"No doubt, this great unwinding of stock market mania was discussed / analyzed to extent
in her high school business / social studies classes during these teen-age formative years."
LOL!
I'm not so sure about this Hank...

I track it daily, but don’t own it. I can’t remember it sustaining a -2.85% single day hit like today in the years I’ve tracked it - but am sure there have been some. It will be interesting to watch this one in coming days and see how it performs relative to the broader market. I don’t really understand it very well, which is the main reason I don’t own it. But have tremendous admiration for Buffett and BRK’s long term stellar performance.

Not sure why there is so much interest in this fund now. Its YTD performance is 48 percentile and it is a $62B fund with idiosyncratic sector allocation.

Maybe the price is lower than it might otherwise be?
I suppose it benefits from its history of past performance, which predates the current manager. It seem like the type of steady-eddy fund that made T. Rowe famous back in the day.
Then too, it has not been available for some years. I added a small position to my IRA in June of 2014 shortly before it "closed."
Add the surprise factor that its apparent availability was unexpected.
I have yet to check if the order went through.

Thanks @Observant1 for the “probing” article on Americans’ current love affair with stocks. In reading I became curious about the author. From the linked article: “The typical salary for a journalist in the United States is $49,887 per year”. Had no idea they were so underpaid.
Gunjan Banerji was born in 1992. For some perspective …. That year Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street Week was completing its 22nd season on PBS. 5 years had passed since the global stock market “flash crash” of ‘87. She would have been 6 or 7 when the tech sector sizzled and 8 when the bubble burst in 2000. (Maybe some nervous playground banter?) She would have been 16 in 2008 during the depths of “the great financial crisis” (and subsequent 50%+ drop in the S&P). No doubt, this great unwinding of stock market mania was discussed / analyzed to extent in her high school business / social studies classes during these teen-age formative years.

Hi, guys.
Mostly, given the Morningstar research and my own preferences, I was shooting for two parameters: (1) maximum simplicity hence 50/50 and (2) a multi-asset manager who might make some adjustments to moderate risk as things evolved. Too, I've spoken to a bunch of managers who are corrosively skeptical about the weaknesses of a debt-weighted passive index. Absent those constraints, Vanguard Balanced Index would be the logical choice.
Really, anything we can do to get anxious young investors to take the first, tentative step, would be wonderful. Colleges are hiring faculty later in life (our "youngsters" are starting 5-7 years later than I did) and they're not starting to save until their mid-30s. I spend a lot of time cheerleading for "take the first small step".
David

Time to bring out Devo's replicating portfolio exercise.
A 50/50 portfolio of LCORX and RPHYX generate a beta of .26 over ten years. So the clone is 26% SPY and 74% the 3 month T-Bill. Here is the result: Dinky linky.
The second portfolio recommends a 50/50 split of FPACX and ICMUX. The clone works out to 46% SPY and 54% 3 month t-bills. Here is the result of that run: YADL.
What advice would you give any indolent youths known to you?
Edit to add: PV does not seem to be accounting for fixed annuals contributions of 6500$. Suggestions and solutions are welcomed

Agree with you 100% @larryB. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I experienced five years of hard work earnings go poof in the market within a few weeks...
Like I stated earlier, easy to say in hindsight just stay invested etc...but the market doesn't care what you need to support your retirement and most crapped themselves when the markets drew down by 30% plus... They say it always comes back like that's a law of gravity or something...just like housing always goes up ..hmmm

This old retired guy looked at Carlson's chart for the number of years it took to consistently made 4% ( one recommended withdrawal rate ) or more on average over the preceding period.
In other words how long after a major loss would it take to get back to over 4% return on average to equal your withdrawals
Out of the 31 years listed in 9 years you would have to wait over 5 years to get back to over 4% average return
In 2000 you had to wait 14 years before your ave returned to over 4%
One wonders if the recommended "three to five years of expenses in cash" is sufficient.
The SP500 didn't permanently recover to it's 2000 peak until 2012

