Yes, I have read and heard from at least a few different experts that EM debt in DOLLARS these days is a good place to be investing. I've been in PREMX since 2010. I'm really not sure where to find out just how much of the portf. is in dollar-denominated debt. Morningstar seems to give the impression that it is at least most of the portfolio.

I am an amateur when it comes to investing, but no slouch about the study of history. Prior to the 1929 Crash, wasn't margin-debt at an all-time high? People borrowing to buy stocks? It's unnerving to read that.

@catch22: Thanks for your input. Moving some of vtsax to poskx: is a good idea, the latter being from primecap family. My equity is purely US and at 90%, do not expect current income even after retirement in 2018(except capgains from the likes of prhsx, vhcox etc in the taxable accts). I use vanguard brokerage and essentially most funds are ntf.

"1. ‘It can’t go up forever,’ or ‘We are overdue for a downturn or a correction.’"
It cannot go up forever, but theoretically, it can go far further than anyone could expect. It really strongly appears to me that Central Banks are absolutely of the view that economic Winter has to be held back at all costs. I'm not saying that they will be successful, but they will push their theories until things get disorderly.
QE (and as I've noted, market didn't even have to go down much and there was a Fed governor the other day talking about the potential for more asset purchases - I thought the market would have to drop 15-20% for that conversation to even start) and ZIRP will not in and of themselves result in a sustainable recovery or fix underlying problems that need to be addressed.
This is not saying that stocks can go up forever, but there's a lot of variables and reflation or bust clearly seems to be the theme of central banks. Again, I'm not saying that stocks go to the moon, I'm simply saying that - for some reason - central banks this time around seem as if they are going to take this to the limit.
If it doesn't work, they'll never admit it - problems are "transitory" and theories don't work because there "wasn't enough". With those views, things will - I think - be taken to the limit until they get disorderly. What that looks like we'll have to see, but I still think this period ends badly. I think in some ways with ZIRP and QE this is the ultimate bubble and it would not surprise me if the global economy looked very different on the other side.
2. ‘Because the bull run has been long, any decline is going to be big, too.’ - This is a patently false premise. Duration of a bull market is not the determining factor in the severity of corrections. Valuations and economic conditions are the primary drivers.
Variables.
3. ‘The Federal Reserve is serious about raising rates now, and that’s going to end the rally.’ - The first part of his statement is probably true. The second part does not necessarily follow.
Who knows what the hell they want. You have different Fed governors saying different things every other day. The Fed can say that they want to raise rates, but they said that a couple of years ago, too. It gets to the point after several years where it looks bad that ZIRP is apparently still a need and does kind of go against their often overly optimistic economic projections. If that looks bad, imagine how it will look if they raise rates 50 basis points and then have to backtrack and lower rates again. That would be a clusterbleep of epic proportions.
The Fed is ultimately "data dependent", but there is a real, strong element of "baffle them with BS" that is becoming more and more apparent with each passing year. As far as I'm concerned, this is a MOPE - management of perspective economy and the Fed is trying to manage the market's view of the economy for as long as they continue to have credibility. You should not be trading based upon what Yellen, Bullard or anyone else says on any given day because guess what? They could very well say something entirely different two days later. And all the discussion about the Fed raising rates might meet resistance with economic reality.
4. ‘The government will screw this up.’ - This is a silly argument. Governments come and go depending on the outcome of elections.
Of course they will. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of what government does these days is simply "hot potato" - hope they can buy time by financial engineering and other garbage in order to get to hand things off to the next person. Or, they hope they can throw enough money at problems that they don't have to actually go through the difficult task of having to solve them. And hey, it's a lot more popular to throw money at problems than to make difficult decisions - until things fall apart again.
5. ‘The market is overpriced.’ - This is probably true in general. However, it's a straw-man so "all-inclusive" that it's easy to knock down.
Meh. It depends on so many factors.
6. ‘You can’t lose money in cash, so I will wait until the next downturn passes.’ -
Well, you can if the government decides that ZIRP and QE aren't enough and decide to step it up to things like NIRP and devaluation.

