shabby. Try this one, intended for "priority" shareholders. They probably won't know, either way, at their end: (800) 401-1791

@Old_Joe "We don't have enough information yet (we're working on this), or
You're not eligible for a payment.
...Or, we're out to lunch. Or, we don't have a clue. We just show up here and pretend to work. Or, we're working on a soufle. Back in 30 minutes... Or Mars is going to bump into Neptune and we're all doomed, anyway. Or, we have only 10 fingers. We can't count beyond that.
I really REALLY dislike those stoopid messages, like the one you got. They try to sound reasonable, and actually sound as if imbeciles are running things. Or else they think WE are imbeciles.

One gut check for investing in up markets is to reference your present portfolio value with different draw downs scenarios (in percentages) and the potential recovery time (in months/years)
S&P 500 data since WWII:
Here are a few charts to help illustrate my point (averaged 14% drop over 8 months)...frequency (33% of the time):
Corrections:

Bear Markets (averaged over a 32% drop over 3 years 2months)...frequency (20% of the time):

Another view of drops from S&P 500 Highs and the subsequent time to reach new highs:

Since WWII the market has either corrected (14%) or fell into a bear market (over 30%) 38 times over the last 75 years or about half the time.
Also, a 14% loss (correction) requires a 16.25% gain to break even from that correction. A 33% loss (bear market loss) requires a 49.25% gain to break even.
At these market levels ask yourself a few questions:
Short term:
- Do I have debt that I could pay off with some of these gains (prior to a correction)?
- Do I have large one time payments (weddings, tuition, house projects, vacations, etc) that could be funded by reallocating some of your market gains to cash with some of these gains.
Long term:
- For young, long term investors, prepare yourself emotionally for sell offs of 14% - 35% at least every other year. Continue adding to your retirement (investment) by dollar cost averaging in both up and down markets.
For me...and
- For retirees using their portfolio for income, try to position 3-5 years of your income needs in less volatile investments.
I am using VFISX and VWINX for this propose in retirement. In years where the market returns are better than VWINX, I reallocate some of these gains into VFISX & VWINX. I also may take yearly income from these funds in years when they far outperform.
When the market sells off I first draw from VFISX, then VWINX. These two funds help me navigate yearly income withdrawals during market downturns while the rest of my portfolio waits for a recovery.
Reference:
heres-how-long-stock-market-corrections-last-and-how-bad-they-can-get

Not a new fund, just an acquisition by Third Ave Value of REMS International Real Estate Value-Opportunity Fund (REIFX - founders shares, REIZX - Z class). Though it appears from the prospectus that TAV will be adding Investor class shares with a 0.25% 12b-1 fee.
https://thirdave.com/third-avenue-expand-re-platform/
Here's the prospectus supplement (Oct 29, 2020) from the other (acquired fund) side.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1396092/000138713120009434/rems-497_102920.htm
Presumably the new shares will be sold NTF; the existing REIFX shares are sold with a TF and no reduction in the $50K min at Fidelity and Schwab.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/interest-rate-concerns-and-new-stock-market-leaders-are-spurring-these-investment-portfolio-changes-11610525087?mod=home-page
"One way to gradually shorten the duration in a laddered portfolio is to hit pause and not replace maturing bonds with new, longer maturity bonds that would normally be purchased to continue the ladder,” he said. Short-duration bonds tend to be less sensitive to interest rate changes than long-duration bonds." <-- Meat of the story.

Sound familiar? This reminds me of the discussions that took place on a turn of the century weekly TV show Jim Cramer was on at the height of the tech bubble. Traditional views of P/E ratios were passe and even corporate profitability had come to be of little importance.

I know it seems too good to be true, almost like alchemy, but almost every single time that a Wall Street analyst says a stock is going higher, perhaps far higher, it works. There are that many bulls out there. There are that many people who want to believe and become buyers.

https://realmoney.thestreet.com/jim-cramer/jim-cramer-we-re-aiming-high-15537212?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO

Hi Jon, I would look at expense ratio. You can buy the NASDAQ 100 cheaper than RYOCX. Turnover on the Fidelity fund is higher than I like. Are they that smart?
I would also look at the structure of the fund family. I lean against publicly traded companies. I would look at how much the managers are putting into the fund. And then I would look at the over-all success rate of the family. Is the particular fund a one-off? Is it out of their typical area of expertise?

This is very good advice. High costs make it extremely difficult (although not impossible) for a fund to generate good long-term performance. I agree with you regarding mutual fund company structure.
Jack Bogle said "No man can serve two masters" (quoting Matthew 6:24) when referring to publicly owned mutual fund firms. Mutual fund companies are not often scrutinized during the fund selection process.
Here are some other considerations:
1) manager/analyst tenure and turnover
2) manager and board investment in funds
3) number of funds which were liquidated or merged
4) propensity to launch "trendy" funds (130/30, .com, etc.)

yeah, just click okay --- standard UI behavior for some mindsets ...
We got our $1200 paper checks in the mail yesterday. Going to think about which worthy orgs to pass some of this along to, as well as setaside for granddaughter tk, hopefully in 6w, born under a woman VP.
Like some other boomers, if I stay afloat, and assuming grandchildren live past age 100, I who got to know fairly well a famous grandfather born 1885 will have been good acquaintances with individual lives spanning almost a quarter-millennium. Cool. (Was I geezing?)

BCSVX is an interesting share. One I will add to my watch list. This is probably too much of a generalization but... Emerging Markets is a riskier area. Now add Small Cap to it... a bit more risky. So, when I look at 10 plus years of returns on these funds it seems like none of them beat the S&P 500 and they all have a high Ulcer and low Martin and many have high ER. So, why do I own some FPADX? I will compare to FSEAX and BCSVX and perhaps transfer to one of those or out of EM completely myself. I guess I'm repeating what Baseball Fan said above.

