@Art,
I have 12% international, 1/3 of which is considered emerging market. I sold off ODMAX and ABEMX in favor of HIEMX earlier this year. It tends to be less volatile than the other two, has limited access to new investments, but was able to get in. Also added MINDX as part of emerging. I also have OSMYX for small cap intl. Like many others, have ARTGX and OAKIX for more traditional intl.

About 40% of the stocks in my core portfolio are foreign stocks (via mutual funds). About 36% of the foreign stocks are emerging/frontier markets stocks per M* data. (That equals about 15% of the stocks in my portfolio.) The core portfolio is essentially a buy and hold portfolio with infrequent trading. My thinking is that in the intermediate to long term EM/FM stocks have better growth potential than most other segments of my stock portfolio but are relatively somewhat undervalued. So, they get over weighted.
I don't have a tradeable sense about what might happen in the short term but currently plan to maintain about a 40% weighting for the EM/FM segment of my foreign stock holdings. If the market continues to punish that segment of my portfolio, I will be buying some more EM/FM stocks when the portfolio gets rebalanced if changes are made.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1498498/000119312515314419/d34943d497.htm
497 1 d34943d497.htm ASHMORE FUNDS
Filed pursuant to Rule 497(e)
File Nos. 333-169226 and 811-22468
ASHMORE FUNDS
Supplement dated September 8, 2015
to the Statutory Prospectus for Class A, Class C and Institutional Class Shares
of Ashmore Emerging Markets Currency Fund
On September 4, 2015 the Board of Trustees of Ashmore Funds approved a plan of liquidation (the “Plan of Liquidation”) for the Ashmore Emerging Markets Currency Fund (the “Fund”), with such liquidation scheduled to take place on or about October 9, 2015 (the “Liquidation Date”). On or before the Liquidation Date, the Fund will seek to convert substantially all of its portfolio securities and other assets to cash or cash equivalents. Therefore, the Fund may depart from its stated investment objectives and policies as it prepares to liquidate its assets and distribute them to shareholders. Any shares of the Fund outstanding on the Liquidation Date will be automatically redeemed on that date. As soon as practicable after the Liquidation Date, the Fund will distribute pro rata to the Fund’s shareholders of record as of the close of business on the Liquidation Date all of the remaining assets of the Fund, after paying, or setting aside the amount to pay, any expenses and liabilities of the Fund.
The Fund may make one or more distributions of income and/or net capital gains on or prior to the Liquidation Date in order to eliminate Fund-level taxes. For taxable shareholders, the automatic redemption on the Liquidation Date generally will be treated like other redemptions of shares generally – that is, as a sale that may result in a gain or loss to shareholders for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
Effective as of the close of business on September 8, 2015, Class A, Class C and Institutional Class Shares of the Fund will no longer be available for purchase by new or existing investors or be available for exchanges from the other series of Ashmore Funds, except for shares that may be purchased as a result of dividend reinvestments.
At any time prior to the Liquidation Date, shareholders may redeem their shares of the Fund pursuant to the procedures set forth under “How to Sell or Exchange Shares” in the Fund’s Prospectus. Effective September 8, 2015, or as soon as practicable thereafter, the Fund will waive any contingent deferred sales charges that may be applicable to the redemption of the Fund’s Class A or Class C Shares, respectively.
Shareholders may also exchange their shares for shares of a different series of Ashmore Funds, subject to any investment minimums and other restrictions on exchanges as described under “How to Sell or Exchange Shares” in the Fund’s Prospectus.
Investors Should Retain This Supplement for Future Reference

That's an argument for putting it all into TIPS. Ladder them so that you can live off of the meager coupons and periodic principal (at staggered maturities). With nominal interest near zero, this is essentially your mattress, but with inflation protection.
All of which is an argument that 3.3% should be the floor for any 30 year strategy. Or 2.85% for your 35 years. (Draw 1/30th or 1/35th of principal with the rest getting 0% nominal plus inflation adjustments.)
The problem with this strategy is that there's no possibility of the portfolio lasting longer than 30 (or 35) years. Most investment strategies are designed to last at least N years, and usually longer. So you'd better depart on schedule or before.

BobC you are absolutely correct. I especially like your last comment. While many obsess about a 1-2% slump in the DOW or S&P, or if they are properly allocated, diversified and sector selected the vast majority are just trying to get through the day. Back to fortifying the igloo. Winter's coming.

