"Since 1890, U.S. real estate has produced an annualized return above inflation of just 0.4%, as judged by the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index and the consumer-price index."

"U.S. real estate". "U.S. National Home Price Index". There you have the joker in the deck . A national real estate index is totally meaningless. With respect to real estate, it's location, location, location. (I believe that I've heard that before, someplace.) Go ahead and show me how the "annualized return above inflation of just 0.4%" is true in zip 941__. Sure thing.
Garbage in / garbage out. (I believe that I've heard that before also.)

Homes that were purchased for $30,000 in the 60’s are now worth over a million.

Zip 91011. My son's grandparents. My first wife moved back in with them, all those years ago, following divorce. They bought at $20,000 in early 1960s and made small expansions through the years. Selling price 2 months ago: $1.9M

8 Top Stocks From the World's Largest Hedge Fund
https://money.usnews.com/investing/stock-market-news/slideshows/top-stocks-from-the-worlds-largest-hedge-fund?slide=5
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates is the largest hedge fund in the world with more than $160 billion in assets, and its Pure Alpha fund has averaged an annual gain of about 12% since 1991 and has logged just three down years in that stretch. Thanks to quarterly 13-F filings, any investor can track Dalio’s latest moves.
Here are Bridgewater’s eight largest stock holdings.
1. Biogen (ticker: BIIB). Biogen develops drugs for treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases, and its multiple sclerosis business holds about an 18% share of the $18 billion global market. Dalio owns 240,378 shares of BIIB stock worth about $56.8 million.
2. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY). Dalio started accumulating his stake in Bristol-Myers in the second quarter of 2018 but raised his stake by 78% in the first quarter to 989,293 shares worth about $47.2 million. Investors emulating Dalio should be buying Bristol-Myers on the dip after the stock dropped 22.2% in the past year in part on concerns about opioid litigation. – Wayne Duggan
Biogen (BIIB)
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMY)
Alliance Data Systems (ADS)
Eastman Chemical Co. (EMN)
United Rentals (URI)
Macy’s (M)
Nucor Corp. (NUE)
Royal Bank of Canada (RY)

@johnN said:

so what is the best plans? buy all these vehicles?

There is a saying a carpenter told me about 15 years ago when he was helping my wife and I build our first retirement home. It goes "Its kind of hard saying without really knowing." A decade is a long time. So, that saying pretty well answers Mark Hulbert's question about the single best investment for that period of time. Having said that, I would pick my largest portfolio holding, RPGAX, to answer the question. It has a broad multi-asset mandate, a fair amount of investment flexibility, and a top notch management team. That seems like a good mix for facing all the unknowns a decade's worth of crystal ball gazing brings to mind. Thinking more short term and small scale with a "Its A Low Interest Rate World" frame of reference, I just took a small, speculative nibble at MNR a few days ago.

FYI: Ben enjoys reading finance books but most people do not.
So to make your life easier, he went through all the classic finance books and distilled the message into a single sentence or phrase.
He would still recommend reading many of these books if you haven’t, but let’s be realistic, that’s probably not going to happen for all but the biggest finance geeks on the planet (again, that’s Be).
Here’s what he came up with:
Regards,
Ted
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2019/08/tldr-the-best-finance-books-in-one-sentence/

OREAX tops FRIFX at: 1, 5 and 10 years (per Lipper). I wasn’t touting the fund, just commenting on the asset class overall. As you might recall, I have no brokerage accounts, Just some money directly with a few houses. Actually, now that Oppenheimer has been taken over by Invesco it appears my investment options have broadened quite a bit.

yes, my bad, I shoulda stuck w FRESX only

Best Money Market Funds
There are about 40 money market mutual funds available retail in the US. The four listed here have delivered about 2.4% this past year … as risk free as it gets. They have been around a long time and consistently outperformed their peers. A couple with hefty minimums. One closed to new investors. Leaving Vanguard as best practical option … who would have guessed?

@hank You commented...

I’ll say I continue to be amazed by the performance of real estate funds. Maintain a small “nibble” in OREAX - and the danged thing is up 19% YTD (20% after today) - following on the heels of several other good years. I keep expecting it to fall off a cliff - but hasn’t yet.

It looks like OREAX lost about 6% in 2018 when there was increased concern about rising interest rates. That concern has faded this year. Maybe REITS will continue to make sense as long as we remain in a low interest rate world.....

