But let’s go back 20 years to early 2000, when the S&P 500 was at roughly 1500.
If you had bought then and held until now, that works out to be an average annual return of just 4%.
4% is better than zero… but it’s hardly anything to write home about.
[This return doesn’t factor in dividends, taxes, fund management fees, or inflation… but those effects all largely offset one another.]
...since 2000, the S&P 500 has returned just 4%, while a 20-year government bond would have paid you 6.9% over the same period. That’s a HUGE difference of nearly 3%.

A most slanted "analysis".
The nominal rate of return of VFINX, including dividends and management fees was about 6.2%. (A $10K investment on 1/22/2000 would have been worth $33,232.15 on 1/21/2020 according to this M* chart.)
The article notes that the S&P 500 figures would have been lower after taxes. Mysteriously though, it doesn't likewise take note of the ordinary income taxes that would have been owed on interest paid year in, year out by long term bonds.
Sure, VFINX spins off taxable divs, and they're significant. A fact that article chose to ignore. Still, only part of VFINX's gain would have been taxed annually. In addition, starting in 2003 those divs would have been qualified, thus taxed at the lower cap gains rate. As would its appreciation have been taxed as cap gains upon sale at the end of 20 years.
Now let's talk about reinvestment risk. Had you purchased a Treasury in 2000, you would have received taxable interest of 6.9% on that principal each year. But you would not have gotten 6.9% on your reinvested interest. You would have ridden the yield curve all the way down to 2% over the next couple of decades.
Put together the taxes and the decline of rates on reinvested interest, and that 6.2% return on VFINX begins to look pretty good. And that's including the (lack of) returns through the "lost decade".

I remember those (80's) years well. My family had some A rated bonds that were paying north of 10% interest.
The article's message (although unwritten) brings forward a good reason to have a portfolio that is built upon both stocks, bonds and (yes) cash. Bank then I had a bank money fund that paid well along with some CD's that were held in an IRA account. It was not hard at all to get eight ... ten ... and even twelve percent on fixed investements back in the 80's. Stock dividends, in gereral, were higher back then than they are today as well.
Have a good one ... and, most of all ... I wish all "good investing."

@FD1000

DHEIX is the only one with 80+% in investment-grade rating. I can't buy DHEIX at Schwab but I can buy DHEAX with no fees.

I'm pleased that someone mentioned DHEIX at this point in this discussion and its performance. It has outperformed RPHIX lifetime, 3yr., 2yr., and 1yr. (Also, I note that it has a negative correlation, although a small one, to RPHIX.) I do own DHHIX, the HY offering, and have been considering DHEIX for purchase. Both funds are $20/TF at Vanguard.

https://www.capitalists.com/blog/2020/01/21/the-investment-that-destroyed-the-sp-500/
2020The investment that destroyed the S&P 500
The year was 1990, and the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. The Berlin Wall was still in the process of being destroyed, and East and West Germany were set to reunify later in the year.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4318061-federal-reserve-bank-is-buying-t-bills-and-you-should-too
The Federal Reserve Bank Is Buying T-Bills And You Should Too
Jan. 21, 2020 11:45 AM ETiShares Short Treasury Bond ETF (SHV)5 Comments
Summary
Investors should heed warning from the latest Fed move and consider purchasing the iShares Short Treasury Bond ETF.
SHV offers investors a safe return on short-term cash with a 30-day yield of 1.5% and a negative beta. The SHV is a very conservative way invest short-term capital.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York added $60.7 billion in treasury bill purchases last week within the repo market

I put more emphasis on the last 3 years. When I compare RPHIX,ZEOIX,SEMMX,DHEIX(link)
RPHIX has inferior numbers to the other 3.
DHEIX is the only one with 80+% in investment-grade rating. I can't buy DHEIX at Schwab but I can buy DHEAX with no fees.

Not just T. Rowe Price.

