@davidrmoran +1

Got a note today from a friend who's son is recently changed jobs after 8+ years and is looking at rolling over his 401k to a new employer's 401k plan. He's been given the following recommendation of funds and percentage allocations. I told him that it might be worth sending it through the "MFO carwash".
Any thoughts would be much appreciated from the point of view of fund choices (individually) and from the perspective of overall portfolio construction. Here's the suggestions he received:
JVASX - 21%
MFEIX - 21%
GOGIX - 16%
HFMIX - 8%
JVMIX - 8%
PONPX - 8%
PVSYX - 8%
MLPOX - 5%
HIEMX - 5%
Thanks in advance.

Gosh BobC, am I sensing a little hostility here? You used to say (correctly) that TIAA Traditional (what you called the "traditional bucket") provided "limited options to make changes". But now here you are saying that they always "treat client dollars as TIAA-CREF dollars and put up all kinds of roadblocks to retain them."
That's a rather curious observation in a thread ostensibly addressing retail customers, and discussing nonTIAA funds that one might invest in through them. If I invested in, say, TWEIX through a TIAA DIY brokerage account, how would they treat my client dollars as their own?
When I look at their retail after tax VA (Intelligent Life), I see a product that Kitces praised as being clear and flexible when it came out a decade ago. As far as putting up roadblocks to getting dollars out is concerned, I see TIAA doing just the opposite. With most annuities, at death (if not annuitized), it's possible to keep the money there for years. With this annuity, if it doesn't go to the spouse, the entire annuity must be cashed out immediately.
It is true that the annuity discourages people from leaving (while alive) by dropping the annuity fees to a mere 10 basis points after a decade. If that's the kind of roadblock you were talking about, give me more roadblocks :-)

Hi, Simon. I would not get terribly hung up on whether a fund is style-box pure. We use Scout UMBMX. Long-time manager Pat Dunkerley. Great 1, 3, 5, and 10-yr rankings. Strong Sortino. You might also look at Parnassus PARMX. This ESG fund is really quite good. For many client accounts, we use VIMAX as a core, then add active as the "explore" piece.

FYI: The DoubleLine founder says short SPY, buy EEM with a dollop of leverage.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gundlach-makes-bearish-call-on-stock-market-as-sp-500-nasdaq-hit-records-2017-05-08/print

FYI: Nouriel Roubini wonders if investors are whistling past the geopolitical graveyard
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-are-markets-ignoring-geopolitical-risks-2017-05-08/print

I'm looking specifically for growth because I believe this bull market has years left to run - perhaps to 2030. After nearly a decade, we're finally transitioning from an interest rate driven market to an earnings driven market, and growth stocks are likely to benefit the most. Earnings will come from the application of new technologies.

Okay. Ask yourself this question. What are the changes of an actively managed mid cap growth fund outperforming VIMSX over the next 13 years?
I don't mean to preach. When I buy an actively managed fund, I'm not trying to mimic/outperform the market. I want to buy it because I want to assume MANAGER RISK. In my retirement accounts, I buy index funds because I am assuming MARKET RISK.
The worst outcome is when you get both MANAGER RISK and MARKET RISK. So if you want to buy an actively managed mid growth fund, maybe you can consider something like VMRGX. Take any of the above suggestions that are "mid growth" and compare against VMRGX. Hopefully that is instructive.

If you are really going to hold for up to 13y I sure would consider Tillinghast (FLPSX), who is probably not going anywhere, even though his area is not strictly growth. That fund gives a nice amount of non-US exposure to boot.

This write is from Wisdomtree, who is the vendor of HEDJ; but the write is a decent observation(s), versus a solicitation.
https://www.wisdomtree.com/blog/2017-05-08/Macron-vs-the-Coalition-of-the-Unwilling-Its-HEDJ-Time
Disclaimer: Our house does hold HEDJ, as our only directed international investment.
Regards,
Catch

I'm worried about succession woes at AKREX. So I sold I moved into CIPMX long time back. Not a 1 for 1 replacement. AKREX is accidental mid cap. I also bought SCMFX, but we all know how that turned out. PARMX would be an option but can't buy Parnassus.
VIEIX, VIMSX would be my recommendations, frankly. Not sure why you want "growth". FMIMX is another option.

Simon: For your information, U.S. News & World Report ranks 116 Mid-Cap Growth Funds and 11 ETfs.
Regards,
Ted
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/rankings/mid-cap-growth
ETFs:
:http://money.usnews.com/funds/etfs/rankings/mid-cap-growth

I would like to d/l price info (price, date/time, etc) for a group of about 10 specific stocks and mutual funds. I've used yahoo.com for several years, but they've changed formats several times w/o warning, forcing me to revise my processing. It's frustrating. I would like to find a good, solid, established, easy-to-use source.
Suggestions?