The short version:
talked a bit about the piece on a family's first fund and the notion of slow, steady, manageable gains. Highlighted the James Balanced: Golden Rainbow profile that Charles did and TIAA-CREF Lifestyle Conservative piece of mine.
in the "hold it or fold it" segment (viewer requests about individual funds):
Akre: great fund, distinct biases, a manager who's younger than Buffett but ...
Driehaus Emerging Growth: great fund but I'd look at their Emerging Small Cap Growth first. Two reasons - more interesting asset class and the presence of an options hedge that has reduced its volatility below the large cap fund's.
Vanguard Selected Value: it delivers what Litman Gregory promises, a collection of distinctive outside managers whose styles are complementary. Really nice risk-return profile, low expenses.
Manor Growth: meh. Seems risk-conscious, okay returns, nothing to write home about, nothing to flee.
Mentioned after the break: Diamond Hill Small Cap. They're in the red zone for closure. Over $1.6 billion with a strategy capacity in the $1.5-2.0 billion range. I have no inside information or special insight here but ...
David

Sorry not to be clear; I would never advise anyone, even conservative and risk-averse, provided they would not OCD over things every day or week, to be in anything but 100% equities at that age. All contingency funds, whether dry powder or emergency or nearterm needs etc etc, should be in cash (in this day and age). Everything else in equities. None of this balanced stuff at that age. Sez me, a parent to two young-adult investors.

Why would anyone ever do 10% bonds at age 35?

What would your recommendation be?

Jaffe says: " My favorite statistic showing why such criticism is necessary comes from David Snowball of MutualFundObserver.com, who in his September commentary noted that the term he sees being used most to describe recent market activity has been “bloodbath.” ...
“By Google’s count,” Snowball noted, “rather more than 64,000 market bloodbaths in the media.”
---
This is true. The hype seems excessive relative to the market. My last glance showed the Dow down a bit under 10% YTD and the S&P down less than 7%. Those are mere "drops in the bucket" in terms of normal market swings.
I'm not as sanguine, however, on the commodities front. Something very unusual seems to be going on there. And it seems quite broad-based. I'm not expecting anyone to weap for those of us who keep a foot in that sector. However, to the extent it may be a harbinger of more serious economic problems, it should be a bit concerning to everyone.

@golub1, "I might buy call options at a price lower than the current index (an out of the money call)." If the strike is less than the price of the underlying, that call is "IN the money."

Pure robots are definitely faster - the data are "untouched by human hands".
The impression I get of mass marketed portfolio management services (e.g. Fidelity Portfolio Advisory Services) is that they have a few different portfolios (possibly comprised of a gazillion funds, likely built with "robotic" assistance), and they match you to the closest portfolio. For their 1% fee or so, they provide some handholding ("stay the course"), and talk to you.
Vanguard provides a financial plan, and I'm confident uses the "robotic" tools to allocate investments based on longer discussions with you, and what your needs and time frames are. A bit less cookie cutter. John Markoff talks about AI vs IA (intelligence augmentation); Vanguard would appear to be taking the latter approach.
He was on CSPAN a week ago, talking more generally about robots replacing humans:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?327812-5/washington-journal-john-markoff-robots-manufacturing

90% equities?
My 'inner-robot' is screaming 'Danger Will Robinson'....
Someone help me out here --- I guess I just don't get the "robo-adviser" fad... Seems more like marketing the sizzle, rather than delivering the steak. These retail brokerages are demonstrating they are "doing something", so they can seem to show they are adding value. Is a robo-adviser for investors too lazy/stupid to rebalance their own portfolio? If so, is an investor who is too stupid to rebalance, someone who should be 90% exposed to the equity markets?
15-16 years ago, would Vanguard's fully human advisor have provided the exact same allocation recommendation to a 35-year-old? If so, how does adding a "robot" improve things. Frankly, I would be more concerned with any broker who suggested a 90% stock allocation in 1999 -- when it would have failed so miserably -- then invests (how much) in a robo-program which delivers the same result in the 6th year of a bull market..
By the way, are Vanguard robo-human advisers cyborgs/bionic? Are they better than the fully human advisers? Better, stronger faster?

