PRNews for immediate Release...... there will be some sort of change in investment markets over the next 10 or 20 years...........end of text !

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-market-news-live-updates-december-31-2019-131332122.html
S&P 500 (^GSPC): +255%
Dow (^DJI): +251%
Nasdaq (^IXIC): +346%
any thoughts about the next 5 10 yrs? 20% lower?

I've contributed to my grandkids 529 Education accounts for years, and there's probably more than will ever be used. Yet I still contribute to take advantage of NYS's $10K income tax deduction (6.57% marginal tax bracket). I know there's a 10% penalty on earnings for unqualified withdrawals. I figure I can leave the money in the accounts until after I've retired and in a lower tax bracket, but wonder if I should just stop funding and lose the deduction. Any comments?

There's a name I haven't heard in a while: https://mutualfundobserver.com/2013/06/bretton-fund-brtnx/

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103243/000141304219000378/brtnpros497.htm
or
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103243/000141304219000376/brtnsai497.htm

I do get the low turnover argument. That said, just to play Devil's Advocate... If turnover is so so low, why not just mirror the portfolio and avoid paying 1.32% annually???

Even though we're allegedly 'late in the cycle' I'm waffling between adding TRBCX (TRP Blue chip Growth) or JENSX as a 'growth' sleeve ... JENSX is more conservative [1] and doesn't hold many of the momo-favored 'growth' names while TRBCX certainly does and thus has more volatility than JENSX. At the moment I lean towards JENSX b/c of their investment approach/style given the current markets but since TRBCX is NTF at TDA I could always DCA into it over time to ride volatility as well. Decisions, decisions.
[1] 'growth' to them seems to imply safe, boring, consistent growth, not tech or bio-induced screamers like what you find in the top-10 of most growth funds

http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/associated_press/business/stocks-soared-this-year-half-of-millennials-missed-out/article_f7cab953-bcbb-51e4-9abb-b35f0c07b24e.html
Stocks soared this year. Half of millennials missed out
'At 27, Nick de León knows firsthand about the gulf between millennials and Wall Street.
De León graduated this year from UC Berkeley with bachelor’s degrees in political science and rhetoric with plans to start law school soon, and he has an internship with a Superior Court judge in his hometown of San Bernardino. He’s also intrigued with the stock market.'

Russel Kinnel
Dec 30, 2019
Mentioned: American Funds AMCAP A (AMCPX) , American Funds American Balanced A (ABALX) , American Funds Capital World Gr&Inc A (CWGIX) , Dodge & Cox Income (DODIX) , Dodge & Cox Stock (DODGX) , Vanguard Explorer Inv (VEXPX) , Fidelity® Diversified International (FDIVX) , Fidelity® Low-Priced Stock (FLPSX) , Fidelity® Select Health Care (FSPHX) , American Funds Growth Fund of Amer A (AGTHX)
"Every year I write about the Thrilling 34--although the number varies slightly each time. The idea is to focus on the most important factors and let them do the weeding for me. The goal is a short list of outstanding funds accessible to individual investors. This isn’t a list for huge pension funds."
ARTICLE HERE

I started to answer the above questions. But tossing in a term like forever really makes them undebatable. Infinity is a very long time. I’m told by scientists that given enough time, virtually anything can and will occur.
I am deeply concerned about #10. Wish this was a poli-sci or sociology class so we could explore that one. FWIW, my vague recollection from doing some Masters work in history back in the 70s is that Hitler, after coming to power, boosted the German economy for a number of years, through huge infrastructure spending and arms buildup. The frightening thing to me is that that was during the Depression and an outgrowth of it. Seems to be different reasons at work for the regression today (speaking more of Europe). Immigration looms large among people’s worries worldwide.

@davidrmoran That I have a harder time believing as inflation tends to be outside of corporate and government control at some points. There is a belief though that low rates will be here for a while, yes, but "permanent?" like you said, with quotes only.
I think though this discussion is rather abstract so let's put some concrete details beneath it as to what is really underlying the permanently elevated U.S. large stock valuation scenario:
1. Does one believe that Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Netflix will dominate the world until the end of time or will either governments or competitors, perhaps foreign competitors such as say Samsung, Ten Cent or Alibaba eventually begin to erode their marketshare? They are today's bellwethers. If they slip, you can almost be certain the U.S. market crashes. It seems even under the current ultra-rightwing administration there has been some pushback against their monopolistic tendencies.
2. Do low interest rates last forever? Last time they inched up, market cracked?
3. Do low corporate taxes last forever?
4. Does U.S. labor remain powerless and declining forever, having no bargaining power or pricing power on wages?
5. Do commodity prices stay low forever?
6. Corrolary to 4 and 5: Does inflation stay low forever?
7. Do merger-friendly, monopolistic, anti-competitive anti-labor right-wing policies remain in place forever?
8. Is there some accounting scandal at any of the aforementioned bellwethers about to break?
9. Is a war--a real war not the virtual one already being waged--about to occur?
10. Do the nationalistic trends we've seen throughout the globe ultimately mature into full-blown fascism in the U.S. or in major trading partners?
11. Will climate change and the policies necessary to keep it from becoming even a greater ecological catastrophe than it already is restrict business growth?
Any of the above could throw the "permanently elevated" stats askew.

