Long term Treasuries are showing periodic shine and it may be the asset that is shining for PRPFX.
At Vanguard, I like EDV (Extendeded Duration Treasuries) during these "flight to safety moments".
Here's EDV charted with VTI (Total US Market) along with FXI (China LC companies) and PRPFX. EDV seems to do a good job of moving opposite FXI. I think of EDV and PRPFX are "insurance policies" against market downturns.

Started building an income portfolio (30% of our taxable money). A third of the portfolio will comprise of high risk high divident "stocks". So far, over the last week, purchased KMP, APL, SDRL.
L.

I think that is a good idea and kind of what I'm doing - I just think the only issue is that you have to be willing to take "shocks" in some/all/most of these names if interest rates do (ever) really move higher in a sustained manner. I own KMP, as well as OAK and BIP.
I think the other place I'd suggest looking is Canada. A number of Canadian REITs and oil names not only have good dividends, but many of them pay monthly rather than quarterly (Vermilion Energy, for example - VET in the US) You do have the foreign withholding tax, but still some of these names are interesting. I own Freehold Royalities (FRHLF.pk), which yields about 7.25% and is kind of an interesting oil royalty play managed by an exploration company owned by the pension of the Canadian National Railway (which I also own.) From the website: "The CN Pension Trust Funds also own approximately 26% of Freehold's common shares."

Thank you, Scott. Will look into the canadian names.
Price fluctuation won't scare me as I get fixated on a payout, but dividend cut might.
L.

I too (also being outside Boston) am rereading your first sentence many times, trying to reckon what you mean and then infer what you think you will need for cashflow in 15 years. cman and Charles have pointed the way. My own take is nothing but equities ... yet could you live with that, sleep, and not fuss? Answer seems to be no way. So one thing you could do is ask yourself why that is. I would put it all into AOA if I were lazy and had zero OCD. But yeah, >25% slump in early 09. (For any choice, graph beginning 08 to end 11 and see how it went.) If you will need 150k a year projected down the road, vs 100k a year, it changes everything. So more info, if you can figure and share it.

Rode 2008 down; didn't sell; rode it up. Most of my funds are on the same slope as pre 2008. That took 5 years; Willmatt72 has 15. At 5 yr pre-retirement MAXDD matters much more than at 15 yr. Bonds are risky now in the opinion of people smarter than me, although Grundlach sees them positively currently, so might need to invest with hm.

@STB65. The "nice" is driven by objective to minimize MAXDD. I think that knowing your drawdown limit is best way to knowing the kind of investor you are, no? It's easy when the market is going up, but when it heads south, not so much...

Willmatt72, these people are being entirely too nice. 40% bonds at age 49 with 15 years to retirement and GMO predicting negative returns against inflation for bonds? I'd need a lot of melatonin to sleep well.
At least look at target maturity bond ETFs for a significant portion of your bond allotment (unless you already are in them). You might be made whole at maturity.
25% cash might be a good idea this quarter (perhaps up to the mid-term elections), but you need to average in to equities with some of your cash sooner or later, perhaps the dividend ETFs, considering your risk aversion. (Or you can put it in Berwyn.)

Ran parameters through accipiters' search tool.Using rule of "72" for an ave return to double your nest-egg in 8-10 years( 7.2-9.0 Ave return). With a 20 yr standard deviation lower than it's ave return, BERIX is worthy of your stated goals.I do not own it,but it is often mentioned on this board as a solid choice in the conservative/moderate risk space.
Plugged in risk 2 and 5,10,15 time frame.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/search-tools/accipiters-miraculous-multi-search/
BERIX
Berwyn Income
Conservative Allocation
8.2 APR % 20 years
-13.0 Maximum Draw down
2009-02 Date ?? not sure of time length but one of best in category
6.0 Standard Deviation
2 Risk Group Conservative Allocation
5 Best return in Conservative Allocation in all time frames 1-20 years
20 Year Record with little management turnover
http://quotes.morningstar.com/fund/f?t=BERIX&region=usa&culture=en-US
BERIX Close to your current asset split with convertibles and preferreds in place of some of your equity %.

Losing 25% of principle in one year is not acceptable to me at this point.

I like that you are making downside risk a priority.
So, Priorty 1: Modest MaxDD.
Priority 2: Some dividend.
Priority 3. Liquidity. You don't state it, but it's implied with your 25% cash holding.
While past is no guarantee of future =), past volatility does tend to persist more than past return, which is beneficial since MaxDD is Priority 1.
In your case, I might look for conservative fixed income funds with downside deviations and Ulcer indices less than 4% and for moderate equity oriented funds with these indices less than 7%, given the 40/35/25 allocation you mentioned.
That should help limit drawdown to somewhere between 12 and 16% (depending on whether the next decline is just bad or really bad, like 2008).
I set Miraculous Multi-Search to Great Owls only, Risk Group 1 & 2, Age Group 10 & 20, then sorted by APR. These two funds returned the highest APR while still honoring the downside index limits of 4%:

Then, I upped the Risk Group to 3, repeated search and came up with these three moderate equity oriented funds, which honor the 7% downside indices:

Hard to go wrong with any of these (although I believe VWELX is closed). Sleep easy, especially given your allocations, and low maintenance.
If you have more specific categories in mind, you can set the search criteria accordingly. Ditto if you want to consider younger funds. And other top performing funds that are not necessarily Great Owls.
Hey, you might also check-out a thread from last year: Four Funds for a Lifetime.

