@MikeW, For now I'm staying overweight equities by +5% with the overweight being mostly held in equity dividend funds which are a part of the growth & income area of my portfolio. Now being overweight equity (at the max allowed within my asset allocation) is the primary reason I'm closing the spiff. After all, fixed income is paying next to nothing so dividend paying equity looks attractive, to me.
In short words, I need to trim equity to stay within the confins of my asset allocation. And, based upon Old_Skeet's current market barometer reading (of overvalued for the S&P 500 Index) now is a good time for me to trim. Can stocks go higher in the nearterm? Perhaps ... and, indeed I hope so. However, I look for them to be pretty much news event driven ... and, then there is the FOMC wizards that will also play a part in stock market movement based upon their rate settings.
For now, I'm still with my thoughts that they went to far and to fast in their recent upward rate increase movement; and, governing against a Presidential request to keep them low while he deals with trade issues. In short words, the FOMC wizards threw stock market investors (and our President) under the bus back in December. After all, and since then, investors have left stocks and moved to bonds with interest rates moving from about 3.25% downward to about 1.5% (US10YrT) as investors sought cover in bonds.
I know I reduced equities within my portfolio from 50% to 40%, in good part, because of the FOMC's rate increase move; but, also for an aged based rebalance. I would have kept my equity allocation at 50% had the FOMC not been so aggressive with their rate increase campaign. Seems, to me, the head wizard might be heading for a fall should the FOMC stall out the economy more so than the President. From my perspective, most folks realize that we have to somehow deal with China because of their past unfair trade practices.
And, if our government encourages off shore production, of targeted goods for shipment to the US, be moved to other countries from China ... Well, then so be it. After all, we buy more from them than they buy from us.
And, make no mistake FOMC wizards ... stall the stock market and consumer spending will decline putting pressure on the economy. After all, consumer spending is what drives our economy. Just this last December, I put off buying a new vehicle because of the decline in the stock market associated with your rate increase campaign. And, to date, I have yet to make this purchase.
Yep, and again FOMC wizards, in my book you went to far and too fast with your rate increase campaign and also against a Presidential request not to raise rates while our governemnt was dealing with foreign trade issues with China. This put undue pressure on the stock market and the economy. Since we got a new head FOMC wizard, things have not gone well. I sure wish uncle Ben and aunt Janet were still minding the store.

@junkster I was writing about funds back when those studies on new funds came out and a few things come to mind:
1. In the 1990s many new small cap and growth funds were launched that benefitted from extra IPO allocation to hot dot.com stocks like Pets.com and
Webvan. Van Wagoner , Turner Microcap Growth, Strong and Janus funds come to mind. Some of them ultimately got in trouble for juicing their new fund returns with more shares of these IPOs than other funds at the shop and not acknowledging that it was IPOs doing the heavy lifting and that once the funds grew in size the IPO effect wouldn’t last. In fact, many of those IPOs subsequently flamed out. In any case, times have changed and we no longer have a 1990s IPO market for new funds to benefit from.
2. I am fairly certain those Kobren and Charles Schwab studies did not adjust for survivorship bias. I would have to check but I did write about them back then—favorably too I believe—and I recall no mention of survivor bias. Please provide any evidence of the new fund effect that adjusts for survivor bias today if you have it. I doubt there is any evidence for it as I see bad new funds liquidated every day. In fact, their liquidations are tracked here. Nor is this to say I am against new funds. But I think newness must be accompanied with additional quantitative and qualitative research, the kind David does on this site. Fees should be part of that research in my view, and there is far more evidence of fees importance to performance than the new fund effect.
3. Think of the kind of fund this is and what it’s investing in—non-agency debt. That debt has in the past become extraordinarily illiquid during times of market stress. And funds that invested in it have been crushed due to illiquidity. I suggest MFOers look up the Regions Morgan Keegan funds if they doubt the risks of a liquidity crunch. Such a sector is not the best fit for a mutual fund that must provide daily liquidity in my view especially if the fund concentrates in that sector to a high degree over more liquid mortgage bonds. The sector meanwhile is shrinking each year.
4. At $2 billion in assets this fund collects $30 million in fees a year. At $3 billion it collects $45 million. The team required to investigate this one sector of the market must be highly compensated with that fee. Are they earning it with good Individual security selection or by concentrating in the riskiest sectors of the mortgage market more so than their lower cost peers. Regions Morgan Keegan once had a great record too before the housing bust by taking such risks.
5. In a highly illiquid sector money managers often use a pricing system called fair value for estimating securities value in the portfolio. That can make the fund seem a lot more stable than it actually is and hides risk. It also creates an incentive for fraud in how securities prices are marked.

