Why stop at 12? The way this is going, I would drink 25 YO minimum, as we are not likely to survive much longer!

uh, how's Hussy doing? I think I am joking.
But I sure hope the 2-yr is treasury is at 5% in a couple weeks at auction....so I can lock up my monies for a couple years and stop playing around in this casino....

In response to several comments above:
I have been a DIY investor until about two years ago. I did try the Charles Schwab robo-advisor. I have been using both Fidelity and Vanguard for decades and like them both for different reasons. I now use the Fidelity Wealth Services and Vanguard Personal Advisor Service Select.
For clarification, Vanguard Advisor Services are:
1) Robo Advisor Services with a minimum of $3,000:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/robo-advisor
2) Personal Advisor Services which is a hybrid robo advisor with a minimum of $50,000 and team of advisors. Cost is 0.35%:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-hybrid-robo-advisor
3) Personal Advisor Services with a minimum of $500,000 and a personal certified financial planner/fiduciary in addition to the team. Cost is 0.3%:
https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-financial-advisor
Fidelity Wealth Management fees are listed as 0.50%–1.50% with a minimum of $250,000. The more you have them manage the more your fees fall.
I invested the minimums to get a personal advisor and to lower my fees.
With regards to objectively evaluating the funds and services:
Whether you work with Fidelity or Vanguard, they will evaluate your goals and needs and propose an allocation (or range) and the funds. Both base their recommendations on the long term, but Fidelity also adjusts based on the business cycle. You can make changes within their criteria and policies. I entered the funds and allocation into the MFO Portfolio Tool to evaluate them. With Vanguard Advisor funds being only 1.7 years old there is not much history to go on. Vanguard has the option to select the percent of active and passive funds.
With a dual income household, we have multiple accounts with different tax characteristics. Our advisory service ranges from 50% stocks to 70% based on my input.
With regards to performance:
It does take a leap of faith to use an advisory service. There is evidence that individual investors tend to underperform the markets because they tend to panic, trade too much, or be too conservative. I did take the leap of faith based on my experiences with both Fidelity and Vanguard.
My primary objective is to set my wife up with a financial advisor in case I pass away before her. Mission accomplished. The surprising thing is that I feel a burden is lifted and more relaxed. I still have accounts that I manage myself.

Nasty across the board. ”Babies with the bathwater” comes to mind.
Foreign stocks down. Domestic down. Foreign currencies down. Bonds down. Metals & miners down. Energy down. Consumer staples down. Berkshire down 1% at last look. A favorite pundit I read keeps saying gold’s gonna “rock” one of these days. Gets a bit stale after 5 years. Still in a slumber, holding just above $1900. Only hold it indirectly through a nat resources CEF.
PS - Bargains galore! Just picked up a non U.S. food conglomerate at a lower price than I sold it for a month or two ago. What’s not to like? Had been a portfolio staple for a couple years. Glad to have had a chance to retrieve it. Generally, I dumped the 2% hedge position today and moved it into equities.

I see I have a letter coming this afternoon from PBI. Since over 500 organizations are affected, it could be someone else but might be TIAA. I withdrew my last penny from TIAA in 2016. If mine is also TIAA then they make your identity information eternally vulnerable even after your exit. Since my husband just died and, apparently, PBI processes death verifications for many organizations, it could be any company. As of the end of July, this cyber security dive site reports:

July 26
Nearly 500 organizations and almost 24 million individuals have been exposed by the mass exploit of the MOVEit vulnerability, according to Emsisoft.
The victim count continues to rise from a steady stream of disclosures and more organizations listed on Clop’s leak site. One-quarter of the 286 public disclosures made to date specify the number of individuals impacted, according to Callow.
Clop has listed 206 organizations on its leak site, which means 2 in 5 victims have yet to confirm a compromise via public disclosure notices, Callow said. At least 136 organizations that don’t use MOVEit directly have been exposed via third-party vendors.
The prolific threat actor has leaked data across the dark and clear web it claims to have stolen from multiple companies. Security researchers said threat actors sometimes leak data on the clear web to post the data more quickly and increase pressure on their victims.
Based on the disclosures made to date and the average number of individuals compromised per disclosure, Emsisoft estimates almost 130 million people have been exposed by this widespread attack. The number of victims continues to grow.