About LPEFX, with a 5.5% front-end load and a 1.59% ER I personally don't find anything interesting about this fund at all. That'a a 7.09% deficit from the start that an investor w/o access to a load waiver has to jump over to even begin to make any return. Also, assuming M* (and this is one BIG assumption) has this dog placed in the appropriate category, the fund trails it's category badly. I'd pass and just hold a few of the entities outright but to each their own. Disclosure: I own BX & KKR.

I think what concerns me about this fund is that - as you noted - you get everything, and that includes both the good (the A-list, like KKR, BX, OAK and a few others - including Brookfield and Danaher) along with some of the London traded PE funds, as well as some other entities, which are a mixed bag.
Owning the individual entities has issues (K-1's, although not with all of them - BAM and Danaher, for example) but ultimately that's what I've gone with. The individual names often provide quarterly dividends, too, which is what I'm looking for and I suppose this is just such a tricky and volatile industry that there is something to going with the biggest and best versus the whole thing.
Again though, just me.
Long BX, DHR, OAK and BPY. I've pondered Onex and a few of the other things. However, I'm probably done after making BX a larger position than I'd initially imagined it being. Private equity investments are quite volatile and not for conservative investors.

About LPEFX, with a 5.5% front-end load and a 1.59% ER I personally don't find anything interesting about this fund at all. That'a a 7.09% deficit from the start that an investor w/o access to a load waiver has to jump over to even begin to make any return. Also, assuming M* (and this is one BIG assumption) has this dog placed in the appropriate category, the fund trails it's category badly. I'd pass and just hold a few of the entities outright but to each their own. Disclosure: I own BX & KKR.

#3 touches on....but #1 in everyones plan should be NO Payments, and small utilities bill only.....everything else is minor Except Money Saved...which if it don't have..... probably Too Late for you

David shared a copy of his quarterly shareholder letter with me earlier this week. It's posted on the RiverPark site now and it's worth reading.
I came away from it with two strong impressions:
there may be emerging structural problems in the investment-grade fixed-income market. At base, the unintended consequences of well-intended reforms may be draining liquidity from the market (the market makers have dramatically less cash and less skin in the game than they once did) and making it hard to market large fixed-income sales. An immediate manifestation is the problem in getting large bond issuances sold, a potential problem might be the emergence of a roach motel issue if things get rocky. That is, it might be easy to get in but impossible to get out of some safe issues.
Mr. Sherman is very cognizant of the need to have portfolios that could ride out a storm without the need to liquidate holdings; better than half of RPHYX will roll off to cash with 60 days and a quarter of RSIVX is invested in the same securities as RPHYX is. His argument is that given the challenges facing large bond issues, you really want a fund that can benefit from small bond issues. That means a small fund with commitments to looking beyond the investment-grade universe and to closing before size becomes a hindrance.
Some of his concerns are echoed on a news site tailored for portfolio managers, ninetwentynine.com. An article entitled "Have managers lost sight of liquidity risk?" argues:

A liquidity drought in the bond space is a real concern if the Fed starts raising rates, but as the Fed pushes off the expected date of its first hike, some managers may be losing sight of that danger. That’s according to Fed officials, who argue that if a rate hike catches too many managers off their feet, the least they can expect is a taper tantrum similar to 2013, reports Reuters. The worst-case-scenario is a full-blown liquidity crisis.

The article goes on to express concern that holding elevated cash levels is a poor response since panicked withdrawals could quickly exhaust even an elevated cash stash (see 'Total Return Fund, PIMCO" for details), leaving managers "out of both cash and choices." The better solution, they argue, is building "organic liquidity" into the portfolio. Which, I believe, is what Mr. Sherman has done.
Hope your weekend has started well. It's cold and rainy here, which is keeping me out of the garden and close to the keyboard.
David

