Interesting short read. I turn 70 in a few months. Based on my current health status and the life spans of my parents and grandparents, I currently have my investment time horizon set at 21 years. I would be 90 years old at that point. Its been set at 90 since 2014 when I added an annual review of my planning horizon to my annual year-end portfolio review process. So, the chart makes sense to me.

Your investment time horizon seems reasonable. I say that because most everyone seems to overestimate how long they will live and think they will all live to 100. Longevity tables show those around our age ( I am 72) should live to 84/85. My high school and college classmates are dying off at an alarming rate. I am not sure in the U.S. lifespans are still expanding since obesity and being overweight has become so rampant over the past many years. Anyway, I never think about how many years I have left. Just try to live each day as if it is my last and spend some time each day on the trails, preferably in the middle of nowhere.

FYI: Investors are puzzling over the apparent paradox presented by the combination of stocks trading at or near all-time highs and a Federal Reserve that appears ready to deliver an imminent rate cut.
A look back at history shows that the Fed has been willing to cut rates with stocks at or near all-time highs in the past, but it’s a phenomenon that hasn’t been seen in more than 20 years. Market analyst Charlie Bilello last week noted on Twitter that since the Fed started targeting the fed-funds rate in 1982, it has delivered rate cuts with the S&P 500 SPX, -0.12% at an all-time high seven times — the last such cut occurring in January 1996.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/rate-cut-with-stock-market-at-all-time-highs-its-been-done-before-2019-07-15/print

FYI: Investment time horizon is a critical concept in building wealth. Most investors have very long investment time horizons, typically decades or more. Investment managers also require long time horizons to deliver on their investment thesis. Finally, stock market volatility diminishes substantially over time, with a 75% decrease in variability for 10 years versus one year. As a result, developing patience and a long-term perspective are key to building wealth. We are living longer and need to invest appropriately. Even at age 70, the investment time horizon is more than 20 years.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/articles/2019/07/15/long-term-is-longer-than-you-think

It has been an amazing year for bonds. So much so that MAINX lags iin its category (emerging markets bond) and in the 75th percentile. One of the best in that category over the past three years has been Vanguard’s VEMBX and it is up over 14% YTD.

I wish something like a “10% Rule” was common knowledge when I started working in the 1970s. Nobody talked about saving for retirement then, and the stock market was considered a risky gamble. You could earn 12% interest from a money market account and my friends were more concerned about buying a car or house before prices went up again.
I didn’t start saving for retirement until my mid-30s when my employer started a 401k Plan. I contributed the amount that my employer would match, probably about 3% of my salary. I invested it all in cash and bonds because— again— stocks seemed like gambling. My employer provided no guidance or education about investment options, diversification, etc. Fortunately bonds did well during that period and even money markets paid 5-6%.
I finally got educated about investing when I left that job and rolled over my 401k and pension to an IRA. I was about 40 by then and immersed myself in financial literature. I invested the bulk of my savings in a diversified collection of stock funds, with a few bonds for safety, and never looked back. I increased my savings to about 10% of my salary including the employer match, and it all turned out OK in the end. For the last 20 years of my career, my employer had a pension but I kept contributing to a 401k, so my savings were closer to 15-20% of my salary— through my own ignorance because I didn’t realize that the pension was equivalent to saving about 10%.
Bottom line, for young workers or older ones who aren’t saving yet for retirement, the 10% Rule is a pretty good guideline for getting someone started in investing.

The article isn't too bad, as far as facts and figures. Perhaps it will cause a few readers who stumble across such a write to be more involved with their financial future.
So, before folks run to a "SIMULATOR" to determine the yet unknown they first must have a "STIMULATOR". Without a stimulator to help with motivation to save, there will be no need for the simulators.
So, let us count the ways. I've been pushing folks for 40 years to invest some of their wages; including the current campaign of setting up minor ROTH IRAs.
The "stimulator" has been in place with simple facts and figures.
The results have always been disappointing.
Boomers always seemed to want other stuff for "today's wants". Their children were not much different. In both of these groups, at least most were married and dual income households. But, the remaining free monies for investments (401k, 403b, simple IRA and then Roth IRA) were few.
The overwhelming response was the "markets" were too complex and they were not willing to use small pieces of their time to learn.
More recently, being since the market melt; finds remaining damage to household finances and problems finding jobs that pay a decent wage. This current period also contains those who do not trust market investments.
So, there are those households who have the monetary ability to invest; but still do not take any actions.
Ten percent of base pay seems are reasonable and easy path with which to begin; but I still don't see enough takers among educated and well paid 50 year old folk today.
Pretty sad and frustrating to and for me.
Good evening,
Catch