@davfor - Thanks for the dose of reality. I’d overlooked the nasty 2018 swoon in many markets. Also, I tend to use Price’s TRREX interchangeably with Oppenheimer’s OREAX. Nothing to do with which is better - but dictated more by logistics, since I invest directly with both companies. Looks like on March 6 of this year I shifted 100% from TRREX to OREAX (by moving funds around at each house).
Wish I hadn’t deleted my running list of exchanges from about 5-6 years ago. However, I did buy into OREAX (umm ... maybe 2012 or 2013) after it had sustained a nasty licking. Was really in the cellar at the time. Yes - the falling rates have helped REITS. Personally I suspect they’re overvalued - but sticking to my normal allocation is the plan. You never can call the markets exactly right.
Regards

@hank You commented...

I’ll say I continue to be amazed by the performance of real estate funds. Maintain a small “nibble” in OREAX - and the danged thing is up 19% YTD (20% after today) - following on the heels of several other good years. I keep expecting it to fall off a cliff - but hasn’t yet.

It looks like OREAX lost about 6% in 2018 when there was increased concern about rising interest rates. That concern has faded this year. Maybe REITS will continue to make sense as long as we remain in a low interest rate world.....

Hi Guys,
“Will never be good at investing” might be too strong a projection to fit my conservative perspective, but it is a reasonable forecast given the consistently bad historical record registered by both professional and private investors in the past.
To be overly simple with the data, we only capture about 40% of what markets have historically generated. We buy and sell at the wrong times. Here is a short reference that includes a single summary chart that tells the sad story:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4108688-investor-returns-vs-market-returns-failure-endures
Enjoy. I try hard to not be part of the general population represented in that great chart. Sometimes I succeed, but other times I fail. So be it. It’s hard to change.
Best Regards

OREAX tops FRIFX at: 1, 5 and 10 years (per Lipper). I wasn’t touting the fund, just commenting on the asset class overall. As you might recall, I have no brokerage accounts, Just some money directly with a few houses. Actually, now that Oppenheimer has been taken over by Invesco it appears my investment options have broadened quite a bit.

SPAXX is classified as a government MMF, meaning that it invests in government securities and is considered safe enough by the SEC that it is not required to impose redemption fees and/or redemption gates (freezes on withdrawals) in times of stress.
https://www.schwabfunds.com/public/file/P-8077046
But it is not a Treasury fund. Last year only 56.16% of its income came from government securities such as Treasuries that are state tax exempt. Note that if that figure drops below 50%, then none of its income will be exempt from taxes in Calif., NY, or Conn.
https://www.fidelity.com/bin-public/060_www_fidelity_com/documents/taxes/2018-gse.pdf
Fidelity's Treasury Only MMF (100% Treasuries) is FDLXX with a 7 day yield of 1.82% (7/31/19). Fidelity also has a "Treasury" MMF, FZFXX, with a 7 day yield of 2.01% (7/31/19). But only 40.06% of income from this fund came from Treasuries and other state-exempt securities last year. So none of its income was exempt from state taxes in Calif., NY, or Conn.

Sorry - but the 10-year time horizon mentioned renders such comparisons useless. Anything can happen over such a short (and random) time span. Everything runs in cycles, and the cycles can be very long. Since they were basically polling investor “expectations”, however, the article has value from that standpoint.
I’ll say I continue to be amazed by the performance of real estate funds. Maintain a small “nibble” in OREAX - and the danged thing is up 19% YTD (20% after today) - following on the heels of several other good years. I keep expecting it to fall off a cliff - but hasn’t yet.

@Ted. Thanks for the link. Nice to know you’re “on the job.”
@Edmund - I agree with everything you said. Not recommending longer term bonds. I’m saying very few investors need the absolute, concrete, never-wavering NAV that money market mutual funds provide. The SEC mandated reforms following the ‘07-‘09 fiasco pretty much neutered these vehicles. They’re now so constrained as to what they can invest in that one might as well deposit the funds in a FDIC insured bank account.
Well-run ultra-short, TRBUX, is an excellent example of a “near cash instrument” to which you refer. It should net about 1% better over time than a money market fund with very minimal price fluctuation. It’s so stable you can use it as a checking account (I do). The other one I suggested, DODIX, is more volatile. Expect to lose 2-4% in the occasional off-year. But these are pretty smart investors (at D&C). They offer no money market fund and are not into taking big risks with this one. Not stable enough to write checks against, but very stable compared to most anything else in the investment universe. Personally, I maintain about a 50/50 blend of the two mentioned funds in my “cash” portfolio.
OK - 90 year old widows probably shouldn’t be taking any degree of risk with their cash stash. But for most of us there are better alternatives to money market funds.

