Vanguard Alternative Strategies VAFSX is interesting. Has anyone been able to purchase this fund, even at the $250k minimum? It looks locked behind vanguard's institutional advisory services which doesn't appear accessible to regular investors.

Near the top of the OSMAX page I see NTF:
Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund
Class A OSMAX
OppenheimerFunds | Foreign Small/Mid Growth

The HSA account is a full TDA brokerage account. The only restriction is that money only moves in and out through the associated bank's or CU's HSA account (one cannot fund it directly).
I agree that the TDA vanilla account's $50 fee make TF funds unattractive. A $50 fee works at Fidelity because there selling is free and one can add to positions for $5 (unlike Schwab where selling is also free but there's no cheap way to add to a position).
That's why I prefer Fidelity for TF funds (unless they're available NTF elsewhere).

I agree that TDA is not the best for MF investors, but it doesn't seemall that bad, and has gotten much better in recent years. Further, different types of accounts have different rules.
I have a TDA account for my HSA. Note that different banks/CUs have different account agreements with TDA, so YMMV, but here's mine:
http://www.tdameritraderetirement.com/forms/ACS1009.pdf
For my TDA account:
1. 90 days to avoid brokerage short term redemption fee - not quite as short as the 60 days some others offer, but close enough.
2. $25/trade on TF (thus $50 round trip or exchange) - in line with other brokerages
3. Since the information on most sites comes from M*, I'm not sure how the info varies from one broker to another. Finding that information (attributes/quality of screener) may be something else. Any specific deficiency?
4. Not sure what the problem is. For example, I look up OSMAX, and right on its summary page it says NTF (for normally front end loaded A shares):
https://research.tdameritrade.com/grid/public/mutualfunds/profile/profile.asp?symbol=OSMAX
In contrast, American Funds EuroPacific Growth A shows a load
https://research.tdameritrade.com/grid/public/mutualfunds/profile/feesandmanagementBuffer.asp?symbol=AEPGX
5. I agree that portfolio analysis is a nice feature; I just use M*. Fidelity's does not seem to allow you to enter any holdings outside of the brokerage (unless you use their Yodlee software; but even giving it external passwords it cannot access all accounts). Don't know about TDA's portfolio analyzer.
6. Here's Schwab's page summarizing some competitors:
http://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/investing/accounts_products/investment/etfs/schwab_etf_onesource
The number of NTF ETFs at TDA is in the same ballpark as E*Trade and Fidelity (right in the middle), and TDA offers more families than either. Notably, Vanguard. A gotcha w/TDA that I fortunately found out about before trading is that you have to register for the NTF ETF feature.

