In a slightly related area, BFOR, the "GARP" ETF that follows the Barron's 400 index, failed to keep up with the S&P 500 in 2017. I haven't owned it for more than two years. However, I have found the M* wide-moat ETFs, the domestic MOAT (+23.16%) and the international MOTI (+30.16%) to be thoroughly rewarding funds to own.

Hello.
This is Old_Skeet's market barometer report for the weekending January 12, 2018.
Last week, I reported that the 500 Index was overbought with a reading of 134. This week the barometer dropped six more points to a reading of 128 which falls into the extremely overbought area on the scale. With this, it seems investors have been buying in advance of an anticipated strong 4th quarter earnings reporting season. Generally, a lower barometer reading indicates there is less investment value in the Index over a higher reading. Last year the lowest recorded barometer reading took place during the Trump Bump with a reading of 131 for the weekending of 2/24/2017.
For the week short interest for SPY was up from 2.7 days to cover to 2.8 days.
Within the major sectors of the 500 Index the lead pack consisted (as the week ended) of XLE, XLF & XLY. XLK faltered and has now dropped back form lead pack status and was replace by XLF. Within the lead pack my money hound remains XLY (and has been for some time). Back in late fall I put money on the Christmas shopper and with the new tax overhaul package that has recently become law the consumer seems to still be spending.
Within the global compass the lead pack consisted (as the week ended) of GSP, EWJ & VTI. EEM has now begun to falter and was replaced by a new hound VTI. My money hound remains GSP (commodities) and has been for some time. It has had a good run but I'm thinking this might follow a seasonal pattern soon to be ending. I'll stay with it as long as it is a good producer and might declare it a keeper and move it to the speciality sleeve from the spiff sleeve.
I am currently only putting spiff investment money on one hound at a time within each compass as I limit myself to only three open spiffs at any one time within my portfolio. However, another strategy that I have used in the past is to put investment money on each hound found in the lead pack. Since, the lead hound investment strategy is meant to complement other portfolio positions in the form of special investments (aka spiffs) I am at this time investing only in the lead hound strategy. I let my investment remain on the money hound(s) as long as they can maintain lead pack status. Should a money hound began to falter and fall from the lead pack then the investment is closed and a new investment position is opened on another lead hound felt to have good legs. Thus, it becomes my new money hound.
The process, for me, continues until I get tired of watching the hounds run or the investment momentum is lost and I close out the spiffs.
Another strategy listed above by @MikeM known as the Leadership Strategy was used by Old_Skeet for a number of years. I moved away from it because it mostly centers around a a style oriented strategy plus a few other holdings. I favor the sectors of the 500 Index and the holdings of the global compass over it because my strategy takes me back to my days (many years ago) where I'd do some weekend betting at the dog track.
My dog track strategy (years back) was that I'd bet three dogs in most races to win, place or show. This gave me a good number of chances to have a dog, or dogs, place in the money. Generally, I only bet the first eight races as I found the later races harder to pick the money dogs.
Reminder, both the stock and bond markets are closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Day.
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
Have a good holiday weekend ... and, most of all I wish each of you ... "Good Investing."
Old_Skeet

FYI: The members of Barron’s 2018 Roundtable arrived at our annual gathering in a jolly mood. And why not? U.S. stocks returned an impressive 20% last year, and are off to the races again this year, propelled by expectations of good economic growth and robust corporate earnings.
Our panelists, who spent Jan. 8 talking with the editors of Barron’s at the Harvard Club of New York, generally expect more of the same in the months ahead—more gains for equities, large-cap and small, as the global economy enjoys the most coordinated level of growth since the Eisenhower administration, notes Epoch’s William Priest. Few things these days, on Wall Street and elsewhere, merit that comparison.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/bright-outlook-for-the-economy-and-stocks-1515812439

@VintageFreak and others,
Hi guys,
To beat the bogey you've got to be in that faster moving sectors of the Index that are beating bogey. In this case EQL. The reason I use the 90 day time frame is that it cuts down on the number trades one makes and the ride seems to be a little longer. I've been with XLY for better than three months as my money hound. You could use the 30 day time frame, as well, but look to make more buys and sell transactions. The 30 day time frame will help you spot trends as they develop. Sometimes they materialize into a 90 day trend and sometimes ... well ... they just don't.
I'll be writing more on the barometer reading along with the 500 Index compass and the global compass over the weekend. There are a couple of new lead pack hounds now found in both compasses as some hounds have begun to falter and pullback as they seemed to have become winded. Perhaps. they will again pick up the pace ... perhaps not. But, my money hounds remain XLY in the 500 Compass and GSP (commodities) in the global compass.
So, check back later this weekend for Old_Skeet's weekly barometer and compass report.