Let's see: active share provides a model contrary to AQR's business model. AQR's researchers re-run analyses of the A/S data which (surprise!) shows that AQR's business model is the right one. Fidelity, with a regrettable number of closet index funds, does the same. In the past, such analyses have sometimes misrepresented the data (commonly by complaining that it's misleading to compare funds to a single benchmark like the S&P500, which is true but which is not what Cremers and Petajisto did).
Does that mean they're wrong?
Nope. It means that they have a vested interest in the results and, consequently, their conclusions need to be viewed as one voice in a debate between partisans rather than as a dispassionate judgment.
Other voices in the debate include Callan & Associates, which looks at product-pairs (two funds run in the same style by the same management team) and concludes that the more-focused of the funds tends to have significantly higher A/S, alpha and beta. They conclude that A/S is a useful predictive construct, but only one of many you need to consider.
A more-partisan response comes directly from Cremers and Petajisto who allege that AQR, like the others, misrepresents their benchmarking strategy. "They were able to replicate the main results in our paper, showing strong evidence that active share has been strongly predictive of mutual fund performance once you adjust for the benchmark performance.”
My own take, as you know, is that active share makes logical sense: if your portfolio closely replicates the portfolio in your benchmark index, your portfolio has an extremely low prospect of producing results that differ from your benchmark's. That is, if my actively managed fund is the S&P499-Plus-One, it's likely to track closely the S&P500 index - and to lose out based on the drag of fees and indirect costs. That said, merely being different clearly does not automatically translate to being better. That leads to our focus on a bunch of "soft" factors like whether the portfolio strategy makes sense, the manager can articulate his approach to risk-management, the advisor communicates clearly, the insiders are deeply and directly invested in the strategy and the fund (or strategy) has negotiated rocky markets in the past. None of that is perfect, but collectively it seems to point in a generally good direction.
For what that's worth,
David

This is only going to be offered to accredited investors. However, it is interesting from the standpoint of allowing to invest in KKR funds without investing in KKR itself and the K-1 that comes with it.
I'd like a fund of funds that can invest in private equity funds across multiple companies and is a mutual fund.
I'll continue to stick with OAK and BX, the latter having become a larger position than I initially planned given that stock's volatility.
Also, with the KKR fund, there is a two year lockup.

@MJG
1. "I can be succinct in response."
A: Yes, and it would greatly facilitate dialogue if you would endeavor to be so more often.
2. "I never claimed that any of your comments are "incorrect". "
A: Here's what you said: "You are in substantial agreement with the six common axioms that often misguide over-reactive investors ..."
3. "I consistently respect everyone's market perspectives."
A: What one says and does are two different things. To profess respect - but than proceed to inundate a discussion with one's own doctrinaire perspective(s) may not be respect.
4. "Everyone is free to express an opinion."
A: We agree here.
5. " In this instance I surely did not challenge your analysis."
A: See #2 above.
6. "I likely overreacted ..."
A: "Overreached" is a better word. My analysis did not address what steps (if any) an investor should take. It focused only on Jaffe's analytical approach.
7. "I wanted to emphasize the primary importance of defensive investing ..."
A: Than we were not on the same page. There was no reason to address your remarks directly to me. My purpose was merely to highlight the superficial nature of the article, separating out the accurate statements from the false or exaggerated assumptions.
Thanks for your response.

@dicksonL
Finding my username in your post.....not knowing your other holdings or whether your IRA(s) has access to a brokerage feature, to allow you to place your monies just about anywhere; I can only add to what msf noted with a few trinkets of thought regarding your questions.
With the following in mind; per Mr. Snowball's "statement of the obvious", that "We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it,"
This is my/our view from this house; but will not be appropriate for everyone regarding a taxable acct. or a tax sheltered acct. as noted for your 401k and IRA(s).
You noted: " Since IRA acct can go more aggressive, for tax free growth for 6 more years( a lesson I learnt only 2 years ago) before RMD kicks in, I am tweaking my portfolio, making more index based in taxable and aggressive in IRA. my 401k with ltd. choice is on s&p500@0.17%"
>>>I will presume you are stating that your IRA holdings may be invested in whatever without current concern about taxation. Aggressive, for me; has a different meaning. Aggressive could perhaps imply a portfolio of 100% in equity investments.
I agree with msf regarding the choices you noted in your taxable account; and agree that one should place whatever is most tax efficient for your choice of holdings into this area.
As for the tax sheltered accounts; one does not have to be concerned with taxation at this time; so one may "fiddle" with whatever is most appropriate for their risk/reward investment emotion. Buy and sell when you need or choose to without regard to current tax from the transactions. This, obviously; is the nice part of tax sheltered holdings. In the end, per current tax policy; we/you will pay tax on the withdrawals at an ordinary income rate at the federal/state level, yes?
A brief overview would be that you may choose to be aggressive with your investments in both types of account holdings; leaning towards the most tax efficient for the taxable account, eh? Two choices were noted in your post and in msf's reply about tax efficiency. I do not have a direct opinion of either of your choices. You noted replacing one with another. Perhaps you may decide to keep the original fund, but move some of this money to the other fund, too. I have not looked at the funds, so I don't know how similar they may be regarding the investment style/holdings.
The majority of our holdings are within tax sheltered accounts; so we have not been concerned about tax efficient holdings. Our main goal has always been captial preservation (money to live for another day, to take advantage of the long term compounding effect) and capital appreciation in whatever form it may arrive, be it income/yield or price appreciation. This goal, of course; is regulated with our own value of risk and reward from the investments.
Currently, we are about 65% equity within the broad U.S. and Europe areas. In June of 2008 we were at 90% investment grade bonds. Our portfolio is ever changing and may be slightly aggressive for some near or in retirement; and will remain in place, until we feel the investments are no longer working/happy.
Only my 2 cents worth.
Take care,
Catch

