FYI: Most corporate philanthropy follows a conservative and predictable course, but at American Century Investments, a $152 billion-asset mutual fund firm in Kansas City, Mo., charitable giving has a whole new level of meaning and commitment. In 2000, American Century’s founder, Jim Stowers, broke ground on the Stowers Institute for Medical Research. He endowed the organization over the years with $2 billion, including a chunk of his wealth and, crucially, a 40% share of his mutual fund company. Since then, the medical institute has received $1.1 billion in dividends from American Century.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/penta/2015/08/28/how-american-century-investments-funds-science/tab/print/

@David_Snowball Why did you have to go and splash cold water on such a tender moment of bonding? The stroke felt so good, it felt so right......
Actually, his colleague, Josh Brown, posted something similar to his blog. They must have had lunch together, or something:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/08/27/computers-are-the-new-dumb-money/
Yes, in his mind, Monday was a human triumph, and machines formed the loser crowd.

Why not come out and accurately describe what really went down on Monday? One of my second cousins uses very colorful language, for which I am one of the few to grant full artistic license. He would describe it so: on Monday, ETFs shit the bed!
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150826/FREE/150829928/wild-market-volatility-puts-fresh-focus-on-workings-of-etfs

I'm sorry, Dex, but I cannot grant any legitimacy to this figure until it--- as so many other fine government statistics--- has been "seasonally enhanced adjusted." :)
BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Master II Total Return Index Value©
2015-08-27: 1,045.85 Index (+ see more)
Daily, Close, Not Seasonally Adjusted, BAMLHYH0A0HYM2TRIV, Updated: 2015-08-28 7:12 AM CDT

Sure would have been nice to include some evidence in support of that claim. Barry's evidence seems to come down to two things. First, computerized selling created Monday morning's disconnect between price and value. SBUX was down 22%. Some ETFs were down 30%. Second, he links to an article from January 2012 on the theme "sure has been quiet around here lately." Sadly, neither of those two bits of information (nor the fact that hedge funds were poorly allocated and that CNBC's ratings suck) support the claim that mom 'n' pop are finally cool, steely creatures.
The evidence he offers that folks are buying more ETFs actually points in the opposite direction (the "T" is for "Trading" and evidence I've seen suggests that people who possess trading vehicles, well, trade them). The evidence that TD Ameritrade froze up and that Vanguard had to do the "all hands on deck" thing to cover incoming calls suggests that mom 'n' were on the phone and at their keyboards . The WSJ reports that Tuesday's stock fund redemptions were the greatest in eight years.
I'd really like the headline to be true. I'm just not sure that I've seen the evidence to substantiate it.
David

FYI: Here’s a bit of role reversal for you: Mom and Pop were content to ride out the market’s volatility this past month, more or less sitting tight. Meanwhile, the pros were driven to the point of near panic.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-28/mom-and-pop-outsmart-wall-street-pros

FYI: (This is a follow-up article)
There’s no other way around it — on Monday morning, a large portion of the U.S. ETF market experienced a structural crash. How else would you categorize it when an ETF like the S&P 500 equal-weighted “RSP” fell 43% on decent volume and took over 30 minutes to recover? This ETF tracks the 500 stocks in the S&P 500 on an equal-weighted basis instead of on a cap-weighted basis, and its underlying index was down well under 10% at its lows on Monday morning. Other U.S.-index tracking ETFs fell 30%+ as well. The S&P Smallcap 600 “IJR” fell 30% at its lows, while the Smallcap 600 Growth “IJT” fell 34%. Even the Nasdaq 100 ETF “QQQ” was down 17.25% at one point, while its underlying index was down just 9% at its lows.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big/

Good point jerry.
I'm trying to take a more sanguine view of the article. I assumed his title was referring to the past 5 days. Oops! Instead he's summarized 5 important days in market history, extracting a lesson from each (cute):
1. Valuations matter.
2. Diversification is important.
3. Pessimism and hysteria accompany market bottoms.
4. High-frequency trading causes distortions.
5. Appearances can be misleading (China as example).
---
#1 - Probably the most important point he offers. Valuations matter.
#2 - Subject to debate. For younger investors with very long (25+ year) time horizons an all-equity portfolio would be better in my opinion.
# 3 - This should be obvious to any seasoned investor or market watcher
#4 - True - but if you're a long term holder of good mutual funds, let the fund manager worry about it. I don't purchase individual securities, so I can't offer much here. But I'd expect that this development works against the "little guy" most of the time.
#5 From Mark Twain: "Moralizing, I observed, then, that all that glitters is not gold. Mr. Ballou said I could go further than that, and lay it up among my treasures of knowledge, that nothing that glitters is gold."

