisors etc. may be the ones hurting most if we enter a long term bear market. The better active managers have a chance to outperform the stock market by a wider margin in that environment than they do in a relentless bull market.

I think we can all agree that the last 10 years have been abnormal... GFC, elongated recovery boosted by QE. I have no crystal ball to tell you when things will turn, but I do believe they will and we will all be on this forum posting about our low (maybe negative) absolute returns.

Abnormal or not, but many Baby Boomers, especially the older ones, have firmly secured their retirements due to the past 10 years (or 9.5 years to be more precise) and have or are transitioning to a more conservative mode. The joys of being old! First it was the decades of the roaring 80s and 90s and then the QE driven decade. For most, no skills required, just being a full fledged participant.

True, and that's great. However, for investors still participating in the markets, we can't fall victim to the end point sensitivity here...

I think we can all agree that the last 10 years have been abnormal... GFC, elongated recovery boosted by QE. I have no crystal ball to tell you when things will turn, but I do believe they will and we will all be on this forum posting about our low (maybe negative) absolute returns.

Abnormal or not, but many Baby Boomers, especially the older ones, have firmly secured their retirements due to the past 10 years (or 9.5 years to be more precise) and have or are transitioning to a more conservative mode. The joys of being old! First it was the decades of the roaring 80s and 90s and then the QE driven decade. For most, no skills required, just being a full fledged participant.

I think we can all agree that the last 10 years have been abnormal... GFC, elongated recovery boosted by QE. I have no crystal ball to tell you when things will turn, but I do believe they will and we will all be on this forum posting about our low (maybe negative) absolute returns.