Hi David, And yes, for the young one's to start investing. Many can't or won't for a variety of reasons; but for those who can help promote such a situation, do your best to poke and prod. The results can be very gratifying on a personal level. The investments can be very simple for the task.
Thank you for your write; and everyone else for the contributions this month.
From my write of August 22: A Conservative portfolio design, thread.
A real world example of a very lazy portfolio using two index funds.
Criteria:
--- Utah 529 education account, open for 18 years
--- inception, May 2006
--- self directed with self choice(s) of investment sectors
--- 13 years of contributions (1st and 15th of each month) = $ cost averaging
--- 5 years to date; no additional contributions
--- the 50/50 equity/bond portfolio is reset to 50/50 each September, per the Utah 529 contract
The institutional funds (for 529 accounts) are VITPX (U.S. Total stock market) and VBMPX (U.S. Total IG bond market). All distributions reinvested in the fund(s).
The annualized returns data are from Vanguard, M* and the 529 account.
--- annualized 15 year combined return = 8.125%
--- YTD return = 10.47%
Remain curious,
Catch

If you followed FD's guidance, you regularly purchased and sold funds
at very opportune times and never experienced losses greater than 3%!
What's not to like?
Easy, peasy... ;-)
When US LC are not doing well (2000 - 2009), it's an easy way to lose money for years!
However, FD does not believe in diversification (regardless of the empirical data)
and would like everyone to know he wouldn't be caught dead in an underperforming fund
for any appreciable length of time.

First, you take things out of context. If you want to present what I do, please be accurate. The 3% loss is only for bond funds + a tedious trading + selling to MM in high risk markets.
Second, my older system when I was an accumulator:
About every 4 months, I screened wide-range funds and selected the best risk/adjusted performing funds based on 1-3 months + also looking good for 1-3 years. This exercise limits funds that lag for months-years. The main idea is to be mostly in the right 1-2 categories.
You can see an example for indexes (I used managed funds because I believed in star managers) (here).

The Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Market Index, which BND tracks, dates back to 1976.
Let's put this in perspective.
Prior to 2022, the index experienced only four calendar year losses:
1994 - (-2.9%)
2013 - (-2.0%)
2021 - (-1.5%)
1999 - (-0.8%)
The Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Market Index's 13% loss in 2022 was, by far, its largest loss ever.
The performance that year was highly irregular.

It was irregular. The following are not the "norm" either...losing twice 40-50% during 2000-2009 or BND making only 1.7% annually for 10 years or QQQ making over 1600% since 04/2009.
LT stats do not tell us about the markets ahead of us. If you join/avoid 1-2 of these, it can improve someone's portfolio by a lot.
BTW, these are not weekly/monthly trades, some of them are years in the making.

If you followed FD's guidance, you regularly purchased and sold funds
at very opportune times and never experienced losses greater than 3%!
What's not to like?
Easy, peasy... ;-)
When US LC are not doing well (2000 - 2009), it's an easy way to lose money for years!
However, FD does not believe in diversification (regardless of the empirical data)
and would like everyone to know he wouldn't be caught dead in an underperforming fund
for any appreciable length of time.

I do my best to steer clear of The Crowded Trade. It's fun, too, to uncover a good stock that's not getting much or any attention. No more penny stocks for me, though. Diversify, but do not di-worse-ify. Growing cash at the moment. Bullish, but valuations are very high. My plan is to let my stuff ride. When there's a pullback, I'll buy.

For years now the top high tech drove the US stock market to new highs and much more than international, SC, and value. You could used SPY,VOO or QQQ was better. These companies are globally well known.
If you missed them, you made less money.
If you bought others, you made less money.
If you were out waiting for an opportunity, you made less money.
If you thought they are overvalued, you made less money.
If you stayed clear of the crowd, you made less money.
When US LC are doing well, it's the easiest way to make money and it lasts for years. 1995-2000 + 2009-2024 is more than 20 years

Certainly, wonderful this year!
But, in fairness, most of the outsized returns (versus say SP500) came in first 20 years, not the last ...


And without last month's August surge, SPY and BRKA dead even on this chart.