The fund's performance is fine (two years in the top 5%, two years in the bottom 5%, strong start to 2015)

But how do you benchmark something like this? All Royce funds have style creep -- how can you (for example) benchmark a hypothetical fund that can hold 30% international small- and midcap stocks against the US small cap index (which is exactly the kind of thing Royce does all the time)?
In this case, what is the benchmark? And, can you trust Royce/Legg Mason to not change the portfolio strategy every 3 years to boost market performance or capture flavor-of-the-month investing trends?

Hi everyone,
I use LPEFX for my exposure to listed private equity firms. Currently, LPEFX makes up about four percent of the growth area on my portfolio and I am thinking of raising this, over time, to about six percent.
I have linked the fund’s fact sheet along with its M* report for those that might have an interest in private equity.
http://www.lpefund.com/documents/pdfs/alpsredrockslistedprivateequityfund-fs-20141231.pdf
http://www.morningstar.com/funds/XNAS/LPEFX/quote.html
I wish all … “Good Investing.”
Old_Skeet

FYI: Mutual-fund managers like to say that investors pay them to make “the tough decisions.” But one of the toughest decisions a fund manager can make is the one most of them never take: to turn away more money.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/04/24/funds-when-closing-time-doesnt-come-soon-enough/tab/print/

This study (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2597122) documents that the active share measure, which has attracted so much attention in the past few years, has no performance predictive power once the analysis is done carefully. This is a real problem given that many financial advisors and consultants use this measure to pick funds for their clients. In addition, some funds seem to heavily advertise having high active shares, potentially misleading investors.

FYI: No one wants to be a statistic, but when it comes to retirement preparedness and confidence, everyone falls somewhere in the spectrum.
You’re either part of the 58% of workers who are at least reasonably confident about having enough money for retirement, or you’re in the parts of the populace that are significantly more nervous about their future. You either have a financial plan, which is boosting your confidence, or you lack a plan, which is holding your outlook down.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/5-things-you-need-to-have-a-successful-retirement-2015-04-24/print

OOPS.
http://i1.wp.com/boingboing.net/images/is_it_fucked.png?resize=328,457

Admittedly making some possibly unfounded assumptions, $1.5B x 8.5% = $127.5M cash to lend, while making a few pence on the ETF management. Looks like a pretty good business plan to me, and, if they can only make 4.7% on the cash, they match the .4% management fee the other robos charge. Is this a great country, or what??
They give you the free lunch, but then you gotta drink the Kool-Aid. Darn.....

From the SEC, Microcap Stock: A Guide for Investors (2013):

The term "microcap stock" applies to companies with low or "micro" capitalizations, meaning the total value of the company's stock. A typical definition would be companies with a market capitalization of less than $250 or $300 million.

That's quite a distance from Royce Micro-Cap Opportunity's billion dollar boundary. The portfolio, as currently constructed is about two-thirds microcap and one-third small cap. The portfolio's average cap is $720 million.
The fund's performance is fine (two years in the top 5%, two years in the bottom 5%, strong start to 2015) but its asset base is nonexistent, perhaps a reminder that the world doesn't need two dozen Royce clones. I suppose the remaining is a futile marketing gesture given the Royce also runs Royce Micro-cap and Royce Micro-cap Discovery.
David