I wrote: The fund did well out of the gate, for its first two years, but has been essentially flat over the past three. My guess is that the star rating will nevertheless go up in a couple of weeks when the fund hits the five year mark.
The fund now has a five year rating, and its overall rating did go up to 2 stars. Still poor, pulled down by its last three years of performance. The point is that it is a good idea to look beyond summary figures, even ones that summarize the past 3, 5, or 10 years. Look also at how the fund has done over time, year by year, cycle by cycle.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-best-etfs-buy-long-193349312.html
7 etfs to hold forever
Best ETFs to buy for long-term investors:
-- Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO)
-- Vanguard Russell 2000 ETF (VTWO)
-- Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS)
-- Vanguard Value ETF (VTV)
-- Vanguard Health Care ETF (VHT)
-- Fidelity Quality Factor ETF (FQAL)
-- Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (VYM)

Yeah - I don’t think I was reading it very clearly. Apologies @mcmarcasco. But I’ve taken the liberty of restating the question in a way that’s easier for me to comprehend. Hopefully, it hasn’t substantively altered the essence of the original question.
-
Question: I am trying to decide how best to repay a fairly new 30-year (4% fixed) mortgage. If I continue on my current path, I will incur $50,000 in additional INTEREST.
Here are the three options I’m considering :
(1) Pay off the mortgage now ... If I pay off my $150,000 mortgage balance, I then free up $1,500/mo and $18,000/yr. Over 10 years, that's $180,000 I can DCA invest (assuming no gains or losses).
(2) Ride it out the term, investing the $150,000. Using the rule of 72 and historical 7% return, then at the end of 10 years I would have doubled my investment to $300,000 gross, NET $150,000 profit. ... Less the $50,000 of Mortgage INTEREST, I am left with $100,000 net gain after 10 years.
(3) Pay additional principle and reduce the payoff time ($150,000 balance / $1,500 P&I / plus a little extra for about a 10-year payoff.
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That’s how the question appears to me. (Hopefully close to the original intent.) I’ll leave the math here up to @msf or others with stronger math skills. Restating my original reaction: Paying off a 4% mortgage early strikes me from an investment standpoint as quite similar to purchasing a very high quality bond having a 4% compounded yield. You’ve effectively sacrificed the liquidity the loan provided in return for that guaranteed 4% compounded interest you would have paid the lender. For defensive positioning in a down market, a fixed rate long duration bond is beneficial. But in a “heady” equity market environment or a period of rapidly rising interest rates, a 4% bond would look lousy.

I'm not clear how you're reading this. On the other hand, I took the fact that this was a 30 year loan as irrelevant, while you're trying to figure out what it means.
All that matters for a loan that you amortize (pay down by paying interest plus some principal) are the balance remaining, the interest rate, and the monthly payments. How the borrower got to today doesn't matter - whether the borrower is in the 5th year of a 30 year loan, or the 2nd year of a 12 year loan, or ....
@mcmarcasco wrote of paying off the loan (principal and interest, P&I) in a decade.
If he were to make exactly 4% on his $150,000, then each month he could take $1500 (the earned interest and some principal) and use it to make the monthly payment on the mortgage. At the end of ten years, the $150K would be exhausted, and the mortgage would be paid off.
This is just saying differently what you initially wrote:

Locking up your money in that contemplated mortgage payoff strikes me as similar to purchasing an AAA rated bond earning 4% (compounded monthly) over the remaining years on the mortgage. (A partial pay down would reduce the duration by X number of years.) And 4% compounded is a very nice rate on AAA debt by today’s standards. So as a defensive strategy to protect / hedge against a severe portfolio loss it makes sense.

This highlights again the point that one is comparing a potentially higher returning investment against the certainty of a 4% rate of return. Each has its merits.

I read it as:
$150,000 balance [remaining on the 30 year mortgage]
$1,500 (P&I and a little extra for about a 10-year payoff)
(I also cheated and checked with an amortization calculator to see that a $150K balance at @4% can be paid off in ten years with a little more than $1500/mo.)

@mcmarasco said: “ ... whether to pay off a fairly new 30-year (4% fixed) mortgage ...”
@msf said: “Either way, At the end of 10 years you'll have your home free and clear”
What am I missing here?
Admittedly, I struggled to get a C in high school Algebra half century ago (my last math class).
I can see how paying off a longer duration mortgage (let’s assume with 25-years remaining) in only 10 years might work if one invested that loan (ie the leveraged sum) in a strong equity market and than rolled all that plus market gains into paying off the mortgage with 15 years remaining after just 10 years.
Might make a good plot for a new Disney production. :)

There is a new M* value factor article - Best Ways to Reach for Value, Whenever it Shines
Scrolling down to the Factor Profile graphics for VTV / DFLVX / VLUE, Style seems just plain wrong, as all are depicted as being paragons of Growth.
Just for comparison, I looked up Factor Profile on the Portfolio tabs for HACAX / FDGRX / WGROX, and my goodness, they appear to be flat-out value funds.
Have I been investing backwards all this time?

