@mikew - I will pass.. Don't have 5M lol.. Will make it Simple will add brk.b and some bonds instead
Probably add more to EEM

@MikeW: As you requested. For the week ending 2/22/2019 Old_Skeet's market barometer finished the week with a reading of 133 indicating that the S&P 500 Index is extremely overbought based upon the metrics of the barometer. I'll be doing a more detail report on March 1st.

@Old-Joe: You need go back to school and enroll in Math 101, my links yesterday and today have had over 850 views. How many have you had ?
:( :( :(: :(

@oldskeet top oerformers for me were Grandeur Peak Global reach at 1.35% and Granduer peak emerging markets at 2.07%. Both small positions right now. I'm getting ready to add a number of new positions.
Would you mind giving us a market barometer update?

Buffett lost his edge years ago. In the last 10-15 years, information is quick and available globally so it's much harder to find hidden nuggets. Buffett can still make better deals than most such as: influence management from within, make deals when markets collapse because of his huge assets/cash.

@rfrono: The Brideway fund BRLIX is indeed a fine no load fund.
For me to hold it though I'd have to open a wrap fee based account. I'll call this the new school way. In talking with my broker sometime ago this could be done. The wrap fee was based upon a sliding scale determined by the total value of the assets held within the account. Because of the amount of money I'd have invested in this fee based (new school) account makes it unattractive from my perspective. Here is why. Even with the low expense ratio for the fund BRLIX at 0.15% when you add the account wrap fee could push the cost close to 1.4% and perhaps more. This is based upon the account wrap fee being set at the low range of 1.25%.
For me, I felt the old school way was the best way to continue to invest and thus far I have stayed away from fee based accounts.
Thanks again for making comment.

Where to start?
Catch 22: When you don't know much, you have no idea if your broker (or even your financial adviser) is good, when you get better you don't need an adviser.
Brokers are not Fiduciaries. I would not use a FA(financial adviser) Fiduciary either.
Remember, a FA is a jack of all trades master of none. A FA can give advice after just several months of passing 2-3 courses(I did it in 3 months but never practiced). If you need a tax advice use a CPA. If you want to set up a will, power of Attorney, a trust you want an attorney. Think how many years it took to become a CPA or an attorney.
One of the most important myth for a FA is to put their clients' interest first but if they do that they will starve. A good FA needs about 2-3 hours to set up a typical client (I can do it under an hour). This setup should be good for several years unless something drastic changed. This means, you should pay a $1000 every several years but the reality is a typical FA wants to have a long-term relationship with you (I'm already married :-) ) so they can charge you based on your portfolio size. Why would I pay someone according to portfolio size and not by the hour or the job? Please run. That's how a CPA works and they are real experts.
Here is an easy way to see why your broker has his interest first, send him an email (because you want to see it in writing) and ask him what is the commission to buy 100 shares of AAPL, 500 shares and 1000 shares. Please report back(Hint: it's only $4.95 regardless at Fidelity + Schwab).
Lastly, if you walk in the street and see a broker please cross the street asap, if you see a FA say hi and keep walking :-)

FYI: Shares of Kraft Heinz (KHC) are down nearly 30% today following a big earnings miss and the disclosure that the company has been subpoenaed by the SEC. KHC accounts for more than 7% of Berkshire Hathaway’s’ equity portfolio, and that stock is trading down close to 2% ahead of this weekend’s earnings report on a day when the broader market is firmly in positive territory. Following this weekend’s report, Warren Buffett himself will be all over financial television on Monday to talk about all things Berkshire and its portfolio of companies.
Given the confluence of events, though, the question of whether or not Buffett has lost his touch is once again making the rounds. Remember, it was just a week ago that Coca-Cola (KO), which accounts for over 10% of the Berkshire equity portfolio, dropped over 8% after it reported earnings. In the case of KO, last Thursday’s decline was the most negative reaction to earnings the stock has had since 2002! With two stocks comprising 18% of Berkshire’s total equity portfolio getting demolished on earnings, you can’t blame traders for being a little more skeptical and taking some profits in their Berkshire positions. Year to date, the stock is one of less than 35 in the S&P 500 that are actually in the red YTD.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/has-buffett-lost-his-touch-here-we-go-again/

