If life expectancy is currently at 83 for women, that means 50% will live beyond age 83, and a good portion of those will live way beyond 83. As we tell folks all the time, "Tell me when you are going to die, and we will tell you exactly the path to take."

I would venture a guess that life expectancy of 83 year old women who are wealthy enough to seek out the services of a financial planners is higher than 50%.
Wealth and health (life expectancy) often are highly correlated. Check out a quick search result on the topic of:
"A wealthy man, born in 1920 who retired at age 65, could expect to draw Social Security for 19 years. His son, born in 1940 and retired at age 67, could expect to draw benefits for 24 years. Yes, he retired later, but he’s living longer.
This would not be true for men and women at the bottom. They would draw Social Security for fewer years, if the retirement age rises, and their longevity does not."
The Richer You Are the Older You’ll Get

and,
this chart highlights the change in life expectancy for each subgroup (men and women):

@JohnChisum You are welcome. M* pigeon holes ALNNX as a multialternative fund. The article highlighted MASNX which M* also categorizes as a multialternative fund. I have owned MASNX since shortly after it became available in 2011. The only thing that has frustrated me about it has been the 1.74% expense ratio. But, I guess having all those managers costs money. Its return has averaged 4% per year over the past 3 years. I have held MASNX in the "ballast pot" portion of my portfolio.

If today's college graduates live to age 105 or 110, I don't see working to age 75 as a bad thing, assuming health continues to improve as it has over the last 50 years. There have always been a percentage of people who must work past what they would like to be their retirement age because of financial issues. That is not going to change.

There are two aspects missing - 1. will there be jobs for under 75 y/o and 2. if there is a job will an employer higher them? I don't think there will be, especially when you take into account automation, artificial intelligence and outsourcing of jobs. I'm sure there are many 63 y/o today who would like a job but can't get one.

Life expectancy when Social Security was started was about 58 for men and 62 for women. The government figured they would not have to provide many folks with benefits, since most were expected to die before age 65. Now it is 76 and 81. And that is the average, which means many are expected to live much longer. We run our lifetime income projections to age 100 and are considering using longer numbers for our younger clients. Very few of our clients stop their lives and sit in a rocking chair at age 65. Many work because they want to...they like what they do, they own a business. Many retire from their main job and take a part-time job, often what they call a 'fun' job. There are a lot of folks who are unable to retire financially because of various circumstances. The definition of retirement is vastly different from today than it was for our grandparents. If today's college graduates live to age 105 or 110, I don't see working to age 75 as a bad thing, assuming health continues to improve as it has over the last 50 years. There have always been a percentage of people who must work past what they would like to be their retirement age because of financial issues. That is not going to change.

I suppose, if one lived long enough, and these stealth money grabs continued unabated, it could get to the point where one would just not file a return for a couple of years to buck-up one's margins, so to speak, to make ends meet. And then hope the call didn't come for awhile, for the reckoning, whereupon one might end up like Peter's Schiff's father:
http://www.schiffradio.com/death-of-a-patriot/
(caution: if you're having a bummer of a day, you should probably put off reading this until you're having a better one)

"If it looks like there's a lot of grumbling about no SS increases"
It would be really interesting to know what percentage of the SS grumblers also vote for politicians who promise "smaller government and absolutely no tax increases".

Most people vote for their for their self interest. At my age I'm voting for SS increases,
and kicking the can down the road ... about 25 years down the road.

It's been a fine fund through four sets of manager changes. It's made good money this year through its e-tail investments. And Price doesn't encourage silly risk-taking.
One quick reminder, though: based on Charles's inception-to-date data, it took the fund a little more than 10 years to recover from the tech crash that bottomed in 2002. That's comparatively good but still sobering.
David

This fund seems to defy gravity, up 23% during the last year, up 98% during 3 years, up 153% during 5 years.
Any opinion?

@claimui, I certainly agree with you the deep value can be very volatile and gut-wrenching and I think that has something to do with why there's a value and a small cap premium. In my case, I think allocating a portion of my portfolio where I can live with that volatility and potentially extended poor returns is a reasonable attempt to collect those premiums. My guess would be, although I haven't studied it, that a passive fund like Vanguard's Small Value Index fund suffers from what David mentioned in his review of TDVFX, meaning that they fail to capture the value premium. I don't completely believe in M*'s version of value vs. growth in terms of where funds fall in their style box, but out of the 3 funds TDVFX is furthest into value territory while Vanguard's is in the upper right hand corner of the small value box. Pinnacle is obviously very small but not as far left on the value spectrum. I wonder if that's caused in part by their large cash stake?
Like you, I think PVFIX is a reasonably compelling fund and like you I'm not fond of the big cash position. It feels to me like they become market timers and we know how that usually works out. David Iben had an interesting chart in his quarterly conference call for KGGAX that he used to make a point about valuation vs. timing. It showed, in more detail than I'll mention, if he buys a business that's worth twice as much as he buys it for and it takes 10 years for the market to recognize the true worth of the company, he still makes 7% annually on the investment. If he buys a company that's worth 5 times as much as he pays then he makes 17% annually even if it takes 10 years for the company's value to be recognized.
His point was that if he gets the valuation right then whether he's early or not is far less important, part of which is because he thinks 10 years would be an unusually long time for the market to overlook the company's value and part of which is because he's been early for the last 2 years.
It seems like value generally has had a pretty rough ride of it for a while now so hopefully the fun times when value does really well aren't too far off in the future.

