@msf - I was way off in my last post. I failed to take into account that mcmarcasco would still have 100% of his loan (the leveraged amount) left after 10 years. So by applying all of that toward the balance, his gains over the 10 years it was invested would need to be only enough to cover the accrued interest - which shouldn’t be hard in a strong equity market. All boils down to what the markets do.

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.

https://money.usnews.com/investing/investing-101/articles/how-to-invest-in-emerging-markets
How to Invest in Emerging Markets
_Valuations in the sector remain cheaper versus the U.S._
We have been contributing to vwo recently although asian market took large downturns past few wks

@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.]

Hi catch,
Yeah, good fund FTEC. Great move! Ride it out, big guy. FSPTX is new to me even though I play on the Fido platform. Looks good, but I would expect that from you. Fido had a quarterly report today. I don't know if you saw it.
The Dukester overview:
Late cycle US; EM last 10 yrs has been bad, but we like it now. Germany, Italy, China coming out of slowdown. World trade slow due to China. Slow credit growth in China..... they may not lead. US jobs, housing, consumer ---- all good. The bad: tighter bank loans, IPOs not doing well. Not good for tech. World bonds a buy....commodities, tips, value stocks, EM. a buy
God bless
the Pudd

@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.

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

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.

@Mark My thinking involves income but also sometimes involves the potential for continued capital gains in our low interest rate environment. My nibbles included a little SPG. It is my only REIT purchase from last year that is currently in the red (by a few %). The others have done fairly well so far. SPG has reached agreement to participate in the purchase of the Forever 21 assets. Hopefully, they will be able to help turn that lemon into lemonade. Also, they are talking to Taubman Centers again about a possible merger. It will be interesting to watch how all the dust settles out from the retail mall apocalypse.

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

All ratings have been updated on MFO Premium, including MultiSearch, Great Owls, Fund Alarm (Three Alarm and Honor Roll), Averages, Dashboard of Profiled Funds, and Fund Family Scorecard. The site now includes several analysis tools, including Correlation, Rolling Averages, Trend, Ferguson Metrics, Calendar Year and Period Performance.
While the decade for equity funds began flat or mixed, bonds were up, especially long-term (e.g., TLT +7.0%). Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX), a long-time MFO Great Owl, returned 1.6% in Januray. It's delivered nearly 10% this past year and regularly rewards with a 3% dividend.
You can read more about the update here.