Poor destitute Mr. Gross. My reaction is that this has more to do with his bruised ego than any dollar issues. Anything to get publicity and attention on him again. Janus has had enough problems over the years. Now they have Mr. Gross.

This really strikes home for me. I was at a small startup that never had a shareholder meeting or board election since the day it incorporated. After several years of this, a majority of shareholders (in both numbers of bodies and more importantly, shares) removed and replaced the board. The company CEO then asserted he'd been constructively terminated and made all sorts of pronouncements.
I'm hesitant to post more. Suffice to say, and with thanks to Yogi, it's déjà vu all over again.
IMHO the article is correct. Generally (in the absence of an employment contract to the contrary) a company is free to fire an employee for anything except what legislatures and courts have deemed against public policy ("bad reasons") - like your race or religion. California is likely the best place in the US to work as an employee, as it gives employees great protection.
So it will be interesting to see if Gross can make his argument that firing was to avoid a bonus payment fly. It would seem he needs to show that this money really was a substantial reason for his termination, and that (in California) this would constitute a "bad reason".

Hi @Dex,
In the cash area of my portfolio, which includes money held in currency and on deposit at two banks, I currently have enough cash to live off of for more than three years at my current spending rate should all other forms of income I receive (social security, a small pension and from investments) come to a halt. If I sold out of the markets today, I anticipate I'd have better than twenty years of worth of cash on hand at my current spending rate. Seems, I recall Ted chose to go to mostly to an all cash position this past summer. For me, being age 67 and my wife age 65 I think I am going to stay invested in the capital markets for many years to come. Should my portfolio return what I have projected over the next ten years, as detailed in another blurb and noted below, the returns will most likely be enough to support my lifestyle without a cash drawdown.
For easy reference, below is my post regarding my anticipated portfolio's return. It reads as follows ...
"Hi @MJG,
Thanks for posting your forecast of six percent average annual gain for stocks over the next ten years. Wonder what bonds are going to do? And, then there is cash?
Here is my thinking ... Like you say, I'll use six per cent for stocks, (my call) four percent for bonds and two percent for cash. With this and based upon my current asset allocation of 25% cash, 20% bonds and 55% stocks (which includes the 5% other assets as defined by M* within my portfolio) I can expect between a four to five percent annualized return over the next ten years on my portfolio. Sounds reasonable to me.
So, if I want to make more I will need to continue to employ some spiffs (special investment positions) from time-to-time as I have been doing in this low interest rate environment. Doing this, might add a percent or two. Or, I could take on more risk and raise my allocation to stocks and bonds while lowering my allocation to cash. Think I'll continue to play the spiffs and tweak my asset allocation form time-to-time as to how I am reading the markets. In doing a look back, Morningstar's Portfolio Manager indicates that my current fund possitions have a combinded returned for the past five years of about 8.5% and for the ten year period about 6.5%. With this, some adjustment (downward) would needed to be made to account for my cash position in use with the above percentages. So, let's knock a percent off of these percentages to derive at what the portfolio would have returned adjusting it for current cash held. Probally, not exact but close.
Currently, I think from a TTM P/E Ratio (21.5) stocks are more than fully valued along with most bonds. With this, I am going to stick with being cash heavy for the time being and employ the spiffs.
Thanks again for posting your insight. It is appreciated."
Best regards,
Old_Skeet

Not sure what you have in mind here, so let's try a simpler question. What would APY for an individual bond mean for you? I see various possibilities:
A bond typically has coupon payments twice a year, so its APY (using compounding, like a bank's APY) would be (1 + r/2) x * (1 + r/2) where r was the APR. r could be either
coupon/face value or coupon/purchase price, depending on what you're looking for.
Either way, that would only represent the compounding of the coupon, and not any change in bond price. For example, a zero coupon bond would have an APY of zero if APY only included coupon payments. But I doubt that's what you have in mind.
What I personally care about (especially if I were holding until maturity or call, which is somewhat implied by computing a compound yield) is yield to worst (yield to maturity or yield to call, whichever were lower). That's a calculation (like amortization) that includes both the coupon rate and the change in price to maturity.
If this is the figure of interest, then a zero coupon bond with a price of $50 (face value of $100) that matured in 12 years would have a yield to maturity of 6% (rule of 72).
The best approximation of yield to worst for a portfolio of bonds (such as a mutual fund) is the SEC yield. It incorporates the price changes in the underlying bonds and their coupon rates. It's my figure of choice, because it includes all factors instead of looking only at interest payments which can be misleading.
Here's a pretty clear article from Forbes on current yield and SEC yield.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2012/07/19/the-yield-trap/

DS,
Thanks. Waggoner did go back 25y (though not analyzing discrete years), and there was followup too that might be of interest:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/27/investing-do-you-want-to-send-your-money-abroad/24077415/
Interesting about 10%, wow.

