Last year’s plunge in the S&P 500 (SPX) made uber bear Mike Wilson the most celebrated stock forecaster on Wall Street. It’s a role he has failed to reprise in 2023. 
The chief US equity strategist for Morgan Stanley on Monday conceded that he stuck with the pessimism for too long amid a rebound that has left equity benchmarks within spitting distance of erasing last year’s decline. His forecast for the S&P 500 remains 3,900, a level that has been left behind in the index’s 19% jump to around 4,560.
“We were wrong,” Wilson wrote in a note to clients Monday. “2023 has been a story of higher valuations than we expected amid falling inflation and cost cutting.” His team has recently shifted the focus to June 2024, for which the price target is set at 4,200, about 8% below its current level.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/were-wrong-morgan-stanley-wilson-191650465.html
Suppose I’d be upset had I paid Mr. Wilson one dime for his prediction. But I didn’t. He gave it out free of charge, Sometimes you gets what you pays for.

Things were different in 1970s. I remember paying 6% commission. So, a switch from stock "A" (sell) to stock "B" (buy) would eat up 12% just in commissions. Then the era of discount brokerage arrived (Schwab, Fidelity, etc) and things started changing dramatically - for funds, stocks and ETFs (these came only in 1990s). But today, there is absolutely no reason to pay for loads for American Funds (or any other funds) when alternative no-load classes exist at brokerage NTF platforms or comparable ETFs are available. I do have broker friends who sell the load stuff and my discussions with them are short - their point is that it's for their "time" and "service" for those who just want to call and talk to brokers, and there are break points for large purchases. Well, they aren't for me, or for most people, IMO.

Just posted ratings update to MFO Premium using Lipper's 21 July data file.

I am watching PYLD. AUM $70 million since 6/21/23 inception.

Has anybody looked into or invested in BINC - Blackrock Flexible Income ETF? Inception is late May 2023. About $125M AUM.
https://www.blackrock.com/us/financial-professionals/products/331752/?referrer=tickerSearch
Can this be a good substitute for PIMIX, a fund with massive AUM?

@FD1000: You can sit there and blather whatever you want. It doesn't change the fact that coming from middle-class families with little inherited wealth we can now sit here without any financial worry, and that our American Fund financial advisor played a significant role in that.
American Funds never charged any load when selling and reinvesting in a different fund. You would have us believe that you know everything about everything, but your world view is so self-centered that all that you accomplish is pomposity and arrogance. Hubris... how pathetic.
But I'm pretty sure that many others have already commented on that.

There hasn't been a requirement to invest with a financial advisor or to pay a load to buy American Funds for about a decade now. Most big brokers like Schwab waive their front end loads for A shares or "F-1" shares, and there are other share classes that have no load. Also, their fees for active management are reasonable, not as cheap as index funds, but what is? Admittedly, the alphabet soup of share classes is confusing.
Here's an example: https://schwab.com/research/mutual-funds/quotes/summary/gfafx

FA(financial advisers) catch 22. When your knowledge is below average, you can't distinguish between a good FA to below average/average one.
When your knowledge is above average, you don't need a FA.
I never invested with AF funds. Suppose I start with 1 million using an American financial adviser.
1) The FA invested in 3 AF funds. Do I pay 5% = $50K?
2) After 3 years, international stocks look great and I want to invest 0.5 million in it. I sell 0.5 million from the funds I own and buy the new fund. Do I pay a new 5% for the new fund?
3) Can you invest in other fund families? Do you pay any commission to buy Vanguard/Fidelity funds?

Not to start dumping on AFs but I do find their nearly 2-dozen OEF share classes hysterical. They've spliced their offerings so finely to ensure that various target clients 'get' the 'right' sort of 'discount' even if it's just a single bp difference somewhere. I find it amusing, tbh.
My 403(b) is entirely in the R-6 WaMu fund and I've been very pleased, plus a bunch of R-6s in a growth-oriented SMA. (I also hold several other AF A-shares in taxable and while I don't like 12(b)-1s, when they were purchased I didn't really think about that ... but they're more than doing fine, so I leave them alone.)

In the last 20+ years, I read/heard many times about other indexes, they come and go but VOO or VTI are the golden standard. The way these two are calculated is another plus.
Goldman: Stock valuations are justified, even in the face of rising rates (link). Very Typical to get these predictions after a rally. Just as we got similar views at the end of 2022, when VALUE was better than growth, and many "experts" predicted that VALUE supposes to be better...just to find out in 2023 that growth hugely led.

