http://finance.yahoo.com/news/retirement-account-balance-compares-peers-143234713.html
Is it any wonder so few are prepared for retirement?

My 120k debt is at ~3.6% fixed and I can do better than that not paying that amount off but investing it. If I could refi at 40y (age 68), I would do so. It all comes down to sleep-at-night factor, that's all, hardly worth discussing in other, absolute terms. Orman vs Edelman, etc.

I don't have a mortgage either and it is a nice feeling.
I'm thinking that at some point it may be advantageous to take out a mortgage. With low interest rates AND a fixed rate mortgage AND the offing (I'm guessing in 10 years) might look good.
Think back to the 1960s when people had low interest rates; then in the 70s interest rates rose.

FYI: Fallout from Greece’s “no” vote on whether to accept its creditors demands in exchange for bailout funds is garnering most of the attention from market watchers early Monday.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/07/06/oil-prices-plummet-to-three-month-low/tab/print/

You cannot 'austere' (if that is what is meant) your way here to economic improvement or health.

You might enjoy this (if it links ok).
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.zeit.de/2015/26/thomas-piketty-schulden-griechenland&prev=search

Piketty: When I hear the Germans now say that they maintain a very moral dealing with debt and firmly believe that debts must be repaid, then I think: That's a big joke! Germany is the country that has never paid his debts. It can be obtained in other countries no lessons.

Tend to agree with bee. Assuming that money is money, it would appear to be a question of whether you want that money invested in the equity of your home or in some other productive asset like mutual funds.
We've always had a mortgage or rent payment of some sort. Guess we've grown used to it. The current one at 3% has about 10 years to run. I'll rather miss it when it's paid off. Think of a fixed rate mortgage as an "anti-bond" - or a bet on higher interest rates. It can serve as an inflation hedge by stabilizing housing costs during periods of rising prices.
I'd argue that you have more control over the money if it's in a highly liquid asset like a fund than in home equity. But, will admit that the home is the "safer" of the two investments and apparently (to many) has a greater emotional value.

Tax deductions (itemized deductions) can and/or will be altered if one's mortgage interest deduction is large enough to "help" move one into the itemized deductions portion of a tax return. This deduction then allows one to gather all of the other smaller deductions to become a larger value which may be a large enough dollar value to be of benefit to reduce taxable income.
'Course, everyone's circumstance will vary with this.
Many years ago, with the elimination (payoff) of our mortgage; we no longer had enough other deductions to itemize them on the 1040. But, the mortgage interest was gone and all is well.

FYI: You know Hancock and Washington and Franklin and Jefferson. You might even know Greene and Knox, Henry and Hale.
But it is very unlikely that you know the name Haym Solomon
Regards,
Ted
http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/07/04/the-broker-who-saved-america-3/

Bee asked: "Couldn't you reinvest these dividends yourself rather than "they reinvesting dividends" for you?"
Yes, and a lot of folks prefer to do it this way but......
-Many like to take all their dividends/distributions in cash and then reinvest them in shares of whichever company they hold presents the most compelling value to them at that time. This strategy almost always entails a transaction/trading fee unless one gets free trades for some reason.
-Others (me) like the option whereby dividends are reinvested free of trading fees and, in the case of some companies, at a discount to market value. EPD is one holding of mine that reinvests at a 5% discount.
My dividends/distributions in my Roth IRA accounts are not taxable. Those in my regular brokerage account are. Those in my SEP IRA one day may be.
Scottrade will not reinvest your cash distributions in additional shares. You get cash only. Fidelity will let you choose whether to reinvest or not on a security by security basis.
One note on the Fidelity reinvestment process - your cash is NOT reinvested at the share price on the day the distributions are paid. Fidelity buys sufficient shares up to 14 days ahead of the distribution date and reinvests your distribution at the average price they paid for those shares. Sometimes you win a bit, sometimes you lose a bit.
Also of note, if you use M* to track your portfolio their portfolio tracker program reinvests your cash at the share price listed/posted on the dividend declaration date. This is rarely, if ever, the same as the share price on the day the dividend is actually paid and almost surely is not the reinvestment price Fidelity uses. I cannot speak for the reinvestment process at other brokerages.