Just as a reminder: RNDLX is very different from RNCOX. If you haven't, you might want to glance at the Observer's profile of RiverNorth DoubleLine Strategic Income. RNCOX allocates between CEFs and ETFs, depending on the opportunities available. RNDLX allocates between fixed-income CEFs and two separate strategies run by Jeffrey Gundlach; Mr. G's work has nothing to do with CEFs. Currently it's 54% CEFs and 46% DoubleLine.
Here's the fund's homepage if you'd like to poke about.
David

Hi, golub!
In the September 2015 update, I left the description of the two portfolio sleeves alone since they haven't changed and I thought they were reasonably clear. The most substantial parts of the rewrite were my attempt to explain that the options part of the portfolio does not transform this into a low-vol / market neutral fund. The managers believe in value investing and have construct a reasonably risky portfolio of value stocks. If in the short-term those stocks go down, the fund goes down. The effect of the options is to generate income which partially offsets the downside; the best explanation I've got is that the long portfolio + options should decrease in value less than the long portfolio alone would.
I understand that the options strategy is complicated, all the more so become there are many types of options. The shortest explanation for what exact the Gargoyle folks do comes from their website: "The long portfolio is complemented by a highly-correlated short portfolio of relatively overpriced near-term call options on various equity indices." If you're interested in the under-the-hood part, that is, the detailed description of the function of the various sorts of options, you might read the Equity Options Primer. If you Google the phrase "selling options to reduce portfolio volatility," you'll find explanations from Russell, JP Morgan, Eaton Vance and BlackRock that all attempt to explain, and occasionally quantify the effects of, the strategy.
There is a buy-write index (BXM) that's tradable. If you go to the CBOE's microsite for the buy-write index, you'll find links to the research on the strategy. The shortest version is this: a passive S&P 500 buy-write strategy is about 30% less volatile than the S&P 500 but, over the long term, returns just a bit more than the S&P. As a result, its various risk-return measures are significantly higher than a long-only portfolio's.
For what that's worth,
David

Why would anyone ever do 10% bonds at age 35?

Not sure I understand the question . If you think its too few bonds I sort of agree but there are plenty of people that age who are 100% in equities. If you think its too many bonds I would argue that its always good if a bear market occurs to have a source of funds to add to equities

Why would anyone ever do 10% bonds at age 35?

WHY 4% COULD FAIL
Sep 1, 2015 • Wade Pfau & Wade Dokken
http://www.fa-mag.com/news/why-4--could-fail-22881.html
Our research shows that Americans retiring in 2015 need to be far more conservative in their withdrawal rates during retirement. The historic 4% annual withdrawal rate is over two times the level that Americans can safely withdraw without expecting to outlive their assets. The real safe withdrawal rate, accounting for fees and today’s stock and bond market levels, is under 2% per year.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Above is a link to a very interesting article that explores impediments to current implementation of a 4% (+ subsequent inflation adjustments) retirement withdrawal rate.
However, the version of the article in the Financial Advisor Magazine ("FA Mag") Sep 2015 issue is a little confusing for a couple of reasons.

First, the article as rendered (either in print or online) suffers from typos or mis-referenced figures that make it more difficult to follow than it should be.
Second, some key assumptions do not appear in the article but can only be found in the appendix of the related whitepaper. These relate to the mutual fund costs and financial advisor fees.
Specifically, a financial advisor fee of 100 bps, and average mutual fund expense ratios of 67 bps for stocks and 60 bps for bonds.

Below is the whitepaper link which appears at the beginning of the FA Mag article. NOTE: It asks for name and contact information. Whitepaper contains assumptions in an Appendix and the whitepaper's figures are properly referenced and completely labelled. I suggest you read the Appendix first.
WHITEPAPER
http://www.fa-mag.com/rethinking-retirement-wealthvest-0815
And here - from Professor Pfau's website/blog is page with references and links to earlier papers on related topics :

WADE PFAU RETIREMENT RESEARCHER READING ROOM & BLOG
http://retirementresearcher.com/reading/
http://retirementresearcher.com/blog/
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE
Wade Pfau is Professor of Retirement Income at the American College for Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, PA.
Wade Dokken is Co Founder & Co President of WealthVest Marketing, a firm that designs, markets, and distributes fixed and fixed index annuities.

Seems to be a couple ongoing threads on the same subject.
ZEOIX has held up better over the last month and year to date. But I do have a concern about this fund's risk. Zeo Strategic Income has 32% invested in its top 5 holdings. There are only 31 holdings across the board. So this fund is very concentrated. Maybe not as concentrated as a Bruce Berkowitz fund, but still doesn't have any diversification. Okay RPHYX has few holdings too, but is a little less focused.

Maybe you have seen it already, but I would check out ZEOIX on MFO as a Great Owl Fund. It has very good numbers for risk, SD, Ulcer Index, etc.

Type Riverpark Gargoyle in the search function. David profiled the fund in March of 2014 .

FYI: Put the Linkster in the 10% rally camp ! (Click On Article Title At Top Of Google Search)
Wall Street’s top strategists are bullish on U.S. stocks through the end of this year and into 2016. Why they like technology, financials.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=U.S.+Stocks+Could+Rally+More+Than+10%+by+Year+End++barron's