Q4 earnings season starts today with most big banks reporting. C report was bad. JPM report was dressed up by reversal of old loss reserves into earnings but the market isn't buying it. Retail sales fell.
So, economic slowdown may be happening whatever the causes (Covid-19/Omicron, high prices, wages not catching up, supply-side disruptions).
For those following AAII Sentiment Survey, it turned bearish yesterday (a contrarian indicator).
https://www.cmegroup.com/

Ritholtz has a way of boiling it down to some basics the average person can grasp. Not brilliant perhaps - but effective communicating some basic investment principles with a certain audience.
I’m not as opposed to timing as he seems to be. If all attempts at timing are futile, than little need to keep abreast of markets, investment trends, valuations and peaks and troughs. Hell, throw everything at the S&P and go fishing. Turn off Bloomberg & CNBC. Cancel subscription to Barron’s and the WSJ.
Timing need not be “all in” or “all out”. It can be lightening up in frothy markets. Rebalancing once or twice a year. Favoring one particular style, sector or geographic area over another. While Warren Buffett would decry “timing”, he’s been known to build huge cash positions when equity valuations are high. And, he’ll move $$ around favoring pockets of opportunity (ie railroads). So he doesn’t always walk the talk.
My 2 cents worth.

+1

@msf yes you raise some excellent points. I went through that same analysis that you describe above and evaluated both funds 2 years ago. Long term they both have similar track records. But MFAPX gets there with much less volatility. MIOPX actually held up quite well in the March 2020 selloff -- only dropping about 15% in comparison to 19% for its category. But things really turned south for MIOPX and other funds with large emerging markets exposure when China cracked down on its technology industry last year. I think you can trace its underperformance starting then. I might return to MFAPX at some point but am looking for more of a large cap blend. I find selecting an international fund to be quite difficult because they have underperformed the U.S. for so long. This year to date foreign value is doing quite well with funds like Dodge and Cox International up over 6% YTD but I wonder if this is a short term thing. Their long term track record is pretty poor. Again international is real conundrum.
@carew388 It's funny you mention MSFBX because that one has come up on my screens too. I really like that funds defensive posture with about 30% in consumer staples. Unfortunately it also has a 20% allocation to tech so if tech continues to get hit as I believe will happen -- you won't be safe in the fund. YAFFX is intriguing with a great long term track record -- also more of a global fund. It is one fund I'm looking at also. I think this is going to be a difficult year to make money though.

@Baseball_Fan …
What do you therefore suggest we investors do with our life savings? Stuff it in a bank account at 1%?
I’ll entertain any constructive suggestions.

This will be a bit painful to do but I will be selling most of my position in MIOPX. I really like the manager -- Kristian Heugh. But there is too much downside risk in his portfolio.

If you like the manager and want to dial down the risk a bit, you could consider MFAPX. The difference between the MS summaries is that MIOPX includes emerging companies, while MFAPX is primarily focused on established companies.
Morgan Stanley MIOPX page
Morgan Stanley MFAPX page
Obviously they have a lot of overlap, but their figures are significantly different.
Portfolio Visualizer comparison
Close performance over 3, 5, 10 years (through year end 2021). A notable distinction is that from 2Q2020 on, MIOPX rose and fell faster. For example, YTD (2022), MIOPX dropped 9.23% and MFAPX dropped 2.83%. PV shows other significant differences (better figures are MAFPX):
std dev: 16.58% vs. 12.99%
max drawdown: 26.18% vs. 17.26%
Sharpe ratio: 0.77 vs. 1.00
Sortino ratio: 1.27 vs 1.71
As one might expect with its higher volatility MIOPX had a much better best year (55.06% vs. 44.18%) and a much worse worst year (down 12.36% vs down 5.48%).
According to M*, the best fit index for MIOPX is US Convertible Bonds!
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund/ratings-risk.action?t=MIOPX
From inception through 2016 MIOPX tracked FISCX pretty closely. (MIOPX even returned less over this period). Then it became more volatile and returned more. But it wasn't until 2020 that it took off like a rocket. And then fell like a stone. In that same period, MFAPX also rose with MIOPX, but not as quickly and with much gentler spikes.

I don’t own. Play with DKNG - one of her holdings. Buy at $23-24 and sell at $26-27. Kinda scary though, Might drop thru the floor one of these days. Think I’ll swear off.
DKNG -7% today @ $24.24
ARKK Today -5.42%
ARKK looks to be down about 15% YTD / Takes some perseverance to hold on to something like that!

Sarah Raskin, Fed VC-Supervision, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Bloom_Raskin
Lisa Cook, Fed Governor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_D._Cook
Philip Jefferson, Fed Governor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Jefferson
News https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/13/biden-to-nominate-sarah-bloom-raskin-lisa-cook-and-philip-jefferson-to-key-fed-positions.html

+1 CDC outclasses AUENX and YAFFX , 2 funds I've held in the past.

I sold out of ARKK & ARKG in Mar. 2021. I sold ARKF in May 2021.

All this talk in DC about taming the highest inflation in 40 years has the fed fund futures traders spooked and they are now projecting 4 rate hikes (in Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4) at the CME FedWatch.
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/countdown-to-fomc.html

+1

- Brainard Story from Reuters
- Recent Inflation Numbers from PBS
Popular personal adornment from 1974

- Wikipedia Story on the 1974 “WIN PIN”

I'm keeping things simple for myself by using SCHD for my large-value allocation. I already have too many funds that I need to pare down.