I think we have all got into the habit of buying and selling mutual funds in the last 15 minutes. The lesson is don't try that (in the first or last minutes with ETFs or individual stocks

I want to thank each of you very much for your detailed and thoughtful comments. I'm always impressed reading about the strategies that each of you employ. I've got a lot to learn. Thanks in particular to Scott, Press,and Old Skeet for the discussion of specific ideas and links. Gives me some great weekend reading for strategy development!
Scott, I'm quite intrigued by your discussion of real estate investments. You clearly know this area well. If I'm somewhat limited in the amount of capital currently available I'm wondering if it might be better to with a REIT fund vs. individual names. Are there specific funds that you like a great deal in this area? If not, I can do some research on the names that you list above and perhaps just buy small positions across a few stocks. I'm also reading up on Ecolab based on your earlier posts. That also looks quite interesting. thanks so much again everyone!
Good article on dividend payers in Morningstar today -- http://www.morningstar.com/cover/videocenter.aspx?id=712994

Still can't seem to post the full thing I wrote out and couldn't include this in the above w/o getting an error, but just to throw a list out of the rest w/o the commentary I'd written: Vornado/Boston Properties (VNO/BXP, although I wouldn't recommend them until they come down further), Retail Opportunity Investment Corp (ROIC), Brookfield Property Partners (BPY) or parent company Brookfield Asset Management is an excellent idea if you don't want the paperwork of BPY), Tanger Factory Outlet (SKT, while I don't like retail, a well-managed high-end outlet mall REIT that held up surprisingly well in 2007/2008) , Colony Capital (CLNY, not going to do much, but should be stable high yielder), WP Carey (WPC) and Howard Hughes (HHC, no yield now, possibly in the future, http://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2015/05/06/bill-ackman-baby-buffett-howard-hughes/)

Michael...if you like the idea of divi payors, pay close attention to what Scott recommends for reits...in your deferred account. Always do your own research, but it's worked nicely for me. That's a nice addition to a portfolio.

Personally in regards to real estate, things that come to mind in the moment - may be others, but just throwing some things out... as noted above, always do your own research.
No particular order:
1. Starwood Property (STWD) Somewhat dull, excellent management, not going to be a home run ever but high income that I have a degree of confidence will remain stable and grow. Will benefit from rising rates and the presentation on the company's website has outlined how much they will benefit.
2. Ventas (VTR) Has been obliterated, but high-quality healthcare REIT that is somewhat cheaper in the literal sense now after they did a spin-off. I'm not against the major names in healthcare REITs, but feel Ventas is particularly high quality.
3. Kennedy Wilson (KW). Not much of a yield, but interesting integrated real estate company (not a REIT) that owns real estate and provides services (auctions, etc.) Somewhat volatile. Famed investor Prem Watsa's Fairfax Financial had a large stake in Kennedy Wilson (although I believe a significant amount and possibly all of it is convertible preferred) as of recently, I'm not sure what the stake is at this point. From the end of 2014 letter: "We have invested $629 million in real estate investments with Kennedy Wilson over the last five years. Through
refinancings, sale of some loan portfolios and gains on hedging contracts on Japanese yen, we have received
distributions of $465 million. Our total net cash investment in real estate investments with Kennedy Wilson is
therefore now $164 million, and that investment is probably worth about $350 million. We have yet to sell though,
while our cash flow return of 11.2% is very acceptable. Also, we continue to own 10.7% of Kennedy Wilson
(11.5 million shares): our cost was $11.90 per share, and the shares are currently trading at $26.19."
--
4. Equity Lifestyle Properties (ELS). Sam Zell chaired REIT that is heavily into RV/campground/retirement communities. Lots of waterfront/near water land. Compelling (while not everyone is going to be into RVs, where the land is is the thing) but not cheap at all and not a great dividend. Still, unique and worth having on radar.
I'm trying to post the rest of this but it's not letting me, I keep getting an error.