municipalbonds.com
Can You Be Too Safe With Muni Bonds?
Most investors are aware that they can risk too much, but few realize that playing it too safe also has its own set of risks. By taking on less risk, an investor may compromise their ability to achieve their target performance goal, such as a retirement goal, for their portfolio.
Municipal bonds are widely regarded as a safe-haven asset class since government backing provides better credit ratings than most corporate bonds. Exemptions from federal, state, and local income taxes further create a higher after-tax yield than comparable private-sector bonds. These attributes have helped muni bonds perform extremely well over the past couple of years as investors sought out safe-haven asset classes amid the drop in equity prices.
Muni Bonds vs. S&P 500 Figure 1 – Muni Bond v. S&P 500 Returns in 2015 – Source: StockCharts.com
Below, MunicipalBonds.com takes a look at a few common ways investors may be playing it too safe with muni bonds and some key changes they may want to consider.
Overallocating Muni Bonds
The first mistake that investors often make is overallocating their portfolio to municipal bonds during troubled times in order to reduce their risk.
A number of research studies have shown that investors sacrifice between 1.2% and 4.3% of their returns due to attempts at market timing – also known as the behavior gap. According to Betterment’s analysis, investors trying to time the market over 20 years risk losing out on $117,700 in aggregate value for every $100,000 invested over the time period. This calculation was made using one of the more conservative estimates of 1.56%.
Betterment Estimated Growth Figure 2 – Estimated Cost of Timing the Market – Source: Betterment
Investors may be tempted to overallocate their portfolio to muni bonds during an economic downturn, but doing so could cost them money over the long run. Often times, it’s a much better idea to keep a steady allocation that is set up to meet a target goal over time rather than trying to time the market and avoid losses. Research suggests that few people are able to do the latter successfully over the long term.
Short-Duration Mistakes
The second mistake that investors often make is focusing on short-duration municipal bonds during troubled times in order to reduce their risk.
Duration is an important measure of risk when it comes to all types of bonds, including muni bonds. It’s a measures of how long, in years, it takes for the price of a bond to be repaid by internal cash flows. Bonds with longer durations carry greater risk and experience more price volatility than bonds with shorter durations. After all, longer durations mean that bondholders are tied to the bond’s interest rate over a longer period of time.
Interest Rate Effect on Bonds Figure 3 – Impact of Interest Rate Changes Based on Duration – Source: Blackrock
The problem with moving into short-duration as a safer investment than longer-duration muni bonds is that there’s an increased reinvestment risk. In other words, an investor may not be able to reinvest the proceeds of a short-term bond into a comparable bond when it matures. Longer-duration muni bonds have lower reinvestment risk because there’s a longer period of time before the bond matures and the interest rate differential may be minimal.
The Bottom Line
Most investors are aware that their portfolio can be too risky, but playing it safe has its own costs. Often times, investors purchase short-duration municipal bonds as a safe-haven asset. Market timing has a long-term cost known as the behavior gap, while short-duration bonds may pose a reinvestment risk. Investors should carefully consider these risks when evaluating muni bonds – especially during an economic downturn.

I have an account with TD Ameritrade and think for MF investors it is not a good choice.
1. For NTF funds it requires holding for 6 months to avoid fee.
2. For transaction fee funds you pay $50 twice when you buy and when you sell the fund.
3. Research information for MF is much worse comparing with Fidelity and Schwab.
4. You never know whether a load is waived for MF until you enter transaction.
5. Portfolio analysis is really bad.
6. The choice of NTF ETF is very limited.
I am thinking about moving to another brokerage but have not decided yet which one.

Nowhere in the article is the fact that American Funds charges a 5.75% load. I guess that they just forgot.

FYI: (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search) "Fidelity’s Tillinghast: How He Beats the Market"
Joel Tillinghast, who runs the $38 billion Fidelity Low-Priced Stock fund, owns one of today’s best investment records. The fund (ticker: FLPSX) has beaten not only its Russell 2000 benchmark, but also the Standard & Poor’s 500 over the short and long haul since Tillinghast began managing it 26 years ago. Under him, it has returned 13.7% a year, on average, versus 9.3% for the S&P 500 and 8.9% for the Russell
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=Fidelity’s+Tillinghast:+How+He+Beats+the+Market+Barron's
M* Snapshot FLPSX:
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/FLPSX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot FLPSX:
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/flpsx
FLPSX Is Ranked #2 In The (MCV) Fund Category By U.S. Nesw & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/mid-cap-value/fidelity®-low-priced-stock-fund/flpsx

FYI: The asset-management giant’s brokerage arm topped the list for the first time.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.barrons.com/articles/best-online-brokers-fidelity-wins-in-barrons-2016-survey-1458363203?mod=BOL_hp_highlight_2