+1
Traditionally, I used active equity OEFs in the IRAs but I now am leaning towards moving those to equity ETFs. Especially in Fidelity IRA where I have to call the rep to buy the same day I sell something else and all the other restrictions like 90% of proceeds availability, end of the day pricing, etc. Now is becoming more important for me than presumed potential future profits / outperformance. Equity ETFs already offer the opportunity for us to slice and dice the market in many ways should one wishes to do that, decreasing the need for active OEF managers.
Edit: If stock picking has its value going forward, 2022 should be the year. One of the difficulty with active OEFs is, most tend to box themselves into growth, value, or blend and then into size categories. I am not paying the huge ERs to become myself a tactical allocator within equities.

DODBX at $15B is very small compared to VWELX, PRWCX, & FBALX to name a few. It had outflows consistently in the past 10 yrs per M*, even though some of those years performance was quite good. Any comment on the outflows? Not sure if it is the Value style. VWELX gave up its Value style recently.

Good question. Money today is fickle.To the extent money has fled DODBX in recent years, here’s some possible reasons:
- Dodge & Cox equity funds (including DODBX) faired poorly in 2008. They got caught leaning the wrong way on some financials early on and never recovered. DODBX lost 33.5% that year. (By contrast, PRWCX lost 27% in 2008.) Prior to that, D&C had been a board favorite and had seen steady inflows. It’s the old saw about reputations, like china, being easily damaged and hard to mend.
- There’s a long held perception that DODBX is bloated. Gained traction during the ‘07-‘09 bear market. While accurate, investors seem to overlook that PRWCX has greatly outdistanced it in AUM over the last decade.
- There’s an aversion nowadays to typical 60/40 “balanced” funds owing to low interest rates and a belief (true to some extent) that bonds no longer offer protection. This weighs against DODBX in investors’ eyes. Overlooked is that DODBX is actually more of a 70/30 fund. And perhaps unknown to some, it’s been holding a 5% short position against the S&P. Further, its heavier than average weighting to financials stands to benefit investors as rates rise.
- D&C underplays the significance of individual managers. Committees make the big calls, as I’ve understood them. Given the choice between investing with a bland committee or a well known figure with the aura of a David Giroux*, the latter likely wins out among today’s investors.
- D&C does not make their funds available NTF at brokerage houses. That has to hurt inflows and may lead to outflows.
* Not pertinent to the question, but I should note the performance of DODBX and PRWCX are quite similar. Over the past year DODBX led, gaining 18.9% to PRWCX’s 16%. Over 10 years, PRWCX wins at 13.36% compared to 11.91% for DODBX.

DODBX at $15B is very small compared to VWELX, PRWCX, & FBALX to name a few. It had outflows consistently in the past 10 yrs per M*, even though some of those years total return performance was quite good. Any comment on the outflows? Not sure if it is the Value style. VWELX gave up its Value style recently.

@msf, Thanks. +1 on your brokerage comparative analysis.
"[W]hile the interfaces for scheduling one-time withdrawals and one-time investments as a little different, the effect is the same. Perfectly symmetric, no bias toward gathering, or disbursing, AUM."
Please let us know where this feature (to schedule future sale of an OEF in an IRA) is hidden. I simply want to sell an OEF and buy another OEF or move the sale proceeds to the sweep MM. I am not interested in withdrawing and not eligible for RMDs.
For those interested in scheduling a future (time based, not price based) sale of an OEF at Fidelity, you get to the feature the same way as for Automatic investments. When you click "Schedule a new transfer," on the next pop-up, instead of choosing Automatic investments, choose "Recurring transfers and withdrawals."
"Recurring transfers and withdrawals
Scheduling recurring transfers and withdrawals can help you:
manage regular transfers between your Fidelity accounts
grow your managed account investments
plan to meet your required minimum distribution (RMD)"

I read the entire excellent magazine of course. Haven’t had a brokerage account for a full year yet, So, never owned stocks before. (Fraught with peril of course). But ISTM Barron’s makes some good calls. My small entry into RIO came in September of ‘21 after a major Barron’s piece to the effect that all the big multi-asset miners were screaming buys. They had plunged in recent months. RIO (mentioned again this week) was 1 of 6 or 8 covered. I bought NGLOY & RIO after that. Eventually dropped NGLOY and added to RIO. It’s one of the more conservative companies with a great balance sheet. RIO has continued to climb this week.
One that “got away” was Y (Alleghaney) a conglomerate with a lot of insurance holdings. I didn’t bite when Barron’s highlighted it a couple months ago. It’s continued to gain ground - even on days when equities sold off big time. I’m guessing those insurers are able to invest their monies at better interest rates.

Yes, indeed. I'll miss reading David and Ed.

+1 @Crash. I’m still in denial. Reality shall hurt.

@hank -- points taken. Thanks. Not understanding your point on $100 vs. $1000; but i've always invested directly with them and they always had the $1000 minimum and $100 subsequent (I bought into DODFX as one or my first funds when I was a grad student and couldn't make Vanguard's $3000 minimum).
Always enjoyed Ed's commentary, BTW. Shame (but understandable) that he and David are stepping back. They've both helped me become a more thoughtful investor.