Cyber Security Dive: MOVEit mass exploit timeline

With all the screaming and yelling cable networks with news / talk programing stand to make a mint over the next year or so. I’m thinking of MSNBC, FOX, CNN, NewsMax and the like. Locals owned by right-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting should also do well. Any ETFs or OEFs that track or overweight these gems? Forget “Court TV”. You won’t need it. The Georgia affair will be broadcast live. Sure to be a sordid affair and, hence, an incredible (and very lucrative) eyeball grabber.
The nearest thing I can compare it to (in Reality TV viewing ) is the 11-month long live telecast of the OJ Simpson Trial from 1994-1995 which raked in billions for the cable networks and elevated many previously unknown media commentators to celebrity status. The stuff careers are born of.
* Please direct any politically charged comments to the “Georgia Indictments” thread provided by @Old_Joe in the “Technical” section and, more appropriately, to the “Off Topic” section as he has recommended. I’d like to keep this one limited to how to turn chaff into gold.
LINK to OJ thread in “Technical” section: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/61421/the-georgia-indictments#latest
LINK to @Derf’s related thread in “Off-Topic”: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/61420/another-indictment-from-georgia#latest

I can't believe it, you can lose maybe 3-5 days of MM? How much is it? 0.1%.
I used ACAT back and forth Schwab-Fidelity and usually it takes 2--3 days. You can wire the money too. I only wired money from Schwab and it took a couple of hours, and it was free.
BTW, you can also buy a fund, maybe RPHIX, at TD and then do the a ACAT.

What is the point / purpose of writing out of context?
If you do not understand, seek to understand.
If you want to help but do not think you have sufficient information, ask questions or seek the information.
If your purpose is to show off, you have come to the right place. If you think only your experience, even if it is out of context, that matters, you have come to the right place. If you think every one and everything needs to be corrected, you have come to the right place - an anonymous online forum.
BTW, I was not looking for help, rather I was sharing information I gathered, just in case it is useful to others and saves them time. I occasionally forget that the safest participation (without being trolled) in this forum is to just seek information and not share.
The stage is yours. Enjoy.

I can't believe it, you can lose maybe 3-5 days of MM? How much is it? 0.1%.
I used ACAT back and forth Schwab-Fidelity and usually it takes 2--3 days. You can wire the money too. I only wired money from Schwab and it took a couple of hours, and it was free.
BTW, you can also buy a fund, maybe RPHIX, at TD and then do the a ACAT.

Not sure who you were responding to, but I do it on principle, not for principal.

I’m somewhat in awe of these sophisticated services, being a humble do it yourself type. But I have to wonder how one might objectively evaluate the effectiveness of various schemes, plans, advisors under various market conditions and time spans? With funds I can check 1, 3, 5 & 10 year performance. I can see how well they held up in bear markets or how correlated / non-correlated they’ve been to the S&P. But how to get that kind of distanced perspective for these approaches is a mystery.
Perhaps it’s unfair of me to ask since every situation is tailored by an advisor to the specific needs of the individual. That makes comparison difficult. Let’s hope they serve investors better than many target date funds do. At a glance, it appears they lean towards low cost funds - perhaps index funds or ETFs. So, there is a cost advantage. But you still need to target the right assets / market sectors at any given time.
It is true that over time one may evaluate the approach they employ - be it self-directed, robo-generated, humanly devised or divinely inspired. Record yearly performance and than over time back-test those results against whatever criteria you care to. But the same is not true for one who is just starting out with a given advisor. Must take a leap of faith.

