Hank, I agree with you about the past 15 years don't have anything to do with the coming 15 years. But let's not attribute that only to the James fund. That statement covers ALL funds. Assuming Vanguard has a better research department than James for arguments sake, that in itself doesn't mean that the Vanguard fund will get a better return with less risk. There are plenty of Vanguard actively managed funds that aren't great, notwithstanding their deeper bench. (more researchers means better research?)
I just don't see anybody being right or wrong in this discussion. Each investor has his (or her) reasons for preferring a specific fund. Then what ends up happening in the future is anybody's guess. I own both VWINX and GLRBX, plus other allocation funds, just because I prefer to use different funds because they don't invest in the exact same way.

Yes, the Balanced fund has done very well. M* likes it. But, you're not buying the performance of the past 10-15 years. You're buying the performance of the NEXT 10-15 years. Big difference. Do as you will. And you will. Were it me, I'd stick with a larger company with a deeper management team, better research capabilities and more competitive fees. There's so many I won't start to name them. Or, as I think Mona and others would suggest, go with an index fund or other offering from low cost leader Vanguard.

Yup, Wellington Management certainly fits your description. And if I were looking for a Conservative Allocation fund for my taxable account, I would in fact go with VTMFX over GLRBX.
Mona

Umm ... Mona's correct of course. I've never quite gotten the obsession with James Funds. This is a family run outfit. I doubt they have the deep research staff and capabilities of some of the big players. Dad runs the outfit, along with a couple sons who manage funds if my memory serves me correctly. Dad was an Air Force officer and fighter pilot.
They have some top performers like Golden Rainbow. But, in keeping with the flying motif tonight, they also flew their market neutral fund (JAMNX) into the ground a decade ago. Crashed and burned. Now they've come out with a new version of that prior disaster, a long-short fund (JAZZX). Like its predecessor, it's off to a hot start and money is flowing in. But keep your seat-belt buckled. And with a 2.6% ER, we all know who the real winner is on that one.
Yes, the Balanced fund has done very well. M* likes it. But, you're not buying the performance of the past 10-15 years. You're buying the performance of the NEXT 10-15 years. Big difference. Do as you will. And you will. Were it me, I'd stick with a larger company with a deeper management team, better research capabilities and more competitive fees. There's so many I won't start to name them. Or, as I think Mona and others would suggest, go with an index fund or other offering from low cost leader Vanguard.
Just a thought - The Lipper Scorecard (at Marketwatch) does a great job rating tax efficiency of funds. If you haven't already, try to locate a better alternative using that resource.
Regards

Longevity insurance, perhaps a small annuity could fit in here?
If the retiree is going to travel, most likely it will be in the earlier years. So having that money early on would help with those expenses.
As for underspending, that's where the Monte Carlo simulations really can be helpful.

@Junkster @MJG - thanks for the kind words. They are much appreciated.
@Dex - I agree with you that money may be more useful/valuable early in retirement, when it can be enjoyed. (Of course this depends on one's objectives - if it is to horde every penny for a legacy, then we're throwing enjoyment out the window.)
A problem is that people often tend to underspend in precisely this time period, because they are worried about the possibility of living "too long" (outliving their money). An event that may never happen. So we could view the issue you're raising as asking how to avoid underspending while not having the risk of living too long.
Say, what if we came up with some newfangled insurance product to offload that risk? Maybe we could call it longevity insurance :-)
IMHO that is one of the few products the insurance industry has come up with in the past several decades that could meet a real need at a reasonable price. Deferring SS is sort of like a longevity insurance product. You're "paying" (in foregone checks from age 62 to whenever - 66, 70) for higher payments starting in the future. That increase in SS payments is your longevity insurance payout.
Like longevity insurance, the higher future payments enable you to spend more now, because you don't have to worry (or at least worry as much) about what happens after you're 85. If you don't live to 85, you won't be around to fret that the policy didn't pay off.
Regardless of how long you live (and whether the deferred SS checks pay off), you wind up with more cash to spend in your earlier years (even after subtracting the amount of money those foregone early SS checks cost you). That's because you're no longer saving for that long life that may or may not come.
As you wrote, this is something you have to be able to afford. If you need those checks at age 62, then you collect early, no questions asked.