@VintageFreak, this explains a similar strategy. Pretty much own the hottest sector(s) until they're not.
http://investwithanedge.com/market-leadership-strategy

The Market Leadership Strategy always has two holdings with nominal weighting of 50% each. Based on the rankings, one of the positions can be a money market fund. This strategy will buy the top two (2) ranked funds and hold them as long as they are ranked as a top-5 fund. If a holding drops below #5, the strategy will sell it and purchase the highest ranked style not already owned.

Hi, Ron.
The Navigator just aims people at (mostly) external pages. Is the problem that you're getting 404 - page not found errors or external pages that seem stale? I used Seafarer as an example and clicked through all the links. USA Today and US News were both 404s, and Chip is working to solve that. None of the working pages contained stale data.
The two internal links - to the discussion board and commentary - both worked fine, though the most recent profile of SFGIX is 2015. That reflects the fact that Andrew's fund has gone beyond our universe (small, new, undiscovered), closed, and earned Morningstar recognition.
If you could give an example of the difficulty you experienced, we'll try to make it right.
As ever,
David

Hi @Hank,
If go to PortfolioVisualizer.com and run a backtest of a portfolio consisting of 1/3 SPY, 1/3 GLD, and 1/3 IEF (rebalanced quarterly), and plot it against a benchmark of PRPFX, the charts look virtually identical from Sept 2015 thru Dec 2017.
Same is true from Dec 2004 through April 2011.
But from May 2011 through Aug 2015, PRPFX underperformed SPY/GLD/IEF by 4.75% per year. Undoubtedly because it was overweight gold.
I am glad for PRPFX investors it seems to be back on track to providing diversified returns!

"A bipartisan group of U.S. senators met with administration officials this week to discuss legislation to spend $1 trillion to improve infrastructure."
That sounds like the Donald's campaign promised that he walked back many months ago. CNN recently reported: "A White House official said on Tuesday the current proposal -- set to be unveiled in the middle of January -- would propose spending at least $200 billion on infrastructure projects over the next decade, with the hopes of spurring an additional $800 billion in state and local funding."
That's just $20B/year. To put that in perspective, $20B is about what he'd like to spend on protecting American shores. Not from rising tides and water surges and intensified storms in the decades to come, but from surging immigrants. That's also about what it may cost to build a few miles of subway in NY (Second Ave. Subway - $17B and growing).
The article seems somewhat conflicted, saying on the one hand that "Engineering and construction companies are a late-cycle industrial play" (i.e. this is cyclical), and on the other hand that "You can make a multi-year argument that there is pent-up demand for things like waterworks and roads and bridges and highways,"
The need is there and has been there for many, many years. Even the full $1T would close only half the $2T gap (ASCE figures).
Late cycle might be an argument that in good economic times the government has more money spend on that need, but the government just added an extra projected $1.46T to the national debt over the same ensuing decade. So it's not clear if even $200B let alone $1T could be budgeted.
I think infrastructure is a good niche to invest in for the long term, but IMHO the way to do it is with global funds that can move money back to US companies if and when the US gets its act together.

Have some cash div coming 15th....still don't know what to do.. Looking at OIH and UNIT