Hi Guys,
Thank you Ted for the Link.
Well, neither Consuelo Mack nor David Winters disappointed in this interview. Both were consistent with expectations.
Mack questioned Winter’s recent sub-par performance and his funds high cost structure. Winters mixed defense and offense claiming high research costs and a deep value seeking investment policy that is now the exception among active fund managers.
Winters noted that his contrarian’s style is especially out of favor because institutional investors are overly infatuated and committed to Index products. He believes the roughly 30% commitment to Indexing is a bubble scenario that will burst.
Of course, the issue is when the bubble will burst. That is unknown and unknowable. Until that time, truly active fund managers who own a largely active share portfolio are likely to underperform by Winters’ measure.
The Winters’ world model is reminiscent and similar to what came to be known as the Keynes Beauty Contest (KBC) model. To refresh your memory, here is a brief summary of the KBC from an old NY Times article.
“John Maynard Keynes supplied the answer in 1936, in “The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money,” by comparing the stock market to a beauty contest. He described a newspaper contest in which 100 photographs of faces were displayed. Readers were asked to choose the six prettiest. The winner would be the reader whose list of six came closest to the most popular of the combined lists of all readers.”
“The best strategy, Keynes noted, isn’t to pick the faces that are your personal favorites. It is to select those that you think others will think prettiest. Better yet, he said, move to the “third degree” and pick the faces you think that others think that still others think are prettiest.”
Institutional advisors and investors are the cream of the crop. They are the smartest, the best informed, have the most research resources, and have the most impact on the marketplace than anyone else. On a daily basis, this cohort accounts for 70% of the market’s daily trades. It is foolish to fight their current practices.
Regardless of Winters’ best intentions and judgment, if these institutional investors continue to favor Index products, prices on these products will continue to dominate price movements. My market opinions will have zero impact on market pricing; theirs will be decisive. Until these dominant players emphasize low P/E stocks, Winters’ performance will suffer.
Surely a change will happen someday, but few among us know when that will happen. I’m not among those few prescient souls. I’ll go with the flow. Stay strong on this 4th of July.
Best Wishes.

One M* thread with respect to possible annoyances:
http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/p/347815/3634184.aspx#3634184
I have looked at it off and on for the past few years more for my grandchildren donations rather than my own account. It's actually simple and credible. If nothing else one can get a great number of potential ideas from looking at the portfolio's that the site and others have created.

Article by Craig L. Israelsen:
"So after six years of a surging bull market, I wanted to revisit that analysis to discover: Does value-oriented investing still win out? My goal was to find out whether the value premium has persisted among U.S. large-, mid- and small-cap equity indexes — and, if so, to quantify its impact."
and,
'These findings do not argue for eliminating growth-oriented assets from a portfolio. However, the analysis does suggest that a value “overweight” is justified in the long run — particularly among small-cap U.S. stock mutual funds."

Article:
can-value-investing-still-trump-growth?

FYI: As investors’ move in droves to passive, low cost index funds, one veteran money manager is sounding the alarm. Wintergreen Fund’s David Winters says index funds are a dangerous market mania, akin to other market bubbles.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/premium-winters-2/
Web Extra: Active Opportunities: (Scroll & Click On Web Extra)
How hard has it been to be an active mutual fund manager, during a six year bull market, when you and most other active fund managers have underperformed passive index funds? That’s the question we put to Wintergreen Fund’s David Winters.
M* Snapshot WGRNX: http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/WGRNX/quote.html
Lipper Snapshot WGRNX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/wgrnx
WRGNX Is Ranked #140 In The (WS) Fund Category By U. S. New & World Report:
http://money.usnews.com/funds/mutual-funds/world-stock/wintergreen-fund/wgrnx

Perhaps, just perhaps, David Winters is a "regular" on WT because he is one of the sponsors of the program. It sure isn't because he is shredding the market as compared with less costly, more attractive alternatives:
CHART
@scott: "That said, it remains to be seen how long investors tolerate it."
Investors are not tolerating the fund's underperformance, as AUM have decreased from $1.67B (9/2014 per FundMojo) to the current $957M (per M*).
Kevin

Hi Scott,
Thank you for the superior summary of David Winters’ year long decision making slump. Given the quality of all your posts, I expect nothing less.
It seems like Winters has bumbled and fumbled from one bad decision immediately after another. Slumps happen.
That is definitely not the David Winters of 10 years ago when he abandoned Michael Price’s Mutual Series of funds. Winters had the opportunity to learn from two investment grandmasters, both from Price and for a short time from Max Heine. Considering the lapsed time, perhaps he is forgetting or misapplying the lessons and rules that they passed to him.
That’s especially why I am anxious to see the upcoming interview. It will allow us to contrast the high-riding star manager of yesteryear against the down-to-earth struggling manager of today.
Less importantly, I’m also intrigued by how Consuelo Mack will conduct the interview given that the Wintergreen funds are co-sponsors of her program. I anticipate she will do a competent, workwoman-like job. She is consistently polite, but does ask the tough questions.
Best Wishes.