Capital Preservation with an eye on mispriced opportunities might be one approach. You have an opportunity to be patient while attempting to identify market mispricing. For capital perservation determine your downside risk tolerance and hold funds that prove their relative strength.
Link related to your request,
The No-Frills Investment Strategy:
ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=374500
A Quick Review of Relative Strength Investing
Here is the three-step procedure for managing your mutual fund portfolio:
Step 1: Secure access to data sources that will provide you with at least quarterly price data and volatility ratings of a universe of at least 500 (preferably somewhat more) mutual funds. (Suggestions have been provided.)
Step 2: Open an investment account with a diversified portfolio of mutual funds whose performance the previous quarter lay in the top 10% of the mutual funds in your trading universe and whose volatility is equal to or less than the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, or, at the most, no greater than the average fund in your total universe.
Step 3: At the start of each new quarter, eliminate those funds in your portfolio that have fallen from the first performance decile, replacing them with funds that are currently in the top performance decile.

I'm just curious about your thoughts about what kind of risk is acceptable for a 49-year old about 15 years from retirement with a $1.1 million portfolio. I have very little debt (owe $120,000 on a mortgage on a $425,000 condo near Boston). Personally, I don't believe it makes sense to take any unnecessary risk so I've been about 40% bond funds, 35% equity funds, 25% cash. One of my goals has been to generate some income to help pay bills, etc. But I'm equally focused on capital preservation. Losing 25% of principle in one year is not acceptable to me at this point. If you are in a similar situation or feel comfortable providing input, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Volatility/Precious Metals Lead, Japan/China Off as well as Solar
Weekly ETF Gainers / Losers posted on Seeking Alpha
Gainers: VXX +7.97%. GDX +5.92%. GDXJ +4.98%. IAU +3.15%. PHYS +3.13%. Losers: TAN -7.79%. FXI -5.60%. EWJ -5.15%. URA -4.70%. REMX -4.69%.

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sp-500-dow-see-worst-weekly-declines-in-7-weeks-2014-03-14/print?guid=20DFF844-8E84-4B39-A785-97C85DB0F223
Major Indexes: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15839215

Yeppers, it's going to be bloody huge, but very slippery for the next few years as things sort themselves out. Actually, it's good that the states are going at legalization in such a diverse way - 20 now legal for medical reasons but the various rules are all over the map. 2 legal. Apparently there are quite a few up for ref vote this fall http://ballotpedia.org/Marijuana_on_the_ballot#tab=By_year
One thing that seems to be fairly common coming from a med direction is allowing patients to grow their own. This is key to keeping this democratized. However, the genie is loose and raising hell.
A mutual fund or ETF would be the ideal investment vehicle as it was with China. I remember back when China first took off. Way to dangerous to play directly but for a couple of years I played the old RIO (brazil iron ore), Fordham Coking (coking coal) and Posco steel out of Korea who were combining the 3 to make steel for china. It worked but was a bit convoluted. Right now, this is almost how you want to play pot. Since the legalized med here in Michigan, it's always been the growing supply stores that have made out (er, that's because they ruled dispensaries were illegal and they were the retail outlet for herb. Now it's grow your own or buy from a 'caregiver'. I think we'll see another initiative in 2016 to legalize it . . . and also same sex marriage.
The times, they are a changin' - suck it up and deal with it.
peace,
rono

I agree with the main thesis of this article, yet this nascent industry reminds me too much of the dot.com bubble. I'm sure that the lead horses will assert themselves in time and that there will be funds catering to this industry, don't know if there are any now. The trend is for much greater legalization of MJ, no doubt about it in my mind. The trick is how to profit off of this significant trend upwards which is just starting...
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/marijuana-will-be-the-single-best-investment-thesis-of-the-next-decade--minyanville-s-harrison-162358070.html

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=639145

FYI:
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101495890

Biotech is no longer a rising tide lifting all biotech stocks. May just mean some consolidation and mean reversion amongst them as the support level I mentioned last week (IBB around 255) has held for several days. This is a good sign.
I would still keep a tight stop at around 250-252 on it which represents about 7% pull back from its recent top. About 10% upside potential and 8-10% downside risk at this point.

