........ @Mark
The kicker, literally; "potential to be infused with Cannabis".
Story here.
+ vendors of snacks, which would include Oreo's, Doritos, ice creams and the list goes on and on
Reads like a combo list of related stocks to be put together at the Motif web site.

FYI: Risk is really how much portfolio volatility you can live with.
When is a 10% gain considered riskier than a 10% loss? When the 10% loss is produced when the broad stock market lost 20%, and the 10% gain occurred when the market rose 20%.
Why does that follow? Because, as defined by some financial advisers and other investment professionals, risk relates to lagging the market — “negative alpha,” in technical-speak.
You might think that it’s absurd to consider a 10% gain as being riskier than a 10% loss. But that just means you’re using a different definition of risk: The possibility of loss.
Welcome to the complicated world of defining risk.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/however-youre-defining-risk-in-this-scary-stock-market-youre-probably-wrong-2018-12-04/print

FYI: They called Eddie Lampert many things. “The Next Warren Buffett,” Business Week gushed in 2004. “Genius,” wrote Fortune in 2006. A “celebrity shareholder,” Institutional Investor labeled him in 2013.
But in mid-October of this year, they were calling him something entirely different. Privately, hedge fund managers distanced themselves, with one calling Lampert a practitioner of “predatory capitalism.” But perhaps the worst assaults came from those claiming to be employees of Sears Holdings — the company that Lampert had famously spent $1.5 billion to acquire, manage, and, as of that month, drive into bankruptcy. They took to employment review website Glassdoor in droves.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1c33fqdnhf21s/Eddie-Lampert-Shattered-Sears-Sullied-His-Reputation-and-Lost-Billions-of-Dollars-Or-Did-He

https://m.nasdaq.com/article/is-mairs--power-growth-fund-mpgfx-a-strong-mutual-fund-pick-right-now-cm1064179
On the lookout for a Large Cap Blend fund? Starting with Mairs & Power Growth Fund (MPGFX) is one possibility. MPGFX holds a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 2 (Buy), which is based on nine forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance.

Just because a fund claims its strategy is value-driven doesn't mean that it should be classified as value according to "traditional" metrics (P/E, P/B, PEG ratio, etc.). For example, Bill Miller's LMVTX often (usually?) fell into the LCG box as measured by these metrics.
https://news.morningstar.com/classroom2/course.asp?docId=3330&page=1&CN=C
Likewise, DSENX may be value-driven, but in a rather unusual way. The index it is leveraging compares the present value of each sector with its historical record to determine whether and by how much the sector is undervalued. So it could invest in four sectors normally thought of as growth sectors, so long as they were only "somewhat" overpriced as compared with their historical "exceedingly" overpriced.
The bottom line, though, is that M* X-ray shows 100% of the fund's equity holdings as "not classified". For all we know, M*'s oh-so-reliable software is simply defaulting to SCV when it doesn't have any data to go by.

He's got a webcast coming up on the 11th. Like all of his 'casts, it's ostensibly about one of the Dbline oef's, DBLTX in this case, but he always spends most of the time on macro, econ indicators, and the direction of different debt classes. Since it's looking more and more like we could be on a big divide here between past and future, that's one I won't miss.
I also kinda wonder how he'll put his predictions of a wild ballooning in rates over the next couple of years in the current context.

FYI: ( Reminder: U.S. stock markets will be closed Wednesday, Dec. 5, in observance of a national day of mourning for President George H. W. Bush. The U.S. bond market will also be closed for trading on Dec. 5, on the recommendation from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, better known as SIFMA. The CME Group also said it will shutter its U.S.-based equity and interest rate futures and options products.)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 799 points Tuesday and bond yields plummeted, as investors’ doubts over the trade truce struck between the U.S. and China renewed anxieties around the pace of economic growth.
Investors broadly retreated from stocks, with industrial stalwarts like Boeing and Caterpillar suffering steep losses. Apple and other technology companies also slid, pulling the Nasdaq Composite back more than 10% below its August high.
Waning enthusiasm for the 90-day tariff cease-fire struck over the weekend fueled the losses, several investors said, stirring worries that ongoing spat between the world’s two biggest economies could unravel economic growth in the U.S. and put additional pressure on Europe and Asia, which are already struggling.
Those growth fears pushed investors into assets that tend to be safer stores of value during periods of economic instability, including U.S. government bonds and shares of utility companies, which typically pay hefty dividends.
The flight from stocks to bonds sent several warning signals of an economic slowdown reverberating through markets.
Rising bond prices pushed gap between yields on the two- and 10-year U.S. Treasury notes to their narrowest difference since 2007, a closely watched measure among investors since such occurrences tend to precede a recession. The gaps between two- and five-year yields and three- and five-year yields have already inverted.
Of the eleven S&P 500 Sectors, only Utilities finished in positive territory.
Regards,
Ted
WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-waver-as-treasury-yields-decline-1543914431
Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-03/asian-stocks-set-for-muted-open-curve-flattens-markets-wrap?srnd=premium
IBD:
https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-plunges-700-points/
Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks/wall-street-drops-on-trade-truce-doubts-bond-market-jitters-idUSKBN1O31JV
CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/stock-market-dow-futures-fall-amid-us-china-trade-deal-skepticism.html
U.K.:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/uk-stocks-fall-as-brexit-headlines-drive-up-sterling-2018-12-04/print
Europe:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/european-markets-down-as-trade-truce-between-us-and-china-questioned-2018-12-04/print
Asia:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/asian-markets-take-a-break-a-day-after-big-gains-2018-12-03/print
Bonds:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/bond-market-treasury-yields-continue-slide-with-traders-wary-of-fed.html
Currencies:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/forex-markets-dollar-the-fed-in-focus.html
Oil:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/oil-markets-opec-meeting-in-focus.html
Gold
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/gold-markets-dollar-us-china-trade-in-focus.html
WSJ: Markets At A Glance:
https://markets.wsj.com/us
Major ETFs % Change:
https://www.barchart.com/etfs-funds/etf-monitor
SPDR's Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
SPDR's Bloomberg Sector Performance Pie Chart:
https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/sectors
Current Futures:
https://finviz.com/futures.ashx