#1 pretty much sums it up and very close to what I wrote in my book. Half my profits in 98 and 99 came from the new fund effect in tech and small cap growth because of allotments to hot IPOs. I can think of a few new funds from Janus and INVESCO that were up 15% to 25% in a month. Even used Strong’s new high yield fund to my advantage in 96 where it beat not only all its peers but the S&P. I also exploited datelining - probably the closest thing to a free lunch you could ever find on Wall Street. I make no bones about luck being on my side in the 90s. Funny thing about luck as I have also been lucky since 2000 too, especially the luckiest trade of my lifetime - junk bonds on 12/16/2008 when the Fed rang the loudest bell I have ever heard on Wall Street. Probably explains why The Luck Factor by Max Gunther is one of top three favorite books.
As for IOFIX, I just think they are sitting on a gold mine in the legacy non agency rmbs they have remaining in their portfolio. Can’t think of any time since the Great Recession where there has been any illiquidity in those bonds. Can’t think of where there could be any wave of defaults from those legacy bonds issued between 04 and 07 especially from the equity that has now built up over the years by the homeowners behind such loans. But that is a story for another time. My main concern is IOFIX becomes a groupthink fund. I also worry what the managers do for an encore in the next couple years as the legacy market shrinks even further and they no longer have that to juice their returns. I am not wedded to IOFIX. If you read the archives you will see I went into junk bonds at the end of December but they petered out five months later and went back into other areas of Bondland.

Extensive research shows that 99.6% of the time this topic is discussed on MFO a major recession starts within 36 hours.

Thanks @Old_Joe ...... :)
If I have time I’ll spend couple bucks and purchase the WSJ this is out of so can read it. My prejudice is showing through on this one, but for the life of me I’ve never been able to understand why the number of funds matters much to the average investor - as Dave Ramsey suggests. More ain’t better. If it were, than having 5 of Hussman’s would be better than owning one from T. Rowe.
But it’s the final return that matters over time. So if you own 5 or 10 exceptional funds that march to different drummers over the short term but get the job done over 10, 15, 25 years, than why is that inferior to owning fewer? And this question seems to beg the larger question of what is the investor’s situation in life and what is he attempting to accomplish through his investments?
Some folks have legit reasons to own a larger number of funds. Might have to do with estate planning, tax situation, what’s offered (now or previously) by their employer. Personally, I can’t come to grips with handing everything over to a single fund house. Would rather have a few different outfits managing my money. Now, the likelihood one of these guys will turn into idiots overnight or do something unscrupulous with my money is slight. But we don’t carry a life jacket in our boat expecting it to sink, or keep a fire extinguisher in our home expecting to ever use it.
For those so moved, Google the subject. I’ll guarantee you’ll find 2 or 3 dozen articles on the question in rapid succession - a good many from intelligent sources. So, the question gets a lot of play for whatever reason.

@Old_Skeet thanks alot for your update. Always helpful to see your barometer. Are you going back to 40% equities now and where are you newly allocating that 5%?

How many times has this been discussed here in the past? And curious whether those discussions have altered anyone’s behavior in regard to buying and selling funds?
FWIW - Dave Ramsey weighs in ...
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=video+how+many+mutual+funds+is+too+many?&&view=detail&mid=736C33EDCC55E0613158736C33EDCC55E0613158&&FORM=VDRVRV