My take on David's comment and I think one that deserves just as much attention is that M* blew this one badly. They reassured investors about SEQUX just like the Sequoia guys and Bill Ackman assured investors about Valeant. It's not uncommon to see this kind of stuff from M* related to both their fund and stock analyses. Mutual fund stars are clearly a reflection of history but the ratings (Gold, Silver, etc) are supposed to be forward looking. Stock stars and their moat rating are also supposed to be forward looking. No one is perfect in this business of course, but M* seems to frequently change their ratings in a far too reactionary way rather than a forward looking way.
At least as far as their stock ratings go it might be possible to assess whether they get it right more than they get it wrong if they were transparent about the results. In fact they were until sometime in 2013 when they wrote an article that extolled the importance of transparency, covered the results of their ratings and then from anything I can determine never wrote again about the performance of their ratings. I'm not aware that they're any better with their fund ratings. They report in a minimalistic way about their "batting average" with gold funds and how many end up in the top 25% of their category over various time periods in their Fund Investor newsletter but I haven't been able to find anything available even to premium website subscribers that shows what kind of returns or category rankings are achieved by their various ratings.
There's no question people screwed up at Valeant, Sequoia, Pershing Square and probably other places but I think David has it very right that M* screwed up too. My humble opinion is that it's not new and we'd all be wise to learn just as much from that as we should try to learn from what happened to others who've been criticized far more extensively for their poor decisions.

Yet more changes at Calamos. What's the plan, what's the business model? That "vision thing"--- can anyone make sense of what is happening at this shop?
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160315/NEWS01/160319909/calamos-investments-patriarch-gives-up-ceo-title

net income fell every year for the past five years, dropping to $21.4 million last year, or about a third of the $70.8 million it earned in 2014, and down from $137.9 million in 2011. Revenue fell 8 percent last year to $230.9 million, also declining for the fifth year in a row. [...] Calamos has suffered alongside public shareholders because a family affiliate owns 78 percent of the company, with just 22 percent of the economic interest traded publicly on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Efforts to revamp the management team have made little difference. In 2013, Co-Chief Investment Officer Nick Calamos, a nephew of the founder, exited and was replaced by former Janus Capital CEO Gary Black, but he didn't last long. Black left the firm last fall.

Geez Louise!

Koudounis will earn an annual salary of $800,000, plus an annual bonus of $2.6 million, or more, depending on a determination by the board’s compensation committee, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. In addition, he will get annual “long term incentive awards” of $1.6 million. A one-time sign-on payment of $1.25 million will be payable next year

I happen to be looking at my holdings in my roth today at ML, and I saw something that seemed to make no sense to me at all until I broke it down. My utility fund FRUAX had a higher return than my biotech fund FBTIX , both bought in February 2013. I thought to myself, there is got to be something wrong here. I know biotechs have been in the dumper the last year, and especially the last 6 months, but how could a utility fund beat it? I went back and added up the dividends and cap gains over the three year period and Voila it was plain and simple. Quarterly dividends and regular cap gains reinvested turned a 20% three year gain on original shares bought into a 43% total return over three years. Then I remembered that over time 40% of the S + P gains are due to reinvested dividends and cap gains. Duuuhhhhhh. It may have been wise to sell my biotech fund when it peaked in July 2015, but who knew it would drop like a ton of bricks in less than one year? Its long term money, so just hope it finds its way back after the geo political issues become clearer. After all, we are all getting older and doubt if demand for new drugs will go down over time.

I have been a bit obsessed recently with retirement - which means less trading. I have given deferred annuities a close look including the newer QLAC's. As much as I try though, I just can't get into them. For the most part you just get your principal paid back to you until the age at which the longevity tables say you are suppose to expire. They only seem to be of benefit to the insurance companies and those who live to a ripe old age.
When and if rates ever rise, I can see me putting as much as 25% of my nest egg in 5 year CDs to offset part of my living expenses (after allowing of course for any income from SS, CDs, etc.) My biggest expense in retirement will be the taxes paid on my RMD.
As for withdrawal rates. I look at my nest egg and then my estimated annual spending in retirement (and err on the very high side) It's not like I have some huge oversized nest egg. But I don't need Monte Carlo analysis to tell me that even if I were 100% in cash forever, that I better start spending more money now and enjoying life lest I die with too much of a nest egg.
In retirement it helps to be single, live in a very low cost living area of the country, be a frugalist, and be 100% debt free. I have those bases covered. Then again, it isn't fun to be alone in old age. But I also have that covered as my long time lady friend is my neighbor.