FYI: Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, says the U.S. Treasury yield curve inversion on short end maturities are signaling that the “economy is poised to weaken.”
Gundlach, known on Wall Street as the Bond King, said the Treasury yield curve from two- to five-year maturities is suggesting “total bond market disbelief in the Federal Reserve’s prior plans to raise rates through 2019.”
Regards,
Ted
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline/doublelines-gundlach-treasury-curve-inversion-signal-economy-poised-to-weaken-idUSKBN1O3244

@Mark Its interesting M* is now listing the holdings of DSENX as small cap though they still categorize it as Large Value. I wonder what if anything has really changed with their investments to warrant that change? Per their 10/31/18 Fact Sheet, the median market cap was 22.0 billion and the average market cap was 62.1 billion. That makes for an odd small cap fund.....

Just a couple of thoughts:
1) You can't rightfully compare an ETN to a mutual fund. The ETN is dependent upon the credit worthiness of the issuer, something mutual fund holders typically don't care to deal with.
2) If you were suggesting that we compare a large-cap growth fund AKREX to a small-cap value fund DSENX, well you see the problem there, Both are fine funds in their own right, best held for different reasons which only the potential investor can determine.

@BenWP Thanks for the heads up. I currently own both funds in a taxable account. This distribution will help me transition to my projected 2019 allocation which includes a little more AKREX (and FBSOX) and a little less DSENX in my US Stock Pot.

Trump-Jingping Truce to Boost These ETFs
December 03, 2018, 01:00:00 PM EDT By Sanghamitra Saha, Zacks.com
Shutterstock photo
The trade dispute between China and the United States seems to have eased a little after a year-long tussle. In the G-20 meet, China president Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to not announce any new tariff for 90 days .

Old_Skeet
Here is a saved link regarding StockCharts.......and their adjustments.
Please let me know if I misunderstand this information.
https://stockcharts.com/docs/doku.php?id=policies:adjusted_data
This is a current, broad based search of the question, which includes StockCharts findings:

Hi @Old_Skeet
The chart was not intended to provide year periods total returns; only to let one "VIEW" with ease what some of the funds in this category provided for total return over the time frame used.
StockCharts include all current and updated total returns for any form of distributions and/or splits (per their site).
The numbers you present for 15 year returns are within the ranges I noted, for the time period.

Hi @Catch22 & others: I checked behind you through Morningstar performance to get the total return for ABALX vs. BERIX and came away with difference results than what your net asset value graph persented. I believe it left out fund distributions and tracked only net asset values and not the total return of the subject funds. I found the total return for ABALX for its 1, 3, 5, 10 & 15 year periods to be 4.01%, 8.68%, 7.84%, 11.31% & 7.38% respectively. In looking at BERIX I found its total return for the same 1, 3, 5, 10 & 15 year periods to be 1.12%, 4.11%, 2.81%, 8.05% & 6.18%.
Thought you would like to know this.
Cordially,
Old_Skeet

Agree 100% with Catch. Most of us would never have started saving if we waited until 100% debt free. She sounds skittish (actually both of you). So I’d suggest a really conservative offering with some growth potential. Once you accumulate some - even a small amount of - savings you begin to realize the power you have to control your financial future.
Per Ol’ Dick Strong and others: Pay yourself first.
Edit / Add: Automatic investing is probably the easiest approach. Whether per paycheck or ACH transfer on a regular basis.

Howdy @Crash
My last for this.......
You noted: "I found out she's got debts to pay."
This doesn't preclude not investing, yes? Had this household shunned investing in IRA's or 401k's because of debt, we wouldn't have as large a monetary smile, this 4th day of December, 2018.
So, with debt; one has bad debt (spends and doesn't pay down credit cards,etc.) or good debt (needs a vehicle for work which requires a monthly payment).
One of several key words with living, money and investing is "prudent". If this lady is prudent with spending habits, which means a "budget"; she may also invest some amount, correct?
We here at MFO have discussed this area of portfolio "suggestions" for many years; and it still remains that too often, not enough information is provided to be of consequence for a fruitful presentation.
--- For the below chart list and the funds within: all are within a moderate allocation range, with a prospectus of 50-70% equity, generally U.S. oriented. A range of loss for these funds during the market melt 10 years ago was more/less a -30 to -40%. The annualized total return for 15 years ranges from, +7.1% through 8.1%. Current yields range from 1.9% through 2.4%.
Almost a 20 year view of some of the "balanced" funds mentioned:
https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?MAPOX,FBALX,JABAX,VBINX,ABALX,DODBX&p=6&O=011000
Lastly, a so called balanced fund has many names, too, yes?
Cest tout for this person. Chores call.
Catch

After several years of almost no year-end distributions, this year the tax man cometh. NAV is around $15.50 and the total distribution is estimated at about $1.65. Ouch. Still, it's hard to complain about the performance. The ETN, CAPE, does not make big distributions.
For a really tax-efficient, winning equity fund, check out AKREX.

The best "1 fund" will always be a retirement target date fund - over time.