@mcmarasco,
I just wanted to add two other considerations, inflation and the change in interest rates over time (the time frame of your loan more specifically), to this conversation regarding paying off a mortgage with savings.
Both real estate and the stock market are impacted by these two factors over time. With a home mortgage you are locking in an interest rate that will not fluctuate over the next 10-30 years (your term). That seems like a good thing. Over that time frame the markets and interest rates will certainly fluctuate.
Inflation will typically rise over that time frame, but your housing costs remain fixed. If inflation rises substantially, your fixed cost mortgage payment is actually lower on an inflation adjusted basis. Your $150K exposure to the markets over those 10-30 years should be a good inflation hedge as well...historically speaking.
At some point interest rates should also rise. Rising interest rates often put downward pressure on real assets (both your home and your investments) in the short term, but less so in the long term.
The two paths laid out by @msf seem significant enough to consider path 1 over path 2.

@mcmarasco ISTM you're overthinking this.
The 30,000 foot view: What your are considering (investing the $150K) is a form of leveraged investment. It's as if you started with nothing in your pocket and your home paid off, and then you borrowed at 4% (the mortgage) to invest the borrowed $150K at 7%.
That's a net gain of 3% (less after taxes), but as with most leveraging, increased risk. (This also addresses @davidrmoran's question: what happens if you reduce the assumed rate of return.)
A little more detail: You want to compare two outcomes. The inputs are the same either way are: $150K cash and a 10 year cash flow of $1500/mo. Either way, at the end of 10 years, you'll have your home free and clear. So the only difference between the two paths you suggested is the value of your investment at the end of 10 years.
Path 1: Invest the $150K @7% rate of return. As you noted, you'll have $300K at the end. (You'll also have paid $180K over the ten years to reduce your mortgage debt by $150K, so you'll have paid in $30K in interest.)
Path 2: Invest $1500/mo @7% rate of return. At the end of 10 years, with incremental investments, you'll have about $258K. A lesser result.
Taxes are where one gets into the weeds:
Path 1: The net income of $150K will presumably be taxed at cap gains rate. But you'll also be able to deduct the $30K in interest against ordinary income. We'll assume a 22% rate here.
Your net taxes will be around 15% x $150K - 22% x $30K = $22.5K - $6.6K, or about $16K.
Your total after tax value will be around $300K - $16K = $284K.
Path 2: Your net income is $258K - $180K (the cash flow it cost you) = $78K. Again assuming this is all cap gains, the tax is 15% x $78K or about $12K.
Your total after tax value will be around $258K - $12K = $246k.
[The $258K result came from using a calculator and investing $1500/mo at 7% annual compounding for ten years.]

@mcmarasco - acknowledging that the financial (cash flow?) situation will be different for everyone I chose to pay additional principal when I could to cut down the term. Why? You could call my chosen profession (carpenter) seasonal at best with a ride of great years and the not so great resembling a roller coaster. A steady savings account was not possible because of those down years using up the overflow from the good years. Over the 30-yr, $140K, initial 8.25% mortgage I was able to buy two better (read: reliable) vehicles while each time refinancing my original mortgage to include funds to pay off the vehicles which were at much higher loan rates. By year 10 I was looking at two newer vehicles and a now 15-yr, $115K mortgage at 4.35% which I disposed of in 10 years.
I hate owing anybody anything so the whole point of my exercise was to be fully aware of my fluctuating income while not falling behind on my debts. By including my trucks into my mortgage payment I saved on the interest for those loans while also taking the worry of 2 monthly payments off my mind. When there was excess cash it went toward the principal. If your income is more reliable and consistent I guess you have more leeway to play. I absolutely wanted no mortgage debt in retirement.

To answer your first question Hank, the money to pay off the mortgage would come from a taxable account. Yes, I would incur some cap gains, but not too much that would put me into another tax bracket. I have a fair share already in cash doing 2% or so.
I'm probably a little more aggressive than you with my investments, so a 20%-25% decline is not desirable. With "cash" paying about have of my mortgage rate, i am losing money on that end.
Anyway Hank, thank you for your observation and insight!
I hope others will share their thoughts as well.
Matt

do it with 4%-5% returns instead and see what you think
for me, retired and a couple months shy of 73, it is all sleep-at-night and cashflow, countering those who advocate no mortgage debt in retirement
(ours is not large, however, just under $100k, not like $300k, and yes, at <4% rate)
but if I could refi now for 40y mortgage, I would
ymmv

@mcmarasco - Excellent summation of trade-offs. I wrestle a bit with this, though my numbers are substantially smaller than yours (duration, payments, rate, balance). Perhaps lacking in your depiction is the type of vehicle (non-retirement, IRA, Roth, etc.) the assets that would be used are currently invested in, as tax considerations enter the picture.
Putting all that aside (largely irrelevant to me), the one question I’d ask (rhetorically) is: *How much confidence do you have that your investments won’t sustain a substantial loss (greater than 20%) over the next decade?
Locking up your money in that contemplated mortgage payoff strikes me as similar to purchasing an AAA rated bond earning 4% (compounded monthly) over the remaining years on the mortgage. (A partial pay down would reduce the duration by X number of years.) And 4% compounded is a very nice rate on AAA debt by today’s standards. So as a defensive strategy to protect / hedge against a severe portfolio loss it makes sense.
When I look at my own investments, the portfolio has grown so conservative (and diversified) in recent years (age 73) that I can’t conceive of a hit greater than 20-25% over the next decade. When I look at the modest 5 year performance of some of my “riskiest” funds like DODBX and RPGAX I’m not seeing “bubble.” So, while I do view many equity markets (NASDAQ, S&P) as in bubble territory, I’m not so worried about my own investments that I’d want to trade a substantial % of them for a fixed rate bond - even though by today’s standards the “yield” would surpass what one can purchase in the fixed income marketplace.
Hope others will share their thinking.