The 4% "rule" is not a rule at all. It is a guide. Adjust it as you may, but it is a starting point for decisions. Also, it has nothing to do with SS or pensions. It is independent of that. It has only to do with the life, or probability of the availability of your nest egg lasting over 30 years.

"As someone who makes most of his money in bonds I never understood
why look mostly at high rated bond funds."
High quality bonds ("high rated" in your parlance), especially Treasuries,
are excellent diversifiers for equity-heavy portfolios.

Let's test the above.
In 2022 US Total bond index, BND, lost -13.1%.
In the last 5 years BND lost money and "only" 12% behind MM, see chart of VMFMM,BND(https://schrts.co/SKsIYDBs)
Remember, MM has no volatility.
For 10 years BND made 1.6% annually = about 19% total (only 1.2% ahead of MM), and so much behind CPI about 32% which means you lost purchasing power.
See (https://schrts.co/vQxnjdDG)
So, while treasuries are OK for decades for very simple portfolios, in the short term, the markets tell us where to be :-)
The above tells us that investing in treasuries in the last 5-10 years was not a great idea.

I'll step aside from previous years equity markets performance during September and October for whatever reasons; and note that the next 2 full months will remain a full political battle for the future of this country, that the middle east is still 'on fire', that the Ukraine continues to attack within Russia with drones, that the U.S. has stated that Iran should not provide drones/missiles to Russia and that Russia continues to destroy important targets in Ukraine. There likely remains 20 other items that are not in the 'big' news, at this time.
POSTED: September 3, Tuesday at 9:30 am.
ADD: you may use the link to follow the sectors markets when the U.S. markets are open. One may bookmark this page or save the link to your electronic device for future views.
Major global and U.S. etf categories This list is set with %Chg column (daily), which will indicate near real time changes while the U.S. markets are open; being from most positive to most negative returns. The right side of this data provides 'technical' buy/sell indicators (opinion).

Hey @catch22 thanks so much for sharing this etf category link…. Really useful. I wasn’t aware of this one. Clearly a very defensive day today with consumer staples, RE, and utes all outperforming. I’ve been tracking the low volatility etfs like SPHD and will note that they’ve been up every day since mid August.

Don't buy the 4% rule, never have. I looked at it but it seemed to me not to take into account SS. My expense's for the last 16 years average 7.07% of last years year ending total. (including SS) -- maybe that is less than 4% without SS but why bother figuring that out. ADD: I have no idea why I track that but I do. I never use it for anything.

As someone who makes most of his money in bonds I never understood why look mostly at high rated bond funds. I want my funds to have a good risk/reward and the above don't do that. Higher-rated bonds have the highest correlation to rates with high volatility.
More than a year ago I posted about 3 good funds managed by David K. Sherman
RPHIX,CBLDX,RSIIX and can be held another 2 years while rates go down. The first one is the closest bond fund for a cash "sub".
The other 2 are very good generic bonds with yield about 7-8% + low duration. This combo proved to be much better. See the chart (https://schrts.co/XqbrJhJz).
Every year I find plenty of opportunities, see a chart of THOPX,NVHIX/NVHAX,RSIVX/RSIIX,BND (https://schrts.co/bAbYcJwv)
What is wrong with making 8+% in 2024 with low volatility?
BTW, the above is a good reason for me to hardly ever hold for years a typical HY bond fund. Again, high volatility + yield lower than CBLDX,RSIIX.

I'll step aside from previous years equity markets performance during September and October for whatever reasons; and note that the next 2 full months will remain a full political battle for the future of this country, that the middle east is still 'on fire', that the Ukraine continues to attack within Russia with drones, that the U.S. has stated that Iran should not provide drones/missiles to Russia and that Russia continues to destroy important targets in Ukraine. There likely remains 20 other items that are not in the 'big' news, at this time.
POSTED: September 3, Tuesday at 9:30 am.
ADD: you may use the link to follow the sectors markets when the U.S. markets are open. One may bookmark this page or save the link to your electronic device for future views.
Major global and U.S. etf categories This list is set with %Chg column (daily), which will indicate near real time changes while the U.S. markets are open; being from most positive to most negative returns. The right side of this data provides 'technical' buy/sell indicators (opinion).