You must be looking at Jeremy Siegel's Stocks For The Long Run. There he shows inflation adjusted Total Real Return Indexes 1802-1997. $1 invested in gold worth
84 cents!!!! $1 invested in stocks worth $558,965!!!!!

I do have that book, so it probably has influenced me. What i was thinking of specifically though is what seems to be called "The Parable of Joseph's Penny" wherein a single penny at compound interest of 1% becomes something like $4.5 Million, and at 2 pecent compounded becomes worth more than all the assets in the world. If an ounce gold was worth anything at all 2,000 years ago (and it certainly was), then the 12 or 13 hundred dollars you can get for it must represent a truly minuscule annualized rate of return.
On a similar note, one can take an ordinary piece of paper, tear it in half and put the pieces one on top of the other, tear it in half again......repeating this process only 50 times, and one will have a stack of paper that will rise way beyond the moon. Try it sometime! It is great fun
dryflower

Owned a few 1-oz K-Rands in the mid 80s. Beautiful coins. Had a slight reddish hue. I understand they add a bit of copper to harden them (unlike many other gold coins), as gold's a soft metal. Aesthetic value is very difficult to calculate and is in the eyes of the beholder. However, when you add-in the aesthetic value enjoyed in addition to the likely capital appreciation over time, I think it's a reasonable investment. I don't like the safety/security issues associated with such physical investments (assaying, storing, insuring, transporting, selling, etc.) Hell, I won't even wear a watch worth more than $25 in some locations I frequent. And than there's the ever present threat of government prohibition, restriction or regulation. For those reasons, we don't invest in physical pms or collectibles.
As far as owning the metal on paper, pms are just about the "rockiest" markets you can find. Prices are erratic and unpredictable. My experience is that it's a lot easier to lose money than to make money with them. I do own a small slice of PRPFX for diversity. The fund holds some gold and pms. That fund is one odd mix of assets, and I gravitate towards the "odd-man-out" type of investment for the sake of diversity (much to the chagrin of some formidable voices here).
There's a natural human tendancy to view the world through our own time-lense and to assume things will always remain the same. Based on most of our experience since around the mid 80s, equities appear the best alternative. Had you been investing in the 70s and early 80s you would likely have been looking more to hard assets as a safe haven or, believe it or not, at plain old cash. It was easy in the late 70's to pull in 15-20% annually simply by investing in money market funds. Who'd run the risk of buying equities with those types of returns on cash? Better be careful not to overlook bonds. Since long-term interest rates have been declining now for about 35 years, bonds have been great investments over that period. (Note to beginners: Interest rates do not always decline.)
I'd agree with another distinguished poster here that gold & commodities are not "winning" long term investments when held up against either equities or corporate bonds. The last two are growth-oriented and increase in value as the world's economies grow and prosper. Gold, on the other hand, tends to track both inflation and investor sentiment. (One component of that sentiment relates to perceived value of various paper currencies.) Since sentiment is difficult to define and quantitify, this probably accounts much for gold's erratic performance.

According to a test trade I just made, RAIIX appears to have a $500 minimum with an initial TF in Fidelity retirement accounts. In the past I have been willing to pay an initial TF because I typically buy a good chunk at one time.

I hear you @heezsafe, but 1.5% ER is reasonable for international small cap (non-institutional shares) and I'm on TDAmeritrade, which waives the load.

FYI: Healthcare sector exchange traded funds have been outpacing the broader markets and could remain healthy as rising profits diminish concerns over frothy valuations.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etftrends.com/2015/02/healthcare-etfs-have-more-room-to-run/

@MFO Members: Investment News slant on Forward sale.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150211/FREE/150219984?template=printart

FYI: Large-cap stock mutual funds have trailed small- and midcap funds for much of the past 15 years.
How much would you have in your account now if you had invested $10,000 in the average large-cap fund on Dec. 31, 1999? You'd have $16,641 as of Jan. 9 this year, according to Morningstar Inc. data.
That's way below the $37,371 that the average small-cap mutual fund would have generated in that time and the $34,806 that the average midcap fund would have returned.
Regards,
Ted
http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewFreeUse.act?fuid=MTg5NjA5NzE=
Enlarged Graphic;
http://news.ptest.investors.com/photopopup.aspx?path=webLV021115.jpg&docId=738841&xmpSource=&width=1000&height=1063&caption=&id=738848