Hi Guys,
David Swensen is a hero among the elite institutional class of investors. His record is outstanding.
I read his “Unconventional Success” book in 2005. In its introduction, Swensen admits that he made a major revision to the book’s planned outline soon after he started the project.
His investment success had indeed come from an unconventional approach. At Yale, he eschewed the common 60/40 mix of equities and fixed income investments in favor of more exotic and illiquid private placements, venture capital, real estate, timber, and hedge fund alternatives. This approach took very specialized experts and extensive research typically not accessible to the individual investor.
So, what worked for Yale was simply not likely to work for his prospective readership. Swensen revised the thrust of his book to accommodate these differences in capability and the result was a hugely successful book that the average individual investor could easily execute.
Swensen is obstinately opposed to active investing by amateur investors. Swensen observes that only a handful of super professionals can clear the hurdle of common benchmarks. This small group does it with esoteric, often costly, and historically ephemeral techniques. It’s a tough nut even for this exceptionally talented cohort.
In the end, he strongly endorses passive Index investing for individual investors.
Here is a Link to an 11 minute NPR interview conducted by Motley Fool Profiles with him soon after his book’s release:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4965681
In the interview, Swensen disagrees with the Peter Lynch position that private investors hold an edge over professionals. He concludes that the necessary research is just too demanding for the individual. I propose that Lynch’s most prescient decision was to retire when he did. His edge disappeared as the size of his fund grew to an unmanageable magnitude; his latter year returns were not especially impressive.
After Swensen’s name and fame surfaced in recent MFO discussions, I retrieved my copy of his book. I usually make a few notes during the reading and I found a few scribbles that I made at the time. I reproduce some of these notes here. I hope they’re accurate; my handwriting is only semi-legible at best.
“Regression to the mean, one of the most powerful influences in the world of finance, explains the tendency for reversal of fortune.”
“Thousands upon thousands of professionally managed funds routinely fall short of producing even market-matching results.”
“Individuals who attempt to compete with resource-rich money management organizations simply provide fodder for large institutional cannon.”
“Poor asset allocation, ill-considered active management, and perverse market timing lead the list of errors made by individual investors.”
“Overconfidence contributes to a litany of investor errors, including inadequate diversification, overzealous security selection, and counterproductive market timing.”
“Instead of concentrating on the central issue of creating sensible long-term asset-allocation targets, investors too frequently focus on the unproductive diversions of security selection and market timing.”
“As a general rule of thumb, the more complexity that exists in a Wall Street creation, the faster and farther investors should run.”
“Buying yesterday’s winners and selling yesterday’s losers inevitably hurts tomorrow’s performance.”
“Unfortunately, as asset size increases, active portfolio management becomes increasingly difficult.”
“Sensible investors prepare for a future that differs from the past, with diversification representing the most powerful protection against errors in forecasts of expected asset-class attributes.”
“Well-informed investors avoid lining brokers’ pockets with unproductive fees and enjoy higher expected returns from buying no-load funds.”
“Sensible investors avoid speculating on currencies.”
“Sensible investors avoid non-core asset classes.”
However,
“A modest allocation to emerging markets stocks contains the potential to enhance the risk and return characteristics of most investment portfolios.”
“With its inflation-sensitive nature, real estate provides powerful diversification to investor portfolios.”
And finally,
“Ultimately, a passive index fund managed by a not-for-profit investment management organization represents the combination most likely to satisfy investor aspirations.”
“Sensible taxable investors reach an obvious conclusion: invest in low-turnover, passively managed index funds.”
These sayings are not especially groundbreaking. Many of them had been expressed earlier by the likes of Ellis, Bogle, Malkiel, and many others.
I guess I owe a belated acknowledgement to Swensen. I was at least partially informed and guided by Swensen on many of the positions that I now advocate within the MFO exchanges. After reviewing my notes, I realize that Swensen served as one of my book mentors.
I hope you enjoyed the brief listing of Swensen quotes.
Best Regards.

Successful investors save regularly and routinely.

Good reminder - "good habits". Many failed to contribute to the retirement account (401(K), 403(b) and etc) even to level to get the maximum company match (i.e. free money). Same goes for saving for kids college funds via 529 accounts rather than future dollars from saving accounts.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/marijuana-will-be-the-single-best-investment-thesis-of-the-next-decade--minyanville-s-harrison-162358070.html

Some of the MJ stocks have already had a significant run and fallen back - see the ridiculous move that Medbox (MDBX) had, for example. There are a lot of little companies with a good story in this sector, but honestly, I'd rather an Altria say tomorrow, "We're going to invest big in this" and go with that and be done with it/not have to think about it/get nice dividend if I was going to invest in this theme versus investing in a MJ penny stock or two.
Yet, from what I've read, Phillip Morris and Altria have acted disinterested, which I find rather baffling.
I see a lot of people recommending the penny stock of Aerogrow (those expensive hydroponic growing kits you can buy for vegetables) as part of this theme. Meh.

I agree with the main thesis of this article, yet this nascent industry reminds me too much of the dot.com bubble. I'm sure that the lead horses will assert themselves in time and that there will be funds catering to this industry, don't know if there are any now. The trend is for much greater legalization of MJ, no doubt about it in my mind. The trick is how to profit off of this significant trend upwards which is just starting...
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/marijuana-will-be-the-single-best-investment-thesis-of-the-next-decade--minyanville-s-harrison-162358070.html