Seems to me some were sitting 100% in cash a month ago. Lousy start to the year startled many.
Umm ... Don't know about bull markets. I can't see the future. But, there have been many positive trends over the past month or so. Oil bottomed near $26 in January/February and is around $41 today. Gold started the year around $1100 and is above $1250. The Dow (if memory serves) dipped to around 15,000 in January and is now at 17,500, close to year-ago levels. The wild daily swings have softened.
European, and now U.S., central bankers have softened their stance or even added stimulus. Dollar has been softening for a while (judging by the performance of international bonds this year). But this week's Fed statement added impetus to that softening. EM bonds have been strong this year. Home prices are rising and REITS have been good investments since September. The U.S. oil patch is still a mess. Time and higher prices should help. This should in turn help the junk bond sector - though my exposure there is very limited (only through broader allocation funds).
As I've noted before, Brazil - which comprises most of PRLAX - has been on a tear since mid January. This is a dicey one however, as Brazil is undergoing political trauma reminiscent of our Nixon years and their market is liable to go in any direction day to day as that drama unfolds. However, overall, those EMs with nice reserves of oil or metals should do relatively well as long as prices stay up.
Bull markets? I dunno. But they say the trend is your friend. I think both Junkster and I would agree on that point.

@AndyJ: I call this time of year on PBS, "begging season". My main PBS station WTTW doesn't even carry WealthTrack. Its seen in Chicago on a secondary PBS channel WYCC, run by the City Colleges Of Chicago at 5:00PM on Monday's, great time don't you think ? PBS would be far better off, in my opinion, by increasing corporate sponsors with short one or two minute commericals at the beginning and end of each program.
Regards,
Ted

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
March 17, 2016
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
“Caution is appropriate.” So said Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen in a press conference Wednesday after the Fed decided to halve the number of rate hikes planned this year, from four to two. With the Fed Funds’ target remaining between 0.25% and 0.50% another two increases would leave the benchmark rate below 1% by year-end.
There were other significant developments this week. Donald Trump won four of the five Super Tuesday Republican primary races, including Senator Marco Rubio’s home state of Florida, causing Rubio to drop out. Despite a loss in Ohio’s primary to its Governor John Kasich, Trump has a comfortable delegate lead over his major challenger, Senator Ted Cruz. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton pulled well ahead of Senator Bernie Sanders.
Also this week, U.S. crude-oil futures closed above $40 a barrel, the highest since December of last year and the Dow Industrials turned positive for the year in Thursday’s trading, after being down more than 10% in early February.
New this week on our website, we’ll have a link to a report on how much workplace diversity affects the bottom line. It will be available to PREMIUM members tonight and to everyone else over the weekend. According to research published by McKinsey & Company, companies in the top quartile of racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. And companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15 percent more likely. Food for thought for management and investors!
I have always been a big believer in meritocracy. I like to think that in America, people of equal skills, talent and education will be judged on their merits, not by who they are or where they come from, which is why I couldn’t figure out why more women were not advancing in the financial services industry. Women are certainly well represented on air, online and in print in financial journalism. But why are there still so few women in executive and management roles on Wall Street?
Last week I got some surprising answers while emceeing a fascinating and enlightening conference on increasing gender diversity in the financial services industry. “Beyond Talk: Taking Action to Achieve Gender Balance in the Financial World” was co-sponsored by The California State Teachers’ Retirement System, known as CalSTRS and State Street Global Advisors.
Leaders at both organizations have gone “beyond talk” and initiated practices to recruit, promote and mentor women in the industry. They are putting substantial resources into the effort.
SSGA just launched the SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF, symbol SHE, comprised of more than 140 U.S. companies which have greater numbers of women in leadership positions than other companies in their sectors. CalSTRS invested $250 million in SHE at its launch.
On the television show this week, are you better off with a robot? That is the topic we are revisiting during this final weekend of winter fund-raising on public television. We are interviewing an under the radar value investor who created a robot portfolio to test the theory that statistically cheap stocks will outperform the market over time – and lo and behold they have.
As a long-time financial journalist I have seen investment theories and strategies come and go. Wall Street firms have devoted billions in their quest to find proprietary magic formulas for outperformance.
Michael Lewis’ best-selling book, now a movie, “The Big Short” did a masterful job of describing various mathematical and computer science algorithms that contributed to the financial crisis. They were so complex and arcane that even their creators and certainly their customers had little idea of what was in them and how they would really work in the real world.
This week’s guest has a much simpler approach, which much to his surprise when he first tried it 17 years ago does work, but it comes with a large caveat: it is not appropriate in the vast majority of portfolios. He only applies some of it himself.
He is John Dorfman, Chairman of Dorfman Value Investments, an investment management firm he founded in 1999 that manages money in separate accounts for high net worth individuals, family offices and a few institutions.
He is a deep value investor who runs concentrated stock portfolios that have outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin over the years. Dorfman is also a journalist. I knew him at The Wall Street Journal and even though he switched to money management full time in 1997 he still writes financial columns.
One of his most popular, which has been his first column of the year for the last 17 years, is devoted to his 10 stock robot portfolio.
Dorfman starts with all U.S. stocks with a market value of $500 million or more. Then he eliminates those with debt greater than equity. He then picks the ten stocks selling for the lowest price earnings multiples of the past year’s earnings.
The result is the “Robot Portfolio” has had a compound average annual return, with dividends included, of nearly 16%, compared to just over 4% for the S&P 500.
Given the spectacular performance of his robot portfolio why doesn’t Dorfman just use that method for all of his accounts? He will tell us.
If WEALTHTRACK isn’t showing on your local station this week due to local station fund-raising campaigns, you can always watch it on our website. You will also find a link to Dorfman’s 2016’s Robot Portfolio there.
Thank you for watching. Have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and productive one.
Best Regards,
Consuelo
John Dorfman Website:
http://dorfmanvalue.com/