Vanguard, the largest passive-fund manager with $3.8 trillion in assets, is likely to become the largest active manager as well within a few years. Currently Vanguard boasts $1.37 trillion in active mutual fund assets, well ahead of Fidelity and only $179 billion behind American Funds, thanks to a higher growth rate on strong inflows at a time when most such funds are seeing outflows.

and

“We think it’s more appropriate to compare ‘high cost vs. low cost’ funds, instead of active vs. passive.”

It's the economics, stupid :-)
https://www.inquirer.com/business/vanguard-jack-bogle-passive-active-mutual-fund-etf-20190527.html
(FWIW, I hold actively managed funds in both houses.)

Nasty environment for many active managers. Recent experience with some formerly good fund houses leads me to think their products have suffered as money has fled their firms. Might be a vicious cycle.
Somehow T. Rowe has managed to buck the trend.
T. Rowe Price overcomes 'choppy market environment' to beat Wall Street estimates https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2019/10/24/t-rowe-price-overcomes-choppy-market-environment.html
T. Rowe Price has a $1 trillion answer to claims stock-picking is dead (possibly a year old, but still good read) https://www.investmentnews.com/t-rowe-price-stock-picking-franklin-resources-legg-maso-175759

Hi @Mark Thanks for the link and I'll read all when my chores are finished.
Aside from having a dedicated, active managed balanced "fund"; I suspect many here have their risk adjusted "balanced portfolio", a "build your own".
This applies to this house.
At some point, we'll likely have a hands off balanced fund, as with FBALX or similar.
Sidenote: Balanced funds, which have had great support on the bond side for several decades remain happy today (Jan. 21).

https://www.napa-net.org/news-info/daily-news/money-still-fleeing-active-funds
Money Still Fleeing Active Funds
Despite the S&P 500 gaining 31.5% in 2019, active U.S. equity funds experienced a sixth year of net outflows during the decade-long bull market, a new report notes.

I own about 1/3 of these funds and also held Magellan which I sold at one point. THe only way to avoid these funds if you have invested for a long time would have been to decide that if a fund was written up it was too late to invest in. I guess I performance chased at a good time. Most of these funds have surely been written up often and I might argue on merit. Of course most are too big these for those who visit the site though I suspect a good fraction are closed to new investors because many are shareholder friendly

Good points. Magellan under Lynch is legendary. Nuf said. Being largely with TRP past 25 years, I’m no stranger to PRMTX, a great fund that jumped on the technology revolution early and rode it. A good friend has owned it as long as I can remember. To my disadvantage, I’ve never fully trusted the tech sector. But I did hold PRMTX for about a year following the drubbing it took in 08. Can’t stand success. Bailed out after some crazy 25-30% gain in rapid time.
Would guess Jerry’s success more related to being a patient long term investor rather than jumping into every high flying fund he hears of.

I own about 1/3 of these funds and also held Magellan which I sold at one point. THe only way to avoid these funds if you have invested for a long time would have been to decide that if a fund was written up it was too late to invest in. I guess I performance chased at a good time. Most of these funds have surely been written up often and I might argue on merit. Of course most are too big these for those who visit the site though I suspect a good fraction are closed to new investors because many are shareholder friendly

By Plutos at Seeking Alpha
Summary
° A 60/40 mix between stocks and bonds has historically been a rule of thumb for investors wishing to mute some of the volatility of equities.
° With lower forward expected returns on equities and fixed income, will the 60/40 portfolio return continue to deliver for investors?
° This article compares the 60/40 heuristic versus low volatility equities, which also offer lowered equity volatility akin to a bond allocation.
° I also examine the performance of an 80/20 strategy that features low volatility equities in lieu of a more traditional stock allocation.
° Results of the different strategies are compared over the nearly three decades of data available for my chosen low volatility equity index.
Portfolio Strategy

@hank - Have you ever checked out DiscountMags.com for your magazine purchases? They don't have everything of course but I just checked for Kiplinger and it's listed at $12/12mo. I like to read National Geographic and I get it here at a greatly reduced price, more so if I buy into a lengthier subscription period. A Special today is "Discover" at $20/24-mo. Might be worth a peek.

but finpr0n articles like this don't make that distinction too often, or clearly.