I am trying to decide whether to pay off a fairly new 30-year (4% fixed) mortgage or ride it out the term or pay additional principle and reduce the payoff time. I am not using complicated math, just rudimentary figures and math.
I guess conventional wisdom is that if you can make more than the the interest rate investing, then invest. I want to come at this in a slightly different angle.
30-year (4% fixed) mortgage
$150,000 balance
$1,500 (P&I and a little extra for about a 10-year payoff)
If I continue on my current path, I will incur $50,000 in additional INTEREST.
If I invest the $150,000, using the rule of 72 and historical 7% return, then at the end of 10 years I would have doubled my investment to $300,000 gross, NET $150,000 profit.
Less the $50,000 of Mortgage INTEREST, I am left with $100,000 net gain after 10 years.
If I pay off my $150,000 mortgage balance, I then free up $1,500/mo and $18,000/yr. Over 10 years, that's $180,000 I can DCA invest (assuming no gains or losses).
Using this "fuzzy" math, ($180,000 - $100,000) I would net $80,000 MORE after 10 years, if I payoff the balance of my mortgage today.
FYI: At least ten years away from considering retirement
Any thoughts, suggestions, mild criticisms, etc are very welcome!
Thanks, Matt

Hi catch,
Yeah, have been watching this fund for a while. Finally just held my nose, closed my eyes and hit the buy button. Why? Will say this small, new PM....it's their only fund. AI focused saying all that if you look at top 10, the usual suspects are there. If you look at the annual report, you'll see more. Also high turnover, which is what I want. No big gains up over 3.5%. No love ...... just playing. Young funds tend to do really well first 3 years.....playing that. We'll see.
I forget.....what tech do you own? I know it's a big part of your portfolio, right? Also I'm like Skeeter. I own more than 1 fund in a sector 'cause I can't pick a winner. I'm thinking it's because of an alcohol-induced thinking disease of some sort.....lol. Lucky I have a brown furry 4-legger as backup......one could say Plan B.
God bless
the Pudd

I thought I would mention one other fund that was barely above my risk criteria--SNTIX. This fund had a standard deviation of 2.07, credit quality of BBB, duration of 5.10, and at total return of 1yr/3yr of 8.17/5.53. It is another investment grade intermediate bond oef. Of the funds I mentioned before, NVHAX is a very tempting fund. My issue is simply that regardless of what the Feds do with interest rates, all of the HY Muni funds recorded record 1 year returns in 2019, and it seems that this category is most likely going to revert to its average in a year following record highs. Momentum investors don't care because they will just ride this high performing period until it cools off and then sell, but if you intend to hold a fund for another year, after a record high year, you have to wonder if valuations are being stretched and vulnerability to factors other than interest rates can negatively impact performance.

Well they are off to strong start this year! Not that forecasters are always correct, but as a class munis are being forecast to do well this year. I read an article about the pool of available bonds is shrinking.

Thank you, hope I can keep my income low enough, but not below 78,751, so I'll just hold off on selling and leave it for my heirs as I'm 86 now.

The durability of our low interest rate environment caused me to make some small initial investments in individual REITS over the past year or so. Time will tell if doing this winds up helping or hurting my overall portfolio performance. Anyway, this M* article takes a balanced look at REITs and why it is worth considering them as part of a balanced portfolio. Here is a brief excerpt and a link to the article:

As of the end of 2018, the U.S. commercial real estate market totaled an estimated $16 trillion, compared with about $45.8 trillion for equities and $39.2 trillion for outstanding debt based on 2017 data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. In other words, real estate translates into a roughly 16% slice of the total market pie. Not coincidentally, pensions and endowments often target 10% to 20% of their total assets for real-estate holdings....Given that real estate is both highly cyclical and subject to periodic downturns, though, I’d hesitate to recommend investing quite that much.

https://morningstar.com/articles/964406/time-for-a-second-look-at-reits

For most folks who income is fall between $78,751 to $488,850 and filed jointly, LT cap gain is taxed at 15%. Article above provides more details depending on your tax bracket.

"Long-term capital gains tax is a tax on profits from the sale of an asset held for more than a year. The long-term capital gains tax rate is 0%, 15% or 20% depending on your taxable income and filing status. They are generally lower than short-term capital gains tax rates."
2019-2020 Capital Gains Tax Rates — and How to Avoid a Big Bill