Don't buy, please don't buy. :)

LOL - Got that right Mike. It will drive you nuts. I’m just slightly overweight on my one mining fund. Benchmark allocation is only 2.5% to start with. I guess it’s about 3-4% of holdings currently. Part of that overweight is due to gold’s recent appreciation and part is intentional overweighting on my part.
Honesty compels me to add that I have long owned a modest slug of PRPFX (despised by many here). That fund allocates something like 25-30% to precious metals and (to a lesser extent) the miners.
FWIW

The rule given, to save 10% (including employer contributions) for retirement, is a bit simplistic, as even the writer acknowledges:

Of course, there will be times when you’re between jobs or you need your money for a pre-retirement-age emergency. In those cases, ...
Of course, everyone’s situation is and will be different, so 10% is a guideline, not a guarantee. (Furthermore, if you start later in life, 10% won’t be nearly enough.)

Still, one had better have a single number in mind. Otherwise, your employer is going to pick one for you when it automatically enrolls you in its 401(k). How do the tools you suggested help a 25 year old determine how much to set aside for retirement?
The column references an EBRI model that "estimates the risk of running out of money after retirement by taking into account many more factors than the usual online calculator: contributions, market changes, Social Security benefits and salary growth, as well as a range of health outcomes and longevity prospects."
It's a little ironic, criticizing the idea of identifying a target savings rate number as too simplistic, while praising a tool for its simplicity that essentially says: for this asset allocation and retirement spending rate, here's the magic dollar number you need to survive.
As I've said before, simulation tools (regardless of the underlying technology or simplicity) are better than a stick in the eye. By the same token, so is the suggested 10% savings rate guideline.

To me, the key takeaway is the futility of predicting interest rates. Last fall, it was considered gospel truth that the Fed would continue hiking interest rates through 2019 with some so-called gurus predicting rates as high as 5-6%. That scenario quickly unraveled over the winter.
Now the “experts” are predicting big cuts in interest rates. I’m not convinced, as that scenario could dissolve if inflation indicators start rising. Tariffs, low unemployment rates, and barriers to immigration could all contribute to inflation.

I agree with rforno and now is not the time.
PDI is selling at a 10.7% premium to NAV but one could substitute in PCI at a 1.9% premium and expect similar return results. The funds are identical in many respects. I own both in mass quantities but bought both at large discounts.
THW a worldwide healthcare fund is selling at a near 7% discount to NAV mostly because healthcare has been taking a beating pretty much everywhere this year. I own a sister fund THQ.
OXLC is a high-yield, double seatbelt fund selling at a 57% premium. Enough said.