Assuming it takes 16 years to break even if you take SS at age 62 then everyone who dies between 62 and 78 will come out ahead by taking it early. Also, as Dee points out above, getting the money when you're more capable of enjoying it should be weighted somehow. Do you really care if you're getting paid more in social security if it's only going to a nursing home? This doesn't seem to me to be a rationally solvable problem (if there's a spouse to consider or various taxable issues it may be different). There's also the old adage that a bird in the hand is worth two in a bush. I don't care how confident about the future of Social Security you may be, you can't foretell the future with any exactitude. I'm 60 and my inclination is to begin taking it at 62, but I don't think I'd argue the point either way for anyone else.

A few random comments (by someone who otherwise is intrigued by the shop)
1. Only downside I can see to OSTFX is that it tracks very much the Vanguard all-cap index, with slightly less volatility (and Osterweis benchmarks the fund against the S&P500, in spite of the fact that its an all-cap fund; a fact that their investor relations department has been unable to explain to my satisfaction). So, unless I'm misreading the charts, I don't see much value-add there.
2. OSTIX is a wonderful fund. Will be interesting to see how it weathers the impending turns in the bond market in the years ahead. I think the fund has extended beyond what Osterweis cited as their intended capacity for the strategy.
3. OSTVX tracks, remarkably, TRRCX.
4. Osterweis says, across their strategies, they intend to limit downside risk. Admirable enough. On paper, however, their funds look to be more volatile than their respective benchmarks.

@msf or others,
Doesn't some portion of the inflation factor get offset by SS COLAs that a 63-69 year old receives. These COLAs are cumulative over these 8 years. Seems to me COLAs act a little like compounding interest...the sooner you start getting them the greater their impact.
Also, there is no death benefit with SS. If taking SS early helps to reduce the draw down of other assets and those other assets have a death benefit (value after death) I see this as a worthy consideration.

I've listened to Ramsey on radio - but not in many years. He generally makes good sense. Big on self discipline in curbing debt, spending less and investing for the future: "Live like no one else today, so that you can live like no one else tomorrow." Having said that, he was a fan of Janus funds a few years before they imploded.
Per your question: The recommended portfolio, if I understand it correctly, is a very aggressive one, nearly 100% equity weighted (A "value" fund is generally another variety of equity fund. The G&I fund would probably hold some fixed income investments).
The four categories of equity funds you list comprise a great long-term plan to dollar cost average into over decades through systematic workplace contributions. However, it's not something I'd suggest jumping into all at once, unless you are already similarity invested.
Lots of very wise advice from msf and the others above.

Here's SSA's life expectancy table At age 62, a male is expected to live to just short of 82 years of age, on average. Females to age 84.6.

Msf - another good way at looking at the question.
I think as time goes on the number of people who have the option to ponder when to take SS will decline.
Another variable to ponder is he value of SS$ to a younger more active person vs later in life. Let's call it the age deflator. If taking SS$ earlier allows you to spend more on your enjoyment of life, taking SS$ should have a higher value then later in life. That could mean you have more money, so you do more. Or you are less worried about your investments so you feel better spending more so you do more.
I'd look at the deflator this way:
Take SS at:
62-65 100%
66 - 90%
and subtract 3% per year.
70 - 78%
75 - 63%
Summing up, the evaluation can be by the numbers only. Or it can be a evaluated on the emotional, quality of life, and needs in life. So far, my spending over the 8.5 years I've been retired have been fairly constant. I'm guessing as we age spending on travel/etc will decline and other expenses will increase.
I'm still leaning to earlier is better - If you can afford to do it.

Let me offer a different analysis that I think is simpler, yet equivalent to Kitces. It leaves until the end assumptions about inflation rate, tax rate, and rate of return on investment, so that one can decide for oneself whether the risk/reward is worth it.