Schwab has always used cash accounts as, well, cash cows. It lards its "Intelligent" Portfolios (robo accounts) with cash, and it offers little in the way of interest for its core/transaction accounts.
Those are the accounts being addressed here. No broker (at least that I know of) offers prime MMFs for use in core accounts because of their potential illiquidity. Vanguard switched from offering VMMXX to VMFXX when the new MMF regulations kicked in. So we do need to be fair here. That said, VMFXX is yielding 1.24% (Jan 11, 2018). I'd mentioned FDRXX for Fidelity IRAs (0.95%) in another thread. Both way ahead of Schwab.
If you want the higher yields (and slightly higher risk) of prime MMFs, wherever you invest, you'll need to explicitly buy them. As Schwab writes in the disclosure statement: "You should also consider higher-return options for funds that are not needed immediately, as yields on any of our Cash Features [core account options] may be lower than those of similar investments or deposit accounts"
Schwab appears to be making mostly minor changes to its core account offerings. As I read it, Schwab is phasing out one option, while increasing insurance on its FDIC bank sweep option and adding higher interest tiers (rates not disclosed) on its bank sweep and "Schwab One® Interest" options. (Schwab One® Interest is where your cash is held by Schwab as a general obligation of the company, like "Fidelity Cash".) The option that's getting phased out would let you use one of Schwab's MMFs (sweep share class) as your core account. So all that remains to use for a core account is cash (no MMF) - cash in a bank, or cash held by Schwab.
Schwab is adding more tiers to the interest rate schedule for these two options. The highest tier is now at $1M, for all the good that does. The tiers will be at:

• Balances of $0 to $24,999.99
• Balances of $25,000.00 to $99,999.99
• Balances of $100,000.00 to $249,999.99
• Balances of $250,000.00 to $499,999.99
• Balances of $500,000.00 to $999,999.99
• Balances of $1,000,000.00 or more

Schwab had been using one bank for the bank sweep. So your cash was FDIC-insured "only" up to $250k, or $500K if it was a joint account. It will begin using two banks, so your money (if owned jointly) could be insured up to $1M (2 x $500K), getting you close to that $1M tier - a point that Schwab makes in its disclosure.
Much of the rest is boilerplate about bank insurance, which type of Schwab accounts can use which sweep features, etc.
The only negative I see in the change is the phasing out of a Schwab Sweep Money Fund as a core account option. For example, one will not be able to open an account using SWGXX, the "Sweep Class" shares of its Government Money Fund. That class is currently yielding 0.65% according to Schwab. To show how even here Schwab milks these core accounts, the fund's Investor class shares SNVXX currently yield 0.91%.

Love the concept. But PRPFX has really stagnated since gold topped in 2011.

@PBKCM,
It’s quite easy for me to check the fund’s recent performance, since I converted 100% of my holdings to a Roth on 1/04/16. As of today’s close (1/11/18) the fund has generated a 25% gain in just over 2 years. Coming right after a conversion, I couldn’t be happier. I often noted my trades / activities in the buying and selling threads in the past. If anybody cares to check the January 2016 pages they should come across that conversion date.
You are correct that the fund dropped off a cliff for a while. It was bound to happen. Hot money had poured in for several years as the fund’s (rather modest) gold and silver holdings propelled it higher than most other allocation funds. Folks seemed to feel they’d discovered a low risk way to make a lot of money fast. Of course, there is no such animal. When metals started backsliding (entirely predictable) these fly-by-night investors bailed enmass and moved on. It was at that time, with the price depressed, that I opened a small position in the fund and than averaged in over the next 2-3 years.
-
@LLJB - The Hierarchy of Disagreement
- Friendly (No sweat)
- Mild (Let’s agree to disagree)
- Considerable (You must be off your rocker!)
- Serious (Take a long walk on a short pier why don’t you?)
- Nasty (unprintable)
So with only a “mild disagreement” there’s no cause for concern.
:)
Regards

I believe Schwab's MM is at 1.2 or 1.25 now. I met with my Schwab guy yesterday and we talked about setting up a "safe-bucket" of 4 years needed withdrawal income when I start retirement. We both agreed setting up that bucket (still as an IRA) at an on-line bank like Ally or Synchrone would give slightly higher rates, maybe in the 1.3 range, and also have the CD option available. In any case, that is what I will be doing.

I bought DBCMX.

It amazes me how so many people able to buy institutional shares of funds. How???

You can buy any DoubleLine fund's inst shares in an IRA for $5k initial minimum. Since that's Dbl's thing, I'd assume it'd be the same at brokerages - except possibly for a TF tacked on, which is the case at Fidelity.