The other link to this story seems to have been deleted now. Myself, Ol Skeet, msf (and perhaps others) had commented on it. As I mentioned on that thread, interest rates have pretty much been trending downward since the early 80s when Fed chair Paul Volker jacked up short term rates to stop runaway inflation. The 10 year treasury topped out north of 15% around than. As we know, declining rates increase the value of longer dated bonds, while rising rates work against bond values. So we’ve had nearly 40 years of favorable rate trends for bond investors (more than half the lifetimes of many of us).
Paul Volker didn’t do this alone. There was the financial crisis and global market meltdown of ‘07-‘09 which compelled central banks to push rates lower by assorted means. Inflation has been subdued thanks to retail giants like Amazon, less powerful labor unions and relatively cheap energy - due to fracking and other advances. Low inflation generally translates into lower interest rates (and improving bond values). Additionally, upward pressure on rates from the baby boomers buying first homes in the 70s and 80s has abated - helping drive rates lower as well. All good if you invest in longer dated high grade bonds.
The lower-quality bond market (ie: junk) has been helped by a record 10+ year U.S. economic expansion and bull stock market which finds itself 3 or 4 times higher than it was only a decade ago. Since lower rated bonds react (favorably or unfavorably) to overall economic conditions (and secondly to long term rates) junk and corporates have tended to follow the stock market higher.
The article is correct that the past 6 months have been “spectacular” for just about any type of bond / bond fund. Missing in the headline, but critical to the article, is that many prognosticators predicted rising interest rates for this year - while in fact rates have trended lower with the 10 year getting below 1.95% recently before closing above 2% at week’s end. I have no major criticisms of the article. However, unless you butter your bread on both sides by trading in and out of bonds - particularly the lower rated ones (as @Junkster does very well) - you probably shouldn’t be too focused on your 6 month bond return. Anything other than cash and ultra-short IMHO is best suited for terms longer than a year or two.
I’m glad Ol Skeet liked the article and kicked it over to the discussions + part of the board.

I own and like POLRX. Then again, why? Frankly, and this may apply to you, it shows up on lists of high performing funds. I track my funds on StockCharts.com and note that this fund is up 122% in five years (unfortunately, I haven't owned it for 5 years). I like that it is often in the top quartile of performing funds in its category. (TRBCX, another fund I've owned, is up 107% in five years). I just checked Morningstar which credits POLRX with having a formula that focuses on stellar high growth companies with little or no debt. Morningstar says this approach is intended to limit risk. We will see. On the caution side you should note that it has a portfolio of only 20 stocks (not a lot of diversification if they choose the wrong stocks). And note that the list of their stocks includes the same big name growth stocks that almost every other fund seems to own (Microsoft, Facebook, Alphabet, etc.). In summary, this is a high flyer that may flop big time if we hit a brutal decline in the market.

FYI: “Eventually, I’ll stop working.” Most of us think that and know it will happen, but millions of us worry whether we’re saving enough to live on once we do. We want to know: How much of my earnings should I set aside? What’s the magic number? 3%? 5%? 10%? More?
What your financial adviser won’t tell you:
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-new-math-of-saving-for-retirement-2019-05-22/print

Exactly. PAUIX's 20% short SPX position in a raging 'bull' market back then definitely dragged hard on it. I held it for a while during/after the GFC but dumped it once I realized they had no plans to reduce/exit that short position as the world around them changed..

Hi, Catch.
Two versions of the fund: All Asset and All Asset All Authority. Both have a contrarian bent (i.e., more value than momentum hence less US and more foreign than their peers). The difference is the All Asset All Authority is permitted both leverage and shorting, which I warned folks about many years ago.
The vanilla version has substantially and consistently outperformed the souped-up on. Peer comparisons are hard because M* has changed All Asset's peer group three times in 10 years but, in generally, it has been a very solid performer (a little below average to substantially above) except for one period of about 30 months (in 2013-15). All Asset All Authority has kept the same peer group, has never excelled and has frequently stumbled. I'm guessing, though without detailed examination, that that's the cost of leverage and shorting.
For me, that is brief.
David

Hi, Catch.
Two versions of the fund: All Asset and All Asset All Authority. Both have a contrarian bent (i.e., more value than momentum hence less US and more foreign than their peers). The difference is the All Asset All Authority is permitted both leverage and shorting, which I warned folks about many years ago.
The vanilla version has substantially and consistently outperformed the souped-up on. Peer comparisons are hard because M* has changed All Asset's peer group three times in 10 years but, in generally, it has been a very solid performer (a little below average to substantially above) except for one period of about 30 months (in 2013-15). All Asset All Authority has kept the same peer group, has never excelled and has frequently stumbled. I'm guessing, though without detailed examination, that that's the cost of leverage and shorting.
For me, that is brief.
David