I can't believe it, you can lose maybe 3-5 days of MM? How much is it? 0.1%.
I used ACAT back and forth Schwab-Fidelity and usually it takes 2--3 days. You can wire the money too. I only wired money from Schwab and it took a couple of hours, and it was free.
BTW, you can also buy a fund, maybe RPHIX, at TD and then do the a ACAT.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1199046/000158064223004244/nightshares500_497.htm
497 1 nightshares500_497.htm 497
NightShares 500 1x/1.5x ETF (NSPL)
(a series of Unified Series Trust)
Primary Listing Exchange for the Fund: NYSE Arca, Inc.
Supplement dated August 14, 2023 to the
Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (the “SAI”) dated August 14, 2022 and Summary Prospectus dated August 14, 2022
The Board of Trustees (the “Board”) of Unified Series Trust (the “Trust”) authorized an orderly liquidation of the NightShares 500 1x/1.5x ETF (the “Fund”), a series of the Trust. The Board determined on August 14, 2023 that closing and liquidating the Fund was in the best interests of the Fund and its shareholders, following a recommendation by the Fund’s investment adviser, AlphaTrAI Funds, Inc.
The last day of trading of Fund shares on NYSE Arca, Inc. (the “NYSE”) will be August 31, 2023 (the “Closing Date”), which will also be the last day the Fund will accept creation units from authorized participants. Shareholders may sell their holdings in the Fund prior to the Closing Date and customary brokerage charges may apply to these transactions. Authorized Participants may redeem baskets of shares for a pro rata portion of the Fund’s portfolio on hand through the Closing Date.
The Fund is expected to cease operations, liquidate its assets, and distribute the liquidation proceeds to shareholders of record on or about September 8, 2023 (the “Liquidation Date”).
From the Closing Date (August 31, 2023), through the Liquidation Date (September 8, 2023), shareholders may only be able to sell their shares to certain broker-dealers and there is no assurance that there will be a market for the Fund’s shares during this time period. Between the Closing Date and the Liquidation Date, the Fund will be in the process of closing down and liquidating its portfolio. This process will result in the Fund increasing its cash holdings and, as a consequence, not pursuing its investment objective.
Shareholders of record remaining on the Liquidation Date will receive cash equal to the net asset value of their shares as of that date, which will include any capital gains and dividends as of such date. The liquidating cash distribution to shareholders will be treated as payment in exchange for their shares. The liquidation of Fund shares may be treated as a taxable event. Shareholders should contact their tax adviser to discuss the income tax consequences of the liquidation. Once the distributions are complete, the Fund will terminate.
For additional information regarding the liquidation, shareholders of the Funds may call (833) 648-3383.
This Supplement provides new and additional information beyond that contained in the Summary Prospectuses, Prospectus, and Statement of Additional Information and should be read in conjunction with those documents. The Prospectus and Statement of Additional Information have been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are incorporated herein by reference.
PLEASE RETAIN THIS SUPPLEMENT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

Fidelity still has a $50,000 minimum.

(...And the limit order DID go through on PSTL at the open today. Price: $14.65.)

Don't let names of services confuse you. PAS at Vanguard and PAS at Fidelity are two different animals. PAS at Vanguard is a hybrid robo advisor, similar to Fidelity's GO (assuming AUM of at least $25K). Fidelity defines the service this way:

A hybrid robo advisor typically refers to a robo advisor that includes access to investment adviser representatives, whether via telephone or in person. In the case of Fidelity Go®, we combine our digital offering with access to 1-on-1 financial planning and coaching via telephone for clients that invest at least $25,000 in a Fidelity Go account.

https://www.fidelity.com/managed-accounts/fidelity-go/overview
The cost of Fidelity GO is 35 basis points/year. But the account uses Fidelity Flex funds, which have ERs of 0.00%. Vanguard's PAS uses Vanguard funds. So the all-in costs of these two services should be similar.
Fidelity's older PAS service uses proprietary and third party funds. It is model based but not robo-based. The last time I looked at it many years ago, it tended to throw a gazillion funds into a portfolio, perhaps because it could, perhaps because that gave the impression that it was doing something. In any case, this is not the same type of service as Fidelity GO or Vanguard PAS.
https://www.fidelity.com/managed-accounts/overview
https://www.fidelity.com/wealth-management/investment-management-services
FIdelity has so many fee schedules that it's hard to find the one you're looking at. Their fees are different for Fidelity-preferred portfolios, "blended" (no preference) portfolios, and index fund portfolios. Regardless, PAS services do cost much more than hybrid robo services, whether at Fidelity or elsewhere.

FWIW
I looked into Fidelity's service. I am sure Lynn knows more about it than I found in an hour or so of searching around, and I would be interested in his experience.
Using what appears to be their fee schedule, Fido is much more expensive than Vanguard. They charge 1.25 % on the first $500,000. on a $6,000,000 account even with the declining fees, the total works out to 0.46% vs Vanguards flat 0.3%. To get pricing similar to Vanguard's it looks like you need to have $10 million in total investable assets or net worth.
There is little discussion of how they pick investments, as it is all managed in house by their advisors. A quick look down the line of folks offered up to help does not indicate they are anything special. Without a personal recommendation from someone you trust with experience at Fidelity, you are probably just as well off with a robot!
It does not appear that either place offers financial planning or asset allocation advice without committing to investment management.

I didn't see any mention of the word fiduciary in the parts of the article about PAS.

Our advisors offer:
Relationships built on a fiduciary duty to always act in your best interests.

https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-hybrid-robo-advisor
However, one doesn't need to see the word "fiduciary" in an article about PAS. All discretionary accounts, not just those at Vanguard, carry with them a fiduciary duty:

It has always been the case in discretionary account relationships that a broker owes the customer a fiduciary duty. [fn 57: "See SEC v. Zandford, 535 U.S. 813 (2002)."]

https://www.sec.gov/comments/4-606/4606-2899.pdf

The benefit of a discretionary account is that it enables individuals ... who lack the time, capacity, or know-how to supervise investment decisions, to delegate authority to a broker who will make decisions in their best interests without prior approval. If such individuals cannot rely on a broker to exercise that discretion for their benefit, then the account loses its added value.

