+1 @MikeM … +1 @sma3
As far as @Mark question… “ So what exactly are those of you who are out of bond funds or considering dumping your bond funds going to do with the cash or proceeds of same?”… what is wrong with fleeing to equities? Greater risk? Given inflation and rising rates…cash is risk too, no? I think I’m splitting the difference by remaining in funds like FMSDX and FBALX expecting them to manage bond exposure better than me.

@JD_co
I think it more likely reflects peoples' continuing belief that stocks will always go up, but they find it hard to see how a bond paying 2% will go up when interest rates are going to 4% and beyond
I wonder how many investors in this market have ever seen a bear market that lasted more than a few weeks. 1998, 2008 anyone?
I wasn't buying stocks in 1981 ( unfortunately) but my wife and I bought a lot ( seemed like a lot back then) of the Dreyfus Liquid Assets Fund. Anybody else remember?

Fido (115 funds) and Vanguard funds (116 funds) at Schwab platform - this seems new and I missed any public announcement(s) if there was any. In the Screener, after you click on Fund Company, give it some time to load the funds; otherwise, it will give 0 results. All funds appear as No-Load/Transaction Fee. May be this happened when Schwab moved to dual-fee structure - lower fees for those who pay-to-play and higher fees for those who don't.
https://www.schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/tools/screener

Thanks Rono. I am leaning towards a 50/50 SLV and PSLV purchase at some point in the future. Any Au purchases would be bullion buy and hold insurance policy.
Silver is difficult to value because no earnings or dividend. Silver is rare in that there are very few vehicles you can purchase (commission free) with little chance of going to zero w/o a K-1. There is enough volatility to allow for profit if an investor purchases at the right price and has patience.

Howdy folks,
@shipwreckedandalone
Interesting discussion as I have been a silver fan since the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market in the late 70s early 80s.
I've always been an advocate of everyone having a small percentage of physical gold and silver bullion as an investment - let's say 5-7%. More than this is speculation and while that's fine, it's different.
You mention the g/s ratio and it's about 77 to 1 which is extremely favorable for silver relative to gold. I also like silver because the leverage is much greater than with gold.
Different ways to play: bullion or the miners. Different markets and while they track each other over time, they can deviate a lot in the short term. With silver, the pure play bullion ETFs are taxable at the higher rate. Nasty. Make SURE you keep them in a deferred account. Of these, I prefer the Sprott offerings like CEF and PSLV. Then there are the miners. This is where the vast majority of the mutual funds invest - in the mining stocks for gold, silver, etc. Then there are the ETF miners and there are bunches. In silver, you have SILJ, SIL, and SLVP. I like the first because I like the junior silver miners. They're fun and a bit like a roller coaster ride at time. These are penny stocks and the leverage here can get insane.
http://www.kitcosilver.com/equities.html
As for physical bullion, you have to watch the premium, or vigorish. It's getting very nasty as I type. This is because demand for physical silver is very strong right now and the paper price is suppressed. This results in higher premiums. Here's my local dealer and their price quotes for various types of bullion, from plain vanilla to ASE. You want to buy top shelf bullion because it's more fungible.
http://libertycoinservice.com/wp-content/uploads/quotes/daily_quotes.pdf
good luck,
peace,
rono

What screen found this tiny (for 12/2012 inception), high-ER, high-minimum multi-asset fund LOGBX /LOGOX? It isn't in Stockcharts database, but is in M* (4* and Neutral-Q rating) and Yahoo Finance databases. It had a large yearend distribution - Yahoo Finance price-chart made me look for that.
I compared it to FMSDX.

@sma3. +1.

No where to hide. Timely look at bond market conditions....

``It's unclear what the neutral rate is,” Vataru says. ``It's a slightly untethered market.”

Worst Losses in Years

For the week ending on 3/23/22, there was a significant improvement in the Survey but bearish remained the top sentiment (35.4%; above average) & neutral became the bottom sentiment (31.7%; average); bullish became the middle sentiment (32.8; below average). With all sentiments in 30s, ordering flip-flops are expected. Russia-Ukraine WAR has entered the 4th week & it has reached a stalemate stage on the ground & in negotiations but dislocations, injuries, deaths & property/facility destructions continue. There are hastily arranged extraordinary meetings of the NATO, G-7 & EU on Thursday (today). The developments may negatively affect the status of DOLLAR as the global reserve currency, & some currencies- & commodities- weighted basket may evolve in the near future. The FED has been talking VERY aggressively & that has significantly increased the rate hike expectations but the Fed may not follow through (that may be a new strategy). The stock market action was positive during the Survey week (Thursday - Wednesday). https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/545/thread

Thanks for the link. Looks like IWB + ITM beat the others with a little higher volatility than VTMFX.
This is even more interesting because of the higher expense ratio in the ETF (0.24 and 0.15% vs 0.09% for VTMFX)
Interesting after all the fuss Vanguard makes over their expenses

VTMFX may be easy to replicate. Its equity is R1000 with lower dividends to simulate R1000 itself and bonds are munis, so ITM or MUB should do. I am using phone to link to PV run (1/1/08 - 2/28/22), so let see if that works.
IWB + ITM
IWB + MUB
LI NK

bee +1

On the mutual fund side there is GASFX, The last 10 years it has either been one of the best or one of the worst in its category.

You're not alone, I'm finding it excruciatingly slow.

+1.

Powell wanted to see what his jawboning could accomplish. He knows the Fed SHOULD be raising rates quicker, but since that could crash markets......he can't bring himself to do it. So slow and steady we go.
Meanwhile we deal with high Negative real interest rates.
Cannot trust this Fed to actually follow through until its too late. I believe that is what happened from 1979-1981 with Volcker at the helm (the Prime rate rose to around 21.5%). Imagine locking up a CD at 20%+ per year? Shoot, I can't imagine rates over 5% ever again.

+1 Mark ...bookmarked article for future reference !

+1 YBB For me, if I can replicate performance of VWINX with VG etfs, it means I probably don't need my Vanguard account any longer !

As best I can tell, it looks like all in sustaining costs were above $18 on average in 2008. So it traded below costs for a bit. Cost varies widely from mine to mine as to be expected as many variables are involved.