FYI: Confirming what markets everywhere had expected, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell all but promised Congress Wednesday that the central bank will be lowering its federal-funds rate target, starting with a cut of one-quarter percentage point, most likely at the end of the month. He admitted that the economy already was “in a good place,” perhaps an understatement with the record-long expansion entering its 11th year, unemployment at a half-century low, the major stock market averages at record highs, and the biggest apparent problem being inflation falling short of the Fed’s 2% target. A cut would trim the bank’s key policy rate from the current 2.25%-2.50%, hardly an exalted level.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-play-the-coming-rate-cut-51562943633?mod=hp_INTERESTS_funds&refsec=funds

Thank you David for your thoughtful response. What prompted me to post this discussion was a comment provided by FD1001 on a M* discussion board. It suggested to me that despite the availability of the tool and the thought process behind it there is no guarantee of a successful outcome. That's true at least for PAUIX managed by Mr. Arnott compared to selected competing funds.
Morningstar Discussion

I don't keep up with the various offerings from all of the fund families (especially funds like these, being more of a DIY person myself), so I hadn't looked into TRLAX.
Apparently T. Rowe Price rebooted the fund two years ago, changing it from a target date fund into a managed payout fund. So the short answer is that this fund isn't much different from other managed payout funds now, but it used to be.
https://retirementincomejournal.com/article/t-rowe-price-reopens-the-market-for-payout-funds/
Viewing 4% as a "safe" withdrawal rate, that's what Vanguard targets. It adjusts the amounts periodically based on performance (as do virtually all managed payout funds). As @hank noted, T. Rowe Price fund targets 5%, while pointing out that it is designed to pay out more early in retirement and less later on (possibly not keeping up with inflation). That's not necessarily a bad idea; generally retirees are expected to spend more in early retirement while they are still more active.
You're not giving up flexibility with managed payout funds. As T. Rowe Price notes on the overview page, you have the "Freedom to withdraw additional funds", and to "Increase (or reduce) your monthly payouts ... by adding or removing investment assets."
The expense ratio does seem high, and is due to "other expenses", not management fees. I don't know why Price isn't operating more efficiently. In theory, you could mimic the fund yourself (it's a fund of funds), except that (a) you'd pay more than the 0.47% it pays for the aqcuired funds because you can't buy institutional class shares, and (b) some of the funds it uses are closed. Using retail class shares (if you could) would bring your expenses up to around 0.60%. (That's about the same as Fidelity charges for its 2020 RMD fund.)
Can one do better on one's own? Maybe. ISTM this question is not much different from asking: why invest in any allocation fund; can't one do better by investing one one's own in separate large cap, small cap, investment grade, junk bonds, international? Or would one do better by paying that same 0.71% and just buying PRWCX?

Anytime I see “may” in a headline like this I’m wary of the actual substance of argument. But it’s a good read. TRP appears to offer a Target Income Fund. It appears quite new. Structurally, how would this differ from the target payout fund (VG and others) mentioned by @msf?
- Overview: https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/mutual-funds/target-date-funds/income-funds.html
- Detailed look: https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/tools/fund-research/TRLAX
Interestingly, the NAV for TRLAX appears quite stable (for now anyway) at around $10. I assume that was the opening value. It’s also noteworthy they appear to target a 5% annual payout from the fund. I recently locked away my anticipated cash needs for 2020 (in the face of strong first-half market returns) and 5% pretty much covers the projected 2020 needs (in addition to SS and pension).
The fund’s “real” ER is around 1.2% , which sounds extraordinarily high for this type of fund. After a fee wavier, it’s .71%. That still seems high.
I can’t see where this would be any better than investing on your own conservatively within a sheltered plan and than withdrawing a predetermined amount yearly. I suspect you could do better on the ER and have more flexibility in the needed withdrawal amounts (which will likely vary from year to year). You also may / may not do somewhat better at timing the withdrawals to coincide with more favorable market conditions.

https://www.thestreet.com/retirement/target-date-funds-may-fall-short-for-retirement-savers-15016076
Target-date funds, or what some call TDFs, have become the investment of choice for many folks saving for retirement. You buy one fund that is aligned with your anticipated year of retirement and you don't have to do much else.