Hi @VintageFreak
@JoJo26 noted: "Most overrated, BY FAR = Fidelity", @sma3 noted: "Fidelity Most too big too identical" and your notation of ditching your RiverPark and moving the monies to Eaton; I will note.....
>>>One must consider what might be found at a "fund house", sort what you find of value for your investing needs, quality of timely and accurate data processing and ease of use of the existing structure.
Fidelity has had a long list of mutual fund choices for a number of years, including what were first of a kind choices for the "common folk" investors with the introduction of the "select" funds. Fidelity also helped beat down the cost of investing from the full "load" fees charged by the big retail houses of the earlier period for mutual fund investing.
We use Fidelity (since late 1970's) as a portal for investments. There is nothing written stating that one's brokerage account is restricted to Fidelity offerings.
The portal is as flexible as needed by this house.
Over the years, from the point of Fidelity fund choices; we have traveled into these choices (may be a few that escape memory at this time):
FCNTX FDGRX FLPSX FAGIX FSPHX FLBIX SPHIX FRIFX FNMIX FINPX and several of the select funds.
The majority of our holdings today are not Fidelity funds; with the brokerage portal allowing travel to........well, everything, to which, we desire access.
If one can't find an investment path(s) within this fund house; I can't offer another solution.
Our 2 cents worth.
Catch

FYI: Relax. The next week tells you nothing about whether the stock market will be higher or lower in 2017.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-this-weeks-stock-market-will-tell-you-about-2017-2016-12-26/print

Of course, this does not address fund families that died long ago does it?
Anybody remember Mathers Fund? Henry van der Eb was almost 100% cash in the 1990s writing lucidly why the market was wrong. He was eventually right but by that time the fund dissolved.
In rank order of most disappointing families (ie not worth the ER)
American funds... Maybe I would feel more positive if I had made any money with them or if I could tell them apart. They all look pretty homogeneous to me and too big
Franklin Templeton. too expensive, rarely excel. Bond funds are Ok but too expensive. to make up their expense ratios they go out on a limb. I ended up in some of them when Michael Price sold out, but have stuck with MDISX given large capital gains, and their ability to slide over to new management relatively successfully
Fidelity Most too big too identical. Too much work to tell what is going on.
Janus They seemed to know what they were doing in the go go 1990s but we all know how that turned out.

Sorry --- forget DSE_X, since that introduces bonds; I shoulda just asked about CAPE.
FT's lexicon defines quant as 'using computer-based models to inform their decisions on whether to buy or sell securities.'
>> ... the more discretion there is held by humans, the less quantitative the fund is [@msf].
Why I asked. Since there is no discretion for CAPE, seems to me it's as quant as can be. Hence in answer to your 'overrated' query, since for the last 4y it matches or outperforms (depending on timeframe) about all other SP500 constructions, it seemed to me that maybe it was the opposite of overrated. - ?
@MikeM ---
>> what 4 of the 10 sectors of the S&P the fund is invested in at any given time?
No. This is as recent as I have uncovered:
http://www.etnplus.com/US/7/en/details.app?instrumentId=174066

There are other views that are better elucidated.
I just finished reading James Cloonan ( head of AAII) book on "Level 3 investment" where he makes the case that there has only been one ( 1929) situation where the SP500 has not recovered from a bear market in five years. So it must follow that that the only investment calculation required is to put four years of retirement expenses ( or college expenses or emergency money etc ) into safe assets and the rest into small cap (micro would be preferable he insists ) stocks and don't worry. He has interesting data to prove that as long as you didn't sell at the bottom in 2008-2009 you made out fine, even if you retired that year,
The question is will the next correction be equal to 1929, or will the general market take a decade to recover like the Nasdaq did?
I wonder how the market can keep climbing with job growth anemic, hourly average wages flat, declining stock earnings and the huge public debt.
If he is right we should be close to 80% invested... but what if he is wrong and the SEC has a good reason for requiring a statement "that past performance does not guarantee future results"?

I would say DSENX is a mix of a quant system on the equity side and human managed on the fixed income part, which by M*'s numbers is around 40%. Which confuses the heck out of me why it is in the equity large value category with a bench mark of S&P 500. Maybe I'm thinking incorrectly, but I see this fund as an allocation value style fund.
Whatever it is, it's method is working well right now. It is 10% of my self managed portfolio.
Question for @davidrmoran, do you know how to find out what 4 of the 10 sectors of the S&P the fund is invested in at any given time?