Really long post. If you don't care at all about the reasoning or calculations, skip to the final three paragraphs, following the clearly marked break (====)
Everything that follows is in constant (inflation-adjusted dollars). This removes inflation as a factor (until the end), it removes complex adjustments on SS payments (which remain fixed if measured in constant dollars).
Rather than discuss break even point, I'm going to use average life expectancy. If taking money early and investing comes out better for an average life span (i.e. average for a person reaching age 62), then that's the better path on average. If deferring the money comes out better for an average life span, then that's the better path.
Finally, what does it mean to come out better? If you take money at age 62, you invest it for four years. Then starting at age 66 (assuming that's FRA, and you are comparing with starting SS at that age), you use some of the invested money to make up the shortfall on your SS checks (you'd be getting larger ones by waiting until age 66). The remainder of the money you keep invested, to grow and to keep making up monthly shortfalls. If you come out with investment money left over when you reach the average life expectancy, you win. Otherwise, deferring (at least until age 66 wins).
The amount of money you have invested each month =
last month's balance * (1 + montly real rate of return) * (1 - monthly tax rate).
Let's call this multiplier net real rate of return (NRRoR).
Before age 66, you also add in the amount of the check you get from SS (age 62 monthly check).
After age 66, you subtract the shortfall (age 66 check amount minus age 62 check amount).
I put all this in a spreadsheet. I used $1000 as the FRA, $750 for the age 62 amount, and $1320 for the age 70 amount. All after tax values.
The tax rate on SS doesn't matter, so long as it remains constant. You can divide by (1 - tax rate) to get the SS check amounts.
Here's SSA's life expectancy table At age 62, a male is expected to live to just short of 82 years of age, on average. Females to age 84.6.
Comparing taking money at age 62 vs. 66, and investing to break even just before age 82, we need to achieve a net real rate of return of 3.0%. (One runs out of investment money about age 81 years, 10 months). For females, we need to have that investment last until age 84.6, and that requires a net real rate of return of 4.2%.
Here's where you get to say how good an investor you are. I look at that 3% real rate, and think that one might target a 3% inflation rate, a 7% nominal rate of return (4% real), a 15% annual tax (not completely tax efficient, but taxed on capital gains).
That gets us to 3% net real rate of return. 15% tax on a nominal 7% rate of return bleeds about 1% off of the return. So we have a 4% real return less 1% in taxes, or 3%. To get that 4.2% real return with 3% inflation would require about a 8.5% nominal return (bleeding 1.3% in taxes, leaving 7.2% nominal, or 4.2% real).
That's an admirable target. Now factor in risk, since we're comparing a sure rate of return with SS (i.e. like an interest rate) with a volatile and uncertain market return.
It's a bit better if one compares age 62 with deferring until age 70. Then, you have more years to invest the money before having to make up shortfalls, and fewer shortfall years (only a dozen years until the men die - on average - at age 82).
Now, one needs only a 2% net real rate of return for the average male to come out ahead (money left over after age 81, 10 months), and 3% for the women to come out ahead. In other words (assuming 3% inflation, 15% tax annually), 5.75% nominal return for males, 7% nominal for females.
===========================================
The bottom line here is that if you've got an average life expectancy, then it looks like you need to be able to invest for around a 7% nominal rate of return with zero risk to do as well as by deferring SS. The more uncertainty there is in achieving this rate of return, the higher that rate needs to be to beat SS on a risk adjusted basis.
It's interesting that people who advocate taking SS early often state that they're taking the "bird in the hand". But when it comes to comparing the certainty of a fixed (real) income stream with the vagaries of the marketplace, they'll go for the uncertain "two in the bush".
That may be a matter of perception - people may feel they don't have control over how long they'll live, but they have control over their investments. I respectfully submit that if anything, the reverse is true. Live a healthy lifestyle, and you can increase your odds of a longer life. But you have no control over the market, which seems to be what has the most effect on how investments perform in general.

Okay, so lots of people ask this question, but first ask yourself another question. Will you really hold this fund for 35 years :).
Also, you mention low growth environment for 35 years...we HAVE to be more confident than that. Regardless...
IF answer to my first question is YES, you want a fund that you expect to be around after 35 years, will have decent succession planning. So you need to look at measure players. You need it to be well diversified. I have two recommendations for you. These are fairly new funds, launched after careful consideration I would think. You can expect the fund company having a lot invested in their success and them not being passing fads
Vanguard Global Minimum Volatility - VMVFX
TRP Global Allocation - RPGAX.
I own both of them, and I don't want to live on this planet for 35 years, but I'm unlucky these are what I would likely leave my grandchildren...if they are well behaved.

Always wonder about the Big concern with Loads, Performance of Level Load is based on NET figures, (that is minus the 0.75% load paid every year) for your easy comparison.
10 yr. return of class-C (level load) OSMCX blows its competition away (#1 over ten years by more than 1%/year).
On a serious note, if one would consider owning the Great Owl Fund WAIOX (now closed), that was the second best performing fund in the category over the past decade, then why exclude the better performing and cheaper (including embedded load) Oppenheimer fund OSCMX simply because it has a load?
Though now one can purchase the much cheaper A share class OSMAX load-waived, which offers even better performance (how could it not - same fund at lower cost) at a low (for the category) ER.