Thanks from here too, Bee - the audio link is a really good source generally about strategic allocation for income-focused investing, and specifically for ideas for tweaks for H2 2015. -- AJ

Hi Guys,
Like Scott, I too look forward to the upcoming WealthTrack interview with David Winters. I learn from a master.
It will be informative to learn if some of his fundamental guideposts have changed recently. To test that possibility it is instructive to contrast a past interview with the one that Ted will post. Here is a Link to last year's video interview:
http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/david-winters-different-drummer/
Any substantial changes will be revealing.
Best Wishes.

I'm actually curious about this interview from the standpoint of whether or not Winters will be honest about some of the issues that he's encountered in recent years.
Winters has said that he believes in various themes including the rise of the emerging market consumer. The other theme that kind of ties in with that is luxury goods as Winters has believed that emerging consumers will want similar things. He's run into issues with emerging markets, plus a crackdown in China on luxury goods and a horrible period for Macau.
His tobacco stocks have worked out okay, but other themes (Canadian oil and gas is another) have basically been where you do not want to be in recent years.
Last, but certainly not least was the horrible idea of going after Coke as an activist. It got him nothing (and he should have seen that coming) and Buffett finally got to a point where he verbally really let Winters have it on air.
This was what Buffett said:
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/19369/buffett-on-david-winters-wintergreen
I know there is a view for the longer term and Winters has said as such. That said, it remains to be seen how long investors tolerate it.
That doesn't even get into the fees and minimum because Winters has compared Wintergreen to a hedge fund, despite the fact that he's rarely ever used any such tools.

Given today’s market conditions and the S&P 500 CAPE valuation, I anticipate an equity annual real return of 1.0%, and a bond return of 2.5% (mix of treasury and corporate holdings) over the next 10-year time horizon.
Add another 2.5% for inflation. I presently expect a 60/40 equity/bond mixed portfolio to generate an actual return of 0.6 X 1.0 + 0.4 X 2.5 + 2..5 (inflation) = 4.1% annual average actual return for the next 10 years. Given the crudeness of the analyses, the projection is 4% annually. Quoting anything more accurate is misleading.

On a macro level I agree. When you look at stagnating wages, labor participation rate, retiring baby boomer, increase of people on food stamps, cost of Obamacare it point to a economic malaise. Also, at some point we will get a VAT which should put an additional damper on things.

FYI: I will link interview early Saturday morning.
Regards,
Ted
Dear WEALTHTRACK Subscriber,
As we celebrate our tenth anniversary year on WEALTHTRACK we have been taking an in depth look at one of the biggest investment trends of the past decade, the huge migration of both institutional and individual investors from actively managed funds to passive, index-based ones, especially ETFs.
As we have reported before, index funds now account for a third of fund assets, up from 14% ten years ago. And recently exchange traded funds, or ETFs, have seen the lion’s share of the fund flows.
As Morningstar recently reported, U.S. ETFs have more than $2 trillion dollars in assets compared to nearly $13 trillion for all mutual funds, excluding money market funds. That means 14% of fund assets are now in ETFs, up from a mere 4% ten years ago.
During the current six year bull market index funds have outperformed the vast majority of actively managed funds. In addition, the cost benefits of index funds are considered to be overwhelmingly in investors’ favor, especially when compounded over time. The asset-weighted expense ratio for passive funds was just .20% in 2014, compared with 0.79% for active funds.
Even investors in active funds are opting for lower cost ones. During the past decade the lowest cost quintile of active funds received $1.07 trillion of the total $1.13 trillion dollars of the net new flows into actively managed funds.
With better performance and lower costs it’s hard to find anyone concerned about these developments. However this week we have an interview with a critic of the surge to passive investing. Not surprisingly, he is an active fund manager.
David Winters is CEO of Wintergreen Advisers and Portfolio Manager of the Wintergreen Fund, which he launched in 2005. He was nominated for Morningstar’s International-Stock Manager of the year award in 2010 and 2011.
He has been a WEALTHTRACK regular since the beginning because his traditional value–oriented, global approach worked for years. However the last five years have been rough. The fund has underperformed its benchmark and Morningstar World Stock category.
I spoke with Winters about why he thinks the move to index funds is a dangerous market mania, which puts retirees at particular risk.
If you miss the show on air this week, you can always catch it on our website. We also have an EXTRA interview with David Winters about the challenges of being an active manager during a six year bull market. Its available exclusively online. As always, we welcome your feedback on Facebook and Twitter.
Have a great 4th of July weekend and make the week ahead a profitable and productive one.
Best Regards,
Consuelo

https://www.artisanpartners.com/individual-investors/news-insights/news/press-releases/2015/artisan-partners-launches-developing-world-fund.html
Initially, the management team (apparently, a "team" is one now) will be based in SF:
https://www.artisanpartners.com/individual-investors/investments/developing-world-team.html