SEC v. Zandford, 53 U.S. 813 at 823. Emphasis added. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/535/813/
FWIW, one wouldn't be able to infer this universal duty of discretionary account managers from mass media writings that equivocate, e.g.:

A discretionary investment account is not a blank check. In most cases, your advisor will still have either an ethical or fiduciary duty to make decisions in your best interest, and they will also be bound by whatever investment strategy you agreed on.

https://smartasset.com/investing/discretionary-vs-non-discretionary-investment-accounts
Try finding "ethical" in a brokerage agreement.

A program isn't a fiduciary. The RIAs (Registered Investment Advisors) are fiduciaries.
So, a RIA handling PAS (or other financial stuff) will be a fiduciary. The RIAs need Series 65, or Series 7 + 66, exam(s).
A call center employee (needing only minimal training) or broker or insurance agent handling PAS won't be. Brokers only need Series 7 exam. Insurance agents need relevant insurance exam(s).
The financial industry is trying to fuzzy things up by also creating Regulation Best-Interest (Reg BI) for the non-RIAs, something in between the requirements/standards for brokers and RIAs. It isn't just practical or possible for everybody to qualify for RIAs overnight.

@hank: I’ve never built a Treasury ladder and I am loathe to let PLW do it for me. It went to the top of M*’s class by losing 3.76% in 2021, 19.97% in 2022, and 0.99% YTD. It must be a tough racket, that Treasury stuff. How much did the middling or lousy funds lose during those periods?

LOL - Not a wreckemendation . I spent a few hours 1 night looking for weird bond ETFs. You can track just about any bond index. I started with a small buy of the 10-20 Treasury index.. Could only stand the heat a week. Really volitile. I’ve never built a ladder either - but have fallen off a few.
‘22 was a rough year for bonds. So the numbers @BenWP cited don’t surprise me. I looked at 3 “tamer” bond or fixed income funds for comparison. Each sported a -11% return in 2022: DODIX, RPSIX, PRGMX.
BTW - I’ve saved 5-6 various bond ETFs to my watchlist if anyone needs a suggestion. The Bloomberg 10-Year Target Index (XTEN) looks about as aggressive as I’d want to be. Unlike Mr. Bond, I’d suggest it be “shaken” (traded often) rather than “stirred” (held in hand).

Hi @SMA3,
Taxes are complex and the tax preparer knows the taxes best. With companies like Fidelity and Vanguard, I suspect that an investor will be dealing mostly with an external tax accountant. My experiences are that the tax accountant will not be familiar with the implications of Medicare on taxes. This is an area where I find an investor will benefit from financial literacy and double check on advice given. I have not dealt with independent financial planners that may be a one stop shop?
Regarding financial convictions and disclosures, an employee was convicted in 2019 of theft:
"The total amount of the funds that the defendant stole exceeded $2.1 million. To Vanguard’s credit, all individual accounts were made whole after the defendant’s crimes were detected."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/former-vanguard-employee-sentenced-four-years-fraud-scheme
The disclosures from the SEC are mostly minor:
https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/content/viewform/adv/Sections/iapd_AdvDrpSection.aspx?ORG_PK=105958&FLNG_PK=005984D6000801D203A190C104921F01056C8CC0#Regulatory
Lynn

Here's the timeline, so far as I can reconstruct it from the SEC record. Chip will tweak the article to clean up the 2009/2010 confusion.
On November 10, 1988, Fasciano Fund launches.
On March 23, 2001, the Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund acquired 100% of the assets and liabilities of the Fasciano Fund (as a cost of $94,278.79).

Beside the scenes: On March 20, 2008, Judith Vale And Robert D'Alelio are appointed as the managers for Neuberger Berman Fasciano. On March 26, 2008, the Board of Trustees approved the merger of Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund into Neuberger Berman Genesis Fund. In June 2008, Mr. Fasciano launches Fasciano Associates in Chicago and bides his time.

On August 15, 2008, Neuberger Berman Genesis acquired all of the net assets of Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund.
On December 30, 2009, Aston/Fasciano Small Cap Fund launches.
On December 30, 2010, Aston/Fasciano liquidates, following Mr. Fasciano’s October decision to do so.