VRX went down another 11.54% on Thursday. But SEQUX was actually *up* 0.20%
I don't think Sequoia has sold any shares. Rather, VRX's stock price has apparently dropped so low that it's probably now only represents 10% or so of Sequoia's portfolio, which would make it a smaller holding than Berkshire Hathaway (if you add up BRK.A and BRK.B shares).
So Sequoia's shareholders can now rest assured that VRX is no longer the fund's biggest holding! Of course, they might have preferred that it happened in another way.

RiverPark Short Term High Yield Fund.
"(a) high yield bonds are a sliver of the portfolio". Does this mean that the fund is in violation of Rule 35d-1, requiring 80% of a fund's portfolio (at time of purchase) to reflect its name?
M* reports the average credit rating to be B. (Note that M* computes average rating based on overall portfolio credit risk behavior; it does not compute a dollar weighted average of the securities' ratings).
The holdings breakdown by M* are almost all (90%) junk.
So it seems the benchmarking problem arises primarily from the second attribute you describe:
"(b) it has a short to ultra-short average maturity while the group tends to intermediate term."
See SEC Rule 35d-1 FAQ, Question 7
https://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/guidance/rule35d-1faq.htm
"Q: How does rule 35d-1 apply to a fund that uses the term "high-yield" in its name?
"A: The term "high-yield" is generally understood in the financial and investment community to describe corporate bonds that are below investment grade, commonly defined as bonds receiving a Standard & Poor's rating below BBB or a Moody's rating below Baa. Therefore, a fund using the term "high-yield" in its name generally must have a policy to invest at least 80% of its assets in bonds that are below investment grade. [The exception being tax-exempt or muni funds.]"
FYI - "short term" is more fuzzy for the purpose of this rule. See
http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/10770/Antitrust+Competition/SEC+Adopts+Rule+Prohibiting+Misleading+Mutual+Fund+Names