Hmmmmm..... don't know what the advisers are doing with "other peoples money".
--- U.S. started and kept the QE money machine running from late 2008. So, U.S. was the best of the breed at that time.
--- Europe was in the restrictive mode as I recall and there were a series of equity "fits", mostly during the springtime months (May). Greece was a concern and then Mr. Draghi did the "whatever it takes" thing with the European QE.
--- China got rolling again after the melt and bought every commodity in sight. That was good for a few years and of benefit to the Aussies (iron) and some folks in South America for awhile.
--- Japan began (again and/or still) their version of QE.
--- Some central banks continue to reduce rates here and there; I suspect, with the aspect of slow spending and the thought of deflation.
So, there was a strong dollar (commodity pricing globally), fracking finally started to produce changes in this countries energy reserves. The Euro and Japan QE provided a positive boost for investors, especially with tools like HEDJ and DXJ type funds. Recalling that the Euro/dollar was just about $1.60:$1 in 2008 and now runs around $1.14, more or less.
Don't know that anything disrupting has been provided. Just a few trinkets from the past several years that have shaped where some money travels and why.
Not included is anything that is military, social or the particular changes of status in many middle eastern countries.
Lots of stuff going on that we know about, and as much that we don't know about.
The U.S. is likely still the best of the economic turd piles for investing, but there are always investment gems here and there that come to life for a period of time.
Take care,
Catch

Anyone use preferreds? They seem to be less volatile than REITs.

Yes, I'm new to preferreds, but owned PPSAX (lw at Fido) in 2014-early 2015 and now have a stake in a preferred cef. Good income, not all that volatile, but all the preferred funds I've looked at are at a high price to par now. They seem to do well about every other year and lag some in the off years, and they did great in 2014. Most of the funds I've considered are hybrids, with some straight corporate debt, so they act more like bonds than a REIT fund would. Make sure you check the credit exposure if you go shopping; the credit quality varies quite a bit.
The etf PFF is a quick & easy way to get exposure, but I "prefer" active management in preferreds.

Yeah, lots of the active equity mutual funds at Vanguard show cap gains hits (eg., VGENX). But the related index mutual funds (eg., VENAX) do not. Nor do the ETFs with same share class (eg., VDE). Presumably this benefit is because of the concept of in-kind exchange.
But as these indices become more sophisticated and tailored, they are essentially becoming a formulated "active" trade...but without the cap gain penalty.
If this advantage is bankable, got to believe it increases favor of ETFs. 'Cause, nobody likes paying cap gains, especially on down years.

the distribution is precisely due to the fact that you (and many others) have bailed and caused forced selling.

If YAFFX (+12% distribution) is any indication, this year the tax man cometh.

Glad I bailed out of this fund earlier this year. Its supposed to do well in down years, but that hasn't been the case this year (-12% YTD). And now it's paying a hefty distribution? No, thanks.

Actually, the cause of the "forced" selling is poor performance. That happens when a fund doesn't live up to expectations.

One the the F P A folks admitted that they were amazed by the reaction of F P A Paramount (FPRAX) investors to the fund's conversion a couple years ago. They replaced the manager, raised the management fee, did a 180 degree turn on the portfolio, unleashed a massive tax bill and their investors not only didn't leave, they didn't even ask questions.
On the bright side, at least we'll never have a lanolin shortage. There are simply too many sheep around.
David

@heezsafe- Good point! WashMutual was a bank of course, so FDIC helped there, but the other two- didn't the US step up and "temporarily" for a couple of years cover the moneymarket accounts? The theory being that if a run once got started there would be no stopping it? I know that they did that, but not sure about what happened with respect to Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Lehman was an investment bank, so I'm not sure if they even had any "public" money market accounts, and of course ML was shoved into the lap of BofA.

the distribution is precisely due to the fact that you (and many others) have bailed and caused forced selling.