@junkster I was writing about funds back when those studies on new funds came out and a few things come to mind:
1. In the 1990s many new small cap and growth funds were launched that benefitted from extra IPO allocation to hot dot.com stocks like Pets.com and
Webvan. Van Wagoner , Turner Microcap Growth, Strong and Janus funds come to mind. Some of them ultimately got in trouble for juicing their new fund returns with more shares of these IPOs than other funds at the shop and not acknowledging that it was IPOs doing the heavy lifting and that once the funds grew in size the IPO effect wouldn’t last. In fact, many of those IPOs subsequently flamed out. In any case, times have changed and we no longer have a 1990s IPO market for new funds to benefit from.
2. I am fairly certain those Kobren and Charles Schwab studies did not adjust for survivorship bias. I would have to check but I did write about them back then—favorably too I believe—and I recall no mention of survivor bias. Please provide any evidence of the new fund effect that adjusts for survivor bias today if you have it. I doubt there is any evidence for it as I see bad new funds liquidated every day. In fact, their liquidations are tracked here. Nor is this to say I am against new funds. But I think newness must be accompanied with additional quantitative and qualitative research, the kind David does on this site. Fees should be part of that research in my view, and there is far more evidence of fees importance to performance than the new fund effect.
3. Think of the kind of fund this is and what it’s investing in—non-agency debt. That debt has in the past become extraordinarily illiquid during times of market stress. And funds that invested in it have been crushed due to illiquidity. I suggest MFOers look up the Regions Morgan Keegan funds if they doubt the risks of a liquidity crunch. Such a sector is not the best fit for a mutual fund that must provide daily liquidity in my view especially if the fund concentrates in that sector to a high degree over more liquid mortgage bonds. The sector meanwhile is shrinking each year.
4. At $2 billion in assets this fund collects $30 million in fees a year. At $3 billion it collects $45 million. The team required to investigate this one sector of the market must be highly compensated with that fee. Are they earning it with good Individual security selection or by concentrating in the riskiest sectors of the mortgage market more so than their lower cost peers. Regions Morgan Keegan once had a great record too before the housing bust by taking such risks.
5. In a highly illiquid sector money managers often use a pricing system called fair value for estimating securities value in the portfolio. That can make the fund seem a lot more stable than it actually is and hides risk. It also creates an incentive for fraud in how securities prices are marked.

Market-cap weighting certainly is hard to justify. Also nutty, IMHO, is the Dow’s weighting of its 30 stocks by market price. Boeing is somewhere around $350, so it is weighted more than Walmart, for example. We have the 737 Max fraud revealed and the Dow craters. If it turned out the Walmart were screwing its workers (perish the thought!), no massive drop on the Dow. Go figure.

FYI: Some investors have so many, their portfolios become like index funds with hefty fees.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-mutual-funds-are-too-many-11567784875?mod=md_mf_news

Here's the Pub 590A cite (very similar to what you wrote):

Application of one-rollover-per-year limitation. You can make only one rollover from an IRA to another (or the same) IRA in any 1-year period regardless of the number of IRAs you own. The limit will apply by aggregating all of an individual's IRAs, including SEP and SIMPLE IRAs as well as traditional and Roth IRAs, effectively treating them as one IRA for purposes of the limit. However, trustee-to-trustee transfers between IRAs aren’t limited and rollovers from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs (conversions) aren’t limited.

https://www.irs.gov/publications/p590a#en_US_2018_publink100024687

You'll find the info in Pub 590A (gotta dash now), but the gist is that the rule applies to T-IRA to T-IRA and to Roth IRA to Roth IRA. You're allowed only one 60 day rollover of both these types combined (i.e. one T to T, or one Roth to Roth, but not one of each). That surprised me when I looked it up.

Hi @msf
You noted: "(Since this was a 403(b) to IRA rollover, it would not have been constrained by the once per year rule, though that didn't matter here.)"
From working with a friend a few years ago, this is my understanding related to what you wrote:
IRA one-rollover-per-year rule
Beginning after January 1, 2015, you can make only one rollover from an IRA to another (or the same) IRA in any 12-month period, regardless of the number of IRAs you own. The one-per year limit does not apply to: rollovers from traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs (conversions)Jun 18, 2019
My understanding of what your note is not: Example:
If one had several life time jobs, that resulted in 2, 401k's and 2, 403b's; this person could perform direct transfers/rollovers of these accounts into an existing traditional IRA without violation of the once-per-year rule.
As I understand, the once-per-year rule applies only to traditional IRA's, YES ???
Thank you for your clarification.
Take care,Catch

FYI: When you do a rollover, three things happen and they're ALL bad!" —​ Ed Slott (for sure!)
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNRLZ20LyXYOFSgZ61za6aaZeIrwIw:1567775286826&source=hp&ei=NlpyXaOwL87r5gLtirO4BA&q=+Retirement+Strategies+Rollovers+are+all+bad!+Use+only+direct+transfers+&oq=+Retirement+Strategies+Rollovers+are+all+bad!+Use+only+direct+transfers+&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3108.3108..5131...0.0..0.87.87.1......0....2j1..gws-wiz.eDcdQ83AUG4&ved=0ahUKEwijo7mIorzkAhXOtVkKHW3FDEcQ4dUDCAc&uact=5

Please read ...
https://www.member.mfopremium.com/2019/09/05/our-new-portfolio-analysis-tool/

@BenWP Hah! Actually I had taken my equity position down to 50% a month ago so had been feeling smart until this week. But who knows what the hell the market will do. I just have confidence that the big idiot will screw things up. Thanks for sharing CAPE.