Getting back to the question as to "where" should retirement withdrawals come from this study researched a number of options and I liked this quote enough to pass it along:
In virtually all the scenarios, "it pays to eat your bonds first, equities later."
Withdrawal scenarios studied:
1. Withdraw money from either stocks or bonds and then rebalance the portfolio annually to the initial stock/bond proportion. This harvesting rule will be referred to as “Rebalance.”
2. Withdraw money from the asset that had the highest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “High First.”
3. Withdraw money from the asset that had the lowest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “Low First.” To the extent that historical rates of return on bonds tend to be lower than historical rates of return on stocks, the following two additional methods of harvesting withdrawals will be referred to as “Bonds First” and “Stocks First.”
4. Take withdrawals from bonds first and do not rebalance.
5. Take withdrawals from stocks first and do not rebalance.

Study:
time-diversification-vs-rebalancing-in-retirement-portfolios/

Yes, that was the Spitzer and Singh study cited ...

Interesting Read using a three fund portfolio (VFINX, VUSTX, VSGBX or VFITX) and a 200 mda filter.
From the link:
"The popular 60/40 Stocks/Bond portfolio performs well over the past 24 years, but adding a simple moving average to this portfolio has increased returns, reduced the duration of draw downs, and substantially reduced portfolio draw down. Adding in an intermediate term bond fund as the cash fund accomplished even more, it increased annual returns more than 10% over the buy and hold portfolio, while having close to 1/3 of the daily draw down numbers. Avoiding draw down and still being involved in market upswings was the goal of this strategy, and it worked well in this instance. There were a few concerns, namely being involved in the cash filter fund for too much duration, not being diverse enough to capitalize on gains across different markets, and the potential of missing out on some of the market upsides. However, these concerns did not prevent us from accomplishing the goals of reducing draw down and risk along with increasing return in this particular example."
iema-blog.com/2016/02/6040-stockbonds-portfolio-with-market.html

They could probably run a 10 period monthly moving average on the prices of the assets as to reduce daily generated "whipsaws" ( as many "needless" whipsaws occurring in the past have been contained "within" the monthly data ) and reduce the amount of "management" time, ie. looking at the calculations daily / subjecting oneself too frequently to market data - leading to possible cognitive investing biases ...
Also, using healthcare for the 60% allocation has produced alpha ( appreciably ) above VFINX ( 13% CAGR, Sharpe 1.0 -21% max DD with non MA strategy / rebalance annually 1986 - 2015 )

Disaster was probably too strong a term; "surprisingly poor" sounds about right.
When the panic passes, he might ease back on the amount of ballast and benefit from a substantial rebound in oversold securities.

Agree, surprising poor sounds better than disaster. Disaster is reserved for the Third Avenue's of the world. If market action is any indication the panic has already passed and the other managers, especially in the high yield sector, beat him to the punch by benefiting from the substantial rebound in oversold securities. His 1.49% over the past month pales to the 5.21% of his high yield counterparts. I have said a couple times here there is no reason to hold this fund.

Getting back to the question as to "where" should retirement withdrawals come from this study researched a number of options and I liked this quote enough to pass it along:
In virtually all the scenarios, "it pays to eat your bonds first, equities later."
Withdrawal scenarios studied:
1. Withdraw money from either stocks or bonds and then rebalance the portfolio annually to the initial stock/bond proportion. This harvesting rule will be referred to as “Rebalance.”
2. Withdraw money from the asset that had the highest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “High First.”
3. Withdraw money from the asset that had the lowest return during the year and do not rebalance. This will be referred to as “Low First.” To the extent that historical rates of return on bonds tend to be lower than historical rates of return on stocks, the following two additional methods of harvesting withdrawals will be referred to as “Bonds First” and “Stocks First.”
4. Take withdrawals from bonds first and do not rebalance.
5. Take withdrawals from stocks first and do not rebalance.

Study:
time-diversification-vs-rebalancing-in-retirement-portfolios/