Thanks for the praise, though rather overstated. Thanks also for the reminder that the biggest problem (at least for me) with the BofA cards has been their simultaneous paranoia on card use (e.g. refusing a $500 car repair charge 15 miles from home) and frequent issuing of new numbers (due to security breaches on their end).
To protect against problems abroad, I try to always carry cards from two different issuers. Capital One is an excellent card for that, with 1.5% and no foreign transaction fee.
Rather surprisingly, Discover Card is also becoming a reasonable alternative (1% and no foreign transaction fee), since it's been working hard at expanding its overseas presence in the last couple of years.. The current Fidelity VISA card's also reasonable (2% rewards reduced by a 1% foreign transaction fee).

@msf: Thanks for reminding me why I am no longer a BoA credit card customer. Never have we had a card that was compromised more often, requiring issuance of a new card. Worst experience was the day we arrived in Vienna to find the card refused; believe me, you don't want to have to contact customer service from overseas on a hotel line charging you big Euros.
Pretty happy with Jennifer Garner and Capital One, 1.5% reward in $50 increments. I'm too dumb to figure out cards with airline miles; or maybe I just don't trust the b€|£¥s.
We could not do without your knowledge, msf. Back in the days when "Car Talk" was live, Tom and Ray used to say that Ray Suarez (PBS) knew everything. They didn't know our guru.

@MFO Members: One man's cup of tea is another man's poison. All brokers be it full service or discount have their strengths and weakness. There is no perfect brokerage house on this planet. It all depends on what your looking for. The same for credit cards.
Regards,
Ted
Best Full-Service Investment Firms Ranked by Investors: J.D. Power — 2017:
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2017/04/06/best-full-service-investment-firms-ranked-by-inves?page_all=1
Best Discount Brokers 2017:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/investing/the-best-discount-brokers/
Best Credit Cards:
https://www.creditkarma.com/creditcards/explore?pubKey=RFSVDJ8NOUC11YT1&categoryID=1007&pgsz=0&adposition=1t4

FYI: Some mutual-fund managers are biased toward stocks of companies run by executives with similar political views—and it hurts their performance.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-fund-managers-let-their-political-biases-show-when-picking-stocks-1494209283

I despise "Bank of 34 States" (You can't call yourself "Bank of America" until you are located in all 50 states).

The last thing anyone should strive for is maintaining various account balances with "Bof34" as a strategy to multiply credit card rewards.
I have a lot of respect for most of what @msf shares here..."Bof34" is not one of them.

@BenWP Interesting about the 2% cash back VISA at Schwab being dropped. Fidelity had a simple 2% cash back card offer through AmEx. I think it was in 2014 or 2015, they negotiated a deal with VISA for the same offer, and upon implementation dropped AmEx.

The Schwab card wasn't exactly dropped; it remained a VISA card, but most of the terms were changed.
Its affiliation with Schwab was dropped. Instead of dealing with FIA Card Services (a subsidiary of BofA), you now deal with BofA. Instead of it being a straight 2% rebate, it's a BofA Cash Rewards card (1%, 2% on supermarkets and warehouse clubs, and 3% on gas). The higher rebates only apply to the first $2500 per quarter.
While all that may sound worse than the Fidelity card (or Citibank's Double Cash), it added one benefit and retained one legacy benefit from the Schwab card. If you've got various combined balances with BofA/Merrill (including Merrill Edge), the rebates will be multiplied by 1.25, 1.5, or 1.75.
For foreign travel, the card retains the Schwab VISA 0% foreign transaction fee. ("Real" BofA Cash Rewards cards carry a 3% fee.)

I've been with Schwab since 1997 and love it. I had a brief dalliance with VG a few years ago with part of my portfolio, but did not care for them. Among other reasons, you can call Schwab 24/7, not so with VG.
Schwab people on the phone are probably the most polite people you will ever talk to. In the 20 years I've been with them, the only time I've been to one of their offices was last fall. I was encouraged by the local rep to come in so I did, but aside from a good conversation it was a waste of time. Everything I need to do is available on the website, or is a quick phone call away with a very nice person (who speaks English).
Their website and its portfolio tools are pretty good. They have a huge selection of NL funds (they don't have everything, nor does anyone else). ETFs are now $4.95 per trade (not really relevant to me, I'm not a trader).

If you mean a fund that allocates among different sectors or asset classes using etfs rather than stocks or bonds there are a few ETFs like that. I am thinking of Cambria ( an ETF they run is GAA) and CMGwealth.com.
The latter has a very informative newsletter weekly and a weekly asset allocation model using ETFs. It is worth reading but has a very bearish tilt so far.
Steve Blumenthal posts their performance figures online, but they cater mostly to advisors in separately managed accounts
https://www.cmgwealth.com/ri/cmg-q1-2017-quarterly-performance-update/
They have several mutual funds PEGAX for example that have the same name as the strategy but I am not clear that they are actually run the same. Morningstar lists rather odd portfolio holdings for them sometimes.
It all depends on how smart (or lucky?) the black box is behind the allocations