FYI: Kraft Heinz (ticker: KHC) has become one of the rare cases in which a company’s bondholders are more optimistic than its shareholders.
The company’s shares dropped 27% on Friday after the packaged-foods giant released a fourth-quarter earnings report that was rife with bad news: Disappointing earnings guidance, a regulator subpoena, a 36% dividend cut, and a $15 billion write-down on the value of brands such as Oscar Mayer and Kraft.
But its creditors don’t seem as worried, and the company’s bonds recovered half of their morning losses by midday. And Kraft Heinz bonds are still trading like investment-grade securities, investors say.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/kraft-heinz-bondholders-are-more-upbeat-than-shareholders-51550919600?refsec=bonds

FYI: A month after Jack Bogle’s death, evidence of the good things he wrought continues to arrive, sometimes from unexpected places.
Jack created Vanguard as a penny-pinching institution owned by its funds’ shareholders. He popularized low-cost index funds and, in the process, radically reduced the expenses incurred by millions of rank-and-file investors.
Now, it turns out, cost savings from various types of index funds, run by Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity, Schwab, State Street and others, are having a measurable impact on inflation much as prices for groceries and gasoline do.
In January alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found, overall portfolio management costs in the United States “plunged 5.2 percent,” Michael Feroli, the chief United States economist at J. P. Morgan, said in a note on Feb. 14.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/business/jack-bogle-index-funds-inflation.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Mutual Funds&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

If I wanted an eq-weighted fund, I'd go with BRLIX - .15 ER and simply takes the top 35 largest companies[1], equal-weights them, and rebalances a few times a year. Easy cheap exposure to large value/growth firms.
[1] Except Facebook, which I don't think they like ... and I can agree with that. :)

Honestly, I think the issue is overrated. But it was on my mind since there was a link to a M* article about how foreign funds might better be left in taxable accounts since there you could take advantage of the foreign tax credit.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/47736/m-should-you-keep-foreign-stocks-out-of-your-ira
A point that column missed was that the same argument could be applied to investing in separate domestic and foreign funds (where you'd get the foreign tax credit) vs. investing in a global fund where you wouldn't.
Here's a simple example to show what happens when the foreign tax is or isn't passed through:
Say your shares generate $150 in dividends. Say also that the fund owes foreign governments $50 in taxes. It has to pay the $50, leaving $100 in hard cash that it actually pays to you.
The fund could say on your 1099 that you got $100 in divs. No foreign tax credit. The fund simply paid those taxes as an operating expense and paid you what was left.
Alternatively, it could say on your 1099 that it distributed $150 in divs to you and paid the $50 in your name. You would owe taxes on that extra $50 that you only got on paper. Say that extra tax is $7.50 (15% x $50 in qual divs). Now the IRS will give you credit for the $50 "you" paid in foreign taxes (on paper). You would have a net gain of $50 (tax credit) minus $7.50 (extra tax) = $42.50.
It's really hard to tell how much that foreign credit is worth. The size of the credit can fluctuate wildly from year to year. My sense is that it's big enough to rise above the noise level, but it's still just a small factor to consider, not a game changer.

"But pension funds, endowments, and other institutional investors represent the vast majority of public company shareholders—and, according to a recent study, these investors view buybacks as among the best actions management can take when it comes to allocating capital."
I think this is a crock of crap. I contend Management uses this to line their nest.

Of course they do.

For most of the 20th century, stock buybacks were deemed illegal because they were thought to be a form of stock market manipulation. But since 1982, when they were essentially legalized by the SEC, buybacks have become perhaps the most popular financial engineering tool in the C-Suite tool shed. And it’s obvious why Wall Street loves them: Buying back company stock can inflate a company’s share price and boost its earnings per share — metrics that often guide lucrative executive bonuses.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aalsin/2017/02/28/shareholders-should-be-required-to-vote-on-stock-buybacks
Also: Are Stock Buybacks Starving the Economy?, The Atlantic (July 21, 2018)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/are-stock-buybacks-starving-the-economy/566387/

In an exhaustive financial analysis of buybacks [see link below], the consultancy McKinsey found that companies would generally be better off issuing dividends or increasing investment instead. Buybacks also might distort earnings-per-share calculations and other measures of profitability and value.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-share-repurchases-boost-earnings-without-improving-returns

Yeah, DSE_X is becoming our only equity holding, >>50% of everything, and seems to do little worse in drops than IVV, say.
Take a look yourself via MFOP at DSEEX, TRBCX, IVV, and CAPE for the last 5y, their close UI and other measures (IVV notably lagging in growth of course).
You will almost certainly not go wrong w/ TRBCX if you hang in and don't track during slumps. (I may move some DSE_X moneys to it in the next slump, not sure; as I say, I'm trying to fight such excess or at least bootless diversification impulses, to return also to such old faves as YACKX, JABAX, PRBLX, FLPSX, TWEIX, plus some SC.)

