I said 9.6mb but Catch's mention of baud refreshed my memory. So was it 9600 baud? It took about 10-15 minutes to download a webpage too. Of course I had a old Apple LC2. 16mhz processor.

@ron
You have a decent mix of bond holdings, IMO.
A prior post from you leads to the conclusion that you are looking at TIPs funds to fill another bond sector.
You likely have already done this, but I would dig through the list of TIPs funds to find whether there are other choices that may be of interest, too.
The temptation of use LTPZ is still there, perhaps. As we discussed last week, this holding can be a real winner, too; but may also be as variable as many equity funds. The last few days have found a lot of swings in pricing, mostly to the downside.
Having been discussed prior too, is the aspect that managed funds have a variety of holdings that may not all be TIPs; including other u.s. issues, varying durations and IG corp. bonds.
With the exception of finding a few TIPs funds with 3, 5 or 10 year records over and above most other TIPs funds; I would likely buy a TIPs etf (lowest E.R.) and watch it at least once a week for price changes.
Take care,
Catch

Hi @Old_Joe and @JohnChisum
Well, the new "one" does "route"; but the box and unit name is still labeled as "modem".
A Motorola/Arris, Surfboard, Model SB6141. The "company" is pumping and/or can pump more to us, as we demand. The download speed for this model is at 343mbps maximum. Part of this change is that the old modem/router was coming to and "end of life" status to match changes in the cable system; and the possible near future use of Netflix video streaming and perhaps online gaming (no, not gambling).
Although my personal preferred gaming/gambling is investing, and it does not take much bandwidth to lose money, eh??? :)
Lastly, a long, long time ago; just after electrons were "invented", I serviced an online system containing numerous modem connection points over phone lines from a central location to end points within various communites. The connection was bi-directional and at a blazing speed of "300 baud rate" (300 data bits per second). I almost could swap a modem circuit board fast enough before the other end realized the board was missing from the system, to report a comm. failure. :)
Apology to you, ron; for allowing us to have this therapy session, not related to your original post, to relieve the pressures of investing.
Catch

i invested a small portion of portfolio recently (PRRIX version in the old 401k) as i think inflation is underpriced. it is of course subject to interest rate risk, but it will lose less than the treasuries of the same maturities due to inflation breakevens.

Actually the other "Bruce" fund (BRUFX) has outperformed FAIRX significantly over the last 15 years with much less volatility (16.56% annualized). I invested some Roth IRA money in BRUFX about 10 years ago and sort of forgot about it. Surprised at how it has grown since then.

FYI:
Regards,
ted
WSJ Slant:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-stock-futures-rise-1423142850
Bloomberg Slant:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/u-s-index-futures-advance-as-twitter-rises-michael-kors-falls
Reuters Slant:
http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USKBN0L91KP20150205
Marketwatch Slant:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-futures-point-to-rebound-as-greece-gets-put-in-its-box-2015-02-05/print
WSJ Markets At A Glance:
http://markets.wsj.com/us
Sector Tracker:
http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/tools/sector-tracker
Current Futures;
http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

Easy...
1) the BEST manager you can find
2) only the best Companys as holdings
3) higher than catagory/market returns over long periods.... at least 10 years
Then you have a winner

The REIT ETF will be sub-advised by BlackRock, as are their other sector ETFs, and benched to a MSCI index. e.r.= 0.12%.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fidelity-adds-reit-etf-sector-163046672.html
Yet another choice in an ever-growing pool: IYR, VNQ, DRN, URE, SRS, ICF, SCHH, RWR, KBWY, DRV, REK, FRI, FTY, PSR, WREI

I was actually wondering if they might not be looking for talent to run their current e.m. fund? A fair asset base ($250M) but performance that was never better than index-like (2006-early 2010) and noticeably worse of late. It's also the only fund that didn't have a retail version at launch.
Curious, as well,
David

@Crash & Other MFO Members: One of the reasons I recommend SHRAX is that Rich Freeman has managed the fund since inception in October 1983.
Regards,
Ted

FYI: The best mutual funds are the ones with the best performance, right? The short answer is yes. But it is wise to invest a few minutes of time in the slightly longer answer.
Regards,
Ted
http://investorplace.com/2015/02/best-mutual-funds-performance/print

FYI: The Wall Street Journal recently shared an interesting piece of news about Bill Gross’s new fund with Janus Capital. Investors poured $1.1 billion, an important threshold for attracting institutional clients, into his brand new unconstrained bond fund. That’s a pretty decent haul, but the real scoop here was that more than $700 million of those inflows came from the same Morgan Stanley office in California. And it just so happens that this is the office that one of Gross’s financial advisors works.
Regards,
Ted
http://awealthofcommonsense.com/bill-gross-financial-advisor/

In four years, AUM has gone from $18.8B to $6.6B. At that rate he only has a couple of years left to prove he is right.