There are only a small number of American Funds/Capital Group. So, several are humongous and are team-managed. But those teams are internal - small groups of its analysts are given slices of big funds to manage. Typically, analysts only recommend/suggest stocks to lead manager(s) who make the final selections. But here, there is a combo approach. These teams at American Funds are different from those at Fido (many who led big Fido funds, but when that didn't work out, they were put on FBALX) or Vanguard (who farms out to multiple external and internal managers).
At one time, Bogle worried that some other firm like American Funds could go noload before he had the chance to implement his big new idea after being fired from Wellington Management (a load shop until then) - index and active funds that were and low-cost and noload. It seems that American Funds instead went in the direction of zillion classes - its Retirement R6 classes have the lowest ERs, and it now also sells F-1 classes on 3rd party brokers as noload/NTF (Fido, Schwab). It has also gotten into the ETFs that are farthest from load funds. Do its fund brokers and load fund holders like this? NO, but American Funds sees that as a declining pool of fools who unknowing pay a lot for the same stuff that is available for free in various channels.
I had American Funds R6 in my 403b until the plan changed to mostly index funds and TDFs - another disturbing trend.

American Funds seem to be the darlings of 401, 403, 457, etc. retirement funds. I owned them for many years, as part of company retirement programs, and was on Company Investment Committees that helped select them. They have huge AUMs, guided by large investment teams, but seem to stay pretty competitive. I have not owned any of their funds since I retired, but I know they have a large and loyal fan base that believe in them.

Completion index is an interesting idea but the problem is that they have lot of garbage - 35-40% unprofitable companies.
There are several:
For SP500, completion indexes are VEXAX/ VXF, FSMAX, USMIX. They use different definitions of total stock markets.
BTW, R1000/IWB has completion index R2000/IWM, with total market being R3000.

"You can’t avoid the S&P completely if you’re in domestic equity funds."
Seek and ye shall find: VEXAX / VXF invests in the S&P 500 Completion Index. Whether completely avoiding stocks in the S&P 500 is a good idea or not is a different question.

S&P Completion Index comprises all members of the S&P TMI Index except for the current constituents of the S&P 500®.

https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/sp-completion-index-ci
https://www.morningstar.ca/ca/news/191057/this-etf-and-the-sp-500-make-a-good-pair.aspx

+1 for Capital Group, which holds a very large chunk of my money.

Think you meant CGGO, Capital Global Growth Equity; a sold global growth fund. The domestic version is CGUS. I bought CGUS and CGDV when they became available a year ago. Also looking at CGMS, a multi-sector bond fund.
Addition: excerpt from Lewis Branham’s article,

American Funds, which has had a multi-manager structure for its funds since 1958. Moreover, its 211 analysts actually manage a slice of each fund directly. Typically, equity funds have more than 10 co-managers.

For retirement account, the ER of the R6 shares (without the 12-b-1 fee) are reasonable. Now these actively managed ETFs are also competitive on their fees to other firms as WisdomTree.

"Over time they provided steady returns while managing the downside better than most large cap funds"
@Sven- Exactly.
Add- BTW, Just for the heck of it I bought 100 of the AF ETF CGGO a couple of months ago. So far, so good... ahead $115. I sent $100 of that to MFO a little while ago, so I'm still ahead $15. :)

CBUDX and RPHIX are different animals investing in the ultra short duration. CBUDX is purposefully meant to compete in the Morningstar ultra short duration category. A requirement of the category is that 65% or more of the portfolio be invested in investment grade debt. At June 30th, CBUDX was 74% invested in cash and investment grade bonds. Where as, RPHIX has a mandate to be substantially invested in high yield/below investment grade debt (generally, 80% or more). Further, RPHIX generally has a significantly larger holdings that are expected to roll-off into cash over 90 days. Typically, RPHIX also has a greater focus in debt that has been called/redeemed or subject to corporate action in comparison to CBUDX. Lastly, CBUDX in most circumstances will have a longer duration albiet still targeting 1 or lower.

@Old_Joe, we have had the fortune to invest in American funds in our 401(K). We were first a bit skeptical in the beginning With their team management approach. Over time they provided steady returns while managing the downside better than most large cap funds we had. . We are now investing with them again through their ETF offerings.