If YAFFX (+12% distribution) is any indication, this year the tax man cometh.

Glad I bailed out of this fund earlier this year. Its supposed to do well in down years, but that hasn't been the case this year (-12% YTD). And now it's paying a hefty distribution? No, thanks.

willmatt72
Other than the usual suspects, mostly individual REITs in the non-taxable account.
Having said that...I did find something which occurred a few years ago in my taxable account...in 2011. All of my funds with the exception of VGHCX all lost money. But my entire income sleeve of individual dividend paying stocks had a 11% gain. So while most folks wouldn't consider that subset of stocks to be diversifiers, I do. It may have been just a weird alignment of stars, but it did happen.

@ msf,
Wow - Just when I thought fund fees were becoming more reasonable.
At work years ago we first had Templeton Class A in our 403-B plan (4.17% front load) and than later they added T. Rowe Price no-load, which I switched to.
Guess I was "spoiled" by that experience.
I hope the OP is able to identify some options that won't gouge him on cost. If not, the Roth idea someone suggested might be a better alternative.

The one (more aggressive) choice that leaps to mind is T.Rowe Price's Growth Stock Fund (PRGFX) ... R-Class would allow you to own Class A equivalent at Oppenheimer without paying the customary (near 5%) load.

I'll try again to describe loads.
Would you be as comfortable suggesting the RRGSX share class of TRP's Growth Stock Fund? That's what is being offered. These are R shares, with an ER nearly double that of PRGFX (an extra 0.50%, to be precise). Oppenheimer R shares likewise add 0.50% and cost more than their load-waived A shares found in some other 401k plans (and also NTF at several discount brokerages).
This extra 0.50% is taken out year after year, even if one switches funds within the 401k, since the all funds assess this fee (or something close to it).
That's a load. It goes into the pocket of the plan administrator. The SEC calls it a load, FINRA calls it a load. Over a decade, it's going to cost as much as a front end load.
That S&P Mid cap index fund? Here's its financial statement and its M* profile. J class management fee is just 0.07%. But oh, those administrative fees (think 12b-1), they add 0.63%, bringing the total ER up to 0.70. That gravy goes to the plan administrator.
Briefly on the investment options - if you don't like the actively managed options, the index funds cover the major areas, large cap (S&P 500 index), mid cap (S&P Mid Cap index), small cap (Russell Small Cap index), foreign (International index). They're cheaper than the other offerings (even at 0.7% or so ER), and should beat lackluster funds.
If you want to add some bond exposure and actively managed allocations, several people here have written positively about Blackrock Global Allocation (MRLOX), notably BobC, but also Bee, VintageFreak, myself, and others.
Yes folks, posts on the internet live forever :-)

Hi proman. The 3 main drivers to winning the retirement savings game are to start saving early in your career, save as much as you can (10% of your income minimum) and have a diversified portfolio according to risk tolerance. I wouldn't agonize over fund choice too much. Fund choice IMO is a very distant contributor to the end-game compared to these other factors.
It would be my opinion that one of those Target Date funds would give you the allocation base you need. Use the retirement year as a guide, but make your decision based more on the funds stock/bond allocation. Take a look at how much these funds lost in 2008. Are you comfortable with short term loss knowing you don't need this money for another 30+ years? For example I see that the 2045 retirement fund, AOOIX, is about 78% stocks. It had a 1 year, 2008 loss of 33%. At 30 years old that might be a good choice for you, but you have to decide. If the fund is riskier then you can handle (based on 1 year loss potential) you may pull out at the very wrong time. If it doesn't have enough stock or risk at your age then you may be leaving a lot of money on the table 30 years from now.
Anyway, start with your allocation and then pick a few funds that get you to that allocation. And don't overlook the index funds when allotting, especially in the large cap area. And remember one fund like a Target Date fund might be all you need or at least be the core of your portfolio.
Save as much as you can and as soon as you can. That's the big deal. Good luck to you.
edit: oops, in my original post I used data from AAARX, the strategic fund. I changed the ticker to be AOOIX, the 2045 target date fund.