Gundlach has been making this bullish commodity call for a while, yet he and every Doubleline trustee had $0 invested in the Doubleline Strategic Commodity Fund according to the most recent SEC filing with holdings info as of March 31, 2017. See pages 103-104 here: quote.morningstar.com/fund-filing/SAI/2017/9/22/t.aspx?t=DBCMX&ft=497&d=cea519dc595b9580834096bebcbaa1dd
Only the fund's manager Jeffrey Sherman had any money invested and that was less than $100,000. Meanwhile, I believe Gundlach has been bullish on commodities since early 2016 as he said they hit a "massive double bottom" then:
https://advisorperspectives.com/articles/2017/01/11/gundlach-s-forecast-for-2017

50-50

FYHTX shows closed to new investors on Fidelity website. Buying FFGCX seems to be like buying any other natural resources fund. Will do some research.
Need to figure out if any of my existing fund managers are leaning this way first. Might as well simply send them more money. Would prefer not to buy another fund if possible.
AQR really ticked me off previously in how they treated shareholders in their commodity fund.

Here’s how PRPFX invests:
Gold 20%
Silver 5%
Swiss franc assets 10%
Real estate / natural resource stocks 15%
Aggressive growth stocks 15%
Dollar assets 35%*
Total 100%
* Includes U.S. Treasury Bonds
I’ve had a mild (long running) disagreement with @LLJB who believes one should buy the assets, originally promoted by author Harry Brown, directly rather than paying Michael Cuggino a higher fee to do that for you. I agree - except that I’m not aware of a single poster ever who claimed to be doing that. I’m lazy. The thought of having to buy, transport, store and insure physical bullion, buy and sell stock ETFs, play in the international currency arena and do the regular record keeping (including taxes related to international currency trades) is daunting. Saying the fees are high in no way addresses the issue of diversifying across asset classes, which is what the fund’s about.

@hank, thank you for saying "mild" :), especially since I'm not sure we disagree as much as you think and because I far prefer sharing my opinion and letting everyone else decide what's best for them than attacking the choices people make because I think my opinion would somehow suit them better.
Anyway, I wouldn't suggest buying the assets that PRPFX holds in any way. It would be a pain as you highlighted and you'd always be months behind since they only have to be transparent once each quarter. My suggestion would simply be to allocate 25% each to equities (VTI), long-term Treasury Bonds (TLT), gold (I prefer IAU) and cash. Someone could certainly choose different etfs in order to have some foreign and/or emerging markets equities or to have shorter duration bonds if they have opinions about the direction of interest rates but that's a question of personal preference, confidence, goals and willingness to keep records. Speaking of record keeping, I think for years now brokers are required to report the cost basis of your transactions so the only real need to keep records is if you prefer to verify the accuracy of your 1099, which I do. I would rebalance once each year because the mutual fund must rebalance at least that often and your expense ratio using the etfs I mentioned would be 0.11% compared to the current 0.82% for PRPFX.
Just as a what if I also tried to duplicate the PRPFX allocations and back test the performance. I used IAU for gold, SIVR for silver, EWL for the Swiss stock market, IYR and IGE (7.5% each) for real estate and natural resources, RPG for aggressive growth stocks, TLT at 25% for long term treasuries and VTI at 10% for the remainder of dollar assets. The physical silver etf only became available in Aug 2009, I couldn't find anything else older and I didn't want miners, but my attempt returned 9.83% annually with a max drawdown of 8.79% and a worst calendar year of -4.49% while PRPFX returned 5.76% annually with a max drawdown of 12.52% and a worst year of -6.58%. I only rebalanced once per year which I'm sure made some of the difference and my expense ratio was 0.28%, which also helped. My use of IGE for natural resources probably isn't how they do things either, its sort of like buying physical gold vs. the gold miners, but it was simple.
Hindsight is always 20/20 so I'm certainly not trying to suggest my options are somehow better or that they will be better in the future, but if someone's interested in a risk parity approach then I think its worth considering the options. In fact, if someone wanted life made easy, people have created motifs at Motif Investing where you can follow the Permanent Portfolio or Ray Dalio's All Seasons Portfolio as a basket of stocks, something like a mutual fund without all the compliance requirements I guess. I've never used Motif so I can't say anything good or bad about it, just that I'm aware it exists and how it basically works.

50-50

Correct me if I am wrong, but Fidelity has several higher minimum requirement money market funds with yields over 1.40% to as high as 1.52%. I talked to a branch manager who didn’t seem too up to speed on these funds other than to say they aren’t very liquid. I think he meant the money is not readily available if you suddenly want to buy another fund. Apparently the managers of these higher yielding funds don’t want you to continually move in and out and can possibly ban you for future purchases if they feel you are too active. If we get three raises in the Fed funds this year these money market funds will be in the 2.25% range. That could be a positive change in the dynamics of some retirees’ retirement.