Hank, to address your question below, here is my perspective: The return of bond funds since the mid-Dec 2018 lows are primarily price-appreciation. Go take a look at the charts of quality bond funds/ETFs. Its like a rocket, and approaching (or at) long-term resistance levels. I don't find it probable that appreciation like we have seen can be extrapolated much further. At least not without some type of correction.
OTOH, as I scan current SEC yields of various quality bond ETFs today, I note AGG's yield is 2.47%, while ICSH's yield (an ultra-low duration bond ETF) is 2.62%. Meanwhile, AGG's duration is 6.0, while ICSH is 0.3.
Based on bond prices here and now (not from 8-9 months ago), cash & near-cash instruments look like a better risk/reward proposition at this time. Obviously, if Treasury yields head to 0%, I will be kicking myself.

Is there a link here?

I’m curious what the reasons for the surge in money market funds might be. The return seems paltry. Over past year, money market mutual funds returned an average 1.97%. VG’s did slightly better at 2.35%. https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/overview/VMMXX (Need to click on “Price & Performance”.)
Geez - Give me anything but one of these .... A night in Vegas? Online poker? Clean the attic and sell some antiques?
A couple alternatives to money market funds for folks with at least a few years time horizon and able to live with some principal fluctuation: TRBUX- one year 3.51%, DODIX - one year 8.17%

I am a very conservative investor, so cash-management is probably more important to me than it is to many other investors who believe they should "keep their money working" (i.e. fully/near-fully invested). I also happen to use Fidelity.
Frankly, I could not be happier with the liquidity options provided by Fidelity. My "core fund" of choice is SPAXX -- A Trsy MMF. Its 7-day yield (at 8/7/19) is 1.86%. Prior to the recent, severe downdraft in rates, I leaned heavily on laddered T-bills to boost my cash yields, going out as far as 6 months. Buys/sells of T-bills are NTF at Fidelity. For those who prefer CDs, Fidelity offers a "supermarket" of those.
Since the rate downdraft, I've shifted excess cash reserves to 2 ultra low-duration NTF ETFs, ICSH & FLDR. they are both yielding ~ 2.5%.
I see an ample number of attractive liquidity options (given the reality of the rate structure) at Fidelity. Methinks some advisers doth protest too much.

Is there a link here?
I’m curious what the reasons for the surge in money market funds might be. The return seems paltry. Over past year, money market mutual funds returned an average 1.97%. VG’s did slightly better at 2.35%. https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/overview/VMMXX (Need to click on “Price & Performance”.)
Geez - Give me anything but one of these .... A night in Vegas? Online poker? Clean the attic and sell some antiques?
A couple alternatives to money market funds for folks with at least a few years time horizon and able to live with some principal fluctuation: TRBUX- one year 3.51%, DODIX - one year 8.17%

FYI: “For money you wouldn’t need for more than 10 years, which ONE of the following do you think would be the best way to invest it—stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, gold/metals, or bitcoin/cryptocurrency?”
That question was recently asked of more than a thousand investors in a recent Bankrate survey, and the winner—by a large margin—was real estate. For every two respondents who answered stocks there were more than three who said real estate is the way to go.
Are these investors onto something? Have financial planners been wrong all these years? For this column I mine the historical data for answers.
On the face of it, the respondents to the survey need to go back to their history books, as pointed out in a recent column by my colleague Catey Hill. Since 1890, U.S. real estate has produced an annualized return above inflation of just 0.4%, as judged by the Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index and the consumer-price index. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.53% (or its predecessor indexes) did far better, outpacing inflation at a 6.3% annualized rate (when including dividends).
Even long-term U.S. Treasury Bonds outperformed real estate, producing an annualized inflation-adjusted total return of 2.7%. Check out the chart below:
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-single-best-investment-for-the-next-decade-2019-08-08/print

From a make it up as you go 10 year old
There's a four leaf clover in those woods over there
It will bring you good luck for your life
But that four leaf clover in those woods over there
Can't be yours 'cause it's already mine.
There's a big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
It will give you wealth beyond your dreams
But that big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
Can't be yours 'cause it's already mine.
There's a lot of good things still left for you to find
They will give you good luck for your days
For a lot of good things are left for you to find
But you'd better go before they lock the gate. pop goes the wealthsel.

FYI: Fidelity Investments’ money-market fund assets have climbed $116 billion, or 20%, over the past 12 months as investors embrace higher yields for their idle cash, research firm Crane Data said on Thursday.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fidelity-funds/fidelitys-money-market-fund-assets-surged-20-in-past-year-idUSKCN1UY24Y