Similar story on my intl small cap OSMYX, its up 12% ytd, not quite as good as yours, but will take it :) I consider this category part of my aggressive sleeve, strictly for my roth which likely won't get tapped for at least 10 more years.

My first SS interview (phone) lasted 20 min., I asked if they need income verification for years,62-66 they said no they will check it (I guess W2s) I get my checks on the exact Date each month they told me, with raises every year...... NO Complaints....
ONE GOV. agency (SS) that did their JOB..
( but don't get me started on the IRS)

FYI: U.S. stocks are near record highs. But what if there's another market meltdown like the one from October 2007 to March 2009? Such a catastrophe can be tough if you're ready to retire or early in your retirement years. A severe bear market right before or after your paychecks cease can make mincemeat of your carefully constructed retirement planning.
Regards,
Ted
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NY Times Slant: New Math for Retirees and the 4% Withdrawal Rule
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/your-money/some-new-math-for-the-4-percent-retirement-rule.html?ref=business

Hi Shostakovich, it wasn't quite clear to me whether you were looking for an investment for the next 30-35 years or whether you're just looking for something for some portion of that time while growth is "low".
In the very long-term I think emerging and frontier markets are the place to be. They have favorable demographics, they're growing faster than the rest of the world, they're implementing necessary reforms that will make their markets more and more attractive, and some of them are gaining more and more importance and will most likely end up being dominant economies of the world. I'd rather not focus on the commodity dependent markets so I own funds like WAFMX, MEASX and GPEOX that are more interested in the rising middle class and consumer oriented investments.
In the shorter term I'd focus more on the places where central banks are aggressively easing monetary policy because I think it will lead to multiple expansion even if it doesn't drive fantastic growth. So far my choices for new investments have been HEDJ and DXJ because I believe there's value in hedging the currency exposure, but the un-hedged international funds I own are still outperforming their US counterparts. That doesn't mean to say I've given up on the US, but I've been shifting more assets towards Europe and Japan than I had previously. China is also easing monetary policy pretty aggressively and I like China long-term but I'm not making shorter-term China specific bets because I feel like the volatility is a lot higher than elsewhere.

Hi all -- soliciting your thoughts on what the best mutual funds might be for a low-growth economy, for an investor about 30-35 years from retirement.
Cheers.
D.S.

I have not done the work (sorry) but think the equal weight outperformance is mostly due to the bias of smaller average caps outperformance . I suggest that a 50% S+P 500 50% extended market index would mostly outperform the equal weight at lower cost. I am also surprised that the equal weight Nasdaq outperformed in 2014 when aapl and msft had good years though the article doesn't exactly say it did (multi year performance could be influenced by bad year for aapl

>> I dispute the assertion that a retire with a 15-year time horizon would not want to own some equities.
I think he was implying individual stocks and all equities, not bonds only.
I myself dispute it even if that is what he was implying.
15y is long in my book and practice. But I may be more firmly equity-oriented than many retirees.
>> Kitces' reference to "superior risk-adjusted returns" have not been documented.
Good grief, how much documentation do you need?
>> He has not analyzed for us the risks of owning different types of equities,
Everyone else has, in spades.
>> or different types of bonds,
He is talking equities only, as the very next clause made clear.
>> or tried to quantify for us the risks of potential drastic changes in either tax policy or SS structure
How could anyone quantify such risks? Quite apart from the potential drastic changes never happening, he is dealing with things as they are now. Not so delicate and cart.
>. somewhat incidental to the referenced article ... but part of the consideration is whom you would rather have in control of that sum of money, yourself or the government?
You do not have control of that sum of money, and never will. Missing/ignoring the point.
Who ever woulda thought anyone would object to this bland and entirely self-evident pointing out of fact?
>> ultimately, delaying Social Security benefits provides superior risk-adjusted returns to equities and portfolio investing in the long run. ... Obviously, this is not true in the short run – as noted earlier, it takes more than 15 years to break even at all.

The chief counterarguments arise either from the hard reality of needing it earlier without question, or from fantasies involving profound government distrust and crippling future anxiety. That's cool, whatever floats your paranoia, but it's not a prudent way to plan and make thoughtful money decisions.