All fund risk and return metrics, ratings, and analytics have been uploaded to MFO Premium, reflecting performance through November 2019.
We went live the morning of 10 December, which is typically the longest it takes. The first Saturday of the month, when Lipper (Refinitiv) drops the monthly data, occurred on the 7th.
The year-end data and attendant ratings should post the weekend of 4 January. It will mark the 60th year of Refinitiv’s database. How many funds have been around at least 60 years? Just 65. That’s right. Best absolute performer? T Rowe Price Small-Cap Stock (OTCFX) at 12.6% … per year! Or, how to turn $1,000 into $1,200,000.
The more interesting news is what went live on 24 December, including: Data Across Ten Decades, Allocation Indices, and Expanded Rolling Averages.
You can read more here.

@hank Actually, since you mention T. Rowe Price, I would think PRIJX would be interesting for this specific situation: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/prijx/quote
If you go to the fund's Portfolio page: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/prijx/portfolio
you can see its portfolio average price-earning ratio 9.84; price-sales, 0.91; price-cash, 3.6 and a dividend yield of 4.38%. Now compare that to the S&P 500: https://morningstar.com/funds/xnas/vfinx/portfolio
p-e, 19.4; p-s, 2.3; p-c, 9.9; div yield, 1.9%.
Meanwhile, growth metrics are very close for the S&P versus this fund, indicating little advantage for buying U.S. in that regard. So even if one just says well U.S. companies are better and deserve higher valuations, the question is how much better? Are they twice as good, three times as good? Because the relative valuations indicate that's what the market currently believes.

Anyone seeking to play this?

Love the terminology. I do enjoy combining gaming with investing on those rare occasions where the deck is clearly stacked in my favor. Get in. Get out. Pocket what you can over a few months
(or possibly years) before the market wakes up to the obvious mispricing. Works best with sectors or specialty funds. A fund that’s down 40% in a single year or 30% a year over 3 years is generally worth placing such a bet on. However, scanning TRP’s 150 or so funds, I can see only one fund that’s even negative for 2019. That’s their Dynamic Global Bond fund (RPIEX) - off only about 1%. And looking at a the 3-year chart, all I see there is PRNEX - off slightly - which I already own.
Price isn’t the whole universe. But they have enough funds that I can usually spot major trends there. Nothing worth laying money on the table for IMO. I realize the type of investor Lewis is addressing is the one who exists somewhere in between the extremes of short-term speculator and long-term buy and hold investor. I like to think that that kind of gradual shift in/out of different areas based on relative valuations is something a good manager of allocation funds normally does. None of us can match the depth and breath of market knowledge Price’s global network of analysts is imbued with. (And many other managers as well) So, other than liking RPGAX a lot because the managers have some discretion in underweighting / overweighting different market components, I won’t be throwing money at emerging markets.

@davidrmoran Interestingly, GMO's Grantham made one of the most plausible albeit depressing explanations for such a permanent shift, which involves increased monopolization and corporate influence in the political sector: csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/This-time-seems-very-very-different-Grantham.pdf
Yet even if one believes that influence and monopolization will never wane--people once thought the same about companies in the Gilded Age--it seems mistaken in my view to assume those dominant corporations will always be U.S. ones and that the remarkable valuation spread between large U.S. companies and large ones in countries like China or Mexico doesn't matter.

Despite high volatility at times, 1987 produced positive total returns in the S&P 500. The losers are the ones who sold and never got back in.

Agreed. And it's probably the same for 2000 and 2009. I know a few people who got seriously burned in 2009 and one or two still haven't recovered the confidence to return to the market. They will probably buy in again at the top....
This "reversion to the mean" concept is interesting. I think it has some major limitations today. And isn't "the mean" always fluid, always changing? What is "the mean" in today's world? As Old Skeet mentioned, P/E ratios are constantly expanding. I see no problem with that. I think value sectors will struggle again this coming decade because growth can be achieved very quickly and easily with the application of new technologies. You could wait 5 or 10 years for the reversion to the mean. Or it may never come at all.

Despite high volatility at times, 1987 produced positive total returns in the S&P 500. The losers are the ones who sold and never got back in.

1987 crash is a weird one but also kind of a blip as it was over so quickly. But many argue it was technological in nature due to computerized program trading: https://investopedia.com/ask/answers/042115/what-caused-black-monday-stock-market-crash-1987.asp

"The question that folks like Arnott and GMO always struggle with is they don’t know what will trigger the reversion. It has to be something major. Overvaluation alone is never the trigger."
And the "something major" trigger in 1987 was... ?

Agreed their forecasts have been inaccurate of late, but I have been around long enough to know that wasn’t always the case, particularly in the post 1999 era when GMO’s predictions were spot on. It comes down to that terribly difficult question: When will valuations matter again? Or are we to presume the next ten years or in this case seven years will precisely mirror the previous seven? What is interesting is leading into the 2008 crash everything pretty much was overvalued. Now like in 1999 there is a real spread in valuations between one part of the global market and another. For those who believe valuations still matter and in the notion of “reversion to the mean” that presents some interesting arbitrage opportunities. The question that folks like Arnott and GMO always struggle with is they don’t know what will trigger the reversion. It has to be something major. Overvaluation alone is never the trigger.