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.

@FD1000 ... Thanks for the fixed income tips as I'm more of an equity man and continue to build my fixed income sleeve. It is nice to have some new folks on the board that are income oriented.

My value sleeves have yet to catch my growth sleeves for the past rolling twelve months. The results follow: Small/Mid Cap (Value) +18.84% ... Domestic Equity (Value) +19.04 ... Global Equity (Value) +23.66 ... Global Growth +26.50% ... Large/Mid Cap Growth +28.44% ... Other Growth +30.34%.
I have bookmarket this thread and will make a comparison between the sleeves every quarter, or so.

See numbers from PortVis(link) of PIMIX,JGIAX,JMUTX,PUCZX
1) PIMIX + JMUTX have similar volatility=SD but JMUTX performance is better and why JMUTX Sharpe+Sortino is better.
2) JGIAX + JMUTX have similar performance but JMUTX volatility is better and why JMUTX Sharpe+Sortino is better.
3) PUCZX has the best performance but volatility is a bit higher(worse) and why PUCZX Sharpe+Sortino are the best.

(link)
See quotes below:
Recession risks, which had been elevated during the middle part of 2019, have diminished in recent months...As a consequence, we are now more confident in our baseline forecast that the current window of weakness for global growth will give way to a moderate recovery during 2020.
We will tend to favor U.S. duration over global alternatives, given the relative value and potential for capital gains in U.S. Treasuries and the scope for further Fed easing in the event of a weaker-than-expected macro outcome. While we are broadly neutral on the U.S. dollar versus other G10 currencies, we generally will favor long yen positions in accounts where currency exposure is appropriate
In addition, in asset allocation portfolios, we will look to be overweight large cap over small cap equities.
We favor both U.S. agency mortgage exposures and non-agency exposures. We believe agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) offer attractive valuation, reasonable carry, and an attractive liquidity profile in comparison with other spread assets. We see non-agency mortgages as offering relatively attractive valuation along with a more defensive source of credit and carry and better market technicals than generic corporate credit exposure. We will also look to have select commercial MBS (CMBS) exposures. U.K. residential MBS (RMBS) also looks attractive on a relative valuation basis.
In currency strategy, we look to be overweight a basket of emerging market currencies versus the U.S. dollar and the euro.
We will tend to favor curve steepening positions in the U.S. and in other countries. U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) look attractive on a valuation basis
we continue to expect real U.S. GDP growth to slow to a 1.5% to 2.0% range in 2020, from an estimated 2.3% pace in 2019...We look for a modest U.S. reacceleration in the second half of 2020. China’s commitments in the Phase 1 trade deal to purchase $200 billion of additional U.S. exports over the next two years should also support growth in the second half of 2020.
We see euro area growth at around 1.0% in 2020. On balance, we see core inflation remaining close to 1.0%.
The U.K. is set to formally leave the E.U. at the end of January...we expect U.K. GDP growth of 0.75% to 1.25% in 2020,
Japan: We expect GDP growth to slow to a 0.25% to 0.75% range in 2020 from an estimated 0.9% this year...Inflation is expected to remain low in a 0.25% to 0.75% range
China: We see GDP growth slowing into a 5.0% to 6.0% range in 2020 from an estimated 6.1% in 2019.

End of Quote.
======================
What the above means to me?
1) Load on securitized bonds which I have been doing for years (PIMIX,VCFIX,IOFIX,EIXIX. For cash sub use SEMMX)
2) Continue to use US LC as my main equity position which I have been doing for years already
3) If you want to invest in equities abroad go with EM.
4) I will not use TIPS and I don't believe that curve steepening will affect my Multisector funds that much.

"I dare say a "cyclical" bull market has little meaning to a retiree or anyone within 5-10 years of retirement. 20% pull backs are what people worry about when you use your savings for income or are planning on a retirement date."

@MikeM- This "cyclical bull market" concept with major unspecified pull-backs strikes me as so much baloney. Viewed from that perspective, there has never been anything other than a "cyclical bull market", as long as you adjust the time frame to whatever you need to make that appear to be true.

@catch22, good chart to illustrate the point. In the last 10 years or more, the US large cap growth stocks have dominated the market over the value stocks. When will that switch the lead, no one really know until the report earnings start to reverse, but that has not been the case.

@VintageFreak, when @Simon says the bull market will last another 15 years I believe he refers to a 'cyclical bull market'. A confusing play on words I think. There can be numerous bear markets within this cyclical bull.
I'm with you. We are do for a "secular" bear market (a 20% or more drop) because of valuations. Whether this happens in a month or a year, it will happen. Just needs some catalyst to start the trend. I dare say a "cyclical" bull market has little meaning to a retiree or anyone within 5-10 years of retirement. 20% pull backs are what people worry about when you use your savings for income or are planning on a retirement date. IMHO

There’s two separate themes running here, seems to me.
One theme is the long running debate: Active vs. Passive management. That’s been thoroughly debated / raked over the coals here and elsewhere over the years. I have nothing to add.
The other theme seems to be the “gouging” of fund investors by way of “advisor” fees, management fees and operating expenses. Geez - How many here pay an advisor to oversee their fund holdings? He tosses out a 1% figure for management fees (but doesn’t cite it as an average). Even though I’m in actively managed funds, only two (both classified as “alternative investment”) breach the 1% expense ratio: TMSRX and QVOPX. All three from D&C carry ERs under .50%. At TRP my ERs range from .25% for TRBUX to .94% for RPGAX (excluding TMSRS mentioned earlier).
I also think the author may be confused. He references “fund operating expenses” but seems to equate them with a fund’s management fee. As I understand it, operating expenses include trading costs, record keeping and the like. They do exist - but aren’t part of the ER that you and I see. Further, he appears to view the 12b-1 fee as outside the expressed ER, whereas it’s actually part of the expressed ER.
Than there’s this : “ Management fees, on the other hand, pay the salaries of the analysts and other personnel who actually run the fund. They are not capped by law, but investors should be suspicious of funds with fees above 1%.“ ? Those costs would seem to fall under “operating expenses”.
Having a degree in journalism doesn’t seem to get you much now days.

Such articles look very good at top of bull market. Why did this not get published in 2008-2009 or 2002?

Top of the bull market? Are you kidding? We're about 1/3 the way through it. This a Wave 3 Supercycle which will last another 15 years.
A correction is coming very soon. It will be a superb buying opportunity to load up on growth funds for the coming decade. But it will be fast and furious so have your cash ready.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/personal-finance/2020/01/19/three-cheers-for-sloth-and-simplicity/
Three cheers for sloth and simplicity! 2019 another fruitful year for investing the Couch Potato way
/We have a work ethic problem. Too much of it.
Lots of people think that if they work hard and long, if they grunt and puff, if they demonstrate serious mental effort, if they read copiously and take notes — if they do all those things — they will be successful investors./
We have been following Scott Burns for quite sometimes l. He usually have good inputs regarding index Investmenting/funds