Hi Guys,
I couldn't agree more with you that the referenced article is extremely weak and confusing. That's especially disappointing given the credentials and professional positions of the authors. The article could and should have been more informative and far more explicit.
There is little doubt that we grossly under-save for retirement. By how much? The shortfall is huge. Here is a Link that provides nice summary graphs that highlight the shortfall:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-average-family-saved-for-retirement-2016-3
The referenced piece quotes Paul Samuelon. He's one smart economist. He famously remarked that " I hate to be wrong. But I hate more to stay wrong". So do I. Constant investment learning is crucial to success.
Having a diversified portfolio is necessary for that success. When young, a portfolio top-heavy in equities and other high return, perhaps volatile holdings, is very acceptable. Later, bond products could be added to,attenuate that volatility if so desired.
However, I personally recommend and practice retaining equity-like positions in my portfolio. Like most folks, I under-saved a little preparing for my retirement. Playing catchup is risky but sometimes necessary business.
Best Wishes.

FYI: There's no denying the importance and popularity of 401(k)s for retirement savers. Americans have $4.8 trillion invested in these tax-deferred savings accounts, according to the Investment Company Institute, and there are 52 million active 401(k) participants. BrightScope, a financial-information company that rates retirement-savings plans, compiled this list for Kiplinger of the most popular mutual funds in 401(k) plans based on funds' 401(k) assets under management.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T047-C009-S003-105-most-popular-funds-for-your-retirement-savings.html

Hi @Ted and others,
Good information as I feel a good sector allocation is very important for good returns.
Something I feel has helped me and something that I strive to do is to maintain at least a 5% exposure in the minority sectors of materials, real estate, telecom and utilities and a minimum exposure of 9% in the majority sectors of consumer cyclicals, financial services, energy, industrials, technology, consumber defensive and health care. When the mimimun holdings amounts are added up this totals 83% and leaves 17% that can be moved around to increase the weightings in my sectors of choice.
Currently, my four most heavly overweighted sectors from their minimum base allocations are energy, financials, industrials and technology. Thus far this year as reflected in Dr. Carson's chart all four have been strong performers.
And, so it goes ...
Old_Skeet

FYI: Being the “investment guy” in the family means I’m often approached during the holidays or at parties with questions about the markets. My most recent question was about a sector fund investment and its prospects going forward.
I’m sure you could come up with any number of intelligent-sounding narratives to describe which sectors will perform best or worst in the future, but no one really knows the answer to this question.
When asked about the potential for the sector in question I was reminded of this chart I created a couple years ago, which I have updated through last Friday:
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2016/12/the-hierarchy-of-investment-difficulty/

Was Bridgeway overrated? It may be the best of the bunch (quants), so perhaps the question might be rephrased as "are quant funds overrated?"

I think they are, generally speaking. IMHO the "less quant" a quant fund can be, the better it probably will do. IE, Vanguard's VMVFX is what I call quant-lite in terms of its construction, mixed w/a touch of active management/currency hedging....I own it, and like its construction, allocation, and investment process. Bridgeway's equal-wt BRLIX is all quant in its construction, but it's a simple system that is described and easily replicated if you didn't want to pay the .15 ER to the company. (I think BRLIX is one of their better-performing funds over time but haven't compared them recently.) If I need to park money into something that's a (thankfully) non-index LC fund, that's my go-to place.
Compare that to, say Arnott's PAUIX which has (last check) like 20 different slices represented by PIMCO funds -- with a ton of overlap if memory serves -- and percentages that are, imho, totally useless in terms of generating meaningful investment performance or diversity (ie, ABCDE position is 2%, etc.). Heck, some of these robo-advisors do that too ... frankly I think anything less than 10% isn't really much of a 'diversifier' anyway.

American Beacon has two different LCV funds. I believe you mean American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value (BRLVX) and not American Beacon Lg Cap Value (AAGPX).
As appears to be common with quant funds, Bridgeway's rule based systems (or model based, if you prefer) worked until they didn't. Between about 2007 and 2011 Montgomery worked on developing new models. You can see the change in performance of several funds around then. Sometimes the changes worked for a longer period of time, sometimes they only worked for a couple of years (BRUSX).
When Quant Funds Fail, M*, August 2010.
Was Bridgeway overrated? It may be the best of the bunch (quants), so perhaps the question might be rephrased as "are quant funds overrated?"