https://www.google.com/search?q=barron's snowball funds Oct 2015 Overlooked

There are 173 funds with less than $100 million in them that have outperformed more than 80% of their peers in the past five years, according to Morningstar... (here are five)

I'm not a David Stockman fan. A wonder-boy in RR's administration, renowned for his number-crunching abilities if I remember correctly. And he seems to have mastered the media pretty well in his later years.
However, the linked article (in David's original post) is by a Bloomberg journalist and summarizes (from what I can tell) the views of a couple UBS analysts. I'm not aware of any rigid or standard definition for hybrid fund and it's curious they would use the term here. (If you want a real hybrid, buy some PRPFX.) :) So what they're really talking about (and what their graphic illustrates) is the conventional balanced fund with about 60% in equities and 40% in fixed income (mostly investment grade). Note too, that while the phrase mutual fund investors is often associated with the Ma&Pop types (you and me), they offer as an example Microsoft's significant holdings in balanced funds. I found that quite interesting.
Not smart enough to pretend to understand all this liquidity jargon - but yes ... it has long been suggested that a sharp rise in interest rates will inflict significant damage on traditional balanced funds. Bonds don't like rising rates. Neither do equities. As '07-'09 demonstrated, today's investors have a very quick trigger-finger - a willingness and ability to sell just about anything on a moment's notice. Heck - even money market funds came under panic selling back than. So the argument is correct in the sense that another big-sell off will happen at some future time (and the dry tinder may well be stacked in the high-yield sector). But I think the argument is a bit misdirected (not to mention ambiguous) in targeting hybrid funds for criticism.
Thanks to David and others for the insights. Regards

Hi Guys,
Good grief, Charlie Brown! As I thought about what I plan to say in this posting, the frightening image of Harry Dent invaded my mind. I’m about to stress the significance of dynamic demographic changes that will strongly influence the marketplace in a negative way in the coming years.
Dent has been singing that same song for decades. I suppose this singular theory of Harry Dent is alive and well.
I few years ago I examined a bunch of broad market data to discover chief contributors to real (after inflation) GDP growth rate. I postulated that corporate profits would be loosely coupled with some time displacement to GDP growth.
My correlation efforts identified demographic growth and productivity increases as primary GDP growth rate factors, with the demographics component contributing one-third to the total picture. The correlation was very tight.
That outcome was not unexpected since consumer spending accounts for roughly 70% of our economy. And consumer spending changes as a function of age. Although his numbers have shifted a little as Dent accumulated more data and as our population ages, he finds that the average consumer reaches peak spending in the 45 to 55 age bracket.
Couple that relatively stable spending distribution with an increasing average lifespan and a decreasing child birth rate, and the makings of a shift in our overall spending profile definitely is possible. Potentially, that shift does not bode well for the stock markets. The same arguments are also valid in the developed nations. Potentially, trouble is everywhere.
I distrust forecasting since I really believe that forecasters can’t forecast. As John Kenneth Galbraith said: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”. With that warning, here is my analyses (yes, it’s a forecast by another name).
For the past few decades, a prosperous USA chose spending over savings. We bought what we wanted. With an aging population, our overarching policy will shift from buying what we want to only buying what we really need. Old folks do that. Consumer spending per person will contract. Working against that observation, our population will continue to increase, thus somewhat canceling and ameliorating the reduced spending trend.
Profits will still be positive, but somewhat attenuated. Market returns will be reduced to reflect lower positive levels of GDP growth rates. The markets will mirror lower GDP growth rates. So sad.
Good luck on this forecast being anywhere near what actually happens. The problem has far too many moving and interacting parts. But, nevertheless, it’s a fun task.
The Beatles song “When I’m 64” captures some of the issues of an aging population. Here is a Link to the original version of that song by The Fab Four:

Enjoy. It’s always a losing challenge to accurately project the future. Therefore, I’ll close on the success of the Beatles song.
I realize I failed to answer any of Professor Snowball’s tough questions, but my note does address some issues outlined by MFOer Bee. The questions are well beyond my pay-grade. But I do see a correlation between an aging USA population and muted market rewards for whatever that is worth.
Best Wishes.