"“We will look wrong until markets believe we are right,” said Mr. Berkowitz, who scheduled Tuesday's event to respond to investor e-mails. “Given the human condition, we are much less comfortable answering when the crowd will agree with us.”
Ugh, the crowd thing. Sometimes the crowd is right and the human condition sometimes results in difficulty admitting errors.
"Mr. Berkowitz also said investors fail to appreciate the value of real estate owned by Sears. He said losses from the struggling firm's retail business will eventually end."
Yes, they will when the company does, too. If he means it any other way he's lost his mind or has fallen way too much in love with Eddie Lampert and his delusional turnaround story based around a membership program with no fees.
"The Fairholme Fund has shrunk to about $6.6 billion as of Dec. 31 from $18.8 billion at the end of 2010, according to Morningstar."

FYI: Fund manager says buying hated stocks "requires patience and courage of conviction"
Regards,
Ted
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150205/FREE/150209961?template=printart

Other managers worth checking are Bernie Horn from QFVIX, Mark Yockey from ARTMX, and Walter Bean/Daniel Peris from IVFIX. The latter is particularly interesting if you like to emphasize dividend yields, which is an attractive 4.97% and has a very low 11% turnover.

Hi BobC,
Hope all is well with you!
Since I constantly get Artisan symbols mixed up, I have tried to better familiarize myself with them. Did you mean ARTIX?
Best Regards,
Mona

Interesting to do a search for international (blend, growth, value) funds that are in the top 15% for 1,3,and 5-yr periods. Only four funds show up, and only two of those have had the current manager at the helm for five years: Ivy International Core Equity and Great-West MFS International Value. Ivy's John Maxwell has done outstanding work, under the radar, since he came to the fund in 2006. We use ICEIX, but IVVYX may also be available. Unfortunately, Maxwell's fund is not on the Fidelity no-load platform. You may have to work hard to find the fund and not pay a commission. But worth a look if you do.
Other managers worth checking are Bernie Horn from QFVIX, Mark Yockey from ARTMX, and Walter Bean/Daniel Peris from IVFIX. The latter is particularly interesting if you like to emphasize dividend yields, which is an attractive 4.97% and has a very low 11% turnover.

Having 50% of a fund in one stock can put the investor in a position they didn't want. If I had FAIRX for 10% of my portfolio then I have a lot of AIG. if any of my other funds have AIG too, that could complicate things.

".even, Eddie Lampert, who he knows is no longer regarded very highly by public."
Well, at least he realizes that.
"And, to Scott's point, on when BB may have turned. I believe it was 2011 and he went all financials."
I understand that some people don't like diversification. However, I'm not going to sit and trade all day. Neither is a mutual fund.
I like Visa (to use an example.) Actually, I really like Visa. However, I would not want Visa to be half my portfolio. I have a good deal in various themes (credit cards, rails, etc.), but there is an attempt to orchestrate the portfolio so that I don't start feeling like one theme wholly and completely dominates daily, weekly, monthly or yearly performance. I really would not want to be so heavily reliant upon one name, either. This is just me, but if I saw a mutual fund I owned with half the portfolio in one name, I'd be out of it.
When you have a mutual fund like Fairholme set up like it is currently, the manager is asking for a level of belief that I don't think most investors in this day and age have, as these bets are going to take a long time to play out. Or are taking longer to play out than thought. Or in the case of Sears will play out when pigs fly.
It's almost better set up as a hedge fund where people are locked in until the occasional redemption period. Berkowitz saying that those invested with him now are "in it for the long haul" is laughable. When you have a fund whose performance is based largely around a few long-term bets (including one that is highly risky from the standpoint of its half your portfolio and the same company you said you'd walk away from in 2009 because you didn't understand its derivative book), once the performance starts to lag for 1,3 and even 5 years (people can't tolerate under-performance for 3-6 months in this day and age), people exit. I can't believe FAIRX still has the AUM it has, but it's down.
Mutual fund holders aren't going to wait for your thesis on Sears to play out. There's been so many examples of flight from star managers (Heebner and CGM Focus, which I still say was over-and-done once Cramer called it his favorite mutual fund on a morning TV show) that that should be obvious to anyone in the industry.

"Whereas the differential--or spread--dropped below 3.5 percentage points back in mid-2014, it was nearly two percentage points higher as of early February. That's because much of the issuance in the high-yield bond sector comes from energy firms, many of which took on debt to finance projects when oil prices were rising."
No, Christine, only about 10-15% of HY issuance is from energy firms, and the weak hands probably will start losing their grip during Q2. By the summer solstice, the fingernails on the cliff edge will have broken, and the damage can then be assessed, at the MF level. Until then, IMO, this Benz Bucket is good to go.