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=50811&wireid=2
M* Manning And Napier Funds:
http://quicktake.morningstar.com/fundfamily/manning-napier/0C00001YS3/fund-list.aspx

I am not excited about this. They didn't do this to try to help the little guy. I think asset bloat is on the way. The reasons for the sale (from their press release):
- $27 billion in assets under management and advisement and more than 250 professionals nationwide located in three key U.S. business centers: Houston, San Francisco and New York;
-Increased scale and national reach, which will allow the firm to better serve institutional investors and financial advisors ; and
- A diverse suite of innovative asset allocation and alternative strategies designed to allow investors the opportunity to create diversified portfolios or enhance their existing portfolios.
So they will have greater scale and reach, but the fees will be the same.

Oh, I guess I did check out his new charge, at inception, and I now I remember why I didn't follow it: e.r=1.5% (not a deal-breaker), but FEL=5.75% (anathema to me). The early returns you are seeing now are @NAV, not @MOP.

Hi UC,
Strabo handily beat his category averages while at American Century while managing TIDIX (4/4/1994-3/1/2002, Foreign Small/Mid Growth) and TGRIX (8/1/1993-2/28/2005). And so far so good at Ranier. So I think his new fund looks attractive.
Kevin

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-decline-on-greece-concerns-1423660483
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-11/u-s-index-futures-little-changed-before-greece-creditor-meeting
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USKBN0LF1AT20150211
MarketWatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-tense-wait-as-investors-watch-for-headlines-on-greece-2015-02-11/print
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker;
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures:
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

If you're willing to go back thousands of years, the rate of return must be minuscule -- way, way under 1% annualized.

You must be looking at Jeremy Siegel's Stocks For The Long Run. There he shows inflation adjusted Total Real Return Indexes 1802-1997. $1 invested in gold worth
84 cents!!!! $1 invested in stocks worth $558,965!!!!!
When gold was allowed to trade freely in the 70s it immediately ran up to 100 to 200.
I recall trading it in the futures markets in the 200s. Then it ran up to over $800. So that is why I am so biased against gold. From its peak in late 79/early 80 above $800 what has it done??? Silver is even worse when it hit 50 in April 1980 when the Hunts cornered the market. Since seemingly my entire lifetime all I have heard from the gold and silver bugs is how there is a shortage and you better hoard all you can.

The waiver is still in place, until at least February 28, 2016. Expenses, excluding "interest, taxes, dividend expense, borrowing costs, acquired fund fees and expenses, interest expense related to short sales, and extraordinary expenses" are limited to 1.35% and 1.60% for the institutional and investor class shares, respectively.
Take a look at the expense breakdown. "Dividend and interest expense on short sales" is 1.00%; "acquired fund fees" is 0.07%. Subtract their sum, 1.07%, from the ERs you quoted and you get ERs of 1.25% and 1.50% respectively - below the cap imposed by the fee waiver. So while the waiver is in place, the amount of fees waived is 0.
Actually, it's a bit worse than that. Like many fee waivers, this one has a claw back provision. If the actual ER comes out to be less than the waiver cap, then the fund will raise the ER up to the cap level, in order to recapture the fees that it waived over the past three years.
So here, because the actual ERs are 10 basis points below the promised caps (e.g. 1.25% is 0.10% below the cap of 1.35%), the fund will tack on an extra 10 basis points to get back the fees it waived in the past. It can only do this for three years, and only until it reclaims all the fees it waived. Still ...

FYI;
Regards,
Ted
http://www.mfwire.com/common/artprint2007.asp?storyID=50835&wireid=2

Speaking of the pathetic state of journalism, you might think about (but largely avoid reading) the current U.S. News article, "This book obliterates active management." The book is another of Larry Swedroe's shots at active management; smart guy, he's probably 99% right.
My beef? The article is written by a member of Swedroe's staff: "[t]he book was written by my colleague Larry Swedroe." The author is "director of investor advocacy for the BAM ALLIANCE and a wealth advisor for Buckingham." Which is to say, he's a marketer. He "travels the country educating advisors and clients alike about changing their lives for the better." Swedroe, on the other hand, is one of the firm's principals, a board member and member of the executive team.
Why isn't this "article" presented as what it is: an ad for Swedroe's 13th book (what is it that he hadn't covered in the prior 12 that required an entire new book?) by a guy with a vested interest in it.
David