I'm considering swapping one MFO-profiled fund (HUSIX) for another, TDVFX. I can do this without tax consequences. Both have performed poorly over the past year, but I expect that now and then from a deep value fund, that doesn't bother me (much.)
My thoughts are: TDVFX has a lower expense ratio (1.20% vs 1.85%) and smaller asset base (about $500 million vs. $1 billion, including separate accounts), plus it seems more of a team-managed effort than one based on a star manager, and I rather prefer the idea of a management team based in St. Louis instead of Southern California.
HUSIX is overweight is financials and basic materials. TDVFX is overweight in energy and industrials. I'm not capable of deciding which overweight is a more likely bet.
One advantage to HUSIX is that it's remarkably tax efficient, only 3 basis points (0.03%) over the last 5 years, as opposed to TDVFX's still modest, but higher 0.73%, according to M*.
HUSIX also had a record of bouncing back really well from bad years like the one it's been having.
Any thoughts?

Up-chuck only with way too much wine! Haven't done that in years, thank goodness.

@briboe69
@jojo26
It is no different than someone allocating $5,500 a year ($458.33 per month(less than 50 yrs old)) or $6,500 a year ($541.67 per month(more than 50 years old)) for a roth retirement account. If you fully fund your self directed retirement account it amounts to about the same thing. It may be the poster's retirement account as he never mentioned what type of account he was subscribing for.
Plus, the poster mentioned that it was nice to invest up to $500 per month. If my memory serves me, Wasatch offered a similar option when it offered the International Opportunities fund years ago.
One of my retirement accounts is BRUSX.

$6,000/year seems kind of high for a micro cap allocation... Unless you have stockpiles of money that you don't know what to do with or like taking a lot of risk.

@briboe69
Congratulations! That was partially the reason why I initially called GP was to make sure my email address was legible and correct since I scanned it into a PDF file then emailed it. My handwriting is not the best.
I received my full allotment that was requested which will be for a taxable account. Did you receive your full amount or less?
@jojo26
It is no different than someone allocating $5,500 a year ($458.33 per month(less than 50 yrs old)) or $6,500 a year ($541.67 per month(more than 50 years old)) for a roth retirement account. If you fully fund your self directed retirement account it amounts to about the same thing. It may be the poster's retirement account as he never mentioned what type of account he was subscribing for.
Plus, the poster mentioned that it was nice to invest up to $500 per month. If my memory serves me, Wasatch offered a similar option when it offered the International Opportunities fund years ago.
One of my retirement accounts is BRUSX.

Anyone who has been through an SEC examination understands they will find some aspect of the business that is not right. In the last two years, examiners have been quite aggressive. The ability of the SEC and similar organizations to access data even before the exam begins is much greater than it was a few years ago. I am not giving a pass to First Eagle on this. But I am saying it is entirely possible this one instance was an oversight, since no compliance department wants to be responsible for the publicity that the news generates. The fact that First Eagle cooperated fully and made corrections immediately is certainly positive, unlike some firms who obfuscate and try to make less of the problem than it is. In the grand scheme of things, this is relatively small potatoes compared to some of the egregious fee-and-expense gouging that happens in the financial world. It is important to note, however, that the SEC is looking very closely into all aspects of fees and expenses and how they are reported. My guess is that they used this instance as a broad shot to all other firms to check into their own fee structures. And that is a good thing.

Do most of the buyers of the new fund also still wait outside all night for concert tickets and apple phones and, dare I say, do you go shopping when the rest of the us are comatose on Thanksgiving?
Sorry, but I just don't get the hype. Nor the rush to be the first adopters of any fund.

Hi Bee,
This will mark the first time I've jumped through these types of hoops for a fund, but the reason is fairly straightforward.
To first justify this of course, one needs to determine if a fund with this capitalization target is what you want. If yes, then you look for a manager with a fund with a track record in this space and their record in terms of shareholder value, and you simply base your decision on that....you are betting on a manager and their track record.
The reason for this leap of faith is because, unfortunately in the small cap space, you don't have the luxury of watching a fund for a few years and then buying in. By the time you've made that decision, the fund is long since closed or the AUM is so bloated to make the capitalization targets meaningless.
Of course, one additional risk needs to be mentioned as pertains to funds discussed on financial sites...even one as esteemed as this, and that is the avoidance of group-think. But, that goes for any decision made in the midst of conversation I suppose.
press

Janus has had enough problems over the years. Now they have Mr. Gross.

:)
I'm not planning on transferring any money to either of these two firms. But it does make one wonder how other large financial instutions - especially in the mutual fund arena - deal with these types of personality issues? Can't imagine anything getting near this ugly at TRP or D&C for instance.