"The change has been so seismic that investors poured a net $20.7 billion into U.S. stock funds last month. That's the biggest month for stock funds since 2014 and a stark turnaround from the nearly $76 billion that left those same funds in the 10 earlier months, according to Morningstar."
That's great news for some of us. Although valuations have been stretched for some time (to say the least) there hasn't been the kind of euphoria among the Mom & Pop crowd that would lead me to move to a highly defensive position. My sense is markets don't die so much from high valuation as from investor euphoria. (Were the cause simply valuation ... we wouldn't witness drops in the magnate of 25-50% as sometimes occur.) Might a nice bubble now be in the formative stage? How many months or years will it persist before the inevitable pop?
At some future point (months or years out) fixed income will again look attractive and the smarter money will move out of their equity positions in favor of fixed. One fly in the ointment, alluded to by the writer, is we don't really know if Trump's stimulative agenda will get through Congress. Conceivably, he could hit a roadblock that would drastically alter current market perceptions.

FYI: For years, many refused to buy into the hype even as the stock market climbed to record after record. Wounds from the 2008 financial crisis were still too raw, and investors couldn't stomach the risk of watching their nest eggs drop by more than half for a second time. Instead, they favored bonds, which have pumped out relatively steady and healthy returns for decades.
Enter Donald Trump.
Since his surprise victory in last month's presidential election, stock prices have soared even higher, and bond prices have sunk on expectations that faster economic growth and inflation may be on the way. The change has been so seismic that investors poured a net $20.7 billion into U.S. stock funds last month. That's the biggest month for stock funds since 2014 and a stark turnaround from the nearly $76 billion that left those same funds in the 10 earlier months, according to Morningstar.
Regards,
Ted
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eccce9265a14436696911e70363398df/greed-trumping-fear-investors-give-stocks-another-chance

FYI: At a conference hosted by Boston University in 2006, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul A. Samuelson asked the audience whether personal finance was an exact science. He answered his own question with remarkable wit and wisdom: “Of course, the answer to that is a flat no. If this disappoints anyone in the audience, now is a good moment to rectify your miscalculation by leaving.”
Yet one of Mr. Samuelson's many contributions to the field of economics has been to build mathematical (dare we say, “scientific”) models to better understand how to optimize personal finance decisions, such as: How much should individuals save for retirement? How should they allocate their investment portfolio throughout their lifetime?
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20161222/BLOG09/161229981?template=printart

Thanks so much for sharing Ted.. can I ask if you have equal weightings in each?

@MFO Members; The Linkster believes that dividends are the mother's milk of investing. For what its worth here is a current list of my dividend portfolio, and current yields.
Regards,
Ted
Bonds:
Navistar 8.25% 11/21 Callable 2017
Preferred Stocks:
ALLY-A: 8.125%
ARI-A: 8.33%
CIM-A: 8.96%
DDT: 7.50%
MLP's:
BX: 6.13%
KKR: 3.98%
Common Stocks:
CSAL: 9.04%: (Tax free spin-off of WIN)
CTL: 8.98%
FTR: 12.28%
NLY: 11.65%
NI: 2.96%
PFE: 3.94%
T: 4.59%
VZ: 4.30%
WIN: 7.62%

if you want to win you have to avoid all or most of the obvious answers . To me they are 1b,6c,.7b,.13a

@ bee: I paid $5.40 which gave me a yield of 8.1% at the time of purchase. A 11/22/16 Morgan Stanley research report believes that after acquiring VZ subscribers in the Florida the stock should stabilize and has has a price target of $4.20.
Regards,
Ted

@Ted,
I am a subscriber of FTR. This was as a result of a service vacuum left when AT&T (U-verse) folded in CT.
I have taken an interest in following this stock when you first mentioned you bought it earlier this year. I have also watched this stock tumble over the last year. At what point, do you as an investor, worry about the dividend being impacted by the company share price? One would have to go back to the 1980's to find a comparative share price to today's $3.42. Also, the dividend trend since 2005 has decreased from .25/share to .10/share.
How do you, as an investor, deal with what I would call the "sour cream stage" of a stock like FTR? What I mean here is, how does an investor endure a 30% drop in share price (I believe you bought this first at about $5/share)? Seems more like a drying up of the mammary gland (mother's milk) to me.
Has the stock become an even more incredible buy than it was when you first bought it?
I will say collecting a dividend does help an investor be patient, but does an extended drop in share price curdle that milk?
Your thoughts?