Sad but true. Sundays (when this went up) tend to be “lighter” reading days. That said - the article is badly (and misleadingly) titled. Being perhaps the “hottest”, “juiciest”, or “fastest moving” funds of the past few decades in no way makes them the “best.” I think readers here are smart enough to figure that out on their own.
I’d liken reading this to gazing at some photos of $200,000 sports cars you’ll never own, tropical vacation spots you’ll never visit or gorgeous women (or men, as the case might be) you’ll never meet - let alone marry. I don’t see the harm in looking - especially if you’re older than 18 and presumably competent to make decisions for yourself and to discriminate between “fluff” and serious financial journalism.
-
I’ve rechecked to make sure @equalizer posted the title correctly. He did. The article’s author is John Waggoner. His work often appeared here and on FA when he wrote for USA Today prior to retiring several years ago. Waggoner endured his share of slings and arrows back than, as many writers do, but was by and large recognized as a serious and accomplished financial writer.
“John Waggoner ... was a senior columnist for InvestmentNews and, prior to that, USA TODAY's personal finance columnist for 25 years. He has written for Morningstar, The Wall Street Journal, and Money magazine. Waggoner has also written three books on finance and investing. He has an undergraduate and graduate degree in English literature and is working on his Certified Financial Planner designation. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.” https://www.kiplinger.com/fronts/archive/bios/index.html?bylineID=532

Seems like most of the funds on this list invest in sectors. I personally wouldn’t want a large percentage of my portfolio in sector funds, despite their past performance. So that would involve rebalancing unless you didn’t mind having a large percentage of your portfolio in a few sectors. Sector funds also tend to be more volatile and can go out of style for long periods— such as energy the past 10 years or technology in the early 2000s.

"Soupkitchen">I have a full position in PIMIX and am debatting whether or not to invest more money in PIMIX or start a new position in JGIAX for diversification. I'm near retirement so I want to build my income stream. It seems like PIMIX is the less risky fund, but who can be sure? Most of my bonds are in plain vanilla type funds. Any advantages in diversifying into JGAIX?
Soup, I am not inclined to act like a financial advisor, and I believe the answer to your question has a lot to do with your personal portfolio objectives, how important "diversification" is to you, and what kind of risk factors enter into your decision. From a personal standpoint, I look for funds that fit my very low risk, conservative style of investing. There were several threads at M* that discussed JGIAX, JMUTX, and PUCZX, as possibilities in portfolios, often in comparison to PIMIX. My personal conclusion is that from a risk analysis, the least risky of these 4 funds is PIMIX, followed by JMUTX, JGIAX, with the most risky fund being PUCZX. At the end of calendar year 2019, I personally decided to keep PIMIX, and not add the other 3 funds to my portfolio, especially dismissing JGIAX and PUCZX as having more risk than I personally preferred. I came close to adding JMUTX as a fund to complement PIMIX, but ultimately decided to go with a lower risk non-traditional bond oef IISIX, which is very nicely diversified but fit my risk and return profile better than JMUTX. I will note that PUCZX and JGIAX produce more yield, which you may prefer, at a higher risk level than PIMIX, so it boils down to your own personal risk/return criteria for your personal portfolio.

I would be even leerier of the content found in a $100 or $200 per month subscription

In self defense, I don’t think anybody expects to unearth brilliant investment opportunities by subscribing to a magazine priced at $1 a month (web-based) and under $2 a month mailed to your home. Hello?
My interest in the magazine is for entertainment value. As one who seldom trades, I just find financial stuff highly interesting. That’s all. Sorta like one doesn’t have to be planning a vacation on Mars to enjoy reading astronomy. :)

One thing that stays in my mind is an interview I saw fairly recently with Chuck and his co-manager saying "don't expect the fund to have the same returns it's had in the past". He was being honest about forward returns and projections. I wish I could remember the interview, probably something Ted posted a few months ago.
I started my investment in AKREX in 2019 when it became NTF at Schwab. My 2 large cap funds are AKREX and DSENX. I still think that's a great pairing going forward.