@BenWP - the prospectus link for the new AC fund was posted by The Shadow.
The way I read their investing strategies seems to indicate that they can use hedging when they deem it appropriate. That really isn't much different than many other funds.
From the proposed prospectus:
"Principal Investment Strategies:
The Fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing in healthcare related companies that the Fund’s investment sub-advisor, LifeSci Fund Management LLC (the “Sub-Advisor”) believes to have potential to appreciate in value. Under normal market conditions, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its net assets plus borrowings for investment purposes in the securities of companies in the life sciences and healthcare sectors. The Fund will invest in the equity securities, primarily common stock, of these companies and may also invest, from time to time, in exchange traded funds (“ETFs”) that primarily invest in these companies. The Fund defines life sciences and healthcare companies to include those companies that are expected to derive 50% or more of their revenue from life sciences and healthcare related products and services. These companies may include development stage companies. The Fund may invest up to 15% of the Fund’s net assets in private and other companies whose securities may have legal or contractual restrictions on resale or are otherwise illiquid such as initial public offerings, mezzanine financing offerings and other structured transactions. The Fund may invest in securities of companies of any market capitalization and may invest without limitation in securities of companies domiciled outside the United States either directly or through American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”).
The Fund concentrates its investments (i.e., invests more than 25% of its assets) in the biotech and pharmaceutical; health care facilities and services; and medical equipment and devices industries, collectively.
For hedging purposes or when the Sub-Advisor anticipates significant price changes due to company or market moving events, the Fund may also invest in inverse ETFs and purchase and sell call and put options on equity securities of life sciences and healthcare companies."

@MJG: For your information I have linked Morgan's current article for over a year. He was recently interviewed on M*'s The Long View Podcast.
Regards,
Ted
The Laws Of Investing
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/51984/morgan-housel-the-laws-of-investing#latest
M*'s The Long View
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/49997/m-the-long-view-guest-morgan-housel-podcast/p1

FYI: You can’t make this up.
Newell Brands , the company that makes Sharpie markers, got an overnight surge in popularity following President Trump’s use of an apparently altered weather map to support his assertion that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sharpie-makes-its-mark-11567698099
Frank Sinatra: Stars Fell On Alabama:

Of the funds mentioned in the article Old_Skeet owns in my growth and income area ANCFX, CWGIX & DWGAX. In the growth area I own AGTHX, AMCPX, ANWPX, NEWFX & SMCWX. Not mentioned in the article I own ABALX, AMECX & CAIBX which are held in the growth & income area of my portfolio. Combined, they account for about 25% of my overall portfolio.

DF Dent Mid Cap (DFDMX) is new to my portfolio this year and this is the company's first annual report I've received.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/221-DF_DENT_FUNDS/221-ANR-0619.pdf
It's an impressive document on many counts. Their discussion of indexing vs. active management is really insightful and gave me a better understanding of the consequences of choosing one or the other, including an ominous prediction of what might happen to the market if all the new index money suddenly wanted to get out the door at the same time. Dent claims they would not be much affected by such an event, but I took that with a grain of salt. The Dent managers of their three strategies explain in detail rarely found in other annual reports how they initiate positions, how they prune, and how they re-balance and why. I followed the mid-cap fund for a while after Kipplinger put it on its list of "25," and I did the same after Barron's highlighted the Premier Growth Fund. Both endorsements, according to the report, resulted in money flowing in. DF Dent is a Baltimore firm in very good company: TRP, Brown Capital, and Brown Advisory hang out there, too. Most annual reports I read are pablum; this one has flavor and substance.

@Junkster
Regarding the new fund effect: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1101615

I cite detailed studies in my book by the Charles Schwab Center for Investment Research and also by Kobren Insight Group on the validity of the new funds effect. Also provide real time trade results on the new funds effect. Of course this was from what is now a mostly bygone era. But the effect is still there in some cases. A recent example being EIXIX - new fund in a hot sector. I would hate to think where I might be now had it not been for exploiting the new funds effect in the late 90s.
You must bring out the worst in me as I have never mentioned my book in all my years on this forum. I detest those that pander their books on forums. Most especially that master marketeer of his 1001 investment books on the Bogleheads site.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Trade-Living-Gary-Smith/dp/0471355143