I'll disagree. While I can question whether or not buybacks are always effective (some companies do them really badly), they fall under fiduciary duty (as Charles noted.)
What the issue is is the idea that the government has been entirely focused on raising asset prices, at the expense of just about everything else. It creates a period that looks good/very good on the surface, but has considerable problems underneath ("Castles built on sand", in other words.)
""Wealth concentration at the top is not good for the nation as a whole." True or not?"
That's kind of true (lot of layers), but I think the bigger issue is when the country's government decides to devote its resources heavily to catering to those who already own assets rather than trying to create opportunities and improve quality of life (I know that's broad, but it's early) for the whole. I'm not saying fairness, I'm not saying anything like that - things aren't fair, that's reality.
I'm simply saying, it's not good for the majority of wealth to be in the 1%, but it's really not good when the government basically tilts the game in their favor by devoting resources and effort to them versus the traditional task of the government of looking after the whole, which seems to have gone out the window years ago. You devote enormous resources to assets, while ignoring infrastructure, education and all manner of other things. The 1% is a-okay, while the rest of the country becomes increasingly less competitive versus the rest of the globe.
""Adjusted for inflation, public university tuition—once mostly covered by the states—has more than doubled over the past 30 years, burying recent graduates under $1.2 trillion in student debt." True or not?"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102028451#.
Student debt at all-time high of $1.2 trillion
"Labor’s steadily falling share of GDP has inevitably depressed consumer demand, resulting in slower economic growth." True or not?
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LABSHPUSA156NRUG
Too lazy and it's too early to research the rest, but looks accurate.

FYI: When evaluating the performance of gold as an investment over the long term, it really depends on how long a term one is considering. Over a 45-year period, gold has outperformed stocks and bonds; over a 30-year period, stocks and bonds have outperformed gold; and over a 15-year period, gold has outperformed stocks and bonds.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/020915/has-gold-been-good-investment-over-long-term.asp?partner=YahooSA

@MFO Members: In the Linkster's opinion stock buybacks are neither black or white, they are 50 shades of gray. In order to continue the conversation here is more on the subject.
Regards,
Ted
Share Repurchase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_repurchase
A Breakdown Of Stock Buybacks:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/02/041702.asp
6 Bad Stock Buyback Scenarios:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp
The Downside To Stock Buybacks (Jonathan Clements):
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-downside-to-stock-buybacks-1414284206
Profits Without Prosperity (Harvard Business Review):
https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity
Companies' Stock Buybacks Help Buoy the Market:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-stock-buybacks-help-buoy-the-market-1410823441
The Eepurchase Revolution:
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21616968-companies-have-been-gobbling-up-their-own-shares-exceptional-rate-there-are-good-reasons
Presenting The Full Impact Of Stock Buybacks On S&P 500 "Earnings":
http://www.zerohedge.com/print/474514

It's all very easy to dismiss an article such as that by suggesting that it is "rife with political undertones" and "considering the source". Such emotional responses do more to suggest that the article may be worth consideration than not.
If in fact there are "political overtones", does that then automatically negate each and every point made in the article? Since when do "political overtones" equate to an accusation of falsehood? That article seemed to me to have plenty of references which could be fairly easily checked for accuracy.
How about a proper rebuttal based on an examination of the premises of the article, or the introduction of contrary opinions based upon other references?
"the shift toward stock-based compensation helped drive the rise of the 1 percent by inflating the ratio of CEO-to-worker compensation from twenty-to-one in 1965 to about 300-to-one today" True or not?
"Labor’s steadily falling share of GDP has inevitably depressed consumer demand, resulting in slower economic growth." True or not?
"Over the past decade, the companies that make up the S&P 500 have spent an astounding 54 percent of profits on stock buybacks." True or not?
"Federal spending on economically crucial research and development has plummeted 40 percent, from 1.25 percent of GDP in 1977 to only 0.75 percent today." True or not?
"Adjusted for inflation, public university tuition—once mostly covered by the states—has more than doubled over the past 30 years, burying recent graduates under $1.2 trillion in student debt." True or not?
"Wealth concentration at the top is not good for the nation as a whole." True or not?