They'll probably be forming their own shop.
Perhaps ultimately, but "Jim Kieffer ... will remain part of the investment team for the time being, working as an analyst, advisor, and mentor."
(M* Analyst Note for ARTQX.)
This contrasts with the simultaneous announcement at ARTGX that Justin Bandy is leaving immediately. Perhaps the difference is that Kieffer is a lead manager while Bandy had recently been added to ARTGX and this was his first managing assignment.
The new M* quote page for funds presents the inflows and outflows graphically. ARTQX had major outflows in 2013-2015 but since then flows have been pretty quiescent, especially in 2020. ARTLX shows a similar pattern, though its major outflows were in 2015-2016.
It is reasonable to suggest that ARTGX has not fared well against its world fund peers because that category includes blend and growth as well as value funds. But ARTQX has been lagging its domestic value peers (2* over the past three years). ARTLX has been running hot and cold (four bottom decile years and three top decile years over the past decade).

No "Blue Button" for me!
Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof-wmsp/login" on this server.
Reference #18.5d96df17.1610490567.27eaa84
THIS U.S. GOVERNMENT SYSTEM IS FOR AUTHORIZED USE ONLY!
Use of this system constitutes consent to monitoring, interception, recording, reading, copying or capturing by authorized personnel of all activities. There is no right to privacy in this system. Unauthorized use of this system is prohibited and subject to criminal and civil penalties, including all penalties applicable to willful unauthorized access (UNAX) or inspection of taxpayer records (under 18 U.S.C. 1030 and 26 U.S.C. 7213A and 26 U.S.C. 7431).

There we go, the government is doing it differently this time.
It announced that in lieu of checks some people would be getting debit cards. Same as last time. Who? Why? Who knows? The IRS writes:

For those who don’t receive a direct deposit by early January, they should watch their mail for either a paper check or a debit card. To speed delivery of the payments to reach as many people as soon as possible, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, part of the Treasury Department, will be sending a limited number of payments out by debit card. Please note that the form of payment for the second mailed EIP may be different than for the first mailed EIP. Some people who received a paper check last time might receive a debit card this time, and some people who received a debit card last time may receive a paper check.

Last year I received direct deposit. I gave the same bank account on my 2018 and 2019 returns, but this year I'm getting something in the mail. I don't know what yet (check or card). All I know is that it was supposedly mailed on the 6th and it hasn't arrived yet.
There's something else the government is doing differently - it slowed down the USPS.
("The Postal Service delivered only 70.6 percent of first-class mail items on time during the week of Dec. 12, the most recent data available, compared with better than 95 percent during the same period last year." WaPo Jan, 5)
To check the status of your Economic Impact Payment (EIP), click on the blue Get My Payment button near the top of this page:
https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment

+1.

+1

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/935015/000119312521006862/d880577d497.htm
Excerpt:
4. All other references to James C. Kieffer and any related information in the prospectus and SAI will be hereby removed.

-cybersecurity
-The displacement of the workforce ([that’s] not being trained to participate in the economy).
- Devaluing Humans:

What we’re doing today is finding more and more ways to essentially reduce the need to have humans involved with work. So much of the investment in business in America is to essentially automate away human labor or, even more curiously, to devalue human labor.

Article:
what-do-wall-street-leaders-think-is-the-next-big-risk

U.S. President Donald Trump famously tweeted that “trade wars are good, and easy to win” in 2018 as he began to impose tariffs on about $360 billion of imports from China. Turns out he was wrong on both counts.

Trump repeatedly claimed that China was paying for the tariffs. Economists who crunched the numbers were surprised to find that Chinese exporters generally didn’t lower prices to keep their goods competitive after the tariffs were imposed. That meant U.S. duties were mostly paid by its own companies and consumers.
The tariffs led to an income loss for U.S. consumers of about $16.8 billion annually in 2018, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research paper.

how-china-won-trump-s-good-and-easy-to-win-trade-war?

A couple of links that I looked at today related to Roth IRAs:
Are Roth IRAs Overrated?
We discuss:
Diversification between tax sources for retirement savings
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with these decisions
The compounding benefits of a Roth
If you’re at the point of optimizing you’ve probably already won
Does a Roth make your retirement planning simpler?
What if you don’t get a tax break on your traditional IRA contribution?
What’s the tipping point to go from Roth to traditional contributions?
What does Bill do with his own assets?
Podcast is embedded in link:
are-roth-iras-overrated

Here are a couple of more stock market bubble articles, the first one short and second one with a fair amount of detailed background info:

First Article: Warren Buffett's favorite market indicator hits 13-year high, signaling global stocks are most overvalued since the financial crisis
The gauge climbed past 121% last weekend, Bloomberg data shows, marking its highest reading since October 2007. Welt market analyst Holger Zschaepitz flagged the worrying milestone in a tweet.
"Buffett indicator sounds the alarm," he said. "Global stock mkt cap has now topped 120% of global GDP, and thus the same level as before the crash in 2008."

Second Article: Yes, Virginia. There Is A Stock Market Bubble. Lance Roberts
We see that the claims on the economy should, quite intuitively, track the economy itself. Excesses occur whenever the economy’s claims, the so-called financial assets (stocks, bonds, and derivatives), get too far ahead of the economy itself.
The increase in speculative risks, combined with excess leverage, leave the markets vulnerable to a sizable future correction. The only missing ingredient for such a reversion is the catalyst to bring “fear” into an overly complacent marketplace.
It is all reminiscent of the market peak of 1929 when Dr. Irving Fisher uttered his now-famous words: “Stocks have now reached a permanently high plateau.”