Oh well. Had to happen sooner or later, I guess. We'll have to see how long it lasts. Though I prefer the FT anyway and am a happy subscriber there already.
BTW the NYT[1] just launched a thing where new subscribers also get free premium accounts on Spotfiy. To me, that's a win-win and while I've not subscribed to Spotify, I plan to sign up to reward good journalism. And hey, I don't mind seeing what Spotify is all about, either.
[1] You know, the newspaper that's allegedly "failing" in some deluded assessments despite double-digit growth in subscribers and readership.

Hi @VintageFreak,
I am sorry to learn of your difficulties in your attempt to purchase F sares. I am going to reference the link to American Funds I recently posted above.
https://www.americanfunds.com/individual/investments/share-class-information/share-class-pricing.html
It reads, in part, "Class F-1, F-2, F-3 & 529 F-1, are designed for invstors who choose to compensate their financial professional based upon the total assets in their portfolio." With this, I'm thinking that to purchase F shares your account has to be part of a qualified fee based program. Is your account at TIAA part of a fee based program?
Again, I admire you trying to find a short cut around the above ... and, if you do "I say "Bless You" and don't tell.
Again, I am sorry to learn of your difficulities; but, not surprised. And, I wish you the very best in your finding a resolution to this matter.
Best regards,
Old_Skeet

VF, at Fidelity the minimum is $2500 for the inicial purchase of F1 shares. Maybe you need to investigate what the minimum is at your brokerage?

dude... TIAA clearly says minimum is $250 and additional is $50 for F-1 shares. It has NTF logo displayed prominently as well. Can we just agree TIAA is the culprit here, not me and move on :-D

FYI: (Click On Article Title At The Top Of Google Search)
Natixis, Pimco, State Street, and American Funds top Barron’s latest list of mutual-fund-family winners. A year marked by change
Regards,
Ted
http://www.barrons.com/articles/best-fund-families-of-2016-1486794270

F1 and F3 are different. The latter are a reaction to the new Fiduciary rules.

VF, at Fidelity the minimum is $2500 for the inicial purchase of F1 shares. Maybe you need to investigate what the minimum is at your brokerage?

Different brokerages have different deals with various fund families. Currently, AF has deals with Schwab and Fidelity (only, AFAIK) to allow F-1 shares to be purchased by retail investors.
This is not a new share class, it is by definition NL, and has generally been available since shortly after inception (2001) at many brokerages. But sale of this class is usually restricted to advisors (what M* denotes as 'A' on its fund purchase pages).
This is a very normal situation. How many times have we seen posts here asking: Does anyone know where I can get fund X? Or, why is my brokerage forcing me to use an advisor to get fund Y? Or, I can't get fund Z NTF at my brokerage any more, where could I still buy it?
For example, Scottrade says that it sells CIBFX NTF. Yet read Scottrade's page for these F-1 shares:

! CIBFX is an Advisor Class fund, which is available to investors who are working with a Scottrade® Advisor Services Registered Investment Advisor.

https://research.scottrade.com/qnr/Public/MutualFunds/Summary?symbol=CIBFX

Hi, Sandra.
The panic of 1837 was one of the major financial events of the 19th century, at least as far as the emerging U.S. economy was concerned; about a hundred actors were moving simultaneously and independently, and we have terrible documentation concerning most of them. (It's the sort of story that I love playing out when I'm teaching the research course on Historiography.)
The 2nd Bank of the U.S., indeed, had a 20 year charter. It served, literally, as the bank of the United State. The federal government deposited its cash into, and paid its bills out of, the bank. As a result, the bank had substantial (huge, for the day) cash reserves that it could lend out to other banks. By controlling that lending, the Bank of the U.S. served to discipline the rest; "get crazy and we cut you off." Jackson was pissed, in part, because the Bank of the U.S. discriminated, in his judgment, against frontier financial institutions. When he became president he took two sets of actions against the bank. He refused to renew its charter (effectively breaking its monopoly power) and he withdrew the federal reserves from the Bank of the U.S. and deposited them in other banks that he thought would be more pro-growth. (Or, his critics charged, would lend to speculators.) In particular, that moved hard currency away from the more established banks in New York City, our emerging financial center, and into the hands of folks in ... say, Louisville or St. Louis.
The net effect was to remove one brake on the system and add fuel to it.
Then other stuff happened. Reduced liquidity in the central banks. Minor British banking crisis which led them to demand specie for US banks. Land and financial speculation. Jackson's demand that bills owed to the federal government be paid in gold or silver (technically, "specie") as a way to check land speculation.
One of the dullest, but most careful, bits of economic historical scholarship is Peter Rousseau's essay for the National Bureau of Economic Research, entitled "Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic Of 1837" (2011). After 40 numbingly careful pages of financial flow analyses, he concludes:

The Panic of 1837 was the culmination of a series of policy shifts and unanticipated disturbances that shook the young U.S. economy at the core of its financial structure -- the banks of New York City. Over the nine months leading up to the crisis, the specie reserves of these banks came under increasing strain as they reacted to legislation designed to achieve a “political” distribution of the surplus balances among the states and an executive order allegedly aimed at ending speculation in the public lands. With much of the nation’s specie diverted from its commercial center, the prospect of shifts in specie demand both domestically and from abroad combined with a break in land prices to render the panic inevitable.