Virtually nothing. Our current 10% portfolio allocation to cash includes DODIX, TRBUX, a money market fund, and whatever sums we keep for convenience in a couple local checking accounts. (No savings account). Whether inside or outside the IRA, cash is considered part of our invested assets. All is included in allocation decisions (which tends to drag down annual return a bit).
We move 4-7% of our investments annually into our household budget (i.e. a checking account) to cover anticipated expenses throughout the year. During rare years, emergency expenses may require a bit more. Obviously, we pull money from the sectors that have performed the best.
Our investments are very conservatively positioned and broadly diversified. A loss greater than 10% in any given year is possible, but highly unlikely. With over half in Roths, tax issues are not much of a consideration either.
*The 10% allocation to cash does not include additional cash/short-term bonds held thru multi-asset allocation funds.

DLENX vs PREMX going back 5 years are almost even-steven. I see the TRP div. is more generous, too.

Great point FA!
When it comes to what they can invest in and in what amount I think those are termed "fundamental" policies and require a shareholder vote. The last one I recall was from D&C about 5 years ago when they proposed allowing DODIX to own substantial amounts of non-investment grade debt (junk). It passed.
But I'd imagine things like restrictions on shareholder exchanges, minimum investment amounts, redemption policies, etc. are considered "non-fundamental" and can be changed by the fund company without a vote. Sounds like OJ's fiduciaries are a bunch of busy-bodies, frequently altering the non-fundamental policies.
These things are easily downloadable and I do make it a point to at least skim through them once a year.

Dear friends,
As you know, I hold ETFs in the same regard as I hold, say, tasers in the hands of toddlers. Charles is, I know, far more hopeful of their potential for good. It might be selective perception on my part, but it seems as if there have been many more skeptical essays about them since the Monday crash than I'd seen before.
One argument that the term "passive investing" is a marketing fraud. John Rekenthaler does a nice job of pointing out that "passive/active" is not a simple split. There's a spectrum from truly passive (a cap-weighted broad market index) through covertly actively ("smart beta" and rules-governed active ETFs) toward more active (most "active" funds) to most active. I believe that even John's "passive" category is "active but lethargic." The S&P 500 is an actively managed quant fund whose the managers are employed by Standard & Poor's. They decide who gets in based on a combination of arbitrary rules, from market-weighting to float, profitably and market cap criteria. As a simple example, Avon was booted after 50 years. Why? Market cap was too small. It was then replaced by Hanes. The minimum cap is $4.5 billion, Avon was $3.2 billion, Hanes was $13 billion. So Hanes, a large and profitable firm, has been sidelined for years waiting for another firm in its industry sector to shrivel and get ejected. If Hanes was more representative of the market, should it have been added years ago? Maybe, but the rules say ... Should Berkshire Hathaway, excluded until 2010, have been added decades ago? Maybe, but the rules say ...
The prime arguments against ETFs seem to be:
1. their cost advantage is illusory. The fact that some ETFs are spectacularly cheap leads investors to assume that all are, which reduces their vigilance as they select investments.
2. they are structurally flawed. The uncoupling on market price from NAV during the crash was one signal of that. A recent article on hedge funds' strategies for gaming the ETF market is another.
3. they structurally encourage bad investor behavior. I smile whenever I read advocates list ETF's "advantages," one of which is always "easy to trade, like a stock." Uhhh ... right, but trading is bad for everyone except those who make money executing your trade.
I read two interesting essays this morning that add a bit of useful evidence to the discussion.
The Hidden Costs of Commission-Free ETFs lays out the costs of getting on platforms like Schwab and into their NTF programs. Schwab charges ETF advisers an $250,000 "shelf fee" plus 40 basis points to participate in the program. As a result, NTF funds including commission-free ETFs end up charging higher expenses. For every $1,000 you invest, you end up paying $2.20 more in annual expense for commission-free ETFs than for commissioned ones. If the commission is $9/trade, the break-even point is about $4,000 for a fund/ETF held one year; that is, if you intend to invest more than $4,000 and hold it for more than one year, you lose money with C.F. ETFs.
Most absurd ETF trade of all argues that about one-quarter of ETFs charge, before commissions, as much as or more than the average active mutual fund. Some of the data struck me as interesting, though the conclusion didn't. It strikes me as silly to compare ETFs with niche missions (that's typical of the high cost ones) against mutual funds with non-niche missions. Still, the cost warning seems worth it.
For what interest that holds,
David