As market grows and my 65/35 starts to creep closer to 70/30, I take my largest funds VOO and VDGIX and have dividends and cap gains go to cash, such as market we are in right now. When market falters, and equity portion goes lower, i reinvest.

@MikeW: I have been adding to ARTJX, which I bought after I sold OSMAX which I had for 5 years. I like Kanovich too, I think that much of the old portfolio has been sold if you can judge by the return ytd, my highest international performer so far this year.

For the week... VVPSX+2.96, FARNX +2.54, FSCCX+1.87, OAKIX+1.62. In total 20% of portfolio with the last 2 funds being 16% of portfolio.

FYI: ( While a couple of MFO Members who contribute little or nothing to MFO with a poor attempt of humor "Clean up in the condiment aisle" the Linkster's hard working staff searched to see which funds were major holders of KHC. That's why some of us lead and others follow. :) :) :)
Consumer foods giant Kraft Heinz (KHC) has taken quite a hit in the wake of its earnings announcement Thursday after the bell, which included news that the company was writing off $15.4 billion of the value of its brands and is facing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of its accounting policies and controls. The stock was down 27.27% at $35.04 at 12:45 p.m. ET Friday, not far from its session low of $34.51.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which had a 26.71% stake in Kraft Heinz at the end of 2018, looks like the biggest loser. But which mutual funds and ETFs are likely to feel the pain from the packaged food company’s sell-off? Click through to see a list from Morningstar Inc. of the 10 funds with the biggest stakes in the company.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.investmentnews.com/gallery/20190222/FREE/222009999/PH
1. Eagle Capital Growth
2. First Trust Consumer Staples AlphaDEX Fd
3. Gabelli Food of All Nations NextShares
4. WestEnd Advisors Large Cap Core Eq- UBS
5. FT AQA (R) Large-Cap 2
6. Frontier MFG Global Equity Institutional
7. Oppenheimer S&P Ultra Dividend Rev ETF
8. Frontier MFG Global Plus Fund
9. FT AQA (R) Large-Cap 1
10. Sims Total Return Fund
M* Funds Holding KHC: (Click On Ownership)
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xnas/khc/quote.html

Interesting question @Soupkitchen.
I've contemplated it-retirement, but at 65 I haven't pulled the trigger yet. But I have given plenty of thought to when I do. My thought for setting up withdrawals for when I do retire would be to have a cash bucket (MM, CD, maybe a short term bond fund) that held maybe 3 years of expenses needed. The rest of the pot would just be distributed in an overall risk-tolerant portfolio bucket. I've even thought about simplifying everything and just sticking the entire 'investment' bucket in a 60:40 robo (1/2 my savings are in one now and I've been satisfied so far). If done that way, the 2 bucket system, I would be more concerned about total return and not dividend income. But in saying that, it would probably be a good idea to have any income generated from the investment bucket not reinvested but go directly to that cash bucket to lessen the need for replenishment. In my case, the 3 year cash bucket would still need to be replenished periodically when markets are up. Investment income alone would not be enough to keep the cash bucket full.
Thanks for posting the question. I look forward to others responses.

Hey @MSF, thanks for the heads up that HNASX is managed by the same manager as TRLGX. I've been interested in the TRLGX but it has a $1M minimum. Looking to invest in either AKREX, TRBCX, BIAWX or this one for my large cap growth exposure. Any thoughts??

No brilliant insights here, I'm afraid. A nice thing about large cap growth is that there are a lot of good funds to choose from. It really depends on personal preference.
For example, all else being equal (which it never is), I try to keep expenses down, especially in large cap, so while many people like AKREX, it's not one on my list. They're all rather concentrated (40+% in top ten holdings) with AKREX "insanely" so (75%). On the other hand, to its credit, AKREX's top ten list isn't filled with all of the usual suspects. As a fund family, I like T. Rowe Price because it usually handles manager succession well.
My personal preferences run toward funds like the Primecap ones - more diversified (though that may mean less upside potential), still low cost, team managed (helps with succession), a bit less "growthy", a tad more international. But that's me. Everybody looks for different things and has different comfort levels and objectives.