Here are Fidelity's prime MMFs:
http://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/category-performance-daily-pricing-yields/GPMM
There are a couple of things I can think of that the branch manager might have meant. One is that these higher yielding MMFs are prime funds, meaning that they're not government only funds. These days, that means that they could impose a redemption fee or freeze your money for a week if the fund gets too close to breaking a buck. (Institutional prime funds also have floating NAVs, but mere mortals are only going to be looking at retail prime funds.)
http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/SEC-releases-new-rules-for-money-market-mutual-5647983.php
The other thing the branch manager may have meant is that these are "position" funds - they can't be used as the settlement/core account. So whenever you want to move money into them, you have to place a buy order. (Fidelity will automatically pull from them if you don't have enough money in your core account for a withdrawal or purchase, so at least that's not painful.)
The highest yielding MMF at Fidelity that seems to be within reach is FZDXX. $100K min in taxable accounts (though you don't need to keep that balance), but just $10K in IRAs. It's currently yielding 1.35%. (There's a more accessible share class of this fund, SPRXX, with a $2.5K min, and a yield of 1.23%.)
I'd look into Vanguard muni MMFs. Right now they're also yielding 1.35% or so. In addition, they're federally tax exempt, and for some states, locally exempt as well. That state exemption is even more valuable now that state income taxes are harder to deduct than before.

@msf. Correct me if I am wrong, but Fidelity has several higher minimum requirement money market funds with yields over 1.40% to as high as 1.52%. I talked to a branch manager who didn’t seem too up to speed on these funds other than to say they aren’t very liquid. I think he meant the money is not readily available if you suddenly want to buy another fund. Apparently the managers of these higher yielding funds don’t want you to continually move in and out and can possibly ban you for future purchases if they feel you are too active. If we get three raises in the Fed funds this year these money market funds will be in the 2.25% range. That could be a positive change in the dynamics of some retirees’ retirement.

Fund flows bother me a lot. They wreck havoc on a lot of funds. Look what happened to MFLDX as “investors” fled. And I’m aware PRPFX has suffered due to the fund’s huge investor exodus after gold cooled. Heck, management discussed the rapid decline in asset base in their fund reports about 3 years back and considered altering the fee structure (though I don’t recall in what manner) as a consequence.
Umm ... I’m a little sensitive on this point being a docile, long term, buy and hold type. And would prefer the “hot money” stay away from the funds I own. PRPFX is not a gold fund. Folks who want a gold fund should buy one.
Here’s how PRPFX invests:
Gold 20%
Silver 5%
Swiss franc assets 10%
Real estate / natural resource stocks 15%
Aggressive growth stocks 15%
Dollar assets 35%*
Total 100%
* Includes U.S. Treasury Bonds
Where I have a (I hope friendly) disagreement with @bee is in posting the fella with the seedy suit and bad hairpiece who’s using scare tactics to promote buying of gold and than somehow trying to link what he’s peddling to the Permanent Portfolio Fund. I see no connection whatsoever between his snake-oil pitch for gold and how PRPFX invests.
I’ve had a mild (long running) disagreement with @LLJB who believes one should buy the assets, originally promoted by author Harry Brown, directly rather than paying Michael Cuggino a higher fee to do that for you. I agree - except that I’m not aware of a single poster ever who claimed to be doing that. I’m lazy. The thought of having to buy, transport, store and insure physical bullion, buy and sell stock ETFs, play in the international currency arena and do the regular record keeping (including taxes related to international currency trades) is daunting. Saying the fees are high in no way addresses the issue of diversifying across asset classes, which is what the fund’s about.
Than there’s David Snowball’s very well documented commentary (roughly a decade ago) analyzing Cuggino’s returns across asset classes and finding the performance lacking. I can’t argue with that. I doubt Cuggino excels as a stock picker. If that’s what you want, invest in a proven equity growth fund. And his dismal results for his short term Treasury fund are easily retreivable. Again, if you want a top income manager, invest with one.
All this said, PRPFX does invest across multiple asset categories. If you like those categories as a diversification tool and don’t want to go through the trouble of investing individually in each asset class, than it’s a decent fund.