"This sage advice smacked me in the face Tuesday night, coming from a 20-year Wall Street trading veteran. After the craziness of the previous few trading days, he emailed to ask if I wanted to grab a drink. So we did."
1. Does the author identify the 20-year Wall Street veteran? Oldest trick in the (journalistic) book is fabricating interviews with presumed knowledgable individuals as a way of making your own conclusions more palatable to readers.
2. Note that he arrived at these conclusions over a drink(s). Booze usually makes me smarter too.
3. The title of the article is ludicrous on the surface. I've been investing, reading and following markets for at least 40 years. Still haven't learned everything I need to know.

I am particularly fond of BRUFX, the Bruce Fund. It's not available thru the big brokerage houses (Schwab, et al.), but it has a 15 year annual return of 15.46% compared to 10.11% and 10.08% for FPACX and PRWCX.

I'm hoping BRUFX with help cover my future some of my out of pocket "unhealthiness"...I have an Health Savings account with Bruce Fund that I contribute to monthly.
There is no cash position other than the internal cash held by the fund so you are always fully invested in the fund which probably helps contribute to the low turnover mentioned by @NumbersGal.

I am particularly fond of BRUFX, the Bruce Fund. It's not available thru the big brokerage houses (Schwab, et al.), but it has a 15 year annual return of 15.46% compared to 10.11% and 10.08% for FPACX and PRWCX. and Bruce shines in shorter time periods also. One difference between BRUFX and most of the other moderate allocation funds is that Bruce's stocks fall in the mid-cap style box. The father-son team which runs this fund doesn't do fancy interviews or annual reports; they just concentrate on investing. As a bonus the fund is relatively tax-efficient with only an 11% turnover.

A-ha! "Robert The Bruce!"
http://financials.morningstar.com/fund/management.html?t=BRUFX&region=usa&culture=en-US

FYI: (I will link interview early Saturday morning when it becomes available for free.)
Regards,
Ted
August 27, 2015
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
Most of the top rated money managers we interview on WEALTHTRACK are what are called “bottom up” investors, they build their portfolios one security at a time, stock by stock, bond by bond by carefully analyzing the fundamentals of the security itself, the company it represents, the business it’s in, and the customers it serves.
This week’s guest, Brian Singer, takes a different approach. He is what is known as a
macro investor. Singer is Portfolio Manager of the William Blair Macro Allocation Fund which he and his team launched when they joined William Blair in late 2011.
The Macro Allocation Fund is rated five-star by Morningstar and has outperformed its Multialternative category handily over the last three years with over 9% annualized returns.
Prior to joining William Blair, Singer was the head of investment strategies at his namesake firm, Singer Partners and prior to that was head of global investment solutions and Americas chief investment officer for UBS Global Asset Management.
Singer’s top down approach doesn’t involve choosing individual securities. It does mean actively managing across asset classes, geographies, currencies and risk themes.
We’ll find out why he strongly believes that macro matters for individual investors. He will also share his “One Investment” idea for a long-term, diversified portfolio.
As usual, the show will air on Public Television this Friday and over the weekend. You can check your local listings here. If it’s easier for you to watch the show online, it’s available to our PREMIUM viewers right now. Otherwise, it will be available on our website over the weekend. In our EXTRA feature, you can also see our exclusive online interview with Singer about his positive take on Bitcoin!
Have a great weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and productive one.
Best Regards,
Consuelo

I am particularly fond of BRUFX, the Bruce Fund. It's not available thru the big brokerage houses (Schwab, et al.), but it has a 15 year annual return of 15.46% compared to 10.11% and 10.08% for FPACX and PRWCX. and Bruce shines in shorter time periods also. One difference between BRUFX and most of the other moderate allocation funds is that Bruce's stocks fall in the mid-cap style box. The father-son team which runs this fund doesn't do fancy interviews or annual reports; they just concentrate on investing. As a bonus the fund is relatively tax-efficient with only an 11% turnover.

FYI: Mr. Gundlach has prospered during the turmoil by betting that interest rates would stay low and by avoiding minefields such as emerging-markets currencies and energy bonds.
Regafrds,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150827/FREE/150829922?template=printart

FYI: Here are four days from the past 15 years that taught some harsh lessons—and a guess at the lessons investors will learn this time.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/08/27/5-days-that-taught-investors-all-they-need-to-know/

FYI: (Clink On Print, Top Left For Easier Reading) This proven picker of foreign stocks is taking advantage of scary headlines and falling share prices to put his fund’s cash to work.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T024-C007-S001-oakmark-s-david-herro-buys-first-chinese-stock.html