So, not the refusal to recharter the Bank per se but the effects of defunding it?
And I certainly agree that the test for Mr. Trump, as for Mr. Carter before him, is the sticking power of his initiatives. That, in part, might be driven by whether he can drive the election of a lot of like-minded persons in the Congressional elections of 2018.
For what that's worth,
David

Schwab has lots of load waved A shares for many good funds. Don't need to settle for American Funds. For example, I own SGENX, NTF, load waved and listed on their income list if that's what you're after. Also a world allocation fund that has better results then the 2 American world allocation funds mentioned. Low starting investment, $100
Just food for thought.

Hi, hank.
I was pondering that very point ("in a 100 years") on the drive in this morning. At least in terms of political culture, the last shift this disruptive might have been when Andrew Jackson came to power in 1829. Mr. Jackson represented a sharp break from both the policies and style of the dominant political culture.
There's a particularly interesting episode in Jackson's tenure; he triggered an economic boom by dismantling the Second Bank of the United States, which functioned as the era's regulator of financial markets. The surge of economic activity rolled on to wild excesses in the financial markets, defaults, eventually a strong government (over)reaction and collapse in the financial panic of 1837 - 44.
Just pondering,
David

The Second Bank of America only had a 20 year charter that expired in Jan 1836. During its tenure there were 4 recessions. The Panic of 1837 was caused by factors that began in 1834.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837
While looking for parallels between Trump and Jackson might be made; the one with the Second Bank of America is not one of them. If you want to ponder something try this one: Why does Trump confound the elite, news media and Hollywood? His history and the things he said during the election and after would have mortally wounded any other politician.
http://www.history.com/topics/jacksonian-democracy
"It has confounded some scholars that so much of this ferment eventually coalesced behind Andrew Jackson..."
The real test of Trump affect on the future will be if he gets a second term. If he gets one term and a Democrat wins, his changes will be superficial and short term. The politicians will look at him as an exception and not a mandate for change. If he gets a second term then even his opponents will have to move closer to his positions.

Now only 7% of Bruce's FAIRX portfolio, but still...it's something. While it lasts.

Try Schwab.

Hi, hank.
I was pondering that very point ("in a 100 years") on the drive in this morning. At least in terms of political culture, the last shift this disruptive might have been when Andrew Jackson came to power in 1829. Mr. Jackson represented a sharp break from both the policies and style of the dominant political culture.
There's a particularly interesting episode in Jackson's tenure; he triggered an economic boom by dismantling the Second Bank of the United States, which functioned as the era's regulator of financial markets. The surge of economic activity rolled on to wild excesses in the financial markets, defaults, eventually a strong government (over)reaction and collapse in the financial panic of 1837 - 44.
Mr. Trump has endorsed with comparison, in part by hanging a picture of Mr. Jackson behind his desk in the Oval Office.
William Jennings Bryan (1900, 1908) might have been a similarly transformative if he'd won. Huey Pierce Long, likewise, if he hadn't been assassinated and had beaten FDR in the '36 primary.
Just pondering,
David

@David_Snowball

It's a relatively concentrated fund with just 38 stocks; that's high commitment for a small cap product. A number of their holdings had a decent day (1-2%) but their second largest holding (Blackbaud) rose 13.5% and their fifth largest (Tyler Technologies) rose 10%. No idea of why but I'm guessing that accounts for most of the jump.

Also interesting is that AGOZX, now managed by Amy Zhang, a past member of the BC team for 12 years, gained 3.07%, have these two companies in its own portfolio and 7 holdings among its top ten with that of BC as of EOY.

(From David's opening remarks): So why the rally? Mostly, I suspect, because people have become unhinged by the circus in D.C. Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s best speech-writer and doyen of the country-club Republicans, frets “we are living through big history and no one here knows where it’s going or how this period ends… Mr. Trump has overloaded all circuits. Everything is too charged, nothing feels stable. ‘Nothing is stable,’ [a prominent friend] replied” (“In Trump’s Washington, Nothing Feels Stable,” WSJ, 2/4-5/17). In such moments of great uncertainty, crowds surge. (I think about the news reports of people crushed to death against the doors of a burning theater as the crowd behind them rushes without thought or perception.)
---
Yep - A potential Supreme Court test case of Presidential Powers arising within the first month in office? Has to be some kind of record. All I would wish for would be to be around in 100 years to read the history books on this period.

Hi, Ben.
It's a relatively concentrated fund with just 38 stocks; that's high commitment for a small cap product. A number of their holdings had a decent day (1-2%) but their second largest holding (Blackbaud) rose 13.5% and their fifth largest (Tyler Technologies) rose 10%. No idea of why but I'm guessing that accounts for most of the jump.
David

CAPE crossed the $100 share price mark this week. Not meaningful, but rewarding if you own it.

FYI: Some alternatives, traditional equity, and fixed-income ideas from our Morningstar Prospects list.
Regards,
Ted
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=791893

FYI: With interest rates up from their record flows of 2016, the search for yield among investors isn't as intense as it was last year. Still, with rates at historically low levels even now, there's plenty of demand for high-yielding products.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.etf.com/sections/features-and-news/top-10-highest-yielding-etfs?nopaging=1

Just FYI, I entered order for BALFX for $250 at TIAA. Why? Because it clearly says for F1 shares, fund is NTF and minimum investment is $250.
Then they reject my order. Jokers! I'm already regretting opening account with them.